So what happened prior to my existence (born in 1970) is thus. Pls correct me where I’m wrong, excluding, of course, numbers of years since they are approx. and don’t really matter to my grand sweep.
-
(Skipping past 99% of the history of the world) So a long time ago, say 150,000 years ago, the first appearance of humanish types began to proliferate alongside the neaderthals. Mainly y-chromosome humans. (Pls don’t get hung up on the details here. I’m just going by fossils and decay rates, and even absent those things I choose to believe in evolution because it is causal and rational as a model and I can imagine it working without any supernatural gimmicks needed, pls don’t make this a debate about creationism, that’s not the point) These creatures, like their friends in nature, had their hands a bit full in terms of just mere survival. Not a lot of time for hobbies. Wasn’t a lot of time for sudoku and stuff. Very few hours of the day for things like building model airplanes or writing bad poetry. It was kinda a meat and potatoes existence. Eat, hunt, fuck, shit, die sorta thing. The majesty of wildness, not unlike animals of today. Brutal, harmonious, and in their way, beautiful. Nature seemed like a mean entity, death was anxiety provoking, and a personification of nature ensued and began the roots of early religion, burial, sacrifice, etc.
-
Neaderthals die out and human-types proliferate. By 50,000 BC x-chrom humans proliferate just in time for BOOM an ice age. Holy shit, scotland is under a mile of ice. Not that this should bother a true scotsman. it just wasn’t very kilt-friendly weather. But humans had a whole new set of obstacles: surviving this damned ice age. button up, folks. wise up and put on a coat, make a fire, and pass on your wisdom. We may need to cooperate. May the unlucky and uncooperative go the way of the dodo.
-
Ahhh, here comes the sun, it’s alright. but not totally. Let’s say it’s 30,000 BC. Problem is we have a little more time on our hands now. Time to put our ice age smarts into the service of kicking the ass of the land and really knocking the ball out the park. We can grow shit (food) in a systematic way and make the weak do the busy work. Why? Cause we’re the strong ones. We can get busy building our power structures and masturbating and having altogether too much time on our hands, which is a perfect situation for inventing religions that glorify ourselves, increase our power over others, and convince ourselves we have a direct line to the thunder and lightning.
-
I’m going to sort of fast forward a bit, but let’s just say we (all of us) had time to kill on painting, writing, talking things to death, and building dumb things to serve as a kind of phallic statement of bragger and dominance. Take the Pyramids, please. The whole thing made sense though: it had been survival of the fittest for eons. You do what you can, and you always want more, more, more dopamine. Kill, eat, screw BETTER. Have more fun and feel powerful. But meanwhile, the weak were getting right pissed off, because nothing’s ever simple as weak/strong. You had a lot of slaves and surfs and commoners who were also strong and mentally badass, and they could see the problem. They had lost the round. they had to survive but also had to think constantly about how to have things improve for their situation and tip the scales. There was a sense of cooperation and gentleness, but it was highly volatile and streaky. We needed a thick rule book.
-
First thing needed was to consolidate the gods, make the rulebook manageable. Kind of a marketing overhaul. With that done, we could then write down the manual, rules to follow for mankind, given by the king. rules that would be punished if broken.
-
Two strands spread, the monotheistic and the secular. I’m going to downplay the polytheism of Athens. Bottom line is Jewish thought and platonic thought continued on separate tracts. Jewish thought was rigorous and thorough but dogmatic. Rational secular thought was rigorous but a tougher sell, a harder pill, theologically empty. Jesus is the mind behind the big re-branding.
-
Okay, so here’s the deal. All those rules in the old testament, annoying, it got way out of hand. YES life is messy and complex and we need rules, but look, spiritually speaking, we can kinda simplify this and say just be cool to one another. Now let’s have a fresh start. All the bad shit is behind us, we’re starting new. I’ll take the punishments for it all which doesn’t hurt me cuz I’m God and it’s no big deal of me. I’ll live. In the meantime, going forward, just keep it simple and sexy. You can eat pork any day of the week, but just be nice. Like we used to in the old days, before agriculture, when we cooperated and didn’t have all this time on our hands to be neurotic dicks. Just be mellow. Got it? And by the way, you better do this or you’ll go to Hell. Do it and go to heaven. It’s all good baby.
-
The branding was well-timed and kissed with genius. A lot of people went for it. Why not, it was less homework than judaism and had warm fuzzies that no greek philosophy or greek god could provide. It was going to be a big hit, this Jesus stuff.
-
While people got mellow and Jesus-ish, a separate tract of kings and playboys got their jollies with more war and self-aggrandizement, too much time on their hands, and with technology came boredom and trouble-making. The men wanted bigger faster more, and life was getting too easy. Religion and war machines and societies and power structures all grew. Soon they all melded together more or less, symbiotic, perverted. On the individual level it was whatever you wanted to believe, but on a macro scale the world was becoming a society built on the passions of primal boredom crossed with the need for safety and meaning religion provides.
-
700 years later the muslims had a rebranding with the Koran, back to codified rules again, and a religion they can call their own. There’s power in having your own religion, and the winds were right for a new religion to sprout.
-
More wars, more technology, lots of time to fiddle about with words and ideas and ideologues and theories. Religions bifurcate. Secularism and socratic reason blossoms into science. Technology advances.
-
The nuclear bomb is dropped
-
The first real computer is invented
-
communication becomes widespread. an era of primitivity (religious and social extremism and ignorance) crossed with advanced technology and communication, awareness
-
I’m born
I review the history of humanity and conclude that what separates us from animals is that we have too much time on our hands, far more than our adaptations can handle. As a species we are bored, scared and greedy. This applies to both the strong and weak. To palliate the situation thus evolved and proliferates religion, sensualism, philosophy, technology, which all work in partial and conflicting ways and are double bladed swords.
The future holds: increased technology, possible extinction-level event, similar to an ice-age but more like a darkness radiation age, childish bickering and stupidity, believing in myths to feel safer and happier, improved communication and understanding, mastery of well-being, leading to curiosity and the power to explore as the highest calling of mankind. If mankind spread into space and the galaxy, the universe itself, it will find itself with nothing but time on its hands. this is where our old religions come in handy, not as dogma, but as a model for what the human heart longs for, because now we have a chance to author the next universe in the image of the best possible universe.