Hello BT forums, Ryan here.
I am reading an extremely interesting book at the moment entitled “The Fall: The Insanity of The Ego in Human History and The Dawning of A New Era” by an author called Steve Taylor. I would recommend it, but I think a nutshell or a review is really all one needs to read as it does seem to get awfully repetitive. I’ll break this down in a nutshell with relevance to what I want to talk about:
The thesis goes as such: around 6,000 years ago (eerily echoing the proposed life of Adam and Eve) there was a large environmental shift, originally brought about by the halting of the retreat of glaciers, which caused rainfall to cease in parts of the world like Northern Africa and Asia. They dried out to become the Sahara Desert, the Steppes and Arabia. The people who lived there were forced to migrate out. This caused a sharpened sense of self and ego among the area’s inhabitants. The reasons are too many and too complex to get into; and they were largely the result of cultural evolution. Taylor proposed this lead to (among other things):
War
Patriarchy
Child oppression
Oppression of women
Inequality
Psychological discord
Taboo attitude to sex and the body
Sin (or sense of it)
Superstitious or personalised concepts of God/s
But most importantly, SELFISHNESS.
Most of the world’s population are descended from either Indo-European or Semitic peoples who conquered the world shortly after (there is plenty of archaeological evidence for this). However, there are still pockets of ‘unfallen’ people around the world, not affected by these migrants. Of course, if you’re a Young-Earther you deny these people’s very existence, because their psychological differences can only be explained by pre-dating 4,000BC.
Now, there are key differences in their society which I want to illustrate in reference to sin. I know my intro’s been a little too long, but it was necessary. I’ll use the ‘seven deadly sins’. I don’t care if it’s a Catholicisation, it just makes it simpler. This is a generalisation of matrist, unfallen cultures around the world (when I signify thumbs up or thumbs down I mean it in relevance to what would be regarded as ‘righteous’ and endorsable by Jesus):
These are majority generalisations, by the way.
Pride: Members of the society deemed too boastful are immediately frowned upon, and all group members are able to contribute in decision making (thumbs up!).
Sloth: All members of the society see themselves as working for the group and split labour fairly, as well as between men and women (thumbs up!).
Gluttony: Food is divided equally despite who put the most effort in (thumbs up!).
Greed: Members of the society are practically forced and compelled to share possessions between each other and there is a strict taboo and unlawfulness for accumulating land and possessions. Anyone who does so is victimised (thumbs up!).
Envy: The fact that there is no desire for the accumulation of wealth or possessions suggest that these societies do not suffer from the same psychological discord as we do with regards to greed and envy (thumbs up!).
Wrath: War is practically unknown to such societies, and whenever there are internal or external conflicts actual fighting is always avoided if necessary. Sometimes people perform rituals to vent anger out rather than harming each other (thumbs up!).
So there we have it! It looks as if we have a peaceful, innocent, harmonious and law-abiding society. Oh wait, until we come to…
Lust: Fornication is glorified. Both men and women are encouraged to have multiple sexual partners before marriage and even during marriage practices such as ‘spouse-swapping’ and adultery are all practiced and accepted. It is taken for granted that even when married the man cannot fully satisfy the woman or vice versa so both are permitted to have sex with other members of the group (thumbs way, way down…).
Notice the problem here?
Jesus was clearly very much against adultery and even said that if you look at a woman in lust then you’ve committed it! He even says that divorce is adultery too (this is also permittable in unfallen societies, by the way).
To me, this says something really significant. I do not believe that God sets a purposeless commandment. To me, it is evident that fornication and adultery are strictly forbidden to prevent conflict, as well as unhealthy tenancies to lust after carnal desires. Also, and I for one find this a very important issue, to stop unwanted pregnancies and babies being born out of wedlock. You see, it is as clear as day! However, it appears that in these societies such things cause absolutely negligible conflict and in some cases are actually used to reduce tension among people!
Now I don’t distrust Jesus for a second. I am sure that this commandment was important to us as Semites and Indo-Europeans, I am well aware. But it is as if it is not universal… it’s as if it just doesn’t need to be a sin for these people. Whenever missionaries have tried to introduce celibacy it has had disastrous consequences and modern day organisations are even getting some tribes to relearn their old ways!
Perhaps, and this is only a theory, please entertain it… we are truly and utterly different, and God’s commandments are relative to each people and society?
Discuss! This doesn’t just need to be about the contradiction I spotted, but about this idea in general. That the sharpened sense of ego we possess is not universal throughout the whole world. This sharpened ego is of course… the beast!
Author
Topic: The secular history of The Fall and its certain sexual inconsistence... (Read 7453 times)