Libertas – Davy Jones

I strongly suspect that both my parents died not knowing or understanding why they had been part of this world.  I also suspect this sad prospect may be attributed to the majority of people in this world today – who possibly at some stage ‘wonder what it’s all about’, but never quite fathom a satisfactory answer.  Questions and answers alluding to the meaning of life have been asked down the ages and many of the responses have been recorded throughout history.  I count myself fortunate to have been born at a time when both education and information have become more readily available to the public, thus, should we choose, allowing even the lowliest amongst us to form a reasonably informed opinion.

The ‘official’ responses for the – ‘meaning of life’ or ‘why we are here’ - range from those profoundly thought out, by philosophers both ancient and modern, to a plethora of glib answers - mere dogma - trotted out by any number of religious organisations.  The human race has grasped at these mostly false straws in the hope of finding some inner peace or some logical reason for ‘being’ with all the associated pain and joy (if you are lucky) that accompanies us from cradle to grave.

Throughout history, the human race has had an obsession with the ‘spiritual’ world; an obsession that often borders on fanaticism.  This fantasy spiritual world seems to have been created entirely in the human mind.  It is a world inhabited by demons, spirits, evil monsters, hobgoblins and gods of everything; a vibrant imaginary world, apparently holding all the answers, to seemingly unanswerable questions.  This world is an illusionary world, where man’s incredulity can be quickly and easily satisfied and impossible questions answered in one fell swoop.  But it certainly isn’t real!

The human race has sometimes been described as being ‘hard-wired’ in the spiritual sense. Since the earliest times - before recorded history – ancient peoples followed rituals, rites and ceremonies that shaped their daily lives and gave meaning to their very meagre existence.  They followed nature’s rules and performed the rituals that apparently guaranteed control of the uncontrollable.  If their efforts failed, then the fault lay somehow within them.  The god’s were seen to be punishing mankind for some lack of observance or failure to obey obscure - but man-made - rules - invented by a shaman or similar person, regarded as being in touch with the spirit world.

In a paper – entitled, Heavenbound A scientific exploration – Henig, makes the following observation…‘Lost in the hullabaloo over the neo-atheists is a quieter and potentially more illuminating debate. It is taking place not between science and religion but within science itself, specifically among the scientists studying the evolution of religion. These scholars tend to agree on one point: that religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. What they disagree about is why a tendency to ‘believe’ evolved, whether it was because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary by-product, a mere consequence of some other adaptation on in the evolution of the human brain.’ HENIG, 2007

The gods, or spirit representatives, could also been seen as providing a ‘third party’ – a ‘big brother’ – who ensured that compliance was rewarded and non-compliance punished.  This ‘third party’ can also be blamed or beseeched in times of trouble.  Gods were and still are mankind’s security blanket in troubled times!  Likewise, the old remedy of basic reward and punishment – heaven and hell - are still applied in most religions today.

Could this be linked to something as basic as the need for self-regulation of a mind that has the capacity to be self-aware and has the capability to extrapolate beyond mere self into the minds of those with whom he or she shares their daily life?  Certainly, control and power play a part, even if its basis is illusionary. 

Whilst prehistoric peoples may not have employed psychologist per se, they almost certainly employed psychology on a fundamental level.  The power of the human mind to justify itself as an individual and to promote its own selfish personality and well-being over others has in all probability been with us from before the days when we descended from the trees.  As the human race has evolved so too has its ability to manipulate in fact – or in fiction – the world and those with whom they shared their daily lives.  Summed up in a few words – this amounts to little more than self-survival at any price.

Understanding the minds of the ancients is difficult from where we in the modern world sit – perched amongst our air-conditioned branches, with full bellies and nothing but idle thoughts, TV, or a plethora of modern day propaganda to fill our otherwise empty minds.  Trying to inhabit the world of the prehistoric cultures from this distance is very difficult if not impossible.

The prehistoric world is inconceivable to modern man; on a day-to-day basis it is difficult to know where to begin in describing its workings. 

Shamanic practices held sway, and from our understanding, a philosophy similar to the Aboriginal Dream Time was adhered to, and governed day-to-day living. 

Religion could better be described as ideology in the sense that – as with modern day Islam – religion dictated every aspect of daily life.   

Prehistoric Medicine

Medicine that predates written records, evolving with the emergence of modern hominids over two-million years ago. The study of prehistoric medicine is mainly dependent on sources such as skeletons, artefacts, and cave paintings, and draws heavily on anthropological studies of indigenous cultures in Asia, Australasia, Africa, and the Americas. Prehistoric people relied on a combination of religious beliefs and practical treatments made from local materials to treat their ailments. Their anatomical knowledge appeared to be very slight, and they believed that illnesses were caused by supernatural media, such as the gods or curses. Rational treatment was used only on obvious injuries; otherwise spiritual treatment was carried out by a shaman or medicine man, who received his medical ability through his relationship with the gods.

• http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0097007.html

Discussing early records, S. H. Preston suggests that suggest that life expectancy from prehistoric times until 1400 or so was in the range of 20 – 30 years - Ch. 2 Samuel H. Preston pp. 30.

He goes on to say …’the most satisfactory collection of skeletal remains is drawn from the Maghreb peninsula (North Africa, between Egypt and the Atlantic) during the Neolithic period.  This population evidently had a life expectancy at birth of about 21 years.  Its age patterns of mortality were remarkably similar to that of modern populations at similar levels of mortality.

Whilst life expectancy was short, the likelihood of losing a child was equally gloomy with an average death rate before the age of five averaging around 500 in every thousand.

In an essay entitled, ‘The Decline of Childhood Mortality’ – (Kenneth Hill Ch. 3 pp.38). Hill admits the difficulties involved in retrieving accurate information from fossilized remains.  However, he goes on to discuss a more reliable method using the Theoretical Constraints of Population Dynamics method…‘Over the long haul of pre-recorded history, the human population survived but grew very slowly, with an average annual growth (allowing for periodic ups and downs) of less than one per thousand.  Births and deaths had to have been in very close balance, and the net reproduction rate (number of females surviving in the next generation to replace the mothers of one generation) must have averaged only very slightly over 1.0.  For this to have occurred, the requirements of population dynamics indicate that, over the long haul of prehistory, the probability of dying before the age of five for females was probably not lower than 440 per thousand live births and not higher than 600.  Risks to males would have been similar or higher.’

The environment of nomadic hunter-gatherers peoples, whose homes were rude shelters in damp, dark inhospitable places, would be a world of mystery and a terrifying place where the prospect of often violent death accompanied each passing day.

Little wonder such people developed an inner desire for ‘something better’ – even if it was in an imaginary, heavenly or spiritual form of afterlife. 

In a sense, we here in Australia are fortunate to have a first-hand view of one of the few remaining ‘primitive religions’ to still exist to this day – namely, the Aboriginal Dream Time. 

Robyn Davidson, in her recent Quarterly Essay on nomads, sums it up beautifully in the following paragraphs:

‘One could say that the Dreaming is a spiritual realm which saturates the visible world with meaning; that it is the matrix of being; that it was the time of creation; that it is a parallel universe which may be contacted via the ritual performance of song, dance and painting; that it is a network of stories of heroes – the forerunners and creators of contemporary man.

During the creation period, the ancestral beings made journeys and performed deeds; they fought, loved, hunted, behaved badly or well, rather like the Greek gods, and where they camped or hurled spears or gave birth, tell-tale marks were left in the earth.  While creating this topography, they were morphing constantly from animal to human and back to animal, again rather like the Greeks.

They made separate countries, but interlaced them (related them) with their story tracks.  They created frameworks for kin relations. 

Many different ancestors created a country, by travelling across it and meeting each other.  In that way, a particular country is shared by all creatures who live there, their essences arising from the Dreaming, and returning to it. Some Dreamings crossed many countries, interacting with local ones as they went, and connecting places far from each other.  Thus the pulse of life spreads, blood-like, through the body of the continent – node/pathway, node/pathway – as far as, and sometimes into, the sea.  At the end of that epoch, exhausted by their work, they sank back into the ground at sacred sites, where their power remains in condensed forms.

It is not quite right, however, to say that the creation period is in the past, because it is a past that is eternal and therefore also present.  Ancestors sink back into, but also emerge from and pass through, sites.  In other words, an ancestor's journey, or story, became a place, and that place holds past, present, and future simultaneously.

For traditionally oriented Aboriginal people, the historical past lies a couple of generations back and always will.  The Dreaming encompasses and surrounds this time of living memory, which sinks into it.  Time sinks into place, into Country.  Each sacred site contains a potentially limitless supply of the particular species left there by an ancestor. 

But in order to ensure their continued generation, ceremonial action is required.  If this isn't done, or isn't done properly, that life-form will eventually disappear [a term Aboriginal people call ‘Looking after Country]’.  Children, too, are born from the ancestor's spirit which arises out of its place to impregnate a woman.  Such children belong to and have responsibility for that place, and will return to it after death, so that its life potential isn't dissipated.

Not only did the mythical ancestors give the world its shape, they imbued it with moral and social structures – handing down laws whereby all humans have intrinsic value and a share of goods.  Living by these laws invigorates the life-force surging and burgeoning through the land.  In fact, to sing a ritual song is to move that ancestor along through the land.  Earth is sacred, sentient stuff; it is not a counterpoint to heaven.  Heaven and earth are embedded together, on the same plane.  A country is saturated in consciousness.  It recognizes and responds to people.  It depends on people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreaming_%28spirituality%29

NO FIXED ADDRESS: Nomads and the Fate of the Planet - Robyn Davidson

The questions themselves – questions such as: why does the sun shine – why do we die – what is death – why do the seasons change – is there life after death (or why am I afraid of death) – all stem from a mind that is capable of being ‘self-aware’; a mind capable of communicating high level thoughts with other ‘like minds’.

The philosopher, Protagoras, 484 - 414 B.C. when asked about the existence of God replied that his faculties were too limited to take him to a conclusion on that matter and his life too short for the necessary search.  He later said that God existed for those who believed in God. (de Bono 1993 – pp.20)

In essence, the ‘requirement’ for a spiritual world offers an escape from the harsh world of reality.  It also offers a multitude of instant answers to questions beyond logical thought of the time.  The spiritual world fills many ‘perceived’ inner needs – not least amongst them the need to avoid or ‘survive’ death – or to have a meaningful spiritual existence after death.  It can be deduced that fear of death led to the creation of ‘another world’ – a world inhabited by beings or creatures capable of not only surviving death but of not even being subjected to the same physical cosmic strictures as mere flesh and blood.

That is on one level.  On another level entirely, the need for the human race to grasp at straws presents an opportunity for the smart mind to control the gullible mind.  With the emergence of self-awareness and the greater thinking power of the human brain – physical strength alone was no longer enough to make a leader.
  

Science Daily (Oct. 29, 2004), discusses how the fear of death affects people’s political choices.  Whilst this study is related to modern day political choices, I suggest the basic hypothesis applies equally to our prehistoric cousins: 

‘This research is based on the idea that reminders of death increase the need for psychological security and therefore the appeal of leaders who emphasize the greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil.

To test this hypothesis, Jeff Greenberg, a professor of psychology at the University Arizona in Tucson, Sheldon Solomon (Skidmore College) and Tom Pyszczynski, (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs) and their colleagues conducted an experiment that is scheduled to appear in the December 2004 issue of Psychological Science.

For their current research, the scientists asked students to think about their own death or a control topic and then read campaign statements of three hypothetical political candidates, each with a different leadership style: "charismatic" (i.e. those emphasizing greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil, as described above), task-oriented or relationship-oriented.  Following a reminder of death, there was almost an 800 percent increase in votes for the charismatic leader, but no increase for the two other candidates.

"At a theoretical level," the authors wrote, "this study adds to the large body of empirical evidence attesting to the pervasive influence of reminders of death on a wide range of human activities. 

These findings fit particularly well with prior studies showing how mortality salience leads people toward individuals, groups, and actions that can help enhance their self-esteem.  People want to identify with special, great things, and charismatic leaders typically offer the promise of just that.’

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041027141726.htm

It is suggested that 1 in 10 people demonstrate leadership capabilities.  Whilst all cannot be leaders – many can be ‘leaders in their field’.  Opportunists abound throughout all cultures.  Often the most successful survivors are the best opportunists.  Those who see an opening then use it ruthlessly to further and improve their own life-style, and perhaps the life-style and chances for their own families for generations.

All organised religions had a beginning – originating with one man or woman; a person who sat amongst others – perhaps freezing and uncomfortable – a person who sat and studied others.  This was a person who had an idea and was prepared to offer that idea to others.  Maybe in some cases it was simply a thought that was spoken openly, rather than some great design or plan to take over the minds of others.  Perhaps more than one person was responsible for the further development of a belief.  Maybe, as often happens, the belief was linked to some quirk of nature – ‘we have done something wrong – it has rained non-stop for a month – the gods must be angry with us’. 

This type of thinking suggests immediately that if ‘we are good’, then ‘the gods will stop being angry with us and the rain will cease’.  The sun will reappear and all will be well.  So, if ‘we’ as a group do try to mend our ways – and magically the sun reappears – we are ‘obviously’ on to something big!   The same concept fits in with the trait humans have towards mass hysteria – and primitive mindlessness that is often more obvious amongst our primate relatives – with whom we sadly share many savage behaviours.

The idea might appear simplistic, but given that living conditions for many thousands of years, and indeed in many parts of the world to this day, are basic, to say the least, it is hardly surprising that the thought of being able to control one’s environment holds such great appeal.  Life is a truly hard road for many and at the end of that pain-filled road waits only death.  No wonder the human race looks for a better more appealing outcome.

Origin of Religion - Important Dates in History:

* c. 2000 BC: Time of Abraham, the patriarch of Israel.
* c. 1200 BC: Time of Moses, the Hebrew leader of the Exodus.
* c. 1100 - 500 BC: Hindus compile their holy texts, the Vedas.
* c. 563 - 483 BC: Time of Buddha, founder of Buddhism.
* c. 551 - 479 BC: Time of Confucius, founder of Confucianism.
* c. 200 BC: The Hindu book, Bhagavad Gita, is written.
* c. 2 to 4 BC - 32 AD: Time of Jesus Christ, the Messiah and founder of Christianity.
* c. 32 AD: The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
* c. 40 - 90 AD: The New Testament is written by the followers of Jesus Christ.
* c. 570 - 632 AD: Time of Muhammad, who records the Qur'an as the basis of Islam.

Origin of Religion - Ancient Foundations
The origin of religion can generally be traced to the ancient Near East and classified in three basic categories: polytheistic, pantheistic and monotheistic. Atheism is really a modern belief (or non-belief) that resulted from the "Enlightenment" period of the 18th century.

http://www.allaboutreligion.org/origin-of-religion.htm

The very life of the community depends upon observing the conventions of communication. The function of a religion is precisely to guarantee the whole system of convention, or the rules of thought and language, conduct, and role. For Judaism and Christianity, the idea of salvation is inseparable from the idea of belonging to a community of so-called chosen people, that is, the Church, considered as a body of members, or an assembly (Latin ecclesia), whether it be Israel or the communion of saints.

© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Religious salvation is basically the idea of incorporation in a divine community through conformity to the will of God. In the later phases of the Semitic tradition, salvation began to include the idea of survival beyond death, first through miraculous resurrection of the body and later, as a result of Greek influences, by virtue of the inherent immortality of the soul. Salvation, however, remained subordinate to and conditional upon membership in the divine community. After death, those who remain unincorporated are spiritual outcasts consigned, for example, to the Judaic Gehenna, the Christian Hell, or the Islamic Iblis. On the other hand, salvation beyond death is conceived of as being a state of the most intimate union with God, in which, however, the distinct personality of each member is preserved.

© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Thankfully, a growing number of people these days prefer their own version of the meaning of life, and the inevitability and finality of death.  Once the ties - and lies - of childhood religious brainwashing have been broken and fear of the great ‘unknown’ dispelled – it is quite possible for any man or woman to stand proudly and live life by their own unencumbered rules of decency.  When death approaches – that same person can meet death comfortable in the knowledge that they lived their lives as intellectually free and independent human beings - unbound by the fear of fanciful religious dogma.