Quote:
Originally Posted by mac mini
White eurocentric culture very much had a cultural reverence for nature at 3000 or 4000 BC, e.g. cave paintings. The institution of law and the advancement of agriculture killed it.
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You're right and I knew I'd made a mistake after I posted. I think, however, that the rise of agriculture and later of cities (law) aren't what changed things. There were civilizations that practiced agriculture and had laws, even a written language that still revered and attempted to preserve nature because they literally worshiped it. The Mayans are a good example.
No, it wasn't Europeans or Eurocentrism that did it. It was monotheism. The great monotheistic Abrahamic religions pretty thoroughly wiped out all the other advanced animist and pagan religions and replaced them with a big sky god that told the people that the earth was theirs to do with as they pleased. What ultimately happened to the earth was of secondary importance because the only real purpose of their lives here was to be as obedient to the sky god as they possibly could in order to join the party up there when it was all over here.
John
11-22-2012, 07:23 PM
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