In the beginning Man roamed the earth and saw that it was good.
Year: somewhere around 75,000 to 50,000 BCE or sooner or later. No one can say for sure, so it is okay to be vague about these things.
Place: in a cave somewhere in Europe, in the jungles of South America, in the outback of Australia and in the planes of Africa and probably many other places in the ancient world where early man had spread taking with him his traditions and beliefs. We all evolved from the same lineage with the same mindset. It is where we settled that changed us physically.
Someone is telling the story of the beginning of their people as told to them by their forefathers. Back then, memories were developed to a more sophisticated degree than we now have. That was because they didn’t have anything to write their stories down on. They wrote in the dirt but that didn’t last long, besides no one could agree on which alphabet to use. But they had become fairly good artists and the painted their stories of cave walls. They were fairly intelligent too, i.e., they knew enough not to place their pictures low on the wall where just anyone could alter or add to their works like the graffiti artists of today. Back then they didn’t have copyright laws.
“In the beginning,” depending on what part of the world early man had spread, “there were only two of us, the Great Mother and the Great Father,” began the story tellers. This was back when women came first and men were only kept around as meat providers and breeders, somewhat like most societies of modern days, women were looked upon as goddesses. Come to think of it, this too is how it is today, except for a few religious groups and other sects of society. “they came down on a beam of sunlight,” the stories went on, “out of a great snow storm, out of a rain cloud. They lived in this beautiful tree, cave, dugout, igloo.” And the story wend on telling how the two lived a blissful life and produced many offspring that spread throughout the planes, jungle, forest,” and so on and so forth.
They told other stories too. One was about a flood caused by many days of rain and as many thunder storms, they knew or the thunder gods were angry about something. In the case of the snow people, it was a sudden hot spell that broke up the ice they, they too, felt the wrath of their god of snow. And only one family of their small group survived because they managed to secure a larger iceberg that didn’t melt down so fast. They took with them a small complement of sled dogs. Everyone else in their world drown, i.e., their small world around them, for they knew of no one else. And the others made a floating raft of trees and logs tied together with vines or strips of animal hides. They allowed some smaller animals caught in the flood to clamber aboard their floating life savers. They ate a few that didn’t have mates, and spared those with mates and loosed them when the waters receded.
Of course, as they told these stories over time, generation after generation, they added and revised them to their liking and to fit the changing times. The stories morphed from time to time and place to place. But they all had a basic theme.
Our first religion was shamanism. Like some religions of today, shamanism combined speaking to and praising of the spirits and healing the sick and injured. Even back then some realized they could fool another into believing they could be healed by the shaking of a rattle. Shamanism became popular. These shamans were similar to our modern day televangelists who speak the good word and heal the sick. Of course we all know ancient shaman were just too ignorant for such advanced things. Yet, they used the same tactics as our modern day scammers, oops, that’s an intentional slip of the tongue. Soon shaman failed to fulfill everyone’s needs, and when man grew and spread, they invented more gods, gods of every conceivable kind for every conceivable situation. Each demanded respect, worship and sacrifices offered to them.
The one amazing point I would like to point out here, is, that few know, Shamanism is the oldest religion and is still practiced around the world. What other religion can claim this fact?
That too has not changed much over time, now they not only want your blood, they want your money too, “dig deep brother, the seed money you send today, I promise the lord will triple it for you tomorrow.” He forgot to tell you there is no lord, he knows it, but he doesn’t want you to know it, and he sure as hell isn’t sending you any of what you sent him. He has worked too hard to get it. See how he sweats at his work, see the anguish in his face, see how his hands heal so many, see the piles of letters stuffed with money before him and see how he lovingly caresses it. That mansion he found in France will soon be his new residence where he can spread the word and rake in more money for a mansion in Spain.
Sorry about that, every time I use the word ‘televangelists’, it sends me into a rant, the sorry S.O.Bs. The poor guilt ridden fools who send him their hard earned money believe they can buy their way into salvation, so they aren’t much better than the clowns on TV.
So, now we are down to around eight or ten thousand years ago and man in neck deep in his invented gods. So many no one can count them. Someone comes up with an idea of combining them all into one god. One mighty god, invisible so no one can claim they saw him. Well, that didn’t work out so well, did it? This new god should also know everything about everything and he should know everything that happens and will happen. He shall know what you do every second of every day, and what you think. Even though he knows what is going to happen, he lets you have your way, for some day you will pay.
This intelligent man spread the word to all religious leaders that he was going to hold a seminar in two years. It took that long for the drummers and horsemen to deliver the message and return with everyone’s reply so they knew how many chairs to set up. They could either pay in advance at a 10% discount or pay full price at the gate.
After the seminar, everyone returned to their regions with huge hangovers. Then more time was lost as each religion build up their story of how their religion developed keeping to the outline of the head religious leader whose throat was slit soon after the seminar for beating one of his Hebrew slaves. Someone said it was a half-breed Egyptian, raised by the Pharaoh’s daughter, and then he fled into the desert not to be heard from for forty years.
All this took many decades and eventually dozens of this new religions, all similar, in that they all had only one god, and yet each a little different. Each began practicing what they believed holding on to the old stories of beginnings and floods and all that crap. Each congregated in a different area. Of course, there were wars as there always have been and they continued to this day and probably will continue into our future. We have been fighting each other since, and before, we began walking upright. And when we meet aliens from other worlds, we’ll jump on them like stink of you know what. We are a warring species; it’s in our blood and will probably take more millions of years before it is bred out of us.
Some religions were more successful than others, mainly because they were either more bellicose or better bullshitters than others, i.e., by force and by deception.
Finally, after a few thousand years, we are right back where we started, only now, with thousands of religious sects, all claiming their set of beliefs are the only true beliefs their god wants us to follow. We cannot come together and agree on any one set of morals, not even between our sexes. It’s no wonder more and more of us see the conundrum of religion. There cannot be a god or gods out there that would want his, her, its subjects going about like we are.
If you don’t believe this, read your bible. That means start at the beginning and read to the end. Don’t just pick out little tidbits here and there and make it apply to what you think is right. What you don’t find in the Holy Bible you’ll find in the Google Bible.
No comments:
Post a Comment