That's only an assumption. We don't know it they assigned different values to each profession or not.Here is the EVIDENCE for commitment to agriculture being the root of all evil:
When anthropologists study cultures before and after agriculture, they find that before agriculture, all people in the tribe have equal value. But agriculture makes some farmers, some pot makers (for storing grain), and some are soldiers for guarding surplus (soldiers) ---- inequality is born, as each profession has a different value.
That's because there are more people to recruit into the various militaries. War has always been about what the other guy has, or is perceived to have. Food, good hunting or fishing grounds, good foraging land, mineral deposits, etc.Speaking of soldiers, before agriculture tribes moved around, and had nothing of value.... after we have surplus food for the off-season. Its the reason for war. Large scale War only comes after agriculture.
Uh, that being well, WELL after the rise of the agrarian society. Women were still working the fields and in a number of places, still do today.What of women? Well they used to be valued gatherers, but after agriculture they are kept inside to have babies, patriarchy is born and women are valued less.
Alcohol was essential to human survival. Untreated water kills. Ancient peoples understood that drinking water could be deadly, they just didn't understand why. If it wasn't for agriculture and the first alcohols, we would have been wiped out by e-coli and other pathogens in the water.Before agriculture we are relatively healthy. But once we stay in one spot and farm we pool water, bringing mosquitoes. And we know live close to farm animals --- so the sicknesses they experience, such as the cold and flu, evolve and jump to humans. Our diet also suffers immeasurably (no cavities before we start farming honey and drinking mead).
False assumption. Seeds were more varied so when they planted crops, at least some of the harvest was likely to make it.Then there's the fact that one flood, or one bad crop can wipe out a village (that before agriculture would have just moved to a better spot),
Blaming agriculture for religion is like blaming ancient China for WW2. Ancient humans were appeasing the gods long before agriculture and religion.which gives rise to religion and human sacrifice, etc to appease the gods.
A process, as it turns out, that is quite reversible. One man in Africa turned a small part of the southern Sahara desert into a lush, green paradise. 40 years ago when he began his reclamation, he was regarded as the village fool. Not today. Today because of that one man, what was once desert now provides enough food for his entire village with some surplus left over for trading. And the real irony is, the man had no real knowledge of agriculture. He simply used his knowledge from observing nature to harness it and bring the dead back to life, so to speak.And the fact that in only a couple generations they had salinated the earth through irrigation.....and turned a hunter-gatherer's paradise into a desolate wasteland.
As with almost any human innovation, agriculture is a double-edged sword.