Evolution and The Great Architect of the Universe

Originally posted by Kaytagg
Once you get to the point of being a deist/pantheist, what is the point of believing in god?

In the millions of years that humans have lived on this planet, they have worshiped a creator. To think that a group of people that have lived for mere seconds in the history of mankind know the truth, whereas countless civilizations before were all wrong is absurd.

In my opinion, studying only modern religion leads one to atheism, since there is flaw after flaw after flaw. There is and can be only one Creator of the Universe. The error we humans make is in letting our egos insist to everyone else that "He" pays attention only to us (and not His other children).

I believe that God is much more ancient. He existed before long before Christianity, before the Egyptians, before the Celts. Once we forget modern religion, and see God as a truly ancient being, that has been acknowledged by countless civilizations before us, then the holes in modern religion fall away, and we begin to truly understand God.

Pantheism and especially Panentheism give us a lot more insight into His nature than modern religions. At least I think so.

The Great/Grand Architect of the Universe creates through "Personality" and "Mathematics" these are the two pillars that hold up the universe. They are known as "Boaz and Jachin" respectively. TGAOTU via sacred geometry which is dense thought forms builds the universe. And "I am that I am/אהיה אשר אהיה" located in Exodus 3:14 is the TGAOTU's personality.

The TGAOTU needs no model to create, while we do. Hence his title of God/Great & Grand the Best of the best the Most of the most. While we must acquire a education/chisel that allows us to begin work at life/ashlar, TGAOTU is the supreme equilibrium & requires no need to acquire a education. Note everyone is born with a gavel to hammer away at life, But with out the finer education & finer tools. How great can you craft out of ignorance?

Once you acquire your trowel you can create friendships through the bonds you lay. Once you can control your emotions and are self aware of the universe. You may understand, And have a extinction of the consciousness of a separate existence. As life is a shared existence among the fellowship/fellowcraft, And this is our bond.

reply to post by Project2501


Excellent post!

I think the part about emotion is extremely important. I believe a primary method to gaining illumination is destruction of the ego.

When personal bias, need for attention and self-aggrandizement go by the wayside we learn that true selfless service is ultimately our goal.

This idea is repeated throughout history in all the great spiritual leaders and teachers. "Love your neighbor..." and "Love your enemy..."

These concepts of time and space lose meaning when we choose to focus our energy on helping each other instead of fighting each other.

In my opinion...

- God is the Creator/Father. As such he doesn't need to be reminded of how Great He is all the time. Trust me, he knows.

- We are all one human family, children of God.

- Because God is our Father, he loves us no matter how bad we screw up. There is no hell, but there is accountability for our actions. In any case God loves us, wants us to be happy, and has given us teachers and instructions in the great religions and mysteries of the world. (Note I didn't say churches)

- Spreading "Light" means holding it up high so all those around can see it's illumination. It doesn't mean grabbing the nearest person and shoving a flashlight in their face and telling them what they are doing wrong.


So, I think, instead of floundering in search of "Enlightenment" we should strive to lay our personal ego aside, love and help our neighbors unconditionally and reject praise or recognition for our actions.

Originally posted by Circle

Interesting. How do you reconcil the two in your thinking? Are you saying that God works through evolution?

In any good esoteric school this is exactly what you will be taught.

Figuring out the order behind the ways the universe operates doesn't negate an intelligent creation, it only illustrates the ways in which it is ordered and intelligent, where we formerly may have assumed there was no order, or didn't fully understand it.

The evolutionary model as presented by Darwin has flaws and even Darwin himself expressed his doubts about his theory. One which being the assumption that later turned into DNA and genes being responsible for how we are "made." Turns out that assumption was wrong, and our DNA and genes lack a lot of information that is made up by our physical environment so therefore genes and DNA only determine about half or less of what we actually turn out to be.

But science is always learning new things, and we will always have room to expand.

The evolutionary model as presented by Darwin has flaws and even Darwin himself expressed his doubts about his theory. One which being the assumption that later turned into DNA and genes being responsible for how we are "made." Turns out that assumption was wrong, and our DNA and genes lack a lot of information that is made up by our physical environment so therefore genes and DNA only determine about half or less of what we actually turn out to be.

DNA was not discovered in Darwin's time. Crick discovered the genome in the 1970s whereas Darwin was formutaing his Theory of Evolution in the mid 19th Century.

However, Darwin recognized that lifeforms react to their environments. He might not have known about DNA but he knew a mechanism existed for natural selection. Those lifeforms that prospred in their environment (and hence their DNA) were most likly to survive through sexual reproduction. Unsuccessful lifeforms were less likely to spread their DNA because of lowered survival rates.

Evolution or Creation ? Take the Giraffe - its neck elongated through its evolution to secure foliage from taller and taller trees and shrubs. An Intelligent Designer would have made a vocal cord that went from the mouth straight to the larynx. However, this had NOT happened because the vocal cord goes down the neck- from the mouth - to the shoulder area and then returns back up the head. As the neck elongated through evolution so the cord had to double back on itself over a longer distance around the windpie. If the Giraffe had appeared on earth, just as it is, why didn't God just produce an efficent vocal cord?

I see why people can believe in both God and evolution. God could create an evolutionary universe but it goes against the scientific evidence that the world was created in a week.



[edit on 7-1-2010 by Circle]

[edit on 7-1-2010 by Circle]

[edit on 7-1-2010 by Circle]

[edit on 7-1-2010 by Circle]

Originally posted by Circle

The evolutionary model as presented by Darwin has flaws and even Darwin himself expressed his doubts about his theory. One which being the assumption that later turned into DNA and genes being responsible for how we are "made." Turns out that assumption was wrong, and our DNA and genes lack a lot of information that is made up by our physical environment so therefore genes and DNA only determine about half or less of what we actually turn out to be.

DNA was not discovered in Darwin's time. Crick discovered the genome in the 1970s whereas Darwin was formutaing his Theory of Evolution in the mid 19th Century.

Re-read what I posted and you will realize I said nothing of DNA in Darwin's time. I said the assumptions that later became the idea that genetics entirely determine the individual of a species.

However, Darwin recognized that lifeforms react to their environments. He might not have known about DNA but he knew a mechanism existed for natural selection. Those lifeforms that prospred in their environment (and hence their DNA) were most likly to survive through sexual reproduction. Unsuccessful lifeforms were less likely to spread their DNA because of lowered survival rates.

What Darwin's theory came to encompass (as I remember being taught it in high school) is that individuals of a species evolve at random and that the random mutations that prove favorable are the ones which are most often carried on to the next generation.

What has now been refuted about that assumption is that the entire "natural selection" process is actually not random at all, and our environment and other factors external to individual cells are constantly causing parts of our DNA to be activated or de-activated, so that the environment is what determines the active genetics informing our cells.

I see why people can believe in both God and evolution. God could create an evolutionary universe but it goes against the scientific evidence that the world was created in a week.

Even if the world was created in a week, and even if there were scientific evidence that indicates that, you must realize that it has no more bearing upon spiritual realizations and coming to know the one true universal "God" than the assumption that the Sun revolves around the Earth. The Church used to say, of course, that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and they went to enormous and ridiculous efforts, even killing people, to try to force people to continue believing this despite overwhelming evidence.

Why would the church go to such effort to try to keep people believing that the Earth is the center of the universe?


Because realizing that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and the Sun is the real center of our solar system of various bodies all revolving around this Sun, was actually more profound and mystical an insight to people of that age than the mundane assumption that the Earth was the focal point of God's universe and there was nothing else "out there" to learn about during our physical lives.

Copernicus' discovery filled him with love and appreciation for the complexity and order of the universe, it humbled him to realize that the Earth is really just one planet revolving around the Sun, and not the center of anything.

The Church has used all number of psychological tactics over the years and why anyone would not be skeptical of anything ANY traditional Christian dogma teaches today blows my mind. Governments and religious institutions from all over the world all have the most atrocious track records of lying to people in order to maintain unfair control over their lives, yet people go on buying anything they say on a day to day basis as if they'd never heard such blasphemies, even though they are written on just about every page of history.

They don't want you to know how wonderful and mysterious and inspiring and beautiful this universe really is. They don't want you to feel mystified or empowered or even particularly humbled directly by the natural world. They don't want you to focus your awareness much on the living, conscious creation around you at all. Instead, they give you books to memorize, passages translated through so many languages and being colored by so many connotations over thousands of years so as to lose so much of their original meaning, and even be superseded by more accurate modern knowledge. They want you to focus on all these trivialities, even the ones they know are lies or are wrong, because they want you to argue about them, and argue over the scripture, and be distracted by these books and challenges of faith and threats of eternal damnation. That's how they "divide and conquer."

The truth is much more wonderful than any fictions, and even the ancients were wrong about many, many things, as we now know. Even the Bible says somewhere or another (in Revelations if I'm not mistaken) that in the end times, or when this age draws near a close, knowledge will be greatly increased. The truth will set you free. It really is a wonderful thing. The control institutions will always teach you to look only to THEM for your understanding. Do you really think the God of the entire universe has given the highest knowledge only to one institution of people and no one else? Real knowledge is free and for everyone. And it is self-evident and does not need a book to explain it, although for many people spiritual scriptures of various cultures are very enlightening to the divine mystery surrounding them anyway.

[edit on 7-1-2010 by bsbray11]

reply to post by bsbray11


Thanks for taking the trouble to explain your position in some detail. Interesting detail at that ! It's good to gain new insights from other ATS members.

reply to post by bsbray11


Just a side note...

The sun centered model is based on the current (big bang) theory of the universe. There a few competing models which have been developed which also explain all of our observations, which are based on an earth centered model. These cannot be disproved at the moment, but we stick to the sun- centered model because philosophically, there is no reason why the earth should be at the center of the universe.

I quote internationally renowned Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis:

"People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the scientific observations…. For instance, it is possible to construct a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and it cannot be disproved based on any current observations….

You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds.

In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. Philosophically, why would earth be the center of the universe? Why should it?

What is important is that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that."

~Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis

In today's scientific environment, the church probably would not have been condemned for their stance on the geocentric model.

Links:
Geocentrism
My thread on ATS


[edit on 13/1/2010 by Saurus]

reply to post by bsbray11


Fantastic post!

If a person finds out they don't need the "church" then the "church" loses it's power and reason for existing.

Originally posted by emsed1
If a person finds out they don't need the "church" then the "church" loses it's power and reason for existing.

And by extension, to quote the dustjacket of Harlan Ellison's Paingod and other Delusions, "When the belief in a god dies, the god dies..." (Similarly ripped off by Gaiman in American Gods, but not as well done, IMHO.)

Here is the essence of Masonry for me. The "Enlightenment" brought about an era that saw a decline in the power and influences of monarchies and organized religion and ushered in a period of free thinking and the beginings of scientific inquiry. The educated and intellectuals of the period began to reach out for more rational reasoning for the the exsistence of the known world and this was the heart and birth of science. Man has always searched his environment, his soul and the skies for answers to his own being and the beginings of things.
The Enlightenment fostered and era that encouraged rational answers rather than blind faith. It extolled virtous behavior, personal morality, critical thinking and individuality. I'm not sure if it was happenstance or destiny that gave birth to Masonry as we know it, but it blossomed in this new era. The enlightenment fostered the ideals of morality, truth, self-improvement and brotherly love, tolerance. Ideals at the heart of Masonry. Interestingly enough Masonry promotes the same ideals.

I believe in the idea of Deity who is capable of doing any and everything.
The theory of eveloution does not contradict this belief.
Bro Gerard

If they are God's creations he must have made them. Possibly he lived through a species and developed it changing and adapting to nature. It is possible he is still working on a Creation. The nature of things is change so over time things will change as well as what God has done.

The ideas of Science, evolution and religion go together so well. It appears the only way people would disagree with accepting the ideas together to create a new idea is if they were in fact under a form of control themselves. They should open there eyes to see the questions for themselves and answer the questions for themselves