"Mankind has been religious even from the time of the Australopithecus Lucy"

[Michie]

Cardinal Ries: “Christians need to understand other cultures”

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City
“Mankind from its origins has always been religious”. Belgian priest Julien Ries, 92 years old and long term professor at the Catholic University of Lovanio, is the founder of a new discipline, the Fundamental Anthropology of Religion. A supporter of exchange and communication between religions, Ries is about to be appointed Cardinal on the 18th of February. He has devoted his life to studying the sacred and holy in different cultures. He has also written countless books and his complete works are published in Italian by Jaca Book.


“You are going to be made Cardinal after a lifetime dedicated to research. You have been among the first to claim that the religious dimension is innate to mankind. Is a religious conscience truly part of human nature?”

“I agree with Yves Coppens, the palaeontologist who found Lucy and who has been saying for years how ‘Man is from the beginning a Religious Man’”.

Andrea Tornielli: “What is the evidence for this claim?”

Ries: “Let us look closely at this Religious Man as we know him through historic events and facts. If we analyze the frescos made by him which have been so far discovered in hundreds of caves, the thousands of engravings he did in stone, if we examine his behaviour towards the dead, if we try and understand the meaning of his gestures, the hands raised towards the sky – as the ancient Egyptians called it ‘ Ka’- we must recognize that the primitive man had a conscious relationship with an arcane reality beyond this world”.

“What is the purpose of holy books in the various religions?”

Continued- http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/the-vatican/detail/articolo/vatican-cardinale-cardinal-cardenal-ries-11433/

 

[ProScribe]

Interesting article.

I think the first humans discovered ancient religion when they discovered the warmth & divinity of the rays of the sun.

The moon however is whole nother' subject.

peace