Re: Origins: Music of the ages
tamera@maxinet.com
Tue, 22 Oct 1996 15:53:14 -0700>According to Garry DeWeese:
>>
>> On Mon, 21 Oct 1996, Glenn Morton wrote:
>>
>> > I don't think it is a stretch, unless you think non-spiritual apelike
>> > hominids, with no soul, are able to make musical instruments. Remember
this
>> > flute is a multi-tone instrument like many (but not all) of the Upper
>> > Paleolithic flutes. If that is your position, then I would have to
disagree
>> > that nonspiritual, apelike hominids have those capabilities. I simply
do not
>> > find it plausible to say that people who have the same capabilities
that I do
>> > are not descendants of Adam. ...
>>
>> I think, Glenn, that you are guilty of an equivocation here. Grant
>> that early hominids made significantly complex musical instruments. Does
>> that prove they were "spiritual" in the sense of having knowledge of God
>> or being able to relate to God? Your evidence would only support a sense
>> of "spiritual" meaning something like "able to express emotions."
>
>The musical ability and the ochre mining/using would at least seem to
>suggest that these critters had a sense of religious awe or symbolism that
>is certainly human-like. Not going at this question from a paleological
>angle, but rather from a literary one (I am thinking of some things that
>C.S. Lewis wrote as well as his friend Owen Barfield's book "Poetic
>Diction") the musical/artistic artifacts of these strange people place
>them *with* us and against animals that seem to have no sense of spiritual
>mystery. I doubt that music and body painting had functions that were
>distinct from religion.
>
>> The Venus figurine is of no help either. Isn't it possible that early
>> hominids with a sufficiently evolved mind would do just what Christians
>> are often charged with doing--"inventing" God? That these people "had
>> religious beliefs"--still a conclusion only weakly supported by the
>> evidence, in my opinion--does not entail that they "have the same
>> capabilities as I do."
>
>There is a question about what sort of evidence for their religious
>beliefs and practices you might expect to find after thousands of years.
>And our children don't have the same capabilities we do, but we wouldn't
>call them animals for all of that. (Mentally handicapped folks, too, for
>that matter. Our society seems to be getting dangerously close, IMO, to
>designating certain folks of "limited capabilities" as having less of a
>claim on the status of humanity than those with more capabilities. I
>don't want to disenfranchise neanderthals! :-)
>
> *That* they had religious beliefs entails nothing
>> about *what* they believed. It is certaily possible to agree with you
>> about their capabilities, and still deny that they were descendents of
>> Adam, because we just don't know (and, in the nature of the case, very
>> likely never will) *what* they believed. Idolatrous practice does not
>> entail Adamic descent; I find nothing implausible about this.
>
>They could be devil-worshiping hominids, but even that would go along with
>Glenn's thesis that they were human. Such a spiritual discernment and
>moral choice (even if the wrong one) points to something more than an
>animal activity.
>
>Just a thought.
>
>Gene
>
>
I have a question. Who were the people that Cain went out to live with,
that he received a mark on him from the LORD so that they would not kill
him? If Adam and Eve up to that point had only had two children, Cain and
Abel, and Abel is now dead, who is left to kill Cain? He was sent away from
the area where Adam and Eve were, wasn't he? And who did he marry and make
that city with? It sounds to me like there were other humans on earth at
that time, who were not children of God in the sense of Adam and Eve.
Just a very uneducated question from a reader of Genesis 4
Tamera