What I found interesting in this week's reading was the comparisons between that of Christianity and Buddhism.  First of all, I never really thought out the time periods of the greats like Socrates and Buddha being before Jesus, I always thought they came after his time period.  This could be because I never really looked at the time lines of the greats so when I came to realize that Buddha and Confucius was 500 years before Jesus, I was surprised.  The way the author puts Jesus secularly also was interesting.

 "...a young Jewish peasant/carpenter in the remote province of Judea in the Roman Empire began a brief three-year career of teaching and miracle working before he got in trouble with local authorities and was executed. (Strayer pg 187)"

What is great about the difference in time (500 years) and how Strayer compares Jesus and the Buddha in a way where there is no favoritism, allows the reader to see how alike the two great "wisdom teachers" actually are.  They spoke of suffering and loving of your neighbors.  They had the same basis, but because of what they spoke about and how they spoke about it was the difference.  Jesus would openly criticize the authorities and in less then three years of his teachings was executed like a criminal whereas the Buddha's messages did not really conflict with those of the leaders and so he was able to teach for over forty years.

Chapter one and two

While reading about the beginning of humans, I read a quote from the British navigator, Captain James Cook, that I found interesting.  While he was having his first encounter with a group from Australia, he was quoted saying:

                         "They live in a Tranquility which is not disturb'd by the Inequality
                           of Conditions: Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them
                           with all the things necessary for life, they covet not Magnifcient houses,
                           Household-stuff...In short they seem'd to set no value upon any thing we
                           gave them...They think themselves provided with all the necessarys of Life."
                           (Strayer, pg. 21).

This quote was from 1770, and this explorer probably thought that he was bringing the gatherers and hunters an eye-opening experiencing and giving them wonderful new technologies for survival; when in reality they probably taught him more on how to live with what little that they had.  They were able to survive off of the land, without any of the comforts of big houses with beds filled with goose feathers.


      As I continue to go through more of the reading I keep turning back to the area in which I found the above quote.  

Reading around the chapters, like we discussed in class, we spoke about the term gatherer hunters instead of the hunter gatherers term.  Growing up, it always sounded like the hunters played the major role in the tribe because they would be hunting and that had to provide for the families more then the gatherers.  The reality is, according to Strayer, the gatherers provided the bulk.  The book says that 70% of the food consumed actually came from those brought by the gatherers.  The tribes of the time probably did not even see it that way since it sounds like that there was a good deal of equality going on between the men and the women.  It seems a bit funny that the more educated a society becomes, the more in equal we become.  With all of the technology and knowledge we have learned and experienced through history, the bigger the label becomes.  There really is something in learning about the earliest form of humans, who knew that gender equality would be one of them.

Yay - I'm done!