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We entrust these deep
questions to Religion and Science, the mainstays of modern society,
but do they really offer us a path to the truth? Are we the product
of a Divine Creation, did we evolve through natural selection, or is
there another possible answer?
Theology - the study of religion - is no different. As the
scientists ascend one peak of knowledge, the religious philosophers
ascend another. In modern times, the ascent of Religion seems to
have been stalled by dogma, whilst Science, in contrast, continues
to race forever upwards towards higher peaks. The eagerness of the
scientists is such that no time is allowed and no points awarded for
an inspection of the mountain’s foundations.
Which of the following is the myth and which is the truth?
The scientist would say that only
Darwinism can be scientifically
proven, so the others are myths. The theologians would say that
Andean creation was obviously a myth, that Darwinism was probably a
lie, a mistake or at best only a theory, and that the only truth was
the divine revelation.
If
you have undergone a scientific training and are encouraged to seek
a rational explanation for everything, then a Divine Creation simply
does not fit your preconceptions of a logical, comprehensible world.
Perhaps Darwinism as a general principle does, but as we shall see
later, it remains very controversial when applied to mankind. If, on
the other hand, you are a Peruvian who has never read the Bible or
the theory of evolution, then the Andean legend is your supreme
belief.
If we classify ancient civilizations as “believing in myths”, we are
thus doing them a great injustice. The beliefs of these ancient
people were founded on perceptions that had proper substance in
their historical context.
In common parlance we do call these traditions of superhuman beings (or Gods) “myth”, but to do so actually exposes our terrible prejudice. As we have seen, myths and truths are really in the mind of the beholder, dependent on his perspectives and historical context. What was the perspective of the Sumerians, the advanced city-dwellers who worshipped and wrote about their pantheon of Gods 6,000 years ago? Did they invent all their tales to “explain natural phenomena”?
Before we dismiss the Sumerians as a bunch of ignorant primitives, we should consider for a moment that their culture and institutions were so similar to those of the western world today that we would be hard pressed to tell the difference. It was the Sumerians who first used the wheel and, far from being “preliterate”, it was they who invented writing on clay tablets. I will have much, much more to say about the Sumerians in due course.
As for their Gods, the Sumerians believed they were real, not myth.
Their paradigm was simply different from ours today. How arrogant it
would be for us to automatically assume that the Sumerians were
misguided.
How much truth and how much myth is there in the above statement?
In
a recent survey, 48 per cent of American respondents considered the
Book of Genesis to be literally true and thought that mankind was
created by God. But what does it mean to say that Genesis is
“literally true”? There are several modern versions, so which one is
true? There are also progressive versions, catering for special
interest groups, which often distort the literal meaning. And, more
fundamentally, even the most conservative English Bible is a
translation from Hebrew, and how many of us have read it in the
original language? We are all therefore at the mercy of the
translators !
This comes as a rude shock to those who believe that the Bible is a pure revelation of God, for in reality it has been edited by man. If there is any doubt about this, it should be obvious from the numerous contradictory statements and different accounts of key Biblical events such as the Creation and the Flood.
The first myth of the Bible, then, is that it is a revelation of God. The second myth is that the Bible is about One Spiritual God. On the contrary, the kind and forgiving God of the New Testament is in complete contrast to the Old Testament’s God of Wrath, an inconsistency that has caused many sleepless nights for the Christians. Consider the following episode which precedes the account of the Flood
Here we see a supposedly Supernatural God who is angry and ruthless,
and there are literally dozens of further examples, particularly in
the Book of Exodus, where the Lord shows an angry and vicious
streak. But more importantly, if this God is all-powerful and
omniscient, what is he doing making mistakes?
This is a God who, according to the Bible, personally helped the Israelites to conquer lands and destroy their enemies after the Exodus. It is thus a complete myth that the Old Testament God is the same as the kind, forgiving God described in the New Testament. Why has this myth arisen? Simply because there can be only One Spiritual God according to this religion.
The truth, however, is an Old
Testament God that sometimes acts like a man - he feels jealousy,
anger and pleasure; he walks and talks? he wrestles;’’ he is
imperfect, not omniscient; he is harsh, cruel and intolerant;” and
he exercises his power with physical manifestations. But the myth
also hides a more fundamental truth - for within the Old Testament
the Lord is not the only God. Drawing on the Bible and other
sources,
Karen Armstrong points out that the Hebrew term
Yahweh ehad meant
“Yahweh alone” - the only deity it was permitted to worship.” The
clear implication is that these other Gods must have existed as
dangerous rivals to
Yahweh. Were these other “Gods” simply idols and
images, as Armstrong seems to think, based on her particular
preconceptions, or were they “walking, talking” rivals to the Old
Testament God?
The question of whether there exists a kernel of truth in the above passage is the 64 million dollar question. But for the moment, I wish only to strip away what I call the “Myth of the Elohim”.
It
might seem odd that God refers to “us” and “our likeness”, but most
people have ignored this as the “royal we” or a mundane quirk of the
translation from Hebrew. There is indeed a quirk with the
translation of the above passage, but it is not what most people
think. It is an established fact that the Hebrew word “Elohim” is
the plural of El, the Lord! This is well known in theological
circles, but the general church-going public remains quite ignorant
of this amazing little fact.
How and where did the concept of Elohim emerge, and what was the meaning of its obvious pluralism? According to Armstrong, it was during the exile of the Jews in Babylon in the sixth century BC that the concept of monotheism based on Yahweh was enlarged to incorporate the God who had "created heaven, Earth and mankind.”
The
resulting deity was known as Elohim.
As a result of
linguistic studies, it is now widely recognized that the original
source of these ancient tablets (which I will call texts ) were the
Sumerian accounts, dating from the beginning of that civilization in
approximately 3800 BC. The existence of that civilization, the
existence of thousands of clay tablets and their translation is not
in dispute. Thanks to these archaeological and linguistic studies.
Both are thus attempts
to promote the achievements of an all powerful God. It is almost as
if one text is competing with the other. And there is no doubt at
all that the Hebrews, having been exiled in Babylon, would surely
have come into contact with, and been influenced by, the Enuma
Elish, which had been the most sacred Babylonian ritual text for
over a thousand years.
One Mesopotamian text describes the instructions given by the God in charge of the creation:
What is the significance of the “clay” from which man was created?
The Bible makes a similar claim that man was formed “from the dust of the ground”.” An outrageous claim from a scientific viewpoint, but was it really “dust” or “clay” from which we were created? An internationally renowned scholar has pointed out that the Hebrew term used in Genesis is tit, which is derived from the earliest known language of the Sumerians.
In the Sumerian language, the term TI.IT meant “that which is with life”. Was Adam created from already living matter? What happened after the creation of the first man, Adam?
The Bible states that God created “man” first, followed by “male and female”, and suggests that a physical operation was carried out:
But was it really a “rib”? In the Sumerian language the word TI stood for both “rib” and “life”.
Instead of one God, however, we find various Gods playing different roles. According to the Atra-Hasis, a God named Enki gives the instructions, assisted by a Goddess whose name, Ninti, means “Lady of the Rib” or “Lady Life” in Sumerian!
Only in the late twentieth century can we recognize the possibility that the production of males and females described in the ancient texts was achieved by the scientific process of cloning (see chapter 2). The new creature was referred to in Sumerian texts by the name LU.LU literally meaning “the mixed one”.
The earlier reference to the clay from the Earth, brought to the right condition by “knowing young Gods”, suggests that mankind was created as a hybrid mixture of God and primitive hominid. Why was mankind created? The Bible states only that “there was no man to work the ground” prior to the creation.”
But the Atra-Hasis gives additional detail:
The Atra-Hasis describes how the Gods rebelled against their leader, Enlil. The father of the Gods, Anu, was then called down from “heaven” to attend a council of the Gods. It was then that the God Enki (also known as Ea), provided the solution:
The ancient versions of the Flood story similarly provide more detail than the Bible and place the event in a multi-God context. One such text is The Epic of Gilgamesh, a fragment of which is shown in (Figure 2). In this text, the Flood hero is called Utnapishtim rather than Noah, but the basic story is the same, The only difference is that one God, Enlil, wishes to destroy man, whilst another, Enki, decides to save man.
Scholars of these ancient texts do not dispute the roles of these
Gods, who are
widely and consistently referred to, but it is difficult to find a
single publication
that does not implicitly or explicitly categorize these tales as
mythology.
Our twentieth century paradigms make it
difficult to ask, much less answer, these questions.
The problem lies in our perception and our terminology, the legacy from two thousand years of monotheism. The move to a belief in One God has not only distorted the original meaning of the Old Testament, but more importantly it has veiled our way of thinking. The same problem exists with the Islamic religion, which is even more rigid.
The God
of the Muslims is known by the name Allah rather than the abstract
notion of God that we have in the West. The Muslim holy book, the
Koran, claims to be the word of God, spoken in divine revelation by
Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad. However, the early history of Islam
was far from straightforward. To our surprise, we find that it was
not only in the West that monotheistic religion fought an uphill
battle for acceptance.
We in the West are all conditioned from early childhood to believe in One God. Through Bible studies at school and, for many, the ritual of prayers at home or Church on Sundays, the idea of a single all-powerful God is drilled into us. The mind of the child is enquiring, eager to learn, eager to please and therefore highly impressionable.
Sociologists estimate that we absorb most of our cultural etiquette and moral values before the age of ten. And we are hardly encouraged, as children, to question what we are told. In our mid-teens we begin to acquire scientific knowledge, which in some cases seems to conflict with our religious education.
Sadly, however, this contradiction is explored by very few. After all, who can spare the time for philosophizing when exhausted by the pressures of work, family and the trivia of everyday life? It is thus inevitable that the question of God is swept to one side. Most of us therefore take into our adulthood a firm idea of Jesus as the son of the One God, with in most cases only a vague notion of the Old Testament God.
The paradigm of One God is therefore accepted by default and perpetuated through the generations. This is in stark contrast to other countries, where religions such as Hinduism continue to recognize a wide variety of different Gods. Against this background, it is hardly surprising that our preconceptions cause us to resist the suggestion that we were created by plural Gods. It is a concept that seems alien and meaningless. But the problem is really one of terminology. Our dictionaries carry two main definitions of “God”.
The first is the Supreme Eternal Spiritual God, which we all perceive in subtly different but basically similar ways. The second, written with a small “g” is seen as a “supernatural being” or an image or idol thereof. The very word “supernatural” suggests something unscientific and unreal. If we try to conceive of “Gods” being present at the scene of the Creation or the Flood, our minds automatically reject the idea. In order to overcome the terminology barrier, let us briefly consider a myth of the Gods from modern times - the amazing but true story of the “Cargo Cult”.”
At various times in the 1930s, American and Australian servicemen landed in remote parts of the island of New Guinea, coming into contact with primitive local people who had been totally isolated from the outside world. Cargo supplies were dropped off in the jungle for the advancing troops. From these cargoes, the visiting servicemen were able to bestow gifts of chewing gum, Coca-Cola and other trappings of modern day society on the local inhabitants.
This generosity left an indelible mark on the people,
who believed that “big birds” would continue to deliver “cargo”
(manufactured items) to them. When the visitors departed, the locals
tried to lure them back by building rough airstrips. Amazing as it
may seem, the people constructed imitation radio transmitters out of
bamboo, and crude model aircraft out of wood !
Despite having come into regular contact with western cultures in recent years, many of these people in New Guinea continue to believe in their God, “John Frum”. Many more, however, have recognized the connection between their model aircraft cult and the real aircraft in the outside world, and thus realized that their “God” or “Gods” were simply men. What lessons can we learn from this strange but true case of the Cargo Cult?
Perhaps that idols, myths
and legends can represent the traces of a very real phenomenon and
that flesh-and-blood men can be seen as Gods by their less
sophisticated fellow men. Indeed the Hebrew word for its unified
Godhead, Elohim, was derived from the Akkadian word llu , which
meant “Lofty Ones” The terminology barrier has obscured whatever the
ancients might have been trying to tell us. From here on, all of my
references to “Gods” should be taken to mean flesh-and blood beings
like ourselves, who simply have a technological advantage. After
all, if we were to send some astronauts to a backward culture on
another planet, who would doubt that they would be revered as
“Gods”?
Most of us are familiar with the highly embellished tales of the Greek and Roman pantheons, but their origins lie in earlier, more comprehensible versions from Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Mesopotamian accounts will be fully dealt with later in this book, so let us focus here on the Egyptians. It is fair to say that the pharaohs of ancient Egypt were obsessed with a belief in the afterlife.
This belief was inspired by their Gods such as Ra and Horus, whom they seriously considered to be immortal. This seems very strange to us today, but it was their strongly held perception, which we must respect. Of course, they could not have lived long enough to establish the truth of whether the Gods really were immortal, so we can safely call it a myth. Perhaps it contained a kernel of truth, perhaps not.
The Egyptian pharaoh-kings believed in a journey to a place called “the Duat”, a journey which took them across water and between two mountains to a place which they described as the “Stairway to Heaven”. It was believed that, by reaching the heavens, they could achieve immortality like their Gods. Now what could possibly have given the pharaohs such ideas?
The Pyramid Texts describe a series of underground chambers in the
Duat, through which the pharaoh travels, prior to his ascent to
heaven. In one of these underground chambers he hears “a mighty
noise, like that heard in the heights of heaven when they are
disturbed by a storm”. In another instance he encounters doors which
open by themselves and “Gods”, “humming as bees”, in cubicles.
Sometimes the pharaoh encounters Gods who keep their faces hidden,
but on one occasion he sees the face (only) of a Goddess. Next, the
pharaoh sees Gods whose task is to provide “flame and fire” to Ra’s
“celestial boat of millions of years”, and other Gods who “order the
course of the stars”.
After various further technical sounding procedures, the “mouth” of the mountain is opened and the Boat ascends:
Could this journey be the product of imagination? The description contains clues which have only become meaningful in the twentieth century. It is not difficult for us to visualize a modern-day NASA mission control centre, with computers humming and video-entry control systems.
The rest of the details speak for themselves. When we read texts like this one on the walls of pyramids more than four thousand years old, it is rather challenging to our paradigms. We could conveniently dismiss it if it was an isolated case, but it isn’t.
Consider the following account, from a different culture, of an event which took place not far to the east of Egypt:
Is this simply the case of an over-active imagination’! Hardly. After one of his meetings with the Lord on Mount Sinai, Moses returns to the Israelites with a “radiant face’’ which frightens them.
How did this happen?
A clue lies in Exodus 33:21-23:
The tale is accompanied by explicit instructions from Yahweh to Moses, warning of the potential danger to anyone coming up on the mountain. There is another intriguing aspect of the Exodus which cannot be ignored, and that is the Ark of the Covenant.
The Lord tells Moses:
There then follow clear and explicit instructions. The cover for the Ark is to have two “cherubim”, made out of hardened gold, one at each end of the cover, with their wings extended towards each other:
Why is it necessary to “meet” at an appointed time in this way? The Lord explains that he cannot accompany the Israelites to the promised land in person;” instead he will use the Ark to communicate his commands. Surely this is twentieth century technology, there must be some mistake! But we also read that the Ark must be handled by priests equipped with “sacred garments” and with a “shielding curtain”, ”and when the proper instructions were not followed, the effects were potentially fatal.’”
Is it thus a coincidence that the chest of the Ark was to be made with gold inside and outside, representing two electricity-conducting surfaces, insulated by wood between? Similarly, was it a coincidence that it had to be moved using wooden staffs which would insulate those who carried it? To find such references in the Book of Exodus, written around 2,500 years ago, describing events a thousand years earlier, staggers the imagination.’”
How can one dismiss the obvious references to
aircraft and radiation on Mount Sinai, when there is an equally
amazing description of an advanced communications device, operated
by a powerful electrical system? It is difficult to comprehend how
detailed technological descriptions such as these could have been
dreamt up by the Israelites.
The world’s religions would have us believe so, but should we give any credence to their inevitably biased point of view? Their motives in attacking evolutionary science are obvious, and spring from the concept that God alone was the creator of all living things, including mankind. But although their belief comes from what the scientists would call an irrational faith, some of their arguments against Darwinism are highly rational.
One of those
arguments is that natural selection could never have produced man’s
incredibly complex brain. In the view of Religion, Darwinism is not
a scientific fact but a weakly supported theory - thus, to the
devout theologian, it is a myth that evolution is a fact !
The scientists can prove that in theory a mutation and a change of species occurred, but in the absence of detailed fossil evidence, how can they say that it actually did occur? What is the truth about Darwinism? For the answer we must turn to the arguments that are raging between the evolutionists themselves, and to a book which claims to “lay out the current controversies” and “expose the philosophical, even religious yearnings that have distorted disputes among scientists”.
Daniel C. Dennett, the author of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea“, is one of the leading philosophers of our time, with extensive experience in the field of evolution and genetics.
In his book, Dennett attempts to
kill the “myth” (that dreaded word again) that the fundamentals of
Darwinism, so well expressed by scientists such as Richard Dawkins,
have been refuted by the eminent American scientist Stephen Jay
Gould. The general theme of his book is that Darwinism is alive and
well, but what Dennett actually does is expose the division among
the scientists for us all to see.
Dennett argues eloquently that adaptationism is a valid and useful approach in the field of evolution, but the fact that this argument exists at all indicates that it is not an approach which would normally be acceptable within other scientific disciplines. Whilst the adaptationist controversy is one of semantics, the main part of Dennett’s book accuses some of the most distinguished scientists of our times, including Stephen Jay Could, Roger Penrose, and the linguist Noam Chomsky, of being unable, ultimately, to accept the fundamentals of Darwin’s theory. This is a dramatic accusation! Let us start with Gould.
Dennett claims that Gould’s comments have been
hijacked and twisted in order to attack orthodox Darwinism. In
trying to pin down the reasons why Gould has not corrected such
misleading interpretations, he concludes that Gould ultimately lacks
faith that Darwinian ideas can explain evolution in its entirety.
Dennett then cites a similar reluctance on the part of Chomsky and
Penrose, but here we get down to specifics.
As Dennett points out, there is no reason in principle why language acquisition should not have emerged through natural selection, yet Chomsky distances himself from this conclusion. Why? To Roger Penrose, the brain as a whole poses an evolutionary mystery. Orthodox Darwinism attributes all of the functions of the brain to a collection of algorithms (step-by-step mechanical procedures), like an artificially intelligent computer.
Penrose, however, sees the brain acting at a much higher level:
As incredible as it may seem, Roger Penrose has abandoned natural selection and, it would seem, is investigating a radical new approach to the mystery via quantum physics!
Clearly everything is not “hunky dory” with Darwinism. Does this mean that Darwinism is dead? Not at all, for in the field of evolution generally it has much to offer. It is only when it applies to mankind that the battles begin. Why do top ;scientists such as Gould, who has been called “America’s evolutionist laureate”, feel such discomfort with mankind’s evolution? The great power of Darwinism, according to its proponents such as Dawkins, is that, given enough time, natural selection can explain anything and everything.
Could it be that lack of time is the misspoken problem? Stephen Jay Could has referred to the “awesome improbability of human evolution”.” If we use an ape as the starting point, a significant number of big evolutionary jumps are necessary to evolve into a man (a complete review of this will appear in the next chapter). The geneticists agree that mutation is the mechanism, but they also agree that the vast majority of mutations are bad.
They also agree that the mutational mechanism
must take a long time, because mutations which produce big changes
are particularly dangerous to a species and thus unlikely to
survive. Furthermore, they say, if a positive mutation is going to
take hold in a species, it will do so only in the right
circumstances, when a small population becomes isolated. Is it these
improbable factors, allied to the short period of six million years
allowed for man’s evolution from the apes, which have caused our top
scientists so much discomfort? To use an old adage, you can’t get a
quart out of a pint pot!
But religions have no single positive rational scientific argument to support this claim. Religions accuse scientists of relying on the myth of Darwinism, but they themselves are guilty of relying on a myth - the “revealed truth” of Divine Creation. Science cannot ignore the fact that mankind is here on planet Earth.
The only mechanism which has been put forward to explain this fact is Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Since this appears to be the only alternative to Creation, the scientists have instinctively forced the theory to fit the facts and vice versa. It is a most convenient scientific paradigm. There is no doubt that Darwinism contains many truths in the animal kingdom, but severe doubts surround its practical application to man. These two entrenched standpoints place us in an intellectual cul-de-sac.
The religious and scientific arguments go
round and round, but we are getting nowhere. How then to explain the
fact that we are here? Is there an alternative which will get us out
of this cul-de-sac? Sometimes a seemingly impossible problem has a
simple solution - the problem becomes an “evaporating cloud” which
will quickly disappear. But invariably this requires a new way of
looking at the problem, the removal of an incorrect assumption or
constraint. Perhaps it is time to reconsider flesh-and-blood Gods as
the answer to the mystery.
This is the account of Elijah’s first encounter with the Lord, fortunately preserved in the Bible even though its meaning was surely not understood.
It is not surprising that ancient tales such as this have been dismissed as myths.
However, in our generation, for the first time, these myths can be seen to contain evidence of advanced technology. Only in the twentieth century have we developed the rocket engine and the aircraft, that enable us to interpret Elijah’s “vision”.
Of course, we would not expect to find the
correct technical terms used thousands of years ago, for the same
reason that the American Indians referred to the railroad as the
“iron horse”. Imagine for a moment that you were asked to describe a
computer using everyday terminology from one hundred years before it
was invented!
Nowadays the idea cannot be dismissed so easily. Furthermore, the twentieth century has witnessed a growing acceptance of the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence. The improvement of our telescopes, the findings from our space probes, and the use of powerful computers to process the data, have enabled us to reach out into our galaxy and understand it as never before.
Former skeptics, such as the famous scientist Carl Sagan, are now firm believers in the possibility of extraterrestrial life and intelligence.
It is now
thought that there are billions of stars with planets like Earth and
that the universe contains an abundance of the basic ingredients of
life. In 1989, the US space agency NASA announced a plan to embark
on mankind’s first systematic search for extraterrestrial
intelligence (SETI), spending $100 million over ten years. We can
see how seriously the subject is taken by the fact that an
established SETI code of conduct has been drawn up by the
International Academy of Astronautics.
The Old Testament Book of Ezekiel also records strange, technological visions. Ezekiel was a priest among the Jews deported to Babylon in the first exile of 597 BC. Five years later he had the first of his amazing series of “visions” which spanned a period of nineteen years.
We can imagine Ezekiel’s sense of frustration in trying to describe something which was beyond his comprehension and outside his vocabulary:
Occasionally a scientist will break ranks with the establishment view. In 1968, following the publication of Erich von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, a NASA engineer by the name of Josef Blumrich set about analyzing the evidence in order to disprove von Daniken’s suggestion that Ezekiel saw a spaceship:
Josef Blumrich credentials were first
rate - a NASA chief engineer who was heavily involved in the design
of
Skylab and the Space Shuttle, and who had the rare distinction of a
NASA
Exceptional Service Medal, awarded in 1972 for his outstanding
contribution to the Saturn and Apollo projects. After a long period
of
intensive spare-time research, the cynical Blumrich became the
converted
Blumrich, and published in 1973 his book The Spaceships of Ezekiel.
Blumrich stated:
Modern devices such as those seen by Elijah and Ezekiel are not only described in the ancient texts, but also found depicted in drawings, paintings and cast in metal. Influenced by their own individual society and culture, the land-locked Hebrews referred to these craft as chariots, the sea-going Egyptians called them “boats of heaven”, whilst the Chinese saw them as dragons. In time, the references took on religious connotations such as the “glory” or “spirit” of the Lord.
In the past it has been convenient to label as myth that which
we do not understand; today we have no such excuses. If we are to
continue blindly ignoring the evidence in front of us, then our
thinking is no more advanced than the Cargo Cult of the New Guineans
! It is time to recognize myths as the records of mankind’s earliest
prehistory and to seek out their hidden truths.
If we stop for a moment to consider how our beliefs are influenced - by books, newspapers, journals and television - it quickly becomes obvious that in many fields, science in particular, our perceptions are based on the views of the “experts”.
These experts, usually
high-ranking scientists, are just as human as the rest of us; they
have careers to follow and families to support.
What are the belief sets of these people? Most fields of science have been studied for hundreds of years, during which they have evolved a number of fixed laws or assumptions.
These include:
These few simple assumptions fundamentally influence dozens of vital scientific fields - biology, genetics, geology, geography, to name but a few.
We stand at a point in history where it is only just becoming
evident that some of these assumptions are incorrect. For example,
it is now increasingly obvious that catastrophism has shaped many
parts of the Earth and the Solar System. But even where the evidence
is strong, the scientific establishment is incredibly conservative
when it comes to new ideas which upset the old.
Generalists, on the other hand, are more open-minded, but by definition they are not scientists; thus they are not regarded as “experts” and not invited to speak. Thus our daily intake of knowledge is paradigms, paradigms and more paradigms. It has not been difficult in the past to discredit the so-called “ancient astronaut” theory.
The very name itself conjures up images of a variety of space-suited aliens paying fleeting visits and quickly moving along for some more inter-galactic sightseeing.
It is an
image that vastly over-simplifies and demeans much of the good and
varied work which is done in the field. I shall resist the use of
the term in this book, in favour of the less racy title of
“interventionism”, to borrow a political phrase. Its literal meaning
is to “come between” and it thus defines the role of the Gods in
genetically uplifting the hominid (apeman) to the Homo sapiens
(wise-man).
For more than ten years von Daniken
appears to have been blacklisted by publishers in the UK and USA and
until very recently his books have appeared only in the German
language. Erich von Daniken’s ideas drew an immediate and vicious
attack from all quarters. Who was orchestrating these attacks” The
religious establishment - for obvious reasons and the scientific
experts, with all their entrenched and conservative ideas. Who dared
to step into the ring and support von Daniken? Only the general
public in their millions who bought his books - after all, they did
not have precious academic careers on the line!
Similarly, most history books will mention the Gods who assisted the earliest civilizations, but only to demonstrate their cultural mythology. They will have us believe that our primitive ancestors were in awe of the elements of nature. with rampant imaginations perhaps enhanced by hallucinogenic drugs. But these same books also tell us how advanced these societies were ! Thus today we find high ranking scientists and philosophers boldly stating that there is no evidence whatsoever to support an extraterrestrial intervention hypothesis. How can this howler of a lie be perpetuated?
Partly through paradigms and prejudice, but also through simple ignorance. For the last twenty years, interventionists have maintained a low profile. With the exception of von Daniken in the German-speaking countries, interventionism has lacked a voice. Important breakthroughs have thus gone virtually unrecognized by the international academic community.
This is not a conspiracy but simply a case of a
soundly-based hypothesis being submerged in a thronging crowd of
highly contrived theories. Nevertheless, the resistance to
interventionist theories runs a lot deeper than pure ignorance. One
of the problems with it is that it can be used to explain just about
everything. Surely that is a good thing - after all, we are in
search of the ultimate truth aren’t we’! Unfortunately it is not
that simple.
What does the Honest Theologian say?
To the scientist the man offers the same invitation. What does the Honest Scientist say?
Darwin started a gravy train.
The controversies on the origin of species, especially Homo sapiens, continue to sell millions of books and feather a fair few nests. It makes good commercial sense to keep the mysteries going.
The Darwinists are trapped in an intellectual cul-de-sac but that just adds to the challenge - their inventiveness knows no bounds. Besides. there is plenty of mileage left in the cul-de-sac before anyone spots them driving round in circles! Erich von Daniken threatened to stop this gravy train in its tracks, not immediately but some way down the line. His ideas may have been speculative, but it was only a matter of time before someone else put the answers together.
And yes there are answers - don’t let us be sucked into the myth that life is supposed to be one big mystery .
Conventional approaches have made negligible progress in solving these mysteries.
What about the Pyramids, Stonehenge, the origin of the ancient civilizations and their remarkable knowledge, even the Earth itself and the Solar System - a whole publishing industry has evolved around these mysteries. But it is an industry that has long given up trying to solve, and has resorted to mere description and speculation. It is rare today to find any serious attempt to explain the source of all these mysteries; it suits everyone to label the file “unsolved” and close the case. It is time to rethink our paradigms.
Science and
Religion, the cornerstones of our society today, are in a rut.
Sometimes a scientific revolution is necessary. Ptolemy, an
astronomer in Alexandria in the second century, thought that the
Sun, the Moon and five planets revolved around the Earth. His
“scientific” theory held sway for an amazing 1,300 years before it
was overturned by Copernicus. It is a poignant example of man’ s
fallibility.
It is for you - the
jury - to decide.
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