(August 27, 2016 at 11:09 am)RobertE Wrote:(August 27, 2016 at 10:55 am)Brian37 Wrote: The religions of Abraham, all three, were all started in an age of tribal kingdoms. Back then the mortality rate was much higher and your survival was much more dependent on being loyal to the tribe, and that stems even to prior polytheism. In antiquity most humans lived in tribal local groups lead by a ruling family. Even in polytheism it was a norm to make your captured in war slaves and take their women/girls/children as prizes.
Even in polytheism, most humans falsely attributed their success as a tribe as coming from a divine power. The god that lead to all three religions was originally a lesser god "Yahweh" under the rule of the head god "El" as part of a "divine family".
Even Buddhism does not escape this motif in it's depictions of the first Buddha. He was born of royalty and his mother Queen Maya was told by the divine world of the birth she would give as a gift to humanity.
Once you have sampled all the motifs of the world's religions in human history it becomes obvious as to what humans are doing in reality. They are merely buying into these myths in order to create a sense of self importance.
So, we can go forward 2,000-3,000 years into present day Earth and nothing much has changed. Chinese people feel safer in large communities overseas, just as the English do, the French, and all other groups besides. We have never grown out of the tribal mentality. Shame really.
We wont ever, that is what all life does. But we most certainly can manage our differences better, our western societies when they want to do prove that you can live, literally next to someone with a different background without wanting to murder them. But yea, we are tribal because our species evolved to be social, where we go wrong is placing far too much value on local than we should when it is far more important to understand global history and evolution.
I'm not fatalistic about my species, I see lots of good in us, but I don't ignore our flaws either, and the biggest one we suffer from is our own false perceptions. We have progressed too.
