Observations
There are no religious rituals observed in animals, including our close relatives, chimpanzees and other apes, although chimps were observed to have sometimes collective excitements for no reason.
Archaeologists have established the existence of burial rituals among Neanderthals some 50,000 years ago.
Carl Jung (1875–1961) theorized the collective unconscious, a residue of what has been learned in humankind's evolution and ancestral past. In his view instincts, the potential for creativity and the spiritual heritage of mankind reside in this portion of the psyche. The religious instinct is apparently part of our racial collective unconscious, which unconsciously dictates our behaviour.
Read more about this topic: Religious Instinct
Famous quotes containing the word observations:
“The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled “a contemplative man’s recreation,” introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist’s observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only a more contemplative man’s recreation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The truth is, the Science of Nature has been already too long made only a work of the brain and the fancy: It is now high time that it should return to the plainness and soundness of observations on material and obvious things.”
—Robert Hooke (1635–1703)
“Jerry: She’s one of those third-year girls that gripe my liver.
Milo: Third-year girls?
Jerry: Yeah, you know, American college kids. They come over here to take their third year and lap up a little culture. They give me a swift pain.
Milo: Why?
Jerry: They’re officious and dull. They’re always making profound observations they’ve overheard.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)