The Argument

Having just watched a program on Science Channel called The Day the Earth Almost Died, I am struck by the amount of work, serious thought, and search for evidence which has gone into debunking evolution as well as to substantiate it. Until science and evolutionary theory developed sufficiently, religious philosophy ruled the way man saw and, to a large degree, interacted with his environment. If the weather was good, the gods were happy with man. If the weather was bad, the gods were unhappy. Illness was a malady visited on someone who had displeased the gods or spirits. Almost all extremes, even non-extremes, were attributed to the work of displeased or pleased supernatural beings such as gods or spirits. Much of that exists today despite science and its attempt to understand the Universe from its sub-micro sphere to its extra-macro sphere. I think it will be impossible unless we ourselves somehow become as gods, if not gods ourselves--not meaning to be blasphemous. What I'm leading into here is the adamant defense of Christian religious groups in the U.S., if not in other countries, of the idea of a Intelligent Design in the face of all of the data, evidence, and demonstrable proof, as well as probabilities that add up to enough reason, if not proof, of and for the Theory of Evolution.

In the program, "The Day the Earth Almost Died, the planet was rife with life some 40 million years ago, but underwent a glaciation period which destroyed all life except, I believe, some forms in the seas and a single dinosaur species on land. It is believed that all present land forms evolved from that single species of dinosaur which sounds as far fetched as the Biblical theory that the Earth, Heavens, and everything thereon or therein were made by a supreme being within six days, literally. Still, science has more going for it than a single story taken from a book assembled from selected scripts over hundreds of years, if not a thousand or more. Science has millions of artifacts at its fingertips which can be studied in an ordered manner whereas the Book has a number of stories laid out in chapter and verse handed down over the centuries with no real way to verify the veracity of any single event in any single one of them. There also is a lack of a chain of reason additional to the lack of a chain of evidence. So, I have a hard time believing the theory extended by Christians and Jews, possibly Muslims also, purporting to explain the creation of the Universe. Rather, I think there is something somewhere in the middle that both theories ignore because both are so far off center and so bent on proving the veracity of its own area of thought.

What could take the middle position?

It might be the one thing, the one concept that has escaped both fields of thought--that the life force, or God--is the Universe and that It is energy in its purest most sublime and immeasurable form. That It permeates every single atom of the Universe, that even the smallest sub atomic particle is permeated by`It, that It is the Intelligence the Christians crave to prove and scientists are laboring to figure out without knowing that's what they really are doing.

What if?

It is such a simple solution, but the problem is that it requires each side to suspend its beliefs and doctrines at least temporarily in order to entertain a possibility outside of the argument each poses, yet a possibility which unifies both and explains inconsistencies inherent to both. In effect it's similar to welding aluminum and copper. It's the agent which solidifies both concepts and erases the inexplicable contradictions which arise when either tries to defend its stance solely on the basis of its own information.

A unique aspect of "God" is that teat name is unique in English, German, Spanish, and French to the best of my knowledge. It very possibly may be unique in Hebrew and Latin also, though I don't know that for sure. I suspect that the name will be unique in any language but, again, I don't know that. The point here is that the name is given to an object which can not be in any way proven to exist. Effects in what is perceived as reality can be attributed to it and a book, as well as hundreds of thousands of writings, can be pointed to as support for the idea of Its existence. But it can not be physically proven that thing, this object, called God actually has existence. It's just the same as with any fictional character, Cinderella for example. The literature is there telling the story, but there is nothing more than a mental image of this fictional character and possible emotion when thinking of the story. Such is the realm which God inhabits philosophically.

So this uniqueness is what Science has to struggle with while western religion struggles with strict adherence to stories and explanations in a book which developed from the writings and memories of many people over hundreds, if not a thousand or more, years. Why must the two be mutually exclusive? Why not find a way to include the unexplainable in each in a manner that marries them? Why not consider the Creator as the Universe and part of every single particle of it no matter who diminutive no how massive? Why not make it the motivating factor behind the Big Bang? Doesn't this explain the expression, "...Let there be Light. And there was Light?"

How much more light do we need?

A Society Grows on Its Stomach

We are so inundated by an abundance of material goods in this country that we have lost complete contact, awareness, and knowledge of its primary major strength. Every single person in the U.S. is a recipient to some degree of the fruits of this strength and almost every foreign country in someway also is benefited. But, were it not for the most basic supply of all, we couldn't have achieved the strides in production we have nor would human population be increasing as it is. This basic supply is the one thing along with water and air that no person on this Earth can do without--food.

The one discovery that let man get away from the forests, savannas, plains, pampas, and jungles was recognizing and learning how to grow the food he wanted so that it would always be at hand. Maybe it also was so that he wouldn't have to search or relocate so far from home to find game or gather herbs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and all of the other things necessary for living at the time. How and why man developed farming remains a mystery and I'll leave it as such. But, farming for oneself and family has developed over the millenia into large corporations and conglomerates that produce and control much of the diet of technological countries and are fast ruining stable healthful diets of the rest of the world. It is hard to go anywhere and not find some product or artifact of industry-produced food, be it treats, snacks, or something more substantial.

An adage has it that armies travel on their stomachs, a truth that is so apparent that most people don't consider its profoundness. Most of the ancient armies survived on breads they could make over campfires or on provisions carried individually by each soldier. Most of the richer rulers waging war tried to feed their armies but all to often had to resort to pillaging for food anyway. The Romans developed a type of hardtack to feed soldiers and records show that other foodstuffs were also carried along. The Roman hardtack became the mainstay of Roman armies because it was almost completely unspoilable. Other armies of Europe carried other kinds of breads similar to hardtack which also maintained their edibility for long periods and the British seem to have perfected its production for their seaman.

Over the ages rulers experimented with all kinds of ways to preserve and carry provisions for their armies. But it was Napoleon who recognized that an army travels on its stomach and offered a 12,000 franc prize for a process which could allow him to carry provisions with him in his campaigns. This stimulated the development of the can, though hand made at the time. Napoleon never got to use canned goods for his armies because the canning process was so laborious and developed too slowly for him to take advantage of it. He was long out of office when commercial canning finally came into its own.

All this is about showing how military campaigns affected the supply of food as we know it today. Without their impetus we in all probability would not have preserved and packaged foods today. We might well still be agriculturally bound societies instead of technologically dependent.

Providing food for the military in many countries seems to have been the primary motivation, next to profit, for the development of the present food processing and distribution system in technological countries. All “developed” countries have industry, technology, and pervasive food-distribution at the base of their economies and societies. Without any of these, their present societal structure would fail disastrously. The United States would be no exception, although there are many people living in rural areas who could and would find ways to feed themselves. But the thrust of all this explanation is that, without the present food processing and distribution motivated by military needs, none of today's technological societies could exist. As armies march on their stomachs, societies grow on theirs.

Think about it.

Walk in Peace, Love, and Happiness.