As a non-religious person, it frustrates me that so much gets automatically interpreted as religious. I'm sure you think I'm being silly. I'm not. It's the acceptance of these little things that leads to the tacit acceptance of the larger things.
Things like when people say the US was founded on the Bible and that the Constitution is a God-given document. Those statements are wrong, wrong, wrong. But people don't call them out. Regular, non Christofasicts, don't usually flinch when these things are said. I do. The reason they don't flinch at such obviously wrong statements is so much of our current society is interpreted through a Judaeo-Christian lens. They just accept it or ignore it.
It's the same with these paintings. Some person with a predilection toward religion says "Hey, these must be here for some religious purpose." Why do they say that? Because they interpreted the findings based upon their own biases. They won't give the early humans credit for any skills, critical thinking or higher thoughts. Then BANG! they give them credit for coming up with some sort of religious practices that require just the type of thinking they say those people were not capable of. You can't have it both ways.
Maybe the painting is just a damn painting. Nothing more and nothing less. Why do we have to place meaning upon it? Because WE think of these things in terms of gods and religions. WE put OUR motives and thoughts on them. Who says, with any real evidence and certainty those early people even had religion 40k years ago? It's speculation based upon a bias.
Just think about how wrong archeologists and anthropologists have been about the first humans of the Americas. They used to be firm that no one was hear before 12-13k years ago. That they all came over the land bride. Now, we find there are pre-Clovis peoples thousands of years older. We find the DNA of tribes in S. America don't match the land bridge theory.
Who says these paintings weren't common things in everyone's cave 40k years ago? They could have been common and just not have survived into modern times. We have a heck of a time preserving them now. Most of them could have disappeared by now.
In 40k years, when someone digs up my room and sees my photographs and sketches I hang on my walls they will not have found a church. I wonder how they will interpret them. Will they say this atheist must have had some reverence for the many animals of which he took photos? Did he worship the trees and flowers he sketched? Will there be enough of our current society left for them to make a valid interpretation?
Yes, I'm adamant about this because I believe religion, especially the type of Christo-fasism practiced by the fake-Christians of today in the US is ruining our country. When we blithely accept that everything is rooted in some sort of religion we give them power.
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