Belacqua Wrote:If you have some historical evidence showing that goat herders were responsible, that would be interesting to see.
Have you ever read the Bible? It’s saturated with this primitive herdsman mentality: God the father, the sheep and goats, the lost lambs and the Lamb of God, flocks and herds. The father-child relationship, the patriarchy. We have a wise leader who guides us all, punishes us when we stray, offers largesse to those in his favor, and unites the whole tribe in common cause. This is how Bronze Age sheepherders lived, and for them patriarchy made sense. It was a strategy for survival that worked well.
Or ask any Christian on any Sunday morning about flocks and sheep and shepherds, and he or she will understand the metaphor, despite never having been in contact with animals other than a household pet.
It's even more ridiculous when the sheepherder mentality goes beyond the family and tribe and has been extended to the entire universe. A great Patriarch in the Sky is our leader and guide, responsible for making the grand strategic decisions about where our tribe will go, and watchfully making sure that the tribe’s unity is not disrupted by ideas from nonconformists.
And he knows each one of us personally, just as the leader of tribe or clan in pastoral days would have, and he can give us an approving stroke or a damning, angry smiting, depending on whether we help or hinder the work of getting the flocks to the summer pasturage.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
