The Super Summary of World History (17 page)

Accordingly, we do not know why the invaders came, how they developed advanced warfare methods, or even where they lived beforehand. Recall these same types of nomadic invaders eventually conquered the Western Roman Empire. It seems the center of the world incubated warriors capable of conquering well-established built-up civilizations living near the mighty rivers of the Old World. History holds countless mysteries, but it shields its secrets extremely well.

Greek
Philosophy

The Greeks invented
Western
philosophy
. Philosophy is a search for truth, but this quest avoids involving the gods. Once god is involved, it is religion or theology. Typical of the Greeks, they usually left god out of philosophy. Philosophy is often summed up as a battle between
Plato
and
Aristotle
, but the numerous Greek philosophers in Athens and Greece covered every basic philosophic idea.

Plato
thought we lived in a world
separated
from
reality
. He believed we were as men chained inside a cave watching shadows on a wall. Since the shadows are all we could know we would think they were reality, but reality exists outside the cave. Reality, according to Plato, is impossible for humans to experience because we are trapped in our existence—we cannot walk out of the cave. Plato also believed that an object in the world, say a chair, was an expression of a perfect concept existing somewhere else; thus, there may be many different concepts of “chair” here in our sensory world, but somewhere there is the perfect “chair” from which all our ideas of “chair” originate.
Aristotle
thought the world we live in
is
reality,
and what we see, hear, taste, and feel are facts. “A is A,” Aristotle might say. Thus the great divide: is our sensory world real or not? Can we trust what our senses tell us? Aristotle says yes, Plato says no. These two views sum up Western philosophy. The argument is “what is reality?” If we fail to agree on what is real, advancing to a discussion of what is truth fails as well.

Western philosophy bogged down in this problem of what is reality and entered into definitional arguments (
epistemology
) that went nowhere.
Hume
even destroyed the concept of knowledge from experience. Many Western philosophers tried to meet these challenges.
Descartes,
Kant
, and many other brilliant men gave plausible answers, but other philosophers would punch holes in their concepts and on it would go with no real progress in the search for truth. In the end, Western philosophy has not advanced much past “what is reality” and that is just where Aristotle and Plato left us. Can humans, with human limitations, ever agree on reality or truth? History thinks not. We will take up modern philosophy in the postmodern chapter of our story.

Sophists

Before leaving Greek philosophy, we must address the
Sophists
. Sophists were teachers of rhetoric and were renowned in 5th century Greece for their ability to win any argument using clever words and logic. The key element was their disdain for the truth, because winning the argument was the goal, and not the truth of any issue. Their methods made a mockery of the idea of truth. The Sophist are still with us today (2010) in the form of “spin doctors” and other consultants and speakers normally working for politicians. Their job is to turn any issue to the benefit of their client. Truth or facts are nothing to these neo Sophist, whose power is multiplied by the visual and print media as the more than willing agents of these modern day truth manipulators. Note that Sophism is a major part of modern day propaganda and big lie techniques, which are used consistently on the pubic of every nation throughout our world (and you thought the past was different . . .).

Of
Gods
and
Men

In the ancient world, the impact of beliefs in a god, or the gods, had an enormous effect on the peoples of the time. In pre-history, even as far back as Neanderthals, humans (or archaic human types) were
burying
their
dead
. Often the burials contain common items such as bowls, shoes, jewelry, or weapons. It appears odd that even archaic humans would bury their dead in a common area (cemetery as we say), arrange them in a particular way, such as the fetal position with the legs curled up and the head down, leave personal objects in the grave, and often point all of the dead in the same direction. What does it mean? What were these archaic humans thinking?

Actually, knowing what it means is impossible, because in pre-history folks simply had no written records. Written records can tell us why, but physical evidence can only vaguely point to why. What we learn from physical evidence is mostly how, since without written records of their thoughts the human reasons for the why are impossible to ascertain. Thus, in pre-history we must guess. We can
guess
that burials and the afterlife had a connection. Common objects placed in the grave, such as jewelry, may indicate the dead would use them in another life. Of course, we bury people today in suits and ties with no concept that these are useful in an afterlife. We do this because it is customary for the dead person to look good at the funeral. In ancient times, perhaps the jewelry and the adornments were simply there to help the body look good for the relatives and clan members. Placing the body in a fetal position may indicate that death was another form of birth. This sounds like a good argument; however, it may be that in the fetal position it took less time to dig the grave. In the final analysis, it is impossible to know.

Prehistory fog spreads everywhere when it comes to believing in a god or gods. Once history begins, we find that people are deeply “religious” since they believed gods controlled nearly every aspect of nature and their lives. This strengthens the argument that prehistoric peoples believed in gods, but it cannot be conclusive. What is conclusive is at the very dawn of written history atheists are hard to find, at least among the kings, queens, and scribes who wrote the manuscripts we read to discover their thoughts.
Kings
or
queens
allude
to
their
power
coming
from
the
gods
and this is nearly universal in the ancient world. Thus, we find the earliest civilizations with gods, usually a lot of them, and normally the kings or queens claimed that the gods placed them in authority. Even the Greeks, who often ran secular governments, believed in the gods.

Our modern world consistently challenges the belief in a god or gods. Science explains the world through naturally occurring phenomena eliminating the need for gods—say the naysayers. Explaining everything through natural processes is possible, well . . . almost everything . . . and atheists expound endlessly on how worthless and harmful religion can be.
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Yet, we have a worldwide fact that everywhere and at every time in history people believed in god. Of course, the ancients thought about gods much differently than we currently think about god. Inscriptions by ancient kings show that the image of the god WAS the god. The Babylonians lost their statute of Marduk, a famous god of Babylonia, when the Assyrians ripped it off after winning a war. The Babylonians spoke of Marduk being in Assyria rather than Babylonia. Obviously, believing that god is the stone image changes as history goes on, but we need to try and think on how that belief would change one’s perception of god.

Is
religion
another
example
of
something
programmed
into
our
genes?
History seems to say yes, because it is
a
universal
human
attribute
to believe the gods can somehow guide life or affect events. Another explanation for believing in gods is people realize they must die. Animals do not seem to know they will die, but people do. This necessity to face death, because of humanity’s ability to reason forward to the future, might dictate a belief in something beyond this life; consequently, dying need not be the final moment. Is life hopeless without an afterlife? Why do human minds think up the notion that anything exists after death? How do ideas of god come into our minds? Is it a natural consequence of being human? No one can say, because the human brain hides its operational secrets, but since every identified society with a written history believes in the gods, we must appreciate the notion is a compelling one.

People also confront the
problem
of
good
and
evil
. Greek philosophers endlessly explored these matters, evolving numerous ideas about the nature of man and how good and evil relates to human existence. Other early societies, such as the Hebrews, also evolved such knowledge; however, they claim their knowledge came directly from Yahweh. In the book of Genesis, the serpent tells Eve that if she eats the forbidden fruit “. . . God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and
you
will
be
like
God,
knowing
good
and
evil
” (emphasis added) (Genesis 3:5). This is a key moment in the Bible, because it turns people into conscience beings knowing right from wrong. Such consciousness brings awareness of life, and a unambiguous future death. This, of course, sets people apart from animals in a dreadfully significant way, as the knowledge of good and evil remains hidden from animals—only humans can know good and evil. Inevitably, the gods played a role in matters of morality. In ancient societies the gods determined what humans faced after death; thus, to gain a pleasant future in the hereafter, one must obey the gods in the here and now. Therefore, the gods’ requirements for entry into the afterlife, or for avoiding a painful now, became virtue in this life.
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How did people know what the gods’ desired? The priest, shaman, sage, or seer told them.

Now the circle is complete. If the gods tell the shaman to slaughter the neighbors, it must be a good thing. It comes down to
who
contacts
the
gods
and
reveals
God’s
truth
to the poor humans denied contact with the immortals. Somehow, a trusted priestly class developed and gained exceptional power.
Trust
is the key word, because believing a particular mortal divines the thoughts of god requires trust. Must the priest be obeyed? In society after society, the answer was
yes
, the priest—god’s representative—must be obeyed.

It often happened that the priest and king were in full agreement about god’s commands, so the king ordered the population to obey god’s demands. A powerful permutation results when the priest and king, often one in the same person, agree. To disobey makes a person a traitor and a heretic. The Hebrews despised their neighbors because they obeyed gods (priest) ordering them to throw babies into the divine fire to appease them. How could a person throw their tiny new child into a roaring fire? The priest and king gave the command, and the people obeyed. Based on this, I opine that the combination of king and priest is the most tyrannical power combination of all time.

Achieving a lasting world peace is a dream reaching back millenniums; however, overcoming ancient human traits to achieve lasting world peace has proven impossible. History tells us these human traits are deep set and unchanging. Today neighboring nations aim powerful weapons at one another because their gods tell them the other nation, with false gods, is evil, fit only for destruction.
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From 8,000 BC to AD 2010, the fundamentals remain the same.

The
Role
of
Food,
Disease,
and
Administration
in
Ancient
Times

Agriculture, coupled with animal husbandry, was the most important invention in secular history, and this was accomplished in the prehistoric era. After the development of agriculture, good land for growing crops and building irrigation systems became more important. As these lands were discovered and developed, people had to protect them from interlopers who would damage, destroy, and steal what had been built-up. When the world began to move to this stay-in-one-place “urban” lifestyle, a lot changed. The direct result of these changes were relatively large cities, trade with other parts of the world, the wheel, sailing boats, writing, and a growing dependence of people upon one another as
specialization
became common.