Monday, February 28, 2011

The Forces That Rule Human Societies.

In the record of man’s early history the worship of some deity, deities or spirits is common in almost all the ancient center of human civilizations that were dispersed throughout the ancient world from Australasia, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Even in this very day and age of great scientific advancement where the theoretical and postulated knowledge of how the physical universe came to be and how life ‘evolved’ on this planet are been taught in schools of nearly all nations of the earth, the worship of some spirit entities, deity or deities is still common practice among the greater majority of mankind. This is so even in the most technological developed and advanced countries of the world where the vast majority still subscribe to the belief in some monotheistic Creator or polytheistic Creators.

It would seem that in human civilization the social norm is very intricately linked to some belief in the paranormal. Many explanations have been forwarded by scientists and the experts on the social sciences and humanities as to why human societies are so intricately linked with worship of some form or other.

By some forty to fifty or so years ago the prevailing enlightened public opinion seems to presume such links to be rooted in the fear of the unknown. But the rapid advancement of knowledge about the universe and how life evolved on this planet have given rise to better researched views and theories of why mankind and his societies have this need to make some connection with the paranormal in the conduct of their lives.

Science has through the years tried to explain why this is so postulating several theories in the course of those years on how these system of religious beliefs originates in prehistoric humanoid communities evolving with the advancing complexity of human civilization to become what they are today.

Modern thinking tried to explain this in all kinds of theories and points of perspective from that of cognitive development of the human brains to some sort of emotional rationalization need to make some connection between life and death. One of the more current theories put forward was that religion came into primitive human communities as an adaptation to help unrelated individuals cooperate. This theory has now been more or less discarded in favor of the currently popular belief that religion developed through the evolutionary process with the increasing cognitive ability of the human minds.


Cognitive Abilities And Linguistic Skills.

There are several schools of thought currently hypothesizing how cognitive development in man would lead him to invent religion in his mind and then to totally believe in this invention further developing it until it became the religion of entire civilizations and even in remote nomadic tribes living cut off from the main stay of civilization.

In the theory of cognitive abilities and natural tendencies it is argued that as the mind of man begin to advance, it naturally tried to reason out his existence and inescapable demise which result in all kind of postulation of what his life is about and how it came to be and why it ends. This postulation then become believed and expressed in the ordering of his daily life to become a religion. The hypothesis is that it is natural to believe in the supernatural or paranormal in order to explain unexplainable things.

A major problem with this theory is that the mind cannot postulate on object concepts if these concepts are not first introduced that he could become familiar with them. The mind cannot grasp concept that it has never known before. That is the reason a person who have never in his life have the facility of vision cannot have dreams with visual images in it or thoughts and contemplation with visual imagery concepts. That too is the reason many animals that are self aware are not able to immediately make a connection with their mirror image on the first few encounters, likewise too human babies. It takes time for a new object concept to become understood by the intelligent beholder before it can become a part of his cognitive facility.

The mainstay religion (defined in this context as a system of belief or faith to explain consciousness, life and human existence) of the world today is not Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism but Darwinism. Darwinism is the main school of thought among the intelligentsia of the contemporary age; it is the main ‘religion’ being advanced in the universities and schools of the nations of the world.

Its main doctrine is not of divine providence but in the natural occurrences of pervasive anomalies in nature and in life forms that had an incredible near limitless versatility to adapt to these anomalies inherently constructed in the genetic genome. This inherent ability is not restricted to just modifying the defining codification stored in their genes but to be even make changes to the total volume of codification.

Yet this school of thought did not just happen by inference from observation that just begin to happen as Charles Darwin journey through his life. It took many centuries aided by the written words and a world order that allows for the transfer of knowledge and beliefs in the main centers of civilization involving numbers that are in the hundreds of millions before the idea was seeded in Charles Darwin. And even then not him alone, there were others in his time and even before his time.

How can we explain why the theory of evolution did not start with the cognitive development of the human brain in the numerous primitive tribal communities before civilization ‘begin’ to take hold? Why would cognitive development lead to the inference of paranormal belief in these primitive minds that had yet to develop ‘written’ communications?

Isn’t evolution more believable and thus infer-able involving things the cognitive senses can perceive and understand? If religion developed as a result of cognitive development as is postulated (without any real proof) then can it also be inferred that communal living developed from the same. Another problem with the theory of cognitive advancement leading to religion in the human race is that science had not even fully explored why then would animals as primitive as insects and arachnids becomes communal.

Evidence gathered from archaeological digs seems to suggest that primitive humanoids carried out burial rituals. That is to say they buried their dead and not only that but these burials are accompanied by items that probably have emotional value to those they were buried with.

But unfortunately many social insects bury their dead too. Termites generally eat their dead siblings including their king and queen (parents) should these die. But in situation when there is a sudden die out for whatever reasons and they could not all be consumed, the termites’ workers will carry their dead siblings to an area deep below the nest and bury them. Certain species of ants do the same while some others may not do so but will carry their dead sisters to dump them far away from the proximity of their nest. Do you know why they do so? I can vouch for a certainty it is not because they are religious and holds to the belief of some life after death or some other paranormal related reasons.

Being no expert I can’t tell you why insects began to become communal but I can readily understand that in communal settings if you do not bury your dead and your everyday waste, you are going to be living in a real stink.

While I certainly agree that one of the cause of ‘primitive’ humans to live in communal group is due their advance cognitive senses, I can also easily inferred that one of the reasons for them doing so is because of their relationship ties. Further their being self aware should naturally be inferred also that they would have a tendency to be altruistic. This inference should be even more obvious considering that they can develop emotional attachment to things such as tools (as weapons) and toys. Being no expert or authority on anything I would not want to be the one to spell out what all these meant.

As a preteen child I started to develop a keen interest in nature. My parents were Taoist Buddhist and my concept of religion at that age was both hazy and vague. But even as young as I was then in observing nature I marvel at the phenomenon of how spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes and ants have almost identical forms expressed in vastly different sizes in different species. By the time I was in my teens and learned about the theory of evolution I could immediately connect to it. I do not know if this would be true with others who have this same interest in nature. But to me inferring evolution seems more logical than inferring religion.

And even if we would accept that it was possible for early humans and even pre-humans to infer religion as their cognitive abilities advances with the natural progression of evolution through anomalies, we would still be unable to explain a monotheistic Religion that throughout most of its recorded history (including its advance history through prophecies) until this very day charged its followers of being persistently unfaithful in their covenant with its monotheistic deity.

Further more the Religious text attributed to this same monotheistic deity in its last records by the last of its twelve designated Apostles charged that from that time forward a great 'harlot' church (a church that makes a pretense of serving its monotheistic deity and calling itself by the religion's name) would have deceived the whole world into believing that it is the true church of this monotheistic deity.  But that is not all, this same Religious records also charged that his great false church will be persecuting and murdering the true disciples of this monotheistic deity for a period of over one thousand two hundred and sixty years, so much so that these faithful disciples of the deity will have to flee to remote places of the planet out of her murderous reach. And even as for a time after those years her murderous rampages will be curtailed yet at time of this religion call the Time Of The End, this great false church will again with her reemerged partner of murderous oppression be again hunting down murdering the disciples of this deity.

So here we have a Religion that was supposedly invented by someone or a tribe of people from a long time ago which was then recorded in great detail. Then subsequent generations of this supposed tribe of people continue to add on to the record of this Religion over a period of many hundred years all of which consistently recorded the similar beliefs and doctrines. Yet throughout  the generations of this tribe of people, nearly all of them never really belief in the records of their Religion preferring to embrace and follow the religions of the other nations around them. Then this tribe of people were divided and all were finally removed from the land where they had their divided nations. But despite their nation ceasing to exist, part of this tribe refused to give up their recorded Religion while at same time they still persist to refuse to believe them (the records).

But that is not all, some two thousand years ago a new LEADER of this religion came to the remnant part of this tribe of people who claimed that they were waiting for this LEADER to come. The nation of this tribe by that time had become the vassal to another nation. However similar to all the leaders that came to them previously, they refused to believe HIM even though they claimed to be eagerly waiting for HIS arrival. But not only did they refuse to believe HIM just like they refused to believe the records of their religion as well as all their previous leaders (i.e. prophets). They schemed and plotted against HIM and finally succeeded to have him murdered just like their did with many of the previous leaders of their religion who came before.

While a very small number of this remnant tribe believed him and became his follower, strangely a large number people of other religions also believed him and embraced this Religion. But even more strange most of the other people of other tribes and religions who claimed they believed this Religion and embraced to it to call themselves its followers (i.e. disciples), they just like the original tribe of people of this Religion did not believe most of the things this LEADER, whom they claimed is their God, taught and similarly refused to believe the Religion of this LEADER but pretended to do so. The question you would ask of course, if you are not totally stupid, would be why would people claim to believe a religion and yet refuse to believe it (what it recorded) but pretended to believe it?

But it got even stranger than that. Many hundred of years after this LEADER had died, another man came along and claimed that he was THE leader (i.e. the ultimate prophet) of this Religion but rejected everything that was recorded before by the all the numerous previous leaders (i.e. prophets) of this Religion. This man then recorded his own version of this Religion of which he claimed himself to be THE ultimate prophet and totally changed everything that was recorded since the beginning of this Religion effective creating a new religion which he claimed is the real original.

So the question all these amazingly brilliant scientists should be asking and trying to answer is, 'how does the development of cognitive sense in human lead to the inference and invention of a religion which billions of people today claimed to believe in yet refused to believe anything that was recorded as its deity inspired scriptures which they consider to be the very holy words of their deity?'

If you can see it to infer religion from evolutionary development of the human cognitive senses have too many loops holes to be acceptable as a valid theory.

That said let us now begin to investigate the forces that actually rule over human societies.


Investigations and Postulations From Primitive Communities Past and Present.

Typically in ‘primitive’ tribal or village communities there is the tribal chief and a healer with some claimed connection to paranormal forces whether these are localized or environment wide. In some tribal communities there may be a sort of ruling council of senior members. The forces that determine the tribal norm in most small tribal communities are not driven by the tribal chiefs, or the healers or the council of seniors or all of these together. Even as they do exert a certain amount of ruling authority, the main regulatory of the tribal norm is the system of beliefs of the community imparted partly from their belief in the paranormal relating to veneration and partly through ancestral traditions which were also derived from the same belief relating to the paranormal.

This is because these tribal chiefs, healers or the council of seniors are also constrained by the value of their communal norms and any regulatory that they exercise is derive from the enforcement from their perspective which also have to be acceptable by the tribal community constrained by this same communal value with regards to their belief in this paranormal influence.

These systems of beliefs in the paranormal are usually some sort of fear based veneration with two main focuses. One is on death and the other is on the elementary needs and cravings of life.


Primary Focus: Death Is Not Death But Life In Another Form.

The first focus is this belief that life does not end when a person dies but that life continues on in another form whether this is on the same plane (realm, dominion or dimension), or in another. This other plane, realm, dominion or dimension may be as another type of life form or even some other object form which might not be what we today consider as living or of being alive. This belief in what can be term ‘the immortality of the soul’ or spirit essence is the most universal held belief among the religious veneration system of the world since the prehistory of the human race. 

Among the global communities today many still holds to this belief that life does not end when a person dies. Needless to say this belief had its origin from a long time ago in the history or even the prehistory of human civilization. However in the last hundred or so years there is an increasing general tendency for such belief to become diluted and many today who still holds to this belief only have a hazy idea of this non terminal nature of life especially human life. 

There are many different notions or combination of notions to this belief of the non destructivity of the soul; that while we all die our soul do not. A casual observer might suggest that all these notions originate from the futile imaginations of idle minds or of some elder trying to rationalize and explain death. One thing we should note is that postulations do not amount to facts or truth. Countless billions of rumors have been started by postulations, as has been proven by the numerous Facebook™, Tweeter™ and forums postings and forwarded emails since the internet became a global phenomenon. 


Various Contemporarily Held Beliefs on Life and Death.

Many of the religions of the world today subscribe to a type or a combination type of this life after death beliefs as elaborated below: 

1. Transitory where the life or soul on death goes to a temporary place or phase until a rebirth or reincarnation as new person or even as another life form. The transitory form encapsulated the concept of a short temporary holding area before a rebirth either as another human or some form of life or even non life

2. Migratory is a subtype of the Trans Migratory. This holds that soul is translated into another state or stage usually of a higher order similar to when a caterpillar turned into a butterfly. 

3. Trans migratory where the soul moves back and forth reincarnating from one state to another depending on the ordering of the soul in each state. The may also be a final state for the trans migratory soul if the soul can achieve it either in one of the life time or cumulatively over several lifetimes. The Trans migratory belief envisioned a ‘reincarnation’ into another life for a certain period before the death in that life again migrate the soul or spirit essence into yet another migratory form. Many that holds to this belief either holds that the ordering of the life in each trans migratory phase will determine the next phase or that each phase is an elevation towards a final permanent phase of bliss whether this is in consciousness or non consciousness (meaning having no consciousness is bliss). There may be various combination degrees of both these concepts in those who hold such belief. The migratory elevation form is a subtype of the Trans migratory beliefs. 

4. Dual or multi pathways for life after death. In this belief under dual pathways, the soul on death either goes to a permanent state of bliss or some other state which may involve torment or permanent destruction. Variation to this has two or more possible pathways for the soul to travel to with some having an aspect of the Trans migratory belief.

There have been several theories put forward about how religion first began to become a focus in the primitive communities of mankind leading it to become a backbone of early civilization and to what is today perceived by the leading ‘enlightened’ minds of our times as a hindrance to true enlightenment of the contemporary social order of our world. The current most popular view among the thinkers of our contemporary world shapers is that religion ‘evolved’ with the development of the cognitive senses in mankind.


Secondary Focus: Life And The Elements.

The second focus of primitive tribal communities was on the deriving of livelihood encompassing sustenance, prosperity, misfortune, health, illness and calamity. As it is with death so it is with life. For primitive tribal communities as well as ancient civilization the ordering of life are intricately linked to some belief in unseen paranormal forces that are believed to regulate the fortunes of life.


There are again many forms of such beliefs most of which centered on the need to appease or seek favor from these unseen paranormal forces attributed to various object concepts of some spiritual or paranormal elements in rocks, trees, animals, geological items, natural environmental forces or powerful paranormal deity/deities. These appeasement or favor seeking are carried out in the observation of various rituals which usually include offering up sacrifices and in some cases practices of self inflictions to atone for some acts of wrong doing.



Power Rules And Absolute Power Rules Absolutely.

As is in the kingdom of animals so also is in the society of man, power rules and absolute power rules absolutely. The projection of power in animals especially in social communities dominated by a single alpha animal is usually by virtue of vitality, size and brute force commonly expressed through repression. As with all cases of dominances, elements of fear are commonly part of the equation in the power dynamics of communal societies. This primary mechanics of individual and group dominance is true to a certain degree in the society of man but due to the complexity of the communal environment where the individual members are ‘intelligent’ there are many secondary social forces that in certain situations exert a greater influence than just pure individual power expression or even collective group dominance through political and other alliances. Once the dynamics of communal groups are in play the individual’s ability or even a group of individuals’ ability to dominate through the yielding of raw physical power is considerably mitigated and eroded by several factors.

These are the combination factors, the main of which is that numbers count, more are stronger than less. A second main factor in this combination is that no two individual are ever in complete agreement such that alliances and allegiances are fluidal. In such situation the ability to master the politics of alliances and allegiances becomes a main key to power dominance.

Other factors include: the possession and the dexterity in the yielding of physical and psychological instruments of power; and the skill at manipulating the social norms.

In small tribal primitive communities the mechanics of power is much more simplified then that where the communities are large. The larger and more widely disperse the members and units of the social communities, the greater the variation in the elements of communal norms. This is not to say that the fundamental schematics of power have changed but only the degree of influence that each element has are more volatile.

No matter how the mechanics of power is derived it would appear that the fear factor is the main weapon that is wielded by those who rule, such that harm or destruction to those who do not yield is the main threat to coerce submission. That it would seem is the reason why from primitive tribal communities to early human civilization even until this modern day of enlightenment, the social norm of mankind is still closely tied to their religious beliefs in the paranormal, of the need for some appeasement to entice the Spiritual realm to confer well being and prosperity. From this it might be concluded that fear is the main force that rules over the society of man.

But is this really truly so, that the societies and civilization of man are ruled by the fear of loss, pain, harm and death?


Next THE ULTIMATE FORCE THAT RULE THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF MAN.

THE MISSING CONNECTION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Comments and questions on issues of doctrines and facts raised here can be directed to chquah@gmail.com Only sincere non malicious comments and questions seeking clarification and understanding will be entertained.

Note:
1.Words in italic reference titles or proper names where this applies, otherwise these are personal notes to select people who are familiar with them.
2. I have intentionally left out scriptural references (mostly) as anyone who wants to prove or disprove what is written here should read the Bible extensively (yes from cover to cover at least three or more times).
3. The various chapters and articles published here are by no means exhaustive of the doctrines, prophesies, subjects and answers to questions on the scriptures.
4. Scriptures quoted are from New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.
5. The word or term 'man' is used throughout as a reference to man specifically as well as to all mankind (male and female) according to the context in the same way as the Bible used the term..
6. The articles published in this site are extracts of passages and chapters from this author's books.


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All reference to GOD in this site refers to the CREATOR GOD whose original inspired Words are the basis of the Christian Bible unless otherwise denoted.
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Updated: 2013 07 03
First Posted: 2011 02 28