Something strange is happening in the forests of Africa.

Originally posted by RobertPaulsim

If we are just creatures, it will be an awful waste of dreams and creation.

Peace,

[]´s
RP

I am not religious. I am only partially spiritual, of late. But even I don't really buy into this philosophy.

As far as we've been able to scientifically prove, life is rare..

Everything in the universe that has occurred to allow us to be here with open minds and self-awareness (consciousness) to have a discussion just as this..has occurred almost too perfectly. What are really the chances of such a planet as earth creating and/or nurturing primitive forms of life from outer space during such a chaotic time in our planet's history, through mass extinction events, through all the asteroid and meteorite impacts, through all the megavolcanoes and pole shifts only for life to continue to evolve and become more complex over time?

I am not a creationist. Therefore, I believe that nature probably really does have the power to create a universe like ours.. Especially when you consider the possibility of trillions and/or infinite other similar universes all floating around out there with intelligent life of their own. There are likely going to be forces at work in such an immense multidimensional realtiy that could potentially create events like our big-bang.. The idea that "god" is a prerequisite for such a creation event is a pretty big assumption. Call me a scientist.. I just give nature alot more credit than to assume it couldn't create an event such as the big-bang.

Much more powerful forces are at work in nature than we know of or can directly/indirectly quantify or qualify at this point. The paranormal is a great example..
Or how about Quantum entanglement/ non-locality.. The Zero Point field. We are really on the cusp of some amazing discoveries here!

But still.. Everything has occurred perfectly for us to be here. Had the universe expanded too quickly after the big-bang it would have expanded forever and galaxies wouldnt' ever have been able to form. If it hadn't expanded quickly enough, it would have simply collapsed back onto itself and our universe would've ended just about as quickly as it began. But, yet.. we are here.. In the early universe, elementary particles came into existence from, seemingly, nothing. Where did they originally come from if the early universe was devoid of them to begin with?

It just goes to show that even in mainstream science there are aspects of astronomy and cosmology that defy all logic. But that still doesn't mean there aren't very rational explanations for the things we don't understand. And these explanations don't necessarily have anything to do with god. Maybe all black holes have white holes in which black holes of today vacuumed up all these elementary particles, sent them back in time through a wormhole only to "spit them out" of a white hole in the early universe. There are lots of possibilities people just don't think to comprehend when it comes to explaining the unknown.

I find a belief in "God" as a symptom of the human condition. And it usually involves fear as a means of a self-fulfilling prophecy of faith and human spiritual ideaologies. For example, Fear of being alone in the universe, Fear of there NOT being a god or creator, Fear of letting your family down by not converting, Fear of not understanding how we really came to be here on this planet under such unlikely of circumstances. People usually find "God" at a time in their lives when they are looking for him the most. Not necessarily because he exists.. But because people need to believe in such things because they feel a deep need to understand the universe, have a fulfilling sense of purpose, and understand why we are here. Personally, I don't think we should be writing off nature as having the power to create life. That wouldn't really make sense.

When people believe they are "talking to god" or "feeling at one with god", they might just be sensing a connectedness of the universe itself through such means as the zero point field, quantum entanglement, or "novelty theory" (by this I mean time itself as being projected by the collective human subconscious).

People had faith in god hundreds of years ago because they used religion and spirituality as the means which they explained purpose, life, the unknown, and the universe in general. People back then really didn't put alot of faith in science. Go on Wikipedia and look up "Heliocentric theory" and see what happened to Nicholas Copernicus during the Spanish Inquisition to see what I'm talking about.
I'm not saying we should consider science a religion. I'm just saying that pointing at God to explain everything we don't understand doesn't make sense when we don't fully understand our universe yet.

-ChriS

reply to post by BlasteR


Well said. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

- Albert Einstein

reply to post by TrueAmerican

Sometimes I wonder if there is a secondary evolution of apes to man that is happening right before our very eyes. And if that is the case, and apes are evolving into man for the second time (or maybe even the 100th time?), then I have to wonder what are humans evolving into?

Only read the first couple of pages so far, but I had to answer this question! It seems obvious to me that we are evolving back to apes! Humans are devolving! Our immunities are lower than ever, our governments, communities, and economies are breaking down. New cancers and diseases are popping up faster than we are curing them. We don't know how to raise our own kids. We look for outside help in everything we do, or we find a scapegoat for every mistake we make. Humans won't be at the top of the food chain much longer (if we ever truly were). We are so dependent on technology that one day it will fail and the apes will be more prepared for the new world than we are!!

[edit on 30-6-2009 by AKNOWLEGE_ME]

The World is happening to Africa.
All that is is happening to the World.

Originally posted by Lennonist
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

That's the exact thought I had reading this post! Humans left their habitat, more or less, and built civilizations, so now the apes get an opportunity to advance and fill the niche we left.

Or the spaceman came down again and did some dna trickery and zapped 'em up for more intelligence...

I believe its something called evolution

For this stuff I think it's the natural intelligence florishing as opposed to evolution.
You film 100 monkeys for so long you'll see some things.

For me I believe it's intelligent design (half-way between creationalism and Evolution).

So you buzz from your mountain and I'll buzz from this one

reply to post by BlasteR


Hey! Thanks for your thoughts!

I guess we all have perspectives, and I really respect that, as I hope
you can respect mine... I just hope that you are not "looking the other
way" because of the strong polarity with our views, and dismissing POV
because spirit theory can only be perceived by your your mind,
in the very border of what you call "reality".

Slightly OT, but If you wanna just have a 'peek' on the other side, do this:

1) At night, dont drink or eat 2 hours before you normally go to sleep;
2) Take a good, relaxing hot shower and go straight to bed;
3) breathe calmly and focus your attention on hands and foot for 5 mins;
4) close your eyes as your feet and palms start to get 'energetic';
5) Try to relax as much as possible and observe what happens next...

When you start to hear noises, your heart start to throb faster and your
body (again, your vessel) starts to vibrate and UNFOLD...

There you go, another view of nature opens to you.

[]´s
RP

reply to post by RobertPaulsim


Let me put it this way..

I believe in the paranormal

I believe in the ability for the human mind to have psychic abilities.

I believe that cataloguing our dreams with carefully planned dream monitoring regimen can open up doorways to self-exploration and understanding of our true inner selves.

I believe in meditation as a form of relaxation and personal discovery.

I believe some of earth's creatures are much more intelligent than we give them credit for.

I believe that there is an unseen, hidden force that connects all living beings at the subconscious level.

I believe in Scientific Remote Viewing. I have done it once and it worked (and I can prove it).
A great book to read on SRV is "Cosmic Voyage" by Courtney Brown, pHd..

There is alot we don't understand from a scientific standpoint. But that doesn't mean a scientific explanation doesn't exist for these things. Thus, until we scientifically understand them they exist in the realm of the human experience as mystical and bizarre. And because of that people assume causes of religious or mystical significance.

Even the term "Pseudoscience" involves an implication of wrongness or contradiction to common thought. Take the paranormal, for example. Scientists say paranormal phenomenon doesn't exist because of a lack of evidence. But when was the last time mainstream science really openly studied and analyzed the phenomenon.

Of coarse there isn't going to be any meaningful scientific data of the parnanormal. That is because of 2 very important reasons.

1- The mainstream scientific establishment can write off anyone claiming to have real evidence by saying that they aren't scientists and that the evidence wasn't collected under "controlled conditions" (whatever that really means).

2- Probably 99.9% of them have never truly investigated the phenomenon themselves for alot of different reasons. Thus, no scientific evidence exists that they consider to be signficant. You can't find evidence for something if you aren't even willing to look.

-ChriS

Originally posted by IKEA

Originally posted by brokenheadphonez
reply to post by jar11

 

I know what you mean. Some have suggested that "evolutionary leaps" are programmed into DNA itself.

Some have even suggested that evolutionary leaps are happening because a species has eaten some kind of plant or mushroom by mistake that causes hallucinations which which in turn provide a way to "think outside the box".

Maybe a chimp had a shroom for breakfast and saw something in his altered state and came up with these ideas. The rest of the chimps maybe just followed what he (or she...) did and a new behavior was born.

Who knows...

Terence McKenna's theory is interesting, indeed. But I don't think it holds must base, as a chimp tripping on shrooms would be running around going insane, not looking into himself like some spiritual insight which is what I, a human, and he(McKenna) obviously have done while tripping on mind altering substances.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge
Okay, I'm not a zoo keeper and don't deal with apes so my only experience with animals right now is the squirrel that lives in the tree in my back yard and my dog.

Came home from work one day and my dog had been sick. He threw up on the bathroom floor right in front of the toilet and the toilet lid had been shut. If the lid had been open he would have probably thrown up in the toilet.

Now, people like to use the term, "dumb dog" but mine is really starting to do stuff that is amazing. If you don't feed him dinner at five promptly (he tells time) he will go get his bowl and bring it to you, set it down at your feet and tell you it's dinner time.

When his water bowl is empty he will come get you and tell you he needs more water, and oh yes, please wash the bowl out first he doesn't like it sloppy dirty.

He goes and gets his towel first and sets it by the back door if it's raining and he's got to go out (don't forget to dry him off he doesn't like being wet).

I suspect if my husband taught him to stand at the toilet to pee he would probably pick up on that too.

Not kidding, animals are progressing just like we are.

My dog also spells, if you spell v-e-t he runs and hides
f-o-o-d or d-i-n-n-er he gets excited and slobbers

If we start talking about going out somewhere he plasters himself by the front door wanting to come along.

The squirrel that lives in our back yard will come up and knock on our sliding glass door when he's out of nuts or peanut butter on whole wheat bread (he doesn't like the white as much as the whole wheat). He/she ? has been known to help themself to a piece of apple or carrot also if you leave it out on the picnic table to go in and get something.

Animals are amazing, I think some of them are brighter than we realize.



[edit on 10-7-2009 by ofhumandescent]