Primitive Pondering
The location of our log cabin here in Green Bank, West Virginia, lends itself to deep thought. Located at 2,700 feet elevation, our valley is surrounded by mountain ranges that tower nearly a thousand feet higher. These “hills” are much like Mother Nature’s drive-in movie screen. They are a palette for great sunrises on the western hills and breathtaking sunsets on the eastern hills. The colors they display, from red to pink to orange to purple, are almost surreal in their beauty.
With such a sparse population for at least 50 miles in every direction, there is no light intrusion at night. No lights from cities, malls, car dealerships, and such mean that the night sky can display all its true depth and splendor without compromise. Last night, in a cloudless sky, the stars shown radiant. The stars seemed to be suspended from a large black dome, enveloping our planet like a bubble.
With all this raw magnificence displayed at our mountain locale, it takes my mind back to the pre-industrial era on our world, even before the human race subjucated the earth to our dominance. For lack of a better word and to make it easier to comprehend, I’ll say the “caveman” era.
How did homo erectis and homo sapiens rationalize those very natural phenomenon that we can now explain through science? How did a wandering, hunter-gatherer from 15,000 years ago deal with the earth’s daily displays?
Let’s take a clan from an era in the earthman’s evolution where language was rudimentary, but communication was possible. Let’s assume that the clan had a leader, leaders, or at least a wise elder.
When a magnificent sunset threw glorious reds and oranges into the clouds, how did the leader explain that? What about lightning and thunder, how could that fit into their lives? Even the changing seasons - why did the earth flourish and nourish the plants and then in turn get bitterly cold? What was the sun, the moon? What was an eclipse? What were the stars? What was rain, what was snow, what was fog? What is a rainbow? The leader would have to calm the fears of his people. He’d have to become a thinker, or at least a good salesman to alleviate their doubts.
And so … religion was born. Without science, the answers would have to come from somewhere else. Explain the unexplainable. It must be the gods. They are mad at us, they are pleased with us. They sit above in some great kingdom, exerting their dominance and influence over us. We must pray to them, offer sacrifice, appease their egos. We were created in their image to be subservient to them.
Okay, you get the picture. Without science, religion was invented to calm the uneducated, unsophisticated masses. The need to explain was met.
As I stood last night beneath the bright, inspiring stars, I pondered what those primitive ancestors must have thought. Then I saw a shooting star and took it for exactly what is was - a beautiful thing!
- Mountain Man