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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 10/08/2011 : 14:08:38 [Permalink]
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justintime pathetically attempts to support his ridiculous claim that religion was humanity's first attempt "to teach personal hygiene"by saying: | The Bible is one of the earliest books written in recorded history teaches all kinds of social, moral, dietary and what is clean and unclean etc. etc. Read The Book of Leviticus in the Bible. |
The earliest parts of the Bible are around 3,000 years old. Of course much of human history predates the Bible, and modern humans have been around for about 200,000 years, so yeah. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 10/08/2011 : 15:03:50 [Permalink]
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For justintime's benefit:
While we can't know what humans believed in for most of our existence since our pre-historic period is longer than our historic period, and the artifacts of those prehistoric societies left behind require much guess-work and interpretation, which is a far cry from facts, we do at least have example such as these that reveal the real breadth of human thought regarding the possible existence of gods:
-Confucianism, the dominant "religion" (although now regarded as a secular worldview) in China which dates back 2.5 thousand years ago is a totally secular worldview which does not teach belief in gods or the supernatural.
-Jainism, just as old as Hinduism, rejects the notion of a creator (or a creation for that matter.)
-Within Hinduism, the oldest school of Samkhya (dates back 2.2 thousand years) rejects belief in God.
-Of course Buddhism is known for its lack of God-belief.
Given the incredible variety of belief and mix of gods/God/no God belief among these major world religions and the beliefs of modern day hunter/gatherers, why would we extrapolate that pre-historical peoples all believed in God and used spiritual beliefs to organize their societies and customs?
The most common spiritual beliefs among indigenous hunter/gatherers whose way of life most resembles that of prehistoric humans is animism, shamanism, and ancestor worship. Of course animism isn't belief in God. It is belief in some sort of spiritual life force inhabiting certain beings (like animals), objects (like rocks), and natural phenomena (like wind). Some people have viewed these spirits to be part of or coming from some great force, while others have not. Some people have viewed these spirits as being invested in human affairs (in both harmful and beneficial ways), others have not. There really isn't a whole lot that animism has in common with modern day monotheistic God-belief or religions.
It may seem as if the rituals and practices associated with any belief systems (spiritual or atheistic in nature) of early humans were beneficial since, after all, we're still here. The thing is, rituals and practices which proved to be harmful would disappear (since the practitioners were more likely to die out) while practitioners of rituals and practices that just happened to be helpful to survival would flourish. A shaman could claim a particular mushroom is inhabited by evil, deadly spirits, and so people avoid eating it. In another part of the world perhaps the same mushroom might be avoided because priests teach the people that the mushroom is too sacred to eat and will be punished by the gods if they do eat it. While maybe in another part of the world the mushrooms are collectively regarded as spiritually unclean. Same result: people don't eat it. Religious beliefs aren't universal, they are all over the place. The fact that the mushroom is poisonous to all humans because of biological factors - which we can only know and study using science - is universal.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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justintime
BANNED
382 Posts |
 Posted - 10/08/2011 : 16:52:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
justintime pathetically attempts to support his ridiculous claim that religion was humanity's first attempt "to teach personal hygiene"by saying: | The Bible is one of the earliest books written in recorded history teaches all kinds of social, moral, dietary and what is clean and unclean etc. etc. Read The Book of Leviticus in the Bible. |
The earliest parts of the Bible are around 3,000 years old. Of course much of human history predates the Bible, and modern humans have been around for about 200,000 years, so yeah.
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So you are supporting my position much of what was known or passed on was pre science.
If you look at the oldest civilizations like the Egyptians, Chinese. The central focus was on life and the after life. The metaphysical world is the unexplained world where science has no answers. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 10/08/2011 : 20:21:17 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by justintime
If you look at the oldest civilizations like the Egyptians, Chinese. The central focus was on life and the after life. |
Prove it.| The metaphysical world is the unexplained world where science has no answers. |
Science has no answers because the metaphysical world is mostly full of nonsense questions.
Tell me, justintime: why is yellow? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 10/08/2011 : 21:31:22 [Permalink]
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justintime wrote: | So you are supporting my position much of what was known or passed on was pre science. |
I never disputed your claim that knowledge and use of the scientific method by humans is recent. How many times do I have to explain to you that you have misunderstood the premise of this thread? The claim was NEVER that science is universally known and used. The claim was that science universally works.
| If you look at the oldest civilizations like the Egyptians, Chinese. The central focus was on life and the after life. |
The central focus on Egyptian religion was on life after life. That does not say anything about the central focus of their general culture, especially since the bulk of ancient Egyptian society was illiterate and kept no records. The idea that the central focus of the ancient Chinese was life after life is total bullshit. If they cared more about that than this life, they wouldn't have expanded so successfully. Also, Chinese written history dates back about 3,000 years, and as I've already mentioned, the secular philosophy of Confucianism has been the dominant worldview for the past 2,5000 years. In short, WTF are you talking about?
| The metaphysical world is the unexplained world where science has no answers. |
Dave already gave a good response to this. I might add, oogie boogie boogie. After all, Halloween is coming up. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Science is Universal
