Evolution; religions from Monkeys

B

Bishadi

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Quick stop just to open up thinking and see how honest people really are.

The oldest form of observing the intent or desire of 'after-life' is by identifying the remains and burial methods of the dead.

Within the burial sites if the living knowingly placed articles for an after-life in faith, hope and belief then a belief can be verifiable by the burials of dead by the living.

Neanderthal burials that predate homo sapien sharing the living buried them with food, weapons and items for the journey into the after-life, offers much to be observed

So if we can find burials from monkey's sharing the 'belief' of an after-life then we can prove the thread opener as true.

Wasn't that fun?
 
Bishadi said:
Quick stop just to open up thinking and see how honest people really are.

The oldest form of observing the intent or desire of 'after-life' is by identifying the remains and burial methods of the dead.

Within the burial sites if the living knowingly placed articles for an after-life in faith, hope and belief then a belief can be verifiable by the burials of dead by the living.

Neanderthal burials that predate homo sapien sharing the living buried them with food, weapons and items for the journey into the after-life, offers much to be observed

So if we can find burials from monkey's sharing the 'belief' of an after-life then we can prove the thread opener as true.

Wasn't that fun?
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Burying your dead at all if evidence of belief in either an afterlife or some other metaphysical conception. Most animals leave the dead to rot (and why wouldn't they? It's not entirely *obvious* that dead bodies should be placed in holes and covered over with soil).

If I find monkey's systematically burying their dead. I'll kill them. I saw Planet of the Apes. I know how that turns out for us.
 
Pandaemoni said:
Burying your dead at all is evidence of belief in either an afterlife or some other metaphysical conception.
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Not necessarily. If you've ever been camping, then you know that a rotting corpse is going to make your campsite stink like hell. Not even to mention that it would attract scavengers of all kinds.

If you were a Neanderthal, would you like to live in a camp with a stinking corpse ....and fighting off a bunch of scavengers?

And while we can make all kinds of claims about it, I'm not convinced that even today a burial is indicative of belief in an afterlife. That tradition of burying a corpse before it starts to stink is pretty strong, and from ages past.

Baron Max
 
the idea was to simply share that if the idea of an after life can be observed in the archeological evidence, then the conception of beliefs could be observed to exist before the written ideas of the current faiths.


imagine if religions evolved from monkeys


how do you think rome would address that?
 
Monkeys would have no way to pass on such a complex idea, since they do not have a proper language. They do morn their dead, as do elephants.
 
Baron Max said:
Not necessarily. If you've ever been camping, then you know that a rotting corpse is going to make your campsite stink like hell. Not even to mention that it would attract scavengers of all kinds.

If you were a Neanderthal, would you like to live in a camp with a stinking corpse ....and fighting off a bunch of scavengers?

And while we can make all kinds of claims about it, I'm not convinced that even today a burial is indicative of belief in an afterlife. That tradition of burying a corpse before it starts to stink is pretty strong, and from ages past.

Baron Max
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Look at non-human animals and see which ones bury the dead. For those few others that do, like chimpanzees and elephants, they usually just throw leaves and twigs on the deceased, which is not likely to cover odor.

Even if ancient hunter gatherers had a semi-permanent encampment that they did not want to leave, you have to ask, what were the odds of a human dying in the camp as opposed to outside it? Why were they only burying humans and not their dogs (there are not nearly as many dog burials that have been uncovered). If odor was the problem, why bury them with tools and other grave goods? Why wouldn't hunter gatherers have viewed scavengers as "free food"?
 
Pandaemoni said:
Look at non-human animals and see which ones bury the dead. For those few others that do, like chimpanzees and elephants, they usually just throw leaves and twigs on the deceased, which is not likely to cover odor.

Even if ancient hunter gatherers had a semi-permanent encampment that they did not want to leave, you have to ask, what were the odds of a human dying in the camp as opposed to outside it? Why were they only burying humans and not their dogs (there are not nearly as many dog burials that have been uncovered). If odor was the problem, why bury them with tools and other grave goods? Why wouldn't hunter gatherers have viewed scavengers as "free food"?
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enjoyed the thinking and approach.

mankind at their best; thinking about 'it' and conveying ideas....

that is what the thread was for...........

it is easy to suggest that mankind is the creator of words and how we convey ideas... so to develop an observation of an after life or what occurs after we die from generation to generation would need a communication between individuals....

with that in mind then we can assume that neanderthal at least has some form of cognant communication skills

http://www.britarch.ac.uk/BA/ba66/feat1.shtml

food for thought
 
spidergoat said:
Monkeys would have no way to pass on such a complex idea, since they do not have a proper language.
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So how do they pass on the complex ideas of searching for food and water? And how do they pass on the complex ideas of what predators to avoid?

Ahh, monkey see, monkey do, huh? :)

Baron Max
 
Pandaemoni said:
Look at non-human animals and see which ones bury the dead. For those few others that do, like chimpanzees and elephants, they usually just throw leaves and twigs on the deceased, which is not likely to cover odor.
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They don't usually have permanent/semi-permanent camps. Big difference.

Pandaemoni said:
Even if ancient hunter gatherers had a semi-permanent encampment that they did not want to leave, you have to ask, what were the odds of a human dying in the camp as opposed to outside it?
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Grossly different! You've never been camping, have you?

Pandaemoni said:
Why were they only burying humans and not their dogs (there are not nearly as many dog burials that have been uncovered).
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Dogs, even if they had hangers-on at that time, were not viewed as the same thing as the "humans". So likely they just carried them out and threw them into a gully for the scavengers.

Pandaemoni said:
If odor was the problem, why bury them with tools and other grave goods?
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Not all of them did. And the graves with the tooks, etc might have just been that they didn't want or need them, so ....toss 'em in the hole in the ground.

Pandaemoni said:
Why wouldn't hunter gatherers have viewed scavengers as "free food"?
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Scavengers are almost universally viewed by predators of the world as non-edible prey. Unless starving, most predators won't even kill scavengers.

Too often, probably to have something to write about for their thesis or something, people will invent things that have little or no evidence to back it up. A couple of "graves" with a few stone tools in it ....ahh, let's invent a tale that early man had complex religious ideals of heaven populated with 72 virgins for each man! Nope, sorry, just writing about it don't make it true. :)

Baron Max
 
Baron Max said:
Dogs, even if they had hangers-on at that time, were not viewed as the same thing as the "humans". So likely they just carried them out and threw them into a gully for the scavengers.[/quotye]

Absolutely, and so you agree with me. Nice. The reason humans were buried and dog carcases thrown to the scavengers was that humans saw the deaths of humans as different. Now, what about that difference leads to the conclusion "so we should bury the remains"?

If the sole concern were scavengers, then carrion is carrion.

Further, I am unable to find any sources that found evidence that people were interred in the immediate vicinity of camps, no old fire pits, none of the detritus of tossed off refuse of a camp site. It seems as if, by way of negative implication, they were being buried away from the camp, further weakening the "smell of carrion" hypothesis.

I think the general implication that the act of burial was indicative of a sense of afterlife remains somewhat stronger than the odor theory.

Scavengers are almost universally viewed by predators of the world as non-edible prey. Unless starving, most predators won't even kill scavengers.
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Just curious, is there a source for this?

Too often, probably to have something to write about for their thesis or something, people will invent things that have little or no evidence to back it up. A couple of "graves" with a few stone tools in it ....ahh, let's invent a tale that early man had complex religious ideals of heaven populated with 72 virgins for each man! Nope, sorry, just writing about it don't make it true. :)
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But your odor theory, that's true, of course. After all, you wrote it on an internet forum. What more could anyone possibly want by way of evidence. Sure even you are okay admitting that dogs and humans were treated differently because one was special and the other less so, and that specialness seems to have driven men to bury the dead (and dead bodies have to be buried very deep to avoid the noses of scavengers, so it's not a slight effort), even as they tossed other carcasses away. But that difference in treatment is not, in any way, a difference evidencing a religious significance for humans that dogs and the like did not possess. It's emotional. Okay, So they keep the body and then, for non-religious reasons walk it away from their camp and bury it deep (where loved ones can no longer see it). Why? To protect it from being eaten by scavengers? Without a religious (or at least metaphysical, to be more exact) sense, who cares? It's just a hunk of meat if there is no belief metaphysical sense of the body retaining the "identity" of the deceased.
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I think it's how the dead are buried that would tell one way or the other on this subject, correct? The simple act of burial doesn't imply religious belief.

If we find monkey graves in which the deceased has been buried with its favorite butt-scratching branch, then we have some footing.
 
JDawg said:
I think it's how the dead are buried that would tell one way or the other on this subject, correct? The simple act of burial doesn't imply religious belief.

If we find monkey graves in which the deceased has been buried with its favorite butt-scratching branch, then we have some footing.
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a sense of humor but making sense too

Perhaps each stick pulled from the site should be smelled :D

So the idea that a neanderthal would put valuable items such as a spear or food pouch shares that perhaps them folk were allowing the deceased a chance to survive in the 'underworld' or what ever they called it.

Then again perhaps the finding could simply be a landslide that buried the guy during a travel and to us it looks like a burial since having all his personal belongings.

Again the idea of the thread is to share a method of 'possibly' opening a whole can of worms to the issue of where religions evolved from.

As Darwin inspired a 'song' which could allow any to say;

'why didn't I think of that?'
 
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