Early Religions as Archaic Science

[stan]

We've had quite a few unpleasant months discussing religion on this board, so I really don't want to get into discussing or arguing with anyone's personal theology.
I like the way you are going with your writing, WA, a sort of anthropological/historical approach. I was just saying that no matter what one thinks about curent religion, or even older ones, and their abuses, you have to regard it as a major part of history and take it into account. I don't think "scoffing" cuts any ice in discussions of such long periods of time as the ones we talk about here.

[Minimalist]

We were trying to discuss the findings of archaeology vis-a-vis religion and it ended up being Levantine religion only as, until now, no one had shown any expertise in other religions.

Of course, one should never forget, the reason that we have so little knowledge of MExican and South American religions is the Spanish auto-da-fe in deliberately trying to destroy an entire culture. One must give the Spanish credit. They were far more thorough than the early church leaders who tried to wipe out any trace of the gnostics.

[Digit]

True we do appear to have got off track here, but for me, as a newbie on the forum any discussion helps me to know my co-respondents better. If nothing else it helps us not to offend, any fool can make enemies.

[War Arrow]

We've had quite a few unpleasant months discussing religion on this board, so I really don't want to get into discussing or arguing with anyone's personal theology.
I like the way you are going with your writing, WA, a sort of anthropological/historical approach. I was just saying that no matter what one thinks about curent religion, or even older ones, and their abuses, you have to regard it as a major part of history and take it into account. I don't think "scoffing" cuts any ice in discussions of such long periods of time as the ones we talk about here.

Amen to that, Stan! I've been checking out some of the older threads and there's places there that I don't think anyone wants to revisit in a hurry.
The issue of how much is left of preHispanic Mexico in terms of codices, carvings etc is an interesting point. Obviously there was a lot of stuff destroyed (what we have might, if we're lucky comprise 10% of the original wealth of material), but having said that, of what remains, there's still (I understand) a lot of it and in some detail. I read somewhere, there's still various nahuatl accounts yet to be translated. So in some respects it's similar to the Jurrasic Park dinosaur DNA thing (which, yes I know, was a bit far-fetched) in that whilst there's gaps in knowledge (at least with regards to explanations) some of these can be guessed at by looking at contemporary Mexican folk tradition - not as good as having a time machine, but there you go.
So to be more specific here, did anyone see any flaws in my reasoning?
My main worries are that I might be stretching things in order to make my point when in fact, they (ancient religious types) really were a bunch of savages running around chanting 'oogabooga' etc?
Also, I would really like to know if anyone sees any parallels in their own field - religious traditions which, in context, demonstrated a very sound sense of reason?
Where's Marduk when we need him!
Hmmm... I wonder what 'oogabooga' really means. Oh, by the way, in replying 'amen to that' I wasn't trying to be a smartass.

[MichelleH]

Hmmm... I wonder what 'oogabooga' really means.

Depending on whether you prefer the one single word or the two word oogabooga, I offer the following from Urban Dictionary:

As one word: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... =oogabooga

Or two words: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... ooga+booga

(I apologize to War Arrow in advance for the silliness, long day and I needed a smile, so I came to you guys )

[stan]

thanks for clearing that up, Michelle!!
Now we can work on diddy-wah-diddy!

[War Arrow]

Thanks Michelle. I think. Although this new topic regarding the morphology of 'oogabooga' seems to raise more questions than it answers. Over here the pineapple-posterior-juxtaposition declaration has traditionally been 'Umbongo' with the pineapple usually being replaced by a coconut. As if that isn't confusing enough we once had a fruit-and-E-numbers based drink called 'Um Bongo' of which the advertising claimed 'Um Bongo! Um Bongo! They drink it in the Congo!' Clearly much more research is needed in order to clarify this confusing issue.

Hmmm. Looks like I just managed to scupper my own thread.

[Albino Berenguer]

That's quite an interesting point of view. It seems that in all civilizations, some sort of knowledge and order repository had to exist, otherwise societies went into caos and war. While we can argue that a military controled society would be barely stable, it seems that no progress or evolution would take place into these conditions.

As we all know, religion was the first way of knowledge, it gave an order to the world, being it real or false, it doesn't matter, the effect was the most important. In a way we can truly say that religion was the first form of science, but our concept of science come from the methods we use to test, try and explain the reality. So science and religion are two methods of explain the reality, this is my opinion.

[War Arrow]

...our concept of science come from the methods we use to test, try and explain the reality.

Hello there Albino and welcome aboard. Glad you got something from the text I posted, and relieved it was the thesis I intended. Further to your succinct summary, I was just looking at something posted by Mr. Jupp saying something along the lines of astrologers are basically the astronomers who couldn't adapt to changing methods of investigation (well, that's what he seemed to be saying as I saw it). I guess maybe it isn't such a radical idea, it's just that it seems rarely stated and we're left with the somewhat unhelpful image of early civilisations almost as societies that existed in spite of prevalent superstitions. I'm not suggesting that the idea of the moon being a giant space mango is as valid as that of it being a lump of rock and dust, but the other extreme is Richard Dawkins who seems to suggest such ideas are of no relevance at all, apparently to anything. I'd suggest a happy medium based on the idea that it's at least interesting and possibly enlightening as to why anyone would think the moon is a mango.
Does that make sense? I've had a bit of a rough night of it.