It is well known that the modern world religions which trace their origins to the Axial Age are centrally concerned with death. Some might call this concern an obsession. Of these world religions, only Hinduism does not have Axial roots. This is not to say that “Hinduism” (which is neither singular nor unified) was unaffected [...]
Tags:afterlife·ancestors·axial age·Brahmins·Buddhism·death·deification·Denial of Death·dying·Ernest Becker·existential·Hindu·Hinduism·immortality·impurity·India·Jainism·Kali·psychoanalysis·purity·rebirth·reincarnation·Sanskrit·Stuart Blackburn·thanatos·Vedic·Wendy Doniger·world rejecting
The actor David Carradine may have led a troubled life but he experienced no such trouble as Kwai Chang Caine, a Buddhist monk on the move in the old American west. From 1972-1975, the Kung Fu series was must watch television for kids my age, even if we had no idea that Caine was a [...]
Tags:ancestor worship·axial age·Buddhism·China·Confucian·David Carradine·David Keightly·divination·Jamil Anderlini·kung fu·Kwai Chang Caine·legitimation·monastery·power·Shang Dynasty·Shaolin Temple·Shi Yongxin·Ti·Zen
There are many ways in which China remains a cipher for Westerners, most of whom labor under the misapprehension that “modern civilization” originated in ancient Greece and spread slowly outward, eventually reaching “backwards” China and even then only in attenuated fashion. This of course ignores parallel and in some ways more spectacular developments in Neolithic [...]
Tags:ancestor worship·ancient China·Anne Underhill·burials·China·Chinese archaeology·Chinese Neolithic·Confucius·cult of ancestors·Donald Holzman·filial piety·KC Chang·lineages·macrocosm·microcosm·parents·stratification·transcendence
In less than a month, we will be able to lay our hands on Robert Bellah’s much anticipated Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age.
It will be the latest in a string of books over the last decade which purport to explain the origins and development of what we today call [...]
Tags:axial age·brain evolution·group size·Hegel·Kant·metaphysical idealism·Neolithic Revolution·Nietzsche·Religion in Human Evolution·Robert Bellah·Robin Dunbar·Templeton Foundation
There was a time when Western classicists and metaphysicians searched high and low for the primordial or original religion: Ur-monotheismus. The thinking was that the original religion was monotheistic and that all non-monotheistic religions had degenerated from the pristine original.
This is of course precisely backwards but it has not stopped the search. While Ur-religionists chase [...]
Tags:Abraham·monotheism·original religion·polytheism·primordial religion·Sumerian·Ur·Urmonotheismus·ziggurat
Strange things are afoot at Catalhoyuk (7400-5600 BCE), one of the earliest and most important Neolithic (i.e., sedentary and agricultural) sites known to archaeology. As I noted in Bones, Burials and Ancestors, mortuary practices at Catalhoyuk were unusual and often involved secondary burial in the floors of homes.
The assumption has always been that these were [...]
Tags:ancestors·burials·Catalhoyuk·Clark Spencer Larsen·Crazy Horse·dental phenotype·fictive kinship·Ian Hodder·kin·kinship·Lakota·lineages·Marin Pilloud·mortuary practices·neolithic·sedentism·stratification·tooth morphology
In the inaugural issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior, Jeffrey Schloss and Michael Murray examine the idea that belief in supernatural agents is adaptive because these agents are punishers: supernatural policeman if you will. This policing can have two effects. First, belief in supernatural punishment can enhance within group cooperation. Second, it can reduce cheating [...]
Tags:ancestral environment·Azim Shariff·cheating·cooperation enhancement·essentialism·free riders·Friedrich Nietzsche·functionalism·game theory·Genealogy of Morals·Jeffrey Schloss·Jesse Bering·Lee Cronk·Mario Brandhorst·Michael Murray·morals·neolithic·Paleolithic·punishment avoidance·supernatural punishment·supernatural surveillance
If you have ever suffered through an episode of “Ancient Aliens” on the History Channel, you might believe that every megalithic structure in the world was constructed by extraterrestrials:
Apparently inspired by the show, one credulous soul posted this question over at Answers.com: “Can scientists prove that Stonehenge was not built by ancient astronauts?” The pithy [...]
Tags:ancestors·ancient aliens·ancient astronauts·archaeoastronomy·Aubrey Holes·Benjamin Ray·Bronze Age·chieftains·cycles·Durkheim·elites·form·function·Giorgio Tsoukalos·lunar·megalithic·megaliths·neolithic·power·ritual·sarsen stones·solar·Solstice·Stonehenge·Wessex·Woodhenge
According to the Ghostbusters Wiki, Gozer the Gozerian (known also as Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, and Lord of the Sebouillia) is an ancient entity who “was originally worshiped as a god by the Hittites, Mesopotamians, and the Sumerians around 6000 BC.” When not visiting retribution on New York in the form of the Stay [...]
Tags:Akitu·Alan Lenzi·Assyria·Assyriology·Babylon·dead religions·divine messages·Ghostbusters·Gozer·Hittites·ideology·kings·Lord of the Sebouillia·Mesopotamia·Mesopotamians·mythmaking·politics·power·prophetic texts·Sennacherib·Slavitza Jovan·social construction·Stay Puft Marshmallow Man·Sumerians·Tiamat·Ur·Volguus Zildrohar
Death is big business. This past year, Americans spent $15 billion on funeral related expenses. Americans are not outliers when it comes to death spending; funeral related expenditures around the world are estimated to be at least this much and probably more. Strangely, the ratio of death spending does not diminish in poorer countries. In [...]
Tags:ancestor cults·ancestor worship·ancestors·bones·burial·Catal Hoyuk·Catalhoyuk·Cree·death·delayed return systems·filial piety·funerals·funerary·genealogy·grave goods·Ian Hodder·J.G. Macqueen·lineages·morals·mortuary·mourning·Native Americans·norms·Ojibway·Paul Hackett·power·rituals·secondary burial·skeletons·spirits·Sunghir·supernatural surveillance
