Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

Okay, I'll agree; but it isn't acknowledged in an evaluative way precisely because the "realm of values" hasn't historically come under scrutiny. Rather than a set of values, it's contemporarily understood as just the way things are.

Now, on top of that, we can see how evaluating something like a pyramid based on cost-benefit analysis of its construction is anachronistic and doesn't apply to ancient Egyptians. If the process/act itself is considered sacred, then its relation to the finished product assumes an entirely different form than it would today.

 

[Dak]

I think we've touched on this a few times before much further in the past. I agree that the "cost/benefit" valuation of a religious/ceremonial type event or structure is not necessarily going to correspond to some sort of material benefit (although it absolutely can). It will, however, yield a benefit of some sort to those responsible for initializing construction/planning of the event/etc, and then also the participants, spectators, and so on. Otherwise, they would not participate in whatever facet they did (not even taking into consideration the possibility of coercion). Opportunity cost dictates this. Anything we do, resources we use, etc., rules out all other potential other activities, uses, and so on.

It's we might spend money to attend a concert which leaves us worse off materially but not "spiritually", or however you want to label the benefit of unique experiences.

Now, that the superior value ranking can come from religious creeds, or communal norms, etc. doesn't abolish them. I think this is where your critique of the market being "value-less" enters in (although critique might be the wrong term, since it's readily admitted by market proponents).

As far as material vs immaterial benefit, a classic example is the mother who starves so that her children will live in the case of limited food stuffs. Obviously the benefit to her is not material, yet she is obviously happier choosing the negative material personal outcome to achieve the immaterial beneficial outcome.

 

[Einherjar86]

But the concept of something being valuable is a historical phenomenon. "Value" as a concept doesn't come into focus until modernity; prior to it, civilizations and individuals (particularly those of ancient cultures) can't be said to consider value as we do today, when we can abstract it, consider it as something distinct from the situation itself. Of course, it isn't actually distinct; but a historical rupture had to occur whereby it could come into focus. Prior to such a rupture, value wasn't something that could be distilled and studied.

This distillation is simultaneously a symptom of, and a constituent of, our modern economic system. Conceiving of value didn't simply illuminate a form of false consciousness; it actively altered the processes of social interaction and economics.

 

[Dak]

So you are saying people had no concept of measuring value prior to Adam Smith et al? While it may have been less abstracted (I have 100 Camels, I am clearly more materially wealthy than the guy with 30 Camels), I don't agree no one could conceive of value. That there is a dirth of written information on market processes and/or economics is not surprising given that long term record keeping was quite expensive and questionable prior to the Printing Press.

We know that there were merchants and trade far into antiquity. Being able to project customer valuations and formulate your own is vital for these sorts of endeavors. That no one wrote comprehensive works on economics at the time(at least that survived until today) is scant evidence in the face of the other records we do have.

 

[Einherjar86]

You don't need a concept of value to engage in market transactions. Furthermore, the printing press itself is a result of the growing concept of value as it pertains to individuals, which of course is a necessary prerequisite to capitalism. This truly could be said to begin (in the West) with Martin Luther and Protestantism, but traces of it can be seen as early as Dante. Prior to what emerges as a radically modern, individualistic view of the world, market transactions and trade have an entirely different meaning. Work is bound up with faith, spirituality sanctions labor. Labor is not conceived of as one's individual effort to better oneself or provide material sustenance.

Prior to the Middle Ages, ancient trade and barter systems were authorized by the gods, and the gods participated in their own transactions. These aren't directed toward individual betterment, which is retroactively perceived as providentially ordained or inherited. Value isn't separable from the material wealth or status of families, it's simply bound up with it.

I am not saying that people had no concept of measuring value prior to Adam Smith; but Smith's doctrine is the inaugural historical move by which this enters into the popular domain. Prior to Smith I'm sure there were a few people who had the same thoughts; but it wasn't on a grand scale, and there was no theory of it. Only with modernity (and really Nietzsche, not Smith) does value become an object of study in its own right and significantly theorized.

 

[Dak]

You don't need a concept of value to engage in market transactions. Furthermore, the printing press itself is a result of the growing concept of value as it pertains to individuals, which of course is a necessary prerequisite to capitalism. This truly could be said to begin (in the West) with Martin Luther and Protestantism, but traces of it can be seen as early as Dante. Prior to what emerges as a radically modern, individualistic view of the world, market transactions and trade have an entirely different meaning. Work is bound up with faith, spirituality sanctions labor. Labor is not conceived of as one's individual effort to better oneself or provide material sustenance.

I disagree on all counts, other than the intellectual conceptualization - conceptualizations which had fairly little direct impact on "the common man", other than when they had to offer a votive (which was most often for personal material gain or to avoid loss). People worked towards their own ends. Whether or not this was abstracted into a theory and seen from a big picture perspective (much less as a good thing) is irrelevant to what was actually going on. Men were concerned with "the gods" purely as it affected their personal interests. They didn't need an abstract theory to understand that sowing today and receiving providential rain meant a richer tomorrow, and that this was desirable.

It's kind of like the statement "x disease didn't exist before (the date it was named x)". Well no it wasn't called that, and formal recognition does have an affect, but the "thing itself", or however you want to refer to it, was no less real or present. Economies of past times were not all that different than they are today. Most of the perceived complexity of today is just a shell game of hiding the same basic recurring transaction types under different monikers and in different contingent conditions.

Prior to the Middle Ages, ancient trade and barter systems were authorized by the gods, and the gods participated in their own transactions. These aren't directed toward individual betterment, which is retroactively perceived as providentially ordained or inherited. Value isn't separable from the material wealth or status of families, it's simply bound up with it.

State and religious sanction doesn't predate economies. It does appear to predate money as far as we can tell (in fact, the earliest recording I've read of, of some sort of currency, was Sumerian temple tokens).

I believe that the people who created the "state"/"religion" originally were no less individually motivated by personal valuations and individualistic improvement. It was just a different path to personal wealth. Some produce and some leech. The leeching needed justification. As "God is Dead" in the West, the entities still appealing to God aren't doing nearly as well as those who shifted their appeals to the new gods of concepts like "democracy", and so on. Again, men are concerned with "the gods", whether ancient or modern, purely as it affects their personal interests, whether in this life or "the next".

Edit: The biggest contribution of "modern economics" was the dispelling of the myth of a purely "zero sum" game as the primary theory up to that point: That others becoming rich didn't mean you would be less rich by definition. That when you do well that can help me do better also.

 

[Einherjar86]

I disagree on all counts, other than the intellectual conceptualization - conceptualizations which had fairly little direct impact on "the common man", other than when they had to offer a votive (which was most often for personal material gain or to avoid loss). People worked towards their own ends. Whether or not this was abstracted into a theory and seen from a big picture perspective (much less as a good thing) is irrelevant to what was actually going on. Men were concerned with "the gods" purely as it affected their personal interests. They didn't need an abstract theory to understand that sowing today and receiving providential rain meant a richer tomorrow, and that this was desirable.

What research do you have to prove this? Because much that has been written about this suggests that you're wrong. What you're saying is what modern common sense suggests; but that's because you and I conceive of these things differently. In actuality, all you're doing is projecting a modern perspective onto people who were very different than and I, and assuming that just because we have a limited number of documents from that time period the remainder of the population (i.e. "the common man") could not possibly have had the same views as those documents. I don't believe your claim to common sense, since it doesn't make much logical sense to me.

People worked toward their own ends only insofar as those ends coincided with a larger cosmology. It was not the individually-driven, production/consumption model that we have today. People could slack off and produce nothing, but they reason they didn't isn't because doing so would afford them nothing, or fail to put food on the table; the reason they kept working was because the way they represented the world to themselves, through institutions and rituals, forbade them from doing so.

It's kind of like the statement "x disease didn't exist before (the date it was named x)". Well no it wasn't called that, and formal recognition does have an affect, but the "thing itself", or however you want to refer to it, was no less real or present. Economies of past times were not all that different than they are today. Most of the perceived complexity of today is just a shell game of hiding the same basic recurring transaction types under different monikers and in different contingent conditions.

Kind of, but not quite; see, we're talking about actual human beings and how they conceive of the world, not nonhuman bodies (i.e. animals, bacteria, etc.). The truth is, the way in which humans conceive of the world can actively change it insofar as it changes them. This goes all the way down to language itself; the words we have access to can actually change the "interior" content that we try and express. Likewise, when discussing how humans represent the world back to themselves, we have to acknowledge the deep roots that such representations embed. Abstract value is an illusion - we simply distill it from action in order to talk/write about it; but this has allowed human beings to conceive of value and labor differently than it was conceived of in ancient Egypt.

State and religious sanction doesn't predate economies. It does appear to predate money as far as we can tell (in fact, the earliest recording I've read of, of some sort of currency, was Sumerian temple tokens).

I believe that the people who created the "state"/"religion" originally were no less individually motivated by personal valuations and individualistic improvement. It was just a different path to personal wealth. Some produce and some leech. The leeching needed justification. As "God is Dead" in the West, the entities still appealing to God aren't doing nearly as well as those who shifted their appeals to the new gods of concepts like "democracy", and so on. Again, men are concerned with "the gods", whether ancient or modern, purely as it affects their personal interests, whether in this life or "the next".

Edit: The biggest contribution of "modern economics" was the dispelling of the myth of a purely "zero sum" game as the primary theory up to that point: That others becoming rich didn't mean you would be less rich by definition. That when you do well that can help me do better also.

"Economy" just means "household law." Of course there were economies, but they weren't market-directed economies. Furthermore, they weren't organized around the same principles we construct economies in the West today. Ancient priests may indeed have seen bureaucracy and institution as a path toward power, but this path was sanctioned by a higher power. Your claim, if reduced purely to individual ambition, ignores entire aspects of pre-modern thought, and boasts no strong evidence in support of it.

 

[Dak]

What research do you have to prove this? Because much that has been written about this suggests that you're wrong. What you're saying is what modern common sense suggests; but that's because you and I conceive of these things differently. In actuality, all you're doing is projecting a modern perspective onto people who were very different than and I, and assuming that just because we have a limited number of documents from that time period the remainder of the population (i.e. "the common man") could not possibly have had the same views as those documents. I don't believe your claim to common sense, since it doesn't make much logical sense to me.

People worked toward their own ends only insofar as those ends coincided with a larger cosmology. It was not the individually-driven, production/consumption model that we have today. People could slack off and produce nothing, but they reason they didn't isn't because doing so would afford them nothing, or fail to put food on the table; the reason they kept working was because the way they represented the world to themselves, through institutions and rituals, forbade them from doing so.

No. People worked towards their own ends because if they didn't they wouldn't eat, or additionally in or absent a larger group, they had to be prepared to be attacked from other individuals or groups. If we agree in general that gods are human inventions, then humans invented them for their own needs. Generally, gods were in the defense and fertility business (or more accurately, their salesmen [priests/kings] were in the industry of promising fertility and defense). Both of these involve economic realities/concerns. More crops/herds = more food/wealth. More children = more labor = more wealth. Defense = not losing wealth/not losing health. The rest of the lore per god is practically irrelevant.

While it is true that people did not participate in the modern consumptionist model of western economies, that doesn't have anything to do with the underlying realities of individual value systems, etc. The only way people could produce nothing was to be a raider or a priest/king. Even then, those occupations involved a sort of work. One could not go sit beneath a tree all day indefinitely or one would die.

Kind of, but not quite; see, we're talking about actual human beings and how they conceive of the world, not nonhuman bodies (i.e. animals, bacteria, etc.). The truth is, the way in which humans conceive of the world can actively change it insofar as it changes them. This goes all the way down to language itself; the words we have access to can actually change the "interior" content that we try and express. Likewise, when discussing how humans represent the world back to themselves, we have to acknowledge the deep roots that such representations embed. Abstract value is an illusion - we simply distill it from action in order to talk/write about it; but this has allowed human beings to conceive of value and labor differently than it was conceived of in ancient Egypt.

I agree, but I don't think that changes the fundamentals of what takes place. We merely understand it better which allows us to utilize it more efficiently. How we understand the mind better now is no different than how we better understand the body. IE leeching is bad. Protectionism is bad. Unfortunately we still practice protectionism.

"Economy" just means "household law." Of course there were economies, but they weren't market-directed economies. Furthermore, they weren't organized around the same principles we construct economies in the West today. Ancient priests may indeed have seen bureaucracy and institution as a path toward power, but this path was sanctioned by a higher power. Your claim, if reduced purely to individual ambition, ignores entire aspects of pre-modern thought, and boasts no strong evidence in support of it.

It is true that the economy was less "market oriented". As the term suggests, most economies were somewhat internal to the household. Only in the urban areas did it become more of an economy in the modern sense.

Appealing to sanctions by something that doesn't exist is a weak argument. Those involved in the god business were in it for personal advancement. While the Bible isn't as old as the pyramids, the passages do at least predate modern economic thought. Check out this situation in Acts 19:

23 About that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way. 24 For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing no little business to the craftsmen; 25 these he gathered together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business. 26 You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all. 27 Not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be regarded as worthless and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence.”

28 When they heard this and were filled with rage, they began crying out, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

So not only were they concerned about losing their idol business, but the influx of travelers to the temple, which affected all the local businesses (Tourism industry).

Same shit, different day.

 

[Einherjar86]

No.

Yes.

It isn't all that impressive when all you do is simply disagree. You keep repeating the same thing, while I'm providing sources that support what I'm saying. Fredric Jameson is one of the most respected cultural critics around today, and his writings are substantiated by research and studies that suggest ancient peoples did not view their work and role as we do today.

Yes they kept working, and yes they kept eating; but their reasons for doing so were not the same as ours. You make it sound as though the creation of the gods was a conscious/intentional act. This is completely incorrect, and horrendously misinterprets cultural myth and ideology.

 

[Dak]

Yes.

It isn't all that impressive when all you do is simply disagree. You keep repeating the same thing, while I'm providing sources that support what I'm saying. Fredric Jameson is one of the most respected cultural critics around today, and his writings are substantiated by research and studies that suggest ancient peoples did not view their work and role as we do today.

Yes they kept working, and yes they kept eating; but their reasons for doing so were not the same as ours. You make it sound as though the creation of the gods was a conscious/intentional act. This is completely incorrect, and horrendously misinterprets cultural myth and ideology.

I don't think you read everything that I wrote. All any of us can do about ancient history is conjecture based on the information we have and our world view. An individualist interpretation of economics isn't even in favor in current times in general, and amongst economists, much less among academia at large at any point (and most academia is ignorant of economics whether mainstream or otherwise). That it fails to be considered is not surprising.

There is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that the creation of the gods was anything other than intentional, as everyone (even the religious) are quite certain that 99.9% of gods (although differing on which for the respective religious) don't exist. Intent, of course, can be taken different ways. The Sun is the most common god theme in history, and as the Sun brought Light and Food, this is easy to understand. However, needing to jump through x number of hoops for the sun to do it's things is not even remotely intuitive. This requires some natural born hucksters. Early era snake oil salesmen, if you will. The ones concerned about the threat of Paul to their idol and tourism business.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't think you read everything that I wrote. All any of us can do about ancient history is conjecture based on the information we have and our world view. An individualist interpretation of economics isn't even in favor in current times in general, and amongst economists, much less among academia at large at any point (and most academia is ignorant of economics whether mainstream or otherwise). That it fails to be considered is not surprising.

I always read everything you write. I just don't always respond to all of it.

Why so defeatist? Our lens, whether that of identity or that of difference, is always ideological; but we can still study and rather confidently know certain things about ancient civilizations. We can interpret law codes, spiritual documents, philosophical texts, etc. All these things give us a window into ancient cultures. There is no reason to assume that such texts only apply to the elite, or those who wrote them. You seem to want to cut off study completely, or reduce everything we say to conjecture.

As far as this next bit, I really have some problems with some of the opinions you hold:

There is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that the creation of the gods was anything other than intentional, as everyone (even the religious) are quite certain that 99.9% of gods (although differing on which for the respective religious) don't exist.

What does this even mean? That Christians don't believe in Zeus? That Romans didn't believe in Odin? That Vikings didn't believe in Vishnu? This proves nothing, and means absolutely nothing. All these people still believe; whether they disagree with another person's god is beside the point. If this isn't what you meant, then I apologize; but this comment was horribly ambiguous. Furthermore, even if it was true (or means whatever I'm apparently missing), how does it have any bearing on whether or not spiritual belief can be traced back to an original intentional act? I guess I'm not following this logic.

Intent, of course, can be taken different ways. The Sun is the most common god theme in history, and as the Sun brought Light and Food, this is easy to understand. However, needing to jump through x number of hoops for the sun to do it's things is not even remotely intuitive. This requires some natural born hucksters. Early era snake oil salesmen, if you will. The ones concerned about the threat of Paul to their idol and tourism business.

Appealing to intuition is of the most tendentious things you can do. Intuition isn't something constitutive; it's highly conditioned. What you perceive as intuitive would not be so at all for an ancient civilization, which has had no recourse to technological developments or scientific explanations. To an ancient culture, it's much more logical that a chariot pulls the sun across the sky, rather than the earth revolves around the sun. What's intuitive is entirely relative, so don't rely on it.

Why do you feel the need to reduce everything back to some originary point of intention? Is it a need to recover responsibility? Does it make you uncomfortable that there may be no one to "blame"?

It does not require any "natural born hucksters." There is no reason to believe that someone had to first come up with the idea of a god, like an ancient L. Rob Hubbard, and then spread the idea. Much of what has been written on gods and spirituality suggests that the gods were communal creations, likely originating out of misinterpretations of the environment or hallucinations, as Julian Jaynes suggests. There's nothing originally misleading or malignant about such claims to deities; it begins with a collective group of people who project that belief.

There may certainly be magicians or shamans who see an opportunity to elevate themselves through appeals to some power toward the gods; but this in and of itself does not convince people. The belief must already be, somehow, grounded.

 

[Dak]

I always read everything you write. I just don't always respond to all of it.

Why so defeatist? Our lens, whether that of identity or that of difference, is always ideological; but we can still study and rather confidently know certain things about ancient civilizations. We can interpret law codes, spiritual documents, philosophical texts, etc. All these things give us a window into ancient cultures. There is no reason to assume that such texts only apply to the elite, or those who wrote them. You seem to want to cut off study completely, or reduce everything we say to conjecture.

As far as this next bit, I really have some problems with some of the opinions you hold:

We can interpret these things. All each through our own lens. However, just as this conversation is of little interest or even intelligible to the average person, so much less so in the days before the printing press and other forms of spreading literacy and information.

The majority of people think and live simply, whether now or 10k years ago. We err when we try and apply the lies written in history by the select few elites to the masses. Of course by lies I do not mean in so much a conspiratorial sense so much as the natural bias in retelling compounded with the deviance of power. You can't edit a god, except on the request of a new god.

What does this even mean? That Christians don't believe in Zeus? That Romans didn't believe in Odin? That Vikings didn't believe in Vishnu? This proves nothing, and means absolutely nothing. All these people still believe; whether they disagree with another person's god is beside the point. If this isn't what you meant, then I apologize; but this comment was horribly ambiguous. Furthermore, even if it was true (or means whatever I'm apparently missing), how does it have any bearing on whether or not spiritual belief can be traced back to an original intentional act? I guess I'm not following this logic.

Yes it does mean that, and it does mean something. If you don't believe in any other god, that means you believe they are created fiction. You just make an exception for your own. If they weren't created by humans, they would be "real". You can attack that for being an ad populum argument, but it is at least that.

Appealing to intuition is of the most tendentious things you can do. Intuition isn't something constitutive; it's highly conditioned. What you perceive as intuitive would not be so at all for an ancient civilization, which has had no recourse to technological developments or scientific explanations. To an ancient culture, it's much more logical that a chariot pulls the sun across the sky, rather than the earth revolves around the sun. What's intuitive is entirely relative, so don't rely on it.

It doesn't matter how the sun rises each morning. What is intuitive is if I do "nothing" it does pretty much the same thing every day/season/year.

But stories were created about celestial cycles that invariably served two ends: The enrichment of the individual or the enrichment of the religious-state (with it's god-kings/priests). Sacrifices and offerings enriched these and/or for the promised enrichment of the individual. Purely human self interest is the root.

Why do you feel the need to reduce everything back to some originary point of intention? Is it a need to recover responsibility? Does it make you uncomfortable that there may be no one to "blame"?

It does not require any "natural born hucksters." There is no reason to believe that someone had to first come up with the idea of a god, like an ancient L. Rob Hubbard, and then spread the idea. Much of what has been written on gods and spirituality suggests that the gods were communal creations, likely originating out of misinterpretations of the environment or hallucinations, as Julian Jaynes suggests. There's nothing originally misleading or malignant about such claims to deities; it begins with a collective group of people who project that belief.

There may certainly be magicians or shamans who see an opportunity to elevate themselves through appeals to some power toward the gods; but this in and of itself does not convince people. The belief must already be, somehow, grounded.

See above. Human self interest. Now, the more troubling option to that is that there are some non-human [things] out there that gave rise to the observances. I qualify non-human since if it is just overgrown mythology (respectively) based on some person in history, it's still rooted in some self interest. Even so for the perpetuation of the receiving classes of perpetuators, whether it be of the priestly sort receiving votives or the individuals receiving rain they killed their children for.

The belief, generationally, is grounded in the indoctrination from birth: perpetuated by parents and/or that priest class, which perpetuated it to the parents, parents parents, and so on. If we go back to a root, we either find a huckster(s), or a "god". You can tell a lie so much you believe it. It's easier on the mind than maintaining separate realities.

 

[Dak]

Reuters: Fed Actions causing bubbles

Two things: If you are going to get any truth from the "MSM", it's most often going to be from Reuters. Also, the fact that this is showing up in the MSM should be concerning. It's not going to get coverage until the bubble is already quite big.

"It's what we call a fundamental detachment," said Anthony Sanders, professor of real-estate finance at George Mason University. "The Fed is quite good at generating asset bubbles—just not the kind we want in the economy."

A Fed spokesman declined to comment.

 

[Dak]

Guns Want to Be Free

An interesting and fairly well written article about 3D weapons printing and the crypto-anarchist perspective.

 

[Einherjar86]

We can interpret these things. All each through our own lens. However, just as this conversation is of little interest or even intelligible to the average person, so much less so in the days before the printing press and other forms of spreading literacy and information.

Yes, but those without access to the literature or the means of production didn't necessarily maintain vastly different beliefs than those who did have access. In all likelihood, their beliefs and views of the world were very similar within a generally given area.

Yes it does mean that, and it does mean something. If you don't believe in any other god, that means you believe they are created fiction. You just make an exception for your own. If they weren't created by humans, they would be "real". You can attack that for being an ad populum argument, but it is at least that.

I see; but I'm still not sure how this somehow proves the intentional creation of deities.

You say: "If you don't believe in any other god, that means you believe they are created fiction." Yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean you believe they are an intentionally created fiction designed to deceive. This is certainly one form of disagreement, but by no means constitutive of all forms of spiritual disagreement.

We can say, for instance: "Well, I don't believe a chariot pulls the sun across the sky; Yahweh makes it move." This doesn't mean that those who believe in the sun-god pulling a chariot must have intentionally created the sun-god; rather, we might classify it as a form of "misinterpretation" of nature. There's nothing inherently intentional about it.

It doesn't matter how the sun rises each morning. What is intuitive is if I do "nothing" it does pretty much the same thing every day/season/year.

But stories were created about celestial cycles that invariably served two ends: The enrichment of the individual or the enrichment of the religious-state (with it's god-kings/priests). Sacrifices and offerings enriched these and/or for the promised enrichment of the individual. Purely human self interest is the root.

I see what you're saying here; sorry, I'm having trouble keeping track of the whole entire argument. While I agree that human individuals must take their own well-being into consideration (obviously, the emergence of such myths complements their culture's perceived view of its existence in the cosmos), I don't agree that stories about the celestial cycles served only those two ends. They also were an end in and of themselves. These stories, and the rituals that perpetuated them, were of a kind with the end of crop growth or precipitation. The receiving of food was merely perceived as part of the ritual itself. The performance ("means") was as important as the product ("ends"). There was no conception of them as separate, since this was just how the world worked, so to speak.

I don't see anything intentionally deceptive about the myths that cultures tell themselves. These stories, or cycles, simply emerge out of the complex interactions of equally complex organisms, and they must complement the needs of those organisms; but this does not mean they were intentionally crafted or laid down by one person in order to exert power over others. It is more likely that they emerged collectively - we could almost say evolutionarily - along with the conscious mind itself, as a means of representing the world to human organisms.

See above. Human self interest. Now, the more troubling option to that is that there are some non-human [things] out there that gave rise to the observances. I qualify non-human since if it is just overgrown mythology (respectively) based on some person in history, it's still rooted in some self interest. Even so for the perpetuation of the receiving classes of perpetuators, whether it be of the priestly sort receiving votives or the individuals receiving rain they killed their children for.

The belief, generationally, is grounded in the indoctrination from birth: perpetuated by parents and/or that priest class, which perpetuated it to the parents, parents parents, and so on. If we go back to a root, we either find a huckster(s), or a "god". You can tell a lie so much you believe it. It's easier on the mind than maintaining separate realities.

If you tell a lie so much that you believe it, then it's no longer a lie. Lies are intended to deceive. There doesn't need to have been an initial lie in order to perpetuate an entire mythology of crop cycles or rivers flooding. In fact, many of the mythologies that we know about are derived from much earlier hunter-gatherer groups whose social organization wasn't stratified or hierarchical in the way that more complex societies are. Human self-interest can still function without human individuals intentionally, or consciously, realizing the way in which their cultural myths complement those interests.

 

[monoxide_child]

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&gs_rn=...182,d.eWU&fp=d9975bb46c0e893f&biw=792&bih=425

 

[Nephilim96]

If you're a "Juggalo", monoxide, why do you frequent an extreme metal forum?

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

 

[Dak]

Awesome.

 

[Einherjar86]

David Foster Wallace is the man. I've read his collection of essays, Consider the Lobster, and his first work of fiction, The Broom of the System. He's ridiculously smart.