Origin of The Fall and The Sky God

Deep in the prehistory of hunter-gatherers, mankind was one with nature. People, culture, animals, plants, and the entire environment were all one world, not the two as we see them (us and things). Even today some indigenous “primitives” consider wild animals to be part of their tribe, and they regard the forest habitat that they share with them as a person.

Eden was a timeless paradise of perfection where humans could climb a tree or mountain and mingle with the gods. Aboriginal Australians embrace transcendence back to the “dreamtime.”

Perceptions changed with the further awakening of consciousness. Paleolithic myths (cosmological narratives) and hunter-gatherer myths reveal the recognition that mankind became saddled with a permanent split, a loss of balance and harmony between the human world and the nonhuman, the latter including the divine forces of nature. Thus began time and death: paradise lost, the fall from grace.

This separation made the divine entities more remote, as if they had retreated, and the first stop was the sky, hence the first house of the father god, the sky god.

The advent of Neolithic agriculture and permanent settlements provided a new home for shrines and rituals.

 

May I add that the transition time between Hunter-gatherers and Agriculturalist began around 11,000 years ago and the kernel of the story is that humans beings were getting too "wise" to trust in God's providence and so struck out on their own.. leaving "Eden"..

 

So in that idyllic epoch, men, like their brethren among the polar bears, thought nothing of eating their own young. Have I got that about right?

 

Hardly. Being one with nature is not unlimited license.

 

Since that is clearly untrue for male polar bears, why isn't it also untrue for every other species?

 

Male black bears tend to do it, male lions tend to do it, but there are males of plenty of other species that usually don't. Ponder on like this if you wish.

 

What the hell is there to ponder? The idea, perhaps that those other species are "usually" morally constrained to a degree that polar bears are not?

 

I imagine you invoke the polar bear as a means of pointing to the brutality of the natural world, and consider this an indicator of how much we need policing by the sky god.

It's worth mentioning that you can't actually LEAVE the natural world. You can force your own further separation from it, but that would be a primitive manoeuvre indeed.

 

it's interesting to note that those who elect to live at one with nature, in the modern world, are usually not the ones with guns in their homes. they're also not usually fans of the capitalist mindset. guns and capitalism being as good indicators of our barbaric tendencies than just about anything.

 

The constraint is not likely to be moral but rather some other instinctive adaptive pattern that benefits the species. In the case of male bears etc, aggression, territoriality, and self-interests apparently override all other factors.

 

"at one with nature, in the modern world" without guns would be the many who are virtually never at risk of attack from a bear, etc. Among the rest, where stepping out into the wild is a real risk, those who do so need to have guns.

 

So how, exactly, does any of this deny "license" to any creature which is "at one with nature"?

 

In view of the adaptive constraints and the variety in nature, we don't see a wholesale "anything goes."

 

When and why did this discussion take such a bizarre turn?

 

Which has nothing to do with "license", obviously, since that concept is meaningless absent temptation, of which there is none in your paradigm.

It didn't. The illusion that it did was created when I was rude enough to a draw perfectly logical inference from the OP, for which "bizarre" is far too charitable an adjective. You're welcome.

 

I just can't bear it any longer

 

QUOTE=Gelecski7238;1064536590]"at one with nature, in the modern world" without guns would be the many who are virtually never at risk of attack from a bear, etc. Among the rest, where stepping out into the wild is a real risk, those who do so need to have guns.[/QUOTE]

What percentage of American gun owners are at regular risk of bear attack?

I'm guessing it's an unbearably low percentage.

 

It does have something to do with license. "Anything goes" is a better way of putting it instead of "free license." I don't know why you want to introduce temptation into the discourse, since that is not very relevant to male animals killing the young of their own kind. You sure do live up to your handle, (wh)yguy. How much further can you milk this thing?

 

Then one cannot help but wonder...

...why the hell you're already backpedaling.

It is, however, plenty relevant to license, a term you introduced.

 

Whatever the percentage is, it's high enough to put the details of their daily struggles on TV, e.g. the ones who have migrated to the Alaska wilderness and the natives too. The guns are essential to preclude becoming a meal for a polar bear or grizzly.

In other states stories recount confrontations with the law where homeowners shot black bears in violation of wildlife protection laws but may or may not have had legal justification based on bear's alleged persistent effort to breach livestock confinements despite alleged alternative efforts, i.e. suitable attempts at deterrence.

 

If "anything goes" sufficiently obviates "unlimited licence'" then there is no further need to ponder the term. If there is nothing more that is important enough and relevant enough to warrant hashing out a connection to temptation, then we should end this line of discussion, as others have reacted to its run-on of disgustingly trivial contention that is too far off the OP.

 

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

You are at liberty to end whatever conversation you desire with whomever you desire - just as I am, at least as of now, to continue responding to this thread whether you like it or not. So enjoy.

Yes, that's quite the collection of luminaries you've got clucking their approval of your intellectually and morally bankrupt thesis.

Actually it's obviously way too close for comfort, as evidenced by your weaselly evasions.

 

Obviate is a word in the dictionary.

it's time to put an end to your enjoyment of picky provocation.

So, your bag of tricks includes conjuring up strawmen. Beat your dead horse some more.

P.S. If you really were so good at judging my limitations, you would have known better than to disparage a thesis that is not really mine but comes from multiple scholarly sources.

 

Swell, thanks for nothing.

Pretty tall order to put an end to what never began.

You presented it and you're defending it, so as far as I'm concerned it's your baby.

This rings every bit as hollow as the protestations of certain fundamentalists along the lines of "It ain't me sayin' homos oughta be stoned to death, it's the Bible".

 

You put a lot of effort into stirring the pot, drawing out complications, and splitting hairs. What issue do you have with my conduct? Was there something about the OP that bothered you? Is your brief introduction of "temptation" a sign of some religious leaning?