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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Date: Mon Apr 28, 2003 12:32 am
Subject: The World's Oldest Religion & Common Sense

http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp...ilosophy&show=0&cid=57367

http://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan/page288.htm

Durkheim, Australian Aboriginal Religion, Dreamtime - Page 288

I posted this page on 7-28-2000

The very first paragraph states:

Certain religions, Islam in particular, claim that God has
sent "prophets" and messengers to all peoples throughout time,
warning them of the "right ways", and predicting the coming of a
final prophet and a final scripture. A study of very ancient cultures
such as the Australian Aboriginies, untouched by Western or Eastern
religions of Europe and Asia, prove that God DID NOT send warnings
and prophets to all people. Furthermore it is obvious that the
concept of eternal punishment or a Satan figure is not indiginous to
all religions.

At the very bottom of this browser page, I made the following comment:

Common sense should make it obvious to us that any religion which
dwells on the topic of itself being the TRUE religion, and of other
religions being false or demonic... such a religion CANNOT be the
earliest religion, since it requires OLDER religions to criticize,
protest against and renounce. Any "earliest" religion would not
mention other religions, nor would it likely be sufficiently self-
conscious to NAME itself with some name or ISM like Islam or Buddhism
or Christianity.

I have not looked at this browser page in some time. I had honestly
forgotten that I had written these words.

=================

(excerpts):

Australian Aboriginal Religion is Oldest
The Guinness Book of World Records is DEAD WRONG. Going by
archaeological evidence, the oldest extant religion is that of the
Australian Aborigines. Period. End of discussion. No other religion
even comes close to its age. Complex religious pictograms found at 2
sites near Penrith and Lake Mungo in New South Wales and 1 site in
Western Australia detail the Aboriginal belief in "The Dreaming"
(i.e., the period of time in which the 'Wodjina' created, formed, and
differentiated the world). These sites date from 45,000 BCE to 38,000
BCE respectively. Thus, the Australian Aboriginal religion must be at
least 47,000 years old. Sorry, folks: Hinduism, Judaism, and Buddhism
are infants by comparison.

Vivekananda said:

"In Essentials all religions are same,
They differ only in Non-essentials.
The wise appreciate the Essentials,
The base dispute over the Non-essentials"

A crusty old Irishman was once asked, "What religion are you?"

He answered, "Why mine is the OLDEST RELIGION IN THE WORLD..... I try
to be a nice guy."

============================

The first part of the page talks about Emile Durkheim:

Durkheim stated that strong systems of common belief characterize
mechanical solidarity in primitive types of society, and that organic
solidarity, resulting from the progressive increase in the division
of labor and hence increased mutual dependence, needed fewer common
beliefs to tie members to this society. He later revised this view
and stressed that even those systems with a highly developed organic
solidarity still needed a common faith, a common conscience
collective, if they were not to disintegrate into a heap of mutually
antagonistic and self-seeking individuals.

The mature Durkheim realized that only if all members of a society
were anchored to common sets of symbolic representations, to common
assumptions about the world around them, could moral unity be
assured. Without them, Durkheim argued, any society, whether
primitive or modern, was bound to degenerate and decay.

To Durkheim, men were creatures whose desires were unlimited. Unlike
other animals, they are not satiated when their biological needs are
fulfilled. "The more one has, the more one wants, since satisfactions
received only stimulate instead of filling needs." It follows from
this natural insatiability of the human animal that his desires can
only be held in check by external controls, that is, by societal
control. Society imposes limits on human desires and constitutes "a
regulative force [which] must play the same role for moral needs
which the organism plays for physical needs." In well-regulated
societies, social controls set limits on individual propensities so
that "each in his sphere vaguely realizes the extreme limits set to
his ambitions and aspires to nothing beyond. . . . Thus, an end or a
goal [is] set to the passions."

Durkheim investigated the religion of Australian Aboriginal cultures
before they had been extensively exposed to Western European ideas
and conversion to Christianity. He proposed that these aboriginal
cultures were the first form of religion developed by humans- a
supposition supported by the religions found among Hunter Gatherer
peoples worldwide. Furthermore, although Durkheim could not at the
time have known it, Australian Aboriginal cultures have a chain of
cultural evolution virtually unbroken that extends back over 40,00
years to the time when their remote ancestors first settled the
continent.

In his seminal work The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, he
defined the sacred and profane. He believed that totemism was one of
the original (elementary or first forms) of religion. It was
Australian Aboriginal religion which Durkheim took as the model for
religion in its first, origianl form.

Ritual is formal ceremonial behavior usually used to approach or deal
with the supernatural. Rituals act out or dramatize scenes from the
religious and social origins of society- its cosmology (which is the
study of or concern with the origins of something; a society's
cosmology depicts how its members believe they came to be as a
distinct people.)

Durkheim emphasized that a society's collective consciousness (ideas
about itself) was reinforced in group experiences. These experiences
acted out as rituals in a religious context create and sustain a
sense of identity with that group as opposed to other groups who have
different beliefs and rituals. Rituals are very experiential- the
enactment of rituals evokes high levels of emotion. People worship
their god or gods and in so doing in effect recreate the story of how
they came to be as a group. Thus according to Durkheim, people in
group context really worship the form of their society- their
identity. Therefore, religion is in effect the disguised worship of
society.

Each tribe was led by religious leaders, with no political chief or
formal government, and was broken down into bands (hunting groups)
and also local descent groups (family units).

These family units were vitally important, as all members of a tribe
were related. The territory of the tribe was centred on the place
where its ancestors had originally settled, and it was believed that
the spirits of these ancestors remained at the watering place at the
centre of the territory, awaiting reincarnation.
It is clear from these beliefs that spirituality and religion played
a major role in the Aboriginal culture.

There were many myths and rituals connected to both the tribe's
ancestors and the creators of the world, none of whom ever died but
merged with the natural world and thus remained a part of the
present. These myths and rituals, signifying communion with nature
and the past, were known as the Dreaming or the Dreamtime, and
reflected a belief in the continuity of existence and harmony with
the world.

The Australian Aborigines found 'the meaning of life' in the
Dreamtime stories and songs of their particular tribe. Answers to
such existential questions as: Who am I? Where do I belong? and What
happens to me when I die? - were all answered in this way. Some
stories and songs related accounts of ancestral beings taking the
form of animals, birds and other wildlife during the creation period
known as the Dreamtime. This gave the people an ontological view of
life in which they believed that ancestral spirits were not only
involved in creation, but also remained in the tribal land or the sky
above where they played an active role in the life of each
generation. For example Biami the main creator in the Dreamtime
stories along the south-east coast of NSW was believed to watch over
his people, punish those who offended against his laws and through
the use of the didgeridoo during initiation ceremonies 'spoke' to
initiates. During the Dreamtime the creators also made animals,
birds, insects and all other forms of fauna - 'every-thing' and this
provided the Aborigines with a teleological view of life. In other
words, they saw that every-thing had been 'made' with a plan and a
purpose and that all living things were in relationship to each
other. These factors determined Aboriginal culture.

Australian Aborigine Creation Myth
There was a time when everything was still. All the spirits of the
earth were asleep - or almost all. The great Father of All Spirits
was the only one awake. Gently he awoke the Sun Mother.

As she opened her eyes a warm ray of light spread out towards the
sleeping earth. The Father of All Spirits said to the Sun Mother,

"Mother, I have work for you. Go down to the Earth and awake the
sleeping spirits. Give them forms."

The Sun Mother glided down to Earth, which was bare at the time and
began to walk in all directions and everywhere she walked plants
grew. After returning to the field where she had begun her work the
Mother rested, well pleased with herself. The Father of All Spirits
came and saw her work, but instructed her to go into the caves and
wake the spirits.

This time she ventured into the dark caves on the mountainsides. The
bright light that radiated from her awoke the spirits and after she
left insects of all kinds flew out of the caves. The Sun Mother sat
down and watched the glorious sight of her insects mingling with her
flowers. However once again the Father urged her on.

The Mother ventured into a very deep cave, spreading her light around
her. Her heat melted the ice and the rivers and streams of the world
were created. Then she created fish and small snakes, lizards and
frogs. Next she awoke the spirits of the birds and animals and they
burst into the sunshine in a glorious array of colors. Seeing this
the Father of All Spirits was pleased with the Sun Mother's work.

She called all her creatures to her and instructed them to enjoy the
wealth of the earth and to live peacefully with one another. Then she
rose into the sky and became the sun.

The living creatures watched the Sun in awe as she crept across the
sky, towards the west. However when she finally sunk beneath the
horizon they were panic-stricken, thinking she had deserted them. All
night they stood frozen in their places, thinking that the end of
time had come. After what seemed to them like a lifetime the Sun
Mother peeked her head above the horizon in the East. The earth's
children learned to expect her coming and going and were no longer
afraid.
At first the children lived together peacefully, but eventually envy
crept into their hearts. They began to argue.

The Sun Mother was forced to come down from her home in the sky to
mediate their bickering. She gave each creature the power to change
their form to whatever they chose. However she was not pleased with
the end result. The rats she had made had changed into bats; there
were giant lizards and fish with blue tongues and feet. However the
oddest of the new animals was an animal with a bill like a duck,
teeth for chewing, a tail like a beavers and the ability to lay egg.
It was called the platypus.

The Sun Mother looked down upon the Earth and thought to herself that
she must create new creatures less the Father of All Spirits be
angered by what she now saw. She gave birth to two children. The god
was the Morning Star and the goddess was the moon. Two children were
born to them and these she sent to Earth. They became our ancestors.
She made them superior to the animals because they had part of her
mind and would never want to change their shape.

Australian Aboriginal peoples bring the messages of the "Dreamtime
Law", the lessons learned from the sacred stories about the
ancestors, to bear on their daily lives. Their rituals and totems
recreate their relationship with the ancestor beings and the wisdom
of their culture.

It is through their traditional art forms, especially rock carvings,
some as old as the original settlement, and bark paintings that the
Dreamtime is realized. For the Dreamtime exists as long as the people
exist and re-create it with their rituals, their arts, their life and
stewardship of the land.

===========

Photos of artifacts from many different ancient religions

http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/5/5.20/

The aborigine people of the Australian Central desert read the
patterns on the churinga as representations of nature, a kind of map
or site. The icons are not literally figurative. Rather they can be
interpreted as a whole range of natural phenomena that are
stereotyped in their typical form, so they become an artistic system.
Each churinga had its own personal "name", which had to be sung
whenever it was being inspected or handled. The name was one of the
verses from the sacred song cycle related to the actual totem centre.

NAME SONG:
YALKERI MURA MURA
MUNKARA TALU KURA PARAKANNEE
YALKERI MURA MURA
MUNKARA TALU KURA PARANNEE

=======

This url is a bit of a non-sequitur, but quite fascinating

http://www.adherents.com/lit/Na_29.html

'I am Aborigine. My people, the Arunta, are among the oldest
civilizations on Earth, and the only people who remain unchanged.'

. In the outback, our lives continued as they always did. The family
group was always central. The land. The sky. All a part of the Dream
Lines and at the heart of who we are.

"'Many of my people are educated; many are not. It's an individual
decision. But understand something: Even those who go away from the
tribe for very long periods of time return to the outback unchanged.
After my graduation from the University at Canberra, I returned home
and it was as if I'd never left. My belongin's and city put away, I
was in the bush hunting turkey and roo with my brothers within an
hour after my arrival. Even though my brothers could barely read and
write, it was as if there were no differences among us in the
outback. In our home.'
'We have a legend that tells us of those who protect us. It is said
that they're responsible for keepin' my people whole, and that
they'll be with us in the Dream Time, to keep us as one in the time
of fire. We called them the Sky Heroes.'

"...how is it possible for so many people to have the same vision?
The thing envisioned must exist. The aborigines, for instance--that
dream-time exists

"At the beginning there was fire. All creation seemed to be aflame.
We had drunk the sacred haoma and the world looked to be as ethereal
and as luminous and as holy as the fire itself that blazed upon the
altar.

Vidal, Gore. Creation. New York: Random House (1981); pg. 25.

This was in Bactria. I was seven years old. I stood next to my
grandfather Zoroaster. In one hand, I held the ritual bundle of
sticks and watched closely as Zoroaster lit the fire on the altar. "
[References to Bactria and Bactrians throughout the novel.] Author's
note: "I prefer to call unhappy Afghanistan--and equally unhappy Iran-
-by their ancient names, Bactria and Persia. "

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