First thoughts

Development

This Millennium??

The purpose

Internal

articles

External articles

From 2000 - 2999

A product of the Centre of Ethical Economiics

This is a personal comment by the editor: it is not central to the whole subject.

There is a theological problem with most religions.

Because most religions are Homo-centric: based on the supposition that man has a special relationship with God.

Who says so?

How long has man been around? Well, this depends upon the definition of "Man".

Homo Erectus. Neanderthal. Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Pre-writing Homo Sapiens?

The main distinction between "man" and any other animal past & present seems to be the ability through the written word (and, of course, more recently audio / visual recording media) to pass information pretty accurately to those living in entirely different generations. What other major physical difference is there?

This ability to communicate through writing ties in very neatly with the birth of modern religions. What if the equivalent of, say, Moses had lived a mere 6000 years ago? Before writing as a literary form really got going?

(This struck the author when his wife's aunt, who had lived in southern Africa for 50 years from the mid 1920s, said that before she could do her work in translating the Bible she had to create a written version of the local spoken language. What if there had been no written language anywhere in the world till then? Would we know anything about Abraham or Jesus or Mohammed?)

What will be the situation in a mere 50,000 years from now? When man has evolved to a quite different being than we are now? And, say, the mutated pig become able to "read and write"?

There is huge arrogance of the human race to presume that just because we are the "top animal" at present that all others can be treated as being purely for our benefit.

I'm sorry, but this concept is so alien to theo-centric as opposed to homo-centric theology that it is difficult to take seriously.

Any view of God must surely put man in man's place: a being around for a very short time on a planet in a very minor solar system. Not half way between other animals and God.

Which is why mistreating animals for financial gain is as bad, in my view, as mistreating any human for financial gain.

Man & Other Animals & God

AN ESSAY FROM 2003

(This site is being re-created)