Genesis was Right

Not that religion was of any consequence when mankind gave in to temptation and began his road to civilization. Religion came afterward, as a necessary justification for that act. At first, religion was in compliance with the standards of existence that have existed for millions of years. Yet it wasn’t religion in the way we have the sense of it today, but rather, it was the way of life – life within the Darwinian rules of existence as accepted by all living beings on Earth. Humans became aware of these ways and didn’t like them, however, and so they changed them. Religious beliefs became completely alien to those standards. As human separation from nature rapidly widened, this new religion evolved an increasing separation from nature until human beliefs were completely alien to nature. Though nature was originally personified as Eden, nature became evil in the religious imagination, the repository for all those acts and conditions that are not to be countenanced in civilization, those acts and conditions called animal. And because these religious beliefs became so deeply ingrained in humans, they controlled the formation of the character of civilization, which, as we will see, set humans on the path to self-destruction. It is difficult to determine the point at which human separation from nature took place. The early concept of civilization was assuredly the temptation. That concept was very different from our concept of civilization and its relation to nature that we have today. There had to have been some basal desire to escape the Darwinian rules of nature that drove humans to take that step. Other animals use tools, for example. Chimpanzees use rocks and sticks, and crows and squirrels are very inventive in using what’s around them, and so tool use isn’t the only key. Some assert that the separation of man from nature is because man has a higher level of emotional development, a greater ability to recognize the value of individual life, or indeed, the value of Life itself. But other animals feel sadness, including sorrow at the loss of a companion, and grieve, and other animals experience the joy of companionship and the bond of having a mate for life. All living things, as defined by higher organization and self-replicating ability, fear the irrevocableness of Darwinian rules in some measure. Humans call this trait the “will to live.” While this is actually an expression of which every species is capable, an expression displayed in coping with the Darwinian parameters of existence, the will to live has been read by humans in their own case as some sort of separateness of being signifying a connection to another or “higher” form of existence superseding the apparent cruel indifference of nature’s rules — god. Because humans have opted to separate themselves from nature, they have lost the relationship this spirit, the idea of god, has with nature In other words, humans opted to abandon the very essence that makes them unique. That essence is of two parts, the knowing and the reverence. Therefore, in the absence of this essence, the human relationship to deity had to be defined in some way and that was the birth of religion. Religion is an unusual aspect of human being for it serves several purposes. The advent of religion allowed the establishment of a reality that took the place of nature’s Darwinian parameters, and it provided a mechanism for envisioning mankind’s future.(1) Even though humans’ earliest religions were not far from a natural orientation, they were of necessity somewhat static because mankind’s new reality needed to be static, or at least the changes needed to be under mankind’s control in order for this new reality to work. The need for seasonal planning and other endeavors that required regular sequential steps required a less than dynamic perception of the universe. Thus nature was regularized by these early religions, which we call animistic today, and thus trees, mountains, seas, winds, various animals, etc. were endowed with spirit.(2) By defining nature in terms of its many spirits, humans thought they exercised some measure of control over it and so some predictability to ensure their future wouldn’t vary much from what had gone before. There were occasional earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, droughts, and other anomalies; but this just meant there was something lacking in how one or another spirit was honored, for even by this early time man’s break with nature was so complete that an overall understanding of these events as part of nature’s ongoing progress was lost.(3) As the complexities of human civilization increased, these natural occurrences exacted greater tolls because the human population was growing and because there was ever more infrastructure to be rebuilt. In most cases of animism, a singular spirit was deemed more powerful than the others to which propitiatory offerings were made in the hope of more favorable outcomes – that is, predictable regularity. From what we interpret from the archaeological record, these deities were mother goddesses at first, perhaps a subconscious recollection of Gaea, the Earth as mother. The Earth was, obviously, greater than any mountain or stream or other local spirit, and the Earth could, if not control the lesser spirits, at least influence them. Even at this early, or prehistoric, time, the growing complexity of human civilization caused greater problems for humans. More serious forms of warfare began to appear as mankind’s growing population found itself having to compete for the best agricultural areas, trading routes, sea ports, and raw material — outcomes that the mother-goddess pantheon couldn’t handle. Already, the mother goddess was being replaced by a father god who had a greater temperament for war and would be able to guide mankind through this crisis. Mankind had now stepped almost completely away from Nature and replaced it with an organization of man’s own creation, civilization, which lacked the flexibility of nature but was still subject to the Darwinian parameters responsible for the complex interrelationships that each species must negotiate to maintain its competence. This fact antagonized the world structure defined by human religion. Civilization is an attempt to establish an order so that existence is regularized contrary to the way of nature, and thus the emergence of a more war-oriented male god meant that civilization’s order was challenged in more extreme ways than the old religion could handle. This was not the first but certainly the first discernable epicyclical change in human civilization. The static structure and procedures of the extant system couldn’t adapt to the changes impressed upon it, and the competence of civilization was not only challenged but found incapable of meeting that challenge. So autocracy, warfare, and a god who was less connected to nature and more solicitous toward humans than the mother god who represented nature became the new parameters. The other spirits took more human forms, thus acting like humans and motivated by human emotions. Thus a new religion, what we call pantheism in retrospect, enabled humanity to begin another epicyclical change in the aspect of civilization.(4) Larger governmental units were characteristic of these pantheistic societies, larger units that mirrored somewhat these new pantheons, city-states. There was a chief god over the pantheon, of course – Zeus, Jupiter, Amun, etc. – and in some instances there was a powerful ruler over an aggregation of city states. Humanity’s purpose for being was no longer merely to exist; now man must change his environment to make life easier, which gave him a reason for existence. He lived, and he altered his environment, at the behest of his pantheon of gods. He lived to propitiate these gods, and he endeavored to live in ways that did not offend them.