"THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION...A...DARWINIAN VIEW"

BTW: The first use of the word "freedom" in any language was by a king of Lagash, a city of Sumer. He used it in reference to protecting his people from the tyranny of the religious priests and defending widows and orphans.

--Herbert Muller, Freedom in the Ancient World

Dupre, the linguistic argument does not preclude the independent origination of an idea or thing, it only suggests the preference for a means of naming something. The transom over the door of a room was, in the 19th century, largely unknown outside of urban areas, and was little known in Germany. Chambermaids in Parisian hotels were unfamiliar with the object, as were German tourists. The German tourists would point to the transom, and say: "Was ist das?" (What is that?). The chambermaids, not knowing either what the item was nor what the Germans were saying to them, began to refer to a transom as a "vasisdas." The use of the term persists to this day. This is NOT linguistic evidence of the ignorance in general of the French population, nor is it evidence of ignorance in general of the German population. Linguistics is very tricky ground for making such statements about cultural origins, and in your particular examples, you are treading the quicksand laden ground of historical and archaeological evidence which was filtered through the Judaeo-christian centered prejudices of more than a century of specialists with an agenda. Beside the questionable provenance of the "linguistic evidence," the huge and important concept in linguistics of false cognates is being totally ignored in this particular discussion. Just because two words sound, or seem to sound, the same, that does not mean that their meaning is the same. Of even more questionable reliability is the pronunciation of ancient Akkadian words, let alone the certainty of their definition.

All of that taken aside, in a year, or even a season, a new word or concept can be carried far afield. If in the flood plain of the Danube, where bronze is being produced and is much sought after by traders from the middle east, the concept of a mother goddess has already originated, but the seemingly sophisticated Akkadian traders speak knowlingly ("Oh yes, you mean Astarte."), it is not at all unreasonable to imagine the locals adopting a new name for an old concept. Cultural diffusion is and will remain, a very suspect concept, and one which pointedly ignores the equivalent intelligence of all humans everywhere at all times.

blatham: I didn't mean to imply that the diffusion of the Mother Goddess correlates with a diffusion of agriculture.

The feminist angle. . . . I just wonder where that will go now that it's clear we can clone with an egg and electricity and no longer need males and their sperm to perpetuate the species. Perhaps Christianity with her virgin birth was not so far off the mark. Um?

Now that we have power tools, machinery, etc. it's clear that males are, well, leftover appendages from our primitive past. Sort of like Jaynes's interpretation of religion.

But, my guy is good at doing laundry, great at running errands and doing the shopping, and superb at cooking the most lavish of dinners for me each and every night.

I'm reminded of a commercial from my youth which used to offend me greatly:

Setanta: Well stated and eye opening. Thank you.

setanta: I am truly amazed and enlightened by your logical rebuttal to linguistics. Saddened, too, because I did hope linguistics could supply some answers. I'm not sure of the "agenda" you spoke of. Can you shed some light on what the Judeo-Christian community could be attempting to promote through linquistics? I'd like to read further on linguistics and I'l like to have your thoughts on the subject to temper my easliy persuaded and then easily swayed perspective.

dupre

Yes, I'm convinced we fellas will continute to be relevant in the scheme of things. On the mother goddess point, aside from how it happened that they appeared in a bunch of places at approximately the same time, they do seem to be broadly associated with the beginning of agriculture and permanent settlements. But that may well speak to Setanta's point above regarding good reasons why humans in different places may come up with similar ideas and symbols. Breeding domesticated animals would clarify, if it wasn't already clear, the relationship between the sexual act and the swollen tummy and the new generation of life.

dupre...on your question to the minister regarding why god was curiously silent these days (though Jerry Falwell would argue this point, himself apparently having unique access), let me slip in a piece on god speaking to Abraham from Woody Allen's 'Without Feathers' (adding that, along with this bit of typical brilliance from Woody, the other refreshingly honest address to the same biblical event is to be found in Bob Dylan's song "Highway 61")

"And Abraham awoke in the middle of the night and said to his only son, Isaac, "I have had a dream where the voice of the Lord sayeth that I must sacrifice my only son, so put your pants on." And Isaac trembled and said, "So what did you say? I mean when He brought this whole thing up?"

"What am I going to say?" Abraham said. "I'm standing there at two A.M. I'm in my underwear with the Creator of the Universe. Should I argue?"

"Well, did he say why he wants me sacrificed?" Isaac asked his father.

But Abraham said, "The faithful do not question. Now let's go because I have a heavy day tomorrow."

And Sarah who heard Abraham's plan grew vexed and said, "How doth thou know it was the Lord and not, say, thy friend who loveth practical jokes, for the Lord hateth practical jokes and whosoever shall pull one shall be delivered into the hands of his enemies whether they pay the delivery charge or not." And Abraham answered, "Because I know it was the Lord. It was a deep, resonant voice, well modulated, and nobody in the desert can get a rumble in it like that."

And Sarah said, "And thou art willing to carry out this senseless act?" But Abraham told her, "Frankly yes, for to question the Lord's word is one of the worst things a person can do, particularly with the economy in the state it's in."

And so he took Isaac to a certain place and prepared to sacrifice him but at the last minute the Lord stayed Abraham's hand and said, "How could thou doest such a thing?"

And Abraham said, "But thou said ---"

"Never mind what I said," the Lord spake. "Doth thou listen to every crazy idea that comes thy way?" And Abraham grew ashamed. "Er - not really … no."

"I jokingly suggest thou sacrifice Isaac and thou immediately runs out to do it."

And Abraham fell to his knees, "See, I never know when you're kidding."

And the Lord thundered, "No sense of humor. I can't believe it."

"But doth this not prove I love thee, that I was willing to donate mine only son on thy whim?"

And the Lord said, "It proves that some men will follow any order no matter how asinine as long as it comes from a resonant, well-modulated voice."

And with that, the Lord bid Abraham get some rest and check with him tomorrow.

Blatham: LOL!!

I guess I need to work some on developing a well-modulated resonant voice. I could use some godlike powers of persuasion around here.

Dupre, the agenda of historians and archaeologists in the 19th century was to demonstrate that from Ur of the Chaldees to the crucifixion, all ideas and artifacts of any value to western civilization had arisen in the "fertile crescent," and been disseminated outward. This is why the recent archaeological evidence that copper was smelted and bronze alloyed in the Danube basin long before these metals appeared in Mesopotamia has had such a profoundly unsettling effect on the previously held view of the "advance" of western civilization.

About a century and a half ago, linguists tried to come up with an explanation for the apparent consonance of the vocabularies of so many languages from the central asian highlands to western Europe. They came up with the Aryans. The Aryans were simply a convenient thought exercise to explain a common origin for all of these languages in the mists of time. Of course, racist idiots of the kind which were so common in Europe at the time took the entire Aryan concept and ran with it. Today, linguists refer to the "Indo-European" roots of languages. In so doing, they continue to ignore their own experiences with modern languages. A false cognate is a word in one language which bears sufficient similarity to a word in another language as to lead a student astray. The French call them faux amis--false friends. So, for example, the word long in French does not mean what long means in English. In French, the word always appears with the definite article, and means the "length of"--as in, le long de la rive là-bas, "the length of the (stream) bank down there." There is by no means complete accord among linguists on this subject, although a good deal has been done in recent decades to attempt to perfect the understanding of common roots. The problem comes when linguists attempt to use their surmises to make "pre-hsitorians" of themselves, something they should never do. A linguist from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century once told a story on himself, with the express purpose of showing just how divorced from reality a linguist can become. He had been traveling in northern Norway to study both the language of the Lapps, and the dialect of Norge which had arisen in those areas where the Lapps and the Norge lived together. He had come across an old man who was a Lapp, but who had lived his entire adult life in a Norge village. Excitedly, the linguist began to ask him what one would say in this or that situation, and to write down his answers. Coming to the verb "to die" on his mental list, he asked: "And what do people say when they die." There was a long pause, and his interlocutor replied, giving him a side-long glance: "Around here, people who have died don't say anything." Be careful of putting too much reliance on linguistics in the study of history--too little is known, and too much is assumed.

Oh my, Setanta. Yes, I HAD fallen for that idea that most everything history-wise started with the fertile crescent, (defining history as the beginning of written language). You are right in that it was very much ingrained in my thinking and studies.

I can only say that IF civilization started there, it also stagnated there.

What we've done in America is remarkable, given the cultures of the past and the cultures of today with a longer history.

If I recall, Muller places the emergence of the concept of freedom with the Greeks. And I wouldn't be surprised if Jaynes places the emergence of man's consciousness also with the Greeks.

Since OUR society is more based on Greek politics and philosophy than others, is this also an example of manipulating history to promote OUR ethnocentric ideas of our own version of civilization?

<sigh> I feel so used. All I ever wanted--as you know from our previous brief conversations at Abuzz--is to know and understand. It's not easy when the "facts" are muddled by historians with an agenda.

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this to me. I really can't thank you enough. I know it's an effort.

Can you recommend a current book covering an overview of history--or what is it they call it, the new history?--which would bring my perspective more in line with current thinking?

In rethinking the amulets of the Mother Goddess . . .

One web site about prehistory claimed that possibly only the strongest males would get to procreate.

Could the amulets found deep in caves really be something for the males would did NOT get to procreate? Something along the lines of a blow-up doll? Or Playboy?

Perhaps they were abandoned en masse--or passed on to younger males--with the emergence of agriculture and more monogamous relationships.

dupre

Apparently, you had the same sort of adolescence as myself. Of course, there really are a zillion such questions we'll never know the answers to.

setanta

You are a handy fellow to have kicking about. The breadth and depth of some of your historical knowledge makes me all aflutter.

Dupre, that would be tough. If i recommended anything of the kind, it would be Will and Ariel Durant. This is now becoming a little dated, but this is the most recent world history of which i know. You'll also find it much easier to read than H. G. Wells. Apart from that, you just have to keep up on your own. For that purpose, however, the "Science Times" section of the New York Times has always proven an invaluable resource to me, both for the information itself, and pointing the way to new ideas and discoveries.

BLatham, flutter away, but keep yer hands to yerself.

Just a Me Too, here; The Durants offer a foundation from which one can build a most satisfying edice of further study. While their work may be a bit "dated", as mentioned by Setanta, current findings do little to cloud their presentments. Their writing style, considerably more contemporary and less ponderous than that of Wells', renders absorbing them far less tedious. For the serious student or the merely honestly curious, they are an excellent start.


Oh, and Setanta, I think you can relax; I perceive blatham to be a flirt, certainly, but not profligately promiscuous ... he merely flatters you, in his own fluttering way.



timber

Timber: heeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

Dupre, i should add two caveats here, the first being that i never want to throw the baby out with the bath water, and am not trying to belittle the very great contribution of linguistics to such topics as the one we examine here, nor to suggest that the Akkadian culture from which the Judaeo-christian tradition arises is not a very significant contributor to the world's culture in general, and specifically to western culture. The second caveat is that there are no short cuts, reading the Durants will, as Timber points out, simply provide an ediface--as you show a distinct interest in ancient cultures, you should use such a source to point your way to more careful study.

God--whoever SHE is --bless you everyone.

I did see some Durant at amazon.com while waiting for your response.

Will order today!!!

Thanks so much.

dupre

Further on reading resources, I can recommend two very good sites:
http://www.scitechdaily.com/ for general science
http://www.tamu.edu/anthropology/news.html for anthropology

blatham: Thank you. These sites seem like exactly what I've been wanting. I love the way they compile what's making news from a variety of sources. I'm looking forward to delving into those articles!

I ordered the Durant yesterday and also included his book on philosophers. I read some sample pages from his history survey book, and they were quite absorbable. I appreciated the way he said that men were women's last domesticated animal. What a twist! And here, all this time, I thought it was men trying to control women.

I'm really looking forward to all of this and thank you all for your efforts toward enlightening me.

I am at a relative's home in LaGrange, GA. Managed to sneak into their computer room and seek out A2K. I am impressed with the flow and sharing of information/opinions. I suspect this thread could give birth to a number of new interactions. Time to return to the cabin in the woods.