A.D Vander Vliet, 2018-03-18
CONTENT:
Preamble:
Modern Challenge:
Handed down traditions and tolerance.
Historical origin of accepted traditions.
New knowledge of modern sciences.
Shared development since 60ky ago.
Our diversity today as variations of our common start in that distant past.
References
Preamble:
The ‘World Belief’ is all inclusive, taking in all of humanity as the chosen people and our home planet Earth as the promised land, where we as humans discover this promise and bring it into reality. This is a process that is described in the handed down narratives of the many different traditions that make up today’s diverse human world community, with each tradition relating its unique history, identity and defining experiences.
Modern Challenge:
I became ten years old a few days after the Second World War ended with the conclusion of hostilities in the Pacific in August 1945. Growing up I was part of a social attitude of ‘reconstruction’ and cooperation, aimed at preventing a reoccurrence of the twin disasters of the First and Second World wars. It let to decolonisation and a restructuring of the relations between nations on the globe.
Today, one hundred years after the First World War our world is facing the very different challenge of the diversity of identities. The attitude of working together towards a safer world has been replaced by one of defending one’s own identity where the other is seen as a threat to one’s own. This situation is aggravated by a doubling of the world population from 3.5 to 7.5 billion since ca 1950, as well as the experience of being closer connected than ever before due to the modern media.
This problem of feeling threatened in and by diversity of one’s own identity, has no obvious solution like the one facing the world after those two world wars. Back then it was regaining what had been lost, but now we feel a threat of losing what we used to have and still have to some extend. How are we going to live in this world of diversity and not loose our identity and what we value?
This is not a simple problem, as is illustrated by the most successful nation that we know – the United States – being in the throws of self doubt and taking on a very defensive posture. And even more disconcerting is the lack of ways forward from the various local conflicts that relate to this diversity of identity factor. [E.G: Thailand, Myanmar, Syria, Palestine and the various World Indigenous peoples, among others]
What we need to do as nations and identity groups is to free up some of our cherished identity and invest that in the global identity of humanity by means of a World Belief. This belief has the two components of ‘Origin’ and of ‘Reconciliation’. This essay and talk address the problem of Origin.
Handed down traditions and tolerance.
These handed down traditions refer to the four main world religions and all the smaller belief frameworks, as well as secular and economic ideologies, keeping the main world religions as typical. Each such tradition defines an identity for its adherents and orders their experience world. Such a framework sustains its community in daily and long term functionality and defines its values for the members.
One such value is tolerance within the community of adherents towards other members, while another is loyalty towards the group. This means less tolerance towards members of other traditions, which can take the form of rejection and outright violence. Most of this behaviour is taught, often from childhood.
Tolerance towards members who have a differing identity only grows with time through interaction such as social activity. However, what is hardly ever taught is tolerance and valuing of those who differ from one’s own group. This has become a problem today in our world community that harbours so many different traditions with their own identity at close quarters and in intense contact. Today we need a concerted effort at teaching tolerance of people across identity boundaries and it is here that a common narrative is needed.
Historical origin of accepted traditions.
Global temperatures fluctuated considerably up until ca 12 000 years ago – 12kya – for short, settling down to their present variations. It was the time of the big melt – probably slow – raising sea levels by about 100 meters, creating the present Black sea and resulting in the filling of the ‘wild’ Nile valley. The stabilised climate was conducive to settlement, the start of agriculture and the domestication of suitable animals.
The major religious narratives refer to this time as their origin, oral first and soon to be written down once script had been invented around 4ky before year zero. The following narrative is an illustration of such a beginning. This Mesopotamian story relates how the gods became tired of all the irrigating and harvesting they had to do and in a gathering decided to create humans from the available clay to do the work for them! Gods work was working the fields; such was the revelation within this tradition.
Over time such agricultural based civilisations became well established on all continents except for Australia and Antarctica, making for a total of about five.1) These civilisations had well defined traditions, laws, world frameworks and social identities, waging war when that was perceived necessary and trading when there was peace.
The Roman Empire at around year Zero is a well known and documented example of what such a civilisation was capable. Its population of 60 million is considered by some the maximum for a state based on agriculture. The later industrial revolution increased that capacity to the present level of 7.5 billion worldwide, sustaining many different nations and states, each with their own identity vying for a place to exist on this now much more crowded planet.
New knowledge of modern sciences.
The discoveries modern sciences paralleled the industrial revolution, giving unexpected insights into the origins of humanity. This origin lies far beyond the beginnings of agriculture and the invention of record keeping and writing. That moment in our past is best located at about 60k years ago, when our species – Homo sapiens – began to fan out across the Earth starting from the present continent of Africa, taking about 20k years to reach all livable continents.
Our present day sciences also discovered the climatic changes referred to above and has now also mapped the way human spread over the planet using DNA based techniques.2) At the basis of this tracing the spread of the human species lies our fairly recent knowledge about the human genome, which paints a picture of our shared heritage based on the biology of our very existence. Never mind the perceived difference in identity and taught values, we are all part of the human family, whether we want to know it or not. It is a flashing beacon that we all must acknowledge and use as a principle when we attempt to resolve our difference.
A third aspect of modern scientific investigations is the study of languages and cultures. Linguistic investigations reveal that our present day languages are interconnected in unsuspected ways, showing bonds that existed in the past, though unsuspected now. Also shared folk tales, mythologies, legal concepts and the arts show mutual influences that reach over long distances and spans of time. So, we are much more interconnected than we ever thought we were and now is the time to keep that in mind and guide us in addressing the variations in our lived values and identities.
Shared development since 60ky ago.
In tracing our human development from the present back to our common start 60k years ago we can mark some outstanding moments that Archeology and Anthropology have uncovered about our development and are discovering still. The civilisations of Antiquity were all ready mentioned as was the rise in sea levels 12k years ago to which some early myths refer.
However none of the main religious narratives refer to the many millennia that humans lived at hunting and gathering, barely mentioning their shaman, oracles and magic practices that guided such societies dealing with the eventualities of the changes in climate as those took place back then.
The discovery of the cave paintings in Southern France and in Indonesia’s Sulawesi more recently dating back about 40k years, show us that humans led an active imaginative life. Though the functional reasons for the paintings remain obscure we can be sure they related to the animals the hunt and the seasons. In addition to these many rock paintings there are the inventions of new tools using highly skilled micro-lithic techniques. Other inventions are often overlooked, such as that of the fishhook, fishnet knotting, the needle, vessel construction and others, not the least of which was that very early management of fire.
Our species left the continent of Africa in small groups over many years with a knowledge of fire, some very basic stone tools, wooden spears, cooking and communication skills. This was a very basic start that our species shares with those that stayed and the ones that left that African birth place of our species. What developed since then in the short time span of sixty thousand years is nothing short of amazing.
We owe it to ourselves as a species today to honour and value this past and the journey we all made albeit separately, but still as a common journey travelled over time. This common starting point and shared experience must serve as the basis for our shared identity and guide us in defining a common goal for our way fore ward today. It behoves us today to resolve and understand our conflicts as temporary obstacles to formulating a wholeness in that diversity of our human traditions.
Our diversity today as variations of our common start in that distant past.
In order to address this task ahead we need to come to an understanding acceptance of our differences as assets in ensuring a flexible and richly varied development enhancing the contributions of humanity in this universe to the best of our ability. The June 10 presentation and essay titled “World Belief Conciliation” aims at formulating about such accommodation.
END
References:
- They are China, Indus valley, Mesopotamia, Egypt and several in the Meso Americas.
- “Deep Ancestry”, Wells, Spencer, National Geographic 2006
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