Early Humans.

kneemos

What's the deal with early mankind,Neanderthal type deal.Do they have a place in Heaven ? Or at what point do we qualify ?

uck51js9zml2yt

kneemos wrote: »

What's the deal with early mankind,Neanderthal type deal.Do they have a place in Heaven ? Or at what point do we qualify ?

kneemos, dont you have your own thread for posting your preponderances?

looksee

I think its quite an interesting question, if badly phrased - I doubt that kneemos is suggesting he is a Neanderthal.

kneemos

looksee wrote: »

I think its quite an interesting question, if badly phrased - I doubt that kneemos is suggesting he is a Neanderthal.

It's one I've pondered many times.

uck51js9zml2yt

looksee wrote: »

I think its quite an interesting question, if badly phrased - I doubt that kneemos is suggesting he is a Neanderthal.

Some on boards might not agree with you

If I take the biblical view as being correct(and I do), man didn't evolve from neanderthals.
There seems to be enough evidence to say existed. I would propose they were a species in themselves.
Not having looked into it in any depth, this is nothing but my immediate thoughts on the matter.

recedite

kneemos wrote: »

It's one I've pondered many times.

What... that you might be a Neandertal, or that Neandertals might not go to heaven?

Just for the record, a small % of Neandertal DNA is present in the genes of the "native" European and Asian populations. So it looks like they did the wild thing together when they met up, at some point in time.

kneemos

recedite wrote: »

What... that you might be a Neandertal, or that Neandertals might not go to heaven?



At what point do we qualify for the pearly gates.

PirateShampoo

Jayden Quiet Rabies wrote: »

If I take the biblical view as being correct(and I do), man didn't evolve from neanderthals.
.

Well modern man and neanderthal are two different species, they may have interesting breed with each other but if you take the bible for its word then God created the Earth and there fore neanderthal so why wouldn't they be welcome at his table?

Hotei

Jayden Quiet Rabies wrote: »

Some on boards might not agree with you

If I take the biblical view as being correct(and I do), man didn't evolve from neanderthals.
There seems to be enough evidence to say existed. I would propose they were a species in themselves.
Not having looked into it in any depth, this is nothing but my immediate thoughts on the matter.

Homo sapiens didn't evolve from Neanderthals. Neanderthals were a separate human species. Present paleoanthropological belief is that both species may have descended from a common ancestor, Homo heidelbergensis.

Mancomb Seepgood

Neanderthals have something of an undeserved, bad reputation. There seems to be fairly solid evidence that they interbred with homo sapiens at times so we all have a little Neanderthal in us. The idea of two human species living in proximity at the same time is pretty fascinating.

If humans can go to heaven, then surely our Neanderthal cousins could too. God only knows!

Canis Lupus

Mancomb Seepgood wrote: »

Neanderthals have something of an undeserved, bad reputation. There seems to be fairly solid evidence that they interbred with homo sapiens at times so we all have a little Neanderthal in us. The idea of two human species living in proximity at the same time is pretty fascinating.

If humans can go to heaven, then surely our Neanderthal cousins could too. God only knows!

Where's the cutoff though. What are the requirements? Speech? self awareness? At what point in the evolutionary tree does god draw the line?

Hotei

Mancomb Seepgood wrote: »

The idea of two human species living in proximity at the same time is pretty fascinating.

Fascinating indeed, but how about the possibility that four separate human species were present on this planet at the same time? Evidence suggests that circa 60,000 B.C.E. modern humans shared this planet with Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo floresiensis (nicknamed 'the hobbit'), and there may have been other (as yet undiscovered) human species present then too.

Manach

One would perhaps look at the community and ceremonial (hallmarks of religion) aspects of what could be speculated of their behaviour. A decade or so back their was a paper on a Neanderthal's grave site and evidence of a burial with what looked to be funeral offerings. This has been latter disputed. A good general book on subject is The Neanderthals Rediscovered by Dimitra Papagianni, though it more dwells on their extinction than possible culture AFAIR.

recedite

Funeral offerings. I wonder what religion they were?

endacl

tal

Not thal

Guys. Please.

kneemos

endacl wrote: »

tal

Not thal

Guys. Please.

Thal actually.

recedite

kneemos wrote: »

Thal actually.

No, No, No, that's a heresy.

Manach

recedite wrote: »

Funeral offerings. I wonder what religion they were?

Given, if they were offerings, the items paleooentoligsts (like Nicolas Ward in the book Before the dawn)have speculated in similar later pre-history cases that it was ancestor worship.

Peregrinus

endacl wrote: »

tal

Not thal

Guys. Please.

The species is named after the valley in Germany where the relevant fossils were discovered in 1856. At the time, the German name of the valley was Neanderthal (= Neander valley, Neander being the name of the river which flowed through it) and this was adopted as the name (in English) of the species. It occurs regularly in English from 1861.

In 1904, during a language reform, the name of the valley was simplified to Neandertal, the name it still has. At some point after that, some writers in English began to use this spelling for the name of the species also. This usage is found mainly (but not exclusively) in writers of US English but, even there, it's a minority usage.

Scientific American favours "Neandertal". Nature, National Geographic and New Scientist all prefer the older spelling.

I think I feel a schism coming on!

ScumLord

Neanderthals were like riden' cousins, as were most of the other humanoid species. They left Africa in the first migration, then when the second migration of humans left Africa we rode all those other humans out of existence. It was a handy shortcut for picking up any mutations the locals had specific to the region.

It's possible Neanderthals were in some way smarter than us, they had larger brains and here as technologically advanced as humans when it comes to tools. The only advantage humans had over neanderthals were an ability to hunt at longer ranges and trade. When humans meet they didn't fight each other they traded. that meant any new technologies could spread rapidly amongst humans.

Peregrinus

Well, I believe that there's a theory that another advantage H. Sapiens had over H. Neanderthalis was that we were less muscular.

"Less muscular?" I hear you cry. Yes, less muscular, and with a greater propensity to put on fat. Being less muscular, we needed less protein in our diet to function and so could spend a bit less time hunting and gathering, and a bit more time sitting around the cave developing tools and language and such. And being fatty we could survive a bit longer when the hunting and gathering got a bit lean.

But back to the OP; could a Neanderthal be "saved"? I think the theological take on this would be:

(a) salvation is a mysterious outworking of the grace of God, and it's not for us to decree who is or is not saved; but

(b) the concept of salvation is linked to the Fall - that's what we're saved from; and

(c) the notion of the Fall is linked to the notion that we are made in the image of God.

So the question comes down to: Are Neanderthal humans made in the image of God? There's a variety of theological perspectives on what "image of God" means, but few if any of them suggest this has anything to do with physical appearance. So Neanderthals' greater muscularity and lower body fat can be discounted here. Broadly speaking, in the Christian tradition (yes, yes, it's a Jewish concept originally, but we're in the Christianity forum here) being an image of God connotes being aware of one's own existence, being able to interact creatively with the rest of creation; being aware of good and evil and being capable of aspiring to be good and of making things good, or better; being capable of love; being capable of rationality; being capable of moral choices.

So, the answer to the question seems to be that to the extent that Neanderthals shared these characteristics, it seems that they could participate in salvation. To what extent did they share these characteristics? No idea, I'm afraid.

ScumLord

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, I believe that there's a theory that another advantage H. Sapiens had over H. Neanderthalis was that we were less muscular.

"Less muscular?" I hear you cry. Yes, less muscular, and with a greater propensity to put on fat. Being less muscular, we needed less protein in our diet to function and so could spend a bit less time hunting and gathering, and a bit more time sitting around the cave developing tools and language and such. And being fatty we could survive a bit longer when the hunting and gathering got a bit lean.

The difference in hunting style could play into that too. Apparently Neanderthals were ambush hunters whereas we are persistence hunters, that would mean we'd require a diet made up of a lot of carbohydrates to be able to cover the great distances of our hunting grounds. When we look at human tribes today hunting is as much a method to show off the prowess of males, the women actually bring in most the food through gathering (which would probably include management of the land, farming beta) and it's probably been like that since the days of stone age man.

Walter H Price

i'm sure they probably had there own religion , something akin to the about 2,999 other religions that either exist now or existed before the Jesus story came about like greek , norse , cletic Mythology , egyptian ,roman, incan and Aztec Gods. maybe neaderthals worshiped the sun , moon rain or something like many primitive homosapian cultures did

didn't some scientist even find religious belief among certain troups of chimp's. The old fear of death what come's next thing seems fairly primal and basic.

ScumLord

Walter H Price wrote: »

maybe neaderthals worshiped the sun , moon rain or something like many primitive homosapian cultures did

The earliest religious/spiritual symbols seem to be female fertility symbols, little statues with overemphasised female features.. Given the difficulty humans have giving birth, losing mother and baby was probably one of their major concerns. Losing a mate would have been a huge blow to the males ability to survive, especially when the woman may have provided the majority of the food.

Peregrinus

Walter H Price wrote: »

i'm sure they probably had there own religion , something akin to the about 2,999 other religions that either exist now or existed before the Jesus story came about like greek , norse , cletic Mythology , egyptian ,roman, incan and Aztec Gods. maybe neaderthals worshiped the sun , moon rain or something like many primitive homosapian cultures did

didn't some scientist even find religious belief among certain troups of chip's. The old fear of death what come's next thing seems fairly primal and basic.

I think the argument here may be a bit circular. To have a fear of death, I suggest, you need at a minimum to be aware (a) that you are alive, and (b) that this is not a necessary state of affairs - i.e. you can imagine a universe in which you do not exist. So we can only be "sure" that Neanderthals "probably" had their own religion if we can be sure that Neanderthals were conscious of their own existence, and understood that it was contingent and unnecessary. And - I'm open to correction here - I don't think we have any evidence on either of these points.

Walter H Price

Peregrinus wrote: »

I think the argument here may be a bit circular. To have a fear of death, I suggest, you need at a minimum to be aware (a) that you are alive, and (b) that this is not a necessary state of affairs - i.e. you can imagine a universe in which you do not exist. So we can only be "sure" that Neanderthals "probably" had their own religion if we can be sure that Neanderthals were conscious of their own existence, and understood that it was contingent and unnecessary. And - I'm open to correction here - I don't think we have any evidence on either of these points.

My only core point was that "faith" seems to be pretty primitive among to species of great ape , the earliest humans worshiped the sun and moon , there were thousands of gods and creation myths pre the emergence of judeism , christianity and islam...Chimpanzees have been observed exhibiting similar behaviours presenting offerings to trees and even constructing crude temples etc... https://www.newscientist.com/article/2079630-what-do-chimp-temples-tell-us-about-the-evolution-of-religion/

In essence it can be assumed that neanderthals as another great ape off shoot probably exhibited some of thees traits too , who knows what the worshiped or made offerings too , but i can be presumed they they most likely did it in some shape or form.

Nick Park

Walter H Price wrote: »

didn't some scientist even find religious belief among certain troups of chip's.

Let me guess. The chips worshipped a fish?

I'd take that one with a pinch of salt (and a dash of vinegar).

ScumLord

Peregrinus wrote: »

So we can only be "sure" that Neanderthals "probably" had their own religion if we can be sure that Neanderthals were conscious of their own existence, and understood that it was contingent and unnecessary. And - I'm open to correction here - I don't think we have any evidence on either of these points.

Neanderthals created art and they did bury their dead, although there's not a lot of evidense left to say how elaborate the funeral might have been. They could also produce tools as complex as human tools, and I mean complex, to the point of making glues. The only clear separation between us and neanderthal is being able to swap culture, ideas and trade.

It's such a minor yet significant difference. It would mean they could have had a thousand different cultures based on ancestor worship, but where as humans could combine their beliefs into a common culture, the neanderthals beliefs may not have been able to evolve that quickly. They may have been an even greater excuse for conflict with their own species than religion has been to us.

Peregrinus

The fact that chimpanzees display certain behaviours which, in humans, are associated with religion doesn't mean that chimps are religious, or even proto-religious. We can observe how the chimps behave, but we can only speculate about what the behaviour means to the chimps, or whether it is associated with anything that could meaningfully be called "belief". That's not to say that chimps couldn't, evolutionarily, have reached a point where they might have developed a capacity for some kind of proto-religion, but the evidence doesn't seem to me to do more than allow us to speculate that they might have done.

Scumlord's point that the neanderthals couldn't exchange culture and ideas is relevant. Religion is, at least so far as the sociologists are concerned, an inherently communal affair; it involves shared rituals, practices and beliefs. If the neanderthals couldn't exchange culture and ideas, it's hard to see how they could have developed anything that we would call "religion".

(That's not to say that they couldn't be saved, of course. Theologically, the question of whether you can be saved doesn't depend on your having or practising any religion.)

looksee

Do Neanderthals come in as humans though? God made man in his own image and everything continued from there. Accepting that the creation story is an allegory rather than literal truth, this still applies. At some stage there was 'the fall' and humankind was sent on its way with a burden that Jesus lifted. If you accept that, then you have to decide what constitutes 'human' and when this came into play, and whether Neanderthals were part of that.

recedite

looksee wrote: »

Do Neanderthals come in as humans though?

If they were still around, they'd probably be calling you a racist for saying that
Technically, a "race" occurs within a species. But as the various groups of early "people" including Denisovans, Florensis Hobbits, Cro-magnon man etc.. are often reclassified by scientists, its not entirely fixed as to what is a species and what is a sub-species or a race, or a clade.

Advbrd

Sure doesn't the bible tell us that the earth is only 6000 years old. Therefore Neanderthals, like dinosaurs cannot have existed.

Nick Park

Advbrd wrote: »

Sure doesn't the bible tell us that the earth is only 6000 years old.

Does it? Where does the Bible say that?

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

If they were still around, they'd probably be calling you a racist for saying that
Technically, a "race" occurs within a species. But as the various groups of early "people" including Denisovans, Florensis Hobbits, Cro-magnon man etc.. are often reclassified by scientists, its not entirely fixed as to what is a species and what is a sub-species or a race, or a clade.

I think technically technically, "race" isn't a concept much employed by scientists any more, because (a) it lacks taxonomic rigour, and (b) it's typically a political or cultural, rather than biological, category. Some scientists use race to describe in humans what would be called a subspecies in any species other than human. (And the only extant human subspecies is our own. home sapiens sapiens, so in this usage there is just one current human race.) But most prefer to avoid the term altogether.

Peregrinus

looksee wrote: »

Do Neanderthals come in as humans though? God made man in his own image and everything continued from there. Accepting that the creation story is an allegory rather than literal truth, this still applies. At some stage there was 'the fall' and humankind was sent on its way with a burden that Jesus lifted. If you accept that, then you have to decide what constitutes 'human' and when this came into play, and whether Neanderthals were part of that.

I think most theologians would approach this the other way around, though. Rather than saying "if you're human you must be an image of God and, if you're not human, you must not be", they'd be more inclined to say "if you're an image of God, you're human" (or ". . . you're included in the category of man employed in Genesis"). So, whether neanderthals are human or not (in this sense) depends on whether they are considered to be an image of God.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

I think technically technically, "race" isn't a concept much employed by scientists any more, because (a) it lacks taxonomic rigour, and (b) it's typically a political or cultural, rather than biological, category. Some scientists use race to describe in humans what would be called a subspecies in any species other than human. (And the only extant human subspecies is our own. home sapiens sapiens, so in this usage there is just one current human race.) But most prefer to avoid the term altogether.

While all of the above is true, the technical/biological definition for the term "species" still pertains; individuals within the species can breed together and produce fertile offspring.
Take for example the mule; it is an animal that possesses some of the useful traits from both the horse and the donkey. But mules are infertile, so you cannot bred two mules together to get more mules.

The proven fact that European populations contain Neandertal DNA shows, by definition, that the Sapiens/Neandertal hybrid offspring were fertile. Therefore, by biological definition, the two were subspecies of the same species.

The fact that this DNA survives into the current era, proves that at least some of the hybrids suffered no evolutionary disadvantage. It seems likely that some of them had an advantage.

If you wonder what the "pure" Homo sapiens sapiens would have been like, look to Africa. Probably the San bushmen of South Africa are the purest representatives of the original race.

Peregrinus

I don't think we are disagreeing, recedite. Homo is the genus, h. sapiens is the species, and h. sapiens sapiens, as we modestly call ourselves, is the only extant subspecies of that species. The neanderthals were either h. sapiens neanderthalis, a different subspecies, or h. neanderthalis a different species. Those who argue that they should be seen as a different subspecies do so precisely on the grounds that interbreeding was possible. Some others argue that the "interbreeeding" rule isn't a hard-and-fast way of determining what's a species and what's a subspecies (and point to the fact that some mules are fertile) while others suggest that there may not have been interbreeding after all; the shared DNA may come from a ancestor common to both groups.

It's all a bit academic since, whether neanerthals are regarded as a distinct species or a distinct subspieces, they are extinct; all living humans are of the subspecies h. sapiens sapiens. So those scienties who are willing to countenance the term "race" agree that there is today just one human race, and we are all members of it. They don't use "race" in anything like the sense that, well, racists use it.

recedite

Well, when you are talking about the scientific classification of currently living (or extant) humans, political considerations trump biological ones.
But when you are talking about extinct humans, the normal biological conventions apply.

Anyway, I was challenging the commonly held belief that Neandertals were not human, or were sub-human. The more we learn about them, the more we realise they were quite advanced in their own way. Maybe in an autistic sort of way.

ScumLord

Peregrinus wrote: »

Scumlord's point that the neanderthals couldn't exchange culture and ideas is relevant. Religion is, at least so far as the sociologists are concerned, an inherently communal affair; it involves shared rituals, practices and beliefs. If the neanderthals couldn't exchange culture and ideas, it's hard to see how they could have developed anything that we would call "religion".

It's not that Neanderthals couldn't exchange culture and ideas. They seem to have been mostly on a par with humans, if they could interact with humans they could probably see the logic in the human way of not fighting every new person you meet. There's probably some trigger that just changed human behaviour enough so that they wouldn't automatically take fight or flight and gave them the third option of "lets see what the craic is first". Neanderthals may just have been slaves to their behaviour, logically knowing it was beneficial to associate with humans but unnerved by being in a large group.

They're concept of the world may have been as well thought out, at the time we didn't have a fully fledged religion either, that didn't really come along until 12,000 years ago or so. So comparing like for like stone age man to neanderthal there doesn't seem to have been as large a gap in how they practiced their religious life, there may have been a lot of overlapping ideals.

We can see the evolution of religion in our own species from ancestor worship, perceiving those ancestors to be having an effect on the living, opening up the possibility of something beyond our own mortal existence, then kings becoming gods and reserving their status after death. into something more organised. It was an evolution of an idea. We can't say for sure if neanderthals had the opportunity to survive that they wouldn't do the same thing.

I guess it depends on what your definition of a religion is. Do the native Americans have a religion? Do Aboriginals have a religion? Do we class their believes as a religion or is the fact they didn't develop it into a hierarchy like Judaism or Christianity mean it's not a religion?

recedite wrote: »

The fact that this DNA survives into the current era, proves that at least some of the hybrids suffered no evolutionary disadvantage. It seems likely that some of them had an advantage.

I think so, neanderthals weren't the only other humans around when the second human expansion took place, there were apes across most of the continent. They had all had plenty of time to develop physical adaptations to their environment. The second expansion of humans could take an evolutionary shortcut by breeding with them.

Although, that said humans don't as much depend on their physical adaptations these days. We learn to survive in a new environment, we don't need to physically adapt. Being able to communicate with another similar animal may have been a more beneficial than breeding with them.

There are two ways that neanderthal DNA got into our own. Either we raped an pillaged our way across the planet. Or we married into indigenous groups for access to their resources.. Neanderthals probably took family even more seriously than we do, seeing as they were much more dependant on that type of social group.

Peregrinus

ScumLord wrote: »

I guess it depends on what your definition of a religion is. Do the native Americans have a religion? Do Aboriginals have a religion? Do we class their believes as a religion or is the fact they didn't develop it into a hierarchy like Judaism or Christianity mean it's not a religion?

These are interesting questions but they are not relevant, or only indirectly relevant, to the question raised by the OP (Could neanderthals be saved?). It's never been part of the Judeo-Christian tradition that you have to be religious, or even capable of being religious, in any sense of the word "religion" in order to be capable of salvation or redemption. You have to be Fallen (since what else are you being saved/redeemed from?). And, to be Fallen, you have to be an Image of God, which most commentators agree requires a moral sense, but not necessarily any religious/spiritual awareness.

So I think the question is not so much whether neanderthals "had a religion", whatever we mean by "religion" in that context, but whether they were capable of ethical awareness, ethical reflection and ethical action. We tend to conflate the two questions, since religions invariably have some ethical component, and therefore if you're religious you're capable of ethical thought/behaviour. But the converse does not necessarily hold. So even if neanderthals didn't have anything we could meaningfully call "religion", they may still have had a moral sense.

ScumLord

Peregrinus wrote: »

So I think the question is not so much whether neanderthals "had a religion", whatever we mean by "religion" in that context, but whether they were capable of ethical awareness, ethical reflection and ethical action. We tend to conflate the two questions, since religions invariably have some ethical component, and therefore if you're religious you're capable of ethical thought/behaviour. But the converse does not necessarily hold. So even if neanderthals didn't have anything we could meaningfully call "religion", they may still have had a moral sense.

We do have some comparisons in archaeology. We can say that Neanderthals cared for their sick and injured, we have remains that have shown life threatening injuries healed, which could only happen if others looked after them. This would be similar to humans of the time. They also show evidence of burials, but we couldn't really say if that's just to protect a dead loved one from being eaten, or whether there was ceremony and expectation of an afterlife.

But those kind of things could probably be put down to the neanderthals dependance on each other and the fact their groups were so small. Older people could still be productive even if they couldn't hunt. Maybe they did it out of practicality more than love.

The big problem comes with their lack of interaction and trading in comparison to humans. Maybe they loved their own immediate family but wouldn't have extended that friendship out to other members of their species. Which kind of puts their morality into question. Of course humans weren't a whole lot better, the history of prehistoric, to ancient, to empires, humanity is full of horrible events that prehistoric humans and neanderthals probably wouldn't even dream of in their worst nightmares.

I give neanderthals the benefit of the doubt because of their brain size though. Big brained animals tend to be a bit nicer than the others, I think if they could think logically and put their emotions aside they'd probably be fairly similar to humans, just a bit quieter and more likely to stay in rather than go down the pub.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

..while others suggest that there may not have been interbreeding after all; the shared DNA may come from a ancestor common to both groups..
It's all a bit academic since, whether neanerthals are regarded as a distinct species or a distinct subspieces, they are extinct; all living humans are of the subspecies h. sapiens sapiens.

If the DNA came from a shared ancestor of all humans, then the African population which did not come into contact with them would also share it.
The reason we modern humans now have a double barrelled name (h. sapiens sapiens as opposed to just the h. sapiens which it was before) is a scientific acknowledgement that there was more than one subspecies of Homo sapiens, or "human".

If you have freckles, fat fingers, rosy cheeks or smoke cigarettes you can blame your Neandertal ancestors. Here's a fun list of various attributes you may be able to blame them for.

Walter H Price

so wait now i'm confused if Humans and Neanderthals interbred , was Adam or Eve the Neanderthal or could it be that this whole creation myth is absolute makbelieve nonsense hahahahahahahaha

I know what my moneys on

Skommando

Walter H Price wrote: »

so wait now i'm confused if Humans and Neanderthals interbred , was Adam or Eve the Neanderthal or could it be that this whole creation myth is absolute makbelieve nonsense hahahahahahahaha

I know what my moneys on

Adam and Eve cheifly concerns mankind's spiritual development.
The last laugh is that usually, only anti-theists and poorly educated american evangelicals and drive by trolls take phrases used scripture as idioms and metaphors literally heeheeheeheeheheheeeheeeheehee

A far more interesting question is exactly when, at what point and why during evolution did God choose to infuse mankind with an immortal soul . . .

Peregrinus

Walter H Price wrote: »

so wait now i'm confused . . .

I'm afraid it shows!

Walter H Price

Skommando wrote: »

A far more interesting question is exactly when, at what point and why during evolution did God choose to infuse mankind with an immortal soul . . .

is it definitely just man then that has an aul soul ? like do all dogs actually not go to heaven ?

Also which god Zeus ,Ra , Daghda , Odin , Yawaeh (Allah), Xenu ?

Absolam

Walter H Price wrote: »

is it definitely just man then that has an aul soul ? like do all dogs actually not go to heaven ?

Also which god Zeus ,Ra , Daghda , Odin , Yawaeh (Allah), Xenu ?

If you were to speculate, say, based on the forum you're posting in.... what do you think you'd lean towards?

LordSutch

Interestingly neanderthal DNA is completly absent from the black African population!

The rest of us carry between 1% and 4% neanderthal DNA in our bodies.