@RexRed,
Quote:They saw mystery in almost everything yet their conclusions were more often purely speculation...
But the speculation might be seen, has been seen, as a sort of fitness training for human intelligence. We are not dumb animals just gawping in awe at the mystery although I will admit that that is just an assertion intended to flatter the self-esteem of my readers. I wouldn't necessarily go in to bat for it in high-flying intellectual company.
And an evolution of speculations works on the same principle as the fig tree parable in the Gospels. Like all items of scientific study the "suck it and see" method applies.
Experimental speculations, and activities based on them, regarding sexual licence, will be judged on their outcomes and on nothing else. It has ever been the case with experiments in sexual licence once promiscuity was abandoned after a very long, and unavoidable experiment with it such as we still see today in colonies of monkeys. Whether monkeys speculate is not a subject on which I am qualified to pronounce.
A belief at this early stage, when the specimen of sexual licence is not yet on the examination table, that the outcome will be favourable is no different than the belief that sending the Pharaoh to God in style will improve the chances of him being able to impress God as to the value of the average Egyptian of the time in peopling His Heaven. Both are beliefs.
A little like the idea that the average English woman is not much different than H.M.The Queen. Just hasn't won the lottery yet. Anybody who doesn't frequent English pubs in the late evening could easily get such an impression I should think.
The "ancient people" sacrificed animals and birds, and humans, and studied their innards for direction but such a study was in the hands of a select priesthood, celibate of necessity, which, as you might easily guess, could interpret the innards any way they wished. The elaborate ceremonials serving only to persuade the unwashed, seething throng that the interpretation of the innards was infallible and to demonstrate the authority and dignity of the priesthood.
The nobility and other knightly castes gnashing their teeth in rage and fury at the restrictions being placed on their tendency to licentiousness and one of them, for the amusement of his dining/orgy companions, inventing a parable, far-fetched I'll readily admit, of the world's No.1 golfer having to eat humble pie in front of a crowd of smirking females in penitence for behaviour which an ancient noble would think of as being a bit straight-laced, if these ******* mumbo-jumbo specialists have their way.
It sure is a mystery.
