Gotta disagree. You most assuredly have the same if not more capability than
I.
You also in another post wrote:
>But "spiritual awareness" isn't the message in my copy of Genesis. Sin,
>separation from God and accountability are the unequivocal messages,and those
>indeed commence with Adam. And what was God's provision for covering sin?
>Animal sacrifice, which shows up first in the Fertile Crescent. The first
>recording of animal sacrifice was by the Sumerians who date to about 4000
> BC.
Animal sacrifice may not have originated in the Middle East. There is much
evidence of a bear cult among neanderthals. Bear skulls have been found in
caves arranged in patterns that imply worship. Similar religions sacrificing
bears have been found among many circum-polar people today. The Ainu of Japan
once a year sacrifice a bear. (see Ivar Lissner, The Living Past, translated
by J.Maxwell Brownjohn, (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1957), p. 207).
Barnouw states (Notice the sacrifice):
"There are other implications of religious beliefs held by Neanderthals
in the collections of bear skulls found in their caves. The mere preservation
of skulls need not suggest anything religious, but in some cases special
attention was given to their placement. In one cave, five bear skulls were
found in niches in the cave wall. The skulls of several cave bears in a group
have been found surrrounded by built-up stone walls, with some skulls having
little stones placed around them, while others were set out on slabs.
"All this suggests some kind of bear cult, like that practiced until
quite recently by the Chippewa and other North American Indians. After a
Chippewa hunter had killed a bear, he would cut off the head, which was then
decorated with beads and ribbons (in the period after contact with Europeans).
Some tobacco was placed before its nose. The hunter would then make a little
speech, apologizing to the bear for having had to kill it. Bear skulls were
preserved and hung up on trees so that dogs and wolves could not get at them.
Bear ceremonialism of this and related kinds had a wide circumpolar
distribution--from the Great Lakes to the Ainu of northern Japan through
various Siberian tribes, such as the Ostyaks and the Orochi, to the Finns and
Lapps of Scandinavia. So wide a distribution of this trait, associated as it
was with other apparently very early circumpolar traits, suggests great age.
It is possible, therefore, that some aspects of this bear ceremonialsim go
back to Middle Paleolithic times."~Victor Barnouw, An Introduction to
Anthropology: Physical Antrhopology and Archaeology, Vol. 1, (Homewood,
Illinois: The Dorsey Press, 1982) p. 156-157
I will say that not all anthropologists agree with that intepretation, but a
lot do. Those who don't agree, don't think Neanderthal was human like us and
are loathe to consider even the evidence of music in Neanderthal's defence.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm