Post 5

Smoke and Mirrors, Snake Oil, Song and Dance, Ye Olde Pony Show, Yada Yada..

   Now that the women were “safely” removed from the religious arena, (that being their main route to power), the men were free to build a world in their image. The linear writing took off like a rocket, and women were excluded from learning uh……, well, from just learning in general. (No need for the dainty little things to have to dirty their little hands with Man stuff!!! After all we know what’s best! And we’ll whip this world into shape in no time at all. We can call this the barefoot and pregnant age, spanning a few thousand years of colorful history),

(Now, where did I put that Ritalin, there that’s better!)

   Basically at this time in history the main religions were male dominated, god being a male, there was no way a woman could possibly perceive the teachings he had to impart to us, and any woman making such a claim was soon dispatched with extreme prejudice.
 
   The devil plays a more dominant role and, the feminine based religions become demonized, that is, the symbols of these feminine religions become the symbols of our new devils, a convenient propaganda technique used to debase ones enemies which is still used quite effectively today. Prior to this, the closest things we had to pure evil were a few mischievous little gods to blame for our screw ups and misfortunes, and the occasional whacked out ruler.

   The newer versions are far more effective, in fact some of the male gods themselves were fearsome in nature, pulling ships to the depths, launching lightning bolts, smashing things with a giant hammer etc….

                                                                                                      

   Religion more or less served the purpose of controlling our primitive lust for power and the means we used to achieve such, (or more generally religion contained our desire to be desirable by any means necessary). But, unfortunately religion itself was soon corrupted into a tool for acquiring power, (damn ogglets screw up everything they touch).

   The vast majority of people live with a “is this all there is, there must be more” feeling and so they search for a more meaningful purpose to life. Unfortunately they tend to look outside themselves for the answer, and there is always someone, or some group, more than willing to fill the void, (just sign on the line, follow these rules, do what you’re told, and you too can get to paradise, oh and don’t forget to pay in cash). So, for the outward seekers, religion fills the void, and if honor and decency isn’t enough reward in and of itself, then the fear of damnation and eternal hellfire is waiting in the wings like a cattle prod to push the faithful along (oh and don’t forget to pay in cash).

   The interesting part of this is that earlier in evolution we did what was necessary for the survival of the tribe, or you were soon not a member of the tribe, there was a sense of honor and belonging. The search for meaning and purpose of existence had a cohesive effect and bound the tribe tightly together. Today we no longer have that sense of tribal connection, (there being too many of us to relate on that level), so we do what gratifies the individual, but even then, we do it in an attempt to belong to a group that has something in common, whether it be the same taste in music, clothing, sports, video games, cologne/perfume, religion, etc…. The need to belong, in a tribal sense, may be a reason behind the rise in street gangs, that and the overcrowded conditions that tend to foster a sense of uncertainty and despair over the future.

   Religion is still a binding force, but with so many variations on a theme, the effect is lost and we tend to pit one god against the other in a divine, cosmic, cock fight, (pun intended), winner take all. The general acceptance is that there three main religions, they share some of the same shrines, prophets, divine rules and regulations, and their holy days tend to share the same seasons. From these three come numerous variations on the theme, and these variations have variations, etc….(right down to the outright bizarre cults that tend to last only long enough to generate a respectable body count at the time of their mass suicide.)

   You have to admit that it is convenient of the gods to all have their births, deaths, persecutions, and resurrections at relatively the same time, (specifically those moments in time that the oggs and agnes’ held their celebration to the changes in nature and other noted celestial markers). It is also convenient that they share the same general commandments, (although enforcement is subject to interpretation). It is not convenient however, that they tend to share the same holy land, as this seems to bring out the ogg in us and the bludgeoning soon follows. For a more in depth comparison of the ancient and modern religions and their respective gods you can check out: www.religionfacts.com --- (nice charts!!).


   You can continue on with this line of thought elsewhere if you so choose, but I’m moving on, (AADHD kicking in), to the other Faux Pas’ of the social soirées (parties), politics and money.


  (To be continued…)

Article 4

 

 

The storm on the horizon or, something phallic this way comes….

    The left brain domination seems to have pushed its way to the top with the appearance of our current linear writing techniques; the men were taking over slowly whether from fear of the feminine mystique, or the egotistic belief that they could do it better.

   Enter the black cloud, remember up until now feminine, nature based religions were pretty much the rule, now comes the male based religions, (mostly based on ego, imagine
any saloon
                                                                
                                                                                          on a Saturday night the studs jockeying for the attention of the women, the occasional bar fight when egos collide, next time you go out try to stay sober long enough to watch the playing field, very amusing! The ultimate reality show!).

                                                                                 
   So instead of a goddess based on feminine mystique and nature, we now have a god based on male ego and testosterone, strong and wrathful, (ooh scary huh?). At this point the male based religions started to assert their dominance by debasing and vilifying the feminine gods, as more power shifted to the men, more pressure was applied to push the women to a lower status, the free exchange of ideas no longer included the fairer sex. Knowledge and power were now the domain of the men, (world’s first men’s only club?), and any woman still believing she was on an even keel was soon dispatched.

   The practice of living with nature, and the understanding of plants for healing and such, was soon frowned upon as the men asserted their influence. The proverbial nail in the coffin was driven home as women suffered persecution and death for showing the slightest glimmer of having a mind of their own, and god forbid, showing any adherence to the old religions. The goddesses still appeared in some of the new belief systems, but were subjugated to very minor roles, and at best played the role of mothers to the new gods.

   As you may have noticed I tend to generalize instead of factualize, I don’t have the ambition to research the facts, nor do I feel the details are all that important, (except maybe to the retentive and, having good toilet training at an early age, I don’t suffer the need to sweat the petty things, I’d rather pet the sweaty things).

   The persecutions, (witch hunts as we tend to refer to them), continued for centuries in one form or another, and some estimates claim the death count to be in the millions, that’s a hell of a price to pay for trying to live in harmony with nature, it seems the more “civilized” we become, the more we tend to think of ourselves as being above the natural order of the universe. Like I said earlier we still behave on the subconscious, primitive level,

but we rationalize our actions, and motives, to disguise this fact. Our disguises get more elaborate with each generation, and with each new psychological excuse we invent for explaining our actions. Thank god we have all these hi-tech toys to distract us from reality. (As Lennon said: keep them doped on religion, sex, and TV)

   The domination of society, such as it was, by the male psyche was signed, sealed, and delivered with the appearance of the more organized religions, which brought with them hell, the devil, guilt, and fear. The fear factor went a long way in keeping the people in control, and indeed, had a big hand in keeping the ruling classes under the control of the religious leaders. (A little excommunication went a long way). Now instead of land acquisition wars, we were warring over who had the best imaginary friend, it’s probably a 50-50 split over territorial disputes and religious disputes. The only difference is with religious wars you can’t really count up the spoils and declare victory, so they tend to go on and on and on…….Considering that all the religions in the world today preach the same underlying theme, it really is surprising that they can’t seem to co-exist.
   
   The devil really didn’t get much of a starring role until more recently in our history.

   The boogeyman originally served the purpose of keeping the young and curious ogglets inside the boundaries of the tribal compound, there were real boogeymen back then after all, in the form of predators, (not to be mistaken for today’s version of a child predator), let’s not forget that we were food too. Everything eats and is eaten, that’s a fact of existence, so the devil did serve a practical function, it was only when we realized he could be used on a more grandiose scale did he reach his prime.

   Oh god, more to come……..

Stage 3

So, back to our burgeoning artistic community and its flourishing religious trade.

                                                                                            
   I imagine that early religious concepts would logically be rooted in nature, sun, earth, moon, stars, etc….
   
   Which would have seemed as mysterious to the ogglets as the love affair between Archy and Mehitabel seems to me.                               
                                                                                                                                             
   Think about it, being witness to all the wonders of a world we take for granted today, and trying to understand it all with a mind having more or less the reasoning power of a modern day chimpanzee. It’s easy to see why we worshipped Mother Nature, giving thankful praise in good times, and fearful pleadings in bad. It’s also easy to see why we would follow and obey anyone who appeared to have an understanding of the elemental forces in the world. So we looked to the Agnes’ for our religious guidance and, living in harmony with nature we again marched blindly into the future.

   Some of the earliest artifacts discovered were of the feminine form, either as a depiction of a voluptuous Mother Earth, or a tribute to the mysterious life giving abilities of women, (I hope it was the above and not just some pornographic renderings by the little pre-pubescent ogglets). In any case the religion was female based and held sway over our endeavors for centuries. It celebrated life in all its manifold varieties and interwove quite nicely with the natural order of the universe. Using the gifts nature had to offer without depleting, giving and taking in equal measure, in general a well balanced religious enterprise. The female deities represented nature in her purest form and continue to exist in our time and indeed appear to be making a comeback. Yippee!

   Unfortunately a black cloud was looming on the horizon. Either the women became too powerful (pushy) or the men became too fearful (jealous), but the feminine religions were soon to face a new contender to the throne.

   Since our thumbs are the main reason for planetary dominance shouldn’t we be worshipping some sort of thumb god? Imagine the Sunday morning thumb wrestling services, the bragging at the local bar, (mines bigger than yours), hitchhiking would take on a more religious significance, as would the thumbs up sign, probably be against the third commandment though.

  I tend to think that a Golden Frog would make a better idol at this time in history. (Hey! Look it up or trust me on this one. ((((I’d look it up))))))
   

   Anyway; by now the population had increased considerably, (what prolific little buggers we were). Our verbal and reasoning skills had increased as well as our artistic abilities, so we were making not just religious items, tools and pottery, but also personal adornments, ( Oh the women were in seventh heaven). The jewelry, as such, was probably more practical in nature, and used more for tribal or religious identification, but it was jewelry nonetheless.
   The tribes interacted for trade and festivals and of course the occasional war. I should point out that weaponry improved also, being always on the search for the cleaner kill, (bludgeoning being so messy and all.) The tribal interaction helped assure that we weren’t pissing in our own gene pool, and allowed for the free exchange of ideas.


   In the big picture, I would have to say that, a minor flaw is nature’s criteria for the selection of a mate, the whole survival of the fittest thing. While this concept definitely is essential to the evolution process it tends to put us in a situation of having to bludgeon our way to the top of the hill to be noticed in the crowd. Stressful as it was, it is definitely more desirable than the modern approach to the acquisition of wealth and power using the “small print method”, or more specifically, the large print giveth, the small print taketh away, (Bludgeoning assured that the strong survived, but at least it was for the betterment of the whole, today’s method merely tends to favor the greedy over the needy.).

 

 

   The current selection process would probably have led to early extinction in the good old days. But evolve we do! Good or bad. (I think my mama said it best, when she said “Son, life is a box of condoms, open one up and somebody’s getting……”)

But I get ahead of myself, more on this later........

Part 2

 

Continuing on in a more or less forwardly direction…

   The communication phase must have been amusing, deciding what grunt, or what groan,stoodfor this, that, or the other, and then remembering from day to day what each grunt or groan meant, (refer back to the nice buzz part. I mean who hasn’t discovered the secretofthe universeonly to come down later and find that they left it behind. ). Anyway the squabbling over semantics must have been very similar to our modern day political process of appearing civilized in a much uncivilized manner.

   The women probably had a big hand in the developing language, having so much to say and so few eons to do it in. Current belief is that women use both halves of the brain for communication and men use mostly the left half, so women can squeeze more words into the story faster than men, (which is inversely proportional to the male attention span). So I imagine women had the most influence in the development of speech, although grunts and groans still work quite nicely for men even today.

   

   If the left half of the brain is masculine and the right half feminine, then women are the only ones in their right mind, (a phrase coined by a woman no doubt).

   Speech led to a written form eventually, which consisted of pictures and symbols, probably facilitated by the male need to brag and catalogue his manly exploits for future reference. This ability to draw is decidedly a right brain function so men were either more in touch with their feminine side back then, or secretarial skills developed earlier than we thought.

   The reasoning behind this right brain function is that to understand the story line in hieroglyphics you need to look at the “BIG PICTURE” to really know what’s happening, (a skill we would do well to make use of today). Women are more adapted to this ability of seeing the “BIG PICTURE”, while men are more tunnel visioned, they tend to look straight ahead and go directly for what they want, oblivious to the reality of the situation. (A quality women use to their advantage quite well, for free drinks, jewelry, etc...). This tunnel vision is pretty much a necessity for any predator that needs to hunt for survival, but is a definite handicap when we need to see the “BIG PICTURE”. A modern day example of this handicap is NASCAR fans, and the Bush administration. (A nice buzz is fine once in a while, but you gotta sober up sometime). Maybe in 2008.

   Picture writing or hieroglyphics lasted for some centuries and is still in use today in oriental cultures, requiring the reader to look at several characters at once in order to determine exactly what’s being said. So picture writing is right brained, feminine, and requires a lot of characters to get the point across. Now modern day linear writing is decidedly left brained, male, and straight to the point. (No wonder that there’s a gender communication issue). More on the linear writing and left brain thinking and the possible causes and effects of this switch from right to left later.

   I should point out at this stage that a lot of these ideas are merely remembrances (right or wrong) of things I have read, seen, or heard, over the years. If anyone is the original thinker and actually reads this drivel, Thanks for the memories. I personally haven’t had an original thought for years and when I did I left it behind.

   I will say that I read most of the philosophers who were considered “cool” at the time, I’ve read all of Joseph Campbell, an insightful though currently deceased author, and an interesting book by Leonard Schlain entitled the Alphabet vs The Goddess. So as far as references are concerned, you can decide what came from where.

     (to be continued......)