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Author | Topic: The evolution of religion? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Did the belief start long ago before hominids populated the entire Earth or did it evolve on seperate occasions in different places for different reasons? IIRC, there is evidence that Neandertals buried thier dead, implying religious belief. And since they are not a direct ancestor, that shows that religion did evolve on seperate occasions. Therefore, god must exist (just kidding).
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Catholic Scientist writes:
Or implying that they didn't want dead granny lying around the cave, attracting rats. IIRC, there is evidence that Neandertals buried thier dead, implying religious belief. Well you wouldn't have to bury it for that and, IIRC, they were buried with ornaments n'stuff, like in a ceremony.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
What other method for disposal of the dead would you recommend? Burn it. Or throw it in the bog. Or eat it (if recently dead). Or let another animal eat it. You can't think of any?
Maybe burial of the dead just coincides with living at a fixed location, where various kinds of sanitation become desirable. Maybe
How does the enjoyment of ceremony and ritual imply religious belief? I think the ceremony and ritual, whether enjoyed or not, imply religious belief. Without the religious belief, its just a bunch of unnecessary crap, well even with the religious belief it is a bunch of unnecessary crap but not to the poeple doing the rituals. There is a reason for the ritual. Most likely, it is religious belief but it could be something else. Just for the fun of it? Is that what your saying? Do you honestly think that the Neandertals had no religious beliefs? Why would they bury stuff with a dead body?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Do we know for sure that Neanderthals didn't burn some of their dead or throw some of them in the bog? It doesn't matter if they did. They could burn a hundred bodies and then bury one with religious ritual and that would suffice to say that the Neandertals had religious beliefs.
I honestly think we don't know for sure. There's only a hint that maybe they had religious beliefs. Why would we assume that they did? Of course we don't know for sure, but as you say, there is evidence that they might have. We might assume that they did for a premise in an argument about the evolution of religion. But aside from that and just looking at the evidence, it looks like they did have religious beliefs, IIRC.
Why would they bury stuff with a dead body? Why not?
Its unneccessary and there's better ways to use things than throwing them away. Your turn. Why would they?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
If burial with "religious ritual" was a teeny-tiny minority practise, how would it say anything about the evolution of religion? It would say that it evolved more that once and independently. I haven't thought much about the implications of this. Here's what I was replying too:
numnuts in msg 36 writes: Did the belief start long ago before hominids populated the entire Earth or did it evolve on seperate occasions in different places for different reasons? It would seem a bit of a stretch for it to evolve much later when so many pockets of isolated hominids stretched the Earth. God and religion is so widely spread that one would assume it is a very very old idea without doing any research. It could comfirm that god and religion were widely spread, that they were an old idea, not unique or attributed to humans, and also that it evolved on seperate occasions in different places for different reasons. What do you think the implication is?
Why would they? Mental illness. Does religion fit into that category? From Message 46 When a pet dies, we comfort our children with "he's in Turtle Heaven". We comfort adults with "he's in a better place" or "he's not suffering any more". How is that so different from religion?
We do that even if we don't have a specific belief in the "spirits" that we give lip service to. Is it because the comforter doesn't believe what they are saying that makes it not religion? If the comforter does believe it, does that make it religion?
I wonder if the belief in spirits might have come from the social need to comfort each other. That's probably one of many sources.
A ritual doesn't necessarily have to be religious, a ritualistic burial doesn't necessarily imply religious beliefs. Religion is ritual but ritual is not neccessarily religion. But rituals that have no practical purpose are religion, aren't they? Can you think of an example of a ritual that has no practical purpose and is not religous?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
It seems likely that the rituals and social practices did evolve on separate occasions in different places for different reasons. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't. (well, there's always goddidit )
I'm just wondering if a lot of different reasoning didn't converge into what we now think of as "religion". Well I'm using "religions" pretty loosely in this thread. If the Neandertals didn't believe in gods or spirits, but had a mysticism - or any other made up stuff - behind their burials, then I would call that "religion". Albeit a very primitive form of it.
I'm just saying that that kind of behaviour might be the origin of rituals and social practices that are often attributed to "belief in God". It's possible that "the gods" were invented by scam artists to take advantage of people's natural social behaviour. Ok, I think we are defining "religion" a little differently. I don't mean that they have to believe in gods for it to be a religion. Any non-practical ritual could be considered a religion, IMHO. Where do we draw the line on where primitive rituals get to be called religion? From what I've seen - and I'm relying on memory - the Neandertal's primitive rituals should be on the religion side of that line. I'd like to research some of the evidence - in my copious amounts of free time - and get a better idea. But, from what I remember, there are Neandertal burial sites with ornaments and other indications of rituals that suggest that they were practicing some kind of religion. And what are the implications if religion arrose in an unrelated species, independently, from purely supernaturalistic reasons, rather than from some sort of coping mechanism, or deranged leader?
Can you think of an example of a ritual that has no practical purpose and is not religous? Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Isn't there a perceived practicality for the compulsive behavior?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
It certainly involves delusions. How so certain? If god really does exists and prescribed religion to man, then it wouldn't be delusion at all, would it?
It's often been suggested so, including suggestions of connections between the prophet/seer phenomenon and schizophrenia further up this thread (by me). I'm not really all that interested, sorry. I was just looking for Ringo's opinion and perhaps setting him up for a good joke I wasn't really looking for a deep answer to discuss.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I remember seeing a video of a chimp mom where the baby died, and she carried the dead body around for days afterwards. I saw a Hippo mother stay near her dead baby in the same manner on a National Geographic program.
Obviously in mourning and denial. It wasn't so obvious for the hippo I wonder what kind of instinct could yield that behavior.
Being able to have a ceremony to bring peace may have positive benefits for the whole group. Good point. Even if they didn't believe in the rituals, it might stick around just because it makes them feel better.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I'm drawing a (dotted) line at some external "reason" for the behaviour. That's a good spot.
How do trinkets, etc. "indicate" religion? Because its impractical and unnecessary. After removing all other reasons we are left with religion. I'm not saying that this (the Neadertals having religion) is definitively so, just that it is a resonable conclusion. Assuming they buried their dead in a ritual with ornaments, "religion" is a fine conclusion for the reason for the behavior. We can think up other non-religious reasons too, but why are they more plausible? If it looks and sounds like a duck.... we shouldn't call it something else jsut because we don't want to call it a duck.
How would you know the reasons were "purely supernaturalistic"? It'd be difficult and we could never get to purely, but I suppose there's archeaologists who are qualified to label their reasons. They've done more with less
What do we know about Neanderthal perceptions? I don't know. Anything? I'd bet that they know something. Does perceived practicality count as practicality? In the context of OCD, if a person washed their hands 10 times to avoid getting sick, in actuallity, there is no practical reason for all the extra washing. But in their mind, it is practical. That perceived practicality makes their ritual non-religious, even if it was, ultimately, impractical. How's that?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
How do you know you have eliminated "all" other possibilities, Sherlock? You don't.
I've suggested a couple of possibilities - mental illness, comfort. How can you reasonably eliminate those? Reasonably? To you: I can't. To me: it doesn't seem as plausible as religion.
If the question is, "Is it a duck?" we should be fairly slow to come to that conclusion. True.
We should have more than two criteria (or in the case of the Neanderthals, one) to base a conclusion on. Like I said. Its not definitive, but its reasonable, IMHO.
Since the question here is, "Is it religion?" we shouldn't be confirming our biases by finding examples of religion under every rock. Come on now, I'm not confirming bias under every rock. The Neandertals seem to have behaved, to me, in a way that suggests they had religious - albeit primitive - beliefs. Its not that big of a deal that I feel the need to eliminate every other possibility before I conclude this one. Its plausible to me.
In the context of OCD, if a person washed their hands 10 times to avoid getting sick, in actuallity, there is no practical reason for all the extra washing. But in their mind, it is practical. Take a less practical example, like counting steps. (I do that, by the way. )What's the practical reason, perceived or real? Is it religious or non-religious?
Actually, now that I've thought about it more. Religion has a perceived practicallity, so by my definition, that would make religion not religion Whoops, oh well. Have a nice night, Ringo. Thanks for typin'. I'm off.
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