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Life On Earth, Science Vs Religion
I don't wish to denigrate any individuals beliefs, but I am curious how this story is received by those who follow religion and the origins of the earth taught through religion.
Do some Christians take the biblical accounts of creation literally, believing that they describe exactly how the universe and human beings were created.
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Do some Christians take the biblical accounts of creation literally, believing that they describe exactly how the universe and human beings were created.
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Divebuddy, We’ve clearly gained conflicting perspectives.
//…there isn't any proof …//
That’s correct. However, I think there’s much you haven’t considered, possibly because you are not well acquainted with ancient documents. I ask, for example, how ancient man could have been aware of the extremes of temperature in space, or of the gravitational effect that leaving the earth at speed has upon the human body, or of the view of earth from a great height? It’s not simply artefacts, drawings, etc., etc. Ancient texts present the enquiring mind with a multitude of questions, but to access those questions it is necessary to … enquire.
Actually, unless anything new and pertinent crops up, I think this discussion, for me at least, has run its course. Good discussion though – most of the time. :o)
//…there isn't any proof …//
That’s correct. However, I think there’s much you haven’t considered, possibly because you are not well acquainted with ancient documents. I ask, for example, how ancient man could have been aware of the extremes of temperature in space, or of the gravitational effect that leaving the earth at speed has upon the human body, or of the view of earth from a great height? It’s not simply artefacts, drawings, etc., etc. Ancient texts present the enquiring mind with a multitude of questions, but to access those questions it is necessary to … enquire.
Actually, unless anything new and pertinent crops up, I think this discussion, for me at least, has run its course. Good discussion though – most of the time. :o)
Even before I've read the sources it's worth noting that "being aware of etc. etc." is a bit of a risky statement to make. In the first place there is a sort of selection bias taking place, ie if ancient texts happen to stumble on what we know now as the truth then that is seriously impressive, but for the many others that miss it entirely. The ancient Greeks in particular had a huge set of different ideas for how the world worked, some of which are still essentially in use today; but many are not or have been superseded, or are only half-truths. Impressive all the same, but one has to be careful to see the work in the context of the time rather than with our own knowledge.
Atomic theory is a good case in point, developed independently in Greece and India (and possibly a few other places), well over 2,000 years before an atom was ever observed. Some of the descriptions in ancient Greek texts are surprisingly -- even miraculously -- accurate, particularly in the explanation of Brownian motion by Empedocles (I think), whose ideas predate the formal discovery and explanation by closer to 2,500 years.
But the theory is also wrong. Firstly in the insistence on five elements; secondly the very name means "indivisible", and it turns out that atoms are anything but; thirdly it was a philosophical chain of thought that made a certain amount of sense but was in competition with other ideas. Taken in the context of modern science it's easy to look on the texts with wonder, think "how the hell could they know all this?", decide that it's not possible with such clarity, and therefore deduce some external influence. This may well be true, but it is hardly necessary when you consider that in some places a huge amount of intellectual work was going on, even beyond the practical, almost as soon as civilisation got going. One may as well give the ancient world some credit for original thought.
Otherwise, surely, you find yourself wandering down the "first cause" problem -- if it isn't possible for ancient man to have had these ideas, why should it be any more possible for (even more ancient) aliens to have done the same, in their own early history? Perhaps the aliens who visited us needed some visitors of their own to get the ball rolling. etc etc.
All the same, I'd be interested to see the sources. The above is a bit of a cold reading, and I'll hope to keep on open mind as and when I get to read the stuff you are talking about.
Atomic theory is a good case in point, developed independently in Greece and India (and possibly a few other places), well over 2,000 years before an atom was ever observed. Some of the descriptions in ancient Greek texts are surprisingly -- even miraculously -- accurate, particularly in the explanation of Brownian motion by Empedocles (I think), whose ideas predate the formal discovery and explanation by closer to 2,500 years.
But the theory is also wrong. Firstly in the insistence on five elements; secondly the very name means "indivisible", and it turns out that atoms are anything but; thirdly it was a philosophical chain of thought that made a certain amount of sense but was in competition with other ideas. Taken in the context of modern science it's easy to look on the texts with wonder, think "how the hell could they know all this?", decide that it's not possible with such clarity, and therefore deduce some external influence. This may well be true, but it is hardly necessary when you consider that in some places a huge amount of intellectual work was going on, even beyond the practical, almost as soon as civilisation got going. One may as well give the ancient world some credit for original thought.
Otherwise, surely, you find yourself wandering down the "first cause" problem -- if it isn't possible for ancient man to have had these ideas, why should it be any more possible for (even more ancient) aliens to have done the same, in their own early history? Perhaps the aliens who visited us needed some visitors of their own to get the ball rolling. etc etc.
All the same, I'd be interested to see the sources. The above is a bit of a cold reading, and I'll hope to keep on open mind as and when I get to read the stuff you are talking about.
Jim, Too many to list off the top of my head – tales emanate from across the globe - but among them, The Vedas, The Mahabharata, The Book of Enoch, and The Ramayana. There are also indications that nuclear weapons were employed in the ancient past …. and The Mahabharata details what we would consider today to be the effects of relativity – but don’t take my word for it – read for yourself.
Naomi, I did a bit of digging on Maharabat and it seems the 'theroies' are based on a description of the assembly hall of Lord Brahma on Brahmaloka, thus:
It is not possible to describe it as it really is, king of the people, for from instant to instant it has another indescribable appearance. I know neither its size nor its structure, Bharata, and never before have I seen such beauty. The hall is very comfortable, king, neither too cold nor too hot; when one enters it, one no longer is hungry, thirsty, or weary. It is as though it is made up of many different shapes, all very colorful and luminous. No pillars support it. It is eternal and knows of no decay. It is self-luminous beyond the moon and sun and the flame-crested fire.
Is this the 'evidence' or is there more?
It is not possible to describe it as it really is, king of the people, for from instant to instant it has another indescribable appearance. I know neither its size nor its structure, Bharata, and never before have I seen such beauty. The hall is very comfortable, king, neither too cold nor too hot; when one enters it, one no longer is hungry, thirsty, or weary. It is as though it is made up of many different shapes, all very colorful and luminous. No pillars support it. It is eternal and knows of no decay. It is self-luminous beyond the moon and sun and the flame-crested fire.
Is this the 'evidence' or is there more?
The problem with Naomi's references is that the Mahabharata's full text is some five thousand pages long. To read the whole thing through is going to take basically weeks. And if I don't find what I'm apparently looking for then maybe it's because I've gone for a translation that missed it, so I might have to read another one. And then the other five texts are of similar lengths. That's a lot of reading, and if I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for it's hard to see how its even going to be useful (at least, for the purposes of the discussion).
I'm assuming Naomi that your remarkable, almost throwaway, references to an ancient nuclear war would be similar to this site here (putting the case for):
http://
(and a site against)
http://
(these are just the first two hits in google).
The first one talks about how there's evidence for a nuclear-like weapon based on a phrase "bright as ten thousand suns" and other such. Now my full text of the Mahabharata is a) nearly 6,000 pages and b) luckily searchable. I've been unable to find the phrase above but that may not mean much as it's sensitive to precise translation. What I do note is that "ten thousand" crops up no fewer than 147 times: "ten thousand camels/ asses/ horse/ serving-girls/ elephants" etc. (somewhere in section 60 it's even "ten thousand cars and vehicles"). That seems to me to imply that the phrase is meant to be poetic, evocative of merely "a lot". Someone is supposed to have slain "ten thousand warriors for ten days".
This is hardly surprising, as the text in question is an epic poem. It's meant to be filled with imagery, and imagination, and given the theme it wouldn't be entirely surprising that at times it goes for imaginative and epic destructions. It's a shame they didn't have that disclaimer "and resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental" at the end.
So far, the "ten thousand suns" phrase has appeared only in connection with Sesha the serpent, and nowhere else, so on the face of it the ancientnuclearwar.com site is either lying about its sources or using a different translation. (I also tried corpses, but couldn't find any reference to their being burnt. Eaten a lot by rats and jackals, and strewn all over the place, but never burnt. "Vimana" is translated as "car" in my version.)
This is a scattergun approach, and not meant to be conclusive, but it has to be conceded that referring someone to a 6,000-page poem (or several of them) as a source for a variously-translated account is less than impressive. A more precise citation would be welcome.
I'm assuming Naomi that your remarkable, almost throwaway, references to an ancient nuclear war would be similar to this site here (putting the case for):
http://
(and a site against)
http://
(these are just the first two hits in google).
The first one talks about how there's evidence for a nuclear-like weapon based on a phrase "bright as ten thousand suns" and other such. Now my full text of the Mahabharata is a) nearly 6,000 pages and b) luckily searchable. I've been unable to find the phrase above but that may not mean much as it's sensitive to precise translation. What I do note is that "ten thousand" crops up no fewer than 147 times: "ten thousand camels/ asses/ horse/ serving-girls/ elephants" etc. (somewhere in section 60 it's even "ten thousand cars and vehicles"). That seems to me to imply that the phrase is meant to be poetic, evocative of merely "a lot". Someone is supposed to have slain "ten thousand warriors for ten days".
This is hardly surprising, as the text in question is an epic poem. It's meant to be filled with imagery, and imagination, and given the theme it wouldn't be entirely surprising that at times it goes for imaginative and epic destructions. It's a shame they didn't have that disclaimer "and resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental" at the end.
So far, the "ten thousand suns" phrase has appeared only in connection with Sesha the serpent, and nowhere else, so on the face of it the ancientnuclearwar.com site is either lying about its sources or using a different translation. (I also tried corpses, but couldn't find any reference to their being burnt. Eaten a lot by rats and jackals, and strewn all over the place, but never burnt. "Vimana" is translated as "car" in my version.)
This is a scattergun approach, and not meant to be conclusive, but it has to be conceded that referring someone to a 6,000-page poem (or several of them) as a source for a variously-translated account is less than impressive. A more precise citation would be welcome.
Zacs, //Sounds about as evidence based as Norse or Greek Mythology.//
You’re quite right. It’s not ‘evidence based’ and I haven’t claimed it to be – how can it be? Like all ancient literature, it is either considered to be mythology or folk law – but whether it is or not it is what some of us are genuinely - and politely - attempting to ascertain.
//I did a bit of digging on Maharabat and it seems the 'theroies' are based on a description of the assembly hall of Lord Brahma//
You didn’t dig far enough. This copied, edited, and pasted.
//Thinking no one could prove to be good enough to marry his beautiful daughter, Kakudmi took Revati with him to the home of Brahma, to ask the god’s advice about finding a suitable husband for her. Brahma laughed at the foolishness of the King. “O King! The princes that you thought would become the bridegroom of your daughter, all died; their sons and grandsons and their friends even have all passed away.”
Time, Brahma goes on to explain, runs differently on different planes of existence. During the time they had waited to see him, everything that Kakudmi had and owned, his friends and family, his sons and wife, his armies and treasures, had vanished with the time that had passed. //
Jim, The Book of Enoch says that space is a dark abyss as hot as fire and cold as ice.
Possible Nuclear weapons – this one from the Mahabharata. There are others.
// "A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe…An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor…it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race.
"The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white.
"After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river."//
If anyone wants any more, google is your friend.
You’re quite right. It’s not ‘evidence based’ and I haven’t claimed it to be – how can it be? Like all ancient literature, it is either considered to be mythology or folk law – but whether it is or not it is what some of us are genuinely - and politely - attempting to ascertain.
//I did a bit of digging on Maharabat and it seems the 'theroies' are based on a description of the assembly hall of Lord Brahma//
You didn’t dig far enough. This copied, edited, and pasted.
//Thinking no one could prove to be good enough to marry his beautiful daughter, Kakudmi took Revati with him to the home of Brahma, to ask the god’s advice about finding a suitable husband for her. Brahma laughed at the foolishness of the King. “O King! The princes that you thought would become the bridegroom of your daughter, all died; their sons and grandsons and their friends even have all passed away.”
Time, Brahma goes on to explain, runs differently on different planes of existence. During the time they had waited to see him, everything that Kakudmi had and owned, his friends and family, his sons and wife, his armies and treasures, had vanished with the time that had passed. //
Jim, The Book of Enoch says that space is a dark abyss as hot as fire and cold as ice.
Possible Nuclear weapons – this one from the Mahabharata. There are others.
// "A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe…An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor…it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race.
"The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white.
"After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river."//
If anyone wants any more, google is your friend.
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