I was watching a debate with Christopher Hitchens and a Rabbi, and during their Q&A I was curious about the actual origin of religion.
It's an interesting question, it doesn't really matter in the end, but it's a curious question and an important history question. Who was the first person to think of a "god?" What was going through their mind and why did it have to be a mystic being? Surely they're ignorant to Science, but why did it have to be a mystic being?
I realize that nobody will know this answer, but what do you guys think this guy/girl was doing? so much, so forth.
First the not understood things were give characters of their own, thunder, lightning, etc. Then the stories started to grow. No cable back then, so Ugg did all the entertaining. After a while it got out of hand.
Religion started out as an explanation for shit they had no explanation for. It got organized when somebody figured out they could use it to their advantage.
We are pretty darn certain that Gobleki Tepi, La Grange, Machu Picu and many other places were types of "places of worship" 8 to 12 thousand years ago, long before modern religion. We have cave drawings 25-35,000 years ago that suggest a certain reverence for animals, we have found burial sites that suggest we cared for our loved ones and hoped for an afterlife for them, we have seen in primitive cultures that they established different styles of religion through animism, totenism, shamanism. We can watch our own children develop invisible friends, watch them attach emotional ties to inanimate objects, we ourselves talk to our cars, hold our fathers hat or his watch as symbolic or take our older brothers bat to the plate under the belief that is has a magical power. Religion is not really that difficult to follow or understand or even object to. It seems like a perfectly orderly procession for ignorant and frightful animals to have.
How it developed after it calmed the fearful....that is another story.
Quote from: aitm on May 10, 2014, 08:09:33 PM
We are pretty darn certain that Gobleki Tepi, La Grange, Machu Picu and many other places were types of "places of worship" 8 to 12 thousand years ago, long before modern religion. We have cave drawings 25-35,000 years ago that suggest a certain reverence for animals, we have found burial sites that suggest we cared for our loved ones and hoped for an afterlife for them, we have seen in primitive cultures that they established different styles of religion through animism, totenism, shamanism. We can watch our own children develop invisible friends, watch them attach emotional ties to inanimate objects, we ourselves talk to our cars, hold our fathers hat or his watch as symbolic or take our older brothers bat to the plate under the belief that is has a magical power. Religion is not really that difficult to follow or understand or even object to. It seems like a perfectly orderly procession for ignorant and frightful animals to have.
How it developed after it calmed the fearful....that is another story.
But how much of that is retrofitted by believers who happened to be scholars. The bias reeks.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on May 10, 2014, 08:27:48 PM
But how much of that is retrofitted by believers who happened to be scholars. The bias reeks.
^this. I question some of the assumptions made, especially about Gobekli Tebi. Animism, totenism and shamanism were certainly practiced before temples were built, but I still think that some form of pastoral society had to be in place before they could build a temple. Gobekli Tebi is a huge site, still being unearthed. It required a dedicated and stationary group of people to build it. The idea that Neolithic hunter gatherers would do that is a bit of a stretch to me.
Add to that also that recent discoveries at Stonehenge show there was an established culture near where Stonehenge was built that predated the construction.
Quote from: stromboli on May 10, 2014, 08:45:08 PM
^this. I question some of the assumptions made, especially about Gobekli Tebi. Animism, totenism and shamanism were certainly practiced before temples were built, but I still think that some form of pastoral society had to be in place before they could build a temple. Gobekli Tebi is a huge site, still being unearthed. It required a dedicated and stationary group of people to build it. The idea that Neolithic hunter gatherers would do that is a bit of a stretch to me.
Add to that also that recent discoveries at Stonehenge show there was an established culture near where Stonehenge was built that predated the construction.
ya lost me. I have no idea what you either of you are suggesting that contradicts what I am saying.
Not contradicting you. The current belief about Gobekli Tebi is that it was, because of its date, built earlier than the Pastoral or farming period, which was the beginning of cities. As you stated, animism, totensim and shamanism date to a much earlier period, but the notion that hunter/gather cultures not established in cities built it, is what I was referring to.
Latest findings at Stonehenge are a case in point:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/09/stonehenge-area-inhabited-thousands-years_n_5289118.html
"Last October, Jacques led an archaeological dig at a site 1.5 miles from Stonehenge. His team unearthed flint tools and the bones of aurochs, extinct cow-like animals that were a food source for ancient people. Carbon dating of the bones showed that modern-day Amesbury, an area that includes the dig site and Stonehenge itself, has been continuously occupied since 8820 B.C. Amesbury has now been declared the oldest continually occupied area in Britain.
The finding suggests that Stonehenge was built by indigenous Britons who had lived in the area for thousands of years. Previous theories held that the monument was built in an empty landscape by migrants from continental Europe."
Archeologists have a similar belief about Gobekli Tebi. I think they will ultimately come to the same conclusion as with Stonehenge.
It was understanding from my limited studies that the Neolithic period estimated from -8 to 12 thousand years ago is generally considered along the same time frame as the ruins are which has been considered the beginning of the pastoral and societal age. Maybe I need t start reading again....meh, I hate that..
B.F. Skinner demonstrated in a classic experiment that it is quite easy to induce superstitious behavior in "lower" forms of animals by rewarding them in an unpredictable manner. When I learned about this in my Psych 101 class as an undergrad back in 19*mumble*, I immediately made the connection between these superstitious pigeons and religion across the globe.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/
Science doesn't exist by then and humans started making up the explanations of phenomena.
Simple answer, they were not powerful enough to control their lives and needed an all powerful god to placate to feel good and safe. There was no hell in the early religions because life was hell and punishment was getting thrown in a volcano would be an everlasting hell, because it was believed you don't actually die with the new religious belief in one God and cease to exist. If good: everlasting heaven, if bad: everlasting hell.
Fear, as Lucretius said, was the first mother of the gods. Fear, above all, of death. Primitive life was filled with many dangers, and seldom ended with natural decay; long before old age, violence and diseases that can't be seen, the wind that can't be seen causing death, lightening doing the same, mudslides and floods from the heavens. They never knew death was natural, but punishment from an unknown. They imagined a god with supernatural tendencies like they hoped for, and if they placated the gods they would be safe with magical thinking and rituals; no different than now accept with God all things are possible..
Fear of death, wonder at the causes of chance happenings or unintelligible happenings, hope for divine aid and gratitude for good fortune, generated religious belief from magical thinking that they could control the natural world. It made them feel good like it still does for those that believe if they placate and worship God so they are safe, or if not, God is still all powerful and can bring damnation on them so better safe than sorry and still believe in Him. Wonder and mystery about sex and especially dreams, provided the believe that children and good fortune were a gift from the gods, or later, God.
In other words belief in superstitious nonsense and magic. I always keep my rabbit foot with me to keep me safe, and my wife a cross to scare away vampires. :eek: He! He! Solitary
Back in a time when technology was so primitive lots of things were unexplainable. People believed a higher power would cause lightning, rain, snow, etc. Obviously today we know that's bullcrap, so we no longer need to put faith in any man-made deity :-D
That is unless you are told science experts are wrong and sheep herders thousands of years ago are right. Solitary
As I mentioned in another thread, the earliest cave paintings date to around 40,000 years ago. Humans were not merely surviving, they were thinking and becoming creative. They had time to hang out in caves, doing artwork and conducting rituals. What prompted this change of humans from mere animals surviving in a harsh world to abstract-thinking creatures? I have heard that this period also may well coincide with humans discovering the use of psychotropic plants and mushrooms. The reason they say this is because some of the paintings--such as geometric designs, dots, lines, humanoid figures with multiple arms or weird heads, and part-human, part-animal figures-- are exactly what many people see today in visions induced by mushrooms, LSD, and other substances. If this is so, then religion was prompted by these ethereal visions and bizarre dreams induced by plants and fungi.
Another world existed, and it wasn't the world in which people were born, lived, and died, but a world of fantastic human/animal hybrids, multiple-limbed elongated alien creatures, and a landscape of colorful geometric imagery. These beings knew what humans were doing. Some of them were frightening and could hurt people, others were helpful and would guide a person through the weird landscape of this other world--much like a soul being guided through the Duat in much later Egyptian mythology. It isn't hard to imagine the religious beliefs of today emerging from these earliest dreams and visions seen in darkened caves where the voices of shamans echoed off the unseen walls and the flickering firelight brought the shadows to life. Since people had no explanation for these visions, gods and devils and angels would have emerged in their psyche as a way of describing what they were seeing.
Certainly the cave paintings are referred to as being the oldest evidence of religious practices, they're also the earliest evidence of representative art - ie; something that simply a tool. This seems to be unique to Homo sapiens and isn't seen in Neanderthal sites.
In particular the 'Cerrnunnos' painting showing a figure with both human and deer features supposedly represents the first religious format.
(http://libercernunnos.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/1/5/13152650/390766_orig.jpg)
(http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/63/4763-004-824529EB.jpg)
This of course relies upon interpretation of the figure as being ceremonial rather than a hunter wearing a skin for example.
Other than that the Neandethals seem to have placed flowers and beads in graves and covered graves in red ochre which is also interpreted as being of ceremonial significance.