The Dead Chicken, or the Aborted Egg?
I'm keeping this one short and sweet.
Emile Durkheim claimed that the most significant beliefs arose out of the established forms of rituals. Many believe today that it was the rituals that established beliefs. One such arguments involves Neanderthal burial. Did they develope a ritual from their gradual awareness of death, or did their ritual come from not knowing originally what to do with the dead, with the systems of belief following?
My question comes from The Buried Soul, by Timothy Taylor--some of the cannibal arguments came from that book as well.
Anyone have any thoughts on this debate?
Emile Durkheim claimed that the most significant beliefs arose out of the established forms of rituals. Many believe today that it was the rituals that established beliefs. One such arguments involves Neanderthal burial. Did they develope a ritual from their gradual awareness of death, or did their ritual come from not knowing originally what to do with the dead, with the systems of belief following?
My question comes from The Buried Soul, by Timothy Taylor--some of the cannibal arguments came from that book as well.
Anyone have any thoughts on this debate?
posted by BoneDaddy at 9:28 PM
2 Comments:
everyone is forever going to argue about questions exactly like that. I can't even take an opinion on either side of any of those questions usually because I can see the points for each argument.
I would have to say that beliefs arose from something, but not from rituals. I think they came about as ways to describe nonritualized occurances and answer unanswerable questions, and the actions(rituals) followed.
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