PortalStar wrote:Through history, dieties have filled the space of the unknown, and explained strong emotions. As science has progressed, the realm of the unknown has grown smaller, and the hold dieties have has grown weaker, except in those who have a lack of understanding, a distrust of, or a denial/lack of acess to conventional science. G-ds have long been associated with human birth and death, the weather, and forces beyond individual human control - the realm of the unknown. In the romantic era, many felt g-d's realm was the ocean, with it's mystery and vastness. We explored the ocean, and now g-d's realm is the sky. Trips to outer space have made people question g-d even more, and some to rely on g-d more for the increased area of the unknown brought from a small understanding of the universe. Hopefully science will continue to conquer the territory of the g-ds.
and . . .
Quote:When Lewis and Clark explored middle America, washington had them look for Mammoths. Washington (who was a scientist, as were many men of his day) didn't deny their existance until he had collected evidence - exploring the globe and finding only bones, showing they had become extinct.
George Washington was dead in December, 1799 [note: edited to correct my error in the date], so you may be assured that he issued no instructions and made no requests of someone--namely Merriweather Lewis--with regard to the exploration of a territory not in the possession of the United States during his lifetime. Washington was many more things than history as taught in schools usually recognizes, but a hunter of mammoth bones i have no good reason to believe he ever was. I say that based on reading Freeman's definitive
George Washington, fifteen volumes and a part of a volume of which he (Freeman) wrote before his death, the remainder of the work having been completed by his research assistants; and having read, more than once, Flexner's
George Washington: The Indispensable Man. It was Jefferson who sent Lewis out on his trek, and although he may well have asked that Lewis attempt to find a mastadon or the remains thereof, it is hardly realistic to describe Jefferson as a scientist, simply because of an occasional interest in "natural history."
Conflating and confusing the imagery of poets and artists with the general religious belief of the mass of people is the basis for your earlier statement to the effect that historically people have seen god as residing in the sea. Apart from oceanic or hydraulic deities, nothing could be more unrealistic. You suffer from the delusion that what was a charming metaphor for a tiny fraction of the population in one brief period of time is the basis for a broad generalization about how people have perceived a deity and where said deity might reside over a very long period of time (as you didn't make any distinction, one must assume the generality of your statement).
The most interesting book which i've read on the subject of how people viewed gods, and when people began to see them as separate, and residing in the sky is
The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Janes. Although i don't consider his thesis entirely convincing, it's got a good deal more merit than yours. You need to read the book if you want a thorough explanation, but basically, he is saying that while the human race was still unself-conscious, images crossing the bi-cameral mind (one in which the two hemispheres are unaware of being a part of a unity, and unaware of the opposite hemisphere) would appear as true visions, and not thoughts or memories. Therefore, when ancestor worship arose from this inability to distinguish a recollection of the ancestor from a vision, deities were evoked, and said deities seemed to walk among men and women. Janes then has it that when consciousness of self arose, and the bicameral mind became a unity, people could no longer see their deities as visions among them, and they were relegated in dogma to a home in the heavens. He refers to monumental imagery of the Hittites as one example of a transition from representations of gods walking with and among men to those of gods as residing far off, and above. I was not entirely convinced by his references to early civilizations and classical civilizations and literature for the evidence of the states of consciousness and perceptions of deities which he posits. Nevertheless, he had certainly done his homework, something you would do well to emulate when make such sweeping statements about human perception.
Bishop Berkeley and his ilk, and their successors, spoke for an educated elite, and one which did not very well make distinctions between observable, replicable events and their esoteric musings informed by a classical education. They were members of a very small, wealthy and powerful minority. For the general run of mankind, i know of no credible evidence to support a contention that deities were once seen (you were no more specific than this) by people as residing in the sea, and later were relegated to the heavens, as the previous speculation became untenable. That some people used such symbolism, or likened the power of the sea to the power of a deity does not warrant the exposition you made earlier.
It takes a great deal of information indeed to make such an historical synthesis. You need to get your facts straight--your remarks about Washington seem to me evidence that you hadn't mastered the information available before arriving at your conclusions and making your statement; and if you will generalize about "what people believed," and you don't specify which people, when and where, you leave yourself open to a host of criticisms for an unsubstantiated speculation based upon vague and unsupported general statements.
And that is what i meant by referring to historical fantasies.
