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Mythology of the Bible and How It Has Permetated Our Culture
Evolution in a nutshell.
The theory of evolution has been one of the most debated
scientific theories. Many unfortunately, know little about it.
Evolution is the theory that there is descent with modification.
Natural selection is simply the mechanism in which organisms that have best
adapted to their environment leave more offspring, and therefore spreading
that adaptation. This has been verified by the fossil record, and
genetics. For example, we are extremely similar to apes genetically.
The point of this is for one to understand that if something works well
in a given environment it tends to remain. If something doesn’t work
well, it generally will not adapt and therefore survive. Adaptations
that enhance survival come in a variety of different flavors, such as a behavioral
trait, an anatomical trait, or a physiological process. These adaptations
usually give an advantage over some creature that doesn’t have them and therefore
can compete more efficiently in a given niche. Evolution then allows for the many creatures
that you see around you. This is also known as bio-diversity.
Organization in the Natural World.
So as one can see, the natural world is filled with
creatures that have learned to survive. Hammerhead sharks have adapted
to sense living creatures, dolphins have adapted to use sonar like systems
to detect fish, birds have adapted the ability to fly, and humans have adapted
the ability to analyze. Fish swim in schools, wolves hunt in packs,
lions form prides and sheep form flocks. Each of these behaviors is
a form of adaptation that has given them the respective creature a better
chance to survive. One might wonder if this applies to humans.
What is the natural organization of humans? Humans organize into what
are called a tribe. The first humans were first seen about 6-7 million
years ago and through the process of evolution have made changes. Modern
Man as we know him today has been around for over 200,000 years. There
is relatively little difference between a man 200,000 years ago and one born
today. The human brain had the same capability to think now as it
had then.
How did it get this way? (The Origins of Human History)
If one were to pick up a history book, one would find
that human history began about ten thousand years ago. We tend to
call this ancient history. The idea that a history existed before
ancient history seems hazy at best. One of the most important ideas
is that whatever happened before ancient history, ancient history was a
culmination of whatever prehistory managed to be written down or preserved.
This has been the attitude of our culture. We identify the first civilization
with the Sumerians in an area called the Fertile Crescent. We know for a
fact that people lived before them and around them, but were not “civilizations”
because of a lack of hierarchy. So, what lived around them and before
them? Tribal peoples did and there were a wide variety of them.
Any book can verify this on the prehistory or anthropology of the area of
the Fertile Crescent. If you study a little bit about the Sumerians,
Babylonians, ancient Greeks etc., you would find a pantheon of gods and
stories that we now refer to as myths. The Sumerians had the “Epic of Gilgamesh” which
is a story very similar to the flood story of the Bible and predates it by
many years. Myths were generally pretty fantastic especially
from our point of view. As millennia passed from the time of the Sumerians,
new beliefs replaced old beliefs and the new mythology replaced the old
mythology. Sky gods were elevated to status of supreme, and old fertility
gods faded away. Eventually, one God replaced gods and the rest of
the old pantheon was reduced to either demons or angels. Regardless
of which belief system you ascribed to, the old mythology simply changed
its face, but remained at its heart the same. So, what would one say
that today's cultural mythology is? One must realize that mythology
is never questioned because for some reason or another it is self-evident.
If you were to go back into time and asked a Greek about their mythological
stories, you would probably receive an odd look with a response like “Where
have you been?!!” Perhaps if we look at what science has had to come up
against, one might be able to identify a certain belief or beliefs, which
never had a basis in reality. During the Middle Ages, Jerusalem was
believed to be the center of the universe. As was later found out,
the world was round and therefore Jerusalem was not the center of the world.
Before Copernicus came up with the heliocentric model of the universe, he
challenged a very basic belief. “We are at the center of the universe!”
Despite the fact that evidence to the contrary, he was forced to recant
by the Catholic Church as Galileo was also. Once science
advanced a little further and proved Copernicus and Galileo, it again met
resistance by the clergy. Not only was the sun not the center of the
universe, it was the center of a solar system only and that we are on the
outskirt of some galaxy, and that our galaxy was not even the center of
the universe or even a cluster of galaxies. As science further progressed,
Darwin discovered evidence for his theory of evolution and the big bang
theory put the birth of the universe billions of years ago. Once again,
science was opposed by religion. Not only was humanity not a priority
for God, but also we were descendants of some type of primate and seemed
to contradict the idea that we were created in the image of God. As
secularism spread, people's faith declined to a state of liberal interpretation
of old sacred texts. So, has the old mythology died? Hardly.
If you ask a student who has taken a rudimentary biology class and ask him/her
to explain evolution, he/she would explain the notion that we are the finality
of evolution or in other words, the center of evolution. We are the
culmination of evolution. Some have coined the term specieism to describe
this idea as a form prejudice among species. As one can see, every
culture acts out its mythology. When the earth was flat, we didn't
dare sail West because we might fall of the face of the earth!!! Thankfully
there are those who challenge those beliefs, but the idea that we are still
the center of evolution or creation still lingers. If one takes a harder
look at this belief, one would see the implications of our myth. If
we are the culmination of creation or evolution, which means nothing else
will supercede us. We are basically saying that we are the end of
creation or evolution and it sure seems like we are acting like it is.
It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that the way we treat the earth is
a result of the idea that we somehow own the earth. We cut up the
world into countries, cut countries into states and provinces, cut up provinces
into streets with houses on both sides. It is small wonder that many
religions have an apocalyptic view. Since we are the “stewards” of
the earth and given the mandate to “go forth and multiply,” humanity has
been doing just that. If we act like humanity is final, just like
the poor sailor who thought the earth was flat, we will eventually bring
about our own destruction not because a God in heaven meant it to be so,
but because we believed something that was simply not true.
What is Mythology?
As stated before, mythology is a set of stories that
have some aspect that is self-evident. A myth describes the culture like an
arrow, with a beginning and generally gives an impression on “how things came
to be this way.” It gives a culture direction. For example, every
culture has a creation story as well as a story about the particular group's
origin and a mandate. So for example, the Greeks had stories about
creation and stories that described nature in terms of their gods like the
story of Arachnea. Most of all, myths tend to justify certain behavior.
Another example of how myth can be a powerful cultural motivator can be
seen in recent history with the case of the Nazis. The Nazi's used the mythological
element of the Teutonic Knights, descendants of the Aryans, in order to
give the German people pride in their historical past and used the Jews
and other as scapegoats in order to explain “how things came to be this
way.” Whether or not the myth is true is irrelevant, since it is a self-evident
aspect of a culture. Note that the mythology justified the actions of the
Nazis. Had the Nazis won who knows how history would have been re-written.
The Origin of Civilization.
As mentioned before, the cradle of civilization was in the Fertile Crescent.
These people practiced a form of agriculture coined by Quinn as “totalitarian
agriculture.”
“The program of totalitarian agriculture is to increase food production
in order to outpace population growth that is fueled by the very increases
it produces, and this is what makes it unsustainable.” Human Population Numbers as a Function of Food Supply
One of the odd things about the origin of the Sumerians and civilization
was that for some reason it was self-evident that all of humanity should
live this way. This justified the idea of conquering. Ancient
history was an age of empire building fueled by the agricultural revolution.
Totalitarian agriculture yields famines and plagues of pests. Since
totalitarian agriculture cuts down forests and plops farms on them, there
is only a few types of crops grown. If you study enough biology, this
spells disaster since you are eliminating
the biodiversity. If you decrease the diversity of vegetation,
then you increase the chance of an imbalance. If an animal prefers one
type of food over another and there are farms of it, it can easily get out
of control. One would have a rapid increase in pests because there aren’t
any natural predators to stop them and generally insects can reproduce at
alarming rates if they don’t have any limiting factors. For example
locusts did just that. So, all this food would have only two competitors,
locusts and humans. Since the natural predators
of the locust (i.e. birds, snakes and beetles) were killed off, plagues
of locusts would form. This would invariably lead to famine and
starvation. Joseph, of the Bible, was no dream reader; he just used
some basic knowledge that the people of his culture had recorded centuries
before the famines of Egypt. For example, the story of Cain and Abel
was such an allegory. If one remembers the story, Cain and Abel make
a sacrifice to God, one of grain and one of an animal respectively.
For reasons not clear, Cain's sacrifice was unacceptable. Out of jealousy,
Cain kills Abel. If one looks at a map of what was happening in the
land of Canaan, one would see what the meaning of this story is. The
Semitic tribes to the south west of the Fertile Crescent saw the arrival
of the culture of civilization and totalitarian agriculture. They saw
that they did not live the way the Semitic tribes did. This is
reminiscent of the impression of the Native American Indians had when the
first settlers appeared in North America. So the peoples represented
by Cain were the “tillers of the soil,” and the Abels were Semitic herders.
According to the Semites, the Cains were not living the way God had originally
intended. They killed herders or rather conquered the surrounding lands.
The Cains were killing the Abels! This was the age of empire building.
And why were the Cains killing the Abels? They were justified since
the Cains believed they had the one right way to live. This is why
our history begins with the Sumerians. We know intuitively that we
represent their ambition of conquering all of the earth because after all
the earth was “created for man.” We are at the center of the world,
when God created us we were left as masters or “stewards” of it. We
are the culmination of creation, or evolution if you want to be modern about
it. Sound familiar?
Prophets
As people started to deal with war, famine, starvation
etc..., there was a growing discontentment with the way things were going.
Why was life so difficult? What was wrong? The religions of
today made the conclusion the man was the source of evil and didn't know
how to live. Prophets are all about finding “the path” to salvation,
life or some variation of that theme. They reveal knowledge that we
don't have. Our culture does not know how to live, but it knows how
things work which is why technology has advanced exponentially yet our social
problems have remained the same. So, our culture relies on prophets.
What we don't realize is that life before civilization was of the tribal
form and did not have prophets. Why? Because they knew how to
live. And how did they know how to live? The same reason why
bees know how to make hives and birds their nests, evolution. Humanity
had been shaped for millions
of years by evolution. There were many tribes that evolved social
structures that worked for them, not unlike the bee or bird analogy.
The Fall of Mankind
The story of the Fall of Mankind is told in the Genesis story. Adam
lived in the Garden of Eden. Adam was created in the image of God, but
if you actually read (Genesis 1:26)
you read that God refers to Himself in the plural. When God places the
Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he gives Adam
a warning (Genesis 2:17)
that he will die on the day that he eats of the fruit from the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil. What is curious is that on the surface it seems
that God intentionally lied and the serpent actually told the truth.
The serpent argues that they not only would they not die, but that they will
obtain the knowledge of good and evil and become like God (Genesis 3:4-5).
When God finds out what happened, He seems to panic because they have become
like Himself (Genesis 3:22).
God is also troubled that Adam could also eat of the tree of life and live
forever and so decides to kicks them out (Genesis 3:22-24).
So it seems apparent that God lied and the serpent didn’t. This story
is confusing because it seems that there are multiple Gods speaking and that
they seemed to have lied to Man. More importantly, why would the acquiring
the knowledge of good and evil be such an upsetting event to God?
The idea of trees imparting knowledge seems to come from the Sumerians.
The Tree of Life was one of the trees in the Sumerian mythology. If
one approaches this story with a little history, knowledge of evolution and
allegorical meaning, one may find an answer. What is it about the knowledge
of good and evil that makes one to be like God? And why should Mankind
not have this knowledge? It is safe to assume that God rules the world
in Biblical mythology. So does knowing good and evil allow one to rule
the world? If one looks at nature one can see the many different Eco-systems.
Each Eco-system has a food chain associated with it. For example, a
swamp would have bugs that are eaten by frogs, which are then eaten by other
predators etc… This was the world in which the early Semitic herders lived
in more directly than we do now. The emotional opinion about evolution
from creationists, Bible literalists and religious groups is that it is cruel. Survival
of the fittest is not seen as a “fair” or “just” system which is why we as
a culture tend to see that it doesn’t apply to us. One can see that
what is good for a creature say the frog eating a bug is bad for the bug,
but good for the frog. This is more or less the knowledge of Good and
Evil. Who gets to live and who gets to die. As one can imagine,
this knowledge is reserved for solely for God. This knowledge also seems
to be absent in tribal peoples although the original story of the Fall originated
with them (Semitic Herders). Combine this with the stewardship applied to
us by God in Genesis and we have a justification to act a certain way.
We own the Earth and we can damn well do what we want with it! This
is why we don’t have any problems with leveling a forest or other Eco-system
to make farms, buildings or parking lots. This story is a reflection
of what was happening in the Cain and Abel story. This is why aboriginal
peoples have no concept of original sin or weren’t aware of the “defect” inherent
in Man. This is also why the Bible describes Adam as having to work
by the “sweat of thy face” (Genesis 3:19)
because the Semitic tribes figured that such a miserable lot of people (our
civilization) must have done something wrong to deserve their situation (i.e.
The way we farm is the most toilsome process ever known to Mankind).
This also explains the lack of environmental impact found in aboriginal tribal
peoples. We lived just like any other animal would. We were
no more or less important than any other creature and therefore did not exert
superiority over other animals. The tribal peoples did not decide who
lives and who dies because they left this to the gods or God in the case
of the Semitic Herders. It was for all intensive purposes, a garden
for everyone up until the “tillers of the soil” arrived on the scene.
People had no cares except when their next meal was, and that wasn't even
an issue since herding animals always provided food and there wasn't any real
lack of food. It is the overpopulation and totalitarian agriculture
that leads to crime, famine, starvation, death, sprawl etc. The prediction
that these things will get worse as time goes on is really not that prophetic
after all. Since many still believe that creation happened we will always
feel alienated by nature as a society. This is why we rely on prophets
to tell us how to live.
Conclusion
The interesting thing is that we all know these stories, yet we don't.
It is mainly the lack of thinking that has prevented seeing things for what
they are. Mother Culture
forever whispers into our ears. This may leave one with a sense
of hopelessness, that man can’t change. This is not true. Just
like the American Indian who lived in harmony with its environment, we too
can adopt the same attitude. The good news is that we aren’t a cursed
race. We are a misinformed culture that unfortunately is still clinging
on to cherished beliefs of superiority over everything in nature. The
very idea that we have a word for nature (which is absent from tribal peoples
language) shows how separated and alienated we are from it. We can’t
be separated from nature any more than a mouse or a squirrel can be.
If we could recognize that we too are a part of this wonderful biological
world, and have always been, we might feel less inclined to annihilate the
Eco-systems of the Earth that support us. We also might not feel so
alone as a culture hoping and waiting for a sign from God or looking for an
answer to the question of “Are We Alone In The Universe?” that occasionally
hits the covers of Time magazine or Newsweek. And if genetics is any
indication of how closely we resemble other species, then our other relatives
and friends are right outside our window in this thing we call nature.
Only after the last tree has been cut down,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only then will you realize
that money cannot be eaten.
Cree Indian Prophecy