Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jude]

Despite the fact that this particular man and this particular argument that he makes are not worth believing, there may be some credit to the idea that organized religion can compel people to act in a, well, organized manner. Since the objective of religion is to spread into as many minds as possible, bringing people into a centralized area where they can be more easily taught doctrine makes perfect sense, from a purely Memetic standpoint.

I don't know that the objective of religion is to spread into as many minds as possible. It's true of Christianity and Islam and their offshoots, certain cults, and that's about it. Plenty of religions do not have that as a goal. Some (Judaism is a good example) explicitly do NOT need to spread beyond a certain (relatively small, in Judaism's case) population. The same would be true of all tribal/national cults, many forms of paganism, and pretty much any religion without an idea of hell or salvation therefrom (if that's a word...Firefox says it is)

Also, even assuming Newsweek sucks at reporting science, the guy's "theory" sounds entirely like after-the-fact speculation based on one piece of evidence and the assumption that absence of evidence of other buildings from that time is evidence of absence.

[chaoticag]

I'm sure he is conveniently forgetting some evidence, and conviniently picking whatever supports his. With enough ignorance, you could "discover" that ancient villages in Britain were arranged in isosollies triangles stemming from an equilatteral traingle, and then say they invented goemetry before the greeks did. (Someone said that, and then someone else pointed a similar pattern in abandonned Macy stores, or something.)

There is no evidence for his arguments, and there is evidence against his. A theory must at least make solid predictions.

[Zangi]

There is the fact that temples, places of worship... are pretty much the mega-projects of religious-minded folk. 
Look at the cathedrals we have today...

When you compare a mega-project to what is likely to be a simple hut made of wood or equivalent... maybe at best much smaller blocks of rock which is more likely to be eroded and scattered over 11,000 years...  it seems pretty obvious what you are more likely to find still intact.

Civilization(with bored leaders and lots of expendable resources) begets mega-project temples(insert other types of mega-project).
The very idea that mega-project temples would beget civilization is just... it just doesn't work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On another note, yea, religion most likely existed in one form or another before civilization.  But, that wouldn't be a driving reason behind the formation of civilization.  Though... ambitious prophets may have this as their own reason. 

The people would still only gather(and stick around) when food is available and in supply.  You cannot eat nor quell the grumbling stomach of your nomadic band with faith.  (Points and laughs at Breatharians)

Food and its continued availability/supply is the major determining factor.  You cannot make Mega-projects without food.  Look at our Dwarves...

[MrWiggles]

There nothing to support that towns were formed to build mega temples. It seems more evident that towns allowed for temples to be built. We were discussing this in the 'to efficient economy' thread. The idle hands that came with the Neolithic revolution gave free time to allow for such constructs to start.

There is no evidence to show that religion was commonality of humans during the old stone age, with out hunter gather lifestyle. Its speculation.

[Micro102]

In some bizarre way this could be true, but not applicable to the world.

How does a temple promote civilization? 7 guys haul all the stone and build the entire thing and then other people say "hey, i want to live there"?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

*Nudge nudge wink wink*

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

wink*

[Sensei]

I don't see why religion can't have existed prior to settled civilization (which I presume is what is meant by civilization in this topic). Nomadic, "savage" peoples who did not farm existed as late as the 19th century and they certainly had religion.

Religion can also be a major factor for expanding a civilization and for causing trade. People may have settled for worship purposes, and still do travel and trade as they go to worship (Mecca being the case in point).

But really, is this guy saying people built a temple, whilst hunting and gathering to survive, and then decided to farm so they could observe religious practices at the temple? Laughable. Surely it went the other way, what with farming for food and survival, then building the temple to attract pilgrims and show off. It just plain makes more sense.

I'm starting to really hate newsweek- they've a lot of alarmist bullshit lately. First the blobfish article, now this.

[Blacken]

In simpler terms, it makes no sense for a temple to encourage people to settle in one place and develop agriculture or housing, when they would already have needed to settle in that place in order to think building a stone temple was a good idea. Sure, once the settlers built their temple, people might have come from all around to see and worship at it, and some may have even settled with the original settlers. But there would have needed to be people who had roofs over their heads and crops to eat living there before the temple could be built.

tl;dr Stability begets civilisation, not religion. (Organised) religion and civilisation are caused by stability, not by each other.

Not so sure I buy that. Organized religion, at least in a monocultural vacuum, is a pretty good stabilizing force (until the inevitable schism and fallout). I'd buy the proposition that religion would be part of the stabilizing forces that allow complex societal forms to emerge. Not that it pulls them together, but that it keeps them from drifting apart as soon as they get bored and want shiny objects.

(Which is a roundabout way of agreeing that he's full of shit, but the topic's potentially valid.)

I don't see why religion can't have existed prior to settled civilization (which I presume is what is meant by civilization in this topic). Nomadic, "savage" peoples who did not farm existed as late as the 19th century and they certainly had religion.

Organized religion essentially requires some sort of stable base of operations. Hunter-gatherers may have had religious beliefs, but they aren't what we'd call "organized." (Yes, yes, the Jews were semi-nomadic, but they wrote their stuff down and had places where they kept the box that God lived in.)

I'm starting to really hate newsweek- they've a lot of alarmist bullshit lately. First the blobfish article, now this.

Starting? They've been an opinion magazine for most of a decade now. There's not much News in their Week.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

As far as I know, civilization is a product of a food and water shortage forcing people to gather around water sources and fertile soil. It is more a product of early agriculture than religion in my eyes.

[Mephansteras]

I think the thing that amuses me the most is the fact that newsweek (or the guy) seem to think that other people saying "This changes everything!" means how civilization formed. It might...but I think the "changes everything" is really supposed to refer to the fact that this site is so much older then anything else found so far.

So, yeah, it changes a lot about when we think things happened. And maybe why or how, depending on what else they find at the site.

Has anyone seen any articles about this in a more reputable journal?

[eerr]

People settle down as a small group. THEN they worry about religion.

And then they grow into a great and massive civilization if they've control important resources.

a la Civ 4

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

And then the Aztecs go to war with India in 1996

[eerr]

YES

The aztecs kill off all those immortals from the year 20 bc by sending them to soften up India. Then they follow up with horsebackriders, cannons, knights, and they either finish with elephants, grenadiers, or howitzers.