Good and Evil in the Stone Age

If there were any racial issues at Elsdon, I wasn't aware of them. I do remember that Rev. Anderson took the M.Y.F. downtown once to hear Martin Luther King speak. That's right, live and in person. I don't remember what he talked about, but I remember being favorably impressed with the man. We  must have discussed it afterwards, but I don't remember there being any controversy about it. As Christians, we believed it was our duty to love everybody, and I assumed that the rest of the congregation was on the same page. Looking back on it, that might not have been the case. I know that some of the congregants were not particularly fond of Rev. Anderson, but he was popular with the M.Y.F., probably because he wasn't a lot older than we were and seemed to understand our problems.

I think we are supposed to love God because He loves us, not just because He is the boss man. For it is written: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3-16 RSV) I'm not saying I totally believe that myself, you understand, that's just what it says in the book. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't believe it either. I try to keep an open mind about things like that.

I have read some novels about Stone Age societies. Although they were fictional, they were supposed to be based on archaeological evidence. According to them, good and evil in the Stone Age mostly had to do with the survival of the clan or tribe. All the silly little rituals and taboos that they followed were meant to keep the spirits on their side, so the clan would survive and thrive. The shaman, being smarter than the average cave dweller, may or may not have believed this stuff himself, but he told it to his people for their own good. The hocus pocus stuff was probably rigged, but the shaman knew that it was necessary to put on a good magic show to get and hold people's attention. There were probably some unscrupulous shamans who were just in it for their own power and glory, but it seems like that would have not been beneficial to the tribe, and would have resulted in their ending up on the cull pile of evolution. The headmen also didn't rule just because they could kick the ass of the competition, although that certainly wouldn't have hurt their chances. If it was anything like the Native American cultures, an ineffective leader would usually be abandoned by his followers. It wouldn't be necessary to overthrow him, people would just wander away and find somebody else to follow. You know, that might not be a bad way to run a society today. Has anybody thought of this before?