Garden of Eden ? Could it be like this ?

a reply to: peter vlar

For the record I don't believe levitation was the method of moving the blocks of stone. I was just curious about the etymology of levitation.

Levitation would be the job of a sorcerer.

But priests have always been privy to secrets. Just imagine what a high ranking Jesuit priest knows that the average person doesn't.

a reply to: Ove38

Cain = The first livestock society

Abel = The first crop society

You got this bit almost right. The story of Cain and Abel is the story of how hunter-gatherers and nomads were wiped out by early agricultural society.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Ove38

Cain = The first livestock society

Abel = The first crop society

You got this bit almost right. The story of Cain and Abel is the story of how hunter-gatherers and nomads were wiped out by early agricultural society.

Wouldn't the skilled hunter have military dominance over the agricultural?

God's rejection of Cain's offering was to support the sacrifice of animals that the tribal people's loved so much, to make it evil NOT to sacrifice animals. It was written because people wanted to justify ritual sacrifice.

Even Zoroaster couldn't stamp out animal sacrifice and he was a pioneer in agriculture and pacifism.

Abraham is seen as a hero for being willing to kill his own son. It's a pretty messed up book.

a reply to: CapstonePendulum

Wouldn't the skilled hunter have military dominance over the agricultural?

He would not. Consider history. When has the spread of agricultural society ever been limited for long by nomad resistance?

Agricultural societies have numbers and discipline on their side. They have walled forts and stored supplies. And for them, military defeat means death and disaster so their soldiers fight like cornered rats.

Hunter-gatherers and nomads have none of these advantages. Warfare is never inevitable for them; they can always withdraw to fight another day, or simply migrate away from their enemies. Combat is a form of sport and status competition for them. It is rarely inevitable.

Agricultural societies are occasionally vulnerable to barbarian incursions on a large scale. Examples include the overthrow of the Roman Empire by the Goths and the conquest of China by the Mongols. But note what happened in each of these cases: the conquerors were assimilated by the conquered. Alaric the Visigothic leader was more Roman than the Romans, and the Mongol invaders became the Yuan dynasty of China. And we all know what happened to the Plains Indians of North America.

The farmers always win.