Wikijunior:Ancient Civilizations/What is a Civilization?
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A civilization is a society or group group of people who live and work co-operatively. it comes from a Latin word meaning town or city. Civilized people generally practice agriculture and obey rules that allows them to settle and live in towns and cities. Compared with barbarian cultures, members of a civilization are commonly organized according to specific skills such as farming, trading or defending their settlements and laws.
Civilizations are usually also characterized by an intricate social hierarchy, usually with a powerful king, emperor or president at the top, supported by a noble or ruling class who control military forces. These disciplined soldiers and police in turn control the ordinary people: artisans who make things, peasants who work the land, merchants who trade things, and so on
A civilization usually shares seven common characteristics, A stable food supply, a powerful government capable of military action against wrong-doing or invaders, a distinct social structure and a range of common techniques for stabilizing their way of life which we call culture. Culture means passing on to future generations the customs, habits and religious obligations that have proved successful in defeating grave threats such as famine, disease, war and conquest. These are sometimes described as "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" after a story that appears in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
The seven seals in that same story can be interpreted as mere symbols of the seven common characteristics mentioned above:
- First Seal - Conquest, White horse, and the need to defend and extend our civilization
- Second Seal - War, Red horse, and the need to sometimes sacrifice ourselves so that our children may survive
- Third Seal - Famine, Black Horse, and the need to keep our food supplies wholesome and plentiful
- Fourth Seal - Death, green or pale horse - the need to avoid calamity through greed, stupidity or some other human error
- Fifth Seal - Vision of martyrs symbolizing a new world governed by eternal holy law (more recently,perhaps,the obligation to apply the scientific method rather than religious rules)
- Sixth Seal - Earthquake and the marking of the breaking of wicked old traditions that prevent us from realizing our full potential as human beings
- Seventh Seal - Trumpets of Angels and the end of the world and the beginning of Paradise - might this perhaps be our modern world of science and technology instead of war and hatred?
