RE: On the origin of religion
February 7, 2017 at 7:50 am
(This post was last modified: February 7, 2017 at 7:54 am by Fake Messiah.)
You first had hunter-gatherer people were different then later agrarian people.
Hunter-gatherers lived in egalitarian mindset and society, meaning they had to share everything, including hunted food. Therefore they were against anyone with a bloated ego and were conditioning social pressure to share things. There was no heroes. For instance if some great, strong hunter brings a big fat pig to his commune other people prey-shame him by saying "What a bony pig. This is ridiculous. Why even bother?" to prevent hunter to think of himself as superior and that he stays modest.
They saw lavish prey meat and gifts as an attempt to exert control over others, curry political support, or raise one’s own status, all of which run counter to their culture. Bands didn't even had leaders .
So when people switched to agrarian way of living, the opposite started occurring and we see the emergence of "big men" who win control of the flow of surplus food and other goods and so amass a group of dependents or followers by bestowing gifts on others, placing them in his debt, and they must reciprocate with more generous gifts in the future. But they also needed "bigger connection" with nature and distortion of reality kept people in debt.
Then you see among the world's first civilizations there was a clear congruence between the payment of taxes by the masses to the elite and the “payment” of sacrifices and offerings by the elite to the gods to return energy to its divine source, so that the source could continue to animate nature and supply humans with food. The gods were thought to be dependent on humans, and humans were thought to be dependent in turn on the gods.
So you give sacrifices and prayers and in return, the gods provided physical nourishment for humans by making plants and animals grow. Sacrifices were regarded as an essential means of maintaining this cycle.
Even in the Bible YHWH demands human sacrifice - that every first born son must be sacrificed to him after 8 days.
Not to mention others even in Mesoamerica.
And this is why most of the people in medieval times were slaves working for the king's land that was handed down to him by Jesus and clergy was there to make it official. That's why the Pope still criticizes social order wherever he goes and starts ranting about "secularism" because in medieval time Church just in England had 75% of the land. He no doubt thinks "If only people were stupid again. Believing in nonsense we feed them."
Hunter-gatherers lived in egalitarian mindset and society, meaning they had to share everything, including hunted food. Therefore they were against anyone with a bloated ego and were conditioning social pressure to share things. There was no heroes. For instance if some great, strong hunter brings a big fat pig to his commune other people prey-shame him by saying "What a bony pig. This is ridiculous. Why even bother?" to prevent hunter to think of himself as superior and that he stays modest.
They saw lavish prey meat and gifts as an attempt to exert control over others, curry political support, or raise one’s own status, all of which run counter to their culture. Bands didn't even had leaders .
So when people switched to agrarian way of living, the opposite started occurring and we see the emergence of "big men" who win control of the flow of surplus food and other goods and so amass a group of dependents or followers by bestowing gifts on others, placing them in his debt, and they must reciprocate with more generous gifts in the future. But they also needed "bigger connection" with nature and distortion of reality kept people in debt.
Then you see among the world's first civilizations there was a clear congruence between the payment of taxes by the masses to the elite and the “payment” of sacrifices and offerings by the elite to the gods to return energy to its divine source, so that the source could continue to animate nature and supply humans with food. The gods were thought to be dependent on humans, and humans were thought to be dependent in turn on the gods.
So you give sacrifices and prayers and in return, the gods provided physical nourishment for humans by making plants and animals grow. Sacrifices were regarded as an essential means of maintaining this cycle.
Even in the Bible YHWH demands human sacrifice - that every first born son must be sacrificed to him after 8 days.
Not to mention others even in Mesoamerica.
And this is why most of the people in medieval times were slaves working for the king's land that was handed down to him by Jesus and clergy was there to make it official. That's why the Pope still criticizes social order wherever he goes and starts ranting about "secularism" because in medieval time Church just in England had 75% of the land. He no doubt thinks "If only people were stupid again. Believing in nonsense we feed them."
