If God is real, how would you know?
- Thread starter Jan Ardena
- Start date
A footnote.
I conjecture that the ultimate form of apology is resurrection. If we can bring an animal back to life, by painting one, this is our redemption, for being the murderous assholes we really are.
But does this begin to explain that other deeply held myth, of sacrifice? Where does an animal's life become an offering, and to what? Did we have this belief before the age of agriculture and how would we know if we did, or not?
I conjecture that the ultimate form of apology is resurrection. If we can bring an animal back to life, by painting one, this is our redemption, for being the murderous assholes we really are.
But does this begin to explain that other deeply held myth, of sacrifice? Where does an animal's life become an offering, and to what? Did we have this belief before the age of agriculture and how would we know if we did, or not?
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
The main logical obstacle is that theism assign "intelligence" and "motive" to the gods. From that perspective it is absolutely clear that sacrifice is designed to curry favor with the gods.
If theists would drop the idea of a motivated intelligence which can be "bought off" with worship and bribes, we could have a much more productive discussion about the mathematical essence of spacetime.
'Tis a rare occasion I point so nakedly to Wikipedia, but if we attend the entry for Prometheus↱, and attend the section on, "Aeschylus and the ancient literary tradition", well, right, you will find your question isn't quite so simple.
The psychoanalysis of fire-stealing myth is, at least in its European arc, richly considered. But part of your question seems to consider itself wrongly according to even your own list of examples↑.
Consider, please:
Now, look back at your examples°:
It isn't really about rubbing sticks, or striking flint; the American stories, for instance, much like Prometheus, inherently include not simply the presence of fire, but control of fire. It is already controlled, when delivered, by the animals; it is under control when "Rabbit" steals fire for his uncles; fire was controlled and contained when Grandmother Spider hid it in her clay pot.
Meanwhile, as we cut through the analysis of Aeschylus, including theodicy, Oedipus versus Aeschylus in a Freudian context, and the needs of drama, we eventually come to this line, "Karl-Martin Dietz states that in contrast to Hesiod's, in Aeschylus' oeuvre, Prometheus stands for the 'Ascent of humanity from primitive beginnings to the present level of civilisation'," which sounds about right.
The stories aren't really inventions of mythical explanation when the ordinary one is perfectly acceptable; that proposition requires that the oral tradition understands the "ordinary" explanation that is otherwise "perfectly acceptable". At what point, for instance, was the answer to where fire came from anything like, "Oh, yeah, my dad's mom's brother's fourth woman's mom said she learned the stick thing from this hunter dude down by the swamp along river-other-river, and he clearly invented it, and didn't copy anyone else."
The Yukon tale makes a point: Crow brought fire from a volcano out in the water. The theft of fire involves underlying assertions of mastery. That is, it isn't simply the idea of rubbing sticks or striking flint; it's about the relationship with people and fire that isn't the terror of a forest ablaze, or volcanic eruption.
Also worth noting, Crow once stole the sun, too. It's part of a Yukon creation story. Much akin to Dietz on Aeschylus is the Kluwane Museum catalog entry for Raven (1976.21)↱, which tells us, "many stories surrounding the folklore of Crow deal with the earth coming into existance as we recognise it today."
Which sounds about right.
___________________
Notes:
° Note on strangeness: The Wikipedia entry on Theft of Fire↱ overlaps with Gilkson and Groves (2016), p. 106↱, which isn't noted in the article. We need not worry about it in the moment. Rather, I noticed, along the way. In fact, that text comes up a lot. Given the notes that are available in the Wikipedia article, it might be the original iteration.
"Raven". Yukon Museum Guide. 2013. YukonMuseums.ca. 11 May 2020. https://bit.ly/35OoqEj
Gilkson, Andrew Y and Colin Groves. Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene. Cham: Springer, 2016. Books.Google.com. 11 May 2020. https://books.google.com/books?id=LrvfCgAAQBAJ
Wikipedia. "Prometheus". 7 May 2020. en.Wikipedia.org. 11 May 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus
—————. "Theft of fire". 27 January 2020. en.Wikipedia.org. 11 May 202. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_of_fire
Young, Egerton R. Algonquin Indian Tales. 1903. Gutenberg.org. 11 May 2020. https://bit.ly/3ckvaMu
The myth might not be, but when humans use flint or rub sticks together it is about that.
The point of the fire-stealing myth is it doesn't explain what humans did to make fire, it explained the existence of fire itself in terms of an ancient event, often involving animals or their coercion.
As you go on to state, the myths provide a mechanism for the control of fire by humans, the myths themselves don't appear to mention any details about how to make a fire, what to use, even.
Yup.
The indigenous Americans presumably brought the culture of their Neolithic forbears with them. The indigenous Australians took an earlier Paleolithic culture, so it's interesting to compare mythologies.
Being able to create fire though, gets woven into a world-creation myth, which then gives humans living tribally a reason they exist, so a motivation to keep doing it, to honor one's ancestors etc.
That the reason is mythological might not be all that important, at the time. What is important is the existence of an explanation.
This is something we assume today the other animals don't need. I say we assumed much the same thing then, the explanations were/are about us, or about us being or becoming another animal. Perhaps some world-creation myths leave this open, whether a human can become any other animal, or once was etc.
Certainly this human/other animal interface gets explored, in various ways by humans, right back to the first rituals we invented. Probably.
I also think the fire myth was the first that took hold, pun intended. Since there aren't any Neanderthals or Denisovans alive today to ask, we don't really know much about their mythologies. These human cousins migrated into Europe and Asia well before H sapiens did, but did they also believe anything about their firemaking skills or how they could do something the other animals couldn't?
If they were that close that all three ended up interbreeding, why wouldn't they develop the same kinds of mythologies. That is, the fire-stealing myth arose well before we became capable hunters, in a very simplified form which got more sophisticated with time and languages evolved to support an oral tradition.
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Compared to your question—
"Why invent a mythical explanation, when the ordinary one is perfectly acceptable?"
—I'm uncertain how to apply that.
I don't disagree, but—
—if Prometheus represents an "ascent", as such, that ascent is a transition. It is the transition, not the existence of fire itself, the story discusses, just like the one about Raven and the sun, which tells of spiritual connection, and why people should respect the spirits of animals. It doesn't tell us about the animals in terms of an ancient event, but of a transition from some long-ago condition into the world the people recognized around them. These transitions pertain to how people relate to the world around them.
Ok well, whether the story of how humans can make fire is based on an ancient set of conditions (how the world was different), or an ancient event (theft of fire), the mythology is not about what humans can do now, it's about their past. It's about history.
Having a coherent history, an explanation, is what seems to be the overarching feature or requirement.
Rethinking this
We knew how to make fire, using bits of wood, or a special kind of stone; that represents a technology. We explained our knowledge in terms of an ancestor who stole it or, as you say, ascended and therefore changed the world, for humans. Indeed the beginnings of the notion of sacrifice are seen: Prometheus is punished, an animal dies (maybe is reborn as a human), etc.
But what we didn't do is accept that an ancestor who was just like us, figured out how to do it and published the results.
The art of fire-making is passed down through generations, but the explanation as to why humans can do this doesn't include any details of this art, only details of its origin. So, not what we humans can do, but why we can; we're special
I suppose I was trying to sneak something in, called science.
We knew how to make fire, using bits of wood, or a special kind of stone; that represents a technology. We explained our knowledge in terms of an ancestor who stole it or, as you say, ascended and therefore changed the world, for humans. Indeed the beginnings of the notion of sacrifice are seen: Prometheus is punished, an animal dies (maybe is reborn as a human), etc.
But what we didn't do is accept that an ancestor who was just like us, figured out how to do it and published the results.
The art of fire-making is passed down through generations, but the explanation as to why humans can do this doesn't include any details of this art, only details of its origin. So, not what we humans can do, but why we can; we're special
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At what point in history?
What?
Okay, okay, hang on:
At what point in human history did the offspring ask what fire is, or how did we get it? And that's just sort of a general way of looking at it, but, still, I'm thinking this is a prehistorical, preliterate discussion, so, yeah, something about publishing the results goes here.
There is something about your inquiry that seems temporally amiss, as if you are considering the myth some kind of post hoc substitute for science, except that can't possibly be the problem.
†
Meanwhile, there's an old↗ bit↗ I have about a Monster Magnet song. As said, over a decade ago:
• In pre-history, someone figured out how to contain fire. There's a Monster Magnet lyric that goes, "Place the stones in a circle of twelve", and while the song is generally unrelated to Agni, as such, try to put yourself back at the roots of mystical thought. You see the volcano, or the lightning strike that brings a forest fire. How do you describe this? Yet at some point a brave Prometheus captures the fire. I'm thinking there had to be some informal experimentation. Maybe a couple camps burned down, a few people destroyed by a fire out of control. Now, in the present day, I'm pretty sure you could find a few physicists who could describe to you very nearly, if not all the way to, the particle processes involved in fire. And, remembering that as science emerged and its definitions refined, one definition of "life" we've left behind was vague enough to include fire as a living thing.
So in pre-history, you teach the child to place the stones in a circle. Why? How do you explain containing fire? Maybe it's an instinctive notion the first times it happens. Maybe it's the result of observation. The fire doesn't cross the stones. Perhaps the circle of twelve, or however-many stones, becomes institutionalized because that was how the clan or tribe built the fire pits for a couple of generations. But what emerged, at some point, was the idea of a capricious fire god that can be appeased, communicated with, appealed to, and that can destroy you.
So in pre-history, you teach the child to place the stones in a circle. Why? How do you explain containing fire? Maybe it's an instinctive notion the first times it happens. Maybe it's the result of observation. The fire doesn't cross the stones. Perhaps the circle of twelve, or however-many stones, becomes institutionalized because that was how the clan or tribe built the fire pits for a couple of generations. But what emerged, at some point, was the idea of a capricious fire god that can be appeased, communicated with, appealed to, and that can destroy you.
Or another version, a couple years later.
• The difference is like an old Monster Magnet song: "Place the stones in a circle of twelve." Well, why? Because one will "anger the fire god" if the stones aren't arranged just so? Or because the fire will hop the pit and burn down the forest if it isn't properly built? The one is simply the other in less precise terms.
Evil spirits causing disease? Whispering temptations in your ear? It's a lot different from our modern perspective as we've gained some understanding of thermodynamics and begun to comprehend how the mind works.
Evil spirits causing disease? Whispering temptations in your ear? It's a lot different from our modern perspective as we've gained some understanding of thermodynamics and begun to comprehend how the mind works.
Meanwhile, did an evil wizard or mischevious deity burn down the world? Was there a lightning strike in the forest? Or did some Prometheus spark a flint and then die in the resulting disaster before having an opportunity to publish? And how many of those, along the way, needed to invent an alphabet, first?
I'll try restating. We learned eventually how to make fire, and that was an adoption which involved toolmaking and using. That's technology, so the science was with us then, and always was.
We substituted for the facts which are: some of our ancestors made or discovered the technology, using an early science of trial and error presumably. It's likely that, since we'd been banging rocks together for a few million years we already knew about flint.
Instead of the scientific facts we invented a myth; not because we're stupid or ignorant of science, since clearly every time a human makes fire, that human is being scientific . . .
Suppose you're an early North American human and ask about how to make fire. Someone explains that you need certain materials, and you will need to keep the fire controlled. So armed with this knowledge you carry out an experiment, you successfully make a fire and keep it controlled.
Although you confirm that the science is correct, you still believe because you're human, that the firemaking and control are knowledge that was stolen, that there's a mysterious story that explains why you just made fire.
That probably isn't how the knowledge was passed on either, more likely is that children learned about it by observing adults.
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Try telling yourself this: today, we don't mythologise because we understand science and the world much better.
Then tell yourself that Newton hasn't been elevated to almost sainthood, or Einstein similarly. These men have to be at least as elevated as the prophets of old; we know they were ordinary men, but their mental abilities, their "inner sight", are what we celebrate today.
If that's a sign that we've managed to leave the old ways behind, I call BS. It most certainly is, a sign that we still need myths to believe in.
Then tell yourself that Newton hasn't been elevated to almost sainthood, or Einstein similarly. These men have to be at least as elevated as the prophets of old; we know they were ordinary men, but their mental abilities, their "inner sight", are what we celebrate today.
If that's a sign that we've managed to leave the old ways behind, I call BS. It most certainly is, a sign that we still need myths to believe in.
Why didn't the early North Americans tell their children that fire and the secret of making it, were brought with their ancestors when they left Asia?
And those ancestors brought it with them when their ancestors left Africa?
Why elevate the knowledge of fire and its use, to a mythical beginning?
Is it that the ascension of this human ability away from its ordinary human origins, above daily existence, is the important thing?
And those ancestors brought it with them when their ancestors left Africa?
Why elevate the knowledge of fire and its use, to a mythical beginning?
Is it that the ascension of this human ability away from its ordinary human origins, above daily existence, is the important thing?
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Don't forget the footnotes. 'Tis not a proper response without the footfoots, ya'know. To the one, they're needed and to the other, we expect them.
Or is it?
Jeremy Campbell surmises that the mythical explanation better explains our fascination beyond the prosaic acts of making, with what fire does, and why we dance around fires that we can keep controlled. His thesis appears to be that the reason fire was stolen is not because humans wanted to use it. You see.
Using fire as an object of fascination and ritual seems to be what H erectus did, before other later species started cooking with fire. So, yeah.
This just feels way out of tune with what we know about history and the archaeological record.
Why didn't they, when?
That is: When were they supposed to?
I don't understand what you're thinking about the stability of that communication through time. So, if I start by saying, Bluefish is what it is, but aside from that ....
Setting aside the site dated 24 kya, the archeological heritage we can track more consistently seems to run through Beringia ca. 15.5-11 kya. So, between then and, say, 5.5 kya, we might wonder what all went on.
Why then? Uruk. Proto-writing emerged, there, around 3500 BCE, and developed into what is considered the earliest known writing, around 3000 BCE. The literary benchmark known as Hammurabi's code is dated to 1754 BCE.
Meanwhile, what was going on in between, say, 9.5-7.7 kya? Çatalhöyük. This astounding site includes cattle worship, a finely-crafted goddess statue, and indications of a strongly coordinated community. Indeed, I happen to be looking at a photograph of some deity artifacts, and one exhibit sign would seem to claim 12 kya for some pieces. Follow through the Fertile Crescent; people accomplished some pretty impressive work, and apparently without alphabets. Still, though, when the site was excavated, nobody remained to say, "Oh, hey, that's where we left it." That is to say, its communication was disrupted.
Back in the Americas, we might rewind again to Beringia; it is worth considering that between then and the Columbian encounter, writing systems were very strange questions in the Americas. The Inca, for instance, don't seem to have had an actual writing system, but toqapu have at least been argued to serve as a manner of heraldry, and the quipu, a recordkeeping knotted string, is considered proto-writing; welcome to the fifteenth century CE. Also, the Yupik, in Alaska, developed a syllabary in the late nineteenth century, CE.
The historical record is riddled throughout with blank spots; the fact of a writing system is no guarantee of a testament in history. Still, though, consider Çatalhöyük, and the impressive accomplishments in the Fertile Crescent. We know of places like Jericho because people kept coming back, and eventually the written record emerging from ostensibly contiguous oral tradition began accounting for what it could. But what in the world went on at Göbekli Tepe?
Our most reliable records of historical and cultural contiguity start five and a half thousand years ago, and do involve writing systems. Compared to the lost history of the Fertile Crescent, it seems a difficult presupposition to expect historical contiguity in the Americas back to Beringia and beyond. That is to say, how you might expect early Americans to carry and preserve that sort of informational heritage according to what expectation of scientific, or, at least, not superstitious or mythical, rigor?
Seriously:
Shall we start, then, 1.7 Mya? How about 200 kya? Somewhere in there, Homo erectus apparently figured out fire. H. sapiens seems to have figured it out 300 kya.
"Not because we're stupid or ignorant of science," you argue, "since clearly every time a human makes fire, that human is being scientific."
Really?
When, in your opinion, was fire accurately described? Evidence from South Africa suggests people were actually applying fire technologically, in toolmaking, around 165 kya.
How would those early humans communicate, preserve, and pass on the science you describe? What are you expecting of them? It would seem to have not occurred until very late. Not a million years ago, or a hundred thousand years ago, or even ten thousand years ago. It's actually a very recent development.
In a way, yes.
Still, even that is a simpler statement than you're allowing it to be. Human beings are irrational.
There is something awry about your presuppositions. I don't know; the middle post, #392↑ is very interesting, and reads transitionally. Still, just for instance: "Try telling yourself this: today, we don't mythologise because we understand science and the world much better." Honestly, why would I, because, after all, you're not wrong that people still need myths to believe in.
People are irrational; I sometimes call them neurotic. Not only do we face a question of how various people and groups communicated, preserved, and passed on the information you describe, there are also questions of their priorities in perceiving, processing, communicating, and preserving information. Your presuppositions do not seem to account for this.
Even still, there is also a complicated consideration of history insofar as we might wonder what the early ethnological and anthropological records would show if they weren't recorded by people Christian and post-Christian perspectives. One way of looking at history is that Moravians inflicted an alphabet upon the Yupik. In the twenty-first century, contempt toward these cultures would seem to persist.
We can even see the effects:
Actually, yes; I was waiting for you to be more definitive. Compared to the word games zealots play around here, this aspect of your argument hung like bait, with too many possible resolutions. And, yes, #393↑ sufficed to clarify. Part of what makes answering you such a complicated prospect is trying to reconcile perception with what you're actually saying.
That is, I suggested↑ part of your question seems to consider itself wrongly; it's an implication of your phrasing:
The word, "replaces" implies time and sequence. Applied, the question would seem to be about why they might invent a myth, "when the ordinary one is [already] perfectly acceptable". And if we consider "science", per #391↑, the question would seem to be about why they might invent myth "when the [scientific] one is [already] perfectly acceptable". For instance, you led #389↑ with, "I suppose I was trying to sneak something in, called science", and part of what you meant by that only reinforced the problematic implication: "But what we didn't do is accept that an ancestor who was just like us, figured out how to do it and published the results."
And at that point, I'm wondering if you're simply putting too much effort into a joke, or if I need to haul out Sartre, again.
Thus: "Or is it?"
Why, "elevate" (#393)?
Your presuppositions very much appear to be faulty; your inquiry would seem to require history be different than what we can discern.
Your argument seems to expect particular behavior of humans, which in turn does not seem supported by evidence.
In re Campbell:
Which sounds about right, insofar as it goes: "Using fire as an object of fascination and ritual," you suggest, "seems to be what H erectus did, before other later species started cooking with fire."
And, yes, that, too, sounds about right. At some point, it must occur to someone that fire can be used.
Think of a child with a sparkler. Now reach back to the dawn of humanity, and after the wildfires, and seeing what this consuming thing welling up from the earth or cast down from the sky can do, and then holding it in your hand, empowered as its master, for the first time. The fear and exhilaration are likely ineffable to us. But at some point, it must occur to someone that this thing in their hand is actually a tool that can be used.
Skip to the science, when?
Your presuppositions appear to include distortion of sequence, and also suggest a disruption or dearth of pathos, and that latter might well contribute to the former. Your underlying inquiry seems to require of people behavior and circumstances we have no reason to expect.
They supposedly didn't; what they did instead is maintain and relate the myth of fire being stolen, by a mythical being (roughly).
According to Campbell the mythical being stole fire because it was fascinated by it. That humans get the knowledge of fire-making after this happens is coincidental to a larger story, which story is actually about explaining human fascination or inquisitiveness with things in the world. Including their fascination with themselves.
So the actual story, the true history (fire was brought here by our ancestors) is replaced by a myth. The fire stealing myth is widespread so presumably it followed the migrations of humans (from the place it originated, probably Africa).
By word of mouth, by showing their children how it's done; the science is the easy part to pass on. Even an irrational human can understand what to do, if not why.
The myth is not science.
I think you seem to be displaying something of a misconception of that word. The science means we knew (still do) how to make fire. What fire is, where it came from, why does it fascinate us; those aren't things we knew, we didn't have a science for that, so we used myths. Nothing irrational to see here.
Sorry, I don't follow. What presuppositions do I make that require history to be different?
By what evidence?
Wait. I'm getting a beam from the past.
Yes.
The science or art of making fire, not by going to a natural fire and finding a burning stick, but knowing what materials are needed and what to do with them, is where the science that developed starts. We then eventually used fire to cook food (not just meat) and make pottery. By then we would have been aware for a long time that fire keeps dangerous animals away, keeps us warm and gives light, when the sun has set.
All these eventual scientific uses of fire, in cooking, after-hours lighting, in weapon-making, pottery and early forms of jewelry, were learned by humans who played around with fire, inquisitively and presumably, with some degree of fascination.
On the ah, other hand, fire is really just too useful that humans would not have mastered it; but the reason we did, apparently, is because it fascinates us now just like it did then.
Yes.
The science or art of making fire, not by going to a natural fire and finding a burning stick, but knowing what materials are needed and what to do with them, is where the science that developed starts. We then eventually used fire to cook food (not just meat) and make pottery. By then we would have been aware for a long time that fire keeps dangerous animals away, keeps us warm and gives light, when the sun has set.
All these eventual scientific uses of fire, in cooking, after-hours lighting, in weapon-making, pottery and early forms of jewelry, were learned by humans who played around with fire, inquisitively and presumably, with some degree of fascination.
On the ah, other hand, fire is really just too useful that humans would not have mastered it; but the reason we did, apparently, is because it fascinates us now just like it did then.