Wordldview of the Mayan, Aztec and Inca civilizations

No one doubts today that humans crossed on foot the now submerged strait connecting Siberia and the present-day Alaska. For geneticists, this took place 20,000 years ago, and for archaeologists, this occurred 16,000 years ago. Proof of this is the fact that the indigenous peoples of the American continent belong to the Mongolian ethnic group, that is, they have Asian features.

The human being was still in the Upper Paleolithic period 16000 years ago, that is, in the Stone Age, or more precisely in the Mesolithic or Neolithic period, and has yet to discover metals. Upon arriving to new places, there were always some humans who settled there and others who continued their journey, in search of better living conditions. So gradually they moved southward because ice prevailed in the north.

The Asians who settled in the northern part of the American continent never created a civilization; they always lived in prehistory and have never known a culture, because life was a struggle for survival. They hunted, fished, struggled to stay warm and little else, they could not cultivate the land, especially not cereals.

As we said in another text, where there was no cereal, there was no civilization, because it is cereals that provide surpluses that can be easily stored for a long time, leading human beings to emancipate themselves from nature. Without agriculture there is no culture, and the king of crops is the cereal, because it is the most complete of all foods, gives more lasting energy, and can be stored from one year to the next.

The only ancient civilizations that emerged on the American continent are those in Central America, where the mild climate, similar to that of the Fertile Crescent, allowed for the practice of agriculture, especially corn, which is the basis of the Mayan, Aztec and Inca civilizations that were born there.

Civilizations Before the Mayans
 If we consider that history begins with the appearance of writing, the Mayan civilization is the first in the American continent. However, if we consider other elements beyond writing that denote culture, such as agricultural development, the construction of stone monuments, then we have to ask ourselves whether it is appropriate to place writing as the divider between Prehistory and History.  

The Caral Civilization
Also known as Caral-Supe or Norte Chico, it is considered to be the oldest civilization in the Americas. It flourished between the years 3000 – 2500 B.C. in the north-central region of the coast of Peru. It dates from the pre-ceramic Neolithic period.

The total absence of pottery and the presence of large structures, such as temples and pyramids, first denotes that it was a very religious society with a high degree of technology and social organization to solve the problems of construction and the high costs of materials and energy. This is what we can deduce, since they did not develop any writing, so we are not even told why they built such complex monuments.

The Olmec Civilization
The Olmec civilization flourished on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico between 1200-400 B.C. It built the first stone pyramids on the North American continent, as well as the famous "baby-faced" heads monuments. The Olmecs were ruled by kings, built huge pyramids, domesticated beans, and developed the oldest writing in the Americas. The Olmec people also domesticated the cocoa tree and gave chocolate to the world.

Archaeologists and linguists have recently deciphered the ancient writing of the Olmecs which they have designated as Epi-Olmec. This writing is closely related to the ancient Mayan writing that was also recently deciphered that may well have originated from the hieroglyphics of the Olmecs. Here is a short text in this language:

Once upon a time there was a warrior named Lord of the Harvest Mountain. He lived in a hot and humid land by the bend of a river that flowed into another river which flowed into the sea. He fought many battles and endured many blood rituals, because this warrior was the ruler of the people by the bend of the river.

MAYAN CIVILIZATION (2500 B.C. – 1500 A.D.)
The main centers where this civilization flourished are Guatemala, southern Mexico with some traces in El Salvador, Belize, and Honduras.

Religion
Everything that exists, whether stone, vegetable, animal, or human, has a common origin, which is spiritual, transcendent or essential (Uk'u'x). This invisible common origin is our true Forming Mother, pure Intelligence and Nature, and our true Creator Father, pure Consciousness and Will. That is why the Mayans say that "everything has a father and a mother”. In this lies the sacredness of the essence of the totality of things and creatures in the universe.

We observe still some remnants of animism, because for the Mayans everything has life: the valleys and the mountains, the lakes, and the seas, what is in the sky and what is on earth. Recognizing the sacredness of life in us makes the sacredness in others simple and vivid. With this common origin and in this life that completes us, this principle of the Mayan worldview is based on: everything is sacred, loq' in Mayan k'iche language has the meaning of "sacred", an expression that holds a close relationship with love, because the root of "loq'oq'ej" is literally to love.

When one discovers the common origin of existence and life, the link between all things and beings becomes clear, which translates into the experience of "feeling the sacred" as pure love and devotion, respect and gratitude.

They were polytheistic, considering that the gods inhabited a place called Tamoanchan. The events of the natural world were governed by spiritual forces and the power of the ancestors. In addition, places in nature were thought to be sacred sites. Caves, for example, were seen as doorways to the supernatural world and were places where a series of rituals took place. The Mayans believed that the fate of mankind was ruled by the gods, so religion was present in all the cultural activities of the people.

Human sacrifices were important to keep the gods satisfied and thus ensure the functioning and harmony of the universe. The sacrificed were almost always prisoners of war, but there were also those who offered themselves voluntarily. The most common form of sacrificial ritual was decapitation and removal of the heart while it was still beating.

Society, Culture and Politics
The Maya had a hierarchical society, that is, divided into very well-defined social groups, each with distinct functions. The largest group in society was the peasants, those responsible for agriculture and the city’s supply. They grew corn, cereal considered sacred, cotton, cocoa, and agave. The mode of production was collective, the land was not private property, and theoretically, the state owned all the land. As we saw in other ancient societies.

The elite were responsible for the administration of the city-states and for religious functions. The ultimate authority and the top of the Maya social pyramid was the king of each city, called the ajaw. Here too, the authority and power were exercised in the name of a god.

The Mayans saw the world as functioning cyclically, that is, in cycles of phases that would repeat themselves indefinitely. Within this view, they had a dual calendar system in which one consisted of 365 days (called Haab) and the other of 260 days (called Tzolkin).

They developed their own writing system, almost indecipherable to this day, based on the representation of objects and ideas. It is known to have had a high degree of abstraction. They never developed an alphabet, and settled for pictorial representation of reality, as happened with the ancient hieroglyphics of Egypt and China.

Like the Sumerians, the Mayans never formed a proper empire; they were independent city-states, with a common culture, but the power was not centralized on one emperor, as was the case in Egypt and China. This made them easily conquered by the Aztecs from the north, who came to form an empire because they understood that the prevailing power should be centralized.

Decline of the Maya
When the Europeans arrived in Central America, they found the Mayan cities uninhabited in the middle of over-grown forests, proof that the Mayans had abandoned them some time ago. Some people think that it was wars between city-states that decimated the population, others that it was diseases, and still others an ecological disaster.

According to this last theory, what kept this culture and society going was the massive construction of temples and pyramids that required a lot of lime. When lime began to run out because there was no more firewood to turn limestone into lime, the hierarchy of Mayan society began to crumble, so the people abandoned urban life and in order to subsist, returned to their fields.

INCA CIVILIZATION (1200 A.D. – 1532 A.D.)
Most likely they were heirs to the Caral civilization, because they shared the same territory: Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, southern Colombia, all of Chile and Northern Argentina.

Political Organization
The highest authority was the king or Inca, considered the son of the Sun, who ruled by divine right. The highest positions in the administration of the Empire were occupied by the relatives of the Inca. They formed a nobility that took care of the complex organization of the state. A powerful army, led by generals from the royal family, was responsible for the expansion, conquest, and control of the conquered territories.

Under the rule of the nobility was the rest of the population – farmers and craftsmen. The peasants were organized into communities of related people called ayllus, headed by a curaca. The curaca distributed the work and produce, and responded to the authorities for his ayllu.

Each social group had its specific obligations. The hierarchies established the activities to be performed by each group, and even the clothing they could wear, as well as the produce they could consume. Some materials, such as gold, silver, and certain textiles, were reserved for the Inca and could only be used by him and some of his immediate family members. This reminds us of the Middle Ages in Europe.

The Inca economy was based on agricultural production. The land belonged to the state, which divided it up: one third of the production was dedicated for the Inca, another third for the priests, and the last third for the ayllus or communities.

The Incas formed a truly cohesive and centralized empire; they had a network of roads that allowed rapid communication between all regions. Messengers, called chasquis, carried communications between different points. These roads had posts, called tambos, where travelers could find room and board. This reminds us of the Satraps of the Persian Empire.

Although they did not have alphabetic writing, they had several methods of recording and communicating visual information. Among them was the quipus, a series of strings of different colors with knots, which allowed them to keep accounts and memories of some narratives.

Religion
Like the Mayans, the Incas understood that the nature around them was sacred. They considered many elements of nature, people, objects, etc. to be sacred, which were called huaca. They respected the beliefs of the peoples they conquered, but imposed the worship of the Sun, their principal deity. They also worshipped the Pachamama (Mother Earth), Viracocha, the creator of the world, and Illapa, the god of the thunder and storm.

The Inca empire was conquered by the Spanish under Francisco Pizarro in 1532, when Emperor Atahualpa was taken prisoner. Although some pockets of resistance remained until 1572, they never posed a threat to the new colonial order.

AZTEC CIVILIZATION (1345 A.D. – 1521 A.D.)
A fierce, intelligent, and enterprising people from northern Mexico, where they were hunters and gatherers, emigrated south, settling around Lake Texcoco, where today’s Mexico City is located. They soon drained the lake and founded their first city, Tenochtitlán, establishing alliances with neighboring towns. Little by little, they took over everything and everyone around them, due to their proficiency in the arts of war.

Political Organization
Their form of government was monarchical and elective, that is, it was not hereditary: the emperor did not pass down the power to his son; his successor was elected through a Supreme Council, called Tlatocan, whose representatives belonged to the Aztec nobility, and it was generally a member of this council who ascended to the throne.

Once elected, the emperor (Tlatoani) was considered divine and therefore possessed unlimited powers over Aztec society. Under his command, there was an entire bureaucratic network, consisting of priests, tax collectors (tecutli), and trade inspectors.

The Aztecs formed a totalitarian empire that consisted of city-states with local rulers elected by the same high council responsible for electing the emperor. Their responsibility was to maintain control of these small cities to successfully ensure the absolute dominance of the empire.

Religion
"Love is paid with love" is said in Aztec as "blood is paid with blood". The Aztec gods required a lot of blood from animal and human sacrifices to be appeased. Blood was the primordial food of the gods who, if not fed regularly, would make life very difficult for the Aztecs.

Most of the gods that formed the Aztec pantheon were related to the solar cycle and, in turn, to all the agricultural activities that depended on it. Among the most important gods, we must first highlight Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, and Tlaloc, the goddess of rain. Countless of children were sacrificed to the latter every year on mountain tops. The more these children cried, the more rain would fall that year. Other gods were Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, and Coatlicue, the mother goddess.

Culture, Customs, and Habits
Education was compulsory, Aztec children went to schools to study, and military education was part of the curriculum. The Aztec people were a warlike people, much like the Spartans of Greece: children were trained for war from an early age.

The Aztec society was patriarchal, and therefore, women stayed at home and took care of household matters, while men dedicated themselves to agricultural work, trade, social relations and war. The Aztecs were closely connected to the spiritual and religious world, so their customs included practices of many rituals and prayers.

Each house had a reserved place, considered a small sanctuary, where family members would recollect themselves in prayer. Among other practices of spiritual asceticism, the practice of fasting was very important in the life of the Aztecs. It was practiced by the vast majority of the population, including by the emperor himself.

Conquest of the Empire by Hernan Cortez
Montezuma was the eleventh and last emperor before the Spaniard Hernan Cortez arrived and conquered the Aztec Empire which was at its height. It did not happen overnight, because the Aztecs were feisty, well organized, and possessed, of course, numerical advantage. Then as it is today, the superiority of arms is more important than numerical superiority, and as the result, Cortez had a relatively easy victory.

This conquest happened despite the many advances of these Mayan, Inca, and Aztec societies, especially the Mayans who had a very advanced knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, and architecture, and who developed a writing that only began to be deciphered at the end of the 19th century.

The wealthy priests devised a vigesimal numbering system that employed zero, and their notions of astronomy enabled them to devise a 365-day calendar and observe the sky from stepped pyramids.

Despite these advances, these three peoples had not yet reached the Iron Age, while the Spanish, in addition to iron weapons, had cannons, muskets and horses giving them a great advantage and speed. The conquest was sadly easy.

Colonization and Colonization
There is an inscription at the foot of a monument in the center of Mexico City that reads like this: In the conquest there were neither winners or losers, it was only the painful birth of the mestizo nation that is today Mexico. In fact, more than 80% of Mexico's population is mixed race, that is, the result of the union or interbreeding between Spaniards, Aztecs, Mayans, and other indigenous peoples.

The same did not happen in the colonization of North America, made also by people who were also Europeans, but of a different nature. Here there were few mestizos because the indigenous people were not only defeated but also decimated in a campaign of authentic ethnic cleansing that lasts to this day. The few that escaped live today paternalistically in reservations, where there is no shortage of drugs and alcohol to continue the annihilation this time a suicidal annihilation with the complicity of the government.

Conclusion: We learn two things from the vision of the world of the Mayan, Inca, and Aztec peoples: first, that all of nature is integrated, ordered, and interrelated; second, that all the elements that exist in nature, that is, everything in the universe is animate and has life; each is a complement and completes the others.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Worldview of the Yelow River

Also called the "River of Sorrow", the Yellow River (Huang He) is one of the most dangerous rivers in the world. Since memory, it has changed its course 26 times, produced more than 1,500 floods, and killed millions of people. It is called Yellow because its waters are always muddy; even today, when the Chinese people want to say never, they say, "When the waters of the Yellow River run crystal clear", something that will never happen.

The Yellow River rises in the Tibetan plateau and runs through northern China from west to east, flowing into the China Sea in the Pacific Ocean. The potential for destruction of this river is due to the unpredictability of its floods, unlike the Indus, Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile rivers whose floods were periodically expected and where the other civilizations we studied developed.

Despite the destruction it caused, this river basin was the cradle of the Chinese civilization, the fourth civilization after Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus Valley. From archeology, we know that Homo sapiens inhabited this area since 6000 B.C., in the Neolithic period, but only began to form a civilization after the creation of writing, as early as in the Bronze Age (1600 B.C.–1046 B.C.).

The first Chinese people settled on the fertile lands of the Yellow River, composed of a sediment brought and deposited by the waters over millennia from the highlands of central China and by the winds coming from the deserts to the west. On this irrigated land, the Chinese cultivated millet, and native vegetables and fruits, especially along the upper and middle reaches of the river.

In the lower section of the Yellow River, they grew rice. During the third millennium B.C., the surplus production favored the establishment of permanent villages, and by the middle of that millennium, there was almost a continuous succession of settlements and towns along the river, shaping the beginning of a civilization.

Genesis of Civilization
The classical theory is that the Chinese civilization of the Yellow River appeared as if by spontaneous generation once the ideal circumstances were created, in the same way that the Sumerian civilization of the Tigris and Euphrates, the Egyptian of the Nile and the Indian of the Indus Valley appeared.

Although this is a generally accepted perspective, Chinese as well as European and American archaeologists argue, no matter how up-to-date the studies done, that the Yellow River civilization was imported from both Mesopotamia and Egypt.

It was to be expected that China would defend itself ideologically by stating that this is not true, in the same way that certain archaeologists perhaps also ideologically counter with evidence that there were many influences from the Fertile Crescent. The best way to find out the truth would be to discover the true age of the Silk Road, the famous trade route that connected Europe with Asia.

Far from these controversies, with or without influences, the Yellow River civilization that gave rise to the Chinese culture grew in total or partial isolation from other civilizations, and the proof is not only in the type of writing, but also in other later discoveries that are authentically and genuinely Chinese.

Legend of the Creation of the World
Every culture has a creation myth to explain its origin. In China, it is the legend of Pan Gu that, among many others, tells the following story: in the beginning, the cosmos was a gas that solidified into a colossal rock. From this cosmic egg, a creature called Pan Gu was born, who lived 18,000 years, growing 3 meters a day, and who occupied his time chipping at the stone until it split into two parts: one became the heaven (yang) and the other became the earth (yin).

When Pan Gu completed his work and died, his head turned into mountains; his breath turned into wind and clouds; his voice, into thunder; his left eye, into the sun, and his right eye, into the moon. His muscles and veins became the matrix of the earth, and his flesh became the soil. His hair and beard became constellations, and his skin and body hair turned into plants and trees. His teeth and bones became metals, and his marrow became pearls and precious stones. His body formed the rain, and the lice on it were impregnated by the ether and became human beings (Wong and Wu, 1936).

The ancient Chinese people believed that everything in the world had two seemingly opposing forces that existed in relation to each other. They called these forces Yin and Yang. The quality of our lives and the overall well-being of our world depend on opposing tendencies being in balance with each other. We could draw a parallel between the Yin/Yang of Chinese civilization with the Freudian Eros/Thanatos Life and Death instincts, aggression, and affection.

The "masculine" forces were defined as Yang, symbolized by the sun, and the "feminine" forces were considered as Yin and symbolized by the moon. To keep the heaven running smoothly, the King in ancient China had the job of maintaining the balance between the sun and the moon; on his health also depended the health of the people.

Heaven and Earth are a reflection of each other
What happens on Earth happens in heaven and vice versa: this is the typical idea of the worldview of all ancient peoples, and also of Greco-Roman culture. The Chinese kings and their astronomers measured, tracked, and predicted the behavior of celestial bodies because they believed that what was happening in the heavens was intimately connected with what was happening on Earth.

Like all Yin-Yang opposites, Heaven (masculine) and Earth (feminine) reflected each other. If there was a disturbance in Heaven, the cause was probably on Earth. Similarly, if any of the heavenly bodies got displaced, the resulting imbalance of forces would cause problems on Earth.

Chinese thought and medicine
Chinese thought is based on the principle of knowing nature as a way to reach a state of harmony. The concept of harmony is inherent in several ancient cultures, and carries within it the idea of balance between the different aspects of the cosmos. Within this holistic view, man is seen as an integral and inseparable part of this whole and, moreover, as a microcosm that contains within himself processes similar to those that occur in nature.

Quoted in the Book of Changes, in approximately 700 B.C., the Yin-Yang theory is the basis of Chinese medicine. Qi energy is considered vital, the main energy that gives rise to heaven, earth, and Yin-Yang, that is, energy duality. Yin is the energy that is related to insufficiency while Yang relates to excesses.

It is believed that diseases are the result of the imbalance between Yin and Yang. Thus, those characterized as Yin are calm, weak, cold, damp, hypo-functioning, and chronic. Those with Yang characteristics, on the other hand, are agitated, strong, hot, dry, hyper-functioning, and acute. After determining whether the person is Yin or Yang, it is possible to choose the components that will work best in the therapy that will have as its main objective to adjust the circulation of Qi through the body.

Although opposites, Yin and Yang are interdependent, and cannot exist in isolation from each other, and are in a state of constant change, so that when one is consumed, the other increases. Consumption of Yin leads to a gain of Yang and consumption of Yang leads to a gain of Yin.

Yin and Yang can transform into each other. This transformation occurs when the appropriate conditions come together. For example, at the end of the day the night begins, and in the same way, one season follows another in the cycle of seasons. At the limit of the Yin phase of a cycle, the Yang phase begins.

At this point, it is clear how knowledge becomes a tool for prevention, and also how Chinese medicine is, above all, a preventive medicine by helping us to conform not only to our own rhythm, but also to the rhythm of our surroundings. The perception of the specific patterns of each situation makes it possible to identify both the origin and the likely development of a pathology.

Chinese Patriarchal Society
The male Yang principle was assigned qualities often interpreted as superior, while to the female Yin principle were attributed qualities considered as inferior. It is easy to see how this ancient Chinese worldview led to a patriarchal society, based on this ancient justification of women’s low status in society.

The preference for boys was reflected in the family, which was a revered institution in the ancient Chinese society. This preference in modern times of one-child policy has led to the massacre of billions of girls, to the point that today there is an unnaturally high ratio of men to women in China.

Family ties were sacred and hierarchical. In an agrarian society, it was the children’s work that would give parents security in old age. Since the family property passed to the eldest son, it was the boys who ensured family continuity over generations.

Daughters, on the other hand, were regarded merely as extra mouths to feed that would end up in other families, usually at the cost of a precious dowry. Girls were treated as property, bought, and sold between families, or even brokered through matchmakers. If a wife could not produce a son, she was often replaced or demoted by her husband, who married other women until the family had an heir.

There is nothing new here, what we see in Chinese society we also see in every culture and civilization on the planet, where women are second-class citizens to be exploited and submitted and whose only function is reproductive and housekeeping.

Culture – Language – Religion
The family had a prominent place in ancient Chinese society. The father controlled the household and made the important decisions. Respect for the elders was highly valued, and children were expected to honor their parents. The Chinese also believed in the worship of their ancestors: keeping the spirit of these dead family members happy was crucial to obtaining good luck and avoiding disasters.

Religion was polytheistic. The priests here also assumed the role of intermediaries: they spoke to these gods through the use of oracle bones; they wrote questions to the gods on oracle bones that were then burned. The fire would cause cracks in the bones that were then interpreted by the priests as answers from the gods to their questions.

The writing used was like that of the Sumerians and Egyptians: the Chinese used pictograms, or simplified drawings of objects or concepts.

Chinese Dynasties
In all civilizations on this planet, power is always delegated either by the people to their leaders for a period of time until new elections or by God. Chinese civilization was no exception in this regard. What is particular about the Chinese civilization is that the dynasties were not eternal like the Davidic dynasty of Israel and so many others in Europe and the rest of the world.

Ancient China was ruled by a line of rulers from a single family that is called a dynasty. However, if the people and the gods were not satisfied with the ruling dynasty, it would pass to another noble family, thus creating a new dynasty.

This process is called the dynastic cycle, and this explained the rise, decline and replacement of many dynasties throughout the history of ancient China. If a king had done something wrong, he could lose his mandate from Heaven, which meant losing the right to rule. This is because the people believed that all dynasties were given the right to rule through the approval of the gods.

According to the traditional legend of the birth of Chinese civilization, a huge flood that lasted for months would have covered the Yellow River region. But a man named Yu, also known as Yu the Great, developed a drainage system that managed to restore riverbank areas. It was after this episode that Yu received a "divine call" to establish the Xia Dynasty.

Chronology of Chinese Dynasties
Xia Dynasty (2100 - 1600 B.C) – Shrouded in the legend described above, some think it did not exist.
Shang Dynasty (1600 - 1046 B.C.) – The earliest form of writing is thought to be from this generation.
Zhou Dynasty (1046 - 256 B.C.) – The longest of all Chinese dynasties; it is commonly known as the apex of ancient Chinese civilization; Confucian philosophy, for example, would have been developed during this period, influencing China to this day.
Qin Dynasty (221 - 207 B.C.) – The two “ex libris” of the  Chinese culture, the Great Wall and the recently discovered terracotta army, are from this period.
Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.) – The establishment of the Silk Road is thought to be from this time, but it is very likely that the origin of this route is prehistoric. That is, the path that Homo sapiens took from the Fertile Crescent to the confines of Asia and China. Taoism and the arrival of Buddhism in China would also be from this dynasty.
Period of the Six Dynasties (220 - 589 A.D.) – Expansion of Buddhism.
Sui Dynasty (581 - 618 A.D.) – Short-lived.
Tang Dynasty (618 - 906 A.D.) – Among the inventions that emerged during the Tang dynasty would be the world's first mechanical clock, the compass and book printing press.
Period of the Five Dynasties (907 - 960 A.D.) – Decline and political and social unrest.
Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 A.D.)  – New reunification of China.
Yuan Dynasty (1279 - 1368 A.D.) – Opening to the West; Marco Polo’s voyages are from this time. Invention of gunpowder and porcelain.
Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644 A.D.) – It was during this period that the imperial palace, the Forbidden City, was built in Beijing.
Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1912 A.D.) – With the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the People's Republic of China was officially founded.

Conclusion – The mighty Yellow River, born from the highest mountain range on the planet, was the origin of a markedly different worldview from the West that influenced the life and way of thinking of the rest of North Asia, especially Korea and Japan.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Worldview of the Indus Valley

The chronology and succession of civilizations obey many factors; among them, and perhaps the most important, is the geographical factor. All the great civilizations were born on the banks of great rivers; they all depended on agriculture, because without agriculture surplus, there would be no time or disposition to dedicate to other activities, that is, without agriculture there would be no culture.

Linked to the geographical factor is the climate. All great civilizations were born in temperate or subtropical climates. On one hand, excessive cold does not allow for agriculture, and on the other hand, fighting the cold leaves no time or inclination to create culture.

As for the chronology with which these succeeded each other, it is clear that the first ones appeared near Africa, on the bridge between Africa, Asia and Europe. Humans who settled in the Tigris and Euphrates basins created culture before those who went on to colonize Asia and Europe.

 For this reason, the last cultures are those of Central America, because it took many years before humans colonized all of Asia and then make the crossing of the Bering Strait to descend the American continent to Central America where they found a climate similar to that of the Fertile Crescent, where they could develop a culture based on the agriculture of maize. The Indians of cold North America never constituted a civilization that could match that of the Mayans and the Aztecs, so they remained primitive until the European settlers came along.

Origin and Discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization
They were probably nomads from the Fertile Crescent who have moved further east in search of living conditions similar to those of the Nile, Tiger and Euphrates and found the Indus Valley, in the area that now belongs to Pakistan, near the city of Karachi. The Indus River is the longest river in Pakistan; it originates in the Himalayas and travels 3,000 km to the Arabian Sea.

Developed some time after the Sumerian and the Egyptian civilizations, the Harappan civilization is practically contemporary with these two, between the years 3300 B.C. and 1900 B.C. Not much is known about this civilization yet, and some say it predates the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian ones. However, I think it makes no sense that humans coming from Africa built a civilization far from this continent, before building one closer, when the conditions were the same in terms of rivers and fertile lands.

The main cities or archaeological sites of this civilization are Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and Lothal. While Sumer was discovered in 1825, the archaeological sites of the Indus Valley civilization were discovered only very recently – Harappa in 1921 and Mohenjo-Daro in 1922.

Urban Planning
Before the excavation of these cities, it was thought that Indian civilization began in the Ganges River Basin, when Aryan immigrants from Persia and Central Asia settled in the region around 1250 B.C. The discovery of the Indus Valley civilization refuted this theory, giving the Indian culture a much earlier beginning.

At its peak, the Indus Valley civilization may have had a population of more than five million. The Indus cities are distinguished by their elaborate urban planning, which suggests the existence of a technical, political, and administrative process related to the rational use of land for agriculture and the design of the urban environment. The Harappans were among the first to develop a system of standardized weights and measures.

The houses were made of baked bricks, and all of the same size, which leads us to conclude that this was an egalitarian society without much social stratification. The cities had a sophisticated and elaborate drainage system, sewage, and water supply.

Each house had a water well, while wastewater was directed into covered canals in the main streets. Even the smallest houses on the outskirts of the city were connected to the system, thus supporting the idea that hygiene and sanitation were a matter of great importance to them.

They also had pools of water reserved for public baths that even then were used more for spiritual purification ritual than for bodily hygiene, something very characteristic of Indian society even today. In the image that illustrates this text we can see in the foreground one of these public baths in the city of Mohenjo-Daro.

Religion, Language, and Culture
Little is known about the Harappan religion and language. A collection of texts written on clay and stone tablets unearthed at Harappa, with a carbon dating of 3300-3200 B.C., contain vegetable and trident-shaped markings that appear to be written from right to left.

There is considerable debate as to whether it is a codified language or whether it is related to the Indo-European and South Indian families. The Indus Valley writing remains indecipherable, with no comparable symbols in existence, and is believed to have evolved independently of the writing in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Researchers are using technological and computer advances to try to decipher it.

The Harappan religion also remains a subject of speculation. It has been widely suggested that Harappans worshipped a mother goddess who symbolized fertility. An idea that agrees with the early conception of the divine in prehistoric societies. In contrast to Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, the Indus Valley civilization does not seem to have had temples or palaces that clearly prove the existence of specific religious rites or deities.

Many of the symbols of Harappan writing appear on stamps and seals. A stamp has been found in which a man appears in a yoga position in meditation. He is surrounded by a buffalo, a rhinoceros, an elephant, and a tiger, with two deer at his feet. He is sitting under a Pipa tree and was called Pashupati. It is perhaps a representation of who would later be known in Hinduism as the god Shiva.

System of Government
Written records have given historians great insight into the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt; in contrast, very few written materials have been discovered in the Indus Valley. There are those who ponder that the system of government was centralized like that of Egypt by the standard measurements of bricks and other measures of weight and distance; just as there are those who understand that they were city-states like those of ancient Sumer.

We do not have enough data to lean towards one theory or the other, both are ancient forms of government, one more democratic, like the Sumerian society and even the Mayan society of Central America, and the other more dictatorial, like those of Egypt and the Aztecs in Central America.

Peaceful Society
It is widely believed that the Harappan civilization was peaceful and did not engage in any warfare, but there is no conclusive evidence to confirm this belief, and some archaeologists consider it a widespread myth. Some scholars argue that the Harappans were peaceful mainly because they had no natural enemies due to the geographical location of their large cities. Weapons have been found at archaeological sites, but it is debated whether they were used in conflict with other groups or as self-defense against wild animals.

Decline of the Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley civilization collapsed around 1800 B.C. Scholars debate what factors brought on the death of this civilization. One theory suggests that a nomadic Indo-European tribe, the Aryans, invaded and conquered the Indus Valley civilization, although more recent evidence tends to contradict this claim. Most historians believe that the collapse of the Indus Valley civilization was caused by climate change. Some experts believe that the drought of the Saraswati River, which began around 1900 B.C., was the main cause for these changes in climate and living conditions.

In 1800 B.C., the climate of the Indus Valley became colder and drier, and a tectonic event may have diverted or disrupted the river systems, which were the lifelines of the Indus Valley civilization. The Harappans were forced to emigrate to the Ganges River Basin in the east, where they may have established villages and used the land for agriculture.

These small communities would not have been able to produce the same agricultural surplus to support the large cities. With the reduction in the production of goods, there would have been a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia. By 1700 B.C., most cities in the Indus Valley civilization had been abandoned.

Of those who went to the Ganges River Basin, around the year 800 B.C., some settled as hermits (the Vedas) in the forests of the Ganges River. Inspired by the Dravidian religion that originated from the Indus Valley, they worshipped natural spirits. These religions believed that souls acquired another physical form after the death of the body; thus, was born the theory of reincarnation, so popular in Hinduism.

The Vedas, a word meaning "knowledge", are the oldest texts of Hinduism. They are derived from the ancient Indo-Aryan culture of the Indian subcontinent and began as an oral tradition that was passed down through generations, before finally being written down in Vedic Sanskrit, between 1500 and 500 B.C.

Conclusion: Personal hygiene, sanitation, and ritual and spiritual purity, as well as urban organization and mathematical precision in weights and measures, suggest that this was an advanced society for its time, "democratic", egalitarian, and peaceful. It is a pity we have not yet deciphered the symbols they left behind for us to know more. The Indian worldview eventually influenced the thinking and life of all of South Asia.  

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Worldview of the Fertile Crescent

After dwelling on the prehistoric worldview, let us now study the worldviews that succeeded it after the appearance of writing, which is the line that divides prehistory from history. For a long time, it was thought that writing first appeared in Sumer, ancient Mesopotamia, and then from there it spread to other civilizations. The discovery of a form of writing in Central America, with no connection to the Fertile Crescent or the Far East, proves that writing arose in different civilizations disconnected from each other.

This is just one of the many proofs that there is only a single model of development, and that human nature is the same because the planet is populated by a single hominid, Homo sapiens, who left Africa about 200,000 years ago. Writing is, therefore, concomitant with the appearance of the first civilizations. In each of these civilizations appeared different version of it.

The first and oldest version of writing is the cuneiform writing that appeared in Sumer (4000 B.C.). For this reason, Sumer is also known as the first human civilization. Then came the hieroglyphic writing of Egypt (3,000 B.C.). The pictorial writing of China appeared around 1,200 B.C. and the Mayan writing of Central America in the year 500 B.C. Not much is known about the writing of the Harappa civilization in the Indus Valley but in some circles, it is regarded as the second form of writing after Sumer. This form of writing dates back to 3,500 B.C., but to date it has not been deciphered, and therefore does not count as writing, but as symbols disconnected from each other.

We will therefore study these first great ancient civilizations that are at the base of the civilizational nuances that we find here and there in this globalized world with fewer and fewer differences. These civilizations are the Fertile Crescent, the Indus Valley, the Chinese, and finally, the Central American comprised of the Mayas, the Aztecs, and the Incas. Let us first look at the Fertile Crescent (the Cradle of Western civilization) and the cultures that succeeded from there, starting with Sumer, until the appearance of the First Empire.

The Sumerian civilization arose somewhat earlier than the Egyptian civilization. However, these two cultures grew and developed at the same time, with little or no relation to each other, because they were separated by a desert and, maybe because of that, they never confronted each other in war.

SUMERIAN
It is questioned today whether Sumer predates Egypt. However, until the contrary is unequivocally proven, we adopt here the orthodox view that the Sumerian civilization, the first on the planet, arose just before the Egyptian, 4,000 years before Christ, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq).

The regular flooding of the rivers made the land fertile and allowed for an agriculture based mainly on cereals which, as we have studied in previous texts, permitted goods to be stored for a long time, thus freeing man from the tutelage of nature and the constant search for food, like other living beings.

We will study the Fertile Crescent from the first Sumerian civilization to the appearance of the First Empire.

Religion
The Sumerians knowing that they could not control the wind, the air, the sun, and other elements, believed that a higher power controlled these realities. The Sumerian word for universe was AN-KI, meaning the god AN and the goddess KI. The children of this divine marriage were ENLIL, the god of air, who was seen as the most powerful god, like Zeus in Greek mythology. ENKI was the goddess of love and war. Eros and Thanatos, affection and aggression, were controlled by the same deity. Apart from these, there were many other less powerful gods, and each city-state had its own protector god.

Anthropomorphic Polytheism
The Sumerians believed that their gods were very much like people; they ate, drank, slept, and got married. Unlike humans, however, the gods lived eternally and exercised power over humans. For this reason, humans had to keep them happy, with prayers, offerings, and sacrifices so that they would be favorable to them and bring fortune and prosperity to the city. If that did not happen, they could bring war, floods, and other disasters.

Ziggurat, the First Temple in History
In Mesopotamia, at the center of every city on a higher place, there was always a ziggurat, that is, a temple in a helical shape or tiered mound. This temple is common to all civilizations around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers: Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and Babylon.

The Philosophy of Sumerian Life in the Poem of Gilgamesh – the first work of world literature
In the epic story of the hero Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, the first pearl of world literature written on clay tablets around the year 3,400 B.C. in cuneiform writing invented by the Sumerians, it describes the humanity represented in Gilgamesh, awakening from his long sleep of unconsciousness, realizing, at the same time, his brutality, but also his culture and wisdom.

Gilgamesh gives us an idea of how the human being sees himself and the world around him. He overcomes all the enemies and obstacles that come his way, and sees himself as an all-powerful being. As the result, he does not accept his limitations, especially his mortality. He is not perfect and at the beginning of the poem, he is a bad king, which leads the people to protest to God against him. But then wisdom gradually tames him, revealing himself to be a person of great feelings, especially in his friendship with the uncivilized Enkidu.

Many realities come together in this story, feeling of loneliness, friendship, loss of a loved one (his friend Enkidu), love, revenge and the fear of death. Gilgamesh is a leader, strong, fearless, and handsome, a demigod, and king of the city-state of Uruk in old Sumer.

He has a sex life that is unbridled, instinctive, and without feeling, but when he meets his friend Enkidu, he discovers an affection for another human being that he never felt before for a woman. This affection leads him to put aside sex and pleasure, that is, to trade Eros for Philia. From then on, he is no longer interested in women and does not allow himself to be seduced even by Enki, the goddess of war and love.

In this culture, men are dominant because women cannot control sex and love (eros). Love and war are emotional acts, not of reason, hence both realities are represented by the same deity unlike in Greek and Roman mythology. The leader is male, someone who stands out from the others, for his physical strength, courage, and wisdom. However, among the Sumerian kings there is a list that includes a woman, Kubaba, as queen of the city-state of Kish.

Gilgamesh battles against the fatality of mortality and seeks a way to defeat the inevitable. In the end, after being unable to find immortality and a way to relive his life, Gilgamesh finds peace in death.

Inventions
Sumer is famous for the invention of beer and even had a goddess named NinKasi as the goddess of beer. The Sumerians invented the wheel, the plow, the bow, bronze, and the measurement of time, dividing the hour into 60 minutes, and the minute into 60 seconds.

AKKADIAN EMPIRE
As there were no deterrents either from the north or the south, nor from the east or the west, in this same place in Mesopotamia several civilizations succeeded one another until the consolidation of the great empires. While all this is happening, Egypt, as we shall see below, develops its own civilization, hieroglyphic writing, and way of understanding life.

At around 3,000 B.C., the Sumerians had a significant cultural exchange with a group from northern Mesopotamia, known as the Akkadians – named after the city-state of Akkad. The Akkadian language is related to the Semitic languages of Hebrew and Arabic.

The term Semitic comes from the biblical character Shem, son of Noah, the supposed progenitor of Abraham and, consequently, of the Jewish and Arab peoples. Around 2,334 B.C., Sargon of Akkad came to power and established what may have been the world's first dynastic empire. The Akkadian Empire ruled over both the Akkadian and the Sumerian speakers in Mesopotamia and Levant – modern day Syria and Lebanon. The Akkadian Empire collapsed in 2,154 B.C., 180 years after its founding.

ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
Assyria owes its name to its original capital, the ancient city of Ashur, in northern Mesopotamia. Ashur was originally one of several Akkadian-speaking city-states ruled by Sargon and his descendants during the Akkadian Empire. Hundreds of years after its collapse, Assyria became a great empire.

For much of the 1,400 years from the late 21st century B.C. to the end of the 7th century B.C., the Akkadian-speaking Assyrians were the dominant power in Mesopotamia, especially in the north. The empire reached its peak near the end of this period in the 7th century. At its peak, the Assyrian Empire stretched from the borders of Egypt and Cyprus in the west to the borders of Persia – present day Iran – in the east.

BABYLONIAN EMPIRE
Finally comes Babylon the Great, where the Jews, according to the Bible, were exiled. One of the most important works of Babylonian culture was the compilation of a code of law around 1754 B.C. called the Code of Hamurabi, which mirrored and improved upon the earlier written laws of Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria. The Code of Hamurabi is the oldest code of law in the world. Written around 1754 B.C. by the sixth king of Babylon, Hamurabi, the Code was written on stone slabs and clay tablets. It consists of 282 laws, with punishments scaled according to social status, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", to avoid spiraling violence.

The Babylonian Empire, founded by Hamurabi, lasted 260 years, until Babylon was sacked by invaders in 1531 B.C. In the period between 626 B.C. and 539 B.C., Babylon reasserted itself in the region with the Neo-Babylonian Empire. This new empire was overthrown in 539 B.C. by the Persians who ruled the region until the time of Alexander the Great in 335 B.C.

The Babylonian Myth of Creation
In addition to the oldest code of laws, Babylon also has the oldest myth of creation of the universe and human beings. It says that in the beginning there was the god Apsu and the goddess Tiamat who had several children. Because the younger ones were noisy when they played, and Apsu could neither sleep or work, he decided to kill them. However, the young gods discovered the plan and anticipated it by killing Apsu.

Tiamat vowed revenge for the death of her husband. Filled with fear, the rebellious gods solicitate the help of cousin Marduk. He captured and killed Tiamat, later tearing her body to pieces, and spreading her blood. This is how the universe was created, according to the Babylonian myth. That is, creation is an act of violence and not of goodness, as it is in the biblical myth of creation.

The cosmic order requires the violent suppression of the feminine and is mirrored in the social order by the subjection of women to men and men to their ruler. In the beginning was chaos and violence was used to establish order. Thus, the use of violence is justified because without it, there would be no order. The myth of redemptive violence is the victory of order over chaos by means of violence.

After the creation of the world, Marduk threw into prison the gods who were on Tiamat's side. As they were protesting because the food in the prison was not good, Marduk and his father Ea (son of Apsu), killed one of them and from his blood, created human beings to be servants of the gods.

Therefore, according to the Babylonian myth of creation, violence is natural and is embedded in our genes. It was not humanity that created violence as an act of disobedience to God, as in the case of the biblical myth. In the Babylonian myth, violence has always been present, being part of the cosmic and human nature. Human beings are naturally incapable of peaceful coexistence and peace must be imposed from above by the ruling power. Much later, this was the idea behind the "Pax Romana" imposed by the Romans.

The smartest and most powerful therefore stand before others as kings, pharaohs, czars, emperors, princes, priests and teachers, representatives of God's goodness and justice, with the mission to fight the wicked and punish them.

The "legal" violence of the leaders of society opposes the "natural" violence to subdue the wicked, to deter others from their evil tendencies, and to facilitate social coexistence. Hence the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is born, to restrain the violence that is natural to human beings and to make it possible to live together.

THE EGYPT OF THE PHARAOHS
It is certainly the most emblematic and fascinating culture of the ancient world, not only for the grandiosity of the pyramids and so many other monuments that they left us, but they continue to arouse curiosity in man today. Archaeology has even changed its name to Egyptology, because of the millions of historical documents that this civilization has left behind.

The Egyptian civilization spans several distinct periods: the First Kingdom (3,000-2,660 B.C.), I and II dynasties; the Ancient Kingdom in the early Bronze Age (2,660-2,180 B.C.), III to VI dynasties; the First Middle Kingdom (2,180-2,040 B.C.), VII to XI dynasties; the Middle Kingdom (2,040-1,780 B.C.), XI and XII dynasties; the Second Middle Kingdom (1,780 to 1,560 B.C.), XIII to XVII dynasties; the New Kingdom (1,560-1,070 B.C.), XVIII to XX dynasties; the Third Intermediate Period (1,070-664 B.C.), XXI to XXV dynasties; the Late Period (664-332 B.C.), XXVI to XXX dynasties; the Greek Dominion/the Ptolemaic Period (332-30 B.C.) and the Early Roman Empire (30 B.C.-359 A.D.).

The success of the ancient Egyptian civilization came, in part, from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, reported also in the Bible in the story of Joseph of Egypt.

This rationalized agriculture allowed for a considerable increase in population. With resources to spare, the administration sponsored the mining of the valley and surrounding desert regions, the development of a writing system, the organization of collective and agricultural construction projects, trade with the surrounding regions, and an army designed to assert Egyptian dominance.

To motivate and organize these activities there was a bureaucratic force of elite scribes, religious leaders, and administrators, under the control of the pharaoh who ensured the cooperation and unity of the Egyptian people in the context of an elaborate religious belief system.

Life in Egypt
•    "Do not separate your mind from your tongue and all your projects will succeed"
•    "Let not your knowledge be a cause for arrogance; take counsel both with the wise and the ignorant”
Almost everyone was involved in agriculture and probably connected to the land. In theory, all the land belonged to the king, although in practice those who lived on it could not be easily removed and some categories of land could be bought and sold. Abandoned land reverted to state ownership and were transferred to others who would farm it.

A strong central state made possible the massive constructions Egypt is known for. How the construction of the great pyramids in the fourth dynasty (2,575–2,465 B.C.) was accomplished is still a puzzle to this day. People's houses were made of adobe or unbaked earth bricks; temples, pyramids, royal palaces, and tombs were built of stone.

Unlike cuneiform writing that allowed other languages to be written, hieroglyphic writing only permitted a single language to be written. However, it is from these hieroglyphs that our alphabet, the roman alphabet, is derived. This civilization left us numerous literary works, such as treatises on mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and magic, as well as various religious texts, collected later in the famous library of Alexandria.

In ancient Egypt they ate all kinds of meat, including pork. Marriage was monogamous, divorce was possible and easy, but costly. Women had a somewhat lower status than men; married women had the title of housewife, but they also worked in agriculture alongside their husbands.

The pharaoh was considered divine and his divinity was reaffirmed in sumptuous rituals. However, he was an inferior deity to the great gods. He was the guarantee of unity of the well organized and hierarchical Egyptian society. It was for this reason that monotheism was invented in Egypt, precisely as a unifying factor between people and social classes.

It was Pharaoh Akhenaten who promulgated the existence of one single god, the god Aten, that is, the sun god replacing the whole pantheon of gods. However, this monotheism was short-lived. The Egyptians, like all the peoples of that time and place, were naturally polytheistic. It is likely that the Jewish idea of a single God arose at this time and they retained it later during their period of slavery in Egypt and after their liberation.

Conclusion: At the end of the Neolithic period, between the Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age, the first human civilizations were born around the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile rivers. The fertile land in the basins of these rivers provided a surplus of crops and this, in turn, a superior culture, evident in the technological inventions, writing and monuments left behind by these civilizations, the basis of Western civilization.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

The Prehistoric Worldview

It is commonly accepted in anthropology and archeology that today’s human being is Homo sapiens descended from other extinct primate species. From 4 to 6 million years ago, there were other hominids, still belonging to the animal kingdom: Ardipithecus ramidus in Ethiopia; after this came Australopithecus afarensis, the technical name for Lucy, which also inhabited Ethiopia in the region called Afar.

This was followed by Homo habilis and Homo erectus that inhabited East Africa. From this descended Homo heidelbergensis which is the common ancestor of fully human Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. We have common ancestors with the chimpanzees, monkeys, and gorillas. However, we evolved into what we are today, while the same did not happen with the rest. Why?  

Science will never find out why the human being was the only species of living being that evolved. It will never find out because the answer lies in God who thought of us as the ultimate exponent of evolution of species, ever since life appeared in the ocean in the form of a single-celled organism called Archaea.

Worldview and Self-awareness
We know that Homo sapiens acquired the same anatomical structure that we have today about 130,000 years ago. But when did it become authentically human, that is, gain awareness of itself? Most paleontologists think this began to happen about 40,000 years ago when the turning point in human creativity occurred when Homo sapiens left Africa and arrived in Europe, developing tools, first of stone, then of metal, to act on the reality around him. In a process of knowing and mastering the nature around him, man came to know himself as different from the reality around him.

In addition to tools, the abstract and symbolic thinking, typical of modern man, can also be seen in the decoration of their cave walls with cave paintings, which tell us a little about their lives and minds in splendid paintings of deer, horses, and wild bulls, as well as their funeral rituals. The same is expressed by the body ornaments they wore and the statuettes modeled in clay, exalting women’s femininity, and fertility.

In both the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Metal Age (Chalcolithic or Copper – Bronze – Iron), Man did not yet have a defined worldview, because in order to have a worldview or a vision of the cosmos or the world around him, it was necessary, in some way, for him to be able to abstract from himself. Prehistoric man was still, like all animals, living mostly in symbiosis with nature. Since he did not see himself as separate from it, he could not have an idea of it.

Like the baby who at birth has its umbilical cord cut off from nature, so primitive man experienced a rupture through the process of gradually gaining self-awareness. In gaining self-awareness, the human being still saw himself in nature, but in opposition to it; nature was no longer so much a prodigal mother but more of a stepmother, because now he had to wrestle sustenance from it, as the baby must cry if he wants to drink milk.

Worldview and Science
Man sought to emancipate himself, to free himself, from the bonds and tutelage of nature, to gain independence and autonomy in relation to it. Even today these are the values on which the life of the human being as an individual being is based. In this battle for freedom, he has created increasingly more powerful tools to modify nature and adapt it to his needs. With the discovery of fire, he could combine different elements creating new ones.

He replaced hunting by domesticating animals, so that he could have meat whenever he wanted and not when nature allowed for it; he replaced fruit gathering with agriculture, so that he could store food when it was scarce and have time for other things like inventing, discovering, creating.

The worldview as a vision or conceptualization of the world around us, as a mindset or standard against which we measure and judge all things, is affected and confronted by each scientific discovery. Each new scientific conclusion forces our mind to conceptualize reality in another way, to look at the world in another way. In other words, an authentic metanoia operates in our mind, that is, a mental paradigm shift takes place.

The discovery of fire
This discovery changed people’s lives so much that fire came to be understood mythologically as having been stolen from the gods. Fire was for our ancestor like Aladdin’s lamp, which through friction would appear as if by magic, and men could do with it whatever they wanted.

Fire played an important role in the cohesion of families and communities, as everyone gathered around the campfire to warm themselves. Since no one wanted to be left out in the cold, fire acted as a deterrent to antisocial behaviours.

It allowed daylight to be extended well into the night, and since one could not work at night, the extra two or three hours of faint light served for cultural events, for sharing experiences, and for the transmission of culture from parents to children. Light at night increased the safety of humans from animals that hunted at night, as it served to scare them away.

However, the most important use of fire at this time was for food preparation. Cooked or roasted food improved human diet. Certain foods are more nutritious when cooked than raw. The increase in population and the survival of human beings are due to the discovery of fire and its use in cooking. Finally, it was precisely fire that allowed humans to move from Stone Age to Metal Age.

Egalitarian Society of Old Europe
In a time, span from upper Paleolithic period, about 50,000 years ago, to the beginning of Chalcolithic period (Copper Age), Homo sapiens left us not only the famous cave paintings, but also countless of female statues where the sexual attributes of women are accentuated and even exaggerated.  

Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas believes that these statuettes are proof of the existence of a non-matriarchal, but more egalitarian society in old Europe after Homo sapiens left Africa. In these ancient societies, women and men lived as equals in practically all aspects of daily life. In addition, women were accorded a higher status because of their reproductive ability. In fact, the identity of women as life-givers was closely linked to the life-giving mother goddess who served as the focal point of the old European religion.

The role of the father in prehistoric antiquity was non-existent, like it is in animals closest to us in the evolution of species. This happened because the female body, by its physiognomy, gave evidence of maternity, while the male body gave no evidence of paternity. In the Neolithic period, as well as in the upper Paleolithic period, religion was centered on the woman’s power to generate life.

We can conclude that the first deity worshipped by human beings was a goddess, not a god. Reverence was given to the goddess Mother of all that lives, identified either as nature or earth. Earth, as a planet or as soil, nature as well as the names of all continents are feminine names.

The man observes with fascination how from the bosom of the earth comes the life of plants which are the life of animals, and to the bosom of the earth this life returns when plants and animals die. He also observes the similarity between the image of the earth and the woman, since she alone generates life. Given the rudimentary intelligence of human beings at that time, the connection between sexual intercourse and childbirth had not yet been established, because cause and effect were separated by nine months.

In a time when humans would have no more intelligence than a mouse has today, let us think that if a mouse eats a poison and dies, immediately the other mice will never touch that poison again, because they establish a connection between the death of their counterpart and the powder it ate. However, if the poison is an anticoagulant by which the mouse does not die right after ingesting it, but on the next occasion it injures itself in a fight or an accident and bleeds to death, the connection between death and the anticoagulant is not established, which makes the anticoagulant the best poison.

While paternity was not established, the women of the tribe held a certain power and high esteem, being respected by the males, even though the latter by nature possessed greater physical strength. Alternatively, we can look at living beings closer to us in the evolution of species, to see similar situations.

Let us look at dogs, how the males revere the females, especially when the latter have just given birth (life givers): the males do not go near them and, although physically they are stronger, the males do not use physical violence against the females, even showing them a certain "reverence". In case of conflict, the female prevails, not only because it becomes very aggressive, drawing strength from weakness, but also because the male moves away as a sign of respect and does not confront the female, although it could do so because it has a superior physical strength.

In all cultures, divinity is a generator of life. On the other hand, also in Rudolf Otto’s view, divinity is identified in all cultures as a "misterium tremedum et fascinans", which we can translate as the love and fear of God. When God is represented as a woman, immediately all women are an image of this God, so they will be as respected as God is.

There has never been and we can say that there will never be a society that is purely matriarchal, as long as man has greater physical strength than woman. However, matrilineal or egalitarian societies have existed and may still exist.

When the connection between sexual intercourse and childbirth was established, man's status began to rise. He then began to be seen as crucial to the reproductive process that guaranteed life. The original goddess of Mother Earth came to be complemented by a consort, first thought of as the god Father Sky. The rain falling from the sky was the divine semen sent to impregnate Mother Earth so that life could emerge.

Herbert W. Richardson in his book, Nun, Witch and Playmate, writes that this maternal understanding of God and human life prevailed until the dawn of self-consciousness, when a division appeared in human life between the natural instinct and the emerging ego that dared to face and confront that instinct.

When this happened, there was a turning point in the human worldview, that is, a new definition of all aspects of life. When human life is defined in a new way, the God worshipped because of human life is also defined in a new way. Anthropologists understand that this happened around 7,000 BC.

Genesis of the Andro-centric Worldview in the Bible
The Protestant bishop John Shelby Spong in his book, Living in Sin? describes very well how the Bible echoes the process of transition from the feminine conceptualization (goddess Asherah) to the masculine conceptualization (Yahweh) of divinity. This process did not happen overnight, it was a lengthy and painful process, with numerous relapses. The first book of Kings (18:40) gives us an example of the persecution that the followers of Yahweh brought against the followers of the fertility gods, in the episode of the confrontation between the prophets of Baal and Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh.

In the 7th century BC, there were still small shrines dedicated to the fertility goddess Asherah and her consort Baal, in which liturgies explicitly sexual were held that included sacred prostitution, both male and female. Neither the reformation of Deuteronomy nor that of Ezra in the 5th century BC were able to completely extinguish these practices.

Yahweh was a solitary male God, who created everything by means of the spoken Word, without needing a female partner. The older cult of Baal started from the observation of the sexual power of reproduction.

John Shelby Spong sees in the story of Abraham a biblical echo of the moment when the human being gained self-consciousness. He broke with nature, as Abraham broke with his homeland of Ur, in fertile Mesopotamia, to pilgrimage through the desert, discovering himself. The gods of fertility demanded human sacrifices; Abraham broke with this tradition, by not sacrificing his son out of an inner impulse.

With the emergence of consciousness and thought, human survival no longer depended so much on nature taking its course, but on human thought knowing, discovering, and mastering nature.

The successful suppression of the fertility cult, with its female deity, is part of the historical context of the creation of Yahwism, in which the goddess Eve, mother of all living beings, coexists with evil and is banished forever from paradise by the superior male god.

From there follows the biblical insistence on the all-male nature of God and the corresponding attribution of divine (i.e., masculine) prerogatives to men, who alone, the myth argues, were created in the image of this God.

Thus was born the andro-centric worldview of life, the dominance of the male over the female that extends to our days. With the appearance of fatherhood, not only was the value of motherhood overshadowed, but women were deprived of their place in society. As fatherhood is not as patent as motherhood, establishing fatherhood became the cornerstone of patriarchal society that insisted on controlling women's reproductive behavior. Thus was born the value or countervalue of virginity and other forms of domination of women.

Conclusion – While God was conceptualized as Mother, women were respected, admired, and lived on an equal footing with men. With the conceptualization of God as Father, women were deprived of their dignity, dominated, tortured, vituperated, vexed, and outraged to this day in all cultures and civilizations.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Worldview, Science and Common Sense

God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.  Genesis 1:28-31

Science came to replace myth in explaining reality. The Romans saw storms as battles between the deities; the Greeks understood lightning as spears of the gods against humans. Today we know that storms form when moist warm air rises rapidly into the higher and cooler layers of the atmosphere, forming clouds and rain. Lightning is a form of electricity that develops inside the clouds. Thunder is caused by hot air that expands until it bursts.

Since the beginning of humanity, our species has been avidly pursuing knowledge. We call science the set of techniques and methods used to achieve knowledge. A noun from the Latin ‘scientia’, it refers to the verb ‘scire’, meaning to know.  Man was created on the last day of creation, for God rested on the seventh day, and it is science that makes him the king of creation. By it, man dominates, controls, and administers the goods that God has placed in his hands.

Science - Art - Culture - Worldview
The human being expresses his idiosyncrasy, his way of being, of behavior, his thinking, values, religion, beliefs, philosophy, etc., in arts and not in science. Art expresses knowledge, science is an instrument to know, to understand the world around us, exploring its possibilities in order to make, through technology, our lives more enjoyable.

Science has to do with our daily bread; as such, it is pragmatic, objective and is labor. Art has nothing to do with our daily bread, because it is what we do out of love; as such it is subjective. There is always an objective in the one who wants to know, while the one who expresses himself in an art has no precise objective, he simply seeks a form of expression. The object of science is the unknown, and that of art is what we already know.

The cultural human being does not express himself in science and his worldview is not an object of science nor of interest to science. But science has the ability to change our worldview from one moment to the next. Think, for example, of the Copernican revolution, when man discovered that it was not the Sun that revolved around the Earth, but, on the contrary, that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Any scientific discovery can turn our thinking upside down and force us to rethink things and look at reality with new eyes.

Culture evolves, science revolutionizes
There are social revolutions that have nothing to do with science. The so-called French Revolution can be seen rather as a slow evolution of absolute monarchy until it becomes extinct. In this sense, all social revolutions can be seen as evolutions, for those who have eyes to see and predict, like the prophets of all times.

Pure and true revolution is a scientific discovery – it is not foreseen and takes everyone by surprise. It has the potential to pull the rug from under our feet, to leave us dumbfounded, confused, outraged, traumatized and even aggressive. Imagine what it was like for religious people when Darwin discovered that the human being had the ape as his closest relative, in an evolution of species where all sorts of life have a common trunk and relate to each other.  Even today there are people who reject this idea.

And it is not only the people who rejects certain discoveries. Einstein himself, who revolutionized the world with his theory of relativity, had difficulty accepting an essential postulate of quantum physics, the so-called Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, to the point of even saying that God does not throw dice.

The materialistic worldview of which we will speak at length is the one that rules the world of philosophy, science, politics, and mass media today. Today's intellectuals, if they are religious, that is, if they have faith in the existence of God, are ashamed to say so in public, because the current tendency is for intellectuals to be atheists or agnostics.

This materialistic attitude towards life and reality is more in line with Newton's deterministic and mechanistic physics, which sees the world working mechanically with the precision of a clock than with today's quantum physics and mechanics, where even the laws of nature escape determinism. The world of quantum physics is a magical world, where the material and the spiritual overlap, where the tangible and the intangible embrace and miracles occur.

Universities, politics, intellectuals are therefore out of step, lagging, out of fashion, to the extent that they have not yet adapted to the new reality, they still live with a false worldview. To catch up, they must divorce themselves from Newton and marry Heisenberg. The world is not and does work as they think it does.

The Scientific Discoveries That Revolutionized Our Worldview

In the field of energy
The discovery of fire, the application of animal power (horse, donkey, ox), windmills, caravels, water mills, tidal mills, steam machine (coal), explosion engines, automobile, boat, airplane (fuel), hydroelectric power, wind power, solar energy, nuclear power, batteries that power countless of small applications that we use in our daily life – each energy source has changed the world and the way we look at it and relate to it.

In the field of biology and medicine
The English physicist Robert Hooke (1635-1702) published the first drawings of cells observed under a microscope, boosting research into the fundamental units of life.

The Evolution of Species, of Darwin, dethroned the book of Genesis as an historical book, and proved that life on our planet began in the sea and that all sorts of life come from a common trunk, making plants and animals related in their common origin.

Penicillin – the first of the antibiotics, discovered by accident by the Scotsman Alexander Flemming in 1928 (although there were earlier studies on the subject), was a true milestone in the history of medicine, as it went on to save countless lives from various infectious diseases.

Anesthesia – the American physician Crawford Long (1815-1878) used ether for the first time as a general anesthetic during surgery.

X-ray – the German Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen is considered the great inventor of x-ray (although other scientists studied its effects before and after his discovery), a form of electromagnetic radiation that can penetrate solid objects which has allowed medical diagnoses to be more rigorous, not only based on symptoms and surgeries.

Genetics – the Austrian monk Johann Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) created the idea of a gene by breeding and cultivating pea plants, and studying and tracking the results of their dominant and recessive traits.  

The double stranded spirals of DNA – the beautiful structure of DNA was credited to scientists Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953. What came out of this: genetic engineering has grown enormously in the past 50 years, reaching the ethical discussion of being able to make a "copy" of living beings like what was done with the sheep called Dolly.

The unconscious – the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) published his book, Studies on Hysteria, demonstrating that man does not completely master the mind and proposing the idea that the unconscious is responsible for desires and dreams, and for so many reactive behaviours in our daily life.

In the field of war
Since the discovery of iron, and the invention of gunpowder, human beings seem to be more creative and motivated by hatred than by love. Many discoveries were born in the field of war and only later were peaceful applications found for them. The atomic bomb turned into nuclear energy; the system used in guided missiles turned into GPS to guide us.

The radar – a team of researchers led by Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt (1892-1973) created the first radar. Although it was originally an instrument of war, radar is now fundamental to navigation.

The laser beam – Theodore Maiman (1927-) built the first laser. Among other uses, these beams serve today as scalpels in medicine, and rulers in science and in military weapons.

In the field of communications
Gutenberg's printing press, photography, cinema, sound recording, radio and television, the computer that emerged as a typewriter with memory are today transversal to all human activity and integrate most of the machines that man has created, from the automobile to the airplane to the washing machine.

The telegraph, the telephone, the fax machine, the internet, and the mobile phone have revolutionized the way humans communicate with each other and have transformed the already  globalized world into a common home.

The transistor – the Americans John Bardeen (1908-1991) and Walter Houser Brattain (1902-1987) invented the transistor. Imagine the world without transistors: there would be no personal computers or cell phones.

The artificial satellite – the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 – a sphere 58 centimeters in diameter weighing 84 kilos. Satellites have revolutionized the world of communications.

In the field of quantum physics and mechanics  
The Big Bang Theory, of Father Georges Lemaître, postulates that the universe originated from an explosion of a small point, in which all existing matter was condensed. With this theory, it is no longer only the Bible that speaks of the beginning and the end of the world, for these are also the object of science. Consequently, many now say that the Bible was correct all along.  

The discovery of the telescope by Galileo to observe macro reality and the discovery of the microscope to observe micro reality are at the basis of the advances in modern physics, starting with the theory of relativity which revolutionized the way human beings understand the universe, space and time, which told us that matter is a form of energy and energy is a form of matter. The discovery of subatomic particles, and the magical and unpredictable world they form, has not yet changed our way of thinking, our worldview, but it will soon do so.

Science and "applied culture", i.e., common sense
Common sense is a form of knowledge based on everyday experience and public opinion of a given social group or culture, which is passed down from generation to generation. It is composed of values and traditions, and operates based on a logic of probabilities that guarantees the confidence of the individual to be able to live and relate in the most appropriate way with his world, that is, that guarantees his way of being and living.

Much of this common sense comes from our own experience, whenever we learn from our own mistakes. However, life is short, there is no time to try out every experience; furthermore, it would be dangerous to do so, therefore we can also learn from the mistakes of others. For example, I don't need to take drugs to know that they are harmful to health.

In this sense, common sense is positive. On the other hand, uncritically assimilating postulates from the past without verifying them opens the door to cultural clichés and prejudices that pass from generation to generation, without anyone questioning or confronting them. When confronted with scientific knowledge, with the reality of the present, some of these postulates may prove to be completely irrational and yet people continue to cling to them because they give them a sense of security. There is a proverb that explains this attitude: "Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t".

The scientist is the one who researches to obtain knowledge, to clarify a doubt, to solve a problem, to explain a reaction or a phenomenon of nature. Unlike common sense, which often consists of a belief that, even without empirical verification, no one doubts, science begins by doubting everything and everyone, since appearances deceive.

Science is born as a reaction to common sense. However, common sense integrates the scientific discovery that becomes part of public opinion and is synonymous with common sense. Yesterday’s science vulgarized, that is, assimilated by the people, becomes common sense, in the same way that a scientific discovery finds its practical application in technology.

Science has changed the way we look at the world. This realization gave rise to positivism as a philosophical school, which understands that science is the way to progress and order in society. It is precisely at this point that it clashes with common sense which does not want to lose its place in people's minds.

Science has long ceased to be the expression of the innate curiosity of the human being who wants to know for the mere pleasure of knowing. Cutting-edge research requires money and generates a lot of profit in technological patents. Scientific research is now paramount in our capitalistic world; it is a gold mine. Therefore, people attack it with a thousand and one conspiracy theories, some true, some false, disseminated by social media.

In the case of medicine, doctors prescribe chemicals for everything and for nothing. Instead of advising people to exercise, to change their diet, they give them a pill to reduce cholesterol that will destabilize the body's natural balance, because the profits of the pharmaceutical companies are enormous. One of the reasons for my mother's death, confirmed by a doctor, was that she was overmedicated. It is ironic, because if she was overmedicated, it is because the doctors overmedicated her.

We said that science starts from doubt and that common sense is based on a belief. In relation to science itself, scientists have a blind belief in its ability to build a better world, while common sense, now at the forefront of culture, doubts science and its unclear goals more than ever.

Science generates profit, common sense is free and is oriented to the defense of human life; science is not always in favor of human life, it seeks to solve the immediate without considering the repercussions or side effects. For example, wheat and corn genetically modified to fight pests, end up killing monarch butterflies and unbalancing nature. Science often solves one problem by creating two or three more. As the people rightly say, he did not die of the disease, he died from the cure.

Conclusion: A scientific discovery modifies first our way of seeing reality, that is, our worldview; subsequently, the technological application of this discovery will, eventually,  change the culture.
                                                                                                                        Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Worldview and its expressions

We reflected that worldview is like the motherboard of a computer to which elements such as myths, legends, folk tales, beliefs, rituals, religions, archetypes, symbols, norms or rules and values are added. All these components are in some way abstract, virtual and need a physical support to make themselves seen.

We can study the worldview of ancient peoples who no longer exist, their myths and legends, their symbols and beliefs, through the documents they left behind. We know a lot about the worldview, their way of living and thinking, of peoples like the Vikings of northern Europe, the Mayans and the Aztecs of Central America.

To discover the structure of a people's way of thinking, its worldview and the elements that it is made of, such as myths and beliefs, religion, rules and values, we need to study the vehicles where these elements are embodied or expressed. These forms of expression coincide with the seven classical arts. We prefer to divide them into a more anthropomorphic manner, using our five senses: literary, graphic, visual, auditory and audiovisual arts.

VISUAL ARTS: architecture, sculpture
The first things humans made -- stone hammers, axes and chipped stone knives -- were tools that had more to do with science than art. These tools were connected to learning about things and surviving in a hostile world. We are referring to the Stone and Metal Age, therefore thousands of years ago.

Immediately after man left Africa, about 150,000 years ago, the first artistic manifestations, that perhaps also had the practical purpose of teaching hunting techniques, were the cave paintings, related to the graphic arts, since they are in some way the precursor of writing.  

The three oldest buildings of humanity belong to the first human civilization that our planet knew, the Fertile Crescent, known today as the Middle East. They are: Tell Qaramel, built around 11,000 BC in Syria, 25 km north of Aleppo; Göbekli Tepe, built in 9,600 BC in southeastern Turkey, 12 km from the city of Sanliurfa, and the Tower of Jericho, built in 8,000 BC in what is known as the oldest and lowest city in the world.

We can study the different worldviews, from the most ancient to the most modern, by the type of buildings that were created. Ancient peoples did not build sumptuous palaces with swimming pools together with all the luxuries to live in.

They were more concerned with the afterlife than the here and now; this is evident in the pyramids of the Egyptians, the Mayans and the Aztecs to the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, and from the Gothic cathedrals to the Hindu and Buddhist temples, transcendence and religion are the main reason to build, not politics nor the “good life”.

One has to wonder... what does this materialistic, consumeristic, utilitarian, pragmatic, atheistic, agnostic world leave to posterity? Nothing or reflections of its inner emptiness, like the skyscrapers, the so-called modern and contemporary paintings that are no more than four scribbles that even an elementary school child could do. Modern human beings do not create art, so today's tourism lives on the visual arts created by ancient peoples many, many years ago.

GRAPHIC ARTS: painting, drawing, writing
The oldest cave paintings are found in the Iberian Peninsula and France, the oldest being from 62,000 years ago. In the progression from painting to writing, the oldest document in the world comes precisely from the oldest culture as well, the Sumerian of the Fertile Crescent - the cuneiform writing of ancient Mesopotamia, predating the Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The cave paintings illustrate the prehistoric man's worldview, his life, his customs and even his feelings. These carvings or artistic manifestations of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods often depict hunting scenes, but also dances and other scenes from daily life, cosmic phenomena, religious myths, customs, and military campaigns.

Ever since man began to paint, he has never stopped doing so. Much of what we know of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece were transmitted to us by these carvings, images, drawings, graffiti left behind by these civilizations.

The image was the first form of human expression, and it was the evolution of this form of expression through images that led us to the small drawings that translated ideas - the cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia, together with the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which were the predecessors of the Greek and Roman alphabet.

Other languages, like the Chinese, have maintained and still maintain to this day a pictorial form of writing, that is, each letter is a small engraving or drawing that represents a concept, an idea; so, they need thousands of drawings to express themselves. If we consider that human beings began using images 40,000 years ago and that writing was only invented 3,500 years ago, images can be considered as the prehistory of writing.

From the beginning, image was born from communication and for communication; it was born from our need to communicate and as a form of communication. It reached its peak in the second half of the 20th century when photography was invented, that is, the fixation or recording of the image in photographs. In our visual society, we often hear that "a picture is worth a thousand words".

LITERARY ARTS: literature, proverbs, humanities
If human beings were solitary beings like the tigers, they would never have developed a language. Language was born within society, within community, as a way for humans to communicate with each other. This need happened when humans became bipeds and were able to look at each other in the eye.

It probably started by expressing needs, like when we travel to a foreign country whose language we do not speak, and we try to communicate our needs by sounds and gestures. At a later stage, human beings expressed emotions, feelings, and later thoughts.

What really makes a people or a nation is its literary work. You cannot think of a nation like the Jewish people without the Torah, without the books of the law and the prophets. What defines and characterizes the Greek people are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey; the ex libris of the Italian people is the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri; what defines the character of the Spanish people is Cervantes’ Don Quixote de la Mancha; the Russian soul is found in Dostoyevsky’s book, The Brothers Karamazov. The Portuguese or Lusitanian soul is in Camões’ Lusíadas.

For our first King, Afonso Henriques, Portugal was his land, his domain. It was Camões, however, who created Portugal’s nationality; it was him who gave the Portuguese a prehistory, the deeds of the Lusitanians, and carved the Portuguese character and history in the course of the nation’s great epic, the discovery of the sea route to India. He was faithful to the roots of the Portuguese language, writing in verses in the style of the medieval songs of platonic love, the cradle of the Portuguese language.

The proverb is certainly the literary genre that has the highest concentration of culture, idiosyncrasy and worldview in the fewest words. Easy to remember because it rhymes, it often uses a metaphor or comparison, that is, it never uses abstract language, but one that is narrative and metaphorical. The proverb passes from generation to generation more readily than any other form of culture because it is easy to remember; people use it in their daily lives as advice and to justify and encourage specific behaviors.

AUDITORY ARTS: music, oratory
The word music is of Greek origin and it means the "art of the muses". It consists of an association of sounds interspersed with pauses or short periods of silence over a given time. Music is, in fact, the art of combining sounds with silence. The history of music goes hand in hand with the development of human intelligence, language and culture. There are also those who think that music predates humanity, if we consider the melodious singing of some birds.

It is likely that in the human species, music appeared 40,000 years ago, judging by the dance scenes that appear in some cave paintings suggesting a probable musical accompaniment. Over time, primitive flutes and other instruments, such as the xylophone, emerged. Musical instruments are divided into three types: percussion, strings and wind. The human voice is the most complex musical instrument, since it is at the same time a string and a wind instrument.

Word communicates thought, music communicates feeling, emotion. In this sense, music is the universal language of communication, used to raise awareness for a cause, for religious purposes, to protest, to accompany movies and to intensify a message or emotion. Think of a horror movie without the type of music that usually accompanies it, it would not be so scary. Like language, it is part of the idiosyncrasies of a people and speaks of its culture – for this reason there is the so-called popular music. It translates attitudes, feelings and cultural values of a people.

Oratory is the art of speaking in public communicating ideas, ideologies and thoughts with eloquence, articulation and clarity, to teach or persuade listeners and motivate them to a certain action. It is a very important weapon in politics and in religion, for good and for evil. Both great politicians and philosophers as well as prophets were good public speakers, like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandhi, Martin Luther King. However, the great dictators also had the same power to convince, like Hitler and Stalin.

Oratory has the gift of uniting different and dispersed wills into one, it turns many heads into one head; it transforms individuals into a community or a mass, a flock, both for good and for evil.  

AUDIOVISUAL ARTS: theatre, cinema, dance
Audiovisual arts combine sound and image. That is why they have more power than sound and image separately. Theatre, cinema and dance are some of the most important arts that move crowds and also the economy.

In the old days, the great film actors began their careers in the theater, and cinema at that time was much like theater. Skills such as expressiveness, both linguistic and corporal, diction, the tone of voice were favored. Today, cinema is more about action than dialogue, so the skills of the stage actor are reserved more for theater and less for cinema. Theater is in clear decline if we compare it with cinema.

Initially, cinema was intended to communicate values, within the hero/villain binomial, where the hero always won. Modern cinema, however, is no longer used for pedagogical purposes, but rather to show reality as it is; therefore, we often see injustice triumph over justice, lies over truth and crime over law and order. This situation is dangerous, because those who watch these films without a critical conscience, especially the younger generations, can develop the conviction that what we are and what we should be are the same thing, have the same value, and that in life anything goes... anything is proper…

Dance has always been a very important cultural manifestation. Culturally, very little can be said of ballet or classical dance; but the tango says a lot about the Argentinian culture, the pasodoble says a lot about Spanish culture, and the samba represents well the Brazilian culture. All peoples have their own way of dancing. If whoever sings prays twice, then whoever dances prays three times.

"Ars lunga vita brevis", art is eternal, life is brief. By cultivating an art, the individual enters into a symbiotic relationship with it. He gives it his temporality, elevating this art to a new height or record; it in turn gives him its eternity, both in the mind of the human community, humanizing him, and like in the mind of God, making him his child.

Conclusion: "Ars lunga vita brevis" - “Arts are eternal, life is short”. Therefore, use your lifetime to cultivate arts and human values and you will be eternal, you will live forever in God and in the memory humanity.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC