The Roots of Religion: Genevieve Von Petzinger at TEDxVictoria

[@jasonevans7260]

She's really great. I think I'd enjoy a much longer lecture on this topic.

[@johnedwards7899]

Maybe she's written a book on this subject. Would be worth searching for.

[@jwbrook]

Makes me want to sign up for a class at the community college or something.

[@timothyhoffman3470]

Look at the top post^^ Maybe that will help you !~ Religion came from the under developed brains~ Easy to see!~ & know!~

[@DW_Kiwi]

Then read the bible

[@supplican]

The bile says nothing about the origin of religion over 100,000 years before it existed

[@jeffreymcneal1507]

Speaking in a colloquial fashion, Ms. Von Petzinger breathes new life into the ancient mysteries of what it is to be us and how we might have arrived there. Utterly brilliant and insightful.

[@forestdwellerresearch6593]

Not if it's incorrect. And there are definitely dodgy assumptions in this talk.

[@mihirvyas5041]

@@forestdwellerresearch6593 but until it is proven not to be possible and so "incorrect" as you say, it does make a lot of logical sense. We all accept what she says may not be entirely or even remotely correct, but in light of the lack of a better theory, I'll go with her rather than your pointless observation.

[@kn9ioutom]

WELL ! ALL RELIGIONS ARE CREATED BY PEOPLE ! THERFORE MAN MADE !!!

[@forestdwellerresearch6593]

@@mihirvyas5041 No it does not make logical sense. Logic would observe the absence of any evidence of prehistoric religion and conclude there probably was no religion. Don't confuse logic with speculation and wishful thinking. That is what is pointless.

[@supplican]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

[@mvdeano]

Ah, hard work, and giving your life with passion, curiosity and dedication to discover the real why's of it all. This is what everyone should be listening to on Sundays.

[@zapkvr]

Given Margaret Meade was a fraud I hope this lady is a bit more careful. And I hope we are a bit more sceptical

[@bobschwartz8459]

exactly!!

[@oldskooldriver9379]

My cats have religion, they believe if they run around the house knocking stuff off of tables and counters and generally making a loud ruckus for an hour or so, then they will get fed. In reality, I feed them at 9am and 6pm everyday, regardless of how they behave or when they start their ritualized antics. But they sure do believe their highly correlated behavior is causal to their feedings. And they have escalated the rituals over time.

[@ingenuity168]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@virginiawatson153]

My cat also has religion. He believes that if he yowls loud & long enough when I'm sleeping, I will wake up & see to whatever he considers his immediate need. So far, his religious belief has been proven true. Perhaps loud, long yowls are a form of prayer.

[@ingenuity168]

🤣🤣🤣

[@davidav8orpflanz561]

Instead of praying to a God, I make wish requests to my cats...same results!

[@STScott-qo4pw]

sooner or later you will realise dogs have owners, Cats have staff. In ancient egypt we worshipped them as gods. They have never forgotten.

[@morganssongs8834]

I really like this speaker. I like how she was able to present the information without picking sides about religion, plus, she didn't act paternalistic toward primal cultures.

[@towo_137]

what info? i wanna see some documents that she did not type up herself!

[@MKTElM]

To act paternalistic towards your distant forefathers is patronising . I'm glad she was tactful and was careful not to !

[@socksumi]

Why shouldn't she pick sides?

[@johndemeritt3460]

@@socksumi , because as a scientist, she's supposed to examine the phenomenon for how it works. In that regard, the questions of "which religion is best?" or "is religion better than other ways of knowing?" are irrelevant. As social scientists, we want to know how social phenomena work and how one thing in a category of social phenomena differs from others. There are no sides: we can either explain the phenomenon or not.

[@socksumi]

@@johndemeritt3460 Explaining phenomenon is picking sides. There are facts and there are unproven speculations. A good scientist will not embrace speculations, only that which is demonstrated by evidence. Scientists must absolutely pick sides in everything they study and hold to that which resounds with observed facts.

[@ruatarengsicolneyrengsi8924]

Really animated, lucid, and clear lecture on the origin of religion and prehistory. Thankyou.

[@StevenSchoolAlchemy]

right

[@dobysaurus]

Working on something creative, especially trying to reinvent something from scratch, gives a few people known to me a certain high which they relate to at a spiritual level, even if they are not followers of conventional religion. This talk makes so much sense.

[@juanjoperez7537]

When you're coding and a few intrinsic relationships click together, about a thousand lines of code write themselves ... almost without bugs

[@jacksimpson-rogers1069]

I heartily agree. There are seven vices enumerated by the C of E, and about this they are correct: Gluttony, Lust, Sloth, Avarice, Envy, Pride, and Wrath. The first three are vices of the body, the other four are spiritual. But if we consider refusal to use our brains in various cases as Sloth, that is also a spiritual vice. To imagine that Christianity requires the believer to accept the Creation myth in the Book of Genesis, when we know that the Earth is NOT flat as described there, is spiritual sloth.

[@drakemia4079]

She is a very good speaker I could listen all day

[@sylvester63]

Dr. Genevieve Von Petzinger beautifully shares anthropological evidence of early human behaviour and the beginning of belief systems some 50,000 years ago.

[@terryhebert1567]

MS. Genevieve, what a wonderful presentation !! I have seen you in two vids,on youtube, but I will search for more. THANKS

[@xjuanp]

Fascinating research. I just watched another one of her TED's and she's really interesting, deep but still understandable. Trying to find "the particle" of something is just wonderful; getting to see "the first" of something; being able to do the "original gesture" that made us who we are, that's marvelous.

[@xjuanp]

+IDNeon357 Thank you for enlighten me with your insults. You certainly convinced me by the use of words that diminish me and many others. It so seems that your judgement is impaired by your geniality. The scientist in this conversation spent many years doing research and studying. She arrives to her strong conclusions based on such research. By contrast, you come here empty handed, with only your insults and nothing more than a few poorly redacted sentences to try to change my opinion. Nope. You're going to have to make a better effort or just remain quiet.

[@BFDT-4]

+IDNeon357 - yes, please remain quiet. Leave the room until you get educated and learn to speak without ad hominems.

[@gorillaguerillaDK]

+IDNeon357 no one is saying there wasn't tools before 10K years ago! How did you come to that conclusion....?

[@anthroariel]

Juan Pablo Salas S , her info is outdated and selected such that it supports her views. Please do more research. And look around you: animals all demonstrate the ability to use the past to inform actions in the present. There are even papers written on plants reacting to people based on past behavior.

[@peytonquinn3095]

@@IDNeon357 I got a hoot from your humor here:" What was a human doing for 100,000 years until supposedly we then discovered it " But it is curious that 'civilization" and technology" seems to have taken a sudden acceleration be it 50K or 100K years ago'

[@rodneyrenfro5375]

when i was a kid..me and my dog would play chase. I would chase him and he would chase me in turns. I ran around the well house two times in a row, and Brandi, a basset, stopped, and went the other way to catch me going around. Animals use planning and have 'visualized' fore thought capabilities. They use it in hunting as well. Human huge brains has taken it to another level with religion, but I see many aspect of our thinking and behavior very similar and relatable.

[@Goldenretriever-k8m]

I agree.. she kind of missed the boat entirely when explaining that animals don’t do it. There are many animals that do it, just not as complex. Humans are very similar to most mammals, just more complex intellectually that’s all.

[@johnnymac8732]

I found this presentation to be fascinating. By extension, while Ms. Von Petzinger touches upon the use of visual items and themes to bridge the "here and now" with the unfolding of the mental notion of the future and human understanding of the divine, I think it would be interesting to do the same regarding the other senses. For example, certain songs relative to key life transitions, the playing of certain instruments and associated melodies at special life events or ceremonies, and the crafting of certain foods made with specific ingredients and served at key life events or ceremonies. Such things that are meant to "enable bridging" across the time continuum from one generation to the next and from one epoch to the next.

[@mindvolution]

Evolution of consciousness is an absolutely fascinating fact!

[@todradmaker4297]

Are you suggesting that at some point in time we were living unconsciously?

[@mfv2024]

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

[@todradmaker4297]

@@mfv2024 To be clear, are you saying that the development of an individual organism reflects or relates to the evolution of the species as a whole? And if so, what're you saying about the origin of our consciousness?

[@joemason8667]

@@todradmaker4297 Yeah, it started sometime around 2016..

[@DW_Kiwi]

What is a "fact"?

[@leelyttle7599]

I think it's possible we may still carry the memory of our ancestors and this comes out in the trance like benefits from a meditative practice. We still carry a need for survival through symbols and imagery. Much like they did. Love this stuff

[@miguelleonelgranadospeguer2371]

She truly found her vocation, irradiates passion for what she does.

[@NickRoman]

This is so fascinating that we can learn so much about early humans, that our real history, though unwritten, is so ancient and to consider what this tells us about how we think and what it means to be human... and so disappointing that a large majority of humanity because their religion just says 'nope' just denies that any of this is real, that we have any connection to these people. They refuse to know how humans actually developed into what we are because they think it conflicts with their precious story, ignoring of course that every culture that came before them did the same thing.

[@potaxe8048]

“…ignoring of course that every culture that came before them did the same thing.” And, still, they survived. That’s the difference: the ignorance today is killing us.

[@greenthumb8266]

Sadly the religiously indoctrinated people are counting on their god to come clean up their mess and reward them with a brand new Earth, ignorance is bliss and it lets them off the hook where personal responsibility is concerned.

[@BallotBoxBoogeyMan]

I grew up under the reign of young earth creationists. I still don’t know how they explain all of this. They’ve never been able to answer ANY of my questions.

[@greenthumb8266]

@@BallotBoxBoogeyMan I believe there is a Creator (capital C) although I lean towards a more scientific approach along with, of course, personal experience. But I know this much for certain, I would never serve the god, that ego-filled (only our church is going to heaven) greedy (several mansions, private jets, expensive jewelry) religions are offering up these days. But boy can they drag them in, all ready to open their pocketbooks, for a chance at salvation, sad really. And they’re, most of them, too busy keeping up appearances to do ANY real Christ-like work.

[@peterbartley7183]

@@greenthumb8266as soon as you say “ I believe in a creator “ but have no evidence you are exactly opposite of a scientific approach. If you were thinking scientifically you would at least say “ I don’t know “

[@FZMello]

The desire for comfort in the face of impending (or eventual) death is exactly as old as mankind's ability to envision the unseen. The promise of immortality ubiquitously wielded by religion naturally sprang from that desire for comfort. I suspect burial started as a simple way to protect a loved one's remains from being feasted upon by scavengers. From there, it's a relatively short jump as seeing the underground as the "transfer point" between life and death, and therefore, a "membrane" between worlds seen and unseen. All in all, a very good TED talk.

[@AndrewKendall71]

One of the difficulties - on display in this talk - is the difficulty imagining the things proposed without doing so from a contemporary thinking perspective. And this is interesting, since Von Petzinger pointed out herself that the brain and frame aren't enough to define that they were "us." Capacity to be us leaves out a colossal amount of visual language, group experiences, developed traditions, presuppositions, etc., which are so much the air we currently breathe, it's impossible to leave behind the imprinted biases. So it's exceedingly difficult to sort of "see with their eyes" regarding what their symbols and practices mean. But this is a very interesting talk on some of what the paleo-anthropologist has done toward that difficult work.

[@mayms9181]

All religions are made in earth. ‏I left Islam when I read the Qur’an and the biography of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam ‏Now I live in Iraq and I can't talk about it even with my family I might be killed, and society will reject me, it's very difficult for me ‏and many Arabs leave Islam every day, but they cannot announce that because they may be killed and of course society rejects them.

[@uthoshantm]

I happen to live is Saudi Arabia and nobody gets killed for being an atheist. Atheists certainly meet disapproval, but hey, everyone is free to think what he wants.

[@theseed2199]

Even though I'm a Muslim, I can quite relate. I didn't believe in Islam for a while, but then came back. But the sort of anxiety and dear of being an apostate certainly did trouble me. I hope you find peace, in whatever it may be.

[@davidramirez4535]

Because all religions fear the truth..

[@Meumershaha]

Dr rashad khalifa messenger of the covenant cleared all my misconceptions about islam and world religions.I only submit to god no idols like Muhammad jesus or any prophet

[@علي-ش7ث8ب]

@@davidramirez4535 Truth??

[@geoffunwin196]

wonderful clarity of informed reasoning - religion is the blight of the present world.

[@perryweeks4857]

Boy she's careful. And good at it. Otherwise she would not get so many to listen. She knows a lot more than what's said.

[@dennisruigrok6831]

She cannot prove there was no religion. Only thing she knows is that both statements are false and that nobody is having a valid discussion.

[@nnaammuuss]

@@dennisruigrok6831 ??

[@anamaakotube]

In other words she was politically correct. And we didn't get the benefit of her knowledge. And that's a good thing. Ignorance is bliss. Your description is correct, but I hate that reality. You're killing me Perry lol.....😜

[@Pados_music]

@@scottharrison8701 I'm not sure the eternal wars between the sunis and the shiites in the islamic world are all for economics reasons.

[@Pados_music]

@@scottharrison8701 What? a pointless comment.

[@priscillaquin3036]

Thank you Genevieve. You're a genius. Love your work so much.

[@flyingrhinofilms]

Utterly bloody fascinating! What a treat of a lecture. Love it! 🙏

[@davidanderson4727]

What's so good about it? Pretty useless lecture, and I find, anthropology / palaeontology is perhaps the biggest waste of human existence as it doesn't help humanity in any way. Historians have far, far more to offer humanity to learn from the past; while those that are most valuable to humans, especially doctors and surgeons are the elite in society as every single person is dependent upon them at some point in their life. Even programmers and mathematicians help us improve technology and mechanics greatly to help humanity progress.

[@cyberpunkgirl7907]

Man is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven...." ― Mark Twain

[@peterbartley9155]

CyberPunk Girl he is obviously mistaken

[@cyberpunkgirl7907]

@@peterbartley9155nah.. the world shows otherwise, kid.

Mr. Twain was one wise American... no wonder the Europeans loved him so.

[@rosemaryjane7110]

Meant as sarcasm

[@Mike-nt9sx]

I have seen every talk she's given and read every book she's written. She never fails to make me completely present to life's mysteries.

[@tfpnation6925]

What you have said here is not profound, what has she done with respect to your understanding of life’s mysteries. Has she made you change your views ?

[@Mike-nt9sx]

@@tfpnation6925 heck yeah! Our History is way longer than the one we moderns know of..

[@Crazy_Diamond_75]

Seems almost every comment is about how "religion is evil" and nothing on the actual text of the video. I for one, thought this was a fascinating and engaging talk about our modern origins and how early ideas and practices coalesced, through both evolution and tradition, into something more complicated and spiritual. Someone else mentioned this, but I, too, would like to hear more about the "evolution" of the Shaman, and how that societal role shifted over the course of our early history. Really fascinating stuff.

[@seaotter52]

@Largesse1000 And you missed that he was talking about the comments. By trying to slam TED ( interesting that science is called liberal by so many like yourself), a response to you could be " you're dealing with conservative smugness, condescension, narrow mindedness, arrogance, ignorance mixed with a lack of comprehension, so what do you expect. Not pleasant was it. As for accuracy, I don't know you but doubt it. The overview provided by the researcher was interesting and thought provoking. The intersection of archeology and neuroscience is helping understand the past and the present.

[@jeffhodge7333]

I do not find irrational thought amazing. This gal talks as if irrational thought is something to admire as progress. Trust me; religion and other dogmas have set back the human race.

[@NabPunk]

@@jeffhodge7333 I agree with the last part of your statement, but it is simply how we have evolved, and it would take more than persuasion to change people's minds, Heartless pushing of our ideas onto another would make us non-believers no different from those that came before us.

[@whatabouttheearth]

--'Rivers of Life: Sources and Streams of Faith of man in All Lands' James Forlong

[@pbohearn]

Shameless Papist hmm plenty of religions used human sacrifice. But perhaps we evolved from that to using war instead

[@DearProfessorRF]

"The great Russian author Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) said: 'The religion of those who do not recognize religion is to follow everything the powerful majority does. Simply put, it is the religion of submission to those currently in power.' "Unless people possess firm conviction in their hearts - unless they can honestly say to themselves, "I will never compromise on this point" and, "I will stake my life on defending this ideal" - they will be swayed, unable to resist the pressures of the majority. And of course it will then be even more difficult for them to endure persecution at the hands of the authorities. Ultimately, such people, in everything they do, will follow the powerful majority. They will have a wait-and-see attitude and take whatever action is expedient at the moment. With the hollow of justification that "there's no other way," they will time and again capitulate to those in power." -Daisaku Ikeda

[@DearProfessorRF]

@@markdavis7397 Technically speaking I am an atheist since in Buddhism there is no concept of an all-creator God (I've been practicing Buddhism for a good while). I think Tolstoy, in the above quote, was refering to those who think religions make people have blind faith, when this is also the case of those who base their understanding of all life phenomena in purely scientific terms. Think of those who believed, and stil do, in Eugenics or racial superiority, supposedly based on data. I don't know much about Zoroaster but Buddha means "enlightened one." Mark Davis has the Buddha nature. Muhammad means "praiseworthy," and I am sure you are Muhammad in many ways. Also, Tostoy is sending a warning, not to those who don't believe in religion, but to those who don't recognize its importance, speceially its positive contributions in human societies.

[@NabPunk]

@@DearProfessorRF My friend, religion for a Buddhist like yourself has a very different meaning, as there is no concept of God, you concentrate on making yourself better humans instead of better boot lickers. However, the other religions hardly care about self realization, they care about fitting everyone into a single cast (I mean to kind you use to shape iron or plastic, also called mould) and eliminating other casts.

[@MybridWonderful]

"Claims asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." - Christopher Hitchens, Hitchens Razor. Because somebody says something you believe it? This is a science talk and you're asserting BS.

[@shantil7764]

She has the heart of a teacher !!! so inspiring and passionate. thank you !

[@figga222]

"Is it all in the lobes?" _The Ferengi Alliance has entered the chat_

[@peytonquinn3095]

Great show: "Exploration begins at home' "even if it is free you can find a better price' Just two of the Ruies of Acquisition. The sacred text of the Deferring.

[@willrawls5899]

Nooooo....... not the Rules of Acquisition!!!!! Lol

[@casteretpollux]

It has taken my dog 12 years to learn how to ask me for water. It took her ten years to learn how to ask me for lunch at 12 o'clock. She has recently learned how to ask me to brush her. My conclusion is that in recent years I've been listening to her better. The hearing and listening is a social engagement is between the two of us. I find the assumptions made in these talks, by archaeologists and neurologists, are mostly crass speculations based on their very limited grasp of human society and culture. Plus the term 'symbolic' seems to be misused. A necklace is not symbolic. It's decorative. A set of beads might denote status or might be felt to be lucky. Neither of those functions is a symbol. A symbol is a stand-in mark or artefact that stands in for something else.

[@mayflowerlash11]

LOL

[@ATLANTECHFLOWMETERS]

She made it sound all so simple and easy to understand.

[@alvaroq2024]

Not for me. I’m gonna have to watch it several times to appreciate it.

[@julez1260]

Seeking to understand what it means to be truly virtuous, is what the world needs more of.

[@ambujamramiah7142]

They began to saw those things in awe and wonder and thus the thought of a power which is beyond their control and worship of those things began.

[@casteretpollux]

Absolutely no evidence for that. Its guesswork.

[@mayflowerlash11]

I agree with Ambujam. The evidence is in the tools and drawings and grave goods.

[@vtino4825]

Nonsense. The real shamans know how to work with and manipulate forces of nature. That is why they are revered by the community. You might be fooled by quack doctors for a long time, but tribal people know who's a real shaman and who's a quack

[@cseeger1]

She touched on it briefly, but I would like to hear an in depth talk about the role of the Shaman, how it began, how it evolved, and it's importance and contribution to the development of mankind. I've given some thought the topic and the more I explore it the more fascinating it becomes.

[@ozdigg9254]

+cseeger1 If you google the foundation for shamanic studies there is much information to be had. :)

[@TheRobdarling]

cseeger1 Joseph Campbell did some great work on this. check out his Masks of God. I think it's covered in the volume called Primitive Mythology. Or maybe Creative Mythology.

[@Getz-Da-Chompy]

I would recommend you seek out what Carl Jung had to say - he is the guy who came up with the theory of the collective unconscious, and one of the figures he identified as being a cultural keystone is that of a shaman. I haven't read all of his works, but I'd imagine he'd cover a lot about the past meanings of shamanistic figures and how that influences us today

[@r.bevantrembly3687]

cseeger1 She forgot to mention “Bear Doctors”, shaman who could kill or make your enemies sick!

[@unnanointedonesufi]

Look up Terrance mckenna

[@thetruthaboutscienceandgod6921]

Please share this brief video with others: Atheists and Agnostics Need This

[@Ryan-vj6jn]

This was wonderful. Thank you.

[@danielbuckner2167]

Soooo into Genevieve! Some of that rock art is surprisingly similar to some I saw in my cave archaeology field school and research in Central America. I have seen much on three continents and countless caves and been the first to shine light on some. I'd love to go caving and cave mapping a site with her!

[@petergianarakos4439]

that cave art suspiciously looks similar to the cave I live in...hmmm

[@wecanonlywish9194]

@@petergianarakos4439 Or...the one she lives in?

[@satyajitverma2158]

First (budding) scholar I heard who clearly admits her data and conclusions are Eurocentric and she is not imposing her conclusions on the Eastern world. Bravo.

[@casteretpollux]

And assumes that evrrything started AFTER we left Africa.

[@416dl]

very interesting, as TED talks go, and in keeping with her other talk on her research regarding the symbols found on cave walls primarily in Europe. It's been 5 years and I am aware that Dr.Von Pettinger's research continues and it seems like news discoveries and understandings are revealed daily, and would love to know how our she sees the state of knowledge now. Cheers.

[@zedwms]

18:00 Zentangle makes use of this type of Trance Imagery in the form of meditation through drawing. It's validating to see that this is a deep part of human history/psyche.

[@allwheeldrive]

It's important to frame this problem as "organized" religion. The basic drivers for all religions, in the most general sense, are all based on fear, ignorance, and hope. Even our most distant modern human ancestors were trying to make sense of what they experienced, and had to ascribe it to something they can't see, hear, feel, or touch as they reacted to weather, the day/night sky, untimely deaths through illness and attacks, etc., etc. When this all took a turn is when some of those first humans (those darned shamans) realized they could quite effectively personally benefit from the control of other humans with fear and hope by coopting and framing these early belief systems. And over thousands of years, passing along an increasing awareness also passed along the increasing anxiety of learning more and understanding less, and this very human need to create a familiar, human-centric, organized structure that could relieve them of having to figure out the impossible. This will never change.

[@vtino4825]

Nonsense. It's clear that you know NOTHING about shamanism.

[@rameshneupane4094]

Amazing talk ! Loved your work and presentation 😍😍

[@PapaOsmubal.OscarBalajadia]

It is quite fascinating how boring topics are made interesting and amusing by such great individuals like this lady. Thanks.

[@Gk2003m]

0:30: First point: no one fights about spirituality. It does not occur. Spiritual experience does not lead to conflict. What leads to conflict is power/control. Which tells you instantly that organized religion is the polar opposite of actual spirituality.

[@mpaczkow]

Actually, I like the concept of thinking about religion as a “tool” since it is how religion is used. Some religions are sophisticated, some are not. Some organized religions take the basic “tool” and make it into something that is either constructive or destructive. There are a lot of parallels to how we view hobbies, companies, etc.

[@pergamonrecordings]

Seems to me that you are projecting hindsight views back in time (i.e. religion is used as a tool, so tools are the start of religion)..I think that the idea, here, is that the ability to think of oneself from the perspective of the outside (self consciousness) opens up the possibility of a "Big Other" (God) and that the process of making a tool requires planning, imagination, the ability to think forward in time etc. which all imply degrees of self consciousness. That would mean that the evolution of learning to make tools might inspire the possibility of a "Big Other", not that religion IS a tool at that point (though in complex societies that might be said to be true of course)

[@teamhaselmyer]

Fascinating The cave paintings in France could be the first how to hunting PowerPoint presentation!!!

[@MrDuane-lr8dm]

Exactly. That bison with the spears was a "aim for this spot" diagram.

[@zapkvr]

Love it. I read about the caves in elementary school in the 60s

[@clavo3352]

See the word "point". See the pointed spear. 1=1.

[@willy-johndejager6810]

and slightly less tedious than windows10. haha. but yea very cool point. i imagine asterix seeing his ancestors work.

[@lewsouth1539]

Hmm... could be, if not for the fact that they were never a PowerPoint presentation. I'm also taking points off for your failure to hyphenate "how-to" (making it a bit harder for autists like me to parse your comment).

[@tashuntka]

She's awesome..... Smart, easy to listen to that voice....💛 Will watch again 👍😶‍🌫️👍

[@greglaroche1753]

Great and interesting presentation. I wait for more from you.

[@DW_Kiwi]

Yeah. Live in Hope in the meantime

[@gusmore26]

"I once took a radio apart and discovered that there are no talk show hosts, their guests, nor callers-in, it's just that the radio is wired to make it seem as if they exist." - Gus More

[@bradzimmerman3171]

Gus More is real! Christian god IS NOT I don't CARE and you shouldn't either however the bible is comical at least but shouldn't be taken seriously

[@user-mz1kt6iz4e]

That's great..!(laughing out loud as I say that to myself) He makes a statement, then gives himself a citation for the quote. As if we'll think, "Oooo, Gus More said that. Well, then it must be good!" Except that, despite the fact that the people he lists off are not to be found inside the radio, itself, there is evidence that they are out there somewhere. And if Gus is bright enough to actually understand the workings of this thing he's just torn apart, he will see how that is true. Where is the parallel to that in his religion?

[@christopherp.hitchens3902]

...And if you stew cranberries, they taste like applesauce. Your turn.

[@arturama8581]

'They' don't *seem* to exist, they DO exist. Just not inside the radio.

[@gusmore26]

@@arturama8581 Art, my philosophical joke about taking apart a radio has nothing to do with claiming that God exists; rather, it has to do with exposing the fundamental flaw in Genevieve's logical argument. The author of "The God Part of the Brain" makes the same mistake at logic.

[@shenidan2023]

A Ten years old post but absolutely fascinating. Both presenter and subject matter. These are great questions and discussions.

[@garyha2650]

So much we don't know, so satisfying to take a guess

[@TheLRider]

Absolutely loved that talk.. Huge references to other worlds in ancient Celtic/ Welsh mythology and the transition from one to the other by "Shamens". Each other world had Gods. These myths certainly were "alive and well" in the bronze age. Possibly the Shamens of the time were the ones who possessed specialist skills of being able to smelt Copper Ore etc. The world of the dead was called Annwn.. I talk of this only because it's my cultural heritage. Others will have theirs. An observation is that reverence for a buried person is borne out of having a huge emotional loss due to a death. That denotes pretty advanced thought processes to register that loss.

[@TheGnewb]

Excellent, thank you for being.

[@gregmckenzie4315]

I tend to think that our brains evolved the frontal cortex as a tool for organizing our local social units and communities to improve our lives and ensure our ability to thrive. I suspect that our language abilities served this purpose, primarily by allowing us to communicate in metaphors. With our improved brains we could remember the names of our neighbors and families and the entire structure of the community could be described with our metaphorical language. I can’t help but see a metaphorical language as a tool for social control. I’m sure it was immediately adopted by the most ambitious individuals as a means for controlling the general population. The “magic words” were used to construct a world-view (religion) that set boundaries and that secured the position of powerful individuals. I would like to see more discussion about these ideas. In order to survive this extinction event we need to reform or “re-form” our religious ideas in a metaphorical language that comports more closely with reality than our current language does. We do not have a lot of time.

[@riandraegon556]

Can I get an Amen!!

[@gusmore26]

Nicely put, Greg. That sounds like a very good and probable thesis for directing academic studies on frontal cortex evolution.

[@gregmckenzie4315]

@@gusmore26 Thanks. Unfortunately this is a difficult subject to "talk about" because our language is designed to obscure the entire subject.

[@gusmore26]

I heard on some documentary or other that we pushed the Neanderthals to extinction because we were able to establish regional trade with others of our species and shared ideas and plans for the future, while Neanderthals stayed within their own little family groups and lived more in the moment. As for using Religion to control the masses, I think that came much later. In our earlier prehistoric times, people were a lot more emotionally driven and may not have been able to tell quite where the boundary between dreaming and reality was (i.e. the difference between the mental plane and the material plan). I believe, religion was used to explain those things that happen beyond 3 Standard Deviations of the usual experiences, and bridge the logic gap between the perception domains of Emotion (a.k.a. spirituality), Mind (a.k.a. Reason, Logos or Logic), and Matter.

[@pryaz1]

This was great, thanks to Genevive. The only problem was when she points out about "mental time travel" and claims "human can remember things like using [certain] material for [certain] tool didn't work, so I shouldn't use it. This is only a human behavior and animals don't do that". This is false since we know Ravens watch each other when one is using a tool, or tries to reach to food in a certain way, and if that member fails, next one tries another way or tool with another shape or material.

[@Gericho49]

Attacking religion to justify Atheism is totally illogical. Atheism aka *Naturalism, is a bankrupt worldview* Ask any closeminded sceptic to explain 1) how anything exists now, if all time, space and matter began in the finite past. The finitude of past [time] proves absolutely nothing once existed, and so mstter/energy must have a cause outside time, space and matter. 2) the origin and existence of the *immaterial, immutable laws of science* and similarly what they are grounded in i. e. Abstract Logic and mathematics. In their naturalist worldview, mindless matter is the only game in town. Naturalism as a worldview is totally bankrupt when it comes to explaining what truly defines human nature, I. e. metaphysical truths like beauty, meaning, truth, wisdom, justice, morality, joy, love, hope, destiny and not least, the rational intelligibility of our awe-inspiring universe. Only within theism do we have the necessary intellectual framework to explain what cannot be isolated in a test tube. Such axioms define the human spirit, from which we get meaning hope and destiny. Creating a strawman out of religion to justify Atheism is about as logical as using flawed atomic orbital theories to deny sub atomic particles. Or perhaps, a mistaken UFO sighting to justify a belief in non existence of aliens.

[@stupidtreehugger]

@@Gericho49 , "Naturalism as a worldview is totally bankrupt when it comes to explaining what truly defines human nature" says the person fully using naturalism for all it's worth, and who doesn't even know how to use paragraphs. Hiding in his intellectualism from reality. Africa has 5x as many (barely subsisting and starving) people as it had 7 decades ago. And they care no more about your theism than a virus

[@stupidtreehugger]

"Only within theism do we have the necessary intellectual framework to explain what cannot be isolated in a test tube". I agree. Sheep need a shepherd, even if, or especially if, an illusory one.

[@Druuna55]

@@Gericho49 you are so triggered, calm down, just pick yourself a religion, doesn't matter which, no one actually cares lol

[@rosemaryjane7110]

She doesn't say they don't use tools. She says they don't modify them

[@johnventura1637]

What may be most fascinating is how we have taken this early desire to understand our world and ourselves (the early intimations of religion she spoke of) to the level of religious fundamentalism and violence that we see today.

[@tomward2688]

Yep, religion by rights should be officially described as a form of mental illness. I suspect the reason it isn't is likely down to the fact that it manages to make millions in returns for a politically powerful bunch of lobbyists, especially in the US.

[@captainnemo2150]

I think it was a way to try to explain what humans could not comprehend .

[@streetkempo8253]

I have a strange idea about the possible emergence of belief in the supernatural. The idea rests on a hypothetical inability of our ancestors to distinguish between dream and reality. The thing would go like this: two individuals are attacked by a predator. One dies, the other escapes. Later he returns to look for his friend, whom he finds dead. At night, he dreams of adventures spent in the company of his dead friend. In the dream he was still alive. At that time the dead were not yet buried, so in the morning, returning to the scene of the events, he again finds the body of his friend - who, obviously, remains dead. However, during the night he saw him alive, after being sure that he was dead. What can his deduction be: his friend, dead in this world, now lives in another world where one enters only in dreams.

[@MCJSA]

Sounds interesting. Dream is, apparently, central to Aboriginal Australian cosmology and this group is one of the most archaic of surviving ingigenous human populations, having been relatively isolated for so long, from the rest of the population - both by sea and by desert. I'm not familiar with the place of dreams in their mystic thought or culture, but it is frequently mentioned.

[@isaac1572]

@@MCJSA All of the Australian Aboriginal mythology is called The Dream Time or The Dreaming, and some of the associated rock art dates back more than 40,000 years.

[@adrianmonk4440]

My friend and I have had lengthy discussions & debates on Evolution: * Descending from the treetops. * Standing erect to view the Serengeti, etc. * Large roaming to find more & newer food sources & water. * FINALLY MOVEMENT TO EUROPE WHICH REQUIRED COMPLETE CLOTHING, MORE TOOLS, & MORE ELABORATE LANGUAGE & SOCIAL ORGANIZATION FOR SURVIVAL.

[@klowen7778]

Fascinating TED Talk... thank you! BTW, it's also been suggested that the 'invention' of religion is what first enabled humans to imagine larger group identities and hierarchies, beyond just local clans and traditional tribal affiliations.

[@TheBerserker50]

hardly.

[@stultusvenator3233]

It was a form of tribalism that already existed it just used it and could then exclude more people or other them even if from the same group. The evolution from Sharman or Healer to a priesthood of parasites included their attachment to the ruling class in return the "Devine right to rule" was developed.

[@cliftongaither6642]

@@TheBerserker50 how so?

[@klowen7778]

@@toph10167 Oh, 'fer sure things inevitably reverted to that, but in the meantime it also grew more complex social relationships and alliances, city-states, empires... which often comes with an evolutionary advantage. And that we arguably enjoy and take for granted even today.

[@ranjanjoshi3454]

Thanks I am asking this question for years

[@andrewtaylor7598]

In the beginning of the talk Genevieve opens with ‘we live in a world that is absolutely infused with religion and spirituality, sometimes even to the point where maybe we don’t recognize it’. This statement bolstered my opinion that Science is a Religion, one which we don’t currently recognize as being so. I believe scientists are our modern priests and shamans. To give you one example. The talk mentions shamanistic practices and shamans and the term being applied to ‘spiritual practices where there are specific members of your tribe who intercede on your behalf with an unseen world, whether it’s to influence weather, influence the hunt, whether it’s to do with health and people being sick and trying to make them better again, there’s these people that do that’. I would say the most modern example of a Sharman using this definition is a Quantum Physicist. From my research on modern Religions are how they are formed. My study being conducted on Kundalini Yoga, formed in California in 1968 by a fellow named Yogi Bhajan. It became clear to me that in the early stages of a Religion there is an unawareness of its members that there is a religion that has been formulated, supporting the statement I mentioned earlier. This unawareness can lead to a strong desire to spread and defend the newly formulated Religion and Dogma created, even attacking or rejecting people and ideas which may challenge it. I would say that Science can be very dogmatic.

[@crossedkeys]

You make a good point. But science will admit when it is wrong (not always but mostly). In fact the core principal of science is to prove your theory right and wrong with evidence. Religion doesn't exactly do that.

[@mikemullins2351]

Science can be dogmatic in the sense that some scientists think it the only form of knowledge. Science is concerned with objective fact. It is only one form of knowledge. Science can never answer the question what does it mean to be me or you? It cannot answer subjective existential / spiritual questions. It Cam never answer the question what is the moral thing to do? When we live in a purely scientific world where we think Science is everything then our sense of the world becomes shallow very 2d. Metaphor symbol analogy poetry speak to the soul feed the soul speak to the subjective. Religion is spiritual experirence metaphor and practice captured formalised by people and institutions.

[@raymondkymsuttle]

I hear so many archaeologists make statements like ‘clearly this shows...’ & I’m saying ‘no, you’re making massive assumptions’. For example, her statement about the beads buried with the dead. Maybe the beads were made as a celebration of life, or indicated achievements such as successful hunting or gathering, maybe they were an indication of hierarchical standing in the community. If the children had more beads perhaps they were beads worn by the grieving parents who had accumulated the beads during their lives & wanted to show how much they valued their offspring? There’s a fantastic graphic story that proves my point - it’s about archaeologists discovery a buried Las Vegas centuries from now & how they completely misinterpret the function of objects: Motel of the Mysteries.

[@navist5177]

Who made stonehenge?

[@iliosellas1950]

"Those who fear life, worship imaginary Gods of others; those who love life, imagine." Imagination is the Way. Revelations by Elias Leousis, Amazon

[@WillH0724]

Thought inspiring vid. Would be super interesting to know at what point in our history (modern human) we started recognizing and actively using psychedelic plants … I would assume also that biochem receptors for same evolved to be part of our biochemical make up. Could be there is a correlation between the “impossible entities” and the types of edible plants we were exposed to whilst having the receptors biochemically established.

[@elliot7205]

How did we come up with thinking of these entities?

[@hippopotamus6765]

Great thought, were they rolling joints 25,000 yrs ago?

[@karanseraph]

Commenting from 2020 when we've had a pandemic; when people can't go outside (like there's ice or plague) they can't find enough things to do and start baking, crafting, etc. Not surprised cave shelters have a lot of art or that people had time to make beads and jewelry.

[@raymondgarlick4624]

Finding healed broken bones in early humans demonstrates the point that humanity truly became us. Caring for others

[@jaimeariasfarias6520]

Hello Genvieve, Thanks for a very interesting presentation. When I just started working as a freshman geologist professional in Chile in 1972, found a fascinating book, which is still in my bookshelf. Its authors were a husband and wife geologists couple - Mr. and Mrs. Jean Termier, printed in 1971 - who had studied stone tools from France's territory, quoting they had found some 760 different rock types used to make tools found in archeological sites. Interestingly, the Termier's finding points towards a large variety of rocks logically to be found within a wide geographic region with a varied geological evolution and many rocks types formation, but it also points to the human tool-making actually experimenting with many rock types in the search for the more adequate materials for tools applications intended to be made for. So this widespread experimenting in search of the "best suited rock types materials" in my view reveals that there was "an intelligent learning process" (intelligence being defined in this case as "acquiring concepts and being able to link them into ideas", that is learning about those diverse rock materials through its empyrical experimental testing. The particular Termier couple finding of numerous rock types used to make tools from an extensive geographic archeological of French territory search, led me as a geologist and minerals exploration/metallogeny researcher, to think those tools were derived both from a diverse and varied abundance of rock types, each with particular rock crushing strength, shear breaking strength and tension strength. Incidentally, the crushing strength of granite - a typical crustal rock - is about 1,500 kg./cm2, its shearing strength being 150 kg./cm2 (i. e., 1/10 = 10%) and its tension strength 50 to 30 kg./cm2 (i. e., 1/30 = 3.3% only); these "rock properties imply that the tool-making energy needed" defined the minimum amount of energy delivery needed and the "human prensile-hand" positioning enabling use of the optimum muscle force to obtain "the useful rock materials shaping with the minimum energy use", while learning about allowing for the preservation of the "fragile muscle-tendon and bone" condition free of injuries while cracking rocks and shaping them into essential survival tools. Interestingly, archeology researchers in the Kalahari Desert of Western Africa, found blocks of obsidian - a volcanic rock glass - which were clearly chipped by large rock-block tools that provided very sharp edges tools; further search in the area found these obsidian rocks were privileged by end- users who transported it for n x 10 kilometers to other human settlements favouring this material to make flesh- and hide-cutting tools. Rocks are defined as "mineral aggregates" and the are at least 3,800 different mineral species, dominated by silicate rocks (equivalent to about 67% of the Earth's Crust mass - which are made of the hardest common base mineral Quartz (SiO2; 7 in Mohs empirical hardness scale) associated mainly with elements such as Ca, Na, K, Al into similarly hard silicate structures (Mohs's 5.0 to 6.5) - which make most of the Earth's Crust; interestingly, Quartz or high SiO2 content rocks (Chalcedony and silicified rocks which are SiO2 replaced rocks) were dominant in the "arrow factory" I found on a hills range overlooking the desert. This "arrow factory" site overlooked from a hill-top into a minute desert spring where animals would drink and eat grass; also found more crudely shaped stone tools such as bone-crushing hammers, animal meat-cutting and hide cleaning artifacts elsewhere, mixed with fired clay containers, etc., while carrying out minerals exploration in other sites of the Atacama Desert. One can conclude therefore, that the "intelligent human indirectly experimenting with rock properties is the base of all human empirical and technical development", since rock usage as tools led to the discovery and later obtaining of metals by smelting of ores, a process which incidentally has led to the emission of about 40% of CO2 worldwide in 2022 from the primitively sustained obtaining of metals by smelting; which replacement by clean processes has been in part my research since 1984, arriving in 2018 at a hydrometallurgical industrial process that needs less than 5% of its current energy consumption. Jaime ARIAS, Geologist (1972); Ph. D. Applied Geochemistry (1978) Santiago, Chile. Cell phone and Whatsapp: [phone]

[@michaelkepes6125]

Wow how smart

[@vallipherson6453]

Here's hoping your process is wildly successful and widely adopted.

[@patrickjauffret183]

I wish to thank Genevieve Von Petzinge for this excellent talk. I intend to transcribe all the valuable information she shares here and keep it on file, so I can refer to it again from time to time.

[@mongoosehunter6771]

That doesn't conclude that it's a fact

[@Dechieftian]

wow! amazing stuff. Thought provoking at the very least. Insightful and believeable as we look back at our human ancestry. Seems instinctely right! Thanks Genevieve!

[@thomasarthurmaj]

The history of the emergence of clothing, tool use, the progression from hunter-gathering to agriculture, tribes, cities, states and empires in Africa and the Near East is fascinatingly illustrated in the narrative of the Bible.

[@WORKERS.DREADNOUGHT]

How does a mimic octopus mimic items? Does it also have a template in its mind in order to do so?

[@freakshit22]

it will have visuomotor neuronal wirings which makes them to mimic what they see i guess.

[@jeffreyk9743]

I so love Ted Talk I always learn so much life changing information

[@RafaelSantos-xl1ut]

VERY ENLIGHTENING!!!

[@FlatlandMando]

I'm ready for chapters 2,&3&4 of her talks. I want to hear the theorizations of how the priestly class tied in directly with the political class to create & support wars and to connect the dots & zig zags that result in the horrible criminality of a body of earthly HUMANS to put to death another human for supposed crimes against God or Allah or whatever iteration of religious dogma you choose. Now there's a couple of juicy talk topics!

[@johnschuh8616]

You seem to be conflating what she is talking about with the prejudices of the philosophes and the ideologies they developed to substitute for Christianity in particular.

[@IainDavie]

"For in ancient times the universe and all things were considered circular. Then in time by Imperial decree a square was drawn inside the circle, placing a limitation on what others outside of the elite were to be allowed to know, as if the rose to a table of authorised knowledge." - Chapter 4 - Moneydie

[@MrAngryCucaracha]

Where is that from?

[@marksteed9022]

"Religion" is ancient man's "philosophy" and "psychotherapy". It fulfilled the same needs. Mix in a little "science" and "history" and you have the basis of a culture.

[@Gericho49]

Creating a strawman out of religion to justify Atheism is about as logical as using flawed atomic orbital theories to deny sub atomic particles. Or perhaps, a mistaken UFO sighting to justify a belief in non existence of aliens.

[@gogglesgrath280]

@@Gericho49 Atheism doesn't need to be justified.

[@nataliedesilver]

Goggles Grath if that was the case then atheists wouldn’t have dedicated atheist websites, organise & participate in debates against theism or have prominent atheist writers. Atheism has all the elements of an organised belief system which aims to create a false dichotomy between religion and rationally. In truth It’s an empty belief system that has to adopt modern scientific research to defend its claims of arrogant disbelief, which is pointless because science answers fundamentally different questions than religion. Just have a scroll through at all the anti-religious comments in relation to this video when this video isn’t even promoting or defending religion. Whenever religion is being discussed the Atheist always reveals its bitter existence and justifications of disbelief.

[@lauraoldermanart6784]

Natalie de Silver are they not two sides of the same coin? Neither can be proven. One either believes or does not. One cannot truly be coerced or convinced either way, can one? When you hear the argument either for or against, your temperament, life experience, culture, etc moves you toward one position or the other, does it not?

[@nataliedesilver]

Laura Tlc my comment was in direct response to “Atheism doesn’t need justification”. And I mentioned extremism on both ends (anti-theism/fundamentalism) which i agree are “two sides of the same coin”. I don’t actually have an issue with Atheism however as a theologian I do have a serious issue when atheists attack religion based on a scientific viewpoint. I also don’t agree with religious fundamentalists who view the entire biblical narrative as literal historical accounts. The point I’m trying to make is that religion & science and religion & rationality are not mutually exclusive as many of the prominent atheists ie: Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris & their legion of online trolls make it out to be.

[@glendagraves1637]

As long as mankind has had an imagination, they have invented spirituality and religion to explain things that cause fear but to also explain that which causes awe.

[@michaelhayward9855]

We do not know that

[@glendagraves1637]

@@michaelhayward9855 We have pictoral records, written records, and stories passed orally from one generation to the next that all indicate an amazing history of creativity and inventiveness in the explanation of things that are awe inspiring and things that caused fear. From Gilgamesh to the Aboriginal people we have multiple examples around the world.

[@Megacalm]

@@glendagraves1637 Hayward is right, there is no inscription on cave walls "we are doing this to explain things that cause fear and explain awe". Petzinger's reference to trance and shamanic practices indicates a direct encounter with a supernatural element of human experience with the cave art being a symbolic and pictorial representation. That is the historical reality and not a product of mere creativity or even inventiveness which is an even more abstract explanation. It's best not to impose atheist or agnostic modern western thought on ancient people's experience just because we think were smarter than that.

[@glendagraves1637]

@@Megacalm refer to Joseph Campbell's study of Myths and Genevieve von Petzinger's study of the 32 symbols found in caves around the world and you will discover there is a great deal of information on cave walls and elsewhere that tells us our ancestors had great imaginations and more skills than we tend to give them credit for having. The oral traditions handed down through tribes also tell us a great deal. In addition, we are always uncovering new information about humanity's past like with the discovery of Göbecklitepe.

[@patcomerford5596]

Fear and awe - an excellent observation.

[@vimalkapur1]

True understanding of religion and spirituality emanates from a loving heart! Limited mind/intellect has to be transcended to understand religion.

[@mem1001953]

Use 5 commonsense. Don't surrender to any man made religion/god. Live as a good human being. Read enjoy all epic and stories.

[@G_Demolished]

Understanding that transcends the mind sounds like woo to me.

[@jrey6186]

Concise presentation, many thanks

[@charlyroussel]

I would recommend reading "of water and the spirit" by Malidoma Patrice Some, an African shaman from the Dagara Tribe, its about ritual and magic. Absolutely fascinating book. We westerners have lost touched with nature and there for have no clue in how much of a science has been developed by tribes to actually access the wisdom of our planet and other dimensions. indigenous people interpret nature in a way that is superior to our western religions or science. since they never broke the bond.

[@katharinavonheydekampf]

Very very interesting

[@AnnemieM]

I did like this video and I thank Ted talks and Genevieve Von Petzinger for this fine talk. What I am hoping to learn some day is how some cruel inhuman practices such as male and fem. circumcision, self mutilation, blood rituals, witch hunting, blood sacrifices and other horrors imposed on the people ever took hold on a large group of people and have been practiced over centuries.

[@jenster29]

They were thought up by psychos who were in charge or at least had a lot of influence on people. Most religions today started off as, what we would call a cult, nowadays. They manipulated people through their ignorance and fear. People will go along with anything once an authority figure instructs them too.

[@konstantinethegr8]

You also need to mention that early humans traveled/lived in groups and I believe religion was introduced as a way to introduce social norms and therefore the alpha/elder of the group could control and lead

[@casteretpollux]

Thats more like it. Religion only has really kicked in with agriculture, slavery to work land, hierachies, due to agricultural surpluses, and anxieties about rainfall and weather to grow crops.

[@hashimeid8892]

I like how some people give you an insight about certain topics and leave it to you to think ,,,,

[@julienduchaine4799]

I would be curious to see studies about psychedelics roles on the first beliefs.

[@boutchie06]

When humans became conscious of death the natural fear of death is what created the need to delude ourselves that we continue to live after death.

[@martini3524]

This lady keeps alive the relentless, human endeavour which began with the grave-makers, the shell-cutters, the Shamans et al.

[@cmilford1969]

One theory that attempts to explain the rapid development of the human intellect in Europe during the Ice Age is that the cold weather created a much harsher living environment for humans, and this put more emphasis on intelligence as a means of survival. The most intelligent humans of the time were more successful at finding ways to survive and thrive, and they were thus more successful at reproducing and passing on their genes. The harsh environment favored the intellect.

[@dianegrudem8982]

Isn't it possible that the farmers were more successful at survival than the folks who lived in a city? They had access to resources that promoted survival. People who didn't grow their own food were at the mercy of lack of supplies. The farmer was closer to nature and not tricked into belief in the superiority of intellect as a tool for survival. Food and water cannot be conjured from the arguing of philosophy on the senate or temple steps.

[@MSKPELLEGRINO]

Diane Grudem Your point is well made. Especially as we now understand the importance of starch (potatoes, rice, etc) in providing appropriate fuel for the human brain. It could be that the innovation is modern human cooperation...sharing of effort and knowledge....to make a farm work. Farms require a huge effort 'today' for a future payoff. Getting people focused on this future goal may have been difficult in early history. It could be that early religion was a way of training children to think about the future (even going as far as planning life after death) and cultivating a more predictable social behavior.

[@laythonwhitmire8436]

No it isn't possible Diane. Farms, cities, philosophy, the Senate, even what we consider "civilization" didn't really develop till after the ice age.

[@irvingdiaz9524]

Christopher Milford what’s your point......human intellect pretty much developed the same way in a lot of places besides Europe. Farming it’s believed to have started in the Middle East.....later different civilizations developed advance characteristics in different parts of the world.......astronomy in Central America with the Mayans, writing in the Middle East, architecture in Northern Africa with the Egyptians, powder in China......I can go on and on.........even Arabs were more advanced than Europeans during the Middle Ages. I believe all humans have pretty much the same intellectual capacity, with small differences of course. What determines advance civilizations are their believe systems..........

[@mitchkahle314]

"A world without religion"? One can only hope.

[@kingofaramaic]

Actually, a world without religion would turn Communist extremely fast!!! We're still "hardwired" to think in certain ways. We'd just substitute a God with some powerful authority figure. In fact, the West has been under a mass social experiment to turn Western Civilization into a Communist state since the 1950's!!! Just wait till Russian Sleeper Agents activate and bring Europe crashing to its knees!!! They've waited a long time for their plan!!! Just watch Yuri Bezmenov on Ideological Subversion and everything will become crystal clear!!!

[@isaacmathews4693]

@@kingofaramaic Agreed AND Communism IS a religion. For more elaboration on this point, read Yuval Noah Harari's great book Sapiens.

[@AbreTuMente]

Thanks for sharing this very interesting information!

[@BillGivens]

Every day a wise man passes a sheep grazing in a field. And every day the wise man thinks “the sheep does nothing except eat grass, what kind of life is that?” One day the man stops and speaks to the sheep, “What are you doing?” The sheep looks at the man and motions to the sun with his hoof and then motions to the grass. The sheep then continues to graze. Awestruck, the wise man sits down and thinks about what the sheep had done. After a while, the man gathers himself and says to the sheep, “I see now: matter in the sun becomes light and some of that light gives life to the grass. You eat the unconscious grass and now the matter in your body is conscious. You are making the universe conscious.” The sheep stops grazing and looks at the man and said, “Yes that is true, and what are you doing?”

[@johnpwrites]

Thanks Bill, can you tell me where that story is from or did you make it up, thanks

[@Bungaloo]

The sheep looks at the man and says moo

[@BillGivens]

@@Bungaloo Baa ha

[@Leo-gt1bx]

That man way overthought that. The sheep needed food.

[@BillGivens]

@@Leo-gt1bx C+ I know you can do better. Have another try.

[@alvarocervantescamacho1979]

Enjoyed this video, very good information; you are an expert Genevieve. This is what I think about this subject: Our curiosity, the lack of understanding, and the need to satisfy our curiosity can make us lie to ourselves (e.g. invent a response). Our ancestors didn't have enough information to satisfy their curiosity for any natural phenomena. Neither they could come up with a good explanation of the origin of humans or other natural organisms, once they started thinking about the very far past. The need to understand where we came from or how, is probably the origin of the monotheistic religions, as religion moved away from natural phenomena Gods. I am not an expert, but I noticed my father and mother how many lies they told us when we were kids, all because they didn't know an answer to our curious questions about this world; they just to say something like "God made it," and under this pandemic, they still say the same thing, "God will get rid of it."

[@DW_Kiwi]

Your mother and father are partly right "God made it" ...Nature. However, he didn't make the pandemic...man did. Left alone Man will ultimately destroy everything he touches. That why we "need" God...Jesus Christ!!

[@oned528]

Your comment is a confused attempt at explaining away religions quite dismissively, and also suggests a child looking down upon their folks' innocence of faith, as ignorance. The keys lie in different states of consciousness. Where do you go when you're asleep, experientially? Sure, to your family you're your body sleeping in bed. But in your experience, where are you? Could at least some of those places be real experiences? What's happening when millions of people have a specific dream, which is followed by a strikingly similar event happening AFTER the dream occurred. Which means it's not the memory of an actual event that triggered a dream, but a dream that occurred before the relevent event took place. What happens to you when you... zone out for a while? What could be the advanced stages of these inner states like experientially? Can we investigate, since we have a whole biological system and a world that the organism "grew" out of in complete compatibility available to us 24/7? Can we explore the actual relationship between the two, down to ethereal physics? Thoughts, act of perception interacting with environment, triggering events, raising the dead parting the red seas, walking on water, splitting the Moon in half, etc. etc.. THAT's the playground Prophets exist beyond. Remember, when those individuals accessed that center in themselves, the resulting phenomenon became observable to the masses around them, too. People called it "miracles," and religions were created, and so forth. The message was to discover your own inner, experiential relationship. We chose to worship the messengers, and not actually investigate our own potential inner evolution. Or, you could mechanically continue to explain everything away logically, dismissively... while ignoring the FACT that you don't know with absolute certainty.

[@alvarocervantescamacho1979]

@@oned528 Thanks for your comments. I do like being curious, but I do not like inventing evidence as I expect evidence to be a trigger of my curiosity. I enjoy listening to my senses when informing me of our environment, and my mind cooperate with them to build the enjoyment of understanding. I don't believe our mind is superior to our body, they evolved together and depend from each other for survival, but we have to be careful with our mind as it is capable of even ordering our body to destroy itself. Our mind functioning depends purely on our body, which depends on our environment (food, oxygen, etc.), our thinking is built by our society and our own processing of information received from our society and nature, and when such information does not have a relationship with reality, I just cannot process it. I just resist to use my time in investigating ideas without evidence, it is more interesting to investigate nature, as it has an infinite amount of unknowns that are waiting to be discovered. Basically, the way I see myself is that nature created its consciousness in our mind, not the other way around; our mind cannot create nature, and therefore inventions in our mind that don't relate to nature, are just fantasy, art, hallucination, dreams, or illusions (ideas themselves are not real, but can be models of reality though). And on the same topic, since I don't have any evidence of the spontaneous creations that religion claims, I conclude that religions are a product of our human mind and therefore nothing real. Have a healthy life and enjoy freedom.

[@oned528]

@@alvarocervantescamacho1979 Your perceptions create your reality, your interpretations either open it up to the reality that's supporting it, or close it down to be a self-enclosed bubble of circular definitions. The nature between your direct experience (sensory), and the larger than life sensory field that you call Nature... is the key here. Someone who makes that connection a living, breathing, direct relationship gives you guidelines on how to get there. You might call them prophets, saints, mystics, etc. They define the behavior that's supportive towards making that direct sensory connection (as opposed to just believing). They also define the behaviors that are counter-progressive. That's how I translate religions. And from your own favorable inclinations towards Nature as the basic defining force, as well as the vehicle of transformation is precisely my viewpoint as well. And that's exactly where science and religion converge. God bless, and Godspeed.

[@louisesumrell6331]

Peace Love Kindness Respect, the more you give the more you get. Start with yourself because you deserve it 💖 🙏

[@johnbell6114]

There's a couple caves in France with wonderful early human artwork, extremely interesting. Mainly hunting images, but also human and possible religious images. There's one of a poor guy getting killed, but I think there's also afterlife depictions. They're called Cosquer and Chauvet Caves, I believe. I'm sure there's more all over the world. The drawings have been dated, with a center at 31,000 years ago, some older and others newer. Many animal depictions, mostly extinct, but some of horses and lions.

[@granthurlburt4062]

Actually, only one single image could possibly be considered a hunting image. The others are all of animals (mostly mammals), three shamans in total, a few fish, and geometric symbols. The one weird one has a bison on its side with possibly intestines or an after birth spilling out, a stick-human figure, and a stick with a bird on top of it. I guess that it what you're referring to. None of them show an afterlife. There are images of hunting on large AFrican rocks, that are much younger than the European ones.

[@clarkpalace]

Read the Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean Auel. She brings those cave paintings to life!

[@Omni8Canada]

Could burying the beads with their dead relatives have a simpler explanation; maybe it was a way to show them love

[@4youp]

But that is exactly what is being discussed in the video. Showing love and/or sorrow for a dead being is fairly natural, we see apes and monkeys do it too. But why show love through the medium of an object? This is symbolic expression, something that is meant to convey thoughts, feelings, emotions via something else than gestures and speech. Ivory itself is not innately a material associated with love, or any other emotion for that matter. So being able to express something with an object that has nothing to do with the natural characteristics of the object itself but with the meaning that is GIVEN to it is the whole premise of the research, the search for the start of religion.

[@malachiguarnieri7215]

In addition to what 4youp wrote, the extremely symbolic gesture of exchanging thousands of hours of your own life without any return in terms of survival advantage, comfort, or status implies that they comprehend death as fundamentally separate from life and have a a complex range of emotions and ideas regarding the former. Even if it is for love of the lost, they would have to recognize the significance of death in an extremely dangerous lifestyle.

[@listenup2882]

Dead people can't be shown love.

[@Omni8Canada]

@@listenup2882 Of course they can. By remembering them we honour them, show them respect, we miss them and we still love them.

[@carolyns.672]

@@listenup2882 That is a ridiculous statement. Dead people cannot show love, but anyone can show love to a dead person. My 100 year old grandmother died last October and I miss her and show her love every time I think about her. I talk to her still, regardless of the fact that I have no idea if there is an afterlife and if she can hear me, and remember fond memories daily. Heck I still show love to my dog who died several years ago.

[@jahbloomie]

But religion is the most fun and the most helpful thing in my life. I think maybe animals have religion, because we are animals who have simply evolved enough to express it. But, what do I know, I'm not an anthropologist. All I know is that I have this brief flicker of life as this entity on this speck of dust in the universe. I want to enjoy it as much as possible, and religion is an exquisite experience for me. I'm so grateful for those who bring science to the investigation of what it is to be human. This study fascinates me.

[@elainegoad2111]

My dog goes right for the treat container when we walk in the vet's waiting room. My dog jumps up to the counter in the exam room where there sits another treat jar. One time they moved the treat container in the waiting room to the other side and it was out of sight. My do attacked a large cat statue because that was in the same area where the big tread container usually sits. My dog remembers. Dogs also remember their companion dogs that have passed. I had a basset hound that looked for her sister for 2 months after her sister died. Another dog looked under beds and around the house when he heard his friend's name mentioned. We had to stop mentioning the deceased dog's name. etc...….

[@Nitephall]

Fascinating stuff. Does anyone know of a book that would be a good introduction to this field?

[@AdrianaColera]

Ina Wunn’s ‘Religions on the Prehistory’

[@jeanmichel8368]

All of Bernardo Kastrup's books.

[@and__lam1152]

Supernatural by Graham Hancock..... he fully interviews the guy from Witwatersrand uni mentioned here with the San people and dives deep into cave art

[@thetruthaboutscienceandgod6921]

Please share these brief videos with other people. Thanks!