Kindest Regards, Magnetman, welcome to CR!
But let us never forget that we are Nature's supreme creation. We never evolved apart from Her. Both Her and Father Sun smile at our daring and our triumphs
At a certain level, very deep, I agree.
Mitechondrial DNA traces the orgins of all human societies back to them.
Ummm, I've been looking into this MtDNA thing a little lately. Not quite sure I agree with your assessment. MtDNA seems to show a "common ancestor," and since one of the major concensus lines is that modern man came from a cradle in Africa, I can see you implying that these wonderful people you spent time with as being the root of all humans now living, but I'm going to have to take a raincheck until that is shown definitively. Afterall, Africa has had its own internal migrations through the millenia. That is to say, the modern Bushmen have no doubt "evolved" during the time in question as have all other "lineages" of humans now living. Even other "stone group" civilizations, what few still remain.
animsism stems directly from natural evolution, Bushmen never invented it intellectaually, it is an innate part of their psyche. Other isolated Stone Groups tend to confirm it's universality.
I will grant that there are similarities among animist groups. I can see a great deal of similarity with Native American beliefs as well as I understand. I presume the Australian Aboriginal peoples, and possibly isolated Polynesian tribes, contain elements in their rituals and belief system that correspond well with what you present as a way of dealing with and interacting with the world around them. I suspect similarities with the Aboriginal peoples of South and Central America as well.
Depending whose research you hold to at a given moment, it is reasonable to predict that Pre-historic humanities all had similarly constructed belief systems, all based on animism. Somewhat rhetorically, where, when and why did G-d enter the "picture" (the consciousness of humans), and what was the result of that entrance? From father sun and mother earth to G-d the Father Creator doesn't particularly make any evolutionary sense to me.
the fact that we invested some 99,000 generations in a Stone Age milieu,
Perhaps I am being a bit, ummm, uptight about this, but the word "fact" to me has a very specific meaning that, in a scholarly discussion, should be strictly adhered to. I am presuming your comment to be metaphorical, or allusary, in which case the correct word to use is not "fact." The "fact" is, we don't know precisely how many generations from the first appearance of what was to become human until now, nor will we likely ever, barring perhaps time travel (which I suspect is impossible going backwards). Like I said, I am being nit picky about the use of the term, but expressing an opinion is perfectly acceptable, particularly when that opinion is supported by fact. Inferred or invented facts are not "facts." Yes, there have been many, very many generations. But at some point very recently something happened. Something wonderful. (thanks Arthur C. Clarke)
I do wish to say thank you for contributing to an old friend. This has always been one of my favorite threads.
I also think you must have had a wonderful experience living with the Bushmen. I find so much to cherish when I am privileged to visit other cultures, even if it is just across town. But culture is always most poignant in its native environment.
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Kindest Regards, Q!
Nature does not rule over man. Man rules over nature. Nature is at the mercy of man, ultimately. Man rules. Nature abides, or else earth dies. That is a sad fact, but a fact non the less.
Ha-Adam was made to till the ground, to tend the garden. Ha-Adam represents, actually or symbolically, the first farmer, ushering in the age of agriculture and historic humanity. The pre-Edenic Adam (6th day creation, male and female "created He them," hunter-gatherers) had some type or kind of shamanic / animist belief system.
There are a number of evidences to show S / A belief systems across a great deal of the known world in ancient times. And into this mix suddenly, "out of nowhere," monotheism springs up in the middle east. Along side, in conjuction with the known beginnings of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, crops up almost as suddenly a multi-god pantheism. Both are but islands in a sea of animism.
Yet those islands, the one in particular, have grown to control half of the world. A sizeable portion of the other half has roots in animism (origins of Taoism as I have read from some of that persuasion), and another sizable portion, Hinduism, having roots I have yet to trace.
Interesting side notes, the cultures of the Southern Hemisphere have the least "divergence" from animism, and no culture from the Southern Hemisphere has any real influence on the world stage.
Those cultures that became influential are those that adopted agriculture and / or animal husbandry: monotheism (Judaism), the multi-god pantheon of Mesopotamia, Taoist Orient and I would presume Hindu India. With the exception of Taoism, animism was largely left behind from whatever benefit was bestowed upon humanity by, or along with, agriculture.
I suppose I have gotten away from your comments. I don't see man as having "rule" over nature. Man has long sought ways to bend nature to his will, that is part and parcel of agriculture, of "tending the garden." But an untended garden will revert to nature. Nature is a closed system. It functions just fine without human intervention. It can be a bit unpleasant to watch sometimes as it goes about its business, but man is not necessary to the operations of nature.
Having said this, humanity has "carved a niche" for itself in nature, a niche begun in agriculture but now encompassing all that we call science and technology. Modern humanity, especially in the developed world, has not lived anything close to nature since the end of WWII. There have always been cities, to be sure, since Mesopotamia. But there used to be a lot more people in the rural areas, living on farms and ranches and such. Nature wisdom is very strong wisdom, the kind that country folk in general seem to have, and city folk loose or never get. Even something like the Old Farmer's Almanac, which was begun in partnership with Benjamin Franklin, demonstrates nature wisdom and the need for it in an agrarian society. How much more so it seems needed to an animist society, who lives in nature sans technology.
Besides, were it not for technology, those of us in developed societies would be lost, without a compass. We would be lost without nature wisdom.
I suppose on reflection that the agrarian age began humanity thinking about how to subdue nature in order to survive. Animist societies attempt to conform to nature in order to survive. I always saw "dominion" as granted to Ha-Adam not as subduing, but more like conforming. Pruning the dead branches and clearing the underbrush, so to speak. I realize that is not typical Christian teaching, wherein the seldom spoken interpretation of "dominion" is dominance, of bending nature's will to our own.
Nature holds nothing on man. We decide which way we are going to go.
That is fact. Politics and greed are a different matter...
I agree that humanity can choose which way they will go. They did it at Babel. Why should it be different now? As I recall, G-d's reason for the destruction of the tower and confusion of the tongues was that humanity was getting too close for their own good, that "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." Technology has always been a puzzle to me, morally speaking, in that technology is a two-edged sword. One that is all too often wielded by unskilled hands. Technology also requires destruction of nature and the "perfect" closed system. Nature too has destruction, or destructive elements, but is balanced with re-creation. Not so with technology, bent by the will of humanity. Nature does what it can to clean up after the messes caused by technology, but some messes just don't clean up very well.
Yes, politics and greed are a different matter, but they too have a place in this picture, of humanity bending nature to its will.
I think however that we must conciously blend with nature,
I think animist societies do consciously (and unconsciously) blend with nature. Since Western cultures do seem to have a "dominion" attitude towards nature, the conscious part is largely lost. The unconscious part is still there, but out of focus for lack of use. I think this is where some of the more modern pagan traditions get a bit off-track, in that they claim antiquity (Gerold Gardner notwithstanding) and by extension animist nature wisdom as source, but the approach is dominion in the Western sense. Bending nature to human will.
For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. Some Native American prophecies I have read speak to this concept applied to nature itself. That nature will only accept so much bending before it breaks, and will retaliate in self-defense before it reaches that point. The pendulum swing. The ebb and flow, the cycles of the moon, the rise and fall of the tide, the coming of the seasons.
Why would man stop a hurricane, let alone with an atom bomb. Besides the complications of the fallout, that hurricane serves a natural purpose. It vents heat from the oceans. Stop the venting, and the energy will be released in some other manner. Whether the oceans cook all of the fish, or something great and seismic parts continents further, or the lower atmosphere grows so humid it serves as a lid on a kettle, or any of a host of things I cannot fathom will occur. Nature will relieve itself, just as a human body needs to relieve itself. Whether inspiration, perspiration, blood letting, urination, defecation, nature has analogues that correspond and will be done, regardless of the will of humanity. Indeed, if these things could be circumvented, then it could honestly be said that nature is dead. And when nature is finally dead, it is a pretty safe bet that humanity will be dead right along with, at least those in proximity to that nature. Kill the natural system of the earth, and everything on the earth dies, eventually. I think much more sooner than later.
simply because we have shown throughout history that we have never been part of nature. We are the strange ones, that nature could never bring into its fold...
I see this a bit differently. We are the strange ones because we have grown, mostly, out of nature. We are not in nature's fold only in our minds, our will. We are, constantly, in nature. But we are no longer animal. We have outgrown our animal existance, but we are still subject to it. We have outgrown our animal nature because of G-d, for lack of a better way to put it. G-d separated us from our animal mind, yet left us the reminder of it. G-d gave us the means to overcome our animal self in conjunction with agriculture, yet in order to be agrarian we required and maintained our nature wisdom. At least until recently. The more we went to cities and subsisted on technology, the more we forgot our nature wisdom.
"Stone group" peoples never really left nature wisdom.
