In the first case, Religion USES Ritual process, it is not ritual process and in the second one, I don't know where you get these primitives. I never met one like that and they certainly weren't priests. You would do better to read the works of Jerome Rothenberg, the poet who instead of theorizing in his liberary went out and tried to do what he thought by living amongst the Seneca. In the end he came back and was happy to be a Jew. He called the so called primitives, "Technicians of the Sacred." I guess these scientists just missed the boat on their aesthetics training and that is why they make these silly statements. The bigger they are the harder they fall when they leave their own area of expertise. Picasso made an idiot of himself with the communists as well but what did he have for an alternative? Even he was bipolar when it came to politics. Why don't you give yourself a treat and look up "Shakespeare in the Bush" by Laura Bohanon. Its on the Internet. Those dudes are real primitives but they aren't simple.
Ray Evans Harrell. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 2:48 PM Subject: [Futurework] Why not God for all? > Well, if Robin Dunbar's view of religion won't do, why not make it more > democratic? Here's Prof John Maynard Smith's view -- the grand-daddy of > living English biologists and a polymath to boot: > > <<<< > You mustn't think religion is confined to human beings: religion, meaning > ritual behaviour functioning to create emotional commitments -- there is > plenty of it. You find it in a group of hunting dogs about to go out for > the day, in a group of birds about to migrate, and in some very odd > circumstances in chimpanzees. Chimpanzees go in for a thing called a rain > dance. Usually the adult males perform it: they jump up and down, they > shout, tghey pull branches off trees, they go berserk. Nobody really knows > what the function is. > > There is one anecdote about a rain dance that really fascinates me. A > group is going through the forest and they come to a waterfall, and the > alpha male, and he only, proceeds to perform a rain dance. He splashes, he > shouts, he throws rocks -- it;s a big deal. What I think is going on is > that he is recruiting a force of nature to strengthen his own personal > position, increasing his own prestige by allying himself with something > "out there". Isn't that what priests do? > >>>> > Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
