Posted on 02/27/2009 9:47:03 PM PST by Steelfish
Do these mysterious stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden? By TOM COX
For the old Kurdish shepherd, it was just another burning hot day in the rolling plains of eastern Turkey. Following his flock over the arid hillsides, he passed the single mulberry tree, which the locals regarded as 'sacred'.
The bells on his sheep tinkled in the stillness. Then he spotted something. Crouching down, he brushed away the dust, and exposed a strange, large, oblong stone.
The man looked left and right: there were similar stone rectangles, peeping from the sands. Calling his dog to heel, the shepherd resolved to inform someone of his finds when he got back to the village. Maybe the stones were important.
They certainly were important. The solitary Kurdish man, on that summer's day in 1994, had made the greatest archaeological discovery in 50 years.
Others would say he'd made the greatest archaeological discovery ever: a site that has revolutionised the way we look at human history, the origin of religion - and perhaps even the truth behind the Garden of Eden.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Man was never a "noble savage" living in harmony in a state of nature and at peace with his fellow man and environment, only to be "ruined" by society and civilization.
This idiocy was picked up by Marx who claimed that the development of human society had "alienated" man from his wonderful noble primitive self and we need communism to get back to the state of supposed wonderfulness. It's been the constant drumbeat of the Left ever since.
Amen, Brother Freeper, and preach on!!
The idiots, usually socialists or communists, who think living in a primitive hunter-gathering tribe was paradise, don't know what they are talking about. Those ancient people barely survived and I doubt they had much leisure time.
I have read an interesting theory that collectivists adore primitive tribalism because their minds are not developed enough to appreciate any form of human society beside a primitive tribe run by a strongman or an oligarchy. For millions of years all people knew was primitive tribalism, so people are still hard-wired to like that sort of arrangement.
Collectivists feel that even agriculture is vaguely "unnatural" and a threatening innovation. And they have even stronger misgivings about the Industrial Revolution and representative democracy. They cannot understand the sophisticated concepts in the Magna Carta or the U.S. Constitution. But collectivists instinctively understand a Stalin, Hitler or Mussolini who rules the "tribe" by commands, and most leftists long to be a "priest" in a one-party state, lording it over people. They think that because, theoretically, the best hunter could run a tribe of a few hundred hunters, that somehow this model can be expanded and a dictator can effectively rule a modern society by decree. So really the "progressives" want to take us back many thousands of years.
I took this article to be on the level, until the last paragraph. Now I realize it’s from “The Onion.”
While the site formally belongs to the earliest Neolithic (PPN A), up to now no traces of domesticated plants or animals have been found. The inhabitants were hunters and gatherers. Schmidt speculates that the site played a key function in the transition to agriculture; he assumes that the necessary social organization needed for the creation of these structures went hand-in-hand with the organized exploitation of wild crops.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe (emphasis is mine).
Herr Schmidt could be correct but it's a hell of a jump to say that the regional climate was destroyed by farming when there is no evidence farming much less destructive farming.
Yes, but why is it playing volleyball, and what is the meaning of the padlocks? And is the scorpion watching the volleyball game, or is it unrelated. So many deep theological questions here.
If this is the garden of Eden, where’s the conniving talking snake’s descendents?
Only idiots believe Eden / Adam / Eve to have been real. Serves them for believing in Stone-Age mythology.
As opposed to believeing in a multi-armed elephant God?
This is not any opposition; rather, a complete alliance! Both are equals, in the realms of human stupidity.
The piece had to get that little “man changes climate” bit in there. Of course.
My personal suspicion is that Geraldo did it with help from the crop-circle aliens.
Cheers!
Well, just remember that those stupid people as you call them made the greatest civilization in the history of the world. Atheism made North Korea.
Er...somehow I had a different picture of what the Garden of Eden looked like in mind.
Have they found any graves on the premises? A site so “sacred,” you’d think somebody would have to be buried there.
I read this and it was interesting. There was a general tone to the article that man is worse off now than it was before “paradise” was lost.
It is either disingenuous, ignorant, or stupid.
It may have been paradise compared to a time of famine, but not compared to now.
It’s the simple things. I’m sure their teeth were perfectly healthy. And none of them had lice. No TB either right? When people got the flu or even a common cold, paradise would cure it? How about premature births? Hell, let’s get real simple: what did they do about jock itch and swamp-ass????
absolute mindless drivel, in terms of the sense of loss in this article. Maybe the writer never went camping for more than 2 nights straight.
I don't think so.
Atheism made North Korea.
No. Communism did.
“Why we should all just up and become hunter-gatherers; since it’s such a paradisiacal mode of living. And I just love the little bit of rhetorical projection at the end; paradise was lost because of ...”
It’s wonderful being eaten by cave bears or Dire wolves.
Maybe not real, but perhaps archeological evidence for the source of the original oral traditions that eventually became written down in the Hebrew texts.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.