Agnostic.com

5 3

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

5 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

Really cool find, thanks for sharing!

0

We would not have all of the religions burdening us today were it not for the self-serving priestly cults at the core of each religion.

0

This is totally false. ....our Atheism is universal for all species and all religions are fake inventions of shamans un-natural as can be

0

Well, of course. As soon as someone tells you they believe in bullshit they can't prove, someone has always been there to say bullshit.

2

Interesting read. I think that as civilization grew they begin to include religion in order to solidify their empires. There have been atheist in very early civilization, and especially in the Greek culture. These debates have gone on for millenniums, and church persecution probably hindered the atheist development.

I think it goes deeper than that, organized religion is a secondary government, yes, but spirituality is curiosity thatvfilled in blanks with “magic” that became a god, a reason, a hope— there’s graves where the mourned were dawned in flowers by Neanderthals. Similarly, elephants have a ritual for grief too, so it becomes a question of is it a grief ritual or a belief ritual. I really hope elephants are atheists, personally.

@ScientistV You are right and I would add. Worship of the dead was probably the beginning of organized religion. If someone of importance died they began to bury them under the floor of their home. Later they would gather the bones and set them in a place of prominence. This led to Hero Worship.

I can imagine the loss of a great hunter and defender of a small tribe having a tragic death. The loss and the fear which ensued. Who would lead us to victory on the hunt, or who lead us to victory in defending our tribe? They would naturally want to keep those hero bones close. I think the practice became ritualized, and soon the spiritual leaders were needed. The evolution of religion is fascinating.

Well, Religion, not organized... organization is when another leader hordes those bones and offers up WHO gets the protection @Leutrelle

@ScientistV I would argue that when ritual combined with a spiritual leader would be the beginning of organized. Ritual evolves, and the spiritual leaders gain respect, and later power.

@Leutrelle but you just changed from your initial point of what came first, ritual or leader of the ritual. I’m saying once you have hierarchy it becomes organized too, but first you get a small mass of people who are believing or mimicking similar actions THEN a leader comes in to steer it, not the other way around.

@ScientistV
In my first statement I speaking to a particular time of history during the Greeks Golden age. Then we went to early man. I agree with your last point, excluding that I changed my initial point of what came first. My opinion was ritual precedes spiritual leaders. By the way I liked your incorporation of elephants mourning as being similar to early man. I have been intrigued with elephants behavior, but never connected it to man.

My apologies, I’m under the weather and misread your statement to put it in reverse order. @Leutrelle

@ScientistV Thanks for coming back🙂

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:20846
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.