Was wondering of the possibility, that way way back some spiritualism/religion was for the purpose of reconciling killing animals for food, our ancestors perhaps being much closer to nature (my point being of animals in particular here).

These days the breeding of and killing of animals for food is largely compartmentalized, but regards our ancestors this perhaps physically wasn’t possible.

If some aspect of religion or spiritualism were to reconcile some contradictory or complicated aspects of existence, that it has some origin in the requirement of killing animals for meat to eat, then I wonder to what extent religion today is other then what it seems and provides a device to psychologically compartmentalize something when physical compartmentalizing is not (further) optimizable. And further, the extent whatever devices might be apparently non-religious today but do similar things.

On the face of it the modern God concept would appear to me to not yield much compartmentalizing benefits, so I really have no basis for even a hunch regards the idea.

Maybe someone else can see some compartmentalizing functions about religion?

My third neuron is sort coming around to spiritualism (loosely speaking) puts some of ‘the nature’ of existence in the hands of the Gods, outside human control, or perhaps even understanding, so there might be a useful handball in that.

My (somewhat subjective and biased) opinion is that religion itself is a recent thing, perhaps spawned by writing.

We know form Herodotus that the ancient Egyptians were atheists, they had “Gods” but they didn’t believe in them, any more than we believe in superman.

All the early archaeologists were heavily Christian and projected their own phony ideas about religion on the places they excavated, seeing gods when none existed. Ditto anthropologists. Aboriginal myths and legends were, as Rolf Harris put it, “made up last Tuesday”, and most Aboriginal rock art was redrawn every year like the Uffington White Horse.

It’s clear enough that our own Bible began as a fictional collection of stories for children, carried around in a travelling chest by the ancestors of the Bedouin. They initially became “revered” only because of their age, not content.

> way way back some spiritualism/religion was for the purpose of reconciling killing animals for food

Nah.

There are several religions that either advocate vegetarianism or have it as a central tenet. The majority of Hindus are veggos, as are Buddhists. The Jains go so far as to wear veils to prevent them from accidentally ingesting things like flies.

In terms of the modern “Big three” the food rules in the Torah seem more about food safety to me. Back in the day, without refrigeration and hygienic slaughter and distribution things like shellfish or pork could be very dangerous indeed. It’s the same reason you find sections of the old testament devoted to different types of mildew. Keeping your population alive and healthy was important.

It seems likely to me that the religion meme has survived and prospered because those individuals who had the religion accepting gene combination survived and prospered in greater numbers than those who didn’t.

I’d suggest that the reason for this is that religions encourage individuals to act for the benefit of their local group, rather than themselves. I very much doubt that it was to make people feel better about eating meat. I think rather that the idea that there is anything wrong with eating meat is a recent and rather perverse result of religion.

It should be noted that in this context “atheism” is not a religion, but “atheist humanism” is.

>It seems likely to me that the religion meme has survived and prospered because those individuals who had the religion accepting gene combination survived and prospered in greater numbers than those who didn’t.

Probably more a (simplifying) projection of the mechanisms of consciousness.

>I’d suggest that the reason for this is that religions encourage individuals to act for the benefit of their local group, rather than themselves.

Surely you mean in addition themselves(the individuals), not to exclude themselves.

>I very much doubt that it was to make people feel better about eating meat.

I doubt it too, but I don’t let doubt go to vulgar dismissal.

>I think rather that the idea that there is anything wrong with eating meat is a recent and rather perverse result of religion.

To be clear I didn’t indicate there was anything “wrong” with eating meat, or attribute and project such a thing, you may be attributing an attribution of some wrongness, I can’t be sure and you’d be better positioned to clarify that.

>It should be noted that in this context “atheism” is not a religion, but “atheist humanism” is.

I think I get the gist of that directly above.

>>I very much doubt that it was to make people feel better about eating meat.

Should say also that killing an animal and eating it are somewhat different things.

transition said:

>It seems likely to me that the religion meme has survived and prospered because those individuals who had the religion accepting gene combination survived and prospered in greater numbers than those who didn’t.

Probably more a (simplifying) projection of the mechanisms of consciousness.

Or the education or indoctrination of young children.