Strength in Numbers

From The Nature of Paleolithic Art Part II I gathered that beliefs and religion developed overtime with expanding groups. Belief in a higher power was not always programmed into people. Evidence of this development of religion in later times can be seen by looking at the artwork of the earlier Paleolithic people. The early artwork consisted of drawing things in the natural world in straightforward manner not trying to depict it any differently than it really was where as the later artwork noted in the text, focused on more social aspects and local myths. It is in the nature of all creatures to live in way that best ensures their survival, but when humans began to form larger communities, they gained a sense of power over the earth. They gained this sense of power by cultivating the land and storing materials in order to ensure our survival in a time when we would naturally die out because of lack of resources. Since they didn’t have to worry about their survival as much because of their newfound power over the land, they started to focus their attention on social aspects. The peoples learned that survival was increased when living in a group because it gave protection from the earth (storms, food shortages, wild animals etc.) I think that when the peoples realized the power of the larger group, they were able to focus their attention on staying within the larger group by interacting with others on a more emotional level. The peoples most likely still kept innate feeling of trying to survive, but it was easy to become greedy within the group and to start to manipulate others in the group and form alliances against other groups that were not part of their own. The peoples did not want to share their food because would decrease their own chances of survival so they became enemies with other groups. I think that because they were always trying to ward off other groups, over time a fear became instilled within them that things could be taken away from them and this fear made them discomforted so for reassurance in the ability to hold on to what they had they looked to ‘gods’ for comfort. I think the idea of a god may have been a common idea but defining what the powers of that ‘god’ could do may have developed much like ideas of monsters, or robbers do in the imaginations of little kids having a sleepover. When one kid gets scared or pretends to get scared the other kids also get scared and feed off of one another’s feelings creating a situation that is not real. Not to say that God is necessarily unreal but the parameters in which we define Him may be.