EARLY LITERATURE

When those early humans climbed out of their caves and wondered what it was all about, from their paintings we have evidence of how they wanted to make some form of record. This might have been about the sun and moon, the animals they could feed off, or perhaps, as in this image, some concept of an overall seeing eye that determined how life all hung together. OK, there is no need to itemise the development of over 3,000 different Gods invented over time, each attempting to provide some explanation on where we might have come from, what we were doing, and then what happens when one dies. Needless to say, the basic question has been around for a very long time.

So if some fatalistic religions preach not to worry about anything because it is all ordained and you can't do much about it, this would never have brought about progress, suggesting humans always required some form of incentive. Early leaders, just as the biggest brute in the cave, provided that answer. Do what I tell you if you want to stay alive. Die fighting my battle or you die anyway. The problem with this was that as leaders changed, each new upstart had to go through instilling the same learning curve on their minions. So some genius invented how this overall direction from the boss in charge came from some divine intellect so powerful that only the leader could receive a copy of the rules. In this, it helped to spend a long time in the wilderness since obviously after 40 days and 40 nights on your own, your thinking would be very clear...

The problem with this was that since money lending and usury was frowned upon, up rose the creation of the Jews to fill the gap. Where this practice ostracised them, carpenter Jesus threw them out of the temple where they conducted their unwelcome but needed business to become his own religious icon, something his carpenter father did not understand. The Romans next adopted this new Christianity to keep the mobs in line and to ensure they render unto Caesar their taxes. This lesson well learned was adopted by genius in the emerging Arab world where leadership was based on an illiterate warlord whose word had to be remembered and written by others while then becoming irrefutable law no matter what inconsistencies. Don't like it and the penalty is death. Yet the outcome of these three same God monotheist religions still all had some heaven waiting. What else can you look forward to?

So the big question remains over what actually is death? Looking for an answer from a philosophical basis, when one spends some months with people on their final legs, from observation it would appear people are trying to find some justification for their lives to give it some form of meaning. If sitting with them, this is made even more difficult as you can't help feeling they are moving off into a different world, even if you try to steer the conversation towards memories of loved ones, children, or happy memories. It becomes a shock if you mention a happy event at say, Christmas, suddenly realising they won't be there for the next one. Looking then for justification in religion offering a heaven, this can help you going through a lifetime and perhaps into death but what if you don't believe? Then the fall back has to be on being greatful for children created in your own image, with the caveat to this depending on what they turned into and how they treated you. This is where the Chinese have established their power through genealogy being everything, and where they do not tolerate religions that might distort their belief.

Symbolizing humans as a form of an advanced animal, the species question arises. In animal kingdoms, a species rather than a habit keeps them together. Here, the question extends to what will be the deciding factor in human existence. Will it be eventually divided into groups that have a defined racial affinity or by a unified religious belief?