Interesting thought, OP

I like it. It sounds like Bill Cooper.

Reeeee freeemassonnsss

Wolves are too feeble to command such respect. That is why we tamed them.

That is you. In the East they kill them and then grill them. Dogs were domesticated to be used for hunting and tracking. Only recently have we had such luxury as to make them kings.

Truth. Some people still leave them tied in the backyard and never even socialize with them.

You're probably pretty spot on, except there were always other things than wolves that man never tamed. I would put forth that the smartest man knew no one would doubt that the offerings were working, so he took advantage of the situation and kept the offerings for himself. This man they eventually called a shaman or priest.

The boy who cried wolf...the big bad wolf and red riding hood...the big bad wolf and the three little piggys.

sirius the dogstar.

Search "Russian scientist domestic fox". They domestiacted the fox and the result is it became a dog. I do like your thinking. You are absolutely correct is that they like to pervert knowledge to control us. Old trick, just happens to work. I also like wolves. The idea that we used to leave food for predators leading to sacrifice...very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

Caleb is one of the only Israelites to make it into the land of Israel who lived in Egypt, and Caleb and Celev (the Hebrew word for dog) are identical words in non-voweled Hebrew. If you read the beginning of the book of Judges he is basically the progenitor of the Israelite leadership.

There were probably several paths to domestication. This seems a pretty realistic scenario.

I find it more likely that any "sacred" imagery created or godheads worshipped stemmed from genuine experiences of "spiritual revelation" if you will, and attempts to describe the world glimpsed are reflected in religious imagery. Even deeper than that, they are attempts at delving through the roots of the tree of mind into the infinite continuum that underlies all of creation.

How do you fold the oldest monotheistic religion, zoroastrianism, into this? It permits no sacrifice.

I think you are painting all belief in God as tainted because of Moses - Era judaism and the control tactics of the Catholic church.

I think you will find it interesting. It's an insanely ethical religion. It's also the roots of Christianity-- the Jews got captured and taken to Babylon where they encountered Zoroastrian thought. It converted them from having the Mosaic fire-and-brimstone god who was personal to the Jews into having a god who was God of Creation.

Basically, it's the "ethical layer" of Abrahamic religions. And compared to other religions it was incredibly uncorrupted.

Usually the "bad points" people name about religions-- all the shaming, heretic burning, etc, these are put in place later by power people who usurp someone else's creation (not dissimilar to how the comic book industry was taken over by people with a different goal than "creating comics").

It's helpful to go back to the core of religions before someone decided to make it a part of their power struggle. Humans tend to do that, but they do it with everything. The core religions-- even if you go to core Greek or Norse mythology, is always incredibly just and ethical.

Also, have a look at the new startup American religions, like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc... they never "start up" by appealing to people's bad natures. They always appeal to hope or freedom or love and turn exclusive and bitter (for want of a better word) later when the "marketers" and "businessmen" and "governments" enter the fray.

It's exactly like a business cycle actually-- the entrepreneur starts something, then he sells stock, and then a generation later the purpose of the business is to sell stock, not to produce the product any more.

really good theory...i would suspect it has been written before...if not write a book quick

Pretty cool. What about those milk and cookies?

That’s not for god but for SANTA -> SATAN

are you a furry, OP. you can be honest here, you're among friends.

what is your fursona

sexual? you’re the one bringing sexual into this. also I will assume the fursona is wolf-based

" Humans being pretty intelligent realized this, and to keep their camps from being attacked at night while they slept and we're most vulnerable, they started leaving whatever meat that they could spare on the outer edges of their camps to subdue the beasts so they could rest. "

No...just no. Leaving fucking food lying about your camp is a great way invite predators. There's a reason when you go camping in bear country you take your food away from camp and put it up in a tree.

The domestication of the wolf was probably relatively quick, as both man and wolf were pack hunters and adapted well to mutual cooperation. It's not uncommon today for wolves, if taken from birth, to imprint upon and accept a person or people as their own.

...?

You're talking about leaving food literally outside the periphery of the camp for predators to eat. As if they're going to be like "Welp...I'm full from all these scraps...guess I'll leave those pink squirmy defenseless things alone. "

I'm talking taking the food a good 50 yards away and securing it up in a tree. If a predator catches a wiff and comes looking for it, he's not going to be stumbling around in the middle of your camp licking his chops...he's going to be 50 yards away giving you a chance to assess the situation.

These are NOT the same things. Don't take my word...go talk to anyone who's been camping out in the wilderness for any period of time. Or...put your money where you mouth is. I invite you to go set up camp in the middle of Alaska or Montana, leave your food next to your tent, and see what happens.

LMAO modern humans did not show up 2 million years ago. The genus Homo is most likely that old, but Sapiens are not. Newest archaeological evidence puts modern humans emerging around 500,000 years. That's even recently been pushed back from 350,000 years.

Genetic memory in animals is literally instinct...I'm not sure what you're trying to swing at here.

So I've had a lot of fun thinking about your theory, and I'll grant that it's a viable and interesting one.

I think the largest "hole" in the theory is that mankind basically exists in a state of extreme poverty under natural conditions-- meaning that, a tribe would have a great deal of difficulty putting out any quantity of food any time the hunting was bad. The tribe would starve.

And the more aboriginal a people is, the more likely they are to use "all parts of the animals." For instance, American Indians wasted NOTHING-- because nothing could really afford to be wasted. And even more prosperous cultures, they have all kinds of traditional foods made of weird things whose clear purpose is to use everything they possibly can.

I'll counterpoint myself with the fact that the ancient Greeks used to burn as sacrifices bones and fat. The bones were unusable, and olive oil supplied plenty of fat so that animal fat could be spared (in Greek mythology, Prometheus tricked the gods into accepting the "worthless" sacrifices).

So that would be consistent with your theory. But as far as I know, the Greeks are an extreme outlier-- I believe other sacrificial religions burned the choice bits, which could only happen after the people were already quite prosperous.

I'll check into it-- but I assumed we were talking early early on for the genesis of these ideas on the poverty angle-- like actually before anything we would identify with as "culture" (I think I've read dog domestication goes back 50-75k years?).

Your examples above would be, I think, later than the Younger Dryas because that's when people began farming and farming brought surpluses pretty fast as indicated by the population explosion.

I'm guessing offhand that religion in humans pre-dates that (even some great apes bury their dead with food or implements for the afterlife) and arose REALLY early-- like off our timescales, really. And I'd assume cultural stuff taboos against waste basically amount to a human core behavior, because SO MUCH of our evolution would have taken place in "next meal must be fought for" conditions.

I think your example was quite credible, that's why I enjoyed talking about it so much. The animal/human sacrifice aspect of religions are very odd and around here, at least, the best anyone can come up with is the Aldebarans, Greys, and Nephilim preferred their meals toasted.

And frankly, I never thought much about it before, and I enjoyed the Playground of the Mind, so cheers!

one of the fundamental laws of the science of domestication is that both the the domesticator and the domesticate get domesticated genetically via the process of domestication. It's true for domesticated plants too. It's worthwhile taking a class on this subject.

Wolves and humans have a similar social order so it was quite easy for both of them to merge into a cooperative 'venture' together... some think that is why humans have a reduced sense of smell compared to other animals, early dogs were way better... and that is also why dogs are less intelligent than wolves...

I will though respectfully disagree on the leaving out of meat at night. I've been in a lot of backwater places and that's a big no-no, it attracts all the predators you don't want, along with vermin.

Valid points, all of them. I just want you to know I was trying to be creatively critical, and not just a dick :) I like reading theories such as these...

There are some interesting ancient sites where dogs got buried with the same care as humans.

Coyotes.

I'll check into it-- but I assumed we were talking early early on for the genesis of these ideas on the poverty angle-- like actually before anything we would identify with as "culture" (I think I've read dog domestication goes back 50-75k years?).

Your examples above would be, I think, later than the Younger Dryas because that's when people began farming and farming brought surpluses pretty fast as indicated by the population explosion.

I'm guessing offhand that religion in humans pre-dates that (even some great apes bury their dead with food or implements for the afterlife) and arose REALLY early-- like off our timescales, really. And I'd assume cultural stuff taboos against waste basically amount to a human core behavior, because SO MUCH of our evolution would have taken place in "next meal must be fought for" conditions.

I think your example was quite credible, that's why I enjoyed talking about it so much. The animal/human sacrifice aspect of religions are very odd and around here, at least, the best anyone can come up with is the Aldebarans, Greys, and Nephilim preferred their meals toasted.

And frankly, I never thought much about it before, and I enjoyed the Playground of the Mind, so cheers!