This article presents evidence to support the conclusion that Gods creation of Adam and Eve(1a) is a Near Eastern (Southwest Asian) myth.
This conclusion is a premise in a linked argument spread out over a series of articles intended to debunk Genesis 1-11 and Romans 5.
This article is a collection of notes put together from sources that are represented by quick reference links to similar webpages to make it easy to get more information as quickly as possible. The original sources are listed at the end.
A LIST OF PREMISES AS ARTICLES REFUTING GENESIS 1-11 AND ROMANS 5 SO FAR
P1. The Interconnectedness of The Ancients - Demonstrates the robust ancient civilizations at the time and that Canaan, Israel and Judah were central to them. Discusses trade routes, seafaring, the link between whales and the Leviathans of Mythology and how long it would take to get from one civilization to another by sea.
P2. Genesis 1:1-25 Is An Amalgam of Near Eastern Creation Myths. Demonstrates the prior existence of key elements of the story of the creation of the Universe that appears in Genesis.
P3. Genesis 1:26-1:27, Creation of Humans in Near Eastern Myths And The Paleolithic Era. Demonstrates that the physical evidence contradicts the story of the making of the first humans in Genesis.
BACKGROUND
There are two versions of the Human Creation Story in Genesis(1b). The concept is the same but the details are different. That is consistent with the criteria for folklore(2) described in Alan Dundees book "Holy Writ as Oral Lit" which are "multiple existence and variation". The bible is full of stories with the same concept but different details. For example, compare Isaiah, Jeremiah and Micah. Here is a list of folklore characteristics I pulled down from a high school website.
* Generally part of the oral tradition of a group. Most stories are told rather than read
* Passed down from one generation to another
* Take on the characteristics of the time and place in which they are told, and the personality of the storyteller
* Speak to universal and timeless themes. The try to make sense of our existence, help humans cope with the world in which they live, or explain the origin of something.
* Often about the common person
* May contain supernatural elements
* Function to validate certain aspects of culture
Generally, myths are a subcategory of Folklore that contain supernatural or Religious components.
The famous Documentary Hypothesis(3) posits that the Torah (aka Pentateuch, first five books of the Old Testament) is a collection of writing from four sources over a period of about 500-600 hundred years. Genesis 1 is from "The Priestly" source(4) , and Genesis 2 is from "The Jawist" source(5) (Jawist being the German word for Yawist). Using this as our guide, that would make the first creation story from about 450 BCE and the second one from around 950 BCE. The characteristics of the Torah that support the Documentary Hypothesis are some of the same characteristics that are consistent with the definition of Folklore. Some bible scholars don't like the documentary hypothesis, but they seem to be in the minority, and I haven't seen any compelling arguments to refute it. In one of the courses I listened to the teacher try to pick apart the Documentary Hypothesis but he used "special pleading"and wasn't very convincing.
Both creation stories were incorporated into the Torah about 400 BCE(5) during the rule of the Persian Empire. There are many differences in the two stories. Some differences in the two stories reflect the time, place and theology that they were written in. The First story, written later, has a God removed from creation and does not play much of a role with Humans after the creation. It was supposedly written during the Persian Rule after the Babylonian Exile. The second story was written much earlier and reflects a God that is involved and an integral part of Human Lives. It was supposedly written 500 hundred years earlier when the Jews were relatively self-governing and self-reliant.
Four major differences in the two stories follow, but there are many others that are not covered here.
A. God is referred to by different names in each story. In the first story he is referred to as Elohim (“God”) and in the second story he is referred to as Yahweh (“LORD”) or Yahweh Elohim (“LORD God”).
B. The methods of creation are different. In the first story creation occurs by the spoken word and in the second story creation occurs by physical means (for example, God plants a garden).
C. The order of creation is different in the two stories. The first story follows the order in the Enuma Elish(6) and starts with vegetation and proceeds to animals on to humans, and the second story begins with the male human, then the vegetation in the Garden of Eden, and then the animal kingdom.
D. In the first story, the man and woman are created together, but in the second story, the male is created first, with the female made later from his rib.
Multiple existence and variation is the Criteria for Folklore
GENESIS 1:26-1:27
* Genesis 1-31 Closely follows the structure of the Enuma Elish in the creation of the world
* Genesis 1:26-27
-- Generally thought to be written much earlier, and attributed to the "Priestly" writer
-- Has evidence of polytheism (7). At the time of the writing of Genesis, the theology about Angels hadn't been developed (angels were an aspect of God and not separate beings)(8), neither had the trinity, or use of the "Royal We" by royalty to refer to themselves in the third person.
-- We can see from the Bible that the Early Jews struggled with Polytheism which is supported by Archeology.
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
* Humans having aspects of a God are common in myths whether its breath, blood, body or spit
- Hinduism has a God Purusha(9) ritually sacrificed himself to make the cosmos and humans out of pieces of himself.
- Enuma Elish has man being made from the blood of the God Kingu(10) and dirt.
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
God made a man and a woman. They were supposed to be the first and therefore alone. But we know from Paleontology that many different forms of hominids existed before our species Homo Sapiens Sapiens in the Paleolithic era(11). Therefore this claim does not fit the physical evidence.
Before you proceed any further, I highly recommend you visit
The Genographic Project, a joint Effort between National Geographic and IBM. It is a great quick and concise source of Human Ancestry information and serves as a complementary multimedia presentation for this article, looks nicer and is much more entertaining.
VERY GENERAL MILESTONES OF HUMAN ANCESTRY
Unlike our story in Genesis, the following has been derived from physical evidence retrieved by the hard, backbreaking, and mind-numbing work of millions of truth seekers over the course of more than a hundred years.
Talkorigins.org(12) is a good place to start for a quick reference to this type of information
In the Paleolithic era, climate changes caused Ice Ages which played a key part in Human migration. It caused the Sahara to expand and contract (12a), fossils and tools have been found in and around dried up lake beds in the Desert. So far three main forms of Hominid have been identified (of which Homo was the direct ancestor of Humanity), which belong to two broad groups.
* 2.4 - 1.5 million BCE:
- Homo Habilis(13), bipedal, made and used tools, butchered meat with tools, physically possible for speech but likely brain didn't support language, became dependent on technology, had greater social intelligence.
* 1.8 million BCE and 300,000 BCE:
- Homo Erectus(14) controlled fire, improves the tools, followed herds, migrated north with herds, hunted Big Game, adapted to Ice Age climate about 780,000 BCE
- First diaspora, Homo Erectus spread to Asia, Eurasia, and as they evolved crept into Europe (between 1.8m BCE and 800,000 BCE).
* 500,000 - 250,000 BCE:
- Homo Erectus larger brain size, better developed Broca's Area(14a) needed for speech, , rudimentary communication with sounds and gestures, butchers animals, migrated as far as Europe, lived among ice sheets and glaciers, tools and fossils found in Ubeidiya(14b) in Israel from 1.4m BCE, followed the herds, lived near lakes and rivers, 500,000 BCE drove large prey such as bison over cliffs, used spears, cooperated among themselves.
* 300,000 - 30,000 BCE:
- Leslie Aiello and Robin Dunbar theorize that language ability appeared in humans 250,000 BCE(15,16)
- Neanderthals(17) more sophisticated than Homo Erectus developed more or less in parallel with Homo Sapiens, improves tools lived 230,000 and 30,000 years ago, lived alongside Homo Sapiens, might have had language, certainly rudimentary communication, obviously able to survive in warmer temperatures additionally they adapted well to the extreme cold of the Ice Age using northernmost settlements in summer, made composite tools which have more than one part, but eventually died off by 40,000 BCE leaving only Homo Sapiens
- The earliest indications of rituals and/or religious behavior are found among Neanderthals(18).
-- Neanderthals buried their dead carefully with food and implements and removed the brains from human skulls. This practice suggests cannibalism, probably to gain the skills and virtues of the deceased. Neanderthals also preserved skulls and bones of cave bears on platforms or shelves in their caves.
* 200,000 - 100,000 BCE:
- Homo Sapiens Sapiens(19) - Modern forms of Homo Sapiens first appear about 195,000 years ago in Africa.
- Three groups or major grades of archaic forms have been identified
-- Early archaic Homo Sapiens closer to Homo Erectus, heavily built, 200,000 BCE. Molecular Biology mitochondrial DNA points to humans evolving in tropical Sub-Sahara Africa and is a potentially reliable link between modern and ancestral humans, "Mitochondrial Eve"(20) points to a population which we all have in common in Africa.
-- Late archaic Homo Sapiens, mosaic of different features found on surviving skulls, small bands of different creatures numbering in the thousands, more modern date to 100,000 BCE
-- Anatomically modern widely distributed at least 115,000 BCE in east and southern Africa
* 100,000 - 40,000 BCE:
* The Great Diaspora(21)- Ecological background affects, appearance of new hunting kits south of the Sahara ~100k years ago.
- Evolution of modern humans had run its course from 100-70,000 BCE ago in east and southern Africa, far earlier than Europe and Asia, Neanderthals flourished in Europe, and southwest Asia,
- In 70,000 BCE estimate of worlds human population is around 2,000(21).
- With the serendipitous mutation of the FOXP2(22) gene, Humans acquired modern language abilities and were capable of sophisticated communications(23), facts concepts and ideas, emotions, reason, planning, adapting, dramatic changes in cognitive ability.
- Two theories of the dispersion of humans. 1. out of Africa Hypothesis(24), 2. multi-regional (recently refuted)(25), DNA examination shows that Neanderthals and humans are incompatible and cannot interbreed(26).
- DNA, blood groups and enzymes show that , there is a primary split between Africans and non-Africans, Eurasians-SW Asians.
- It appears that all humans have a common male ancestor who has been named "Adam".
From the National Geographic Genographic project(27)
"Adam--60,000 ya
--"Adam" is the common male ancestor of every living man. he lived in Africa some 60,000 ya, which means that all humans lived in Africa until at least that time.
-- Unlike his biblical namesake, this Adam was no the only man alive in his era. Rather , he is unique because his descendants are the only ones to survive to the present day.
-- It is important to note that Adam does not literally represent the first human. he is the coalescensce point of all the genetic diversity found in the world's disparate peoples. Adam had human ancestors as well, but we have not remaining genetic evidence of them. The changes to the Y chromosome that we follow back through the generations to identify Adam end in the commonality of that shared ancestor. (genographic project)"
-- As the climate in the Sahara changed by becoming wetter, and dryer in a periodic cycle, animals and people moved in and out of it. Before 100,000 years ago the Sahara had many shallow lakes and semi-arid grasslands. When the Sahara dried up, everything moved out to the edges.
-- Sometime between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago humans moved out of Africa. They would have followed any of several migration options, including through the Nile Valley, across the Red Sea, and along the northern coast. Fossils in the Qafzeh Cave(28) and other places in Israel show that Homo Sapiens Sapiens and Neanderthal lived alongside each other for thousands of years.
-- During the height of the last glaciation the geography of southeast Asia was different than it is today. Sea levels were 300 feet lower than they are now. There is good evidence for seafaring after 50,000 BCE(29). The distance between land was shorter.
- Remains of early human beings from the Upper Paleolithic era show a religious life similar to that of Neanderthals.
-- Mousterian material culture of the Middle Paleolithic appears throughout the Mediterranean basin.
-- Human beings from this era (like the Neanderthals) share a concern with proper treatment of the dead.
-- During this era, the dead were buried carefully, usually with the feet pulled up into a contracted position.
-- Burials were often in the cave where the group lived or in another cave nearby.
-- The body was typically buried under a stone slab with ornaments, stone tools, food, and weapons.
- About 40,000 years ago, with the appearance of the Cro-Magnon culture, tool kits started becoming markedly more sophisticated, using a wider variety of raw materials such as bone and antler, and containing new implements for making clothing, engraving and sculpting. Fine artwork, in the form of decorated tools, beads, ivory carvings of humans and animals, clay figurines, musical instruments, and spectacular cave paintings appeared over the next 20,000 years.
* 30,000–10,000 BCE:- In The Upper Paleolithic era There were major changes in how humans behaved.
-- Early Homo Sapiens in Europe carved antlers, painted the walls of caves and molded clay figures.
-- They made exaggerated clay female figurines that appear to be associated with fertility rites.
-- Old Stone Age religious rituals appear to be intended to maintain harmony between the living and dead.
-- The end of the Old Stone Age is marked by a revolution in material culture and substantial climate changes.
-- The end of the Paleolithic era leads to changes in religious activities to address changes in how people lived.
* 10,000 BCE:
- the estimated world population was 1-10 million.(30)
KEY POINTS
Adam and Eve are Near Eastern (Southwest Asia) Creation Myths because
- Signs of human intelligence and non-specific pagan "religion" start with the Neanderthals. They include tool making, origin of speech and language and a pagan belief in the supernatural. Experts start talking about rudimentary communication about 500,000 years ago, burying the dead about 100,000 years ago, evidence of Cro-Magnon religion in cave paintings 45,000 years ago,
- Physical evidence for Evolution from one of three forms of hominids in sub-Saharan Africa, the expansion and contraction of the Sahara as the catalyst for migration, Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, the first diaspora, Neanderthals, Homo Sapiens second diaspora, and the out of Africa theory
- Micro biology and genetics advances converge on an origin in sub-Saharan Africa around 60,000 BCE
- Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens Sapiens co-existed and were not genetically compatible,
- Human Founder populations (and in general) need more than two individuals (discussion deferred to the next article).
- Stories of Man made from dirt appear earlier than the Torah in Southwest Asia and all over the world (discussion deferred to the next article).
Adam and Eve don't fit.
My speculation (which is not a necessary component of this argument, but which I am willing to commit to) follows.
Since communication and intelligence evolved slowly with the different species that would wind up being human, and the Human FOXP2 gene mutation facilitated higher order communication, and the evolving ability to think in the abstract, and humans were reduced to small groups in the same area until they scattered about 60,000 years ago, I think it is highly likely that folklore that is shared world wide, such as gods making humans from the ground, originated with prehistoric humans in sub-Saharan Africa.
Simple forms of reasoning are reasoning from sign, analogy and correlation. Even house pets can manage that. I imagine, though prehistoric humans couldn't verbalize it, they had a concept of "other minds". They had themselves as a point of reference, saw others that seemed to be like themselves, realized that something was in control of that other body. Likewise, it must be the same with everything. So something must be in control of storms, flooding, fire, rock slides, the sun, the moon, etc. In a word, something they can't see is in control. If people are more powerful than the Deer, then surely whatever controls the storms is more powerful than people.
Additionally, one is told they came from their parent, but where did the first parent come from? Where do other things come from? Well if the plants grow up from the ground, and water comes from the ground, practically everything comes from the ground, then it should be no great intellectual leap to reason that people came from the ground too.
That brings us to Genesis 2 and the making of Adam.....
To Be Continued
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Quick Reference to material in the sources. For the Quick References, Wikipedia is used liberally because while academics don't consider Wikipedia definitive or acceptable as a source they do consider it generally good enough for quick reference. Please do not confuse quick references with the sources. The sources are where the majority of information came from.
Sources
1. Human Prehistory and First Civilizations, The Teaching Company
2. Story of Human Language
3. Great World Religions: Hinduism (2nd Edition), The Teaching Company
4. Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World, The Teaching Company
5. The Bible With Sources Revealed
6. The Book of Genesis, The Teaching Company
7. Great Figures of the Old Testament, The Teaching Company.
8. "Holy Writ As Oral Lit", Alan Dundees.
9. National Geographic Genographic Project
Quick References on the web
1a. Adam and Eve
1b. Creation according to Genesis
2. Folklore
3. Documentary Hypothesis
4. Priestly Source
5. Jawist
6. Enuma Elish Text online
7. Evidence of Polytheism
8. Angels Jewish Theology
9. Purusha
10. Kingu
11. Paleolithic
12 . Talkorigins.org
12a. Sahara Pump Theory
13. HomoHabilis
14. Homo Erectus
14a. Broca's Area in Homo Erectus
14b. Ubeidiya, Israel
15. Early human language
16. Neanderthal Speaks
18. Paleolithic Burials
19. Homo Sapiens Sapiens
20. Mitochondrial Eve
21. Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years a ago
22. FOXP2
23. Origin of language
24. Out of Africa Hypothesis
25. New Research Proves Single Origin Of Humans In Africa
26. Neanderthals not an ancestor
27. Genographic Project
28. Qafzeh
29. Earliest seafarers
30. U.S. Census Bureau Historical Estimate of World Population
According to a recent report in the
London Times Online there will be fewer regular churchgoers in the UK within a generation than there are mosque-goers or even Hindus.
This is really quite a bit of fresh air to me. Along with recent studies suggesting that the fasting growing religion in the US is no religion, the trends may mean that soon this blog will be obsolete. Then again, the US has significant and strong differences from the UK. Specifically, church attendance in the US has always been much higher than in the UK, and there is no taboo about politics mixing with religion in the US as there is in the UK.
That being said, the American statistics are still pretty depressing. According the Barna group:
# 4% believe everyone is God. (2007)
# 69% believe that God is the all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect creator that rules the world today. (2007)
# 8% believe that God is the total realization of personal, human potential. (2007)
# 3% believe that there are many gods, each with different power and authority. (2007)
# 7% believe that God is a state of higher consciousness that a person may reach. (2007)
# 3% believe that there is no such thing as God. (2007)
Still, over 30% of the population does not believe in the Christian God -- including some people who I'm sure self-label as Christian.
Now the 4% who believe everyone is God ... who do you think they are?
This coming Wednesday, May 14th, at 7 PM, I'll be doing a presentation on my book for the budding
Ft. Wayne Freethought Association at the Allen County Public Library, 900 Library Plaza. If you live within driving distance I'd love to meet with you. It's to be held in Meeting Room B. The Ft. Wayne
News-Sentinel did an interview with me and it will be printed on Monday or Tuesday. This is the city I was born and raised. This will mark the first time I step forward and come out as an atheist in my own area since I live within driving distance myself. Now the shit hits the fan.
Link. Is it just me or is this a new trend? Thanks to the
Secular Outpost for this.
Link. You'll have to start from the bottom up to see the flow of things. Thanks to Ed Babinski that surfer of all surfers for this!
Just go
here, click on the names to the right to read and to rate their deconversion stories. The winner gets a free autographed copy of my book.
Inevitably we here at DC run up against a wall with some Christians and it is frustrating to us, and to them. It's hard to even know where to begin sometimes. I've written on this topic so many times before but here I am again with a different angle.
The charge made back and forth is that the other side is ignorant. Let me cut through this deep water.
To answer the accusation from my side, I admit I'm ignorant. That's right. I am ignorant. What am I ignorant about? Most things! Again, let me state this loudly and clearly. I am ignorant about most things. In comparison to that which I do know, I am ignorant about almost everything. I only claim to know a small sliver of things in the totality of that which can be known. I'm not joking when I say this, either. I really am. Okay so far?
But I don’t believe in the Bible. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in the church.
How dare I say that when I’ve just admitted I don’t know most things? Easy. Based on what I know I don’t believe. Can I do any differently? No! I can only believe that which I can believe. Have I studied these things out enough to have an informed opinion on the matter? I think so, but what difference does it make to me personally if I have never studied these things out at all and I still don’t believe? Most people who don't believe in the Christian faith have not studied the issues out in any depth at all, just like most Christians who believe. The bottom line is that I don’t believe.
Let me use a couple of examples to make a point. If you tell someone he should believe in Leprechauns, a totally ignorant person can simply say “I don’t believe you.” It doesn’t take any amount of knowledge at all to reject a strange and outlandish claim like this. The believer making the claim can say the nonbelieving guy is ignorant all he wants to, but ignorance isn’t his problem. His problem is that the claim is too strange to believe. Strange claims must have some solid evidence for them. If as a believer you do not produce the needed evidence for such a strange claim, then it will do your case no good to call the nonbeliever ignorant. That’s the bastion of last resort when all else has failed.
Just think for the moment if a scientist is trying to convince other scientists of a new theory, and he’s having no luck. They don’t accept it. What good does it do for him to call the others ignorant? The problem is his. He has not established his case.
So, when a believer calls me ignorant because he or she has not provided me what I need to believe, then the ignorance is not mine. It's an ignorance that fails to take seriously his or her role in providing the needed evidence to believe. Such a believer is ignorant for thinking that this is my problem. Even though I am ignorant about so many things, this particular problem is not mine at all.
I have repeatedly said agnosticism ("I don't know") is the default position. That best describes me. I just don't think Christians understand how far removed it is to affirm a full blown Christianity when moving off the default position and how small of a step it is to move in the direction of atheism. Even if atheism is not the case, I would first and foremost be an agnostic. But to affirm the Bible as the inerrant word of God, as one extreme, is so far removed from a reasonable faith that it just seems incredible for me that any thinking person can believe it. I know something about that claim, and I do deny it vehemently. Such a claim is ignorant on the par of the Holocaust deniers. But why do so many people believe? The very short answer is that they were taught to believe and that they are afraid to question their beliefs.
You can view Vol. I of Sir James George Frazer's famous book from the links below.
You can find Vol II there as well if you poke around a little.
Here is a link to some information from my beloved Wikipedia about the book which contains some links to more information about Sir James Frazer.
These links are to the website where the book is located.
You have several options to view it.
1. View it online, which is slow and I don't recommend it
* Internet Archive
2. Or download the book and the software to read it at the following links.
* The software download page. Download it and install it.
* The ftp site where you download the book. The file is called "FolkLoreInTheTestamentVolI.djvu". Right click on it and click "save as" to download it. Then when its finished, you should be able double click it and have the DJVU reader software display it.
The book is almost one hundred years old, but around here, old books mean a lot don't they?
Sir Frazer's theories haven't borne themselves out and have seen their share of criticism, but generally his research and published data seems to have stood the test of time.
2005 was a very difficult year for my sister. She was facing a tremendous struggle as she strove to beat drug addiction, the falling out of a relationship, and as usual, unruly bouts of Type-I diabetes. On her way home from work one evening, she saw a well-lit neon sign from the road that read, “Psychic Readings starting at $10.” She stopped and went inside the old, creaky house that had the sign. Sis made it home that day minus $63. A few days pass by and she’s in and out of the house a little more than normal, so on one particular trip out the door, I decide to ask her where she’s headed.
Now crossing brains with her erudite, outspoken atheist brother is not what she has in mind, so she puts off giving a clear answer. “I gotta run an errand. Be back.” This went on for several more days when finally, she burst in the door, sniffling, and with tears in her eyes. I followed her upstairs, and after some prolonged hesitation, she shared with me a tidbit of what had happened—she was duped by the same “madam” charlatan psychic she had begun visiting several days earlier.
Shaking my head in anger, just as I was about to say something chopping and derogatory, she cut me off. With her head still facing the ground in shame, using the side of an index finger to wipe away a stray tear running down her cheek, she said, “I know, I know. I should have known better.” “How much did you lose?” I asked. She said, “$65.” But sis and I know each other too damn well. “Why don’t you tell me how much you really lost?” I said. With gritted teeth, a quivering lip, and embarrassment written all over her face, she said very slowly, “ssssssssix hundred and ninety-two dollars.” I stood there, contemplating how I would reply as I gathered a few more details of how it happened.
This fat-forearmed, spirit-frolicking fraud, this wart-necked, lying lard-ass, toad of a woman found a trusting, vulnerable girl to exploit—and exploit she did! The moment sis entered the room, she was bombarded with, “My, my, the negative energy surrounding you is strong!” From there, it went to “Ah, I see now…a curse has been put upon you by a man and a woman you know.” With some further dressing up, it went from there to the main-course like you knew it would: “I need some money to buy sacred items from Jerusalem so we can begin the ritual and end the curse.” A little butter here, a touch of garlic there, a little dressing down below, and the sale was made! A naïve, unsuspecting person had been stripped of what limited livelihood she had, not realizing the whole scheme was bogus until it was too late. But as much as I’d like to, I can’t really be mad at the psychic! You don’t blame the croc for being a good ambush predator and snatching up the deer that comes to drink from the water’s edge, do you? No, you blame the innocent-but-clueless deer!
I wasn’t the kindest that day. The “I told you so” mentality had me consumed, so much so that I couldn’t resist the urge to say: “Little Miss Bimbo Baggins got taken for a ride, did she? I bet she doesn’t hate the skeptics quite as much now, does she? You got what you deserved, honey!” Before I could say anything else, she looked up at me, and with tears in her eyes and quivering cheeks, screamed, “I’m a trusting person, ok!”
Sis always was a trusting person. She goes through life assuming (a) that people are generally telling the truth and “wouldn’t lie,” (b) that people usually have her best interest at heart, and (c) that the spirits and powers that be are “up there,” looking out for her wellbeing down here. Well, sis got played, and she learned a valuable lesson (I think). But she did deserve to get flimflammed. That’s what happens to “trusting” people.
And hell knows, sis isn’t alone. Many people are taken in Nigeria banking scams, or “get rich quick,” pay-before-you-play programs, like those “work from home” schemes that show a picture on their websites of a young, handsome man sitting in his Porsche, parked out in front a multimillion dollar mansion as his wife sips away at a margarita next to a sparkling-blue, 24-foot, in-ground, swimming pool. Hey, we’ve all been tempted to click on such links occasionally (Come on, now! Don’t deny it!) But just like all that clairvoyant crapola, it’s bullshit made to suck in three classes of pathetic people: the greedy, the gullible, and the stupid. Now the owners of these sites and the perpetrators of these scams, they are the smart ones! They make some pretty mean money in their filthy profession too. And who are their victims?
The elderly are big suckers. They spend their days thinking the world is still a place where the milkman rolls up his sleeves and lays a carton of milk on the doorstep, saying, “G’morning, maam!” before leaving. Then, there are the sheltered suckers. These dupes consist of the young, like children or sheltered people, who’ve lived privileged lives. Some broken-English-speaking, sly fellow, with a ponytail and a yin-yan necklace actually convinces these morons to send their credit card numbers to him in an email to “commid de sum of $2,900,000,000 US doller tu u acount” when in reality, they’re just going to take what’s available in the dupe’s account and get lost on a beach in Maui. And they’ll be saying to themselves, “Stupid Amelwican! Hehehehe!” all the way there!
That just leaves the religious dupes like dear old sis. The religious are the biggest dupes of all. How do you know if you’re a religious dupe? Well, for starters, if you buy prayer shawls or anointing oil from Pastor Hagee’s church, you’re a dupe. If you sit close to the TV during a religious telecast, laying your hands on it in hopes of being healed of whatever ails you, you’re a dupe. If you pray to God to save your child’s life, and God lets your child die, but you keep on praying to him anyways, hoping he will help you through the difficult period of grief to follow, you’re a dupe. If you travel to Lourdes, France to see the famous Lourdes Basilica because 66 healings have been officially recognized by the Catholic Church, or perhaps just because you seek an encounter with The Virgin Mary, yes, (say it with me now) you’re a friggin’ dupe! You get the idea. But religious dupes are even more “duped” than other dupes.
Greedy dupes have their egg-in-face moments and get taken, but from the sting of being played the fool comes a valuable lesson on how not to get taken again! The same lesson is learned by the wet-behind-the-ears chump who started off too innocent and too sheltered in life to know any better. And chances are, even the elderly will learn to be more cautious after being victims of heartless scams. But religious dupes, they are another matter. They never learn because in religion, there’s often no obvious victim. It’s not clear to the believer that they’ve been had, and this motivates the faithful to continue to play that endless, trial-and-error game of “Wheel o’ Prayer.”
When heartfelt prayers fail, the religious dupe keeps on praying. When his business takes a dive financially, the religious dupe keeps on tithing. When Aunt Olga dies of breast cancer, despite the efforts of the “healing ministry” of the local church, the faithful keep on going with the bullheadedness of a flea-ridden mutt, getting zapped by an electric fence. The religious dupe is too stubborn to learn from his or her mistakes and give up what obviously doesn’t work. They choose to persist in the mentally calamitous execution of their insanity—they choose to persist in doing the same things over and over again while expecting to get different results. That’s the textbook definition of insanity, friend! The net result is, the religious dupe rarely ever learns from even the most painful and heartrending of mistakes. Perhaps stubbornness is an unlisted fruit of the Spirit?
Now no one wants to be a dupe, but keeping from becoming one demands that we retain a healthy level of skepticism about absolutely everything—and with skepticism comes another dirty word to some—cynicism. A healthy level of cynicism is necessary too. Even if being a pessimistic, troubleshooting skeptic isn’t your thing, you’d better learn the trick of the trade fast! Yes, people will lie to you about anything, directly or indirectly. No, people very often do not have your best interest at heart. They have their own interests at heart. And no, if the spirits and powers that be are “up there” at all, they certainly aren’t watching out for us down below (or they are, but are doing a terribly suck-ass job of it!)
Using cynical street-smarts, what should our attitude be towards religion of all kinds, including the Christian religion? Christianity is a faith that is 2,000 years old, hailing from a time when men believed in miracles and gods that rise from the dead; knowing what we know of human nature and the all-too-human tendencies to lie, exaggerate, and fall prey to the ignorance of the times in which we live, how can we view the religion as anything but a stupendous fraud of frauds? The handwriting is on the wall! Don’t be religious! Don’t be a dupe!
(JH)
See link. Andrew Atkinson said this about it:
To me your book is obviously the best single volume in criticism of Christianity on the market. It is just a no contest; I mean really, what even is a close runner up can you think of? There are many good books on Atheism, but there are none that compare to yours when it comes to criticizing Christianity. When people ask me about what books they should read on Christianity, I just tell them to wait for your book, since it is by far the best. The only one that I can think of that is even in the same ball park is Martins Case Against Christianity. But it is a bit too academic for most normal people. Your book is much more accessible, it covers a lot more arguments, it has the best chapter on the problem of evil you can find, it is more interesting to read, it refutes more apologetic arguments then any other book, it addresses more central issues, and you point out all the chinks in the intellectual Christian armor like a champ.
Atheists, skeptics and freethinkers lack their own kind of Samaritan Strategy...
To people who were aware of Colonel Doner's book, The Samaritan Strategy, which I bought hot of the press in 1988, here is a 1988 summation of it's goals and uses:
The following is from the Origin of the Samaritan Project;
Chesapeake, Virginia — Earlier this year, with great fanfare, Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed announced the formation of the Samaritan Project. Ostensibly formed to bring Christian social relief to the inner city, the project, just like the Christian Coalition, was conceived years ago to advance the radical religious right's agenda.
When Pat Robertson ran unsuccessfully for president in 1988, Florida physician, Dr. Max Karrer, coordinated Americans for Robertson in that state. At the end of the campaign, the Florida organization was so solid that Karrer and others decided to keep it going, naming the group the Conservative Christian Coalition.
About the same time, a book by political strategist Colonel V. Doner was published by a subsidiary of the Thomas Nelson Co. The book drafted "a new agenda for Christian activism." Doner wrote, "What would a Christian conservative coalition [emphasis added] in power really do about the economy, national defense, nuclear war, hunger, poverty, AIDS, etc?"
Doner rejected the religious right's efforts to capture the White House. Instead, he described a bold new plan to bring the Christian Right into the next century. His 1988 book is called The Samaritan Strategy.
Then, exactly one year later, Pat Robertson launched the Christian Coalition with Ralph Reed at the helm. The Conservative Christian Coalition in Florida became part of the fledgling organization.
The Christian Coalition and the Samaritan Project appear to mirror Colonel Doner's "Christian conservative coalition" and The Samaritan Strategy. Much of the Christian Coalition and Samaritan Project game plan appears in Doner's book. So, it seems reasonable that these movements will play them-selves out in a similar fashion. Doner failed to respond to a request for an interview from the Freedom Writer.
While strong on social action, Doner's Samaritan Strategy advocates the same moral agenda as the Christian Coalition. For example, although Doner takes a sympathetic approach to people with AIDS, he refers to homosexuality as a sin, and calls for gays to be converted to Christianity, thus "liberating" them from homosexuality.
Doner assails abortion in his 1988 book, particularly the procedure widely known today as "partial birth abortion." Now, for the first time, this procedure is close to being outlawed.
"Pornography is not just poor literature," Doner wrote, "It is the fuel for almost unlimited sexual exploitation, sexism, homosexuality, and the rape and molestation of thousands of children." He adds that "soft core" pornography leads to violence, and calls for its elimination.
In conclusion, Doner wrote, "The Samaritan Strategy is the only method that will lead us to the results we desire...we need to urge Christian activists to volunteer their time in the community, meeting its real needs. In ten years, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, it will be Christians who are looked to in the local community for leadership and guidance."
What I'm thinking is that atheists, skeptics and freethinkers can easily adopt this strategy of their own. If we did we could help people and at the same time change perceptions of who we are as people. Is there an atheist organization that sends help to people hurt in areas of our world? I know skeptics give to help, most often through the government the United Way, and Red Cross organizations. But with skeptics being the second largest denomination with a lot of them holding a great deal of money, what about an atheist charity organization complete with volunteers in the name of atheism? That would be a Samaritan strategy for skeptics. It would show people we do care and that we do give, and it would also help to change people's perceptions of us. Can this be done?
I'm looking for suggestions and people who might want to help. I've got ideas of my own on this.
See the
link. Here are some ways to celebrate it...
Use a Bible as a door stop.
Use a Bible to make a Paper Mache bust of Darwin.
Listen to a skeptical podcast.
Read a chapter or two in a critical thinking textbook.
Enroll in a class on some aspect of science.
Tell someone who does not know, that you’re a skeptic.
Call up all your closest friends and relatives to tell them you’re a skeptic.
Write a letter to the editor about Ben Stein’s movie Expelled.
Become a member in a skeptical group or organization.
Go street witnessing with a copy of Origin of the Species in your hands.
Picket a church with a sign that says: “Smile, there is no Hell.”
Please God, Help Me!One of the things I’
ve noticed after 30 years as a Christian and a minister is the number of mentally ill people who desperately depend on the Biblical promises and myths to give their life meaning.
When my high school psychology class visited the state metal hospital, I remember seeing many of the patients with Bibles and one patient grabbing hold of my arm and telling how wonderful Jesus had been to him. Before I graduated, I knew a boy name Rusty J. who, as a Baptist, would have wide mood swings from one month, trying to save every student in the school, to the next month cussing like a drunken sailor and picking fights.
Mentally instable people who are charismatic cult leaders have caused true believers to murder as well as commit mass suicide. A example of the former was the 1969 murders of 7 people in by the Charles Manson “family” based on his reading of the book of Revelation mixed with the Beatle’s song Helter Skelter to create a theology Manson construed to being the end times with an apocalyptic race war that the murders were intended to precipitate leaving Manson and his “family” to lead the new world order.
But the Bibles has given the mentally ill illusions of messianic grandeur, be it Jim Jones founder of the Peoples Temple who (full of drugs and Biblical ideals) lead 913 people including 276 child into his view of Heaven where all the believers would be waiting after everyone left this evil world with strychnine laced Kool-Aid.
Then there is the mental messianic figure of David Koresh whose 1993 understanding of Daniel and Revelation drawn from his theology rooted in Branch Davidian Biblical hermeneutics convinced 76 people (17 of which were held under the age of 12) were either forced to stay (the children) or stayed freely in a Biblical apocalyptic and prophetic end to history in Waco, Texas.
In 1997 a San Diego, Calf. Heaven's Gate Cult lead by Marshall Applewhite got ready to ride to Heaven in a space ship coming to get them behind the Comet Hale-Boop since, Applewood claimed that it was the “Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled”. They purified themselves in the food they ate and six male members had even castrated themselves (Matt. 19: 12). Wikipedia states: “In preparing to kill themselves, members of the group drank citrus juices to ritually cleanse their bodies of impurities. The suicide was accomplished by ingestion of Phenobarbital mixed with vodka, along with plastic bags secured around their heads to induce asphyxiation. They were found lying neatly in their own bunk beds, with their faces and torsos covered by a square, purple cloth. Each member carried five dollars in quarters in their pockets. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweat pants, brand new black-and-white Nike tennis shoes, and armband patches reading "Heaven's Gate Away Team." The suicides were conducted in shifts, and the remaining members of the group cleaned up after each prior group's death.”
While group suicide cults have often held the news headlines, personal religious mental illness has left its mark too. Such was the case of a 1982 high school valedictorian Andrea Yates, who, in June 2001 killed all five of her children by drowning the in a bathtub explained her “Christian action” to her jail psychiatrist, "It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren't righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell."(Wikipedia)
Just to night on the new here in South Carolina, a Florence 18 year old high school youth “Schallenberger was arrested April 19. Authorities say he bought materials to make several bombs and had written a journal detailing his plans to attack Chesterfield High School. The teen faces several state and federal charges, including attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. That charge carries a possible life sentence if he is convicted.” (The Greenville News). When asked why he was planning to kill his classmates, he said so he could go to Heaven, stand before Jesus at the judgment at which time he would kill Jesus also.
While the Bible can inspired everything form Holy Rollers to Mountain Snakes Handlers to Faith Healers to Satan Worshipers, it has a very profound affect on the mentally unstable. It is at just such a juncture that the freedom to worship as one’s conscience dictates can mean the difference between life and death, not only for the cults true believer, but for innocence adults and children as well.
This Article covers Genesis 1:1-25 and compares it to older pre-existing Near Eastern creation myths of the universe and earth.
Using the principle that the greater civilization influences the lesser, this series of articles intends to falsify the claim that the Torah was given to moses by God and to show how syncretism(1) blended folklore(2) in the Ancient Near East and South-Southwest Asia as a result of the interconnectedness of the Ancients which was discussed in the first article of this series Interconnectedness of the Ancients(3).
This article begins with some historical background information intended to show that key elements of Hebrew scripture existed in several areas of the Near East and Southwest Asia prior to being Incorporated into scripture. Once the background information has been presented, it uses Genesis 1:1-25 as its point of reference. Because the focus of this article is the book of Genesis, it overlooks many similarities between the Egyptian(4), Mesopotamian(5) and Hindu(6) religions that are not incorporated into Judaism(7), and it overlooks aspects of the other religions that share concepts with Christianity(8) which came much later. It is my assertion that the more popular religions in the Near East borrowed from each other.
BACKGROUND: SOME IMPORTANT CIVILIZATIONS AND EVENTS
A list of Important Civilizations and events follows. I could not list all of the most important ones (such as the city-states) because I wanted to keep the article as short as possible. I tried to make a "snapshot" estimation of the positions of the largest civilizations to each other on the map. I recommend you scroll down and open the map at the bottom of the article in another window so you can reference it as you follow along. The map is meant to represent "initial conditions" of the LARGEST civilizations at the start of the second millennium and ignore the smaller nomadic, mountain and Arabian tribes present in the area. For example, the Persians lived in the mountains of Iran as early as 3000 BCE but they weren't organized to any significance.
* 8000 - 500 BCE - Vedic Religion in the Indus Valley
* 5000 - 300 BCE - Mesopotamia
* 4000 BCE - Estimation of the creation of the world as calculated according to Hebrew Scripture.(39)
* 4300-3300 BCE - Southern Levant, Canaan. The Ghassulian period created the basis of the Mediterranean economy which has characterised the area ever since. This region was also the natural battleground for the great powers of the region and subject to domination by adjacent empires, beginning with Egypt in the late 3rd millennium (3000-2000) BCE. Although Neanderthals (from 200,000 BCE) and Homo Sapiens Sapiens (from as early as 75,000 BCE) occupied the same territory for thousands of years, it can't be classified as a civilization.(11)
* 3650 - 1100 BCE - Minoans (9)
* 3500 - 2000 BCE Sumer
* 3100 BCE Egyptian and Sumerian Languages develop.(18)
* 3150 - 31 BCE - Egypt and their Myths
* 3000 - 1500 BCE - Indus Valley (10)
* 2400 - 612 BCE - Assyria
* 2350 BCE - Traditional date for the global flood
* 2300 - 2100 BCE - Akkadian
* 2300 - 1000 BCE - Indo-Iranians, Andronovo (12)
* 2250 BCE - Traditional date for the tower of Babel and the catalyst for the differentiation of all the languages of the world.
* 1959 - 1659 BCE Babylonia
* 1920 BCE - Traditional date for when Abraham was approached by God.
* 1750 - 1180 BCE - Hittites (13)
* 1700 - Enuma Elish created
* 1550 - 1060 BCE - Mycenaean (14)
* 1550 - 1450 BCE - Moses traditionally thought to have lived
* 1500 - Exodus?
* 1150 - 1020 BCE David traditionally believed to have lived.
* 900 BCE - According to the Documentary Hypothesis, thought to be when the Jawist scriptures were written.
* 700 BCE to 1935 CE - Persia until it became Iran. (15)
- During the Second Millennium, when Abraham showed up, the Near East was a busy place. Here is a proposed map of 1300 BCE I presume done by a historian of sorts.(17). In The Second Millennium Indo-Aryans migrated into the the Indus valley(19). They brought with them the Sanskrit language and the Vedas. The Hindus up until the the Buddha (between 500-400 BCE) were very ethnocentric and concerned with ritual cleanliness. Only the priests knew the scriptures, they were called Brahmins, and were the source of this ethnocentrism. Their culture was more pastoral, less violent. I mention this because I notice many similarities between Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity and because to get to Mesopotamia from the Indus Valley, it would only take a little over a month of traveling along the coast on a raft. There has been discussion for over a century about the Hindu Origin of the Abrahamic religions(42).
OBVIOUS INCONSISTENCIES BETWEEN HISTORY AND THE BIBLE
- The Agricultural revolution was already underway in Mesopotamia when scripture says the world was created and human beings had already spread all over the world, even to the Polynesian Islands.
- Commerce and exploration by sea was already underway by the time of the Global Flood. Sea worthy ships capable of carrying cargo already existed and probably could have carried a crew with enough supplies to last a little over a month (or up to 40 days).
- There were already a multitude of languages by the time the Tower of Babel was destroyed.
BACKGROUND: TRAVEL TIME BY SEA VIA COAST OR OPEN SEA
Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian explorer, set out to test his theory that South Americans had populated Polynesia using rafts(20). He was investigating reports from Spanish explorers to Peru that had been told legends about a "white race" that had been routed and escaped to the west on rafts. Heyerdahl theorized that they wound up in Polynesia and settled there. He made a raft to second millennium specifications which he named Kon-Tiki, set sail and after a 101 day, 4,300 mile (7,000 km) journey across the Pacific Ocean, Kon-Tiki smashed into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. Using Kon-Tiki's voyage as a baseline, 43 miles a day or roughly two miles an hour, comes out to about 1.5 knots an hour. To get from Oman to the Indus Valley which is 439 miles at 1.5 knots would be 12.19 days open ocean (http://www.dataloy.com/).
It would take a little over a month or up to 40 days to go from the Indus Valley to Mesopotamia.
Persian Gulf properties(21)
* Max length - 989 km
* Max width - 56km
* Average depth - 50m
* Max depth - 90m
Gulf of Oman(22)
* Width: ~230 mi (370 km),
* Length: ~340 mi (545 km) long.
It connects with the Persian Gulf through the shallow Strait of Hormuz.
It would take a little over a month or up to 40 days to go from the lower Red Sea to the upper red sea.
Red Sea Properties(23)
* Length: ~2,250 km (1,398.1 mi) - 79% of the eastern Red Sea with numerous coastal inlets
* Maximum Width: ~ 306–355 km (190–220 mi)– Massawa (Eritrea)
* Minimum Width: ~ 26–29 km (16–18 mi)- Bab el Mandeb Strait (Yemen)
* Average Width: ~ 280 km (174.0 mi)
* Average Depth: ~ 490 m (1,607.6 ft)
* Maximum Depth: ~2,211 m (7,253.9 ft)
And using the length of the Red Sea as a standard, and a ruler, you can see for yourself that the distance from the coast of Africa to the Indus Valley would take a little over a month or up to 40 days.
And by the same standard, to get from Mycenea to Canaan, would be 15-20 days.
NEAR EASTERN CREATION MYTHS
A list of common themes in Near Eastern and South-Southwest Asian creation myths(24) follows.
1. Some Gods pre-exist, or self-create.
2. Creation is done by acting on some sort of primordial matter, in a state of chaos, which is often represented by the Sea. The Sea is big, uncertain, frightening, unmanageable, destructive and a source of chaos.
3. Creation is done through conflict, between god and chaos where chaos is represented as some sort of sea monster. The God kills the chaos monster uses the body of the monster to create the ordered cosmos. The God and the chaos monster exist before everything else. In the Old Testament in Job(25), a Leviathan(26) is discussed and it is a sea monster which God can and does overpower.
4. Creation is the result of a Sexual act. Gods in human form have sex and make other gods. Sometimes Gods have sex with Humans.This type of thing happens in Greek and Egyptian mythology. In the Enuma Elish(27,28), Gilgamesh was part God part human, and went on to be king. It turns out there was Historical Gilgamesh. Obviously the kings name was inserted in the story to Legitimate him. In the old testament we have mention of the Heroes of old (Nephilum)(29) that were the result of supernatural beings mating with human women.
5. Creation is the result of spoken word identifying and controlling the essence. It requires only a single god. In ancient languages, breath, wind and spirit were conveyed by single word. In Hebrew scriptures god spoke the universe into existence, breathing out a word giving it spirit, giving it life. In Greek, the Logos existed prior to all things and in Hindu, the God spoke the Universe into existence with the word AUM(33).
Egyptian Creation stories seem to be indigenous to a City or Region. They can be found in books about creation myths or online(41). Because of their age, they have been modified to fit the culture that used them and are frequently contradictory. The best known Mesopotamian creation story comes from the Enuma Elish(27,28) of which versions have been found in Canaan, and in modern day Iraq and was very well known in that area. Variations of portions have been found in many more places. Hindu Creation Stories come from the Vedas and were evidently a composite of pre-existing Indus Valley civilization and immigrant Central Asian people commonly known as the Aryans. Hindu scriptures (Vedas) are so old that they have been modified as they were used by groups and therefore are sometimes contradictory.
SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT DATES IN NEAR EAST RELIGION
* 8000 - 500 BCE - Vedic Religion in the Indus Valley
* 3150 - 31 BCE - Egypt and their Myths
* 1700 - Enuma Elish created
* 1550 - 1450 BCE - Moses traditionally thought to have lived, creation of the the Torah.
GENESIS 1:1-25
* Egypt - Some Gods like Atum(30), Ptah(31), Amun(32) pre-existed.
-- Amun was believed to be not only king of the gods but also the divine essence found in all gods.
-- Amun is understood as “self-generated,” active in creation as the impulse of creative energy prompting the Ogdoad (a group of four pairs of gods and goddesses) into action.
* Hindu - The God Vishnu was pre-existant, grew a lotus flower from his belly and from that was born the God Brahma who created the other Gods.
* Mesopotamia - Enuma Elish begins with three uncreated Gods, the God Apsu, his consort Tiamat, and Mummu.
* Jewish - God pre-existed or was self-created
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
* The Universe and Earth were created by the Gods acting on some primordial matter, in a state of chaos. Common representations of Evil were the dark, chaos, and the sea because of its unmanageable nature, it potential for destruction, the fact that salt water wasn't drinkable and the Hebrews weren't sea faring people so they didn't understand the fundamental characteristics of the sea. Breath, wind and spirit were conveyed by a single word.
* Egyptian - Amun created the Ogdoad and they were the agents of creation. The Ogdoad existed initially as entities within the primordial sea.
-- Before creation Nun (Primordial chaotic waters) already existed as a principle of chaos.
* Hindu - The Golden Seed incubated on the waters of chaos
* Mesopotamian - Tiamat is a body of water, the bitter sea waters that support the earth.
-- Like the waters of the abyss, Tiamat is formless and exerts power without purpose.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
* Egyptian- Ptah was worshiped from the early dynastic era, but his role as the patron of artisans (for example, carpenters, woodworkers) came later. Ptah creates by speaking a word, giving spirit to a divine idea and “breathing” it into being.
* Hindu - Some Hindus believe that the universe created from Sound. The sound was AUM(33). Each letter is the sound of a God. It is the sound of the three foundational gods, the Trimurti(40), ("The Great Trinity" Brahma(34), Shiva(35) and Vishnu(36)) as One. Three gods make up one which is similar to the Christian idea of the Trinity. In reading the Vedas, ancient Hindu scripture, it is customary to start with the word AUM and end with the world AUM. Similar to the Christian word and usage of Amen. Sound is very important to the Hindu gods. Similar to Logos, it regulates moral order, ritual, morality. Sound and Ritual ceremony was connected to the cosmic structure, morality and moral activity. The Vedas(37), were a collections of prayers, wisdom literature (but not stories like the Old Testament) that could only be handled by Brahmin(38) (Priests) and were thought to be lethal to non-priests. The ears of a non-priest would burn if they came in contact with their sounds. In the beginning, it was considered heresy to try to capture the Vedas in writing, however, the influx of outsiders and the potential for their corruption caused someone to write them down. The Vedas were not written down until around 600 BCE and not translated into English until the 18th or 19th centuries.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
And now we have the ordering and organization of things which follows closely the order or creation in the Enuma Elish.
4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
* Egyptian - A few myths cover this in different ways. Geb and Nut were separated to make the earth and the sky.
* Hindu - They have few myths that cover this it different ways. The golden egg separated and each have half made the the earth and the sky. Or one of the Gods bodies was sacrificed (concept similar to Mesopotamian god that was killed to make people and the Christ that was sacrificed for the benefit of humans) and divided up to make the earth, cosmos and people.
* Mesopotamian - Finally, Marduk smashes Tiamat’s (waters of Chaos) head and splits her body in two to form the heavens and earth.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water."
7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.
8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
Egyptian - In the midst of Nun, Atum stood on the Benben, a primeval pyramidical hill that arose out of the waters
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so.
10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
At this point (Genesis 11-25) God created the rest of the vegetation, animals, sun, moon, and Man. The Hebrew scriptures diverge with the Egyptian and Mesopotamian gods and their more violent, less nurturing natures. The Hebrew God is more like the Hindu gods in that he is more part of the creation, has created the cosmos for humans, however the Hebrew god is not as much a part of creation as the Hindu Gods.
Myths are a reflection of the culture they belong to. The remarkable thing about the Indus Valley Civilizations are the lack of weapons relative to Mesopotamia and Egypt. They seem to be a more peaceful people. In the Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths man is created as lowly, flawed, subservient and savage by design. The creation of Humans will be covered in the next article.
CREATION MYTHS OF CONFLICT EMBEDDED IN THE BIBLE
In Job, Isaiah and Psalms there are characteristic elements of the conflict type of Creation story embedded. Since there is evidence of water-borne trade starting around 4000 BCE, It seems that sailors saw whales and relayed information about them that made their way into creation myths. The description in Job is similar to characteristics of commercial whaling. The description in Isaiah and Psalm 74:14 is more similar to creation myths, and Psalm 104:26 seems to describe a whale.
* Book of Job 3:8 "May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan "; NIV
* Book of Job 41
* Isaiah 27:1: "In that day,
the LORD will punish with his sword,
his fierce, great and powerful sword,
Leviathan the gliding serpent,
Leviathan the coiling serpent;
he will slay the monster of the sea." NIV
* Psalms 74:14: It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert. NIV
* Psalms 104:26: 26 There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. NIV
This brings us to the creation of Man in Genesis 1:26.
To be continued......
"Snapshot" of Ancient Civilizations in the second millennium (2000 - 1000 BCE)
Land and Sea routes between the Civilizations
Quick Reference to material in the sources. For the Quick References, Wikipedia is used liberally because while academics don't consider Wikipedia definitive or acceptable as a source they do consider it generally good enough for quick reference. Please do not confuse quick references with the sources. The sources are where the majority of information came from.
1. Syncretism
2. Folklore
3. interconnectedness of the Ancients
4. Ancient Egypt
5. Mesopotamia
6. Hinduism
7. Judaism
8. Christianity
9. Minoans
10. Indus Valley Civilization
11. Southern Levant
12. Indo-Iranians
13. Hittites
14. Myceneans
15. Persia
16. Abraham
17. Eastern Hemisphere 1300BCE
18. List of Languages by first written accounts.
19. Indo-Aryan Migration
20. Thor Heyerdahl; Kon-Tiki
21. Persian Gulf
22. Gulf of Oman
23. Red Sea
24. Common Themes in Creation Myths
25. Job
26. Leviathan
27. Enuma Elish
28. Enuma Elish Text
29. Nephilum
30. Atum
31. Ptah
32. Amun
33. AUM
34. Brahma
35. Shiva
36. Vishnu
37. Vedas
38. Brahmin
39. Blue Letter Bible Chrono-Genealogical Table
40. Trimurti
41. Egyptian Myths
42. Hindu Origins of Abrahamic Religions
Sources
1. Human Prehistory and First Civilizations, The Teaching Company
2. Great World Religions: The Religions of India, The Teaching Company
3. Great World Religions: Hinduism (2nd Edition), The Teaching Company
4. Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World, The Teaching Company
5. Ancient Near Eastern Mythology, The Teaching Company
6. The Book of Genesis, The Teaching Company
7. Great Figures of the Old Testament, The Teaching Company.
8. History 4A_ The Ancient Mediterranean World - Fall 2007, University of Berkeley
8. The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers
9. Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition, The Teaching Company
RELATED INFORMATION
Joseph Campbell books on Amazon
The Early History of God, Mark Smith
Ancient Ships
* Maritime history - Wikipedia, the free encyclop...
* ancient ships
* Archaeology team helps find oldest deep-sea shipwrecks HarvardScience
* Ancient Egypt: Ships and Boats
* Ancient Phoenician Ships, Boats and Sea Trade
* early ways of navigating sea
Whale information
* Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) - Office of Protected Resources - NOAA Fisheries
Monsoons
* Monsoon African Connections: An ... - Google Bo...
* 538bc monsoon
Ancient History
* Ancient history
* First dynasty of Egypt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ancient Prehistory
* archaeolink.com archaeology, anthropology, social studies, general knowledge
* Evolution of Modern Humans: Early Modern Homo sapiens
* Hominid Species
Behavior
* Novelty Seeking Study
* NOVELTY SEEKING e-Review of Tourism Research
Interconnectedness of the Ancients
* Early Modern Homo sapiens
* Prisoners Dilemma
* Sea Level
* Monsoon Winds
* Ancient Sea Exploration
* Second Millenium shipwreck
* Whales Arabian Gulf
* Whales Turkey and Greece
* Whales Coast of Oman
* Leviathan
* Syncretism
* Creation Myths
Foundational Study, recommended reading
Cognition
- Influence: Science and Practice (4th Edition) by Cialdini, Robert
- Persuasion: Theory and Research (Current Communication) by O'Keefe, Daniel J.
- How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn
- Innumeracy : Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Social Consequences by John Allen Paulos
- Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Popular Science) by Martin Gardener
- Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
- Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought by David H. Fischer
- Conquering Deception by Nance, Jef
- General Psychology course from Berkeley
- Self and Society by John P Hewitt
- How We Know What Isn't So by Gilovich, Thomas
Christianity
- Evidence that Demands a Verdict Vol. 1 by Josh McDowell
- Evidence that Demands a Verdict Vol. 2 by Josh McDowell
- More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell
- Biblical Errancy: A Reference Guide by C. Dennis McKinsey
- Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures by Joe Nickell
- Mysterious Realms: Probing Paranormal, Historical, and Forensic Enigmas by Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer
Folklore
- Folklore in the Old Testament by Frazer by James George
- Gospel Fictions by Helms, Randel
- Holy Writ as Oral Lit : The Bible as Folklore by Dundes, Alan
- Old Testament Parallels (Fully Expanded and Revised) by Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin
- Don't Know Much About Mythology by Kenneth C. Davis
History
- The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin by Neil Asher Silberman and Israel Finkelstein
- The Bible with Sources Revealed by Friedman, Richard E.
- The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel by Mark S. Smith
- The Historical Jesus & the Mythical Christ by Massey, Gerald
- The Secret Origins of the Bible by Tim Callahan
On August 6, 1945 the United States Air Force detonated a nuclear weapon over the city of Hiroshima. 140,000 people died in the blast, many of whom were immediately vaporized into their constituent atoms, leaving no remains at all. Yet a majority of Christians in the US believe that those victims of the bombing will one day be made whole and stand in judgment before God. A majority of Christian Americans believe in a God so powerful he can reconstruct the exact DNA and protein sequences of each of those bodies, in exactly the form they were in at the moment before they died in that blast.
Yet a sizable number of commenters on this blog seem to believe this powerful God, who is keeping track of the DNA sequences of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the certainty of a future resurrection at some date uncertain, is unwilling to heal a girl of diabetes, or meningitis. They believe he can't even make the common cold go away, or clear up a horrendous case of warts. This incongruity is rarely pointed out, and making it more explicit is what I will try to do in this post.
Christianity is based on the belief that a man, Jesus, lived and died. Christians to some degree or another also believe that this man was divine, most believing that he was the God of the universe in human flesh. In addition, most Christians further argue that this man's life was sinless, and that by his death, Christians can escape the consequences of their sin. Most also assert that his resurrection is the evidence for a future resurrection of all mankind. Thus, most Christians believe that God will, at some point, bring all the dead humans who have ever existed back to life.
Thus, when we discuss issues about prayer and healing, the assertion that God can do nothing about sickness, suffering and pain on earth is a perfectly reasonable assertion to make if there were no future resurrection. For instance, a Deist can hold to this position with no logical contortions. Certain Jews such as the Sadducees could reasonably hold to this, since again, they do not believe the human exists again after his death.
For the bulk of believers though, and here I mean those who accept Jesus' resurrection as a historical fact and those who believe in a future resurrection, the inaction of God in the face of suffering has to be deliberate. For Christian believers, the argument that God is somehow hamstrung from acting to heal the sick flies directly in the face of the miracles of Jesus. Even after Jesus' death, the Bible is full of stories of wondrous healings on the part of the apostles, none of whom felt it was necessary to hold back from helping the sick because it would leave them without free will.
The modern concept of free will is not mentioned in the Bible. It's an ex post facto justification for the modern finding that faith healing doesn't happen. Even medieval Christians firmly believed God healed the sick. The relic of the "one true cross" was determined to be such because it had the power to heal the sick when it touched them. There was no begging for the wonders of free will to be manifest in the lives of those supposedly healed by it. In France, the touch of the king was believed to heal scrofula, and this was due to the king's proximity to the deity, yet nobody in France complained that the king was violating the free will of those who were healed.
No. This free will defense is weak tea, the only leftovers of a warmed-up, thrice picked-over last meal. But again, think of the victims of Hiroshima. They are spread throughout the ecosystem now after they were thrown up into the atmosphere by the cloud of gas that flew up from the city. Yet their free will had nothing to do with their vaporization. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. My explanation for the facts is simple: the victims of Hiroshima, and all other people who ever died, are dead now, and will remain so. My explanation fits all available facts.
Some Christians may adopt the idea that the resurrection will not be one of bodies, but only one of spirit. I applaud them for this, but then the conundrum of Christianity grows even deeper. For if the resurrection of the dead does not entail the reconstruction of their bodies, why was it necessary for Jesus to be resurrected at all? After all, sacrifices given by the Israelites prior to Jesus were of animals, and God did not need to resurrect those sacrificed animals for the deaths to be atoning. In fact, the bodily resurrection of Jesus makes the atonement suspect, for all Jesus really did was experience the absence of cellular activity for something like 36 hours. Is this really such torture?
To hold the position that the cessation of cellular activity in a man-god for 36 hours is an adequate recompense for all the evil mankind has done over roughly 150,000 years of history -- including Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the pogroms of the medieval era, the countless genocides, petty violences, rapes, murders, infanticides and slavery of human existence -- is one of the silliest beliefs I've ever heard. It sits up there with flat-earthism, phrenology and young earth creationism.
So the Christian believer is presented with a quandary and I suspect their lack of unanimity in the face of this quandary is the single best evidence for the essential vacuum at the core of this system of belief. For if there were a cogent explanation, one that was satisfactory to all, Christianity would at least be unanimous in accepting it. This suggests to me that if I ask questions of Christians, their answers to these questions should be the same, since the same divinity that remembers the exact sequence of DNA in the victims of Hiroshima could certainly make the followers of his One True Religion aware of the truth of it. Yet the answers to the following questions are probably as varied as the answers to questions about taste in food, clothes, or film, but I will ask them anyway:
1. Is it the position of Christians that all humans will be resurrected bodily at some future time by God?
2. Is it their position that God has the power to do this phenomenal act of healing, but cannot heal the children who are dying because their parents are praying for their life, or rid someone of a crippling, deforming disease because to do so would harm their free will?
3. If so, why were Jesus and the apostles, the "one true cross" relic and the king of France able to heal without violating free will? If not, why do we have no evidence that God does any healing at all?
4. Finally, if Jesus' death were necessary for the atonement of man's sin, what purpose was his bodily resurrection? Specifically why was it necessary for his atonement to include a resurrection when sacrificial animals, who were sacrificed under the rules God gave to the Israelites, were not resurrected but were eaten?
Eheffa asks an important question: "If the Christian belief system is false or based on fabricated source documents - how exactly under your current set of suppositions with the Bible as the only authoritative admissible evidence, would you ever be able to detect the falsity of that belief system?"
A very ignorant person. There's no other way to describe this...
There are several conceptions among Christians about the belief in hell, all of them but one involve punishment, and even the annihilationist view doesn’t rule it out, since we’re not told the manner in which the unsaved are annihilated.
I amazes me how hard it is to make Christians see the truth of this horrible belief, since it should be obvious. The belief in hell developed during the Hellenistic intertestamental period. There was the idea of a fiery judgment (1 En. 10:13; 48:8–10; 100:7–9; 2 Bar. 85:13), in a fiery lake or abyss (1 En. 18:9–16; 90:24–27; 103:7–8; 2 En. 40:12; 2 Bar. 59:5–12; 1QH 3). Just take a look at I Enoch 48:8-9: “For in the day of their anxiety and trouble their souls shall not be saved; and they shall be in subjection to those whom I have chosen. I will cast them like hay into the fire, and like lead into the water. Thus shall they burn in the presence of the righteous, and sink in the presence of the holy; nor shall a tenth part of them be found.”
Are the writings from that period inspired? Doesn’t it make better sense to see that these ideas were adopted in the New Testament just like ideas about witch hunts were adopted then discarded in early modern Europe? We are children of our times. During those times people believed in hell. And this is what we find in the New Testament.
The truth is that most traditionalists don’t actually take what the New Testament says literally in our modern era, but creationist Henry M. Morris and Martin E. Clark do. They wrote, “So far as we can tell from Scripture, the present hell, Hades, is somewhere in the heart of earth itself….The Biblical descriptions are quite matter-of-fact. The writers certainly themselves believed hell to be real and geographically ‘beneath’ the earth’s surface.” [The Bible Has the Answer: Revised and Expanded (El Cajon: Creation Life Publishers, 1987), p. 312].
But theists today reject such a notion since the rise of modern geology, which shows otherwise. In fact theists have continually reinterpreted what the Bible says about such topics as hell, women, slavery, inquisitions, and witch hunts in the light of more and more knowledge. In today's world there are many liberal Christians who claim no one will end up in hell at all!
The belief in hell requires the assumption of retributive punishment, in that people should get what they deserve. But such a notion is being rejected by ethicists in today’s world. Basically the only people who still accept such a notion are those who still believe in hell. Psychologists have repeatedly shown how people are not evil so much as they may be sick. We may have a Freudian death wish, is all. Our environment and our genetic makeup dictate who we are and what we do to an overwhelming degree. And the more that a person knows about these influences the more of a love/pity he has for these sick people. Sociologists have shown that what we believe is based on when and where we are born, too. Geneticists are showing that whether we are prone to act out homosexual desires, and addictions like alcoholism, is in our genes. There can be no wrathful God, period, and therefore there can be no punishment in hell, however conceived.
This is especially true since we do not know that we are rejecting God by our choices. No one would consciously disobey God if he knew that hell awaits him when he dies…no one, unless he couldn't avoid it. The oft quoted phrase that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” implies that we can know what that law is, but the evidence of billions upon billions of non-Christians down through the centuries conclusively shows otherwise. Where is the evidence for such a claim?
John McTaggart has argued convincingly against the traditional view of hell. Since there is no empirical evidence for it, the only way we would know it exists is if God reveals this to us. However, the concept of hell is just too vile and repulsive for us to believe, so this calls into question anything of importance that such a God might reveal to us. Since a God who would consign people to hell cannot be trusted, we would have no good reason to trust that he is telling us the truth about anything important. So on the one hand there is no reason or evidence to believe in hell, and on the other hand there would be no reason to trust what God would say if he revealed it to us. [John McTaggart, Some Dogmas of Religion (London, 1906), section 177].
Christians will also claim that the unsaved will rather be in hell than in heaven too. But this is another ludicrous claim. If hell is painful then who in her right mind would enjoy being there? If however, hell is where we prefer to be then how is that to be considered punishment? Besides, once we arrive in hell we would immediately believe the gospel and feel anguish that we didn’t accept it. So in hell everyone will be believers. At that point the residents of hell should be great candidates for heaven and desire nothing else. In fact, because of the logic of this many theologians have argued for a second chance for these believers, the belief in purgatory being just one example. And if believers retort that heaven will be more painful for the unsaved than hell, then how does that make any sense? Even believers themselves argue there will be gradations to their reward in heaven, with some in the “nosebleed” section, just as there will be gradations of punishment in hell for the unsaved (Dante's Universe as one example). But why? Either Jesus washed away all of your sins or he didn’t? If he did, then why are there different rewards? Any lack of obedience from a believer on earth is a sin (sins of "ommission" or "missing the mark"), and yet all sins supposedly have been washed away…all of them. But if those sins are not forgiven and believers are correct about what we'll find in the afterlife, then just as there will be unsaved people in hell who prefer to be there, then there will be some believers in heaven who may not enjoy it there and prefer hell, or at least have periods where they would like to be there. Why not?
Beyond these things the belief that God was so vainglorious that even though life was perfect for him without any want whatsoever, he decided to create this world anyway, knowing in advance that by doing so he would have to punish billions (“the many”) in hell in order to gain a few believers by his side, which he never needed or couldn’t have even wanted in the first place!
The belief is hell is morally repugnant, superstitious, indefensible, barbaric, and contrary to democratic free thinking people since it demands people are punished for what they believe or don't believe. People who defend it are ignorant of a whole host of things, from understanding intertestamental literature, to science, geology, the history of Biblical interpretation, to sociology, psychology, and ethical understandings about punishment.
So what does it take to believe in hell? A very ignorant person. There's no other way to describe it. None.
See the essay in the April 16th '08 online
Scientific American.
This is the start of a series of articles intended to debunk Genesis 1-11 and Romans 5. They will be an overview that come from notes from several courses I have taken over the past months.
I intend to provide links to starting points to enable those interested to pursue what I call a "Serious Bible Study". It will show the means, motive and opportunity for the development of Judaism and Christianity in the Ancient World.
I recommend scrolling to the bottom of the article and opening the image in a separate window so you can look at it as you read.
Migration of humans out of Africa starting after the last ice age from 130,000 to 90,000 BCE(1) ensured robust populations in the Near East and South Asia. The natural cognitive algorithms enabling self-preservation, pleasure and novelty seeking account for the survival of the individual. The natural algorithms that develop from self-preservation and fostering offspring provide a means for early humans to prefer to stay in groups. Over the course of thousands of years development of new albeit primitive technologies and the naturally occurring algorithm of mutual self-interest(2) fostered trade between these populations and primitive "economies" to develop. Of course there were battles over various things but people seek comfort more than uncertainty which ensured the mutual survival of groups.
Generally people traveled over land at the end of the last ice age, the sea levels were about 130 meters (400 feet)(3) lower that what they are now. This caused the distance between coasts to be significantly less and caused land bridges to appear. The gap in the Red Sea between present day Djibouti and Yemen was smaller as was the distance from the coast of present day Oman to Pakistan and more importantly, the Indus Valley. Along the coast from Djibouti and Somalia are the regularly occurring Monsoon winds which change direction twice a year(4). Not only could people travel from Ethiopia and Somalia across lower half of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula through present day Yemen and Oman, to get to the Indus Valley, once the sailboat was developed in the fourth millennium BCE (4000-3000 BCE)(5), they could travel by sailboat from port to port along the coast of present day Yemen and Oman to the Indus Valley, and down the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. It also facilitated easier travel along the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia. While it is not clear where the technology for the sail originated, it is clear that its use was common in the third Millennium BCE (3000 - 2000 BCE) in Mesopotamia, Egypt and in Asia Minor and facilitated a "World Economy"(6) between the regions. The self-esteem, greed and competition between kings ensured that technology changed hands and improved. Once the Ancients began traversing the oceans, they must have been shocked by the size, grace and water spouts of the Whales which are indigenous in those areas(7)(8)(9). The fear of the sea and the stories of those whales naturally led to the inclusion of them in their Creation Stories(10).
Just as technology is traded, so are ideas. Ideas lead to beliefs and beliefs lead to religion. The blending of ideas is common, it leads to similar characteristics between cultures and when the blending of ideas involves beliefs and faiths, it is called "Syncretism"(11). Evidence of the battles of the early Jews to resist syncretism appears in old testament scripture, and other forms of historical evidence are abundant. It is a fact of life that people trade everything, including ideas, and it is a means to more successful outcomes.
The civilizations affected by this technology and "world economy" are Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley the east coast of the Mediterranean, Asia Minor (Turkey) and Greece. It makes a triangle of interconnectedness along the waterways and land. Some of the founding Gods of those civilizations were, in Egypt Ptah and Atum, in the Indus Valley Hiranyagarbha or Prajapati, Brahma, Indra, Varuna and Vishnu, Purusha Sukta, In Mesopotamia Marduk, Asia Minor had El and Greece had Zeus(12). As one goes through reading the names of the Gods and stories, one notices striking similarities in the names that appear in the myths.
Canaan, Palestine, Israel and Judah were enclosed in this triangle of interconnectedness, and that brings us to Genesis 1.
To be continued.....
For the references, Wikipedia is used liberally because while academics don't consider wikipedia difinitive or acceptable as a source they do consider it generally good enough for quick reference.
Quick References
1. Early Modern Homo sapiens
2. Prisoners Dilemma
3. Sea Level
4. Monsoon Winds
5. Ancient Sea Exploration
6. Second Millenium shipwreck
7. Whales Arabian Gulf
8. Whales Turkey and Greece
9. Whales Coast of Oman
10. Leviathan
11. Syncretism
12. Creation Myths
Sources
1. Human Prehistory and First Civilizations, The Teaching Company
2. Great Religions: Hinduism (1st Edition), The Teaching Company
3. Great Religions: Hinduism (2nd Edition), The Teaching Company
4. Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World, The Teaching Company
5. Ancient Near Eastern Mythology, The Teaching Company
6. Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition, The Teaching Company
Related Information
Ancient Ships
* Maritime history - Wikipedia, the free encyclop...
* ancient ships
* Archaeology team helps find oldest deep-sea shipwrecks HarvardScience
* Ancient Egypt: Ships and Boats
* Ancient Phoenician Ships, Boats and Sea Trade
* early ways of navigating sea
Whale information
* Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) - Office of Protected Resources - NOAA Fisheries
Monsoons
* Monsoon African Connections: An ... - Google Bo...
* 538bc monsoon
Ancient History
* Ancient history
* First dynasty of Egypt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ancient Prehistory
* archaeolink.com archaeology, anthropology, social studies, general knowledge
* Evolution of Modern Humans: Early Modern Homo sapiens
* Hominid Species
Behavior
* Novelty Seeking Study
* NOVELTY SEEKING e-Review of Tourism Research
