Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 January 24

= January 24 =

Is the flag of Saudi Arabia still forbidden to fly half-mast?


http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/saudi-arabia-succession/saudi-arabias-king-abdullah-given-simple-muslim-burial-n291956

Either this NBC report is flawed, or this law has changed by government decree!

&#39;&#39;&#39;tAD&#39;&#39;&#39; (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * See Flag of Saudi Arabia, which confirms your suspicions. The text of the report is definitely missing a word before "kingdoms" - I suspect it may be "other". Tevildo (talk) 18:08, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That seems the most legitimate answer - that other countries will be dipped like in the picture - but why say "kingdoms"? That seems to imply the flags of the US, China et al will not be half mast. Should I just settle that this is a crap source? I used it to write about Abdullah's funeral on the article on him, please remove the reference to flags flying half mast if this can not be relied upon &#39;&#39;&#39;tAD&#39;&#39;&#39; (talk) 18:56, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The Saudis sometimes use the Emblem of Saudi Arabia in situations where using the flag (with its Islamic creed quotation) would be considered quasi-sacrilegious, though this probably doesn't have anything to do with flying at half-staff... AnonMoos (talk) 18:31, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia is, indeed, multiple kingdoms within a kingdom -- see Hejaz and Nejd. Collect (talk) 18:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Evolutionary history/Origin of Mythologies
Hello, any articles available providing entitled information(s)? -- (Russell.mo (talk) 18:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC))
 * Pick any religious tradition you can think of. Read the Wikipedia articles about that religious tradition.  The articles in that topic area will always indicate the historical origins and historical evolution/development of that religious tradition.  -- Jayron 32 00:10, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I was thinking that someone might mix it with religious education… I understand. Thanks . -- (Russell.mo (talk) 13:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC))

Cultures / ethnicities which have never developed religion
No doubt it is difficult (if not impossible) to separate prehistoric religions from ideology from philosophy from law, possibly even from early science and art. It may be even more difficult as many (all?) prehistoric cultures have either become extinct or have evolved into more complex systems. Not to mention the lack of written documentation.

Nevertheless, my question is:

Do we know of cultures / ethnicities which have never developed religion? Maybe, religion here may be defined fuzzily as a belief in supernatural entities who are controlling or guiding the universe / the planet / flora and fauna / every single human being. And yes, I am perfectly aware that it it may be questionable - lacking a hard definition of religion - to state unambigously: X (eg Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime) is a religion and not a prescientific theory of cosmology, abiogenesis and societal rules.

Google, as yet, gets me nowhere. If possible a reference (en / de, understandable to a non-anthropologist - would be appreciated). Thank you for your help! --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * As phrased, it might be possible that some cultures/ethnicities have inherited religion which they did not themselves "develop." Regarding the broader question, whether there were any early groups which did not have what would be called today broadly religious characteristics, I can't myself think of any, partially because so far as I can tell some sort of belief system we might today call broadly "religious" seems to have existed from early on, and thus been inherited by most subsequent culture. John Carter (talk) 22:11, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I assume you are speculating that some proto-religion existed which may have migrated “out of Africa”. And yes, I found some interesting WP articles, eg Prehistoric religion, Anthropology of religion and a few more. Thank you, I will study those references. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:35, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The Encyclopedia of Religions ed. Eliade/Jones has rather a long lengthy series of articles dealing with the broad topic of prehistoric religions, I think bigger than our own actually. The overview article can be found here. John Carter (talk) 22:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * It depends on how you define religion. But animism is universal, and still exhibited by people kicking inanimate objects.  Science took a very long time to develop and is a high intellectual achievement that needs to be taught and is not natural to us, hence all our psychological biases.  Even Aristotle explained gravity as the desire of rocks and inanimate objects to occupy the center of the universe, which was the core of the earth.  Male chimps pound their chests and shake the trees when it rains, apparently believing in a sky god.  Elephants show reverence for the remains of their dead.


 * It's not surprising that primitive societies had ancestor worship and tabus. Shamanism and cultism is universal to pre-Columbian American natives.  The Austronesians have their gods and tabus.  The Australian Aborigines have their Dreamtime.  Everything from shamanism to developed mythologies is typical of the Siberians.  The Indo-European gods are well known.  Shamanism, ancestor worship and tabu are present in Africa, see, for example, mingi.  The only population I can think of that I don't know does have a religion or mythology is the Khoisan, and that is only due to my ignorance.  As mentioned above, Eliade is a good source. μηδείς (talk) 03:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * We have a not-very-good article San religion, to which both Khoisan religion and Khoikhoi mythology redirect. Deor (talk)


 * China is notable for having developed the idea of impersonal universal forces fairly early: Heaven in Confucianism, and yin and yang (and many other concepts) in Taoism. Xunzi even defined Heaven as simply "Nature," echoing Spinoza. But in fact this terminology was part of their development as a civilization. The early Shang dynasty Chinese thought of Heaven as a personal tutelary god called Tian. So, it would seem that the existence of "religion" according to the definition you gave came before the creation of the traditional beliefs of China, and that these traditional beliefs actually downplayed what you consider "religion". Shii (tock) 09:49, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Atheism really requires science. Without either, there's simply no explanation given for many natural phenomena, like the apparent rotation of the Sun around the Earth.  On Earth, objects require a force to be continuously applied to keep moving, and they would have expected the same of the Sun, not understanding the frictionless nature of space (nor that the Earth was the object rotating around the Sun).  StuRat (talk) 15:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's what I was alluding to with animism. We don't move (in most cases) unless it's voluntary, so we attribute volition to other things that move.  Sophisticated philosophical/theological religions seem to require writing be present in the culture, even if, say, Jesus and Mohammed themselves never wrote down their own words.  Thanks,, for the link. There are also totem gods.  Kamuy, means "bear" and "god" in the Ainu language.


 * Interestingly gom is Korean for bear, and kami is a Japanese word for divine beings. Japanese and Korean are somewhat distantly related in many accounts, but Ainu is not, so if not coincidence (unlikely) there's some sort of contact phenomenon. μηδείς (talk) 18:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, everybody, for your comments. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 11:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * See Do dolphins grieve? as well: "supportive behavior toward dead offspring has also been observed in toothed whales, sea otters, harbor seals, monkeys, apes, and elephants. What these species have in common is they are all mammals",


 * The HeLa culture has achieved immortality without thinking about anything. Depending how you look at it, that might make her a Buddhist. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)