I figure it comes from the ancient ancestors who gazed in wonder at their own reflection, watched women bleed and not die once a month, while later bringing some squalling thing out of her body after swelling up for 9 moons, and then being able to sustain it from her own body through breast feeding.
Those things, combined with light breaking across dark skies, heavy winds ripping tree's out of the ground, rain falling and making puddles, streams, where there was none before when the groups of nomadic people were otherwise dying of thirst, probably all combined to make the ancient ancestors of today's humans think they had to fear what they didn't understand about each other and placate what terrified them about nature that they otherwise couldn't control save for when it appeared things calmed down if they danced, or gave a sacrifice, or some other ritual act that they then equated served to appease what they really didn't understand at all.
And maybe, when they watched the first women give birth and not die, after all that blood and fluid spewed forth from between their legs and a little something that looked like them appeared, that when they stopped living and making sounds it only made sense to return that dead person to a womb like environment from which they'd initially been brought forth.
Which may be why burial pits have been found who's walls are covered in red ochre and the dead person is laying in a fetal position with all their worldly goods around them. Sending them back to the environment from which they arrived. Sympathetic magic, sympathetic ritual. Often practiced today by Pagan peoples and "new"/neo-pagan religious.
It all reminds me of that TIME article, the god particle. However, I don't think we were first pre-programmed to believe in deity and the after life. I think over the centuries it's something that's evolved in our DNA, as like unto muscle memory when we're athletes. Psychic memory maybe it is, when we're what amounts to humans still scared about what we don't really know is responsible for our reflection as a race or our universe, galaxy, solar system, as a home our science explores, theorizes exists for a certain reason only to find out as the science delves further out, that even the laws of physics don't have the answer anymore.
Those things, combined with light breaking across dark skies, heavy winds ripping tree's out of the ground, rain falling and making puddles, streams, where there was none before when the groups of nomadic people were otherwise dying of thirst, probably all combined to make the ancient ancestors of today's humans think they had to fear what they didn't understand about each other and placate what terrified them about nature that they otherwise couldn't control save for when it appeared things calmed down if they danced, or gave a sacrifice, or some other ritual act that they then equated served to appease what they really didn't understand at all.
And maybe, when they watched the first women give birth and not die, after all that blood and fluid spewed forth from between their legs and a little something that looked like them appeared, that when they stopped living and making sounds it only made sense to return that dead person to a womb like environment from which they'd initially been brought forth.
Which may be why burial pits have been found who's walls are covered in red ochre and the dead person is laying in a fetal position with all their worldly goods around them. Sending them back to the environment from which they arrived. Sympathetic magic, sympathetic ritual. Often practiced today by Pagan peoples and "new"/neo-pagan religious.
It all reminds me of that TIME article, the god particle. However, I don't think we were first pre-programmed to believe in deity and the after life. I think over the centuries it's something that's evolved in our DNA, as like unto muscle memory when we're athletes. Psychic memory maybe it is, when we're what amounts to humans still scared about what we don't really know is responsible for our reflection as a race or our universe, galaxy, solar system, as a home our science explores, theorizes exists for a certain reason only to find out as the science delves further out, that even the laws of physics don't have the answer anymore.
"In life you can never be too kind or too fair; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy load. When you go through your day expressing kindness and courtesy to all you meet, you leave behind a feeling of warmth and good cheer, and you help alleviate the burdens everyone is struggling with."
Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy
