Ishmael: Religion and Agriculture Destructive Towards Man’s Future

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Ishmael: Religion and Agriculture Destructive Towards Man’s Future

Since the beginning of time, man has lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, supporting himself by hunting animals and living off the land around him. This lifestyle is considered to be living in the hands of the gods. Meaning, the gods decide man’s fate, including who should live and who should die, and what resources would be available to him. As a result, man was considered equal to animals, neither one was more powerful than the other. This meant man would have to compete to survive like all animals do. Because of this competition, man would have to evolve. Evolution was necessary in order to support and prevent man from becoming extinct. Man evolved from Australopithecus all the way to Homo sapiens sapiens, which is today’s mankind. However, around 10,000 years ago or in 8000 B.C., man believed he was meant to rule and conquer the world and decided to take control of his own life and take it out of the gods’ hands. By doing this, man was suggesting that the gods were not needed any more, and instead were fine without them. In order to separate from the gods, man would have to become an agriculturist. This would require man to create his own food by harvesting and producing the necessary crops, maintain cattle, and settle down. Settling down would allow man to abandon the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and begin to produce more food than what is needed and save for hard times. Thus, allowing man to not worry about droughts or any other natural disasters that could cause him to have a shortage of food. According to Ishmael, agriculture and religion have both been destructive to man’s future.

The start of the agriculture revolution occurred around 8000 B.C., in Meso...

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...e diversity of the community, and ultimately destroying mans chance of survival. Because religion involved the gods controlling man’s life, the gods were abandoned and pushed to the side. Man wanted ultimate control over his life, which can only be achieved by taking his life out of the gods’ hands and placing it into his own. By doing this, man will work to gain complete control of his life, but will fail and perish in the process. As Ishmael explains, the only way to end this path towards the destruction of mankind is to, “teach a hundred what I’ve taught you, and inspire each of them to teach a hundred” (248). Meaning, everyone must teach one another about the horrible acts mankind has been exhibiting for the past 10,000 years. And although life seems great right now, we must return to the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers because that is how man is meant to live.

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