Stephen T-B

I've heard of the Bible giving people insights intoi the human condition, but until this thread with Mageth's and Starboy's stimulating ideas, I hadn't seen how it was possible.

MrDarwin

Mageth, I don't think it's a matter of assigning blame, so much as simply answering unanswerable and sometimes unsettling questions: where did the world come from? Where did people come from? Why do people live in different countries and speak differerent languages? Why do snakes bite people? Why do people suffer? Why do people die?

Most animals don't seem to be troubled by these questions (at least, not so far as we can tell). They seem to arise from our self-awareness, our curiosity about the world around us, and our insecurity with an unpredictable and often frightening world.

Stephen T-B

(sorry - and MrDarwin's.)
It is not the case, however - I think - that the A&E story does not address these concerns so much as incomprehension about WHY so many bad things happen completely out of the blue.

Starboy

Mageth, I think it is more than that. It is a realization that in some sense we are doomed to sin, since life (meaning us) must kill other life (animals and other humans) to survive. And that in the brutal past there was no way to live and avoid a life harming existence.

The A&E myth was originally a story about how woman caused the gain of knowledge that caused humanity to come to live in the world (a symbolic act of birth).

It is also interesting that it is a woman that first exhibits curiosity, a trait that I consider one of humanities finest. It also jibes with conjecture that in earlier societies women played a larger role. Yet more reasons why I think the A&E myth predated the Jews. It is interesting that Jews and Christians have been able to take this myth and reinterpret it to justify delegating women to an inferior role in society. Just goes to show you, without a critical method to evaluate explanations (such as the scientific method) you can take the same set of facts and come up with all sorts of explanations to suite your goals.

Starboy

Marduk

"That's an interesting idea, Starboy, but I can’t be completely convinced by it.
I really wonder (and of course we’ll never know, so the argument can never be settled) whether Man ever felt bad about killing animals to eat. "

This has been settled, see Joseph Campbells "The Power of Myth"
Ancient humans began elaborate rituals about the killing of animals for food and clothing, thanking the animal, worshipping it, performing sacrifices so the animals will return to be used again etc. the ritual of the hunt, the beginnings of religion. Great book BTW

Starboy

marduck, I agree, that is a good book. I have to say that I stole many of my ideas from it. I also opened my eyes to the nature of metaphorical explanations and how so many of them are shared and modified over history by cultures.

Starboy

Stephen T-B

:Later I thought about the cave drawings of game animals, but I’m not sure they’ve ever been interpreted as expressing remorse or guilt for the killing of animals, or as being part of a ritual either to mollify their souls or appease the gods who would be offended by the taking of their lives.
I’ve read that they were a form of magic, the idea being to give the hunters power over them; I am also aware that many cultures - including Native American ones - honoured and respected the animals they hunted, attributing mystical powers to them. They did - after all - depend on them for food, their clothing and some of their tools, and if the game animals should ever have disappeared, the human communities which relied on them would have been up the proverbial paddle without a creek.

This is a long way from feeling bad about killing them.

There were, however, other things to feel guilty about.
Man was in the hands of the gods, and anything which went wrong - drought, famine, earthquake, flood, fire, defeat by an enemy etc - was wrought by those gods who one way or another had been annoyed. Every disaster implied some fault on the part of the people who suffered from it - and the fault could only be explained by the intermediaries between Man and the gods, ie, the priests. Guilt and Religion therefore become enmeshed with each other at a very early stage.