Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies

Lets see if I can get this out properly....

I feel like today's society is over-sexualized. I also believe that this comes in conjunction with a negative gender role reinforcement. Let me attempt to state my case.

On facebook I am friends with some of my little brother's friends. Before you judge me, let me say that I used to oversee (babysit) them before they were old enough to obtain facebook accounts. Apparently I am a pretty cool overseer and they added me as friends. Anyway, as I look at these children growing up, I see them become more sexually aware than I, or any of my friends were. (That may not be totally true...I had friends "on the internet" by 8th grade...) Call me an old man, but things were different in my day. Let me cite the example of one girls profile picture. She is wearing a rather *ahem* suggestive shirt and kissing towards the camera. The overall effect of this picture seems somewhat of a generalized invitation. It is not, of course, but the fact that she even took this picture says something. I am not even sure if she knows exactly what it suggests, but here she is posing like that. Which brings me to my next point. Why does the little girls bikini swimsuit even exist? It is actually easier for the parent to put their child in a onsie (essentially like dumping her in a bag) than to fit two pieces on. I don't think anyone could really even answer that question, save to say that it does, in fact, exist. I would put it as just one more factor in the over-sexualization of an entire generation of children. Let me move to my next issue.

Remember all those great movies we watched as children? Fern Gully, Lion King, Lady and the Tramp...great movies. If you are to cast your mind back on all of your childhood movies, I would ask you to think about their romantic aspects. If I recall correctly (and I often do), it seems to me that any romance depicted was between adults. "But what about Lion King, Dan? There was definitely some tension between Nala and Simba..." Yes, but nothing came to fruition until they had reached adulthood. Any and all romance depicted in the cinematography of my childhood was twixt adults. In contrast, I know for a fact I have seen romantic what-have-yous in television and movies directed at the current generation of children. As they did not really stick in my mind as beloved, I cannot think of any at the moment, which is unfortunate.... I cite this as another example of encouraging more mature behavior in younger audiences. The subconscious message is being sent: look cute for the boys, and dudes...go in for the kiss. This is not healthy.

Gender roles: Men are inherently different from women. They are built with more natural strength and physical prowess. Women are more naturally nurturing than men. Men and women have such naturally different thought processes, inter-gender communication is practically impossible. So I do believe in differing gender roles. They are both healthy and natural. (However, I will not even attempt to broach this topic here any further.) But the gender role being propagated by modern media is shameful. Allow me to cite a lyric:

I need you to get up up on the dance floor
Give that man what he askin for (oh)
Cuz I feel like bustin loose and I feel like touchin you (ah, ah)
And cant nobody stop the juice so baby tell me whats the use

Do I really have to explain this to you? Women are shamelessly being encouraged to satisfy man's desires, while men are being taught to desire that which is less than virtuous. In a music video I watched recently, people were holding up little cards with their "dirty secrets." One of the embarrassing secrets presented said "I'm a virgin." How on earth did that become an embarrassing secret? Go ahead and watch pretty much any current t.v. show or movie, and you will find it encouraging, glorifying or trivializing extra-marital sexual relations. It literally surrounds us. With all these factors influencing children, how can they not become over-sexualized?

At this stage of my life, I am essentially an observer of society. I watch and I learn in preparation for the day when I raise a family of my own. When (if) this occurs I hope that I can somehow hinder this process. I hope that my children will grow up in an environment promoting healthy and timely development of social understandings. If there are any parents who read this, I would ask you to consider it honestly and seriously.

I'm not dead, but I'm not a zombie!

You know what I love? Not being dead. Lets review together, in the order they randomly pop into my head, the benefits of this un-dead condition. Listen to this while you read.



1) My cousin Kellie. Kellie is always so positive and full of the joy of life that you can't help but have your spirits lifted in her presence.

2) The book "How to Win Friends and Influence People." You may ask, "why is this cool about not being dead?" I will answer you. This book has been the sole cause of my transformation from hateful punk rocker, to loving metal-head. Okay...metal-head has nothing to do with anything, but you get my point. Because of this book I learned how to look at things from the other persons point of view. As it happens, its a lot harder to be angry and mean at someone when you are looking from their point of view. This book taught me that everyone justifies their actions to themselves, and they think they are doing the most right thing possible. Changes things, eh?

3) Ice Cream

4) Rock Climbing. I had a conversation with my friends this weekend about why they climb. They all climb because its fun. I do not. I enjoy it, and would call it fun, but that is not why I climb. I climb because I love the control of the body that it requires. To be a good climber, to do static moves, you have to be able to control individual muscles with remarkable precision. I like that.

5) It is my dream to one day have a jukebox in my house. I will fill it with awesome music that is fun to party to.

6) Guitars, Mandolins...I guess just playing music in groups. It brings people together. It brings happiness to any room or gathering. In fact, you really could say that it is a lot like Kellie.

7) Kellie's room-mates and friends. One of the reasons I love Kellie is that hanging out with her introduces me to a whole new circle of people I would never find on my own. For example, Mary. I would never have met Mary, or anyone like her, if it hadn't been for the fact that she was one of Kellie's friends. I love that they are kind, and not rough like the people I run with. They have a much less abrasive spirit than my friends, or even myself.

8) Mary. I like Mary. She makes me happy, and I like when she giggles at things that aren't particularly funny. It makes me feel like I am even funnier than I usually think I am. Mary, you should apologize to everyone who has to deal with me in this mood.

9) Children are perhaps the best part of life. They are innocent, and forgiving, and loving...they are joy. Its like a person is given an amount of joyfulness at birth, and when we are children it has less space to reside so it comes out more. When we reach adulthood our joy portion fits much easier inside of us and we appear less joyful as a result.

10) Have you ever had one of those days that kind of sucked, but then you used your body really hard in some physical activity that you enjoy? For instance, today was kind of crappy. But after work I rode my bike up to Vivian Park with Matt (about 24 miles). We pushed pretty hard and now I am smashed. It feels fantastic. It makes the whole crappy day seem fulfilled and like I am not going to bed having wasted the day.

11) I hate talking on the phone. This seems negative, but it leads me to my next reason to enjoy not being dead. Texting. I love it. I can exchange the information or thought that needs exchanging, and then....that's it. I love it. In fact, the cellphone in general is pretty darn amazing. Have you ever thought about all the things it can do? If its flabbergasting-ness is escaping you, think back 10 years to the technology back then. Crazy, eh?

12) The fact that I was not born in, nor have I ever been to France. I was born in the best dang country the world has ever seen. The U. S. of freakin A.!!

Those are my thoughts for the night. Forgive me if you were not mentioned, or if this is too many posts too quickly. Remember the list was completely at random. And I like posting. If you don't like it, stop reading. Both of you...just stop reading.

Actually....Best wishes from Dan and the whole crew here at Steinblog.

April 26, 1992

Contents:
1) Jackson Hole
2) Dating



Allow me to protest. I have just returned from Jackson Hole Wyoming. I do not want to be back in Provo. I had too much fun being outside all day and hiking and biking and climbing. It was a perfect life. I found that I am a person who loves to be outside doing those things. There is something about being in nature that just...I don't really know how to explain it. It puts me in a place of happiness.

And now for my rant about dating. I disapprove of it. Although, you may more accurately state that I disapprove of the way women participate. Now, I will admit up front that I am writing this due to recent and minor frustrations. But that fact does not change my views on the matter. First of all, I don't like that women are basically in charge of the whole show. As a man, my job is to make myself present and indicate my interest in a female. It is then entirely up to her whether or not we get to progress any further. That is not, of itself, so bad. What is bad is that women make their decision, and then express it through cryptic hints. I have no idea what they mean.

Next point. Here is how I see dating. Two people who like each other, spending more time together. The most important part of this definition is two people, who like each other spending time together. My problem seems to be simply bad timing. I can never seem to be attracted to girls who are simultaneously attracted to me. And it appears that my best efforts at flirtation are simply insufficient to sway the female opinion.

Resolution: Oh well. Its a broken system, but its the only system I have to work with. So, I am going to keep giving it an effort. Maybe not my best, but at least its something. This being said, I am going to attempt to go on a date before the end of the month. Anyone who reads this is free to check up on me, if they like.

Telephone Philosophy

How does my sister always manage to call me at the most inopportune times? I always have to end the conversation quickly and it makes me feel like a total ass. Am I always going to be mean to people in my family? Am I mean to my mother? I am occasionally rude to my father, I know. Which brings me to one of those ridiculous worries we all have. Here is mine:

Am I an incurable asshole?

I ask this because I have spent the last 5 or 6 years trying to be a nice person, and I still manage to offend people with ease, even when I am trying specifically to be extra nice. Take New Years Eve this year. My friend Shena invited me over to a place where some people were (her friends) and I decided to go. I went in with the specific attitude of trying to be nice and see only the positive side of people. I left feeling like I had done pretty well, only to have Shena tell me a few days later I hadn't been that nice. See what I mean?

Contrast this with my friend Mary. She has told me several times that I am a very kind and considerate person. That I am especially loving. Mary has known me for several years, so I feel like she has some basis for her opinion. But so has, and so does Shena. Which, then, do I believe? Am I actually an asshole on the inside, trying to hide in the sheepskin of a nice guy? Or am I actually a kind, caring man?

From here, I am going to talk about how we form our opinions of ourselves. Where do we get our self view? The two most basic elements forming our self view are environment and though process. We are, first and foremost, what we think we are. I think I am funny. Ask my friends and you will see that I am funny. But this is not the only think affecting our view. Our environment plays a huge role in determining what thought we have in the first place, and subsequently, how they manifest.


The two factors are very closely linked, each one determining the effect of the other. If I were writing a book, I would probably discuss this more, but I am only presenting these ideas to resolve the dilemma posted above. I think that I am a nice person. I think this because I intend to be kind. There are, however, settings in which I am rather a jerk. But these seem to be few enough that I can call myself, overall, a nice person.



Post Script: If anyone comments, please keep your opinions of me to yourselves...unless they are positive.

Miley and James

First things first. I am totally loving this song right now. I was singing it in my head the whole day at work. Listen to it while you read.


This is something I read once, and I found it to be most interesting. It was the spark behind quite a bit of thinking on my part. I wanted to share it with everyone. By everyone, I mean the two or three of you who might read this. Eventually, I will post my own ideas that come from this. Until then, enjoy what William James has to say on Habit.

William James on Habit


It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit, and psychology helps us greatly at this point. We speak, it is true, of good habits and of bad habits; but, when people use the word 'habit,' in the majority of instances it is a bad habit which they have in mind. They talk of the smoking-habit and the swearing-habit and the drinking-habit, but not of the abstention-habit or the moderation-habit or the courage-habit. But the fact is that our virtues are habits as much as our vices. All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits,—practical, emotional, and intellectual,—systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be.

Since pupils can understand this at a comparatively early age, and since to understand it contributes in no small measure to their feeling of responsibility, it would be well if the teacher were able himself to talk to them of the philosophy of habit in some such abstract terms as I am now about to talk of it to you.

I believe that we are subject to the law of habit in consequence of the fact that we have bodies. The plasticity of the living matter of our nervous system, in short, is the reason why we do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all. Our nervous systems have (in Dr. Carpenter's words) grown to the way in which they have been exercised, just as a sheet of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, tends to fall forever afterward into the same identical folds.

Habit is thus a second nature, or rather, as the Duke of Wellington said, it is 'ten times nature,'—at any rate as regards its importance in adult life; for the acquired habits of our training have by that time inhibited or strangled most of the natural impulsive tendencies which were originally there. Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night. Our dressing and undressing, our eating and drinking, our greetings and partings, our hat-railings and giving way for ladies to precede, nay, even most of the forms of our common speech, are things of a type so fixed by repetition as almost to be classed as reflex actions. To each sort of impression we have an automatic, ready-made response. My very words to you now are an example of what I mean; for having already lectured upon habit and printed a chapter about it in a book, and read the latter when in print, I find my tongue inevitably falling into its old phrases and repeating almost literally what I said before.

So far as we are thus mere bundles of habit, we are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves. And since this, under any circumstances, is what we always tend to become, it follows first of all that the teacher's prime concern should be to ingrain into the pupil that assortment of habits that shall be most useful to him throughout life. Education is for behavior, and habits are the stuff of which behavior consists.

To quote my earlier book directly, the great thing in all education is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding or regretting of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one of my hearers, let him begin this very hour to set the matter right.

In Professor Bain's chapter on 'The Moral Habits' there are some admirable practical remarks laid down. Two great maxims emerge from the treatment. The first is that in the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible. Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall reinforce the right motives; put yourself assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all.

I remember long ago reading in an Austrian paper the advertisement of a certain Rudolph Somebody, who promised fifty gulden reward to any one who after that date should find him at the wine-shop of Ambrosius So-and-so. 'This I do,' the advertisement continued, 'in consequence of a promise which I have made my wife.' With such a wife, and such an understanding of the way in which to start new habits, it would be safe to stake one's money on Rudolph's ultimate success.

The second maxim is, Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up: a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. Continuity of training is the great means of making the nervous system act infallibly right. As Professor Bain says:—

"The peculiarity of the moral habits, contradistinguishing them from the intellectual acquisitions, is the presence of two hostile powers, one to be gradually raised into the ascendant over the other. It is necessary above all things, in such a situation, never to lose a battle. Every gain on the wrong side undoes the effect of many conquests on the right. The essential precaution, therefore, is so to regulate the two opposing powers that the one may have a series of uninterrupted successes, until repetition has fortified it to such a degree as to enable it to cope with the opposition, under any circumstances. This is the theoretically best career of mental progress."

A third maxim may be added to the preceding pair: Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain. It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the new 'set' to the brain.

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one have not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better. With good intentions, hell proverbially is paved. This is an obvious consequence of the principles I have laid down. A 'character,' as J. S. Mill says, 'is a completely fashioned will'; and a will, in the sense in which he means it, is an aggregate of tendencies to act in a firm and prompt and definite way upon all the principal emergencies of life. A tendency to act only becomes effectively ingrained in us in proportion to the uninterrupted frequency with which the actions actually occur, and the brain 'grows' to their use. When a resolve or a fine glow of feeling is allowed to evaporate without bearing practical fruit, it is worse than a chance lost: it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge. There is no more contemptible type of human character than that of the nerveless sentimentalist and dreamer, who spends his life in a weltering sea of sensibility, but never does a concrete manly deed.

This leads to a fourth maxim. Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do. The strokes of behavior are what give the new set to the character, and work the good habits into its organic tissue. Preaching and talking too soon become an ineffectual bore.

There is a passage in Darwin's short autobiography which has been often quoted, and which, for the sake of its bearing on our subject of habit, I must now quote again. Darwin says: "Up to the age of thirty or beyond it, poetry of many kinds gave me great pleasure; and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that pictures formerly gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry. I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music . . . My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts; but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive . . . If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature."

We all intend when young to be all that may become a man, before the destroyer cuts us down. We wish and expect to enjoy poetry always, to grow more and more intelligent about pictures and music, to keep in touch with spiritual and religious ideas, and even not to let the greater philosophic thoughts of our time develop quite beyond our view. We mean all this in youth, I say; and yet in how many middle-aged men and women is such an honest and sanguine expectation fulfilled? Surely, in comparatively few; and the laws of habit show us why. Some interest in each of these things arises in everybody at the proper age; but, if not persistently fed with the appropriate matter, instead of growing into a powerful and necessary habit, it atrophies and dies, choked by the rival interests to which the daily food is given. We make ourselves into Darwins in this negative respect by persistently ignoring the essential practical conditions of our case. We say abstractly: "I mean to enjoy poetry, and to absorb a lot of it, of course. I fully intend to keep up my love of music, to read the books that shall give new turns to the thought of my time, to keep my higher spiritual side alive, etc." But we do not attack these things concretely, and we do not begin to-day. We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone, until those smiling possibilities are dead. Whereas ten minutes a day of poetry, of spiritual reading or meditation, and an hour or two a week at music, pictures, or philosophy, provided we began now and suffered no remission, would infallibly give us in due time the fulness of all we desire. By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities. This is a point concerning which you teachers might well give a little timely information to your older and more aspiring pupils.

According as a function receives daily exercise or not, the man becomes a different kind of being in later life. We have lately had a number of accomplished Hindoo visitors at Cambridge, who talked freely of life and philosophy. More than one of them has confided to me that the sight of our faces, all contracted as they are with the habitual American over-intensity and anxiety of expression, and our ungraceful and distorted attitudes when sitting, made on him a very painful impression. "I do not see," said one, "how it is possible for you to live as you do, without a single minute in your day deliberately given to tranquillity and meditation. It is an invariable part of our Hindoo life to retire for at least half an hour daily into silence, to relax our muscles, govern our breathing, and meditate on eternal things. Every Hindoo child is trained to this from a very early age." The good fruits of such a discipline were obvious in the physical repose and lack of tension, and the wonderful smoothness and calmness of facial expression, and imperturbability of manner of these Orientals. I felt that my countrymen were depriving themselves of an essential grace of character. How many American children ever hear it said by parent or teacher, that they should moderate their piercing voices, that they should relax their unused muscles, and as far as possible, when sitting, sit quite still? Not one in a thousand, not one in five thousand! Yet, from its reflex influence on the inner mental states, this ceaseless over-tension, overmotion, and over-expression are working on us grievous national harm.

I beg you teachers to think a little seriously of this matter. Perhaps you can help our rising generation of Americans toward the beginning of a better set of personal ideals.

To go back now to our general maxims, I may at last, as a fifth and final practical maxim about habits, offer something like this: Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But, if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

I have been accused, when talking of the subject of habit, of making old habits appear so strong that the acquiring of new ones, and particularly anything like a sudden reform or conversion, would be made impossible by my doctrine. Of course, this would suffice to condemn the latter; for sudden conversions, however infrequent they may be, unquestionably do occur. But there is no incompatibility between the general laws I have laid down and the most startling sudden alterations in the way of character. New habits can be launched, I have expressly said, on condition of there being new stimuli and new excitements. Now life abounds in these, and sometimes they are such critical and revolutionary experiences that they change a man's whole scale of values and system of ideas. In such cases, the old order of his habits will be ruptured; and, if the new motives are lasting, new habits will be formed, and build up in him a new or regenerate 'nature.'

All this kind of fact I fully allow. But the general laws of habit are no wise altered thereby, and the physiological study of mental conditions still remains on the whole the most powerful ally of hortatory ethics. The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count this time!" Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes.

Faith and Darwin

Daniel Hallam Steinbeigle is a sissy. He also prefers to be called Dan. But he is still a sissy. I say this because I started a job last week. Eight hours a day, 40 hours a week. This alone has left me completely exhausted. I am not sure why or how, but I no longer seem to be able to do anything once I return from work. Perhaps it is the waking up at 6. Perhaps the doing of actual work. Either way, there it is.

The important part though, is that I work at BYU recycling. We get lots of paper. And books. One of those books I found sitting on a box. It has no cover or title page. I have no idea who the author is, but I have started reading it. It is about religion and the rise of pantheism and paganism. Rather than discuss the varying errors that have cropped up in religions across the globe, the author decides instead to catalog all the truths that are common among the various sects. Here is where I insert my disclaimer: the text is very christian biased. But the idea itself is sound. I like the thought of looking through world religions for common themes and mythologies. One of the ones mentioned by the author is the commonality of the diluvian theme. Many religions contain some version of the story of Noah's ark. And all religions (I maintain that atheism is included here) have some form of God or supreme being. They all have a creation story. To me, this speaks of some basic desire of the human being to have these ideas in his/her religion. Even the basic desire to have a religion at all seems to me very fundamental. Why, though, do we feel this compulsion to form a relationship with deity? What need are we satisfying?

I would say that all human beings follow some form of religion. You might argue that atheists do not, but they do. They believe that man is the supreme being. There is no God because there does not need to be one. This may not hold true for all atheists, but if you look honestly and closely, I firmly believe that you will find that all atheists have found something to replace God. Why do we all have a religion? To answer this question, I put myself in somewhat of a conundrum. I have to look to my religion as a base for my answer. I believe that we consist of both a spiritual being and a physical being. These two combine to become the person you are right now. The basic desire to follow some form of religion, to form a relationship with deity, stems from our spiritual nature striving to connect to the source from which it originates, or, God. The physical being, through the mind, lays over this heavenward straining, various filters and patterns which it dubs religion. Where then do we get the commonalities across faiths?

If you look at the world religions you will see that some ideas or stories exist in different religions. Some of these similarities are due simply to one religion existing as an offshoot of another. In other cases, the two sects in question are completely unconnected, either geographically or demographically. In these cases, I would submit that they speak to some primordial religion. It would seem that the easiest way to connect these ideas is through a common ancestry. Would it be so strange to think that in the beginnings of mankind, there was a religion followed by all humans? It doesn't even seem too farfetched o say the faith was established by whatever creator put the people there to begin with. There were few enough of them that it would have posted no problem at all to have 100% membership. As populations grew segments of the group would leave and, over time, would lose contact with the original population. Of course they would take with them their religion. But if they lost contact across newly formed borders, what is to stop the religion from evolving with the species? Just as many species of finch can be traced to a common ancestor, so can world religions be traced to a common parent.

Of course, so much of human history is unrecorded or otherwise lost it is impossible to prove this. However, I think the idea is sound. Religious evolution. Where evolution in life takes that which is improved and perpetuates it, religious evolution corrupts that which was perfect. So now we have to ask, how to we get back to the original?