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A human history of God, “The Sorcerer” cave drawing, Cave of the Trois-Frères/France, Origin of belief in the soul, Origin of the religious impulse, Reza Aslan, The embodied soul
On September 11, 2001, a group of Islamic extremists struck America’s major financial center in New York. Since then, we have embarked on a “War on Terror” that has morphed into an assault on all Muslims, except for allied Muslim nations. This past week, our endless war of terror has pivoted to Jerusalem, the holy city of three of the world’s major religions by number of followers (World Atlas) – Christianity (2.22 billion), Islam (1.6 billion), and Judaism (13.9 million).
Within this context, I share with you in the first of a three-part series my synopsis of Reza Aslan’s book, God: A Human History. Like the author, I have “no interest in trying to prove the existence or nonexistence of God for the simple reason that no proof exists either way.” Whether you believe in one God or many gods or no god at all, I would like you to consider Aslan’s bold assertion that “it is we who have fashioned God in our image, not the other way around.”
In “Part One: The Embodied Soul,” Aslan investigates the origin of our belief in a soul, a byword for “spiritual essence” or “mind.” It’s a journey back in time to the emergence of our primitive ancestors, Homo sapiens (the wise human) – the “historical” Adam and Eve. According to archaeological records, Homo sapiens first appeared during the Lower Paleolithic Period, between 2.5 million and 200,000 years ago. Remains unearthed in burial mounds indicate that they buried their dead together with artifacts that must have been precious to them.
Such behavior suggests that Adam and Eve had some concept of an afterlife. Since they knew that the body rotted, they must’ve believed that something of the self – a spiritual being or a soul – lived on in another realm. Where they got this idea remains a mystery. What we do know is that their belief in spiritual beings led to belief in God.
In 1914, the discovery of the Cave of the Trois-Frères, part of a three-cave complex in the foothills of the Pyrenees in Southern France, revealed what Henri Breuil (1877-1961) noted was the earliest image ever found of God. The French Jesuit priest, archaeologist, and anthropologist, who reproduced and published the cave drawings, named the human-animal figure “the Sorcerer.” Variations of the human-animal god, known to religious scholars as The Lord of Beasts, is the most widely shared god among ancient societies.
The Sorcerer (Interpretation of drawing by Henri Breuil)
Les Trois-Frères, Volp Caves, France (c. 18,000 to 16,000 B.C.E.)
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
During the nineteenth century era of great advancement in scientific discovery and invention, scientific debate ignited over the origins of religion. Since religious belief is a worldwide phenomenon, scholars reasoned that it must be an intrinsic part of being human. Based on Charles Darwin’s ideas of evolution by natural selection, set out in his work The Origin of Species (1859), they postulated this propensity must be the result of an evolutionary adaptation.
Various theories presented for the origin of the religious impulse did not hold up to scrutiny. It is not a response to the grandeur of Nature. It is not rooted in our fear of a threatening and unpredictable world. Sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) contended that rites and rituals fostered collective consciousness within a community. Aslan doesn’t share this view, since kinship presents a stronger and more primal tool for social cohesion in our human evolution.
Over the last few decades, cognitive theorists have joined the debate. They believe that the religious impulse is not an evolutionary adaptation. It is a neurological phenomenon in the human brain that accidentally developed during the millions of years of human evolution. They posit that, under the right circumstances, Adam and Eve endowed inanimate objects with a soul or spirit (animism) and then passed on these beliefs to other cultures and generations.
The author observes that the cognitive theory rests on the assumption of what may be humanity’s first belief: “our ingrained, intuitive, and wholly experiential belief that we are, whatever else we are, embodied souls.”
Three Worlds One Vision 
Fascinating
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Thanks for dropping by, Derrick 🙂
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Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Thanks for sharing, Cyril. Best wishes for the season ❤
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Thanks for sharing, Guyfrog. I appreciate your support ❤
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An interesting book and book review Rosaliene, I look forward to parts two and three. I think the opening statement that we have created God in our image is interesting from the point of view of the evolution of theology.
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Thanks, Denzil. Aslan tackles “The Humanized God” in Part Two of his book.
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Thank you for bringing to our attention this book. With so many wars fought in the name of God, it is time that all of us think about what we believe.
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Bernadette, that’s my sole purpose in sharing Reza Aslan’s extensively researched book. We have carved our religious beliefs in stone tablets, while we have scientifically and technologically advanced as a species living in increasingly complex and overpopulated urban societies.
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I think this is an enormously complex issue, but credit you, Rosaliene, for the courage to take it on. The notion of evolution I’ve encountered with respect to this quality of belief (or any other adaptive human characteristic) is that the belief in a god or gods surfaced randomly and then, because it proved to enable the species to survive (at least in some cases) continued to be passed on. It is important to remember that the belief in a single god or even a multiplicity of gods should also be understood in a primitive man (and in our current situation) as both a way to make sense of the world and a way to quell our terror of the randomness of fate and our ultimate death. One last word. It is useful to recall that in the ancient world it was common for a person to worship many gods simultaneously. Thus, I’m fond of this particular irony found in the commandment: “Thou shalt worship no other gods before me.” Does it mean that it is OK to worship other gods, so long as they are not given priority? I frankly don’t know what religious scholars think about the question.
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Dr. Stein, this is indeed “an enormously complex issue.” As a former practicing psychotherapist, you know must more than I do about the complexities of the human mind in relation to our beliefs about ourselves and others, and of the divine.
The notion of evolution I’ve encountered with respect to this quality of belief (or any other adaptive human characteristic) is that the belief in a god or gods surfaced randomly and then, because it proved to enable the species to survive (at least in some cases) continued to be passed on.
According to the scientific debate presented by Reza Aslan, this theory doesn’t stand up to scrutiny since it fails to provide evidence “for the existence of any emotion that is unique to religion – not even transcendence – and thus no reason to conclude that religious feelings are uniquely beneficial to human survival.”
At this time, I won’t comment on our belief in a single god or a multiplicity of gods. The author tackles this issue in “Part Three: What is God?”
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I clearly don’t agree with Aslan, in part, because he sets a standard of uniqueness. There are many paths to the same evolutionary goal of survival. Moreover, in issues relating to god, we are certainly dealing with an area where “evidence” is in short supply.
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Exactly, Dr. Stein. This is why serious debate is so contentious.
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enjoyed this review into the soul, Rosaliene!
generally, i’m not sure what to believe,
but i’m inclined to think it’s about
being continuations
of what was
before 🙂
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That makes sense to me, David. If we are indeed spiritual beings within a physical body, death would not be the end. Our existence would be, as you say, “continuations of what was before.”
I think that a person’s belief in the divine nature of our existence is based on intuitive experience. In other words: I cannot prove I have a soul; I just know it to be true.
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Very interesting. 🙂
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Sorry, long comment, but this is right up my alley. I did wait a couple of days to see if anyone would do this for me…!
Quote: “Over the last few decades, cognitive theorists have joined the debate. They believe that the religious impulse is not an evolutionary adaptation. It is a neurological phenomenon in the human brain that accidentally developed during the millions of years of human evolution. They posit that, under the right circumstances, Adam and Eve endowed inanimate objects with a soul or spirit (animism) and then passed on these beliefs to other cultures and generations.
The author observes that the cognitive theory rests on the assumption of what may be humanity’s first belief: “our ingrained, intuitive, and wholly experiential belief that we are, whatever else we are, embodied souls.”
It never ceases to amaze me how much Earth people love to spin around in their theories on where they’re from, how they became whatever they are now, and who they are. So they turn to certain pasts which they choose to believe in since there is no more proof of any of it, including Adam and Eve, than there are of the existence of God or gods, and fiddle with theories, erecting castles in Spain which are designed so they can easily be dismantled, to be erected again when it rains… 🙂
Honestly, it’s silly, all of it. There are ways to know where we came from, who we are and what makes us tick and tock. Those “ways” however don’t fit the Matrix agenda and therefore cannot enter the sacro-sanct sanctuaries of religion, politics and academia.
God created in man’s image? Of course, how could it be otherwise? But doesn’t this always beg the same question, why would “man” invent such a burdensome and ridiculous entity to rule over him? And if it’s a “neurological impulse” why say it was “accidental”? What a cheap come back. Ridiculous. Nothing accidental about it, it was implanted in the Earthian mind and the implant is what people call their soul. It is that simple. And whom, one may ask, did this? None other than the creators, the makers, the “invaders” who invented mankind as a slave species and shaped it to resemble themselves, including how it thought and behaved. The implant was supposed to control the creature so it would never rebel. Things didn’t quite go according to plan, and do they ever?
So, you have your gods, the inventors, and you have the answer to annoying facts like constructs that man could never have achieved, and you have your reasons why man never changes; why the greatest accomplishments reach an apex and always, like clockwork, crumble around him as his current civilization is once again doing. It’s the programming and that’s done through the soul implant, and it affects the entire species because all have this implant.
The “gods” are still “there” and the programming still runs and man is not going to escape his prison planet because “the gods” know such a move would spell disaster for the galaxy and in time, beyond. Now, let’s reverse engineer ourselves, see what we look like when all the parts are laid out on the table… One thing we’ll discover is that “man” as in Homo sapiens does not have millions of years of “evolution” but appears just as he is today less than half a million years ago.
From Wikipedia: Homo sapiens is the systematic name used in taxonomy (also known as binomial nomenclature) for anatomically modern humans, i.e. the only extant human species. The name is Latin for “wise man” and was introduced in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus (who is himself also the type specimen).
Isn’t it strange that we have no “cousins” or other similar species in existence on earth? Doesn’t that fact ring a very loud bell that we are not related to any other extant life form on this world, and probably on any world, anywhere? As Ricky would say in “I love Lucy” “You got lots of ‘splainin’ to do, Lucy!”
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Yes, Sha’Tara, this topic is definitely “right up [your] alley. I share your view that our religious neurological impulse is not accidental, but was deliberately implanted in our human DNA. This, of course, raises the question: Who are “the gods” responsible for our “soul implant”? The ancient alien theorists are not well respected in the scientific community.
Based on our historical record, we humans continue to struggle with the dark side of our nature.
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Which begs the question: why will the “scientific community” not consider something that is so obvious, and for which there is world-wide evidence? This is what makes me think that it is the “scientific community” that is hell bent on proposing “alien” theories about humankind that have no basis in fact. I’d go further and state that this “scientific community” is in itself a sort of religious coterie raised up to protect the status quo when the old stand-by god-affirming claptrap is rapidly losing its grip upon the sheeple. “Quick! We need another cover-up institution to prevent them from learning the truth! Let’s give them “science” and tell them “scientists” base their findings on empirical evidence. Then let’s give them gurus, like Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson to shift their focus and worship from Jehovah to NASA. As was the case with the old Religion, let’s also fund this one generously, and make sure its Teachings are embedded in the education system from day one. Give it big TV specials and get them believing.” The “soul programming” simply does the rest and surprise, we’re no better off, in fact worse, under the aegis of science. Sure, old $big time$ religion loved killing as much as anything, but it wasn’t as adept at creating weapons of mass destruction. And therein lies the reason why the “scientific community” cannot tell the truth about anything (except for the rebels, and they get taken care of, or taken out.)
As for who were/are the gods, there is plenty of archeological evidence pointing not only at their time here, but who they were: essentially raiders, space pirates, “explorers” (as we called our own imperial raiders) who discovered earth either by design or accident and resided here for a very long time – estimate beginning about a half a million years ago. They were called the Anunnaki by the Sumerians. They were so much like “us” in the records it’s little wonder we ended up like them. Extensive and painstaking research on this was done by Zecharia Sitchin, an Azerbaijani-born American author. Predictably his research was laughed down by the “scientific community” as it lays bare a history the status quo does not want people to know about. The reasoning behind that is, if we knew where we came from, how we were fashioned, for what purpose and how we remain in the control of those makers, we would find ways (as I and many others I have interacted with have done) to break free of the mind-numbing programming that forces us to act against our best interests practically all the time. How well we see this debilitating, destructive behaviour lately with our insane leaders, brain-dead consumerism and utterly callous support for endless wars.
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Fascinating thread.
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Thanks, Maria 🙂
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Fascinating read. It gets to the most existential of questions; What are we, and why are we?
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Thanks, Robert. If we don’t address these existential questions of our shared humanity, we will continue blindly on our current path towards self-extinction.
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Rosaliene your reviews are always a grand catalyst for deep thought and engagement that results in some profound comments. Beliefs are definitely a mystical abstraction that move with social circumstances.
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Thanks, Mike. I like your definition of beliefs. We forget that our belief systems change over time. Yet, we humans cling to religious beliefs that no longer serve our times.
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Also, love that second image!
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It’s stunning. To think it was hidden away for millions of years in a deep, dark cave.
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I know, can you imagine.
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“it is we who have fashioned God in our image, not the other way around.”
I agree. Esp in Old Testament where Hebrews anthropomorphize giving God so many human characteristics like anger, wrath, love, jealousy. I suppose it is natural as we commune with God in human forms of expression. It is really quite silly to attribute these human emotions to Creator but only way due to human understanding. If humans were created in the image of God we would be demi gods, have no need for God and therefore no need for redemption through Jesus Christ. Such is Calvin’s total depravity of man ( not to be interpreted as some wicked sexual deviancy or such but helpless need for dependence having no ego and willing to accept and submit.
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Thanks for dropping by, Carl, and for adding your thoughts. I’ve always had difficulty connecting with the God of the Old Testament. He’s a God of wrath.
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Wow! Nice post 👌you have got a good blog😃👌Thanks For sharing!😍✌️
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Thanks, Sharon. Appreciate that you dropped by 🙂
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I literally just finished Reza’s book. It was eye opening for sure.
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That’s great.
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Not sure if there is such a thing as accidents in evolution…
We can only judge the usefulness of a change by current circumstances – and if it happens to be useful, right now, we call a change evolution. The question is then, is it useful to be religious?
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Is it useful to be religious? The survival of the human religious impulse from the emergence of Homo sapiens to the present day suggests that it must have had and still serves some purpose in our development as a species.
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In that sense, all of evolution is a truism. “If it got selected, it worked and if it worked, it got selected”!
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I don’t think religion works as an evolutionary process. OK, so I don’t buy any evolution theories though obviously there is constant change and adaptation but that’s not evolution, it’s just change, some positive, some negative. Next: having been raised in strict old school Latin-chanting and mumbling Catholicism, I have a background to look at. Having then turned to atheism and found it grossly wanting, I returned to religion as a “born again” evangelical Christian. More background. The purpose of religion is mind control. Religion doesn’t evolve, doesn’t change but when forced, will make a pretense at change, bide its time and come full circle at the propitious time. Religion was instituted among mankind and placed within the mind programming, as were the next two ineradicable control forces: politics and money, neither of which ever change either except on the surface of things. Once this is realized, there is a window open to the individual mind to free itself through complete detachment. Believe all things, believe in nothing. (More of my annoying opinions…!)
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Sha’Tara, I by no means believe that your opinions are annoying. You force me to re-examine my beliefs and ways of seeing things. Whenever I neglect to respond to any of your comments know that I’m processing the ideas, beliefs, and life experience presented therein.
To know the truth is to be set free from those who maintain power and dominance over our lives.
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Well, first, I don’t expect people to respond to my “off the cuff” comments, and yes I do have a whole lot of annoying opinions, annoying in the sense that they are like the fly in the oitment, and maybe we should realize the only reason the fly went in there is because the oitment was spoiled… 🙂
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A thought-provoking essay, Rosaliene, that has generated a fascinating dialogue. I especially appreciate the depth your work inspires us to consider about our universal connections to each other and the role narrow inflexible religious ideologies have played in creating violent conflicts.
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Thanks for adding your voice, Carol.
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A very interesting book and your review.
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Thanks, Inese 🙂
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Rosaliene,
A worthy topic for consideration, indeed, and I applaud you for bringing it up. However, let’s not forget that the most ancient “religions” worshipped the sun, quite literal giver of life. The emperor–say Chinese or Egyptian–was promoted as the sun’s human emissary and so derived his power.
Fact is, no one can account for life’s origin and perpetuation. Natural life cycles are given to animals, plants, and humans, and many of our human traditions and beliefs come from a hands-on experience of nature directly.
That we have perverted the meaning of life through our gods and religions is a result of man’s immaturity and discomfort with his creature-hood, not superior and apart, but a part of nature and totally dependent on it. We could stand a healthy dose of humility, in our human bag of tricks.
I do believe that man’s search for meaning drives life even more than survival itself. Life without quality or purpose becomes empty and shallow and leads to the travesties of wars and epidemics. We need to grow up. As you say, our religions have reached the point of doing more harm than good. They could stand some healthy self-examination and maturing, too.
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Katharine, thanks for dropping by and sharing your thoughts.
We could stand a healthy dose of humility, in our human bag of tricks.
~ Totally agree with you, Katharine. What we face right now with droughts, fires, super-storms, and flooding are just a sampling of what awaits us in the years ahead. All the gods will be unable to save us from our own folly.
[Our religions] could stand some healthy self-examination and maturing, too.
~ Aslan’s book and others like it serve as ways of initiating this self-examination. This is my hope in sharing this three-part series about Aslan’s book.
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Agreed. I’m glad that she has broached the topic and that you are synopsizing it. Many people have questions now, trying to reconcile religious beliefs with the mechanistic view of the universe that “science” promotes. We know the universe is not an impersonal machine, but it’s hard to conceptualize that ineffable “life force” that makes us aware of it.
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Katharine, I love the way you describe God as “that ineffable “life force” that makes us aware of it.” It truly is beyond the comprehension of our limited minds, making it easy to dismiss the existence of such a “life force.” Is Dark Energy that “life force”? My favorite astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says no.
By the way, the author Reza Aslan is male. I’ll add a brief profile in my next post.
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I read “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry,” and don’t remember Tyson making any reference to “life force.” That dark energy and dark matter are truly fascinating, though.
Thanks for letting me know Reza Aslan is male. For some reason I assumed he was female, not that it matters.
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I haven’t read Tyson’s book. I watch his weekly show, Star Talk, on National Geographic Informative and entertaining.
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Oh. I don’t have a television so miss out on that.
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He also has a StarTalk Radio show. I’ve never tuned in so don’t know what channel it’s on. Here’s the link
http://www.startalkradio.net/about-us/
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Thanks for the tip. Will check it out.
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