Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World from the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present, Second Edition, Vol. 1: Beginnings Through the Fifteenth Century (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2008), 31.

Comparison of the Development of Early Civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, and Mesoamerica

Melvin Ruddell

History 20 at West Hills College

Professor Rene Sanchez

 November 16, 2012

The purpose of this paper is to compare the developments and features of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia (Sumer), Egypt, India (Indus River Valley, Harappa), China (Shang dynasty), and Mesoamerica (Olmec), starting from the creation of villages to the formation of civilizations. These civilizations appear to have developed in response to their environment and in reaction to their human need for survival and security.

The first human civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus River Valley, and China (but not Mesoamerica) all developed around rivers; as such they were called alluvial, or located in the plains surrounding a river. For Mesopotamia and Egypt, controlling where the water went, using irrigation, was critical to their survival. Irrigation allowed water to be used farther away from the river itself, thereby allowing more people to use the river water. Plus, controlling the flood water was a necessity. The people of these alluvial or river societies became so dependent on the rivers that they developed much of their culture and society around it.[1]

 

 

Mesopotamia

The first civilization was located in Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, in what today is known as Iraq. This is not where the agricultural revolution began, however. Farming began in the Fertile Crescent in about 8000 B.C.E., but to the north and east of the Tigris Euphrates Rivers, where the weather was wet and the soil was fertile. The highest concentrations of villages were along the Jordon River Valley in Palestine. The people of Mesopotamia came from the hills north of Mesopotamia where they farmed without irrigation. The population growth in the hills forced people to migrate to the plains where there was insufficient water for farming without irrigation. The weather was hot and dry in the summer and cold in the winter. The annual floods caused anyone trying to live there to flee to higher ground. Before 5500 B.C.E., there was little sign of human existence in what was later called “the cradle of civilization,” Mesopotamia.[2]

“Still, the annual but unpredictable floods created natural levees that could be drained and planted, and the nearby swamps contained abundant fish and wildlife.”[3]

Anyone who tried to farm near the banks of the rivers would be wiped out by the floods. Thus, the people who were pushed out of the hilly farm land and forced to figure out a way to make a living out of the desert. Based on the quote above, the early inhabitants of Mesopotamia lived on the outskirts of the “natural levee,” drained the flood water for later use and then farmed the fertile flood plains and hopefully harvested before the next flood.[4]

The early inhabitants of Mesopotamia started by developing primitive methods of seasonal irrigation, recognizing that they needed to harvest before the floods or their work would be destroyed. They built small canals from the feeder streams of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. In order to protect against flooding, they built levees on the river banks so that the water could rise higher before flooding and they dug ditches and canals to channel the water to the fields. Later in their development of irrigation, they invented water-lifting devices to lift the water from the river. “To ensure a plentiful supply of water in the later growing stages, they needed highly developed water-lifting devices. In pioneering water storage, Mesopotamians were the first hydraulic engineers.”[5] Thus, the first Mesopotamians were formed as a result of responding to their environment in order to survive.

It was not until the Sumerians started building artificial mounds and built walls around the city did they begin to have any protection from the floods. One of the first Mesopotamian cities, Uruk, had 5-miles of fortified walls. Before the walled cities (citadels) existed, people needed to keep fleeing to the hills when the floods arrived. With the walled cities, the people had a layer of protection from the floods in case the unpredictable flood waters rose above the natural levees. Later, they learned to build dikes to hold back the flood waters closer to the Persian Gulf into which the rivers flowed and they learned to build canals to channel that dammed flood water to farms where it was needed. The most important possession, the temple (ziggurat), was built on an artificial mound that offered further security from the sometimes overzealous flooding.[6]

Irrigation, however, required organized manpower. In order to have organized manpower, an organizer was necessary. This is where religion played a major role. Sumerians developed a religion based on rituals and sacrifice to the god of their particular city-state in order to placate him/her and promote the right amount of flooding. Each city-state had its own deity. The people’s religion gave them a sense of security that, if the right rituals were performed, the floods would not destroy them, and they would survive. Thus, it is evident that even the religion was created based on environmental influences.

Once the people were convinced that the city leaders knew what the god(s) wanted in order to ensure a good harvest, they did as they were told to do, which was to build/maintain the irrigation system. The priests’ job was to perform the necessary sacrifices and rituals necessary to appease the deities. Thus a hierarchy of leaders and religious officials developed. Since the people did not know what the right rituals were, having a priest that did know what to do and did so also fulfilled the inhabitants’ need for security.

In addition, technology was necessary for this successful canal network. The Sumerians invented important technology such as  bronze-working and the wheel/cart. Another step in the development of Mesopotamian civilization was their invention of the wooden plow, which allowed them to till a wider variety of soils more quickly than before the plow. Then, they discovered bronze, which is a combination of copper and tin, that is stronger than either of the two ingredients separately. The Mesopotamians used this bronze to make their plows even more efficient. The production of such technology required artisans such as metal workers. The agricultural surplus produced by this complex system paid for the rulers, priests, and artisans.

What made this area particularly suitable for the development of a civilization, besides the water, soil and sunshine, was its location in an easily accessible area, not surrounded by mountains. This openness allowed for trade with other civilizations that developed later, such as the Indus Valley city of Mohenjo-Daro. The agricultural surplus along with the trade allowed cities to develop.

“Agriculture and trade made Sumerian city-states prosperous. They bartered grain, vegetable oil and leather with one another and with foreign regions, from which they acquired natural resources not found in Sumer, such as metals, timber, and precious stones. Sumerian traders travelled as far east as India, sailing for weeks to reach that distant land.”[7]

The easy access of Mesopotamia thus contrasts with China, which was isolated by mountains and deserts. Egypt too is protected from outsiders by the Sahara Desert on their western border. Egypt had a superior agricultural system, but Mesopotamia’s thriving trade made up for their inferior farming set up.

The irrigation development necessary for farming thus forced the people to develop a complex society in which cooperation was required. Thus, out of the adversity of being forced to live in a lifeless desert, came a budding civilization. By 3500 B.C.E., lower Mesopotamia had evolved into about a dozen city-states, each with their own territory. The first Mesopotamian city-states were collectively called Sumer and the people were Sumerians.[8]

As a result of their agricultural surpluses and active trading facilitated by their easy access, settlements became larger and larger as more people gave up farming to become traders and artisans such as metal workers. They set up homes and businesses in the villages. Because of these people moving from the rural areas into the villages, the villages grew into the first cities in about 3500 B.C.E. The first Sumerian cities were Eridu, Nippur, and Uruk. These cities grew gradually over a period of 1000 years, layer on top of layer:

Consider Eridu, which had first been settled as a village around 6000 B.C.E. Home to the Sumerian water god, Ea, Eridi was a sacred site where temples full of fish bones were built one on top of the other for more than 4000 years. During the course of more than twenty reconstructions, the temples became increasingly elaborate, built on an ever-higher base. Eventually, the temple was on a raised platform like a mountain, looming over the featureless landscape and visible for miles in all directions.[9]

Eidu is an example of how the Mesopotamian culture developed around the gods, since the gods were thought to be responsible for their prosperity. The gods were anthropomorphic and personified natural forces; for example, Inanna was the goddess of fertility and Enlil was the god of storms. Appeasing the gods was so important that the inhabitants of each Sumerian city-state built the rest of the city around the temple, so as to make the temple the center. The temple was extremely important to them because the temple was considered to be that particular god’s home on earth. The priestly elites controlled a large part of the social, economic, and ritual life of the city-state.[10]

The Mesopotamian religion evolved first over centuries based on oral tradition and finally put to writing in the third millennium in The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known work of literature in the world.[11] The story is about Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk and his drama in dealing with the gods’ floods and droughts. Like the weather of Mesopotamia, the deities were unpredictable and violent. Take, for example, this verse from the primary source of The Tale of Gilgamesh that clearly shows that the writer said that the gods sent the flood:

“Then came the flood, sent by gods’ intent. Mama, Anu, and Enlil were at Shuruppak. So too was their coachman, Ninurta,…”[12]

In this verse, it clearly states that is was “gods’ intent” that the region be flooded, thus clearly establishing what they believed caused rain and their resulting floods. The Sumerian city-states each had a ruler called an ensi who was responsible for the public works projects. The ensi was considered an agent of the city god; thus, people thought they were following orders from the city’s god. The ensi’s job was to placate the unpredictable gods and their unpredictable floods. The people believed that the ensi could convince the god(s) to make the floods come at just the right time and in just the right amount for them to grow their crops. With the ensi’s subjects believing that he influenced the floods, they wanted to cooperate with him. That way, there was less governmental force needed to get the peasants to work than if they thought the project was a selfish project of the ruler. Motivated in this manner, the ensi could impose taxes and run the military without much resistance from the peasants.[13]

As cities grew larger, they competed for resources such as water, land, and trade routes. The cities were relatively equal in size and power until around 2200 B.C.E. when Sargon the great united Ur, Uruk, Lagash, and Akkad into an alliance of cities in southern Mesopotamia. Many building projects resulted from this alliance thus indicated the advantages of uniting. Thus, Mesopotamia developed from small farming communities to a group of cities united under a single ruler by 2200 B.C.E. [14]

The Mesopotamian society developed from egalitarian to a rigid hierarchy. Before cities, most people were equal, doing sustenance farming. Then some people produced more and accumulated more livestock than others, thus gaining higher status. As the agricultural surplus grew, more people began to specialize as artisans, for example, in metal working or trading. This new group of specialists was considered to be higher in status than farmers. As time marched on, society stratified into a hierarchy, with the king on top, followed by the priests, then bureaucrats, artisans, unskilled workers, and slaves at the bottom. Once a person was in a class, it was difficult to work one’s way up to a higher level.[15]

Women had lost rights and power upon introduction of the agricultural revolution, but at the family level, the women lost even more rights and power as cities grew larger.  As people began to accumulate wealth, men became the conduit for inheritance, thus establishing a patriarchal method of passing property to the sons. Some women did own property and some even became priests, but overall, the status of women declined as Mesopotamia developed.[16]

Perhaps one of the most important developments in Mesopotamia was the invention of writing. As more people filled the cities, it was no longer the case that everyone knew each other as they might have in a small village. Furthermore, the sheer volume of transactions in the cities begged for some way of recording them so that they would not be questioned later due to differing recollections about a transaction. So, the Mesopotamians developed cuneiform, which is a series of wedges made by pressing reeds into wet clay that is later dried so the writing is permanent. Once developed, the written language could be used for recording non-business events. For example, the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest literature in history and was quoted earlier in the paper, was written in cuneiform. Moreover, other Mesopotamian regimes such as the Akkadians, Babylonians, and the Persians also wrote in cuneiform.

This writing system developed over centuries. At first, the writing was used to record business transactions, but later writing was used for other purposes such as the first written law, the Code of Hammurabi, and to record their religion.

India, Indus River Valley, or Harappa

The evidence indicates that the early Indus River Valley people came from the area now known as Iran and settled around the Indus River and its tributaries. They herded goats, sheep, and cattle and they farmed wheat and barley. They worshiped goddesses that were associated with bulls and rams.[17]

The Indus River Valley culture began to develop in the early Rivi Phase of 3500 – 2800 B.C.E. when agricultural villages were established around the Indus River and its tributaries and Mesopotamia and Egypt were already in the Copper Age.

“Unlike in Mesopotamia, developments in the Indus River basin reflected an indigenous tradition combined with strong influences from the peoples of the Iranian plateau, as well as indirect influences from the peoples of more distant cities on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.”[18]

Like the Mesopotamians, however, the Harappans were pushed out of the hills due to population growth. The “indigenous peoples” referenced in the quote above were the inhabitants of the foothills of the Baluchistan Mountains who migrated into the valley as the hills became crowded.

The first small cities were formed in the Kot Diji Phase of 2800 B.C.E. The Harappa phase of 2600 – 1900 B.C.E. saw the expansion of those cities and was in the Bronze Age of Mesopotamia and Egypt. This Harappa phase was divided into three sub-phases based on new buildings and new styles of writing. The late Harappa Phase from 1900 B.C.E. to 1000 B.C.E was a period of decline.[19]

Unlike Mesopotamia and Egypt, there was plenty of rain for the farmers of the first Indus River villages. There were even marshes and jungles in this area.[20] The Indus civilization was located between two rivers, the Indus River and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, giving it a large fertile plain for agriculture. The plain was fertile because of the silt deposited annually by the floods:

The expansion of agriculture in this basin, like those in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, depended on the river’s annual floods. Here the river provided the land with predictable amounts of water, drawn from the melting snow of the Himalayas and beyond, that replenished the soil and averted draughts. From June to September, the rivers inundated the plain. Once the waters receded, farmers planted wheat and barley on fertile soft alluvium. They harvested the crops the next spring as temperatures rose.[21]

Thus, the Harappans had more rain than the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, but they still relied on the silt of the floods to create the fertile soil. They also were plowing the soil as early as 2700 B.C.E.[22] As such; they were able to combine their fertile soil, ample water, and the latest technology to produce the agricultural surplus necessary to develop a civilization. Plus, the Harappans had a flood plain, over 500, 000 square miles, which was three times that of Mesopotamia.[23]

The period 2800 – 2600 B.C.E. was called the Kot Diji period, in which Harappa developed into a bustling business center. This center was also the highest level of city planning the world had seen up to that point. The city was laid out in a grid-like street pattern and had public wells and a sewer system. The urban planning skill is one of the most prominent historical aspects of Harappan society because it was the first instance of extensive urban planning in world history.[24]

The homes were equipped with bathrooms that drained into this sewer system that was used to fertilize the farms. This sophisticated planning was duplicated throughout the Indus River Valley, which covered an area twice the size of Mesopotamia and Egypt put together. The early Harappans experienced their “Golden Age of Harappa” in 2600-1900 B.C.E. Unlike the homogeneous populations of developmental Egypt, the Olmec, and Mesopotamia, the Harappan culture represented history’s first heterogeneous culture, with people of many classes and occupations living together.[25]

The first known settlements were Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Although there was some writing in this civilization, only short sentences of 5 to 10 words have been found and none of it has been translated; thus, little is known about how this civilization developed. We can only deduce from the archaeological findings what the people may have been like.[26] Furthermore, because we have no written record, there is not even a list of kings; perhaps they did not even have kings.[27]

Because Mohenjo-Daro is the best preserved ruins and the Indus River cities were all very similar, Mohenjo-Daro was used as the example to describe the features of the Indus people. Mohenjo-Daro was built on a large man-made mound about 50-feet high and supported by a brick wall with embedded towers. The walls were used for defense, as evidenced by stone ammunition found at the site. There was a large tank that archaeologists think may have served some religious purpose. Since there was no palace found, archaeologists believe that a priest or a committee of priests may have ruled the city.[28]

Some of the features of the fully developed cities were as follows.[29] Most cities had gated walls around the perimeter. Although these walls most likely were used for defense, but they also protected against floods and controlled trade by keeping out undesirable trading partners. The walls were made from the same shape bricks throughout the Indus River Valley. In fact, when archeologist located cities outside the Indus River Valley with these bricks, they could tell it was from the Harappans. It was once thought that the uniform size of the bricks was due to centralized control, but the historical consensus now is that the brick makers all learned how to make bricks from the same source. Archaeologists frequently found public areas, for markets located inside the major gateways into Indus cities. At Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, there were large buildings that were either used for public rituals or for some governmental purpose. One building found at Mohenjo-Daro may have been a palace or a temple, but it was not obviously religious like ziggurats of Mesopotamia or Pyramids in Egypt.Thus, the “Harappan peoples began to fortify their cities and to embark on public works similar in scale to those in Mesopotamia, but strikingly different in function.”[30]

The Indus people have their own form of writing, not from another region like Sumer, and it dates back to the Ravi Phase of 3500 – 3300 B.C.E. in Harappa. Cuneiform was developed about the same time. The writing developed further in the Kot Diji Phase into the Early Indus script and by 2600 B.C.E. all cities throughout the 500,000+ square mile Indus region were using the script. In this script, each symbol represents a word, syllable or sound. Some symbols have different meanings when juxtaposed with other symbols like in Chinese writing. This flexibility implies that the Indus language may have been used for many purposes other than just business transactions, e.g. poetry or history. The script has not been deciphered because there is no bilingual script and the existing writings are too short, i.e. less than 10 words. Some copper script was found that may be coins that pre-date the Archaemenid coins by 1000 years.[31]

The Indus religion is somewhat a matter of educated guessing since there is no deciphered writing to explain it. There were little statues of women who were thought to be Mother Goddess images, but some may have been toys since toys were an Indus specialty. There were limestone statues of a priest king found at Mohenjo-Daro, so at least one figurine was religious in nature.[32] Also, fire altars were found that indicate fire worship and so were statues of a Yoga-sitting man who may have been a prototype of the modern Hindu god, Shiva.

Seals were writing and images stamped into clay to designate ownership by a specific person. Some seals had images of people worshiping and performing rituals, which implies that at least some people must have engaged in such activity. Other seals, such as one with a woman grasping two tigers by the throat, indicate that the Indus people must have had a mythology system.[33]

The scholarly consensus regarding the Harappan political structure is that it was based on a highly stratified social organization and many urban centers. There were no royal burials or large buildings for central government like those found in Mesopotamia, Egypt or China so it was probably not centrally governed. Rather, the Harappan culture was probably run by competing classes of elites, with one being dominant at any particular point in time, but none being dominant long enough to establish a central government. Thus, the largest cities like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro controlled their city and their corresponding suburban area, but at any given time, a certain class of elites would determine the ideology, economic system, and script for the whole region.[34]

The Indus cities traded extensively among each other and with distant lands. They bartered with the Sumerians via boats traveling through the Persian Gulf. They went overland using pack animals to trade with modern day Iran. The exports included jewelry, metal tools, and pottery. They also traded cotton, lumber, grain, and livestock. Indus artisans specialized in small things like jewelry and toys. They did not make large pyramids like the Egyptians or large stone heads like the Olmecs to glorify the upper classes. Luxury items for the rich were made from exotic materials and advanced technology; whereas, local materials and lower technology was used for ordinary people. In order to ensure fairness in commerce and taxation, the Indus rulers and merchants set up a standardized weight system.[35]

 

Egypt

The way Egypt developed from hunters and gatherers around the Nile River was as follows. Circa 5000 B.C.E., people from Sinai, Libya, the Mediterranean, Nubia, and central Africa migrated to Egypt and they brought grains, plants, and farming knowledge with them. Egyptians began farming next to the Nile River. As more people crowded around the river, Egyptians developed irrigation techniques to enable farmers to produce crops further away from the river. Eventually, they developed a complex irrigation system that used walls and basins to catch the flood water. These walls and basins enabled them to harness the flood waters and take advantage of the fertile soil that the silt left by the flood waters. Since the Egyptians were adjacent to the Sahara Desert, sunshine was never in short supply. The combination of water, sunshine, and fertile soil amounted to a formula for agricultural surpluses:[36]

It was well known that the Nile was a most fertile land, agriculture needing only the annual flood to replenish it (but not of course to accomplish it). Accordingly, the fields were not irrigated, but were inundated, this requiring a rise of river level optimally of 16 cubits to cover all the (previously leveled) farmland. In addition to the leveling, the construction of dykes and ditches/canals managed the inundation and ponded water back for thorough soaking of the soil.[37]

The Egyptians thus figured out how to harness the flood waters of the Nile. The topography of the Nile River valley was much more uniform than that of Mesopotamia. Also, the population of early Egypt was more homogeneous than Mesopotamia’s. As a result, the Sumerians developed larger city-states in pockets of similar people and topography than did Egyptians. In Egypt, thousands of small villages developed with fewer cities than Mesopotamia. Since the Egyptians were so homogeneous, they could all follow the same ruler more easily than the Sumerians, whose city-states often fought among themselves for resources of land and water. The Egyptian villages did not fight as much among each other as the Sumerians. The Egyptians needed to cooperate with each other to make use of the complex irrigation system. For the Egyptians, there was plenty of water as long as they worked the irrigation system to make use of the regular flood waters that arrived each year. For the Sumerians, the floods were unpredictable; so many times there was not enough water to go around; hence they fought over water at times.[38]

Unlike the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Niles River was gentle and predictable; it flooded the same time every year. Also, the Niles predictably brought about 200 million tons of silt that made Egyptian lands among the most fertile in the world, more so than Mesopotamia’s lands. The Nile was particularly slow moving around where Egyptian villages were forming. This experience of a gentle river developed a perception among the Egyptians that their gods were gentle and benevolent, which stood in sharp contrast to the tempestuous deities of the Mesopotamians. Overall, the conditions for agriculture were superior to Mesopotamia’s. The Egyptians had a more optimistic outlook on life as a result of the predictable cycle of the floods. [39]

This optimistic Egyptian outlook based on a predictable and benevolent nature was also reflected in Egyptian religion. Egyptians of the Old Kingdom (2649-2150 B.C.E.) developed a religion based on the pharaoh, i.e. king, being an incarnation of one of their gods, Horus, rather than just an agent of a god, as the ensi was in Mesopotamia. Rather than placating a volatile god, the Egyptians just wanted to keep the peace and harmony that they were experiencing to keep going. The Egyptians did, however believe that it was the gods that controlled the weather, as evidenced by the following passage from The Book of the Dead, a book to help people into the afterlife.

“This storm was the raging of Ra at the thunder-cloud which [Set] sent forth against the Right Eye of Ra (the Sun).”[40]

The Egyptians thus thought that the thunder was just the expression of Ra’s anger. Both Egyptians and Sumerians depended on anthropomorphic deities to control flooding. The only way for the Egyptian commoners to take part in controlling the floods was to take good care of their god incarnate, the pharaoh. The Egyptians therefore treated the Pharaoh like a god and prepared him for his afterlife by building huge tombs such as the Great Pyramid (c. 2700 B.C.E) for each pharaoh.[41]

The Egyptian pharaohs, in return, were responsible for the peace and harmony, called “maat,” of the land. With this responsibility came immense power. By taxing the people’s labor and crops, the pharaohs built a complex central government, facilitated by the homogeneous population. The pharaoh ruled over a large bureaucracy consisting of the upper level of court officials, religious leaders, and military leaders as well as a lower level of scribes, artisans and tax collectors. The pharaoh commanded the elite nobles who governed about 40 administrative districts. The pharaoh ruled over the entire Nile River Valley after Menes united the north and south in 3000 B.C.E. Thus, the Egyptian area of governance was much larger than the Sumerian city-states.[42]

One of the main differences between Egypt and the previously described river civilizations was the narrow width of the agricultural area of Egypt. Ancient Egypt consisted of the eight-mile wide strip of arable land along the 4000+ mile river plus a relatively small 100-mile wide area around the delta. When the Nile flooded, the water did not spill out onto a large plain; rather, it was limited to a narrow green strip around the river. “The result was a society whose highly coherent culture stretched out along the axis of the river and its carefully preserved banks.”[43]

“Egypt had no vast fertile hinterland like the sprawling plains of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. In a sense, Egypt was the most ‘riverine’ of the riverine cultures.”[44]

Each Egyptian village was very much like the others, each having a view of the Nile River. The city-states of Mesopotamia each had different views and situations and therefore were more heterogeneous than those of the Nile.

Another difference between Egypt and its northern first civilizations was that it’s self-containment. It had all the resources it needed from local sources and it was less open to outsiders than Sumer or Indus. Although Mesopotamia was poor in natural resources, its weakness was overcome by its accessibility, which helped it become a center of trade. This extensive trade helped Sumer become a civilization. Thus, Egypt was more like China, in this respect, than Sumer or India. China too was protected from invaders by deserts and mountains like Egypt was protected by the Sahara Desert.[45]

Although Egypt was, in many ways, different from Indus and Mesopotamia, Egypt also had a lot in common with Sumerian and the Indus River Valley civilizations. They all had densely populated areas where the people depended on irrigation for survival and prosperity. All three built monumental architectural structures such as the Egyptian pyramids and Sumerian ziggurats. Moreover, these societies gave their leaders great authority and created complex social orders.[46]

Like Sumer and Harappa, Shang, and Olmec, the Egyptians developed a writing system. Unlike writing from Harappa and the Olmec, the Egyptian system, called hieroglyphics, has been translated by modern linguists using a translator key called the Rosetta Stone made during the Cleopatra reign. Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform were writing systems that died and therefore need a Rosetta Stone-like key to translation. China’s ancient writing system did not die; it evolved to become the modern writing system of today’s China, as discussed in the next section.

 

 

China

Agriculture began to develop in China circa 7000 B.C.E., about 1000 years after it developed in Mesopotamia. Archeologists have found many Neolithic settlements in northern China around the Yellow and Wei Rivers. There was scant rainfall and frequent flooding, similar to Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus. The alluvial soil around the Yellow River was fertile because of flooding, but also because of the dust blown in from the Gobi Desert. The farmers farmed millet at first because it was drought resistant, but later they planted barley, possibly imported from Mesopotamia or India.  They also grew wheat, pears, and apricots in the North.[47]

In the South, other settlements formed around the Yangzi River, where a wetter and warmer climate prevailed. There, they grew rice using irrigation since rice grew under water by taking advantage of nutrients from the ambient water. Thus, between the two regions, the North and South, the region between the Yellow and Yangzi produced a substantial surplus, which enabled specialization, one of the first ingredients of a civilization. Cooking became a form of art in China and a god of the kitchen was developed in different regions, thus producing a highly diverse culinary field.[48]

The first known Chinese culture developing out of the agricultural surplus was the Yangshao, beginning around 5000 B.C.E. in the middle part of the Yellow River. The Yangshao manifested several characteristics of a civilization. They had specialist artisans who weaved thread, made pottery, and bred dogs and pigs. They had advanced technology such as the kiln for baking pottery for hardening. They also had the technology for raising silkworms and turning the cocoons into silk clothing. They carved jade too. Archaeologists uncovered a 7000 year old 7-holed flute, which is currently the oldest known playable musical instrument. In terms of religion, they buried their dead in cemeteries. They also experimented with ways to avert the frequent earthquakes and floods as well as to predict the future.

There were many other settlements that developed after the Yangshao and these budding villages traded freely amongst themselves. One such culture called the Longshan (also spelled Lungshan) thrived during 3000 – 2200 B.C.E. In addition to the specialization and advanced technology that the Yangshao displayed, the Lungshan had social classes. They lived in walled villages and had weapons, so they were able to defend themselves. These people used diamonds to polish rubies used in ceremonies and they developed this technology 1000 years before the rest of the world. They also utilized a simple pictographic writing system.[49]

After the Longshan, there may have been a dynasty called the Hsia (2183-1752 B.C.E.), but there is no corroborating written evidence to support the tradition, which claims that it had a large capital city, had scribes, had metallurgists, artisans, and bureaucrats. There are, however, some archeological remains that corroborate the Hsia dynasty.[50]

In 2^nd millennium B.C.E. China, food and water was abundant without having centralized government to organize large irrigation projects like in Mesopotamia or Egypt. Thus, a decentralized series of villages grew as the population increase, which led to the formation of the Shang Dynasty.

“One of the first kingdoms of East Asia, the Shang state built on the small agricultural and riverine village cultures of the Longshan peoples…The Shang state did not grow out of urban polities such as those in Mesopotamia and Egypt, for the lands in the areas around the Yellow and Yangzi rivers enabled China to maintain a more decentralized local form of life.”[51]

With population growth, though, came conflict among villages that necessitated a stronger centralized government, a need met by the Shang. The Shang state built on the Longshan’s metal technology, standardized architectural forms, walled towns, and divination using animal bones. To these ingredients for civilization, the Shang added a recorded blood line of ancestors to worship, a writing system, tribute, and rituals that they believed enabled communication with the ancestors. Thus, the Shang Dynasty, the first historical Chinese dynasty began about 1766 B.C.E.[52]

Also during this time, the Shang dynasty took over when they acquired bronze metal-working technology, improved their writing system and, in the process, became a full-fledged civilization.[53] The ancient Chinese religion was different from the Sumerian/Egyptian worship of the gods who controlled the floods and the Harappan gods who did not seem to be connected to the river. The Chinese based their religion on ancestor worship and they tried to use their ancestors for divination to light their way to the future.[54] Much of the Shang religion was focused on communicating with their ancestors to help them govern, not to plead to deities for good weather. Much of what historians know about the Shang comes from their divination.  The Shang leaders talked to the gods using animal bones or sea shells. By reading oracle bones or shells, historians were able to decipher much about the Shang:

The Shang king’s diviner would inscribe a question on the prepared bone or shell, dig a small pit part way through the piece, and then apply a heated metal rod to the pit, which would cause the shell or bone to crack. The nature of the crack indicated the answer. A typical bone or shell contains a date, followed by the question, for example, ‘Is the drought caused by ancestor X?’ or “If we raise an army of 3000 men to drive away from Y, will we succeed?[55]

Thus, whereas the Sumerians (Mesopotamians) and Egyptians wrote about anthropomorphic and unrealistic deities, the Chinese were writing about more realistic and practical things, like history and government. It was this primitive writing system that evolved into today’s modern Chinese writing.

“Unlike the earliest Indian oral traditions and written documents, which dealt with religion and philosophy, ancient Chinese writings were, from the beginning, concerned with historiography, or recording of historic events, with an emphasis on socially applicable morals and virtues.”[56]

The Shang religion was similar to the Sumerian and Egyptian religions in one respect: The ruler was responsible for keeping the peace and harmony. The Egyptians called this peace and harmony “maat.” The Shang version was the “mandate from heaven.” The difference was that the mandate from heaven meant that the people had a right to replace their leader if the peace and harmony disappeared.

Thus, although there are many similarities between East Asia and the rest of Asia, China seems to have fewer similarities with Mesopotamia than Egypt or India does. This is not surprising given China’s geographic isolation. China’s isolation is minor, though, compared to the isolation of the next and last civilization of this paper: the Olmec.

 

 

Mesoamerica

The first civilization in Mesoamerica was the Olmec in the 1^st and 2^nd millennium B.C.E., although the non-Mesoamerican Chavin culture also was developing in the modern-day Peru during the same period. The early Olmec were living in villages around 2200 B.C.E. They grew maize in the heavy rain area on and near the southern shores of the Gulf of Mexico where they had plenty of fish, game, and dogs to eat. In this wet weather, there was no irrigation needed to produce their agricultural surplus that they used in trading. The early Olmec traded salt, rubber, tar, pottery clay, basalt for monuments, shells, skins, cacao, exotic feathers, medicines, jade, incense, and obsidian used to make sharp tools. Traders traveled all over Mesoamerica including present-day eastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and western Honduras. The traders brought their culture with them, leaving signs of influence in the central mountains of Mexico as well as southern Guatemala, 400 miles from central Olmec territory. There in Guatemala, they founded a large city called Copan.[57]

In Mesoamerica, located in modern Mexico and Central America, early civilizations did not form around large rivers like in Afro-Eurasia. The Olmec developed in what is now called Mexico. The development of this civilization was very different from the Afro-Eurasia river civilizations. They relied on fishing and growing Maize in moist areas, as did the Chavin culture, but they also were very active in trading their products for many raw materials for artisans. Based on this trading, they were able to develop institutions and writing, thus making them an actual civilization. Like China, they adapted to their environmental isolation by developing a local trade network.

“Unlike the territorial states of Mesopotamia, these native American peoples had no preexisting high cultures from which to draw inspiration. Rather, the Mesoamerican cultures were something new, created out of local village roots. The peoples of the region formed themselves into a loose confederation of villages.”[58]

Thus, the Olmec were more like the Chinese in this respect. China was more isolated than Sumer, Egypt, and Indus because of the deserts and mountains that separated China from the rest of Afro-Eurasia. Thus, both the Chinese and Olmec culture developed more independently than the others. Also, perhaps coincidently, the Olmec and Shang civilizations began around the same era, beginning in 1500 B.C.E. The Sumer/Egypt/Indus civilizations did not develop as independently as the Olmec/Chinese. The ancient Sumerians were not the first farmers in their area. Their culture drew from the hundreds of villages of the Fertile Crescent where the agricultural revolution preceded them. Likewise, the Egyptians and Indus Valley settlements were influenced by the Sumerians because they traded with each other.

The Olmec were similar to the Indus River society in that they were united more by culture than by government. In Mesopotamia, each city-state had its own god. In the Shang dynasty there was a central government, although it did not cover all of modern day China. India, like the Olmec, did not have a central government; rather, they were united by a single language, a single religion, and thus a single culture.

The Olmec’s city-states did not appear to be governmental centers; rather, they were religious centers. The Olmec were like the Mesopotamians and Egyptians in their efforts to appease deities so that the deities allow rain and agricultural fertility. All three of these societies attempted to bribe the gods with sacrifices to provide the rain and soil necessary for a bountiful crop. The Olmec went so far as to sacrifice humans. The ball game played by the Olmec may have been part of a ritualization of human sacrifice:

What added to the thrill of the ball court was that they were dangerous yet fecund places associated with water and agricultural fertility, for an equally important aspect of devotional culture was the practice of human sacrifice. Indeed, it is likely that athletes and sacrifice were blended in the same rituals. Many monuments depict a victorious and costumed ballplayer atop a defeated, bound human, though it is not known whether the losers were literally executed. Rainmaking rites also included other forms of human sacrifice. Captives – we do not know how they were selected or seized – were excecuted and dismembered. There is increasing evidence that Olmecs practiced ritual warfare to supply rulers with humans whose death and torture was meant to ensure that the soil would be fertile and rains would continue.[59]

Although the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Indians sacrificed animals to their deities, none of them were known to sacrifice humans. However, the Shang Dynasty did show evidence of human sacrifice.

“Remains of human sacrificial victims were found interred in the main chamber and scattered in other parts of the grave, as were dogs, horses harnessed to chariots.”[60]

However, the writer found no other references to human sacrifice in Chinese history, therefore this quote may have been an anomaly. The gory fact of human sacrifice in Olmec history, however is reinforced by their Aztec and Mayan successors who also engaged in human sacrifice. Thus, human sacrifice could be considered to be  a unique difference between the Olmec and the other civilizations discussed in this paper.

Because, like the Harappans, we do not have decipherable writing from them, much of the writing about the Olmecs is based on educated guesses, which leaves much room for disagreement. For example, the Upshur textbook stated that the giant basalt head sculptures were Olmec rulers[61] whereas Tignor’s “World’s Together Worlds Apart” indicated that the heads are of the team members. Perhaps the rulers were team players.[62]

The Olmec also had astronomy in common with China and Mesopotamia. It was the Olmec who created the calendar on which the Mayans improved to come up with the famous Mayan calendar, that modern folklore said predicted the end of the world in December, 2012.[63]

“As in China and Mesopotamia, a flowering of (Olmec) culture encouraged priests and scholars to study the world around them – and the heavens – so that they might accurately chart the rhythms of the terrestrial and celestial worlds.”[64]

Also, the Olmec were similar to the Sumerians, Chinese and Egyptians in their beliefs that their leaders needed to be provided with things for the after-life. “Some trophies were buried in the tomb of a dead (Olmec) ruler so that he could play ball with the gods in the underworld.”[65] Also like the Sumerians, Shang and Egyptians, the Olmec had priests who communicated with the gods.

Like the Sumerians and Egyptians, the Olmec leaders used religion to control their subjects. The Olmec used artisans to create religious objects that were transported from one village to another in a very ceremonial manner, which reinforced the leaders’ position as being communicators with the gods that provided their livelihood. Just like the leaders of Egypt and Sumer were able to convince the peasants to do public work on irrigations systems, palaces and tombs, so too were the Olmecs able to get the people to transport basalt blocks many miles to pay tribute religiously:[66]

The priestly class, raised and trained in the palaces at La Venta, San Lorenzo, and Tres Zapotes, directed the exchanges of ritual objects between farming communities. Because these exchanges involved immense resources, the engagement of the ruling families was necessary and their involvement with these objects buttressed their claim to be descended from divine ancestors. At the same time, their control of the commerce in precious secular goods added to their fortunes. In this fashion, dominant families blurred the line between the everyday and the religious, the profane and the sacred heritages, and thereby legitimized their domination of their subjects.[67]

The way the Olmec used these religious objects to show their power was similar to the way the Shang Dynasty used religion:

“Tribute could also take the form of turtle shells and cattle scapula, which the Shang used for divination. The ability to divine the future was a powerful way to legitimated royal power – and then to justify the right to collect yet more tribute. By placing themselves symbolically and literally at the center of all exchanges, Shang kings reinforced their power over others.”[68]

The Olmec eventually developed a writing system.[69] Below is an example of Olmec writing, although it has not yet been translated.[70]

 

 

Other Comparisons

Time-frame

What these civilizations have in common is that they all first became civilizations in the third and second millennium B.C.E, but the differences are that Mesopotamia developed first in the 36^th century B.C.E., while Egypt was second in about 32^nd century B.C.E. India was fourth in 28^th century B.C.E, China was 5^th in 16^th century B.C.E., and Mesoamerica was sixth in the 15^th century B.C. E. The historical significance of this sequence is that Sumer became a civilization first and was instrumental in transferring the knowledge to Egypt to get them started as a civilization and Sumerians also traded with Indus thereby influencing their development too. China may have had help, but it would have been almost impossible to help the Olmec get started, given the geographic barriers.[71]

Urban Development

 Of the 5 civilizations, it appears that Mesopotamia and Egypt became the most developed as urban centers. See the table 6.1 in Appendix A.[72] Note that the writer added the last column on the Olmec with information from Upshur.[73]

 

 

Grains and Domesticated Animals

One thing all of the civilizations of this paper have in common is agriculture because only cultures based on growing crops became complex civilizations. The fishing based villages and the pastoral nomadic communities did not become civilizations in ancient times.

“The techniques of food production and storage, transportation, and communication restricted the surpluses available to feed those who did not cultivate the land. These communities did not grow in size and complexity.”[74]

The civilizations of this paper all grew some sort of grain and domesticated some sort of animal, but the differences were in the types of grains they grew. All four Afro-Eurasian civilizations grew barley and wheat and domesticated goats, sheep, pigs, and cattle.  However, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, and Egypt also grew and peas, beans, and lentils and raised goats, sheep, pigs, and cattle. These agricultural products of Egypt most likely came from Mesopotamia.[75]

In addition, the Indus River people grew sesame, melons, and dates and domesticated horses and fowl.[76] China grew rice in the South and millet in the North. Mesoamerica, with its separate western hemisphere habitat, grew maize (corn), potatoes, and beans while they raised llamas and poultry. The table in Appendix B summarizes the agricultural product distribution. An “X” means the ancient civilization did produce that product.

 

 

 

 

Organized Labor Forces

 One thing all of these civilizations had in common was a sufficiently powerful government to organized forced labor for public works projects using forced peasant labor. The Sumerians built their irrigation systems and ziggurats. The Egyptians built their irrigation systems and pyramids. The Shang had their Chenghow wall that took about 10,000 men 18 years to build.[77]  “The Shang established an authoritarian state, perhaps in part to coordinate irrigation and dam building.”[78] The Mohenjo-Daro of India too had was fortified by a brick wall with a tower that must have required peasant power, although we do not have written records of it like we do the other Afro-Eurasian cultures of this paper. The Olmec required organized labor to haul the ten-ton basalt blocks 30-miles and sculpture them into giant heads too.

 

Conclusion

 The conclusion of this paper is that these civilizations were highly dependent on the environment. The Sumerians were forced to find a way to survive in the desert and they adapted to their new environment by harnessing the flood waters. Even the early Mesopotamian religion reflected the volatility of their environment. The Egyptians too adapted to flooding through irrigation and their religion reflected the predictability and benevolence of the river in their environment. The religion of the culture of Harappa took a very different course than the Sumerians and Egyptians, perhaps reflecting their very different environment that did not include as much flooding as Sumer and Egypt. The Shang dynasty developed in a geographically isolated region and thus developed a culture quite different from the rest. The Shang, though, had at least some limited contact with India, but the Olmec environment was even more isolated than China by two huge oceans. The Olmec environment thus offered no opportunities for contact with any humans in Afro-Eurasia. The most amazing part of this study for the writer was how similar the totally isolated Olmec developed cultures with many similarities with the Afro-Eurasian civilizations. Perhaps our common humanity determines culture as much or more than the environment.

 

Appendix A

Table 6.1 Attributes of Urban Revolution as found in Egypt Mesopotamia, Indus, and China

Attribute	Egypt	Mesopotamia	Indus	China	Olmec
Cities	1	1	1	1	1
Full-time specialists	1	1	1	1	1
Surplus concentration	1	1	1	1	1
Monumental public  buildings	1	1	1	1	1
Ruling class and functionaries	1	1	0	1	1
Writing and numerical notation	1	1	?	1	1
Exact and predictive sciences	1	1	1	1	0
Representative art	1	1	1	1	1
Regular foreign trade	1	1	1	0	0
Organic social solidarity	1	1	1	1	1
Temples and shrines pre-eminent	1	1	0	1	1
State organization dominant & permanent.	1	1	0	1	0

 

 

Appendix B

	Sumer[79]	India[80]	Egypt[81]	China[82]	Olmec[83]
Wheat	X	X	X	X
Barley	X	X	X	X
Goats	X	X	X	X
Sheep	X	X	X	X
Pigs	X	X	X	X
Cattle	X	X	X	X
Horses
Fowls					X
Fish					X
Dogs
Rice				X
Maize					X
Millet	X			X
Beans	X	X	X		X
Peas	X	X	X
Potatoes					X
Vegetables				X
Sesame	X	X
Melon		X
Dates		X

Bibliography

Baum, Deborah, Brown University, Media Relations, September 14, 2006. Oldest Writing in New World Found in Vera Cruz, Mexico. http://brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2006-07/06-021.html

Carr, Tarini J. The Harappan Civilization, http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/harappa-mohenjodaro.html http://brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2006-07/06-021.html

Dictionary Completed of Language Used in Ancient Egypt, Science Daily, September 18, 2012. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120918145005.htm

Hunt, Lynn, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, R. Po-chia Hsia, Bonnie G. Smith. The Making of the West, Peoples and Cultures Volume I to 1740s, Third Edition. Boston: Bedfords/St. Martin’s, 2009.

 

Jones, Ed. Lindsay, Encyclopedia of Religion.Vol. 7. 2^nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.  P4468-4475.From Gale Virtual Reference Library. Found using Infotrac Power Search of “Harappa” at Westhills College Library website.

 

Lockard, Craig A. Societies, Networks, and Transitions: A Global History, Second Edition. Boston: Wadsworth Publishing, 2011.

Maisal, Charles Keith. 1999, Early Civilizations of the Old World: The Formative Histories of  Early Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India, and China. N.P.: Routlage, 1999 eBook (EBSCOhost), p. 328. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=102626&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=1&ppid=pp_34

McGrath, Jane, What’s So Important About the Code of Hammurabi?  http://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/code-of-hammurabi.htm.

Rand McNally, Atlas of the World 1993, (Rand McNally and Company, New York, NY).

 

 Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Peter Brown , Benjamin Elman, Xinru Liu , Holly Pittman, Brent Shaw, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World from the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present, Second Edition, Vol. 1: Beginnings Through the Fifteenth Century (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2008)

 

Upshur, Jiu-Hwa L., Janice J. Terry, James P. Holoka, and Richard D. Goff, World History  Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, Fourth Edition (Stamford: Wadsworth Publishing, 2002)

Whitworth, Mark, The Curious History of Taosi, The Longshan and the Xia – Page 2, 5/15/12 http://www.marquemywords.co.uk/stories/academic-articles/the-curious-history-taosi.html?start=1

 

Witzel, Michael and Steve Farmer. The Direction of Harappan Writing, (Frontline, India’s National Magazine, Volume 17, Issue 20, (September 30 – October 13, 2000):10. http://www.flonnet.com/fl1720/17200040.pdf

 

Wolpert, Stanley. Encyclopedia of India.  Vol. 2. Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2006. p258-267. From Gale Virtual Reference Library, 260.

---

[1] Robert Tignor , Jeremy Adelman, Peter Brown , Benjamin Elman, Xinru Liu , Holly Pittman, Brent Shaw,

[2]  Ibid.,  31.

[3]  Craig  A. Lockard. Societies, Networks, and Transitions: A Global History, Second Edition (Wadsworth Publishing, Boston, MA 2011), 30.

[4]  Ibid., 30.

[5]  Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 59.

[6]  Ibid., 32.

 

[7] Lynn Hunt, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, R. Po-chia Hsia, Bonnie G. Smith, The Making of the West, Peoples and Cultures Volume I to 1740s, Third Edition (Boston: Bedfords/St. Martin’s, 2009), 8.

[8] Rand McNally, Atlas of the World 1993, (Rand McNally and Company, New York, NY), 12.

[9] Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 60.

[10]Ibid., 62.

[11]Ibid., 61.

[12] The Epic of Gilgamesh, Column I, http://www.piney.com/Gil11.html, from Fordham (http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/asbook03.asp ).

[13]Jiu-Hwa L. Upshur, Janice J. Terry, James P. Holoka, Richard D. Goff, and George H. Cassar, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, Fourth Edition (Stamford: Wadsworth Publishing, 2002), 16.

[14]  Ibid., 16.

[15]Tignor et al.,  Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 63-64.

[16] Ibid., 64.

[17] Ed. Lindsay Jones. Encyclopedia of Religion.Vol. 7. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.  P4468-4475.From Gale Virtual Reference Library. Found using Infotrac Power Search of “Harappa” at Westhills College Library website.

[18] Tignor et al.,  Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 68.

 

[19]Stanley Wolpert. Encyclopedia of India.  Vol. 2. Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2006. p258-267. From Gale Virtual Reference Library, 260.

[20]Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 48

[21] Tignor et al.,  Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 68.

[22]Ibid., 68.

[23] Ibid., 69.

[24] Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 141.

[25] Tarini J. Carr. The Harappan Civilization, http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/harappa-mohenjodaro.html

[26]Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 48.

[27] Tignor et al.,  Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 69.

[28]Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 48-49.

[29] Wolpert. Encyclopedia of India, 261.

[30] Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 68.

[31]Wolpert. Encyclopedia of India, 263.

[32]Ibid., 263.

[33] Ibid., 263.

[34]Wolpert. Encyclopedia of India, 263.

[35]Wolpert. Encyclopedia of India, 264-5

[36] Tignor et al.,  Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 73.

[37] Charles Keith Maisal, 1999, Early Civilizations of the Old World: The Formative Histories of Early Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India, and China. N.P.: Routlage, 1999 eBook (EBSCOhost), 34. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=102626&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=1&ppid=pp_34

[38]Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 16.

[39] Ibid., 21.

[40]The Egyptian Book of the Dead (1240 B.C.E.), http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Books/Papyrus_Ani.html  from Fordham http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/asbookfull.asp#Mesopotamia).

 

[42]Ibid., 21.

[43]Tignor et al.,  Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 73.

[44] Ibid., 73.

[45]Ibid., 74.

[46]Ibid., 73.

[47] Lockard. Societies, Networks, and Transitions, 74.

[48]Ibid., 74-76.

[49] Lockard. Societies, Networks, and Transitions, 76.

[50] Ibid., 76.

[51] Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 120.

[52] Ibid.,  120.

[53] Lockard. Societies, Networks, and Transitions, 76.

[54] Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 120.

[55] Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 61-62.

[56] Ibid., 59.

[57]Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 40-41.

[58]  Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 208.

 

[59] Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 210-211.

[60] Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 61.

[61]Ibid., 41.

[62]  Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 211.

[63] Upshur, et al., World History Before 1600, 41.

[64] Tignor et al.,  Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 211.

[65]Ibid. 210.

[66] Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 211.

[67]Ibid., 211.

[68] Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 124.

[69] Upshur, History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 41.

[70] Deborah Baum, Brown University, Media Relations, September 14, 2006, http://brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2006-07/06-021.html

[71] Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 207.

[72] Charles Keith Maisal, 1999, Early Civilizations of the Old World: The Formative Histories of Early Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India, and China. N.P.: Routlage, 1999 eBook (EBSCOhost), p. 328.

[73] Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 40-42.

[74] Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 56.

[75] Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 486.

[76] Ibid., 49.

[77]Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 60.

 

[79]  Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 59.

[80] Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization, 49.

[81] Lynn Hunt, et al., The Making of the West,  16.

[82] Upshur, World History Before 1600: The Development of Early Civilization,  64.

[83]  Tignor et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 208.

It tried to post this article on Facebook, but FB said the article was too “spammy” to post. This is the second article today that was censored, so I am trying to post it below. It says that a poll says that Christians hate Christian TV. It made me wonder how it could survive if few people watch it. They must not rely on the Nielson ratings.

http://freethinker.co.uk/2012/06/11/poll-reveals-that-christians-detest-christian-tv/

 

Here are three links to lectures by Dr. Franklin T. Lambert regarding separation of church and state.

Lecture 1: https://vimeo.com/41254578

Lecture 2: https://vimeo.com/41258740

Lecture 3: https://vimeo.com/41263817

Although he is lecturing in a secular university, he appears to be speaking from a Baptist perspective, as these videos were uploaded by the Baptist Joint Committee. In spite of this religious perspective, he appears very objective in his presentation and I found little disagreement with my secular understanding of the history of church and state in the United States.

My plan is to listen to these lectures again and comment on them all,  but for now, I will comment on the third video since it is fresh on my mind. I was struck by Lambert’s account of Benjamin Franklin’s proposal to resort to prayer in order to help resolve disagreement in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention about how to pick Congressional representatives. I was surprised that Franklin proposed this religious solution since he was an outspoken deist, but I was almost as surprised by the unenthusiastic response from the Convention members. The consensus was that they should not resort to prayer because  it would convey the message that they cannot solve the problems themselves.

I was also struck by his story of Adam Smith describing how not having established churches is much more effective in spreading the gospel than having established churches since established churches have little incentive to proselytize. How right he was.

I may want to read some of Lambert’s books later: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/history/documents/Publications/Publ-09-10-Lambert.pdf

Reflections on Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss: Something from Nothing, at ANU

Here are my reflections on the following video of a discussion between Dawkins and Krauss. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q0mljE9K-gY

This 1.5 hour unstructured discussion covered a wide range of topics. This blog represents some of my reflections on the video. One thread was on the subject of whether we *need* religion. This reminded me of whether drug addicts need their particular drug. People may feel as though they need the comfort of religion when a loved one dies or other catastrophes occur, but heroin addicts also need a regular heroin fix in order to avoid the discomfort and pain of withdrawal. The pains of withdrawal are real to the addict and the theist, but both pains are unnecessary if one simply withdraws from their particular drug. There will be withdrawal symptoms, but once rehabilitation is complete, there is no longer the need for the drug. Once a person begins to base life on evidence and probabilities, there is no need to feel threatened about losing the presupposition of life.

Krauss explained how his life was turned upside down by quantum physics and Dawkins said his fundamental understanding of evolution was toppled by molecular biology. When a worldview is based on evidence and probability, when new evidence is introduced that substantially changes assumptions, the underlying worldview is not toppled; it is just revised. The worldview of evidence and probability remains intact. If a person realizes there are no gods, the fundamental worldview is demolished and pain ensues.

Related to this was the Dawkins/Krauss discussion of whether religion is necessary for happiness. My question was “How could I be happy living as a servant of the biblical egotistical, impetuous, jealous tyrant, who dictates how and what I should think and believe? I could not. How can I believe in a god so unjust, that he could allegedly create humans with free will that allegedly resulted in my ancestor 6000 years ago to disobey god and cause his progeny to have a sinful nature? How can I believe that a just god would then blame me for his own creation, and send me to a lake of fire forever because of it? How is that supposed to be a just god? It isn’t.

One last point was that politicians should not be given a free pass on their beliefs. I should be able to ask Obama, “Do you believe that Jesus is coming back to take all of the Christians to Heaven before humans destroy their own habitat, and, if so, why do we need to battle global warming?” However, such a question is not allowed, because religious beliefs are a private matter. If the logical conclusion to a belief could lead to the destruction of the human habitat, I should be able to know what that belief is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVASr10Gg20

I  listened to the Gay Marriage episode on Unbelievable episode 4/21/12  (http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx) and I must say something about this Catholic anti-gay marriage advocate’s arguments. First of all, his primary argument is that marriage has always been between a man and a woman therefore it should always be that way. That is a fallacy from tradition. I could easily say that women have always been the property of men, therefore this tradition should continue. I could argue that slavery has always existed since the beginning of recorded history, therefore slavery should continue to exist. I don’t make those arguments because society evolves and changes. The definition of marriage has changed significantly throughout history.

The time has come for society to stop discriminating against gays in marriage. The Catholic also argued that gays still have the right to marry; it is just that they have chosen the wrong gender to want to marry. Well, how fair is that? Just because someone was born with the genetic inclination to prefer the same sex, what right do we have to prohibit that person from marrying the person that person loves?

As for the argument that society would come tumbling down because gay marriage would leave no barrier for those who want to make polygamy legal, that argument is bogus because there are not millions of polygamists demanding their rights. If they do demand their rights, they will have to provide some assurance that children will not be abused and that is a major obstacle. So far, I have heard no reasonable argument against marriage equality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEu0IjlEgDw

Humanism is Tribalism on Steroids

                Many theists have difficulty in understanding how atheist/humanists get their morals if they did not get them by stealing them from Christianity. The answer is really quite simple: Tribalism evolved to become more and more inclusive until it reached all of humanity.

As descendants of a common primate ancestor, bonobos and Homo sapiens demonstrate altruistic behavior.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_in_animals Altruistic behavior in animals is most commonly observed in immediate family members. Such altruism can easily be explained evolutionarily by virtue of a species’ innate desire to pass on their genes. It also makes sense for animals, including humans, to be kind to their extended family because of the common genetic makeup. In spite of the genetic aspect, primates have been shown to have mirror neurons in the brain that enable empathy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron#Empathy. The ability to empathize was not selective for relatives. Acquiring the ability to empathize with relatives also allowed empathizing with non-relatives.

With the ability to emphasize, we humans can experience the feelings of others. It is this empathy that is manifested when we help out or risk our life for a family member or even a fellow tribe member. In prehistoric eras, humans lived in tribes based on extended families. In order for these family tribes to survive they needed to cooperate. For example, to kill a giant mammoth, the cooperation of several men was required. Empathizing also helped form larger tribes that included non-family members. These tribes formed common beliefs and religions, which caused them to be different from other tribes. Tribes formed confederations and villages. As more people adopted a particular belief, many times through conquest, villages became cities and cities became nations. Culture and religion was the glue that held groups together. This cooperation helped the population grow; thus, empathy had an evolutionary value since it helped perpetuate the species. Unfortunately, religion also caused wars because of the in-group and out-group effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group%E2%80%93out-group_bias

Religions such as Christianity and Islam helped perpetuate the species by spreading the religion throughout the world. For example, after the 1492 eviction of Muslims from Spain, the religious fervor of success helped inspire them to send Columbus to the New World, which spread Christianity. In the United States, Manifest Destiny (the belief that God wanted the U.S. to expand west) helped spread the settlement in the western United States.

Now that the world’s population exceeds 7 billion, religion is no longer needed to perpetuate our species. Now, we need to unite to preserve our home on this small blue dot. Humanism is a worldview that looks beyond in-groups and out-groups of religion in order to pursue what is best for all of humanity. Humanism considers all of humanity to be one big tribe.

My thesis is not that the world is going to unite as one big happy family. My point was that religion stands in the way of world peace. This blog entry was inspired by an Ardent Atheist Podcast (#62) in which a guest asked where atheists get their morals. The podcast did not give an adequate answer, in my view, so I tried to explain where morality comes from. Our morals, in my view, come from society evolving, based on empathy, toward larger and large tribes. Humanism, in my view is superior to religion because it takes into account the interest of all humans, not just those inside a subgroup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoely4693Ec

Since Rome adopted Christianity as their national religion in the 4th Century, Christianity has spread with missionary zeal. The Catholics killed and tortured tens of thousands of people in the Crusades and the Inquisition, all in the name of saving souls from Hell. Then, the Protestant Reformation triggered the 100 years of war between the Protestants and Catholics, and with it many more thousands of lives lost. Then the Spanish took their religious fervor to the New World where they tortured and killed many native Americans, in the pursuit of making them civilized Christians, like them.

Then, men of the Enlightenment, like John Locke and Voltaire, became fed up with the bloodshed and decided that mixing religion with government was the cause of the wars and that there was a better way. Several students of the Enlightenment like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin brought the ideas of the Enlightenment to the New World and started a new nation that was based on freedom, including freedom of religion. And the way freedom of religion was assured was by making sure government was neutral on the subject of religion.

However, the  Christian religious zeal was insatiable as demonstrated in slavery, treatment of Native Americans, and The Mexican War. Slavery was endorsed by the Christian bible and slaveholders used the bible to justify enslavement. The Christians felt they were saving the souls of slaves and civilizing them to be good Christians like them. The Christians also wanted to civilize the Native Americans, but were less successful than with the slaves.

What inspired me to write this blog was my reading about the Mexican War and Manifest Destiny. President Polk wanted the United States to go to war with Mexico so that there would be more land for American settlers. He sent troops into Mexican territory to provoke them. When the Mexicans attacked to defend their land, the U.S. was launched into a war. There were some dissenters like Abraham Lincoln, but much of America was thrilled about taking Mexico because they needed the land and they thought Mexicans were uncivilized and less worthy of occupying Texas than the civilized Christian Americans. They believed in Manifest Destiny, which is the idea the God wanted good Christian Americans to occupy the Western U.S. so that good people would be there and not “uncouth Mexicans.”

I am benefiting from the missionary zeal of Christians because I live in a country of  freedom and abundance of material wealth, yet I am ashamed of my country’s history of brutality. Christians continue to try to dominate the culture by trying to take away women’s rights, suppressing science, and preventing marriage equality. I am going to do whatever I can to fight the hegemony of Christianity in America. On April 28th, for example, I will be protesting the Catholic Church’s efforts to take away women’s reproductive rights. http://www.meetup.com/atheists-561/events/60663742/

Today, I listened to Imaginary Friends Show Podcast 91, in which Jake Farr-Wharton interviewed Ray Comfort. Jake brought up the subject of evolution and Ray asked how Jake could believe in evolution since there was no evidence for evolution. Jake handled the question in a very calm, collected manner and I am sure he handled it better than I would. Jake knows far more about evolution than I do as he is working on his masters in linguistic anthropology and he has demonstrated his considerable knowledge on the topic in his podcasts. However, I was still disappointed in his response. Ray Comfort is a master and well rehearsed in his traditional creationist tactics of picking on the weaknesses of science, putting scientists on the defensive so that he does not need to provide any evidence of his own vacuous position. Nevertheless, I was bothered by it today as I went about my Saturday chores. What would be the best answer to the question of evidence for evolution given that I have no fossils, books, or other evidence at my fingertips? If I were to try to answer the question, I would hope that I would answer it something like below. Even though I had some time to think about it, I did no research, other than my current knowledge. I welcome feedback.

There are geological layers in which fossils have been deposited over time. There are thousands of these fossils located in museums and laboratories. These are evidence of evolution. The species in each layer are different and almost none are the same as they are today. 95% of the species we have discovered are now extinct. We can trace the development of species over time because we can view the changes of species over time. We can tell  species that are closely related because of similar body structures. In fact the body structure of most animals is the same, with the only change being in the size and shape of body parts.

Thus we can develop an evolutionary tree that shows how species have changed over time. The changes happened very slowly; so slowly that no successive generation looked very different than the parent. However, when species separated by 100 generations, significant differences can be detected.

We know the order in which the species evolved because we can estimate the age of each geological layer using dating methods. Carbon dating is limited to only a few thousand years ago, but several other elements such as Argon have been used to date back further. All of the independent methods all converge on the same ages. Also counting tree rings and linking the trees of different eras provide age estimates that corroborates the decay methods.

The same conclusions can be seen using DNA analysis. The percent similarity of DNAs are consistent with what we have learned about relative species. Chimpanzee DNA is 98% the same as homo sapiens. The more distant relatives have DNA that are less similar to humans’. This is more evidence of evolution.

No one piece of evidence is conclusive, but when all of the data from paleontology, biology, and genetics all converge on the same conclusions with no counterexamples, evolution is the only conclusion that can be concluded. No primate fossils have been found in the dinosaur layers. Plus, evolution has been used to explain and predict many aspects of biology. Scientist have used principles of evolution to develop vaccines, antibiotics, and other life saving, proven inventions.

This is what we call evidence. The writings of sheepherders from the Bronze age is not evidence; it is ancient literature that is accepted on faith, based on wishful thinking, Ray.

The History of the Separation of Church and State in the United States

This report gives an account of how governmental involvement in religion developed over time and how it ultimately was shown to be a failure in modern times. As a result of this failure, the United States was formed as a secular nation that was the first to erect a wall separating church and state.

First, I demonstrate how religion and government developed together, intricately entangled, seemingly without much possibility for separation. Then, I showed how Christianity and Islam developed and used government, combined with the idea of Hell, to spread their culture to other lands. After that, I illustrate how, when coupled with government, saving souls from Hell led to wars such as the Crusades and the Century of Religious Wars.  Subsequently, I give an account of how people gradually became fed up with the religious wars and thought of new ways to govern without religion, as embodied in the Enlightenment. Then, the essay details how the founding fathers of the United States were the first to use the ideas of the Enlightenment to start a new nation governed by the people, based on liberty, human rights, and religious freedom.  Then, I explain how the series of Supreme Court rulings interpreted the Establishment Clause as an “impenetrable wall of separation between church and state” and how later Supreme Court decisions defined the wall as more blurred. Lastly, I examine the more recent legal action on using the word God in government.

At First, Religion Was Localized and Intertwined With Government

Since the beginning of recorded history, monarchs used religion to help rule over their subjects. In early human history, religion was important in helping people to understand the world. Religion seemed to act like an enzyme that hastened the spread of ideas and culture and kings took advantage of this phenomenon.

At first, religions were localized. The Sumerians of 4000 B.C. and the Egyptians of 3000 B.C. worshiped their gods to ensure their local rivers flooded on time for the watering of their crops. Their religion was tied to their local river. The rulers were considered either an actual god or the spokesperson for a god. Religion was the glue that held these ancient cultures together.

 Religions Became Transferable & Saving Souls from Hell Facilitated its Spread

The ancient Jews worshiped their local war god YAHWEH, located locally in Mount Sinai and who helped them conquer their enemies. http://books.google.com/books?id=zhc7UkW8eHcC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=yahweh+local+god+of+mount+sinai&source=bl&ots=udI8ZwKft7&sig=wLpIusGi1e8rMVk-s-IljWKPtlc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ag99T9KfBuiKiAK56ZjeDQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=yahweh%20local%20god%20of%20mount%20sinai&f=false In spite of this, Judaism evolved into a monotheist religion after being exposed to the first monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism. Without a river or mountain to which to be tied, religion could be spread to other locations. In about 30 A.D., a Jew named Jesus of Nazareth, in preaching to his fellow Jews, developed the idea of Hell, which had previously been used by the Greeks, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians. Paul of Tarsus then spread the idea of heaven, Hell and salvation to non-Jews throughout the Hellenistic world. The idea of saving people from Hell eventually resulted in bloody wars, because extreme action could be justified if someone was being saved from eternal torture. Having the belief that people could be saved from Hell, Christians and Muslims had a responsibility to save other people from Hell and to prevent unbelievers from spreading their unbelieving ideas.

For about three centuries, the Christian religion spread in the Eastern Mediterranean region along with many different ideas about who Jesus was. Some said he was God, some said he was God’s son, and some said he was both. There was little agreement about the nature of Jesus. The Christians were persecuted by the Romans until the Romans realized that the more they persecuted the Christians, the faster the religion grew.

One Roman emperor named Constantine converted to Christianity in the early 300’s. He solved some of the doctrinal disagreements by calling the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Constantine banished the dissenters, which marked the beginning of the Catholic policy of persecuting heretics, the people who disagreed with their orthodox religious doctrine. It was evident that Constantine was using Christianity as a tool to rule because he never gave up his title of Sun God to the pagans, in spite of Christianity demanding 100% loyalty.

Later, under the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 A.D., the Catholic Church was established as the official religion of Rome. Christianity helped Rome return to its glory days as an empire, using Christianity as the uniting aspect of its culture. The Romans stopped persecuting Christians and began to persecute heretics and burn the writings of heretics. In a nutshell, the doctrine was based on the idea: “We are going to heaven, you are going to Hell, and you are causing others to go to Hell; therefore, God has given us the job of preventing you from spreading your heresy.” The Roman Catholic Church spread their orthodox version of Christianity westward around the Mediterranean and into Europe.

Meanwhile, in the late 600’s Mohammad founded Islam. This also threatened Hell to nonbelievers. Muslims expanded throughout the Mediterranean through conquest. By 750 A.D., Islam had overtaken Spain, thereby creating an empire far exceeding the Roman Byzantine Empire. First, the Muslims captured Jerusalem. Then, they overtook Alexandria, followed by Antioch. By 850 A.D., the Muslims had besieged Rome itself.

Up until the tenth century, government and Christianity mixed freely. The Catholic Kings appointed popes, and kings were considered to be anointed by God. Catholic positions, such as bishop and cardinal positions were purchased from the kings. Although people acknowledged the rights of kings to rule over the churches before the 10th century, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, more and more people sought the removal of the power of kings over the church. The conflict came to a head in the Investiture Conflict when Pope Gregory VII declared that King Henry IV did not have the power to appoint the archbishop of Milan. The conflict was not resolved until 1122’s Concordat of Worms, which was after Gregory died. The compromise allowed the king to be involved with the selection of Catholic officers, but not the sole selector, like before. Thus, the Government’s hold on religion began to slip. This was a first schism between the Catholic Church and government on the road that led to the eventual separation of Catholic Church and state. (Lynn Hunt, et. al, Making of the West, Volume I)

When Coupled with Government, These Ideas Lead to Wars

When coupled with government, saving souls from Hell led to wars such as The Crusades and the Century of Religious Wars. Although governments such as that of the Romans had the additional motivation of power and money to spread their religion, the religious incentive of saving souls from Hell bolstered the support from the clergy and their followers.

For many centuries, the two intolerant religions, Catholicism and Islam, coexisted, but starting in 1095, after Catholicism spread into Non-Spanish Europe and Islam had taken over Spain and Israel, the European nations decided it was their duty to take back Israel by killing Muslims. These wars were called The Crusades and they lasted through the thirteenth century.

By 1492, the Spanish had eradicated Islam from Spain and their religious fervor helped propel them to ultimately spread Christianity into the New World. At that point almost all of Europe was headed by a Catholic monarch. The Spanish Catholic monarchy wanted to expand their holdings, and religion gave them their justification for horrendous acts such as the cutting off of hands of Indians who did not collect their quota of gold for Columbus. Although religion did not justify that act specifically, it gave the Spanish mission into the New World a veil of righteousness to their pursuit of gold.

Meanwhile dissent against Catholicism was hatching in Christian humanism. The most prominent representative of Christian humanism was Desiderious Erasmus (1466-1536). Erasmus wrote that Christianity should be about forgiveness and brotherly love, not the rituals and corruption of the Catholic Church. It has been said that “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.” (Hunt p. 428).

In 1518 A.D., Martin Luther published his “95 Theses” which expressed his protestation of the corruption that engulfed the Catholic Church’s policies. The Catholic Church excommunicated him so he started Lutheranism. Luther demonstrated, with the help of the printing press, that it was possible to disagree with the Catholic Church and live to tell about it. Luther “opened a can of worms” that resulted in a chain of events that ultimately helped lead to separation of church and state. Once it was discovered that people did not need popes, it was only another small step to conclude that people did not need kings either.

In addition to Luther, several others took the opportunity to disagree with the Catholics. Henry VIII started the Church of England (Anglican) in 1534, Calvin started Calvinism or Puritanism in 1536, and Anabaptists took over the German City of Munster in 1534. While these new denominations of Christianity may have improved on the Catholic doctrine by freeing people from the sometimes whimsical tyranny of dictators, they were no less tolerant than the Catholic Church. Violence soon erupted after Luther’s 1518 “95 Theses” was published. The Peasants’ War of 1525 started it off. Then, wars erupted between the Catholics and protestant nations and lasted for 88 years (1562-1648).  First, there were the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), in which the Catholics tried to extinguish the “heresy” of Calvinism by fighting the French Huguenot Calvinists. (Hunt, p. 452)

Then, the Thirty Years’ War of 1618-1648 erupted. In this war, the Lutherans and the Calvinists each fought the Catholics.  Each European nation established its own denomination and persecuted those who disagreed. The Latin countries of Spain, France and Italy were purely Catholic while England was Anglican. The French Calvinist Huguenots ended up as refugees at Geneva Switzerland. Also, the area including Germany and Austria was considered to be the Holy Roman Empire, having been dislocated from Rome.

England had its share of religious wars during this period too. The series of two English Civil Wars in the 1640’s pit the Puritans, who advocated for Parliamentary rule, against the King, who represented the Church of England. For a while, England was ruled by a Puritan, Cromwell. In 1689, after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the English Parliament passed the Bill of Rights, which established Parliament’s superiority over the King of England. The bill also protected the rights of English citizens. England was therefore the first European nation to demote the king. The Glorious Revolution was a religious war designed to prevent Catholicism from retaking England. England’s two house parliament as well as their rebellion against monarchy served as a model for the future secular government of the United States.

People Became Fed Up With the Religious Wars: The Enlightenment Was Born

            Simultaneous with the Protestant reformation, the renaissance (14^th to 17^th centuries) was incubating the eggs of the Enlightenment of 1650–1800.The renaissance was all about men reading the classic Greek and Latin books, which allowed the rediscovery of the Greek scientific accomplishments that were destroyed by Catholic censure of heresy.

The end of the wars of religion in 1650 ushered in the age of Enlightenment, which was a time of developing ways of governing without mixing government and religion. Men of the Enlightenment advocated for science and reason rather than religion and superstition. The Enlightenment was started by philosophers BaruchSpinoza (1632–1677), JohnLocke (1632–1704), PierreBayle (1647–1706), mathematician IsaacNewton (1643–1727) and historian Voltaire (1694–1778). Reason began to gain ground on superstition and dogma. Newton’s discovery of natural laws of the universe helped man realize that a god was not necessary to explain the universe. The Age of Enlightenment reflected a disdain for the pointless wars of religion.

Among the authors of the Enlightenment was John Locke, who was considered to be the father of liberalism. Locke recognized the fruitlessness and divisiveness of establishing righteous dogma. He formulated the idea of religious tolerance, an idea which materialized first in the Netherlands and then in the 13 Colonies. Locke also developed Thomas Hobbes term, “social contract,” which specified that government could only rule until the people no longer wanted it and government had no business in determining an individual’s decisions of conscience. In addition Locke originated the idea of “the pursuit of life, liberty, or possessions,” which eventually became the “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” of the Declaration of Independence.

Enlightenment ideas like “social contract” helped free England from monarchy and establish Parliament as the voice of a group of people in England. Also, Calvinist/Puritan beliefs that all people were ministers, since all people had access to the bible, helped free people from religious authorities like popes or kings. It was this doctrine that helped Puritans of the Massachusetts colony to establish the democracy, republicanism, and self-government that presaged the future government of the United States.

The Founding Fathers Used the Ideas of the Enlightenment

The founding fathers of the United States were the first to use the ideas of the Enlightenment to start a new nation based on government by the people, liberty, human rights, and religious freedom. The founding fathers wrote the founding documents based on power that came from the people, not from God. Christianity, however was a dominant force in the United States and was constantly trying to exert its influence, thereby setting up the tension between religious freedom and separation of church and state. The founding documents of America were an an attempt at relieving and managing these tensions.

The Declaration of Independence (1776)

In the Declaration of Independence of 1776, Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” These are not ideas from the bible. The term “inalienable rights” originated from Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) who “systematized the notion of ‘natural law’ — laws of nature that give legitimacy to government and stand above the actions of any particular religious group.” Grotius argued that natural law stood beyond the reach of either secular or divine authority; it would be valid even if God did not exist (though Grotius himself believed in God). By this account, natural law — not scripture, religious authority, or tradition — should govern politics.” (Hunt, p. 474) Having such natural rights therefore precludes any one from violating said rights, based on scripture, religion, or tradition. Jefferson and his fellow founding fathers were well aware of the recent century’s natural rights violations in the form of religious wars that plagued his European ancestors and the persecution that Catholic and Anglican monarchs had imposed on their subjects. To quote James Madison, “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”   -1803 letter objecting use of government land for churches. Thomas Paine wrote “The Age of Reason” in which he bemoaned the divisiveness of religion and decried the need for reason and rationality rather than the oppressive dogma of religion, especially Christianity.

In the Colonies, many of the immigrants had escaped to the New World because of natural rights violation of religious persecution. For example, the Puritans fled persecution of England’s established church, the Church of England. Established churches are official churches that are supported by tax dollars. In spite of the colonists’ bad experiences with established churches, many of the colonies had “established” a religion as their colonial religion. Most of the colonies established the Church of England/Episcopalian as their established religion but Massachusetts and Connecticut established the Congregational (Puritan) church as their official denomination. However, there were some exceptions. Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams, who attempted to find a home for those persecuted by the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony. Rhode Island was tolerant of other religions and so was William Penn’s Quaker based Pennsylvania

Although some colonies were tolerant, the U.S. was, in many ways, the product of the harms of mixing church and state. Many immigrants fled European mixture of government and religion. Even in the Colonies, intolerance continued, as evidenced by the Salem Witch Trials, in which twenty people were executed because judges deemed them to be witches.

Witch-hunting was started by Pope Innocent VIII via his 1484 book, Malleus Maleficarum. Witch-hunting accelerated after the Reformation, though, as governments used Pope Innocent’s method to try and execute between 50,000 and 80,000 people, 80% of which were women. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/witchhistory.html

When our founding fathers tried to piece together a nation out of a diverse stew of mixed religions and national origins, one fact of history must have been fresh on their minds. Monarchies that operated under the authority of the church and God lead to oppression, persecution of dissenters, and war with other nations. Having eliminated the necessity of a monarchy by making the bible the ultimate authority instead of a king, some states had established churches. The colonies did not want a king telling them what religion to establish, but they did not seem to mind establishing religion based on the will of the majority.

The Articles of Confederation (1781)

            Under the Articles of Confederation of 1781, the states all had their own policies on religion and did not want any outsider, like a monarchy or federal government, to interfere with their policies on religion. The first paragraph of the Articles state:

“The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.”

As shown above, The Articles of Confederation did not establish a new nation; it established a confederation based on a commitment to friendship and protection from monarchies. It does not mention God, except to end it with “The Year of Our Lord” which was a traditional way to state dates at that time. The Articles only mention of religion was to assert their agreement to fight against anyone who assaults them based on religion.

Once the Articles of Confederation failed and the new Constitution was submitted to the states for approval, the center of debate was states’ rights and worries about the return of monarchism. They cried for freedom of religion. The states with established religions wanted to keep their established religions and did not want a federal government telling them how to run government. When the Constitution was presented to the states for ratification, some states complained because it did not mention God. However, in light of the failure of the Articles, the states evidently thought that giving up their established religions was a price worth paying in order to solve the problems of a weak confederation of states.

The Constitution (1787): No Religious Test

            In addition to the Establishment Clause, the No Religious Test Clause of the United States Constitution of 1787 is found in Article VI, paragraph 3, and states that:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Thus, the government cannot require an elected official to have any particular religious beliefs. This clause was designed to prevent the religious test acts that England held and still follows to this day. The Supreme Court has interpreted the U.S. No Religious Test Clause to mean that no federal employee can be subject to a religious test either. In spite of this clause, no U.S. President has claimed to be an atheist, although Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Howard Taft, and Barack Obama have been accused of being atheist. All four of these presidents accused of being atheist defended against such claims. Thus, all though there is no explicit religious test in the U.S., the electorate does require a president to believe in God. There have been deists such as Thomas Jefferson and Unitarians like William Howard Taft who do not believe in the divinity of Christ, but those presidents whose religious beliefs were questioned, often made remarks that seemed evasive so as to not admit nonbelief. For example, when Andrew Johnson was accused of being an infidel, he replied, “As for my religion, it is the doctrine of the Bible, as taught and practiced by Jesus Christ.” This could either mean he was Christian or, like Thomas Jefferson, followed Christ’s lessons about love and forgiveness, but not believe in miracles. Thomas Jefferson once cut out all of the miracles out of the Gospel and made what came to be known as Jeffersonian Bible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_affiliations_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

The Bill of Rights (1789): The Establishment Clause

            Christianity, however, was a dominant force in the United States and was constantly trying to exert its influence, thereby setting up the tension between religious freedom and church/state separation. The Supreme Court liberally interpreted the Establishment clause to help manage the constant barrage of religious forces impinging on public policy. When our founding fathers wrote the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibiting “any laws respecting the establishment of religion,” they were specifically referring to making any particular denomination as the official church and thereby authorizing the use of tax dollars for the support of the church. Moreover, the Establishment clause only addressed acts of the legislature without constraining the executive branch, the judicial branch, or state/local governments. The Supreme Court later used historical context to interpret the Establishment Clause as establishing a “wall of separation between church and state.”

The separation of church and state facilitates freedom of religion, rather than suppressing it. After all, America is all about liberty. As evidence of the Establishment Clause having the purpose of enabling religious freedom, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was designed to promote religious freedom, but its content included the right not to be required to attend a particular church or pay for church with tax money, which were both aspects of an “established church.” Thus, while it does not appear that The Establishment Clause protects individual rights, it actually does: It protects against requiring attending a particular church and against being required to pay tax to support a particular church.

To discern the true intent of James Madison and his fellow constitution framers, one must look to the basic motivations of the American people: The people wanted freedom from tyranny. The colonists hated big government and big religion because either of them could infringe on their liberties. They wanted to avoid, at all costs, the control from others who do not represent their interests. Therefore, the primary goal was not avoidance of established churches, but, rather, the perpetuation of freedom of religion. By outlawing established churches, no one would be forced to financially support a church they did not accept. By outlawing established churches, they demonstrated that they did not want any church to grow powerful enough to threaten liberty.

The Treaty of Tripoli (1796)

            Thus, the question I ask about each of the following Supreme Court decisions regarding church/state separation is whether freedom of religion is promoted or suppressed, not just whether the wall of separation was maintained, since separating government and religion itself can promote freedom of religion. The Establishment Clause does not appear to mean that there should be a wall of separation between church and state.  A strict interpretation of this clause would allow prayers by principals of schools and the 10 commandments displayed by municipalities. However, the Supreme Court took the historical context into consideration, including the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by both houses of Congress. In it, the Treaty said,

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, Mussulmen (Muslims)”

Jefferson’s Letter to Danbury Baptists (1801)

            So far we have not read the words “separation of church and state” in any government document. The term originated from Roger Williams’s 1644 quote, “[A] hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.” Thomas Jefferson later wrote in an 1801 letter to Danbury Baptist Church:

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Supreme Court Decisions

Reynolds v. United States (1878)

The U.S. Supreme Court did repeatedly used Jefferson’s “wall of separation” phrase in their interpretation of the Constitution even though it was not from an official government document. Nor was “wall of separation” approved by the legislature like the Treaty of Tripoli in which Jefferson said the U.S. was not a Christian nation. The Supreme Court first used “the wall of separation” to justify a ruling in a Mormon polygamy case, Reynolds vs. United States of 1878.  The court wrote that Jefferson’s phrase, separation of church and state “may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [First] Amendment.”  In this case, a Mormon man asserted that he was innocent because his religion required him to be a polygamist. From the freedom of religion viewpoint, the Supreme Court had to rule against the Mormons, or else they would be favoring Mormonism over any other religion that claimed theocratic justification for crime. For example, if this Mormon were acquitted, then a religion advocating child human sacrifice would have to be allowed.  http://www.federalistblog.us/2010/11/_defending_jeffersons_wall_of_separation_metaphor/

 

Everson v. Board of Education (1947)

In Everson versus BoardofEducation (1947), it was declared that the government could not pay for busing children to Catholic schools. Justice HugoBlack wrote: “In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.”

The 14th Amendment made the federal law apply to the states too. Taxpayer subsidization of Catholic schools would provide an advantage to the Catholic religion, thereby inhibiting freedom of religion.

McCollum v. Board of Education (1945) and Zorach v. Clausen (1952)

In McCollum v. Board of Education (1945), the Supreme Court ruled that schools cannot hold religious instruction in taxpayer owned buildings during school hours. There is a PBS documentary called “The Lord is not on Trial here,” which chronicles Mrs. McCollum’s famous lawsuit. Her son experienced significant persecution in school for his refusal to attend the religious classes and more ridicule when his mother brought the issue to court. McCollum did not resolve the issue of religious classes in public schools. According to the Supreme Court ruling of Zorach v. Clausen (1952), students can be released, with parental permission during school hours to religious studies classes if transportation was provided by the church. Those who chose not to go to the religious studies stay on campus in the classrooms. The dissenting opinions of the judges expressed that the ruling did not adequately distinguish the McCollum case from the Zorach case. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0343_0306_ZS.html

Engel v. Vitale (1962)

In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Supreme Court ruled that school officials could not compose prayers and require their recitation in schools. The key factor here was the extent of the governmental officials’ involvement. It did not matter that the prayer did not mention Jesus or that students could excuse themselves from the prayer; what was unconstitutional was that officials were furthering their religious beliefs, which gave their denomination an advantage vs. other denominations, on taxpayer dollar. If they had invited Muslims and others into the school to pray, then the school would have had a stronger case than they did.

This ruling did not make student initiated prayer illegal. Again, the judges used “separation of church and state.” as justification. Furthermore, the court wrote, “coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it (separation of church and state) may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured.”

Abington School District vs. Schempp (1963)

In Abington School District vs. Schempp in 1963, the Supreme Court ruled it

unconstitutional for schools to hold bible readings in public schools, even if a student could excuse him/herself from the readings, since avoiding the readings could adversely affect one’s relationships with the teachers and students. In this case, Justice Clark affirmed that government should remain neutral on religion when he wrote:

“We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.’” Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.”

Thus, the Supreme Court here states that no laws can be made that gives any special advantages to religious people over non-religious. In other words, laws cannot be made that discriminate against atheists. This means that any government agency that displays a nativity scene must allow atheists to set up a display also; otherwise, the Christians are given the advantage over non-theists. This reinforces the idea of freedom of religion rather than suppress it. When government remains neutral on religion other religions are not given advantages that could suppress other belief systems.

Epperson v. Arkansas (1968)

In Epperson v. Arkansas of 1968 the Supreme Court struck down an Arkansas law that prohibited the teaching of evolution in schools. The court ruled that the sole reason Arkansas wanted to ban evolution was that it contradicted their Adam and Eve account of creation in the book of Genesis, which is a book followed by a “specific religious group.” This gives the impression that Arkansas favors a particular church.

Recently, creationists reintroduced their doctrine into schools under the guise of “Intelligent Design.” In 2005, the lower federal courts ruled in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that requiring a school to teach intelligent design in science classes was unconstitutional. The court ruled that the only explanation for intelligent design was religion. Thus, teaching intelligent design in science class violates the rights of parents to have their children free from religious proselytizing in public schools. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District

The Supreme Court Begins Viewing the Wall of Separation as “Blurred”

Lemon vs. Kurtzman (1971) and the Lemon Test

The Supreme Court expressed its first major reservation about the complete separation of government and religion in 1971’s Lemon vs. Kurtzman, in which the court ruled that Pennsylvania cannot get governmental reimbursement for salaries of teachers of secular subjects in religious schools. The court wrote,

“Our prior holdings do not call for total separation between church and state; total separation is not possible in an absolute sense. Some relationship between government and religious organizations is inevitable. Judicial caveats against entanglement must recognize that the line of separation, far from being a “wall,” is a blurred, indistinct, and variable barrier depending on all the circumstances of a particular relationship.”

This contrasts with the aforementioned 1878 and 1962 Supreme Court rulings in which the “wall of separation is “may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [First] Amendment,” in Reynolds v. United States described above. To “un-blur the barrier,” previously referred to as a distinct ‘wall,’ the justices of the Lemon case authored the Lemon test:

“Three … tests may be gleaned from our cases. First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.” http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=472&invol=38

This three point test helps protect freedom of religion in the following ways. The disagreements among Christian denominations alone resulted in decades of war. There are over 30,000 Christian denominations and none of them agree on all doctrinal points. With all this disagreement, any statute that is religious in nature would be bound to violate the religious freedom of at least one of the 30,000+ Christian denominations, let alone the non-Christian religions.

 “Second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion;” A law that advances religion may not advance all religions. For example, taxpayer subsidization of Catholic school busing advances religion, but it does not advance all religions equally.

 Finally, the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.” In the case of Lemon versus Kurtzman, the Catholic Church was getting more than its share of government benefits, thus causing an entanglement that appeared like governmental favoritism of the Catholic Church.

Marsh vs. Chambers (1983)

Not all rulings favored separation of church and state. In 1983, the Supreme Court ruled in Marsh vs. Chambers that government officials can lead Christian prayers in government meetings because it is a long held tradition, as long as they do not use the prayer time to proselytize or disparage other faiths. The justices did not explicitly use the Lemon Test to determine constitutionality and gave no reason for not doing so. With regard to the first test, it could be argued, albeit weakly, that the invocation serves a “secular purpose” of setting the tone of reverence in the legislative session.

Relating to the second Lemon Test, the majority opinion stated: “To invoke Divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not, in these circumstances, an “establishment” of religion or a step toward establishment; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.” Thus, the Court made an indirect comment on the applicability of the second Lemon Test about not “advancing religion” when it said it does not “step toward establishment.”  It does not advance religion any further than it was in 1789 when prayer was held in congress ; it keeps the status quo. Regarding the third “excessive entanglement” test, it could be argued that there was not “excessive entanglement” since there the first Congress that passed the Establishment Clause also held invocation.

Edwards vs. Aguillard (1987)

            In Edwards vs. Aguillard of 1987, the Supreme Court used the Lemon Test again to rule that teaching creationism in public schools was unconstitutional.

“1. The Act is facially invalid as violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, because it lacks a clear secular purpose. Pp. 482 U. S. 585-594.

(a) The Act does not further its stated secular purpose of ‘protecting academic freedom.’

(b) The Act impermissibly endorses religion by advancing the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind.” http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/482/578/case.html

When creationists changed the name of creationism to intelligent design the Court deemed that unconstitutional too, in Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District in 2005. The court ruled that teaching creationism under any name was promoting a particular religious view, not science. These two cases put an end to the legal controversy started by the 1925 Scopes trial, in which a teacher was tried for teaching evolution in a public school. The teacher was convicted, but released, based on a technicality.

County of Allegheny vs. ACLU (1989)

In the County of Allegheny vs. ACLU of 1989, The Supreme Court ruled that displaying a Christian nativity scene or a Jewish menorah at a government building violates the Establishment Clause because their display’s primary purpose was to advance particular religions, thus failing the second Lemon test item (“second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion;”). This case coined the term, “endorsement test,” in which government activity implies government preference of one or more religions over others.

Lee vs. Weisman (1992)

            In Lee vs. Weisman of 1992, the Court decided it unconstitutional to hold public prayers at graduations, even though graduation ceremonies are voluntary, due to the “indirect coercion” that results from setting up religious obstacles that would prevent a student from attending a prized ceremony like graduation. This case established the “coercion test,” states that religious practices such as prayer may not be carried out at graduation ceremonies if it obliges the objectors to participate, if non-participation would attract undue attention on the objector.

Santé Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000)

            In Santé Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000), the Supreme Court ruled that students cannot lead prayers at school events such as graduations and football games. Although students can form religious clubs and pray on campus, they may not use school resources to publicize their religious activity because it uses taxpayer dollars for advancing a particular religion. Such activity gives the appearance of school support for Christianity.

 

Using the Word God in Government

In 1945-1991, the United States became involved in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. The Soviets were atheist and one way the U.S. countered that atheism was to display their religiousness. In 1954 “Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and in 1956, “In God we trust” was declared to be the nation’s motto and it was added to the paper currency in 1957. Starting with the 1968 Epperson case, the Supreme Courts view seem to change from one advocating an absolute separation of church and state to one of not supporting a specific religion, thus allowing the display of the word God on our paper currency (In God we trust” has been on coins since 1864).

A medical doctor turned lawyer named Michael Newdow brought the issue of separation of church and state to court several times, but none of the cases actually made it to the Supreme Court.  In 2004, on behalf of his daughter, he sued to remove “under God” from the pledge of allegiance, but he lost the case because he lacked standing, since he was not his daughter’s legal guardian. The Supreme Court evaded the decision as to whether “Under God” advances religion or not.

In 2007, he sued again to remove “under God” from the pledge and to remove “In God we trust” from the currency, but the Ninth District Federal Court dismissed the case based on a previous lower court ruling, Aronnow vs. United States, in which it was ruled that the plaintiff had no standing as a tax payer. Even though the plaintiff had no standing, the court wrote,

“It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency ‘In God We Trust’ have nothing whatsoever to do with the establishmentofreligion. Its use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise.” This court also avoided a decision based on standing and did not put it to the Lemon Test. Thus, it appears that God can be mixed with government, but not in school and not with a specific religion, like Christianity, to the exclusion of other religions.

The United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Establishment Clause has thus evolved from a strict interpretation of Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” as “an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [First] Amendment,” to a position today that more accepting of a ceremonial religious tradition in government, but intolerant of Christianity being taught in our schools and governmental endorsement of specific religions such as Christianity.  The American experiment in secularism has been the product of the tension between freedom of speech and freedom of religion. As the dominant religion of our nation, Christians have striven, without much resistance, to speak freely and they have the right to do so, but the question has always been about the degree to which they can use government to facilitate communication of their message. Secularists support theists’ freedom of speech and religion, but they do not support government helping them advance their religion to the detriment of others. That is what the Establishment Clause was designed to prevent. Both of these forces have one thing in common and that is the desire for liberty. As long as our common belief in the freedom to believe and think is preserved, then we can move toward a mutually acceptable solution and the spirit of America will prosper.

Bibliography

The Brief  American Pageant, Volume 1, Kennedy

United States History, Independence to 1914, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (2006)

The Making of the West Voume 1 (2009), Lynn Hunt