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[Home]
[Prog summaries - [Ice
World] [The
Earth was Born] [Out
of Eden] [In
perspective]]
[Out of chaos - [Introduction]
[Divine
guidance] [Tools
of knowledge] [Religious
conflict] [Search
goes on]]
[Survival - [Introduction]
[Exodus]
[New
Technology] [Moving
on]]
[The Globe - [Introduction]
[Star
Dust] [Water
of life]]
[Find
out more]
[Credits]
[Full site
with images]
With a unique capacity for abstract thought, human beings have always struggled to understand their place in a chaotic world that is often violent and inhospitable.
At the most basic level, there were very good practical reasons for our perpetual questioning in the volatile world of our ancestors, where a slight variation in climate could wipe out the food sources of hunter-gatherer groups and kill thousands.
People wanted, and want, to know what is over the horizon in case it may pose a physical threat, or give them an advantage, a possible abundance of food. They could find the answers by physically exploring. But people also wanted, and want, to know why their environment changes and how they and the world came to exist.
These questions about our origins can often be answered only by speculation, according to the philosopher Bertrand Russell:
'Philosophy ... is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge ... belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology.'
For thousands of years, religion and mysticism have provided the answers to the most fundamental questions. Moral or ethical positions often flow from interpretations of the world, such as non-working on the Sabbath, God’s day of rest. But as influential on early belief systems were the natural cycles of birth and death, deifying the sun on which these depended.