Civilization, writing and the birth of Religions

In the first chapters, the picture of how humans have started inhabiting the earth was really broad because there was not a structure to follow or many groups to capture and compare many differences. We saw how little by little humans started building weapons and gathering food to provide for their groups. On the other hand, after the Agricultural Revolution, a big shift in history happened and it changed the course of humankind. In class, we acted out parts of the Epic of Gilgamesh which at first I did not understand. I got the idea behind the words after we dissected it and we talk about how men had evolved and how being civilized played a very important role in society. As a class, we only saw some of the criteria that men has to put up with in order to become civilized, but in part II of our textbook, Ways of the World by Robert Strayer, where this whole civilization description has been explained and its origins have been discovered. It is important for me to mention that even though we are reading the facts of world history from the same source, these last chapters we have read, have more and more credible evidence because there exists more than just drawings, after civilization became so important, men discovered an excellent way of communicating thoughts and experiences, men learned how to write.

In fact, I did a little research and I found where the first writings have been found.

Later on chapter five, Strayer describes the different cultural traditions civilizations started to follow and how after believing in many gods, humankind started “moving forward Monotheism” (p138). The religion played an important part mainly in the Middle East, where during the Persian Empire gave chance to the division of more religions or sects if we can call it. On the other hands, civilizations such as in Greece, did not follow just religion, their citizens started “the Search for a Rational Order” (p141), which made possible the “emphasis on argument, logic, and the relentless questioning of received WISDOM”. (p141). This type of thought did not last for too long though, the Roman empire picked religion to be the center or the “glue to hold together a very diverse population in a weakening imperial state” (p148). To me it is really interesting how when in the beginnings men were so simple and lived day by day the feeling of manipulation grew so much that people was moved politically and economically according to their religious beliefs.