Missing link's gospel truth

[Tamrin]

Missing link's gospel truth

Great Moments in Science
Dr. Karl S. Kruszelnicki

(Excerpt)

In the USA, the anti-evolution creationists are dead-set against acknowledging the very concept of the missing link. They claim that no missing link has ever been found, anywhere in the world.

Would you believe it, but their claim is actually a wicked fib.

Charles Darwin wrote his Origin of Species in 1859. He very honestly pointed out that the lack of any missing link found up to that date was "the most obvious and gravest objection" that could be mounted against his theory.

But in 1861, only two years later, the very first missing link was found. Archaeopteryx was the missing link that "joined" the birds and the dinosaurs, because it had characteristics of both.

On the bird side, it had feathers, wings and a wishbone. On the dinosaur side, it had jaws with sharp teeth, a long bony tail and three fingers with claws.

And for the horse, by the late 1800s, a quite clear set of transitional fossils had been found. They covered some 50 million years, documenting the evolutionary changes that led to the modern horse.

And over the 20th century, many more such transitional fossils have been found, making the sequence of changes leading to the modern horse more complete.

[Etc., etc., etc.]

[jmd]

But what has NEVER been found is the missing link between Homo Sapiens and bigoted Creationists!

[Tamrin]

[Tamrin]

Professor Joseph Campbell opened his book Myths to Live By, with the following account:

I was sitting the other day at a lunch counter that I particularly enjoy, when a youngster about twelve years old, arriving with his school satchel, took the place at my left. Beside him came a younger little man, holding the hand of his mother, and those two took the next seats. All gave their orders, and, while waiting, the boy at my side said, turning his head slightly to the mother, “Jimmy wrote a paper today on the evolution of man, and Teacher said he was wrong, that Adam and Eve were our first parents.”

My Lord! I thought. What a teacher!

The lady three seats away then said, “Well Teacher was right. Our first parents were Adam and Eve.”

What a mother for a twentieth-century child!

The youngster responded, “Yes, I know, but this was a scientific paper.” And for that, I was ready to recommend him for a distinguished-service medal from the Smithsonian Institution.

The mother, however, came back with another. “Oh, those scientists!” she said angrily. “Those are only theories."

And he was up to that one too. “Yes, I know,” was his cool and calm reply; “but they have been factualized: they found the bones.”

The milk and sandwiches came, and that was that.

[Tamrin]

God's Joke

The platypus waddles down the red carpet, ducking creationists' hurled curses

by Jeannette Cooperman [Excerpts]

When Wash. U. scientists announced in May that they'd cracked the genetic code of the platypus, the secular media broke it as big news, promising advances in our understanding of human evolution. The creationists drew up in horror. First scientists had dared suggest that humans had evolved from apes. Now they were positing a common link to this? A 5-pound, furry, badgertailed, duck-billed mockery of a mammal that laid eggs from its rectum, nursed without nipples and packed venom in bony spurs on its legs? The Internet crackled with Christian outrage.

About 82 percent of human genetic material matches that of the platypus. And platypuses have long been cited as proof that God has a sense of humor—or was drunk when he made them. So if we did branch off from a common source 166 million years or so ago … would that make humans the product of a really bad hangover?

[synchronicity]

Ironically, Creationists may have got it wrong even from their own point of view!

Joke! ;D

The serious post comes later...

Edited to resize cartoon, Tamrin

[synchronicity]

By now you guys must think that I am obsessed with the Kybalion (which I probably am), but once again I think it provides the answer.

"Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled."--The Kybalion.

It seems to me that both Creationists and Evolutionists are expressing half-truths. Evolution and Creation are not mutually exclusive, in fact they are both part of the Kybalion's occult view of the Universe.

(Of course, bigoted creationists who literally believe that God created Adam out of mud and Eve out of one of Adam's ribs have a BIG learning curve in front of them - in fact, need to grow a brain before joining the debate. Which is another reason why they ought to believe in evolution, ;D but I digress...)

According to the Kybalion Creation, Evolution and Involution are all part of the process:

The Hermetic Teachings regarding the process of Evolution are that, THE ALL, having meditated upon the beginning of the Creation--having thus established the material foundations of the Universe--having thought it into existence--then gradually awakens or rouses from its Meditation and in so doing starts into manifestation the process of Evolution, on the material mental and spiritual planes, successively and in order. Thus the upward movement begins--and all begins to move Spiritward. Matter becomes less gross; the Units spring into being; the combinations begin to form; Life appears and manifests in higher and higher forms; and Mind becomes more and more in evidence--the vibrations constantly becoming higher. In short, the entire process of Evolution, in all of its phases, begins, and proceeds according to the established "Laws of the Indrawing" process.

The "upward movement" consists in evolution through a very long series of increasingly refined levels of existence. These are artificially defined and separated purely in order to study and understand them, but in reality they "shade into each other."

In any event, the Kybalion's classification of these planes of existence begins with the basic three, which are then subdivided again and again, to give us a more detailed view.

To begin with, we have:

1. The Great Physical Plane.
2. The Great Mental Plane.
3. The Great Spiritual Plane.

Each of these is then subdivided into seven sub-planes, thus for the first two we have:

These Seven Minor Physical Planes are as follows:

1. The Plane of Matter (A)
2. The Plane of Matter (B)
3. The Plane of Matter (C)
4. The Plane of Ethereal Substance
5. The Plane of Energy (A)
6. The Plane of Energy (B)
7. The Plane of Energy (C)

and

The Great Mental Plane comprises those forms of "living things" known to
us in ordinary life, as well as certain other forms not so well known
except to the occultist. The classification of the Seven Minor Mental
Planes is more or less satisfactory and arbitrary (unless accompanied by
elaborate explanations which are foreign to the purpose of this
particular work), but we may as well mention them. They are as follows:

1. The Plane of Mineral Mind
2. The Plane of Elemental Mind (A)
3. The Plane of Plant Mind
4. The Plane of Elemental Mind (B)
5. The Plane of Animal Mind
6. The Plane of Elemental Mind (C)
7. The Plane of Human Mind

And this is where it gets very interesting indeed!!

For WHAT, you may ask, are these 'Elemental Mind' A, B and C?

Read on...

In our consideration of the Seven Minor Mental Planes, we have merely referred to the Three Elementary Planes in a general way. We do not wish to go into this subject in detail in this work, for it does not belong to this part of the general philosophy and teachings. But we may say this much, in order to give you a little clearer idea, of the relations of these planes to the more familiar ones--the Elementary Planes bear the same relation to the Planes of Mineral, Plant, Animal and Human Mentality and Life, that the black keys on the piano do to the white keys. The white keys are sufficient to produce music, but there are certain scales, melodies, and harmonies, in which the black keys play their part, and in which their presence is necessary. They are also necessary as "connecting links" of soul-condition; entity states, etc., between the several other planes, certain forms of development being attained therein--this last fact giving to the reader who can "read between the lines" a new light upon the processes of Evolution, and a new key to the secret door of the "leaps of life" between kingdom and kingdom. The great kingdoms of Elementals are fully recognized by all occultists, and the esoteric writings are full of mention of them. The readers of Bulwer's "Zanoni" and similar tales will recognize the entities inhabiting these planes of life.

So, could our elusive 'missing link' be hidden on an Elementary, or Elemental Plane?

According to the Kybalion, it is!

1. The Plane of Mineral Mind
2. The Plane of Elemental Mind (A)
3. The Plane of Plant Mind
4. The Plane of Elemental Mind (B)
5. The Plane of Animal Mind
6. The Plane of Elemental Mind (C)
7. The Plane of Human Mind

And, as we know, what is true of the Mental Plane must also be true of the Biological Plane.

As above, so below.

[Tamrin]

Another way of putting it is that the physical body is a vehicle for the spiritual Self (an expression of the One Self). The physical body is evolving along one line and the spiritual Self along another and between these two planes of being are several others. Now it appears that spirit and matter may intersect, as represented by the vesica piscis: The evolving spirit may influence the subtle etheric body which, is geared down to produce gross, individualistic changes in the development of a particular physical body.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955)
French Geologist, Priest, Philosopher and Mystic

I believe this to be reasonable (and likely) but I would not like to see it taught as science. Science has its limits and such speculations are beyond its methods and therefore outside its realm. Similarly, I am not against Intelligent Design, per se, but it is not scientific and I would not like to see it taught as Science.

[Tamrin]

Sept 28, 2008 7:45:23 GMT 10 Tamrin said:

Science has its limits and such speculations are beyond its methods and therefore outside its realm.

Albeit, these limits can be overlooked by scientists and teachers. Thus we read:

Many behaviourists in psychology have, in practice, seemed to make philosophical claims
about what exists, rather than merely to impose methodological restrictions
on what they will allow themselves to count as evidence.

Anthony Quinton

[Tamrin]

Sept 28, 2008 7:45:23 GMT 10 Tamrin said:

Science has its limits and such speculations are beyond its methods and therefore outside its realm.

Prof. Joseph Campbell wrote on the subject, saying (Myths to Live By, pp.16/7):

Every little group is fixed in its own long-established, petrified mythology, changes having occurred only as a consequence of collisions; such as when the warriors of Islam broke into India and for a time there were inevitable exchanges of ideas; or when the British arrived and another upsetting era dawned of startling, unanticipated innovations. In our modern Western world, on the other hand, as a result of the continuing open-hearted and open-minded quest of a few brave men for the bounds of boundless truth, there has been a self-consistent continuity of productive growth, in the nature almost of an organic flowering.

But now, finally, what would the meaning be of the word "truth" to a modern scientist? Surely not the meaning it would have for a mystic! For the really great and essential fact about the scientific revelation—the most wonderful and most challenging fact—is that science does not and cannot pretend to be "true" in any absolute sense. It does not and cannot pretend to be final. It is a tentative organization of mere "working hypotheses" ... that for the present appear to take into account all the relevant facts now known.

And is there no implied intention, then, to rest satisfied with some final body or sufficient number of facts?

No indeed! There is to be only a continuing search for more—as of a mind eager to grow. And that growth, as long as it lasts, will be the measure of the life of modern Western man, and of the world with all its promise that he has brought and is still bringing into being; which is to say, a world of change, new thoughts, new things, new magnitudes, and continuing transformation, not of petrifaction, rigidity, and some canonized found "truth."