Creationist Bugaboo Back Again

I think the buddha must have been 49'ers fan.....THAT'S suffering!

THOUGHT SHAMAN,

And Yes, I was collecting the posts to later go back and attempt some synthesis.

The Buddha says

Life is suffering

Therefore, while alive we're suffering

Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi

nspire: "Were you expecting each of us to clarify that 6 of these were, and 10 of those weren't? I do question the underlying issue of your question, as it was broadcast to a group — what was your intention?"

Ah, I see the reason for your discomfort. Communication can be a bear - I meant the content of your posts, not the collection of individual entries. While much of the content has little to do with evolution as a biological field, it expressed some underlying connection. I wanted to see if any of you had thoughts other than my earlier summation.

"Regardless, I am sorry that my "off the page comment" was received in anything other manner than my own guess (intention) that you'd rather some of our comments were not on the page, in the 1st place."

Tangents are a common occurrence in discussions. It is useful to orient/relate back to the original topic periodically. Rather than intending to remove content, the idea is to add more.

Yes, defensive in response to your mild question of how the posts related to evolution.

As for me, by participating and reading the posts, I can see that some had very little to do directly with evolution, per se. To most reading herein, I expect that that is self evident, so no explanation or questioning is nominally "expected".

Were you expecting each of us to clarify that 6 of these were, and 10 of those weren't? I do question the underlying issue of your question, as it was broadcast to a group -- what was your intention?

Regardless, I am sorry that my "off the page comment" was received in anything other manner than my own guess (intention) that you'd rather some of our comments were not on the page, in the 1st place.

nspire: "Although I would hardly consider speaking for others so well versed in discourse, it does occur to me that this thread is demonstrably EVOLUTIONARY, just not in the manner you might considered focused. Each of our thought streams are liken to novel life forms looking for sustainable niches to flourish…"

To rephrase your position, evolution in the biological domain is similar to the evolution of thoughts and ideas in the context of knowledge representation and abstraction. Ideas, when exposed to critiques (external stresses), adapt and refine within the agent (compare to adaptation). Additionally, such a process may yield a collection of similar concepts with characteristics distinct from other forms of knowledge, which over time may become a separate field of study (compare to speciation).

Are there any other thoughts, comments, etc.?

"…but successful adaptation and synergistic collaboration for many of us, apparently goes straight off of your page."

From whither does this come? Alternatively, is this just a defensive reaction to a perceived attack?

THOUGHT SHAMAN - Although I would hardly consider speaking for others so well versed in discourse, it does occur to me that this thread is demonstrably EVOLUTIONARY, just not in the manner you might considered focused. Each of our thought streams are liken to novel life forms looking for sustainable niches to flourish, but successful adaptation and synergistic collaboration for many of us, apparently goes straight off of your page.

We are evolving, and if not yet obvious, LANGUAGE and mutual communication is the fully most highest expression of BE'ing human, all else is but dust on the winds (over the stretch of evolutionary time).

BTW, the topic of this thread started with "Bugaboo", and little has gone into that either, right?

Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi

Aymon, nspire, starofthesea, Siouxrose, et al: In what way do your posts relate to the topic of evolution?

turk fowler: Materialism posits no deity (I am unclear on the strict adjective you use). How did you arrive at a notion of god for it?

"AYMON: You know I think you are a genius, and am in awe of the expanse of your Aquarian intellect; but no sign knows the heart more so than Leo… and you, as air sign, hold command of the communication powers; but I resonate with John..." Can I borrow this for my "Blog-umentary"? Monty Python, here I come!

If Intelligent Design is "religious" because of the implication of it's possible conclusion of an extra-material designer, is evolution "religious" because of it's possible conclusions of a strict materialism? Both are belief systems with a god...

Blessed are the peace makers

Namaste

Sometimes truth is less than pleasant to speak but I am willing to do so here and now. Aymon is a very sad and probably a very lonley human being. But that is his CHOICE. No one who speaks as he does has tasted the love that only IS. A child could sense that easily because love is always accompanied by something glaringly absent in Aymon's attitude...simple humility..the desire to never belittle another. Children have to deal with that all the time. Far too many adults talk down to them as if they can know nothing. Of course, I'm not trying to suggest that anyone here can't see that. I know you do, and I hope you may have said something that might just happen to pierce his amazingly, and I mean amazingly, inflated ego. But sometimes I believe you just have to kick the dust off your feet and turn away, which is what I've done concerning this person. I will not speak of him any further beyond this post. Karma will be his teacher or his undoing. Either way he will eventually see his erudition as the obstacle that is for him and him alone. Then he may encounter the Light that cannot be seen and know THAT which cannot be known. May it indeed be so with us all, no matter how many times around the wheel of samsara it takes. Better, may we all simply step off the wheel NOW.
And by the way, I have really enjoyed meeting you folks here my first time out on CD and look forward to further exchange in other topics when time allows me to do so.
Peace and Blessings to ALL, no exceptions.

AYMON: My subjective experience of India is MINE. Your claim to Truth is yours. You and I have probably studied many of the same Masters. You are taking on the semblance of authoritarianism in presuming there is a singular perception that I must have about India or Nepal. I was not talking about the politics of Nepal, I was mostly LIFTED by my experience there with Buddhism, spending 10 days in a monastery. I saw a great deal of suffering and economic privations, but NOTHING compared with India. I made it a point to take a 40 hour train ride to Bangalore to SEE what all the computer-age prosperity purported to bring to that land. It sickens MY SOUL to see India as it is. I have never heard you speak on the subject of sexism. Perhaps as an academic that is your blindspot? When I speak about the chasm to the UNITY of creation, you speak about LIGHT but LIGHT is a dance of particles, Light is an attraction between Yin and Yang. Regardless of your superior background in science or physics (status I will concede to you), I have been gifted with MY visions, and I have had MY teachers, and I have been validated. So this is not about anger. I was sharing a perception, and giving MY reason for why it might exist: in the absence of love. As I made it a point to add later, I am fully aware of the earlier traditions of India, and that it's gifted the world with many Masters and Seers. However, the caste system, the low status of women, the poverty, despair and LACK OF LOVE FOR THE LAND as the GREAT MOTHER was what I was sharing. I have an ego, and so do you; the proof is if either of us did not, we would not be wearing a body. NO ONE has a monopoly on truth. It filters through our minds, and even with much research we are imperfect channels. I concede that, and so should you, friend. Many mistake my fiery passion for anger. Perhaps you are mistaken.

Sisters SIOUX ROSE and STAR OF THE SEA:

You have good souls and do seek the LIGHT.

Paths of LIGHT (I follow the path of HERMES/THOTH/MELCHIZIDEK)are difficult for those whose egos are frail. There are truths on these paths tha come to us as balms and trials. We cannot indulge the Ego and dispense with inconvenient truths; that disrupts onwards progress and points the traveller towards self-loving darkness.

It is also very harmful to your Karma and try to kill the messenger, especially an Adept. It hurts not the Adept but swiftly rebounds on you. therefore always submit to Truth whether it be agains ourselves. none of us is perfect. All make errors, conscious and unconscious; it is the mark of a person who has progressed much on the path of the LIGHT to accept truth that comes from others nearer to the Light than ourselves.

I spoke the truth on India to SiouxRose. It was not in anger and there was no ill will in it towards my sister SiouxRose. And Siouxrose, it does not become you not to respond truthfully to the message but to direct "praise" at the messenger in a husk of sugar with a kernel of venom.

If you do this, the LIGHT will lead you further astray as it has in your praise of Nepal. It reminds me of the millions of Euro-Americans in Reagan's America who had a great time in Capetown, the centre of apartheid south Africa. To add insult to injury, these revellers when Mandella was in jail, came home to rave about how great South Africa was.

If you did not know, you should. nepal is a brutal monarchy in which abject poverty is as bad or higher than in India, and the infant mortality rates higher than India or Pakistan.

For a person on a path to light to put up ignorance of history as an excuse but talk a lot about Karma is a contradiction in terms, isn't it.

As for anger, did not the western icon of supreme love and peace throw out the money changers from the temple in anger?

Righteous anger is not bad because it undergirds justice without which there is no foundation for social and spritual life, and no backbone to speak 'truth to power"

Persons of LIGHT are not to portray anger in the service of ego and self-love as I am seeing above and are so are all who are truly on the path to LIGHT.

Peace

We can might all benefit from (re)reading Issac Asimov's Nightfall short story, here
"about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated at all times on all sides", and see also here for an on-line study guide (if not interested in reading original).

which so poignantly illuminates what might happen when an Earth-like society is periodically shattered (as if an automatic Dark Ages were programmed into it), and burnt to the ground - through a naturally occurring combination eclipse causing month long periods of total darkness every several thousand years - and humankind's primal fear of darkness.

I love this story's astronomer character, who breaks with authoritarian line and is empowered to serve as a (life-line) bridge to future generations, and thereby save needless suffering and death - but the mobs and fires are coming so much closer now - and my time has come.

Namaste

Ignorance is bliss...... ?
After spilling blood to separate church from state here we go back again into the dark ages.
All religions are making a comeback. Encroaching on our lives. When are we going to start burning witches again?
Crusading is making a comeback, soldiers (all faiths) pray before battle??? May my god be stronger than your god.
I am glad I am 60 years old and will not see the rest of this maddness.

STAR OF THE SEA,

Thank you for authentically BE'ing vulnerability, wisdom, and

_ L _ I _ G _ H _ T _

Namaste

Wow! Tuned in again, and late enough to watch an explosion of powerful ideas, as well as the creative tension such ideas can generate in the process. Another thing that is clear to me in reading this thread, is that what we ALL really want is to be heard, to have our individuated selves, our contribution find a place in the tapestry, that enhances its beauty and its complexity. So many ideas to ponder, much on this thread should be compiled into a book.

SIOUXROSE---thank you and bless you for your unapologetic and articulate expansion of your well-rounded view. Every esoteric discipline I familized myself with offers an uncanny combination of simplicity that has as a seed within, amazing complexity. The paradox nearly escapes the seeker until that aha moment when one realizes that there are many paths to the same destination, and many maps offering intriguingly similar, Universal, for lack of a better word, directions.

A word of caution to all who post here since I feel more and more, that we are becoming a cohesive community.

When we choose our words, we must be aware that words can be a weapon or a caress. They can divide, or they can fuse us. They can invite, and they can exclude.

If we choose our words knowing full well that we suffer a common disorder----the delusion of separation from SOURCE and thus,from each other, perhaps we are more likely to speak as much from the heart as from the mind. If we can temperour words thus, we will cultivate compassion and connections with their utilization, and break down the thoughtform of separation and isolation.

NSPIRE---your LIGHT just gets brighter. Shine on

AYMON-----anger and impatience with those you deem less worthy for whatever your reasons, causes you to sometimes hurl your words like accurately thrown spears.They hit their mark, but what do you achieve? While the ancient teachings have clearly been given short shrift, do not forget that seekers start from.....where they start from. Being too limited in one's scope eventually leads to expanding one's horizons. People resonate with different frequencies of the LIGHT, and when one values service to others, one offers compassionate assistance, even, AND especially when one senses another's ignorance. There is enough woundedness on the planet without us adding to the load, especially in a teaching role.

All I need to do is be briefly in the presence of an Ascended Master to know humility and simultaneously to know A LOVE THAT SURPASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING. If those who can hold such great amounts of LIGHT, love us strugglings students of the LIGHT as they do, and offer their unlimited assistance unconditonally, can we not do the same for each other?

How in the world can anyone believe in the 'intelligent design theory' with the likes of George W. Bush in power?

AYMON — Although I'm spiritually living near Rishikesh, I've too seldom been blessed with its presence, and instead my reverence is from afar.

STAR — your clarity and perspicacity about our existence is a revelation and our blessing. I would be honored some day to share an enLIGHTened podium with you, and cast aside the darkness.

Namaste

AYMON: You know I think you are a genius, and am in awe of the expanse of your Aquarian intellect; but no sign knows the heart more so than Leo... and you, as air sign, hold command of the communication powers; but I resonate with John, "And the greatest of these is love." I can FEEL love's absence. THAT was the basis of my statement on India... usually to heal a wound it must be recognized for what it is. For all the brilliant rhetoric, it really comes down to LOVE, doesn't it? Isn't that the invisible weave in which the whole cosmos has been woven? Isn't that what we all need to find? We humans can get lost in our egos, in the boundless fury and expanded panorama of our thoughts, our beliefs, what we learn. But the open heart, gateway to all that is? Then all that we labor to learn is given to us, the jewel of heaven. And as you well know, when the soul reaches that level of integration, it carries its seed in every lifetime thereafter. I bear witness to the sign-kingdom that opposes yours, and these are not antithetical, but rather complementary positions. Hail the circle, that empowers NO side! In-light, Sioux

Good morning AYMON. I am in the "purple islands" and just did a triple set of Yoga facing the open oceans. I was not planning on channeling a response to you via this venue, but it came through. First of all, I would not venture to challenge you on your breathless scope of history. Although I attended all advanced classes in an elite HS, and kept an "A" average, I HATED history and still do. Why? To me it seemed the arrogant recitation of one war after another, indeed HIS(the Mars exalation of war as mankind's tale to tell, and pass on son to son, daughter to daughter as wounds must get mended) STORY. I turned off the subject!

I am well aware of India's mystical tradition. Yoga has kept me centered in a wild world for 2 decades. I also am in awe of the concept and practice of Tantra. But as Rajneesh pointed out in his controversial, indisputably insightful books, India has been Christianized, or rather, brought under the yoke of patriarchal belief systems. My OBSERVATION that the land reflected the same dearth of love that I believe generates from marriages taken on the basis of mercantilism. India, a Capricorn nation, has allowed the marketplace assumptions to touch and control the most sacred aspects of life. I believe the dowry murders, the murder of baby girls, and the still respected caste system aborts the FLOW of love.

When I returned from India to Singapore (I spent time with the local sages) they asked my "opinion" of India. I loved Nepal, resonated intensely with the monk life at the monastery, but India seemed like a commercial banquet to spiritual aspirations. Visiting Sai Baba to watch the multitudes sit at his feet seemed grotesque to me, a left-over Piscean Age remnant that places power on OTHER, not the awakening of the Divine self. It was like worshippers of Elvis in an ersatz Graceland. I agreed that the BEST spiritual heritage has evolved out of India, that inordinately high adept masters have elected to enter that nexus as their POWER, LIGHT and TRUTH was needed more there than perhaps anywhere (short of Rwanda) on this planet. I am at best a mid-level mystic, and I could not countenance the enormity of the pain I witnessed there, FELT there as an open-channeled empath.

I am sorry if you take my Truth as an insult. It was not meant to demean the rich history of India, it was a comment on what I saw of India now. I traveled many hundreds of miles and my eyes were wide open. Thankfully my immune system strong enough to withstand the varied insults.

SEXISM is the first break in the Divine chain, and many male intellectuals pay it short shrift. It is this dismissal that blindsides many when it comes to not realizing HOW we have fallen into hierarchical societies. Money forms the faux basis for these hierarchies, and the arguments on CD that expose capitalism for the beast it is (or has become) are quite valid. My role in these forums is to bring the mystical component into play. WE must return to the circle, for without this design plan implemented in our world, the balance can never be regained. It begins with the binary code in which life was wrought: YIN and YANG, he and she, braided elegantly in and through every DNA molecule, seen in the magnetic trance-dance that is the motion of atoms, stars, planets, galaxies; and I am grateful that a few men resonated with this idea of Creation as ecstatic communion, rather than some male god having an ejaculatory big bang, all by his lonesome. Peace, Sioux

Merely a belated historical note. The basis for "intelligent design" is the argument from analogy: some/all features of the natural world are similar (to some degree or other) to the products of human artifice; human artifice has its source in intelligent design; therefore the natural world wholly or in part has its source in intelligent design. The multiple fatal flaws in the argument were laid out by David Hume in the 18th century in a delightful little tome called "A Dialogue on Natural Religion". The book is short and intelligle enough (despite its archaic English) to be accessible to even the most anti-intellectual person of religiofascist bent. I would suggest the current sub rosa creationists give Hume a couple of hours but for the suspicion that misplaced faith has blurred their intelligence.

AYMON---I add my humble acknowledgement of your considerable, might I say, awesome contribution to this site. Your observations about our provincial and self-centered ignorance are sadly accurate. This is a very young country---we are viewed I suspect, by many in older, richer and wiser cultures, as very selfish, opinionated, destructive and self-absorbed children. We hide our ignornce with bravado, even seem to revel in it at times. George Bush, I fear, is an all too accurate representation of what we look like to the world. Please keep adding your voice. There are people here who listen, and you have much to teach us, if you are willing.

NSPIRE:

Pranam. Peace be with you.

Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy and Light.

Thanks for your comments. I have read your posts and they are inspired by LIGHT in one who is compassionate.

Reality is One. As the Bhagavad Gita says so eloquently:

"The Unreal never is. The REAL never is not."

The dichotomy between "science" and "religion" that is the ruling doctrine of the modern Western world attempts to divide Reality into two artificially distinct parts - - one that is the province of "science" where "religion" should not trespass and the other is the domain of "religion" where science should not trespass. Whenever the priesthoods of "science" and "religion" dare to trespass in the "other's" domain, a turf war erupts as is going on here under the rubric of "creationism" (whatever that means) and "evolution".

For an Easterner like me (and perhaps you), for whom Reality was never partitioned to begin with, and who knows as the Gita says, that no intellect, finite or infinite, can partition it, this turf war in the West between two equally vain and self-serving priesthoods is nothing but a storm in a teacup. It can never be resolved satisfactorily and thus the two factions will always be at war, because they have never examined the initial assumption that Reality can be partitioned.

I have cited Gödel, Heisenberg and Crick because they broke out of this turf war by the use of logic and scientific fact.

This is inevitable because Reality can only be perceived by those who use logic and facts as they are and with an open mind advance to additional knowledge of Reality. As great philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn pointed out in his magnum opus, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", great advances in knowledge of Reality which is what fundamental science is in search of come not continuously but in quantum leaps called PARADIGM SHIFTS.

When that happens, those who are heavily invested in the defunct paradigm, that he calls "NORMAL SCIENCE" resist in the socio-economic-political spheres in addition to in the literature of the sciences the new paradigm. The "REVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE" is pursued by those who bravely seek truth in Nature to understand and know Reality as it is.

All revolutionary science appears mystical and "metaphysical" to the old guard who cannot make their minds to conceptualize the new form and complexity which Reality presents itself.

Let me recount an anecdote from Heisenberg after he had propounded his Uncertainty Principle. There was fierce resistance from the hardcore "empiricists" of "normal" science by this vast paradigm shift. Accepting Heisenberg's thesis would at one fell swoop snatch the carpet under their feet, so to speak, because the entire determinism of Newtonian Mechanics would be imperiled. The most affected group was the Vienna Circle of "Logical Positivists" of Austrian/Prussian extraction which was the dominant philosophy underpinning all "empirical" science (sense observable science).

Even Einstein could not accept the paradigm and he declared that "God does not play dice." He then devoted the rest of his life to "disproving" an established mathematical theorem that was confirmed by the spectacular successes of Quantum Physics since the 1930's to unravel the mysteries of matter and energy.

The anecdote from Heisenberg is that an outraged young lady, a follower of the Vienna circle came to argue with him that he should repudiate his discovery because it renders all Reality as indeterminate beyond certain limits. That would mean that Reality cannot be fully grasped by science ever and that would unleash a horde of religious nuts claiming that what is beyond science is God.

This was of course a valid point as you can see the constant turf battles in the West between "science" and "religion". Heisenberg had of course thought through the ramifications of the Uncertainty Principle. However, like many cosmopolitan intellectuals of his time in Europe, he had had exposure to Eastern belief systems such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Further he was not a believing or practicing Christian. But he was gracious enough to formulate an answer for the young lady that would let her lay to rest her fears, in as much as a Buddhist master would do for an acolyte after a particularly difficult koan.

He told the earnest empiricist that one must accept Reality as it presents itself. Of course that is THE fundamental principle of any truthful science. But he said that the uncertainty principle does not repudiate the determinism of Newtonian Mechanics at the "classical" or "macro" level. The reason is that at the macro level, the classical measuring apparatus simply collapses the cause of the quantum uncertainty from a "probability" wave into a certain event consistent with the apparatus. To see this, consider a coin toss. Whilst the coin is in the air, it is a probability wave, as it were, with either head or tail becoming certain when it comes to rest on the floor which acts as the classical measuring apparatus.

Thus Reality is a "superposition" of potential certainties at any point in space-time in as much as a coin toss is as long as the coin is in the air. The certainties which the previous "empiricist" paradigm in science measured were simply one facet of Reality and not its entire face.

ALSO THIS UNCERTAINTY IS THE BASIS OF MODERN QUANTUM COMPUTING, A REAL PRACTICAL APPLICATION.

At the micro atomic and molecular level, Reality is never determinate - - it is always potential to OUR intellect, but is TOTAL IN ITSELF.

This is precisely what Immanuel Kant meant when he coined the phrase"

"DING AN SICH" or "THE THING IN ITSELF". This epistemology means that nobody can know a "thing" in its "totality" except for the thing itself.

So back to science versus religion. To me, this is a false debate since Reality is as it is (remember "I am That I am"). LIGHT is Reality. It cannot be reached by some mystical leap of faith or meditation technique, or mumbling something incoherent about "love" as a lot of western new age con artists do claiming authority from various Eastern belief systems.

The path to the LIGHT runs through the mansions of science and reason founded on compassion for human life. There are no shortcuts to it. Reality cannot be reached to the full extent of the LIGHT anyway, as Gödel has already shown. But it cannot be reached from outside of science and reason in delusions of false mysticism and religious or scientific orthodoxy. Because the latter are OUTSIDE Reality.

Is the story of evolution fully told by Darwinian determinism in the "survival of the fittest"? It is doubtful since the full expression of phenotypes is susceptible to random mutations in the molecular structures partly brought about by quantum uncertainties and partly by human mind interventions.

Om tat sat

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

EBONIV:

I am glad that you click with LUCKY LEFTY. I would expect no less after reading a few sentences of your transparently condescending Euro-American prose.

Good of you to be "evolving" towards the "Light" American style. Keep at it and you might actually do that. Meanwhile can you Americans leave us easterners in peace?

By the way, I am out of the Euro-American love-fest between you and Lucky Lefty. That's not my cup of tea as you may have noticed in my first post.

Peace

LUCKYLEFTY:

Thanks for a good laugh, I really enjoyed that.

AYMON:
There are many of us here who are painfully aware of the atrocities committed in body, mind, and soul (spirit is incapable of such)by our civilization throughout history, and many of us have spent years critiquing them and trying to purge ourselves of their origins within ourselves. But we also understand, my friend, that these things are not merely western in nature...they occur in one form or another in all human cultures, old and new. We ARE evolving toward and into the light, even if you can't percieve that, it is so. Many drag their feet and cling to old paradigms and self-identities out of fear. In, fact, to some degree, we all do that, don't we? The laying on of guilt and blame is exactly why many of us (not all by any stretch) have walked away from, or simply outgrown the judeo-christian myth. Doing that, especially to excess, invariably points to one's own unconscious shadow. "Cast the beam out of your own eye and then you can see clearly to cast the mote out of your brother's eye" are words that cut to the quick if we can receive them. I, for one...an American-born man, offer the hand and heart of peace to you, but I do so as a flawed, still-evolving human being. Have a good weekend, fellow traveler, and may the reality of SATCHITANANDA rest upon you.

Hi AYMON,

Please share more, your perspective is invaluable for world's peace.

Perhaps much of the Western mindset is cast into a Godelean paradox, where from the sacred truths so easily accessible (and lived) in the East, those simple ideas can never be validated as TRUTH (from within the Western Box)? Of course while nonetheless being verifiable true from within the Eastern "box".

I see that Eastern (and southern neighbors too) are far more likely to stomach the new world, without the overweight and indulgent losses seen here in the US. I don't see that the European culture has aligned as close to the hedonism of the USA, as you suggest, likely because of the influx of crossroad cultures of mid-East and Africa.

Balance is now challenging everywhere.

I wonder how well the new-rich techno-talented and culturally diverse upwardly moving youths of India are integrating within the mini-Western boom of outsourced capitalism? My guess is that they're doing far better than native Westerns do, even with the cultural demise of historical marriage patterns (so many more Hindus and Muslim working closely together during the day, and choosing to break with tradition and marry).

Perhaps it is this new generation that is far better suited to be a rallying point for the world's change, after additional time to field another generation and see the world's circle's immensity and vulnerability?

Although many barriers remain, the world is no longer large enough for small minds and consumptive disorders (regardless of the chimes of billions saying that they too want their own refrigerators, video, and iPods - and chance to be over-consumers).

I am pained in knowing that this is seriously un-fair and grounds for future confrontation, but we ALL must strive to achieve the LIGHT, and let the dross of materialism settle to the bottom of history.

Namaste

I'm LOL, sir DrBN:

You've hit the so called 'nail on the head', then into the coffin's last, buried it, planted a beautiful carpet of flowers around it, and then raised a memorial to remind us for many future generations!

Here HERE, and now. "I look forward to the coming revolution in all fields of biology."

Namaste

To the several regular Euro-tribals of America who follow my earlier post above.

Thanks for proving my point about Euro-American narcism and latent super-race psyche ladden posts. The style, the "humour", the soundbite self justifications, and, above all, never addressing any serious argument that questions your in built propensity to generalise globally to all belief systems the crazyness of Judeo-christian theology.

See, all the Eastern readers will now have empirical proof of this by juxtaposing my post with yours.

LUCKY LEFTY: What a fantastic sense of nerdy American "wit". I guess your post is some sort of Euro-American "classy" argument(??) in response to my citing the current scientific consensus on the non-terrestrial origin of life, yes?. observe that I explained it with the help of Euro authority - - Francis Crick. Ah but that does not help a closed mind, especially of the Euro-American species, does it?

What does your argument say? It says:

"THE ALIENS DID IT!!!" See? Simpler than you ever thought possible. As far as they're concerned, the Multi-Verse was hatched from the Cosmic Egg, 7 megazillion epochs ago and has been staggering drunkenly on its long uncertain walk ever since. Our BIG BANG was merely a localized 2-Pane event when an oversized Black Hole in a separate Pane entirely took an enormous dump and the detritus ended up here. The Good Knews is that we didn't get the worst of it. You ever see what comes out of the back end of a Black Hole? Not Pretty in Pink."

Wow. What a splendid demonstration of the Euro-american mind, what "eloquence", what panache!

SIOUX ROSE: Greetings sister. Your post is as usual lucid. But was your gratuitous insult of India and the one billion people of India with their 5000 year old civilization warranted?

They more or less invented sexual freedom-- KAMA SUTRA, the carvings on ancient India temples etc. You visited India for what? One week and with that you formed a fast-food Euro-American opinion (which probably still remains in your mind as it seems):

" This may seem farfetched by the actual topography of India did not seem that different to me than other Asian regions, and yet India seemed the most maimed by poverty and despair. My intuitive grasp of the situation (spending time there) was that the lack of LOVE played a role. "

The depredations of British and other Euro imperialism in India stole the wealth of India and transferred it to build Euro-America (YALE UNIVERSITY, the railroads etc.). In the process it wiped out of the native American populations and their cultures and civilizations resulting in tens of millions dead, children maimed and psychologically devastated for "manifest destiny" of the Euro-american, the fruits of which you are now enjoying in Florida.

Did you know that before the British colonization of India, as late as the early 1700's, India was 60-70% forrested with enormous hardwood wealth,and with a climate about 10 degrees or more cooler than now - - temperate on the plateau in the middle and snow winters in the North starting from Delhi? India had abundant water and very productive agriculture, the most advanced textile and silk manufacturing industry in the world, master craftsmen and architects and masons (TAJ MAHAL), etc etc. Indeed, China and India together produced 60% of the worlds GDP by the middle 1600's.

Abject poverty, maiming of children? Are you kidding? That was Europe- - even as late as the late 1800's. Charles dickens anyone?

Sexual freedom and the rights of women? Try comparing Victorian England with 3000 years of Egyptian civilzation (have you seen the wall paintings in Egypt?)

Enough said.

As I said, I already feel out of place in a place where ignorance generates so much bliss.

Hopefully some of you will take up some of the points I have made above and in my original post.

I am not a supporter of the rank anthropomorphism that goes under the name of orthodox Judeo-Christian theology and their creationism that seems to agitate mostly Euro-Americans. It is intellectual trash, not worth the title "theory". Secondly it is nonsense from the deepest roots of Jewish gnosticism as found in Kabbalah which parallels Plotinus' cosmology of emanations from LIGHT. By the way Plotinus, despite his Greek name, was an Egyptian though Hellenised in that fabulous place of East-West symbiosis, Alexandria, which gave birth to "Hellenism", meaning Egyto-Greek synthesis.

But I DO defend the existence of the profound, beyond determinate thought, the sublime, and for those who have experienced it, the ineffable, joyous and mysterious LIGHT.

I have yet to hear one coherent argument against its existence. If There is one, then it would have to overcome three of its boundaries- of- thought mysteries I have cited in my post - - Godel, Heisenberg and Crick - - or LOGIC, QUANTUM PHYSICS, MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF LIFE's ORIGINS.

Easterners believe in these easily because it is analogous to their belief systems.

So please don't generalise your local Euro-American quarrel with Judeo-Christian creationism as a world -wide problem for all belief systems.

And stop degrading the current poverty and backwardness of non-western peoples as if it arises from their cultures, belief sysytems, and inherently from their biology, completely ignoring the most plausible and proximate cause - - Western militaristic imperialism over the last 200 years.

Use your own "Occam's Razor" principle.

Peace

Context for consensus and connection (and beyond to transcendence):

I love reading HYBRIDOMA's quoting of Kant, and in some ways, that that is excluded from science and reason is the literally its heart and soul. Disregarding religion and feelings for a moment, a seemingly Faustian bargain was made to accelerate physical understanding at the cost of the metaphysical.

We are on a road to soon die as a species, unless we can reverse our course -- and as AYMON describes so well -- meld into the luminous spiritualism of the East.

I've so long questioned how Buddhism (etc) could ever be subject to discussions of comparative religions, as there are so few. As I mentioned elsewhere, any elements of Western spiritualism can only exist in safe isolation (monastery) from the edificial religion that cherishes its heart is secret, while fronting for whatever power structures exist to hold the masses (ha) in check and subjugation. The most sequestered being those mystics interspersed within the Muslim world, where one misplaced word was likely followed by instant death

Please note, that I jubilantly rejoice in the good service to humanity that organized religions have provides over the millenniums (that is a great start, but hardly all that is needed to free the spirits so deeply subjugated otherwise).

Our consensus must consider throwing off 'organized' religion and anointing ourselves in light, not patterns of control that bind and perforate our otherwise joyous celebration of the sacred feminine/masculine, leaving the circles center empty (inside of passionate alive and inspired).

STAR OF THE SEA:

Your own example of stewardship of Gaia, is likened more to a QUASAR more so than a mere star, which beyond a supernova that outshines and entire galaxy of stars (for weeks), the transcendent iridescent quasar warps space and time to simmer continuously with prodigious and unwavering brilliance from the vary edge of the cosmos - still unbelievably bright in our sight (and insight). And then melded to the vast SEA of unconsciousness and transcendence too!

OK, ok - only metaphorically so, as getting burnt-out (or put out, maybe even boiled alive) doth happen all too often to our sages. I have lived decades of lurking, in terror and fear of standing out above the crowd only to be removed from this physical existence by those FEAR'ing more the all too likely demise of their flimsy scaffolding and illusions of reality - would I alight the passionate essence that fills my soul.

Namaste

Goodness gracious, I'm surprised no one picked out this little gem from "Free Don":

"For me to now be convinced of evolution, after I did my own mathematical research, I would have to see a half fish half dog animal, something different and a combination of animals now existing." (from post 6:52 PM Nov 22)

Are you serious? Well, if we actually did see a half fish/half dog, that would disprove evolution, not prove it. You've shown your primary ignorance of the vast literature of evolutionary biology (not to mention elementary biochemistry) with this one statement. I'm sorry to be harsh, and I would prefer to be kinder, but that is the primary crux of the matter.

Fish and dogs have completely different phenotypes and places on the phylogenetic tree; so that's not how evolution works. Fish and dogs have a common ancestor from which the paths to each of these organisms diverged from each other hundreds of millions of years ago.

Your arguments tend to be based on semantic techniques equivalent with ID trolls, such as the endless spouting about "transitional fossils" (the more accurate term is "intermediate" by the way) and the numbers game with DNA permutations. Others here have pointed out the flaws in this approach already, so I'll avoid that.

You can pretend to be an evolution skeptic, but real skeptics of substance have to ADEQUATELY present alternative approaches that not only refute the bodies of evidence that we have for evolution but also present new data. Where is the new data and what is your proposed alternative to evolution? That's how real science is done. It's not done through illiterate and simplistic napkin equation improvisations.

To provide a better explanatory model for earth's biology than evolution, you would need to not only master but truly confront the work of the following classes of evidence and branches of biology:

The Fossil Record (especially look at work about Archaeoptyrex, and the transitions from Reptilia to Mammals through the cynodonts, also the horse lineage from Eohippus to Equus.)

Morphology and Comparative Anatomy
Phylogeny
Embryology
Homology (similarity of structures or other inheritable features through the fractional passing down of genotype from the common ancestor, such as what is found in mammalian forelimbs)
Biogeography
Molecular Evidence (inluding the convergence of data from the molecular clock and the fossil record)
Genomics

All of these various fields of biology are unified and underpinned by the theory of evolution. All of this evidence is presented in more detail in Ernst Mayr's "What Evolution Is" (2001).

If you think your little equation and "principled" stand against transitional fossils (which you've conveniently turned into a moving target, of course) can overturn the 100+ years of work in the international field of biology, submit a paper to a peer-reviewed scientific journal. If it's real science, you will be anointed a greater position than Darwin in the biological sciences. I look forward to the coming revolution in all fields of biology.

HYBRIDOMA: Metaphysically yours, Sioux! (I try to bring THAT dimension into this forum!)

As Immanuel Kant explains, any discussion of Creationism has no place in a biology class; it should be dealt with in a philosophy course.
To quote the first page of "A Critique of Pure Reason": Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.
It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic.

I want to thank all of you for this fine thread. 98 Comments when I started reading. It is very obvious that all of you have thought deeply and long and this is a subject of major significance to you. Brava! Bravo! Apart from that however, "YOU'RE ALL WRONG!!"

"THE ALIENS DID IT!!!" See? Simpler than you ever thought possible. As far as they're concerned, the Multi-Verse was hatched from the Cosmic Egg, 7 megazillion epochs ago and has been staggering drunkenly on its long uncertain walk ever since. Our BIG BANG was merely a localized 2-Pane event when an oversized Black Hole in a separate Pane entirely took an enormous dump and the detritus ended up here. The Good Knews is that we didn't get the worst of it. You ever see what comes out of the back end of a Black Hole? Not Pretty in Pink.

Didn't you folks know that? It's posted at the Public Info Kiosk in Sedona, next to the "Walk-In" Closet Shop and the Exo-Biology Taquieria. I thought everybody knew that....(and for those of you with the magic decoder rings, well, the coordinates for the next landing Par-Tay are clearly noted in the text.)

Peace!!!
Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble

What a great thread. Glad it's a holiday so I can spend time here!

PEACEMAKER: There is a subset of individuals who truly fear life, thus they seek control, and gravitate towards an authority figure, or authoritarian paradigm. It is THAT mindset that has owned much of religious rhetoric for centuries. I have explained in earlier CD postings that the denigration of sex to create a chasm between the genders has resulted in a great and grave wound. It has literally set mankind's vessel on an asymmetric course, that has devalued the contribution of feminine context & sentience for centuries. The result has been an overemphasis on force, control, "big bang" power, and what I term MARS RULES.

EBONIV: By Jove, you've got it, my man! If people really loved eachother, and sex can play a big role in that, at least as healing the wound set between the genders... it WOULD be a different planet, indeed. This may seem farfetched by the actual topography of India did not seem that different to me than other Asian regions, and yet India seemed the most maimed by poverty and despair. My intuitive grasp of the situation (spending time there) was that the lack of LOVE played a role. When individuals cannot marry those they FEEL affinity for, but rather marriage (love) becomes the basis for a financial contract, the basis for a high level of energetic communion breaks down. Marion Zimmer Bradley defines this energetic in her marvelous take on a time that preceded Christian rule... THE MISTS OF AVALON. Adorned in masks, the people set forth in a sex frenzy (who doesn't love sex outside? Not in a subway, I'm talking about in some great natural place when no one is around, and it's just you, your beloved and THE elements... the perfume of flowers set to romance us, the percussion of insects, the origin of rock and foll to move us to the oldest rhythmic dance of all!) to fertilize the land. India needs that!

NSPIRE: You are amazing! If I ever get back on TV/radio, I'd love to have you as my debate partner when the multitudes taught to see anything REALLY spiritual as "devil worship" start calling in! I would have advised Free Don to also introspect, and revisit his own basis for paradigmatic thinking.

RADICAL CONFUSION: Although there are many powerful symbols for polarity, I prefer Venus (Love) to Mars (self-interest, aggression, strife). Venus, in the persona of Aphrodite was Ms. Gorgeous and had her choice of cosmic lovers, but she PREFERRED Mars. This is quite fascinating. I have to say, I have met men who were warriors and unbelievably gentle and considerate in bed! Seems this is where they allow themselves tenderness. I prefer the circle as the Zodiac carries a direct corelation with Christ choosing 12 disciples and Abraham founding 12 tribes. Ritchie Havens gave a concert in Athens, Georgia the very night I drove up to do a summer sabbatical working on my book on that topic! Synchronicity! He said, "there is a great secret to life... that there are only 12 of us, and they are... ARies... Taurus.." etc. Let me remind readers the sun sign is a fraction of the total stellar portrait, but a significant one. I believe we are patterned to follow specific paths, and each have very strong gifts and related weaknesses. The circle is a perfect structure: it is the womb, the shape of planetary spheres, the shape (if elongated into an oval) of the orbital destinies of things whirling ranging from electrons to entire solar systems. It is the shape of the bird's nest, the woman's breast, etc. And it is the symbol of PEACE, for geometry points out the angular relationships that exist among each of those 12 celestial positions that constitute the Zodiac's mansions. Polarity is transcended through the circle, as there is always a 3rd point/position/sign set to mitigate what otherwise seems to represent irreconcilable opposition between any 2.

This discussion makes me feel bonded to all my cyber friends today. It deepens my sense of appreciation for all that we may give thanks for being, sharing and giving.

A gifted humorist once observed that if intelligent design was real then it wasn't a design-ER but rather a "Design Committee" that was the only viable explanation for all the goofy, inefficient, flawed, and useless parts that make up the human body.

As a nonscientist I'd like to make two observations:

1) There is no scientific alternative to the theory of evolution; only mystical/supernatural explanations.

2)Prominent skeptics of evolutionary theory include George W. Bush and Pat Robertson. These two are proof positive that Intelligent Design does not occur.

What worse than someone without the intelligence to understand what a theory is? Try someone who has the intelligence but refuses to understand.

All critical thinkers question evolution? Why don't these same people ever question religion? There is no actual proof of evolution but there is even less proof of the existence of a supreme being known as God. All of these critical thinkers have to draw upon is a book that was written several thousand years ago - the Bible! A book that has been rewritten, edited, added to, corrupted by Priest's, and changed so many times it no doubt lost it's real meaning way back in the time of supposed Christ! But, they believe every last word in it implicitly. Without once looking at it and questioning it's duplicity. A book of very dubious origins. Which does not come close to proving the existence of a supreme being. But,yet they willingly teach their children such spurious belief's and present them as truth! Never once questioning their origins. Religion is based upon FAITH and nothing more! The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word as 'Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.' I have often found it amazing the very people who question evolution so adamantly have taken a book of dubious origins and bought into it completely. There is more proof that evolution took place (fossil's and etc) than there ever will be the bible! The biggest problem these critical thinkers have with evolution is that most times it flies in the face of their religious belief's. They can't tolerate that. It questions what they have been telling themselves for years. It proves their religion is based upon conjecture. So they spend their time trying to destroy science instead of questioning what they probably should be questioning...their religion.

To all CD readers who are open minded. Here is something for you to ponder on. You will need some concentration power and patience. It is not sound bites.

You may wonder what, if anything, I am going to say in the next few paragraphs has to do with the topic of the article, namely science (i.e. "Evolution") versus religious beliefs such as "Creationism." Everything.

I will get to the immediate topic of Creationism and Science soon enough. My perspective is that of an Eastern intellectual completely at ease with Western intellectual tradition. But that will not be understood without some background as to where I am coming from as I do not belong to Euro-American group that regularly congregates on CD to have conversation on the topic du jour.

I am a person of Eastern origin living in the West for the last 35 years. Although my school education was in a country in sub-Saharan Africa, my ancestors are from Asia. My advanced University education - - Ph.D. - - has been in North America. I have been an academic (now chaired professor) for the last 30 or so years at leading universities in North America such as Stanford. My academic expertise is in the mathematical sciences and in the economic sciences. My other or hobby intellectual interests include world affairs and their dynamics; the frontiers of the natural sciences, logic (propositional, predicate, modal...), analytical linguistics; and the origins of fundamental knowledge of reality and the scope, structure and fabric of perceived reality and unperceived but only imagined reality. The latter IS REALITY but it projects itself onto our minds in flashes of intuition and mystical insight. Such flash knowledge occurs all the time; in fact most of the mind boggling discoveries of science such as Einstein's curved space-time, black holes, dark energy etc. are such spontaneous "Eureka" moments. They obviously do not arise from any previous data entering via the five material senses. If they did, then computers would be able to spin out such insights by the dozen. People who are masters of literature and art are well acquainted and at ease with unexplained intuition. They thrive on it. Who has ever seen a unicorn?

A very profound but well known example from science is the shape of an electron "wave" in vacuum (such as space). Any good illustrated book or DVD on molecular physics or chemistry will give you a beautiful "picture" of an electron wave with peaks and valleys. However, that is not observed reality - - it is an artistic rendition of unperceived but imagined reality.

I have absolutely no interest in organized religion, although I was born in one. My hope is that they (especially the clergy) would just go away and let humans live in peace without relgio-fascist wars and other mind/logic destroying ritualistic mumbo-jumbo. Humans only need compassion, reason, and knowledge and an open and imaginative mind to arrive at TRUTH/LIGHT on their own without any clerical or ritual intervention. I say this from personal experience. As Mulder of the X-Files would say - - "The truth is out there."

I am well versed in the history and culture of the Western World; but I cannot say the same of my Western friends and colleagues, especially in North America. After decades of trying to enlighten or excite them about the world outside America and Northern Europe, I am simply resigned to the fact that it's a hopeless task. The cultural, racial and narcistic hubris and pompousness is so deeply embedded in the minds and psyches of the majority Euro-peoples of North America, from ordinary folk to the "educated elite", due to centuries of Judeo-Christian and materialistic brainwashing and tribal rituals of Euro/super race provenance, that it is futile to try change that mind set in a few years. It will take major upheavals in the world over the next 20-30 years for that to happen. During that time, the world is therefore always in danger of Euro-American imperialism and brutality towards non-white peoples, and the current world situation bears testimony to this fact.

It is not that many Euro-people in America behave like that consciously; most of it is unconscious, almost reflex action and simply taken in stride as the natural order of things.

Sorry to say this but the CD site is case in point, though obviously not as extreme as a Rush Limbaugh site. I do not want to acknowledge liberal political correctness - - it is mostly condescending and far more irritating than the honest, ignorant prejudice of a Fox News watcher. There is a lot of PC here at CD because most people here are liberals, even if progressive. But if you care to notice, except for a few such regulars such as Saila, Gandhi and Lillulu and a few original American peoples, most others belong to the class of Euro-people. And having observed this site for many months now, you should also notice as I have that it hardly attracts anyone of intellectual substance outside the Euro-class of people who congregate here regularly. Most non- Euro people in America, let alone the world, even those born here such as African Americans, Latin Americans, and persons of the original Native American Nations, soon feel out of place in the same sense as a celibate Catholic priest would feel at a Playboy party at Hugh Heffner's mansion.

Nevertheless it is interesting (in fact amazing) to see that most posters here don't even realize that representatives of the countries and cultures of the East where most of the world's major events today are taking place hardly ever make an appearance either as posters or writers of articles. You are so narcistically engrossed in yourselves and with your Euro-tribal kindred spirits that you do not even know the "other" who may occasionally put in an appearance. Even if they say something which is important and not the usual Bush/Chenney/Clinton/ Democrat/ Republican/ American Constitution/ Thomas Jefferson /Bismarck or England/France/Germany stuff ad nauseam, it is promptly ignored and the gab fest of the Euro-tribals resumes as if the other does not exist.

Even though most of the discussion concerns lands, peoples and cultures of non-Euro peoples, hardly any acknowledgement is given to these peoples' own intellectuals' viewpoints about themselves.

Pakistan and Musharraf are talked about without a single quote from leading Pakistani news media. You do not even understand the conflict between the Sindhis who support Bhutto and the Punjabis who support Musharraf. Got you there didn't I? Be honest to yourselves - - most of you did not know there were Punjabis in Pakistan did you? You thought they were all in India.

To you "democracy" is just of one kind - - the Westminster model. Did you know that a true representative democracy was put in place by the Buddhist king, Ashoka the Great in Northern India in the area that is Kashmir and its surrounds in 500 BC? Did you know that the great cities (hundreds of thousands of people) of Mohenjo Daro and Harrapa on the Indus that lasted from 1500 BC to 500BC had fantastic city planning, lots of economic activity but no moneyed or military aristocracy? In fact there were no standing armies and socio-economic decisions were taken apparently by some sort of town hall gatherings. Nobody seems to have attacked them even though they were prosperous.

For a person like me, this ignorance and hubristic insouciance is very disorienting, and also very disturbing. I fear for the innocent little children of my ancestors' homelands at the hands of people who do not know anything about them and who also do not want to know anything about them, especially their humanity. Yet Euro-Americans believe in a divinely ordained inherent right to trash the lives of Eastern peoples and then gab about it on the internet without any visceral feelings of outrage to do something about it. Has anybody here read anything about the Eastern peoples, their vast and ancient history and immense contribution to human intellect and knowledge? Have you ever made a conscious decision to study at some depth social structures of the peoples of the ME except what has come to you from third hand and third rate Euro-American sources?

I know a lot about the Renaissance, Paulinist Christianity, the American and French Revolutions, the major differences between Catholics and Protestants and so forth. How many here know anything about Shia and Sunni Islam to make any rational judgments as to what to do vis-à-vis Iran? It is this vast and impenetrable ignorance of Euro-Americans I fear most. It can and was (on Iraq) easily manipulated by jingoistic propaganda against the "mullahs" of Iran as "terrorists" and "thugs" out to nuke Israel/America because they hate "our- way- of- life" into fascist militarism against an innocent people of 70 million souls. Of these, 15 million are children under 6! Iranians have lived peacefully and not attacked anyone for nearly 250 years! Can you get your minds around that number? The Shia Mullahs have always been influential among the masses - - but in 250 years thet have not incited a single war against their Sunni Arab neighbours. How many wars have Judeo - Christian clergy incited or blessed as "holy" wars in that same period?

Those brave enough like me who dare to stick it out at CD for a few months, soon feel out of place in the Euro-tribal love-fest of sound bites and American 'intellectualism". The idiom, the daily and life -experiences, the "humour", the literature cited, etc is all Euro-centric North American. Then we "outsiders" get censored by the thought police of the CD website if we speak in a bit in outrage as I am doing now.

Now lets on to the topic of this article. What I have said above will be seen to be relevant to my Eastern/Western cosmopolitan perspective

First and foremost, every Eastern belief system (it is difficult to call Buddhism a religion in a sense similar to Christianity) subscribes to some form of evolution over billions of years. For example, in Hindu cosmology, the world began nearly 4.32 billion years ago (one KALAP ago) and will take a similar time to become dead again and to be absorbed back into the Sun.

Right there, all the absurd generalizations made by Euro-tribal "liberals" that just because Judeo-Christianity is hung up on some anthropomorphic god who looks like a muscled and bearded old white barbarian warlord as in Michelangelo's painting in the Sistine Chapel, that Eastern belief systems also have an identical conceptualization of the Supreme Entity.

They don't! Eastern conceptualizations are much closer to the hidden Reality that Quantum Physics ASSERTS exists beyond the reach of current or future human instrumentality because of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Thus an electron exists, but even one electron is spread out throughout the universe in parallel universes, yet can manifest itself whenever its multiverse existence is disturbed by a measurement device. This is hidden Reality because nobody has actually ever seen or photographed an electron in its primordial state.

Whilst I do not want to go further than this on the electron, suffice it to say here that if one BRIEFLY considers just three major mysteries of Reality, the "rational" science - - meaning empirical science - - true believers who attack and ridicule all people who believe in hidden Reality as most Eastern people do, are as dogmatic as the creationists.

I do not support the ridiculous and absolute fairy tale Judeo-Christian creationism. But I cannot in all scientific and logical honesty, given my background, support these "rationalist- empiricist" dogmatists who dismiss out of hand without any logic or reasoning all things mysterious and sublime in Reality. It is evil and very much offensive to Eastern people like me.

Let me now describe these three great mysteries of science and human knowledge so that my reaction is not considered reactionary.

1. Kurt Gödel, the world's greatest logician of all time, proved his "Incompleteness of Human Reasoning" result (the so called 'Incompleteness of Logic Theorem') in the 1930's. Paraphrasing this discovery, which turned the scientific world upside down, into general knowledge terms, it says:

There are truths for which we have no proof AND there will never be system of human reasoning by which we will be able to prove the truth of entities that exist in Reality from a finite number of first principles by a process of deduction, even though we know that entity exists because it has manifestations that we can verify.

Therefore I believe that there is a Supreme Being whom Easterners as well as Hermetic Western Gnostics such as Plotinus of Alexandria call the LIGHT. I can't prove by deduction it exists, but the fact that I know certain truths that are absolutely impossible for me to have known from any sensory data I received before coming to know these truths is for me sufficient since Gödel's theorem tells me this not unusual at all. It is common place. That is, those who experience LIGHT are not deluded as the rationalists would have us believe. The LIGHT is.

2. We do not know what "mass" is. Einstein and Infeld first pointed this anomaly out in the 1930's. Physicists had been talking about and using the concept of mass since Newton's Laws came into being, without ever pausing in the 300 years since to ask the fundamental question - - What is mass? As of 2007, we can say very little except that it is some disturbance in some very esoteric entity called the Higgs field. Will we ever determine what it is? I do not know. But I can say this much that if we ever "determine" it, we will do it simultaneously with the spookiest entity yet in the Cosmos (which is filled with this spooky stuff) that is called "dark energy" or "dark mass" since mass=energy by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. What is dark energy? I have no idea what to call something that has no directly physically observable or measurable characteristics and even light gets lost there. Do you?

So much for the Western world's dyed-in-wool "scientific" empiricists.

Would a Buddhist who believes in Nirvana, a Hindu who believes in Brahman, the Islamic Sufi who believes in "Al" and "Lah" meaning "The Total Entity" and "Not Entity" as the meaning of Allah, believe in the above mysteries of Reality? Well you tell me. But I do know that a Judeo-Christian anthropomorphist would be apoplectic.

3. Nobel Prize winner, Sir Francis Crick, discoverer of the DNA double helix molecular structure, a rabid empiricist and evolutionarist in the 1950's to 1970's, suddenly changed his mind and wrote a book in 1980 that shook up biosciences and especially the spontaneous life true believers in Science. Crick in his book made a substantial and eloquent argument to reject on statistical grounds that life on Earth started spontaneously and randomly from non-living matter. This was the sacrosanct received dogma of science - - life is as random as the roll of dice. Crick argued that life "ARRIVED" on Earth on a meteorite or comet from somewhere in the Universe about 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.

Crick's argument turns on the complexity of not only the DNA molecule, but its geometric and information bearing properties. For instance, life bearing amino acids bend light rays through their 3-D molecules to the LEFT. Non-life, that is non self-duplicating amino acids bend light to the RIGHT. Nobody knows why and it is profound mystery in science. Similarly, protein molecules are extremely complex, and the information in the DNA to build them is also complex. But without proteins and enzymes, life cannot self propagate.

For such an immensely complex molecular properties of living molecules to arise spontaneously and randomly from dead matter in a primordial soup of both types of nucleic acids is mathematically impossible. That is Crick's argument in a nutshell. And who in the scientific world would argue with the father of DNA structure?

But from where in the in the Universe did life arrive and what does that portend for humankind? Nobody in the scientific world knows.

But the ancient Egyptians 5000 years ago had some inkling. Their postulated belief system is amazing in its similarity to the scientific facts as we know them today. As far as I know, they were the only ancient civilization to postulate such a belief system and celebrate life as profoundly and reverently as they did. Every one of their major Neteru (rudely translated into English as "gods") is identified by their pictorial representations holding in one hand the KEY of LIFE - - the Egyptian "Cross" - - Ankh - - in which the top part is not straight as in the Christian cross, but is a loop or circle.

Egyptian belief system is as follows - - The Universe started billions of years ago from Nun (chaotic nothingness) spontaneously and instantly in a sort of "big bang" which was the command of the Entity who is hidden in the Nun. It formed an oval egg shaped cavity of light surrounded by the Nun, and this cavity contains all the stars, galaxies (they had already mapped out the Milky Way) and Earth. The cavity that is the Universe is maintained by the thought of Rah (the LIGHT). Life arrived on Earth from the Orion star cluster, sent here by Rah through the Neteru agencies of Osiris and Thoth (Taat). It arrived on a dark stone (meteorite) called the Ben-Ben stone. The apex capstones of all pyramids and obelisks signify the Ben-Ben stone. Muslims believe that Abraham and Ishmael, his first born son, built the Kabbah in Mecca, and placed a "divine" meteorite there. Muslims go on pilgrimage every year to the Kabbah and walk around it praising the Rah-maan (The Merciful, a character "name" of Allah).

Is all this Eastern belief system in any shape or form remotely similar to Judeo-Christian creationism? Obviously not. Can it be as easily dismissed as "unreal" as we are able to do with the 6000 year- universe creationism of Evangelical Christianity?

Today (see the Scientific American or any other major science authoritative information source), Crick's theory of the arrival life on Earth from outer space is the most widely accepted view (but least broadcast to the masses by the Oligarchy as it disturbs their beliefs that they themselves are the highest life form in the Universe) among molecular biologists. The Murchison meteorite found recently in Australia confirms Crick's theory.

Never heard about all these things? Or if you heard them, you most likely in typical Euro-American impatience with "non -rational" (ipso facto as it is non- Western) did not pause to ponder on them to think about these mysteries to put together the jigsaw puzzle, did you? You most likely never thought that those "primitive" Eastern mystics and their cosmologies of LIGHT and NOTHINGNESS may not be as crazy as the religious stuff that pours out of organized Judeo- Christian and Islamic "religions" - - the main proponents of Yahweic creationism.

Peace

"the exclusion of transcendence from the teaching of evolution is perhaps as damaging to education."

The term "transcendence" is itself a loaded term, suggesting that what isn't subject to material investigation is "above" the material world. In any case, what lies outside the subject to be investigated isn't properly part of the study. It's like saying that an English teacher "excludes" biology is her students don't scan the pages with a microscope to detect bacteria.

In any case, the state of scientific illiteracy in the US is a result of over-specialization and the new fetish of standardized testing -- and it's hardly surprising that the political groups that support the latter also generally throw their weight in with neo-creationism: both are procrustean attempts to restore human beings to a former, imaginary simplicity, to relieve us of the burden of complexity and dubeity.

Siouxrose,
Great way of conceptualizing the cosmos...the forces of yin and yang making love! Laozi's Daodejing (The Classic of the Way and Its Power) would be a good read for you! Do you think that the Ancient Greek thinker Empedocles was onto something then by thinking of the universe as basically composed of love and strife? Can Yin and Yang forces be in disharmony of their own accord? Or is this an abberation caused by energy outside of this harmonizing system? Thoughts?

Free Don,
I'm not asking you to give up your integrity or logical acumen..I just wanted you to see that evolution is not necessarily Darwinian or Richard Dawkins "selfish gene" "nature red in tooth and claw" survival of the fittest struggle to the death kind of thing..but can be more fruitfully conceived as a constant collaboration of the "10,000 things" as the ancient Chinese liked to call it. Read Burton Watson's translation of the Zhuangzi and see if the idea of wu-wei (action without coercion) appeals to you.
He Ping

Here's a big that sends the creationist people into fits. It doesn't "prove" evolution, but is evidence of common genetic heritage between species.

Virtually animal life form on this planet possesses an enzymatic process that converts ordinary glucose to ascorbic acid (vitamin C). It is a process that involve four enzymes, the first acting on glucose, the next acting on the result of the first process, and so on. The fourth and final enzyme produces vitamin C.

Except in human beings. Oh, and except in PRIMATES in general. That is, gorillas, monkeys, chimps, etc. In other words, the family tree that humans descended from. And its not that we (and our primate brethern) don't simply have this process. We DO. At least our bodies make the first three enzymes just fine. The fourth and final enzyme though it not present.

Why is this? It turns out that we have the gene responsible that leads to the ability to produce this enzyme, but there's a defect in it. And the defect is EXACTLY the same way in our primate cousins.

Biologists generally agree that an early ancestor of primates was once able to produce vitamin C in its liver just like most other animals. But when the mutation took place, this ancestor survived because it lived in a tropical environment with an abundance of vitamin C present in its food supply. If this hadn't been the case, the mutation would have caused this ancestor to die from scurvy. This ancestor thrived and eventually its descendants evolved into related species -- monkeys, chimps, etc., and humans. And today we all still require vitamin C in our diet in order to live as a result of this.

So here's the thing. If creationism/intelligent design were true, WHY would a designer make such an obviously bone-headed mistake and then replicate the same mistake throughout every close genetic relative to man? Or if you don't want to call it a mistake, why then did the designer give us AND monkeys the genetic code to do vitamin C synthesis like every other animal only to break it at three-quarters of the way there? Why even give us and related species the defective and useless gene in the first place?

Free Don

You seem to be arguing that organisms don't mutate. It has been well know for more than a century that indeed they do and that's no theory. Please familiarize yourself with the work of Gregor Mendel before further demonstrating your complete ignorance of evolutionary processes.

Free Don,

People have been all over this one with you already, but you keep going back to mathematics. Well, nobody is going to mathematically "prove" to you that evolution exists, but your original math is flawed.

You state: "Here chew on this; using the science of mathematics I can prove evolution could not possibly happen. Human DNA is a chain of 4 things 3 billion long. Using a branch of mathematics called permutations I calculate10E36 possible combinations. That is 10 with 36 zeros behind it. Now if an organism reproduces and mutates through that sequence every second for 100 Billion years how many combinations would it have gone through?"

There is not only 1 organism in play. If that organism splits into 2 organisms (like single celled organisms) once every hour. Then at the end of one year I have 2 to the power of 8760 (365 x 24), which is 10E2637 different organisms involved in the experiment. And that is after only 1 year. At 10 years 10E26370, that would be a 1 with 25370 zeros behind it.

Please don't come back and tell me that this does not prove the existence of evolution. I only claim that it proves you mathematical calculation is in error.

Your calculation only works if 1 organism has a single offspring, which has a single offspring.

Free Don:

Nobody can "prove" a scientific theory. We can only attempt to DISPROVE it. "Proof" is what you do with mathematics, not science.

Free Don asks, "where are the transitional species."

Hey, Don, for example, you and I are!

impeachbushco
Here is a link to a pro evolution site claming that transitional species exist:
http://darwiniana.org/transitionals.htm

It seems pretty important to then to prove they exist. Yet all the examples are just extinct animals, or it takes a huge imagination to 'see' the supposed link. For me to now be convinced of evolution, after I did my own mathematical research, I would have to see a half fish half dog animal, something different and a combination of animals now existing.

My statement that all evolutionists thought transitional species were evidence of evolution comes from books (text books, papers etc.) evolutionists wrote. Remember, I used to be an evolutionist.

Theories are ways to explain observed results. A theory is tested by observation and experiment. For example, evolution requires a slow, continuous change form one life form to another, but the fossil record clearly shows new species popping into existence fully formed; sometimes more 'complex' animals come before 'simpler' ones. Colin Patterson, of the paleontology department of the British Museum of Natural History has stated publicly that the fossil evidence does not support evolution – no transitional species, no slow changes.

When I checked into the various dating methods and looked at the raw data from dating samples I concluded there is no current technology that can accurately date anything. The dating samples must be taken many times and the results are always scattered over a huge range of dates. A scientist can choose almost any date to fit his/her preconceived ideas. The result is I do not know accurately how old the earth is. Maybe someday we can have a procedure that is reliable but there is far too much variation today.

I am not trying to change you mind, I am only seeking the truth. But my own work leads me to state that evolution is not the truth. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof".

SiouxRose:
you know, I have for quite a few years rather enjoyed contemplating the mystery and unimaginable exhuberance displayed by a bang big enough to set this evolving universe into being, yet I definitely like your universal love-making metaphor. Maybe a big bang could have been Yin and Yang's superspasmic orgasm, offspringing yet another universe with it's own yin/yang energies making love and building up to yet another orgasmic bang!? Involution/evolution/involution...the eternal rhythm of Love. And I'm not merely being flippant here...deep down we all intuit the truth that love/joy is the supreme mover of the cosmos. Some of us just get stuck with the idea that there can only be one metaphor called TRUTH and all other imaginings are evil, or at best, simply WRONG (I know, I used to be so stuck..was even a professional preacher of said truth). But indeed the cosmos has room for all, and in the end..."all manner of things shall be well"(was it Hildegard de Bingen that said that?)...in fact, it has never been otherwise. Thanks for enhancing my metaphor!

peace