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Immediately, if you perceive religion as a way of organizing a person's relationship with the unknown. Apparently, there are areas of the brain that are responsible for experiencing religious experiences in humans, so this method is a natural evolutionary adaptation. (It does not follow from this fact that the interpretation and conceptualization of this experience will correspond to reality.)
If we rely on other definitions of religion, then the timing will be different. For example, religion as a social institution may not arise before the emergence of the state. At the same time, according to current data, man as a species has existed for about two hundred thousand years, and states – only about ten.
Evidence of the presence of religion is difficult to detect, but …
About twenty Neanderthal burials have been described. In most of them (some have been preserved damaged), people lie on their sides, one arm raised under their head, the other along the body and legs, and the legs are slightly bent. Sleeping person's pose. In some cases, flat stones are found under the head, in some cases pieces of cooked meat are assumed – animal bones with traces of fire, flint tools. The bodies are oriented from east to west, the face to south (this orientation is typical not only for Neanderthals, but also generally accepted). Soil samples taken from at least one burial site showed the presence of medicinal plant pollen.�
For example, the discovery of the burial of a woman and a one-year-old child in a grotto indicates a serious attitude to the burial. Depressions were hollowed out in the rock for them.
This attitude to the dead is generally accepted by scientists as evidence of religious beliefs.�
Also, judging by the fact that there are no cultures without ideas about the supernatural, including primitive cultures are always studied with special interest in this regard, it can be assumed that religious ideas arise very early, along with the emergence of reason.
The anthropological material shows that, indeed, there are no cultures in which religion would be absent. But there is a certain problem with this fact, namely in the very concept of “religion”. Can we talk about the existence of a religion, for example, if we do not have any evidence of the existence of a cult? Can we speak of religion if we have no direct evidence of the existence of the concept of God, or can we not speak with certainty about the existence of any ideas at all? Or if there is no evidence of priests/shamans or other socially significant positions. This is a question, because each concept must be defined, that is, the scope of its definition must be specific. If the concept is too broad, then it loses its function of definition and becomes rather useless. If the concept of “religion” is interpreted too broadly, then your morning habit of brushing your teeth can turn into evidence that you have a religious cult. And, by and large, saying that religion was and is everywhere, we can fall into the same incident, only of a more complex kind. In fact, this is why any historical research begins with working out the concept of what you are going to look for. The better and stronger this work is done, the more accurate your answer to the question “did they have something there?”will be.�
And, of course, no exact figures will be given to you.