11,000-Year-Old Temple Found In Turkey

Ralph Spoilsport writes "In Southeast Turkey, the archaeologist Klaus Schmidt has discovered an 11,000-year-old temple. Established civilization theory suggests that agriculture created cities, and cities created monuments. This discovery suggests just the opposite — people got together to build a huge monument to their religion, and in order to sustain it, communities were formed and agriculture (already in development) quickly followed on to sustain the population. Truly a startling find with significant implications."

Comments

Re:Problem

[Digitus1337]

I'm not sure who to attribute it to, but one of the QOTDs on the bottom (Quote of the Moments, maybe? they change more often than daily, but I digress) said something along the lines of, "Science and religion are not incompatible, but science and faith are."

Another common mystery

[zappepcs]

"Trying to pick out symbolism from prehistoric context is an exercise in futility."

We've known about the rings at Stonehenge for how long? What do we know about them? Not much.

The simple fact is that we are still discovering evidence of what man did before inventing writing of any sort. I'm continually amazed at the apparent opinion of many that what science knows now is all there is to know, or that it is not possible that it is not quite right.

Alluding to an earlier post, massive drastic evolutionary changes just don't make sense to me. There has to be more history in the dirt than we know about. Chances of us finding it... meh!

I don't think that the curve of knowledge acquisition of the last 500 years is a linear projection of the millions of years before them. I think this whole gain in knowledge is rather logarithmic in nature. Meaning that the first several thousand centuries passed without writing, without lasting evidence to show we had been there. Stonehenge, the Sphinx... how many others? They all stand there with no written account of who or why they were erected. We are still arguing about how the great pyramids at Giza were built. (they made them of concrete).

Point is, this should not be surprising. What should be is that it has taken this long to find it, never mind any other corroborating evidence of early man's efforts to create. What the temple could mean in terms of sociology or religion is pittance compared to what it means to evolution IMO. The technology and effort used to create it means a lot. Guesses about agriculture and social groupings are just that. I have a sneaking suspicion that socially, mankind evolved from pack/clan culture early on. There are so many similarities to that, but we just don't see it in modern society, or ignore it. sheeple anyone? They need a pack leader, right?

Anyway, I hope that further study/excavation shows us something more meaningful than what has been found. We, as a species, need it to fully recognize where we came from, for that is how you understand what direction to go. Just an opinion.

Re:Another common mystery

[zappepcs]

I agree with you! I basically write code for a living right now, and every day I learn something new. It's invigorating. I cannot imagine that learning new things about the as yet unknown or our past is not invigorating for mankind. I look back at old code I have written and think... wow, I know a lot more now.

Interestingly, I don't believe this kind of thinking is new. 1000 years before the library at Alexandria there must have been people who thought the same thoughts. It follows that 10,000 years before that people had the same thoughts. All the way back past learning how to use fire or the wheel. Where we might be in 50, 100, or 500 years is an incredible thought. The people who built this temple must have done it with the latest technology and skills available... meaning that there were many skills and technologies prior that were not as good. From their perspective, it would seem no different than an architect working on a new building today.

Our knowledge and skill really took off flying when we created ways to store knowledge and share it easily. The easier it is to share knowledge, the greater mankind becomes. My vote for invention of the last 1000 year? The internet, for all the reasons stated. Now, you as a 'scientist' can share your ideas with all of us, and we with you. One thought in the bathtub can lead to great moments in science. (unless you are in the porn industry... but that is another matter).

When I was in school, the paper encyclopedia was all there was, or a library. Now I can consult libraries all over the world... and never leave my house. Awesome. I hope that this discovery being blasted across the planet spurs on ideas and knowledge linking that was not possible before it's publication. Sort of the butterfly effect of knowledge acquisition.

I wish to know more about our past and origins and will patiently wait for those good folks who do such things to discover clues. I wait feeling assured that my wait is not in vain, that there will be answers, and that no one will find the garden of Eden. Discoveries like this can only light the way toward that enlightenment. I want to know about all the mysteries as though they were birthday gifts to me. Why are the Nasca lines there? Why did the migration of early man leave us separated? (I secretly doubt this is true) I want to know the true origins of mankind. I would also like to meet an alien. If not in person, by some communication method. I'm not afraid of what can be, or was. I just want to know. Simply knowing all these things and more is reason enough to have lived.

Enough blathering, on with the discoveries :-)

Re:Another common mystery

[TapeCutter]

"I'm continually amazed at the apparent opinion of many that what science knows now is all there is to know, or that it is not possible that it is not quite right."

I'm continually amazed how often people claim this, I cannot think of one person I have met in my 50yrs that has held this idea but there are countless people who claim it is common.

What's more the assertion itself implies that somewhere "out there" is a correct answer that we can all accept with 100% unchanging certainty. That concept is the contrary to science both in philosophy and implementation, science simply provides the best answer (as demonstrated by centuries of usefull spin-off's). IMHO the pace of knowledge acquisition over the last 50yrs has exploded due mainly to more accessible education and a massive reduction of influence from religion. On the longer term mankinds colective body of knowledge goes up and down, but it does have a fairly consistent upward trend and is definitely related to events in society.

"Alluding to an earlier post, massive drastic evolutionary changes just don't make sense to me."

Then I suggest you argue with Dawkins or Gould.

"Anyway, I hope that further study/excavation shows us something more meaningful than what has been found."

I am glad to see you support the work even though you personally think it's meaningless, it implies a trust in science on your part that I admire. Having said that, it's only meaningless to those who don't understand what those "guesses" about the relationship between agriculture/religion/buildings are based on. Turkey (via many lines of evidence) is where both agriculture and buildings originated ~10,000yrs ago, an 11,000yo temple (anywhere in the world) is therefore meaningfull to people who are intrested in the origins and spread of civilization (not that nomadic tribes are uncivilised, just that they have an alterantive definition-re: modern day Mongolia). But yes, there is still a lot we don't know outside of Europe - perhaps Turkey wasn't the birthplace of civilization but right now at this point in time that idea is far more speculative than any of the ideas in TFA.

"We are still arguing about how the great pyramids at Giza were built. (they made them of concrete)."

Again simply because we don't know everything does not mean we know nothing. Some people actually know quite a bit about the various methods (note the plural) used to build pyramids. Normally they were made from limestone and/or granite blocks, some were given a coating of lime to make the sides smooth and white. Over the millenia most (if not all) the lime coating has been scavanged to cover the walls of nearby towns/cities.

As for "concrete blocks", it's an interesting idea backed up by a couple of material analysists and (to me anyway) the limestone covering demonstrates they knew about "concrete" but these guys are still very far from providing the evidence needed to ADD it to accepted idea's, let alone the "extrodinary evidence" that would be needed to show ALL pyramids were built with the concrete method.

Re:Problem

[tbannist]

I refer you to Albert Einstein's quote, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind," and so religion at least can co-exist with science. You certainly don't have to accept either one!

You keep using those words, I do not think they mean what you think they mean. That was Einsteins summary of a talk he gave on the interplay between religion and science. Specifically, he said Religion aught to be concerned with how things should be, not with how they are.

More specifically, he said that Religion's job was to deal with issues relating to the emotions. He went on to say in the same speech:

"The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God,"

You also seem to have gotten Pascal's wager wrong. Pascal said assuming that there's a 50-50 chance that God exists and that if you do not believe in God you will go to hell for all eternity, it is safer to believe in God. Because if you're wrong to believe in God, you don't lose anything.

It doesn't look like you read the article you linked, particularly the section entitled criticisms of Pascal's wager. He doesn't account for the cost of believing in the wrong God. And his supposition is only to be applied in the case where you can not determine through reason whether a god exists or not.

Of course, if you can not determine that a God exists, you can not know how such a God would want you to live, so you can never actually follow through on the wager.

Any other fallacies you wish to share?

[Moraelin]

Actually, sad to say, what you do there isn't "science in support of faith", it's "bullshit fallacies in support of faith."

E.g.,

since the majority of the humans alive today are religious, you are safer to accept the hypothesis that religion is not a hoax, than you are to accept the hypothesis that religion is a hoax

... is not science or rational thought at all, it's just a well known fallacy: appeal to numbers. Just because a majority believes in X, doesn't make X true.

E.g., at some point the majority believed that the Earth is flat. It didn't make it so. It didn't even make it a safer bet. That belief is completely orthogonal to how reality actually is.

Plus, "the majority of humans alive today are religious" is mis-leading right there. Those people believe wildly different and mutually-incompatible religions. Which of those religions do you believe? Hinduism can't be true at the same time as Christianity, for example. So painting it all with a "they're religious" brush creates a false majority there.

Taking Christianity for example, it claims some 2 billion adherents worldwide, though that's got more to do with what you've been baptized to, than whether you're actually a devout christian. Well, that's less than a third of the world's population. A majority of the world isn't christian, so by your reasoning, it stands to reason that it's more likely that Christianity is false.