Losing Religion to the Amazonian Piraha Tribe - Daniel Everett

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/03/20/Daniel_Everett_Endangered_Languages_and_Lost_Knowledge

Linguistics professor Daniel Everett explains the idea of "xibipiio," a way of life he encountered while studying the language of the Amazonian Piraha tribe. Everett, a former Christian missionary, was challenged to rethink his faith after learning the Piraha's concept of experiential liminality.

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Professor Daniel Everett, author of Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes, discusses the importance of preserving dying languages. He describes his experience living with the Piraha people in Brazil, and explores what Piraha, both the people and the language, can teach us about human nature. - The Long Now Foundation

Daniel Leonard Everett (born 1951 in Holtville, California) is a linguistics professor best known for his study of the Amazon Basin's Piraha people and their language. He currently serves as Chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. He previously taught at the University of Manchester and is former Chair of the Linguistics Department of the University of Pittsburgh.

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[jazzx251]

@123itisfree

Communism is what Jesus preached.

Give up all your posessions to the poor. Not exactly a conservative christian philosophy ...

Stalin had his own religion - with himself as God.

He knew how to get this to work because he trained to be a priest.

[BrooklynRagtag]

@123itisfree Power hungry dictators did that. You really can't blame communism or atheism.

[niinja2]

rofl

[KKDragonLord]

anyone who speaks about communism as being only one thing is likely to mage grossly mistaken claims. 1) communism is an economic theory and an ideal that has never been achieved 2) there are several categories of socialism, which is the method to achieve communism 3) Marx didn't propose State Socialism as employed by Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, Castrism. His book was a basically dissection of capitalism and its flaws and had a particularly negative take on totalitarism in particular.

[JETTabor]

Forget religion. How would you ever teach them history?

[EnterSkitarii]

I think the world would have been a better place if it had been colonised by the Piraha...

[jtshibbyy]

@BrooklynRagtag No worries friend. And yes, I don't think human beings are either willing or able to live in the totally egalitarian society that communism envisions.

And yes lol that is a tired old claim, grumpiness is only a natural reaction to such closed mindedness and hypocrisy. :)

Cheers.

[BrooklynRagtag]

@jtshibbyy Shoot. Didn't realize my tone was so aggressive, but I can see that it was when I reread my last post. I wouldn't want that even if you were a Christian. I will say Communism would be tempting if it had never been tried, but it has a very poor track record.

My original post was responding to the tired old claim that "atheistic communism" murdered thousands of people in the 20th century, which was why religion came into it. That claim makes me a little grumpy apparently =)

Best,

BR

[jtshibbyy]

@BrooklynRagtag Whoa man chill, I never said anything about religion, I'm an atheist too. I just read a couple of your comments and wanted clarity. I agree you can't blame atheism for the actions of dictators and supporters, and you certainly can't blame the IDEA of communism for corruption or inequality, the entire doctrine is against these things.

My bad if I came off like I was attacking you. I wasn't. We largely agree.

[BrooklynRagtag]

@jtshibbyy I never said communism can work and I stand by what I did say. You can't blame communism or atheism for the actions of power hungry dictators and their supporters.

If you want me to find a passage in the Bible that says to kill witches, I can give you chapter and verse. It's fair to say witch hunts are in the name of Christianity. If you want me to find a command to murder in the Communist Manifesto or in the philosophical writings of atheists, I couldn't help you with that.

[jtshibbyy]

@BrooklynRagtag

So you think communism can work? In today's society?