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Religion See other Religion Articles Title: The Beginning of Time, Religion, and the Agricultural Revolution Most historians agree that human history began approximately nine thousand years ago with the Neolithic agricultural revolution. It was at this time that the first cities were built. It was at this time that agriculture began to be used extensively, originating in ancient Mesopotamia. Agriculture spread from there to the rest of the world, triggering a population explosion that continues today. It was also at this time that major changes began to emerge in the religious beliefs of the people. Writing was invented and soon after, laws. Only a hundred years ago, however, history meant “British history” to most people and included only between fifteen hundred and eight hundred years, states V. Gordon Childe, beginning with the Saxons or the Norman Conquest of Britain (4). Historians today are little better. According to scientists, Homo sapiens have existed for a very long time. The humans of twenty thousand years BCE were not significantly genetically removed from the humans of today. Yet historians do not even count those first nineteen thousand years as human history. They separate that time and call it “pre-history.” This phenomenon is what Daniel Quinn calls “the Great Forgetting.” Humans forgot that they had ever been anything but farmers living in cities and ruled by kings. Given that perspective, the agricultural revolution does indeed seem sudden, the time since accounting for less than five percent of the time humans have existed on the earth. This time—nine thousand years ago—is not even the beginning of agriculture. There certainly was an agricultural revolution in this period, but agriculture was widespread for at least two thousand years before 7000 BCE, when a new style of agriculture appeared. In fact, by 7000 BCE, pumpkins and gourds had reached a domesticated form, and water chestnuts had been cultivated in Thailand since at least 9000 BCE (Encyclopaedia 185). The new style of agriculture that developed in 7000 BCE is what Daniel Quinn calls “Totalitarian Agriculture” (Quinn 247). At this time, humans began to take control of their environment, manipulating it to suit their needs. Trees and other plants not beneficial to their livestock were burned or cut down to make room for more grass. Irrigation ditches controlled the water from rivers to create more arable land to grow crops. Predators that preyed on livestock would be driven off or killed, and any animal that contended with livestock for food fared likewise (Childe 80). In other words, humans actively made war on and sought to eliminate their competition. This method resulted in surpluses of food, which in turn led to proportional increases in population, which continue to this day. It was only when humans began to manipulate their environment that they became attached to one location (Childe 108). Farmers before this time simply moved on when the land ceased to produce crops. Agriculture of this type did not allow for a significantly larger number of people to live in one area, and thus this type of agriculture had little impact on overall population. The reasons for the shift are less than clear. Theories include humans adopting agriculture to avoid either starvation or toil. First, the belief that population expansion prompted people to adopt ways of feeding more people is impractical; as Quinn states, “[y]ou can no more respond to famine by planting a crop than you can respond to falling out of an airplane by knitting a parachute” (Quinn 257). If humans were likely to make such drastic changes in their lifestyle because of famine, then America would not be making so many Sport Utility Vehicles. The other suggestion offered is that humans began farming because it gave them more free time. Evidence suggests that the opposite is true, however, and farming demanded more time and effort on the part of humans (Orme 42). Thus there must be some other reason for adopting such a lifestyle. The changes in people’s religious beliefs at this time were unprecedented. The idea that humans were fundamentally flawed came into play, as did the idea that they needed to be saved. The traditional cyclical worldview was lost, replaced by a vision of the imminent end of the world. People had once believed that the world had always been and would always be, and now many deny that it could be older than six thousand years. In the past, the fate of all creatures was in the hands of the Gods. It is good for a fox to catch a quail to eat, but evil for the quail. Likewise, it is good for the quail to escape, but evil for the fox to go hungry (Quinn 96). It was the Gods who decided this: what lived, what died, what suffered and what lived well. Humans took control of their environment. In doing so, they took their lives into their own hands and out of the hands of the Gods. They decided that they had the knowledge of good and evil, so they can no longer return to the Garden of Eden and must instead till the ground as did Adam of Genesis (Gen. 3:23, King James Version). This is what it means to eat of the forbidden fruit. Power was the driving force behind the agricultural revolution (Quinn 93). The power of the Gods was now in the hands of humans. The power kings wielded over their people was God-given as well (Childe 154). In the Babylonian New Year ritual, the King ascended to the top of the temple, the dwelling place of the God of his people, and renewed his pact with the God to be executor of the God’s will on the people (Matthews 257). Since humans now decided who would live and who would die, they naturally decided that it was they, themselves, who should live, and hence the population explosion (Childe 71). The people who followed this way of life soon overpopulated their own lands and, with the surpluses of food to supply their armies, soon overran their neighbours (Childe 131). Other peoples were either assimilated or destroyed, much like the animal competitors previously mentioned. Small villages became towns, and towns became city-states ruled by kings. Tribes were ruled by tribal law, as Quinn describes: “Tribal laws are never invented laws; they’re always received laws. They’re never the work of committees of living individuals; they’re always the work of social evolution. They’re shaped the way a bird’s beak is shaped, or a mole’s claw—by what works. They never reflect a tribe’s concern for what’s ‘right’ or ‘good’ or ‘fair’; they simply work for that particular tribe.” (Quinn 314 ) It was impractical for the numerous assimilated tribes to each follow their own set of tribal laws, so writing was invented so that these new laws could be written down (Quinn 108). Since it was now possible to withhold resources from others, it was necessary to create a system for deciding who received said resources. The result was a mad scramble to replace the tribal laws and religions that had evolved over thousands of years with invented laws and religions. The invented laws of humans have a goal of eliminating human behaviour adverse to production. These laws forbid things like adultery, theft, and murder. The trouble with these laws is that adultery, theft, and murder have been a part of human existence for as long as humans have existed. While tribal law dictated methods for dealing with such acts and minimizing the damage done to the community, the invented laws sought to eliminate the acts themselves. The success of these new laws is dependent on one condition that will never arise: “All of this would work beautifully … if people would just be better than people have ever been. You’d be just one big happy family, if only you would be better people than people have ever been” (Quinn 121). The advent of the law of kings separated the people into the rich and the poor. Before this time, there were no poor people, and thus one of the changes in religious belief concentrated on the poor and unfortunate. Under tribal law, these people would have been looked after without the religious reminders. Now, from Jesus of Nazareth to Muhammad to Buddha, people are entreated to act kindly towards the poor. Ensuing developments in social structure included slavery, both of war prisoners and the poor (Childe 134). The gap between the rich and the poor was expanding, and the poor represented the majority, as they continue to do today (Redman 301). At this point comes what Daniel Quinn calls, “the Great Forgetting” (Quinn 243). It is no surprise that the tribal life was forgotten. By the time writing was invented, five thousand years had passed since the tribal lifestyle in Mesopotamia had been obliterated. Humans forgot that they had ever done anything but farm and live a life of drudgery. They knew something was wrong, but no longer knew how to fix it. Even to this day, humans are normally imagined as having set out in the world to become agriculturists and to build civilisation and to become what they were at whatever time they lived in. Human destiny was to struggle for the basics of life and was thus fundamentally flawed. At this time, a new idea emerged: the idea that humans had to be saved. Every religion invented or “revealed” since then has been centred on fixing what is wrong with humans. Every one offers a solution: “The method may be ritual—baptism, extreme unction, the sacrament of penance, the performance of ceremonial works, or anything at all. It might, on the other hand, be an inner action of repentance, love, faith, or meditation” (Quinn 241). This proposed method is universal—any human being can reach salvation—and this concept makes the suffering bearable. In some religions—Hinduism and Buddhism, for example—suffering is even of benefit to the soul. People were easily controlled if they believed a life of servitude or charity promised them paradise after death. The world itself became a thing of evil, and Mesopotamian religions soon focused on immortality and escape from mortal bonds (Encyclopaedia 49). Finally, humans came by a vision of the end of the world. It is not so difficult to imagine now, in a world where the population is doubling every thirty-five to forty years (Hern). Estimates on the maximum long-term carrying capacity of the earth for humans ranges between one and fourteen billion (Richard). Scientists have been predicting for years a drop-off of population growth, but the Earth has yet to see even a slow-down in the acceleration of growth. From very early on, humans saw that this lifestyle could not continue indefinitely—the fruit was forbidden for a reason. Warnings of overpopulation came as early as ancient Greece and China in the time Confucius (Encyclopaedia 1045). Yet we continue to multiply, ignoring the fact that our population growth is directly connected to the production of food. It may be argued that food is not being made available in developing countries, where population is the largest problem; however Quinn answers that if this assertion is true, then we truly are in the presence of a miracle. If these people are not made of food, they must be made of something else; people cannot exist without food (Quinn 303). Even in developing countries the calorie production per capita is increasing (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). When they run out of space, they simply overrun more land belonging to others, be it the habitats of animals or of other peoples, such as the Native American peoples (Alexander 25). Humans of the agricultural revolution think themselves above the laws that govern every other species on the planet; after all, they exercise the power of the Gods. Many different religions have been waiting centuries for the apocalypse. People today will see the world population reach the high estimates of the Earth’s capacity in their lifetimes. If these beliefs (as has been shown) can be interpreted according to history, so too can they be interpreted according to the future. The Beast, or the Antichrist, must have some part, just as Adam and Eve played their part, in partaking of the forbidden fruit. Daniel Quinn suggests that the Antichrist is far older than Christianity and is not only the antithesis of Jesus, but of the figurehead of every religion that springs out of the agricultural revolution (324). The name Antichrist means “Against Christ.” It is largely held that this interpretation means that since Christ came to earth to save souls, the Antichrist will come to damn souls. Daniel Quinn offers another explanation: “Not saving souls inverted to damning souls but rather saving souls inverted to saving the world” (125). The Christian Bible tells humans not to love the world, that worldly lusts and desires separate them from God (I John 2, 15-16). The agricultural revolution had an enormous impact on the religious beliefs of the people. The effects of the agricultural revolution echo around the world even now. It was only a few small groups of people in the beginning, however, who practised this way of life that led to these catastrophic results. One or a few cultures eventually imposed upon millions, wiping out the tribal ways tested over thousands of generations, not unlike what happened to the dodo bird or the passenger pigeon. If the agricultural revolution had happened at the time when humans first came into existence, the population now (outside of factors of world carrying capacity) would be a number with more zeros than could be fitted onto this page. This situation is not the case, and humans lived for many thousands of years without overrunning the earth. It is therefore not humans that are fundamentally flawed, it is only their culture, and so perhaps there is hope for us yet.
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