Nutty sKunK
Well-Known Member
EVOLUTION
The Missing Link
Man's speculations about his origins fall into two well-known categories - science's evolution theory, and the world's religious and mythical accounts.
Evolution theory, according to Darwin and his followers, describes man's animal development from the first micro-organism. No explanation is offered for his incomparable creative and artistic powers. According to the theory he is just a better kind of ape. On the other hand, biblical and other religious traditions report some kind of divine or mystical creation in which man appeared physically fully formed and imaginatively inventive as we know him today. The two approaches are irreconcilable - until the underlying truth connecting them is realised. Then the religious and mythical accounts are seen to be attempts at describing the astonishing emotion/creative beginnings of man - the element missing from the scientific theory.
As the religious stories pre-dated scientific rationalism by many, many thousands of years they could not avoid presenting a strongly emotional view: man's evolution since that time has been broadly from an emotional to a rational being. What is surprising today is that in spite of more than a century of science since Darwin, religious authorities continue to ignore the clamour in man's mind for a rational and intelligent explanation of religious phenomena in the light of evolution theory. This omission, and the implicit inability of organised religion to understand the truth of its own doctrines, probably accounts more than anything else for the decline in the West of religion's credibility and influence. Modern Ration man, who depends on material fact for his daily bread and his motor car, has outgrown the need for emotional explanations of the origins of this and will not accept that human bodies, bread, or cars are suddenly created without a physical cause. And why should he? In a rational world such propositions are absurd. Yet intelligent and earnest men continue to commit themselves to the religious creation idea. This can only mean a massive misunderstanding has occurred somewhere along the line.
One would imagine that the two sides, having set themselves up as authorities in such matters as the origins of man, would be concerned with trying to find out what that all-important error or misunderstanding between them was, or is, instead of pursing their mutually exclusive dogmas to the confusion of everyone who just wants to know the truth. Religion argues from a position of faith. Science argues from a position of fact. With less emphasis on positions, faith can be factually described and fact faithfully sourced to original causes.
These two great opposing ideas - evolution theory and creation theory - actually represent the two sides of man, his mystifying dual nature: the sensory physical, and the vitally creative. Without doubt man is an animal; and yet he is uniquely creative. How, and in what circumstances, did an animal become independently creative, numerically inventive, emotionally resonant? And where is the evidence? Under this kind of scrutiny, it is fairly obvious that neither evolution theory nor scriptural theory is really complete without the other. And yet to believe in either of this perennial opposites seems automatically to deny the possibility of the other. As it is impossible to argue sensibly against evolution as regards man's animal development, evolution theory has come almost universally accepted as describing his whole ancestry - even though it accounts for only half of the man which every scientist, every human being, experiences himself to be. To date, due more to the absence of an acceptable rationale than to any great personal conviction about his descent/ascent from apes, modern rational man largely has had to lay aside the fascinating, scriptural and mythical possibility (talk of immortality, higher powers, visions and the rest) like a fondly remembered but impossible childhood dream.
Rationality, science - intellectual materialism - have triumphed over man's deeper feelings and longings; and on the evidence adduced , rightly so. But the trouble with a theory - Darwinian theory, religious theory, any theory - is that it always remains a partly observed fact. That is, it is not yet a principle, not immediately demonstrable, like for instance the law of gravity. No matter how carefully and in what detail phenomena are studied from an exclusive point of view - such as the animal ancestry of man which excludes the vitally creative side, or scriptural theory which excludes the rational side - the results are always partial, incomplete. And man remains as he is today, perhaps factually persuaded but faithfully unconvinced.
Evolutionists and naturalists like Darwin and so many others in our time have contributed enormously to out understand and appreciation of nature as the perfect system of perpetual motion. But what of the evolutionist himself? - not his organism, but the intelligence, the creative brilliance of the genius with which he cognises the nature-system. What would be the result if he observed and cataloged this unique system of intelligence in himself, with the same patience and dedication as he studies the formal, natural world around him?
By demarking a point some tens of thousands of years ago when modern creative man (Homo sapiens) emerged out of the animal lineage of flesh and instinct, science tacitly acknowledges the occurrence of a unique and extraordinary event in time. It affirms that somewhere, sometime during the countless ages of the development of Homo ( the biological order of primates which includes monkeys and apes) man acquired his sapience (sense of knowing discernment) that unprecedented humanizing addition to his animal nature; and that his sapient factor is the other half of him, the missing link, in the otherwise elegant scientific theory.
The Intelligence Behind Evolution
To understand the evolution before man appeared on earth...
The book goes on to reveal the truth of ourselves. I don't expect you to believe me, in fact I don't want you to believe me. I want you to experience the truth for yourself.
The Origins of Man and the Universe by Barry Long.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Origins-Man-Universe-Myth/dp/1899324127
The Missing Link
Man's speculations about his origins fall into two well-known categories - science's evolution theory, and the world's religious and mythical accounts.
Evolution theory, according to Darwin and his followers, describes man's animal development from the first micro-organism. No explanation is offered for his incomparable creative and artistic powers. According to the theory he is just a better kind of ape. On the other hand, biblical and other religious traditions report some kind of divine or mystical creation in which man appeared physically fully formed and imaginatively inventive as we know him today. The two approaches are irreconcilable - until the underlying truth connecting them is realised. Then the religious and mythical accounts are seen to be attempts at describing the astonishing emotion/creative beginnings of man - the element missing from the scientific theory.
As the religious stories pre-dated scientific rationalism by many, many thousands of years they could not avoid presenting a strongly emotional view: man's evolution since that time has been broadly from an emotional to a rational being. What is surprising today is that in spite of more than a century of science since Darwin, religious authorities continue to ignore the clamour in man's mind for a rational and intelligent explanation of religious phenomena in the light of evolution theory. This omission, and the implicit inability of organised religion to understand the truth of its own doctrines, probably accounts more than anything else for the decline in the West of religion's credibility and influence. Modern Ration man, who depends on material fact for his daily bread and his motor car, has outgrown the need for emotional explanations of the origins of this and will not accept that human bodies, bread, or cars are suddenly created without a physical cause. And why should he? In a rational world such propositions are absurd. Yet intelligent and earnest men continue to commit themselves to the religious creation idea. This can only mean a massive misunderstanding has occurred somewhere along the line.
One would imagine that the two sides, having set themselves up as authorities in such matters as the origins of man, would be concerned with trying to find out what that all-important error or misunderstanding between them was, or is, instead of pursing their mutually exclusive dogmas to the confusion of everyone who just wants to know the truth. Religion argues from a position of faith. Science argues from a position of fact. With less emphasis on positions, faith can be factually described and fact faithfully sourced to original causes.
These two great opposing ideas - evolution theory and creation theory - actually represent the two sides of man, his mystifying dual nature: the sensory physical, and the vitally creative. Without doubt man is an animal; and yet he is uniquely creative. How, and in what circumstances, did an animal become independently creative, numerically inventive, emotionally resonant? And where is the evidence? Under this kind of scrutiny, it is fairly obvious that neither evolution theory nor scriptural theory is really complete without the other. And yet to believe in either of this perennial opposites seems automatically to deny the possibility of the other. As it is impossible to argue sensibly against evolution as regards man's animal development, evolution theory has come almost universally accepted as describing his whole ancestry - even though it accounts for only half of the man which every scientist, every human being, experiences himself to be. To date, due more to the absence of an acceptable rationale than to any great personal conviction about his descent/ascent from apes, modern rational man largely has had to lay aside the fascinating, scriptural and mythical possibility (talk of immortality, higher powers, visions and the rest) like a fondly remembered but impossible childhood dream.
Rationality, science - intellectual materialism - have triumphed over man's deeper feelings and longings; and on the evidence adduced , rightly so. But the trouble with a theory - Darwinian theory, religious theory, any theory - is that it always remains a partly observed fact. That is, it is not yet a principle, not immediately demonstrable, like for instance the law of gravity. No matter how carefully and in what detail phenomena are studied from an exclusive point of view - such as the animal ancestry of man which excludes the vitally creative side, or scriptural theory which excludes the rational side - the results are always partial, incomplete. And man remains as he is today, perhaps factually persuaded but faithfully unconvinced.
Evolutionists and naturalists like Darwin and so many others in our time have contributed enormously to out understand and appreciation of nature as the perfect system of perpetual motion. But what of the evolutionist himself? - not his organism, but the intelligence, the creative brilliance of the genius with which he cognises the nature-system. What would be the result if he observed and cataloged this unique system of intelligence in himself, with the same patience and dedication as he studies the formal, natural world around him?
By demarking a point some tens of thousands of years ago when modern creative man (Homo sapiens) emerged out of the animal lineage of flesh and instinct, science tacitly acknowledges the occurrence of a unique and extraordinary event in time. It affirms that somewhere, sometime during the countless ages of the development of Homo ( the biological order of primates which includes monkeys and apes) man acquired his sapience (sense of knowing discernment) that unprecedented humanizing addition to his animal nature; and that his sapient factor is the other half of him, the missing link, in the otherwise elegant scientific theory.
The Intelligence Behind Evolution
To understand the evolution before man appeared on earth...
The book goes on to reveal the truth of ourselves. I don't expect you to believe me, in fact I don't want you to believe me. I want you to experience the truth for yourself.
The Origins of Man and the Universe by Barry Long.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Origins-Man-Universe-Myth/dp/1899324127
