God, Ancient Aliens or Mother Nature?

God, Ancient Aliens or Mother Nature?

Hello

Over the years here as a member of ATS I've read a wide array of members contributed opinions on Man's history. As the title suggest it seems to boil down to those three, God, Ancient Aliens or Mother nature. I'd like this thread if at all possible not to focus on "Creation vs Evolution" in this thread. We've all read those threads and know how they always inevitably end up. I know I may be asking for the impossible but let's proceed.

Where I'd like to focus on is the known history of man and his ancient related cousins. The geological timeline and record shows us evidence of a few variations of seemingly "Intelligent" hominids aka our ancient cousins. The debate still rages on just how closely we're related. Were they genetic dead ends? Did we come from their lines? How often and closely did we interact and interbreed with them?

For me there is a real enigma in the human timeline. One which hasn't been fully explained yet. Is that just a case of simply waiting for the sciences to develop in order for some day get a better understanding? Now some of the more open minded of the religious persuasion will speak of divine intervention with it's guiding hand pushing the hominid line forward in development until a certain level of intelligence and self awareness was achieved thus begun [figuratively speaking] the story of "Adam and Eve" with all it's various cultural and geographic variants.

Others of who believe in Ancient Aliens will speak of genetic manipulations and or stories of the Anunnaki and slave races which were created out of an older preexisting dumber hominid line or simple apes for manual labor and then suddenly we were left alone to fend for ourselves after having been taught [or genetically given] the ability to develop the basics in civilization etc.

Then there are those who will agree with the prevailing accepted scientific paradigm of slow evolution and hominid development with the various dead ends and relations among them and use of fire and cave paintings etc while slowly climbing up the ladder culminating in Plasma TVs and the latest Cell phone and gadget craze.




Now..

What we do know is that "Man" as we know him "Modern man" aka "Homo Sapien" that he has been around for a few hundred thousand years. We are to believe that we've only developed Civilization with all it's various cultural aspects in roughly the last + / - ten thousand years with some areas developing earlier while others later to varying degrees.

Why was this the case? Where, why and how did this sudden explosion of development start? We were as a species doing just fine minding our own business bee-bopping through the jungles, forests and across the vast plains then something changed and we were rocketed into a seemingly mindless mad dash towards development. We are presently masters over the physical world around us. We have started our first steps out into the cosmos. We have developed the ability to split the atom, genetically manipulate ourselves our food and life around us and sadly also have been developing multitudes of ways to cause our own extinction.

Civilized man since the beginning

In conclusion:

We have also developed Laws, Art, Literature, Music, Mathematics, Science, Instant Microwave ovens and attitudes in our favor. So, as you can see it isn't a complete wash out. What has driven us? Natural disasters and events which required biological and neurological adaptations and developments? Divine intervention or Ancient Alien manipulation? In reference to the latter two, and If so, whats the end game?

I'd like to know what others think and feel. Was it simply because of one of the three? Was it two of the three? Or All or none of the above? I'd like for members who are interested in this topic to chime in and if at all possible keep it civil and on-topic.

We should be looking after mother nature and not abusing our powers. We have no place to go if we destroy this ecosystem. Mankind has historically kept the population trimmed by fighting amongst each other. When it got tight for food a lot of people were killed except those who could provide food for the ones in charge. This has been going on for thousands of years, it is instinct. It keeps us from devastating the foodchain. I don't think people are as civilized as they think they are. When this instinct kicks in we will do what our ancestors did. We will have wars. The problem is that the weapons we have developed will ruin the land and also kill our foodchain. Not by any means a good thing to happen. I hope the god that we wisen up and start working with nature instead of against her. God will not protect us if we do not respect his creation. I will be the first to admit that I haven't a clue what is really going on in the world. I try to understand what people are trying to do but see nothing but mistakes being made throughout their efforts. Isn't there someone smart to watch after this mess they have created worldwide?

One thing that bugs the hell out of me?

People saying "man was too dumb" aliens had to help, that hogwash.

Think mankind has what he has because of himself man evolves that evolution/progress was lost with war,famine,disease,and natural disasters, man picked himself back up and carried forward.

Rinse and repeat until we come to the modern age.

First, another well put together thread slayer.

My first comment will be that our current techniques for dating anything beyond a few thousands years has been proven more and more unreliable. Note that I have not said these techniques produce incorrect results, but more of an inaccuracy.

I understand that inaccuracy may be a bit harsh as we are talking about a time scale of billions of years and in some instances carbon dating is only with a deviation of plus or minus a few tens of thousands of years, which in the grand scheme of things is not to bad. None the less, as slayer has alluded too, human development seemed to rocket forwards in a relatively short space of time (10,000 years or so).

So to conclude this long winded point, the inaccuracies in our current dating techniques creates a level of uncertainty with respect to how long Homo sapiens have developed.

Until we can better put human development in a more reliable timeframe, some theories I believe become a mute point, as we could have been progressing technologically and culturally well beyond recorded and archaeologically recorded history.

The above point is not to detract from any one theory, but I feel it important to note. I am also aware of other dating techniques used to determine the age of locations of interest and such, though the confidence still seems to be far from 100%.

I subscribe to the belief that our intelligence and the compounding of technological/social break throughs have had an effect of exponential growth on all subsequent developments. Now without going to far off on a tangent, I will say that I think human intelligence and ingenuity of our ancient ancestors have not been given the credit it deserves.

But of course I could just be rambling, I am not sure, therefore aliens. (Insert picture of Giorgio A. Tsoukalos )

reply to post by SLAYER69


Interesting topic, Slayer.

I'd have to go with Occam's razor on this one.

We developed. We rise, we fall. We rise again, and we fall again. Now we can speculate on the causes of the "falls". But we have risen without Promethius or Annanuki influence.

Like Darwin's wee island, our little planet is an island unto itself.

In my humble opinion.

Before i explain my speculation i would like to state that i am a skeptic believer. I dont want someone reading this and go tearing to the Ufo/aliens forums where i have posted and start tearing me a new one based on this specultive post.

I personally lean towards alien intervention at some time earlier in human history. Now i dont look at all the mounds of circumstantial evidence and scream see see, but i do notice things that just seem out of whack. I don't believe our ancestors used advanced tech to build the magnificant structures all around the world. Yet i do believe that perhaps the events that AA believers see was perhaps a one or two time event. Perhaps ( and this was listed by someone else in another thread) in their search for life, moving through the galaxy like a grid search, they stumbled upon us in our primative state.. seeing us and knowing that it could easily be thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years before we are even technologically close enough to start asking the big questions about our world and whats/whos beyond it or thousands of years before they move back through this sector again if at all, they decided that they needed to leave a marker... a sign persay that points to something that in all reality would be impossible to ignore..

The pyramid to me is this object. Its circumfrence is equal to pi supossedly.. its oriented perfectly towards the cardinal directions to within i believe it was stated .01 degrees accuracy to true north.. It was aligned to the 30th lattitude as well as supposedly its height multiplied by a certain number is the exact distance to the sun. I have also heard mention of something about it equalling the speed of light. If even one or two of these extraordinary things is true i have to ask how? How did the egyptians know all this.. True north.. Pi.. the speed of light? these are mathmatical and astronomical equations that should have not even existed at that time period much less be implemented into the building of the wonderous building. Its earthquake proof and has survived time with little effect. This is not the smoking gun, i am sure theres plenty of counter debate as to how the supposed things i have said came into being ,but the problem is one circumstance is dismissable, but two or three. At that point its hard to dismiss without wondering how the heck did this happen.
Again this is my speculative opinion and nothing more. till evidence is presented that is more solid this is the stance ill take on the matte.. i will be watching this thread closely cause i find this intresting

reply to post by SLAYER69


Ancient Aliens in the title of a Slayer thread....wow I thought you stayed away from that subject like the plague.

You ask what the end game would be for AA's and that is the question that firmly keep those theories as entertainment for this poster as I see no answer. Why would the game be played for hundreds of thousands of years when it would seem the whole agenda (whatever that is...i,e, genetics?) could be accelerated??

There have been members here at ATS like yourself that have provided so much evidence that we have cyclically grown our humanity and cultures over and over on this rock that we have since shorted our abilities and perception of ourselves to the point of willful ignorance.

Adding in the geological and astronomical events the earth has been through we seem to be pretty damn resilient.

I dont know what I have to add other than a thumbs up so here you go

There is much about mankinds origins that we still don't know.

Personally I'm neither arrogant enough to subscribe to one viewpoint exclusively nor ignorant enough to dismiss any theory outright.

I'd err on the side of some sort of tinkering and 'speeding up' of our natural evolution, be it of an 'alien' nature or some sort of 'supernatural' guidance etc I'm not entirely sure.

There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that at some point in our history there was some sort of 'alien' intervention - exactly what form that took is very much open to debate.
And it is easy to believe that these 'aliens' subsequently entered into human mythology as Gods etc.

As interested as I am in matters spiritual I do however firmly believe that ultimately it's irrelevant - 'God's' existence is unproveable until death or the advent of some sort of Judgement Day.
As a result I am openly agnostic and feel organised religion is mankinds bane.

But there is no getting away from the fact that despite the randomness and chaos within the universe there is an amazing amount of symmetry, order and mathmatical balance present that seems to defy chance and logic.

Does that answer your question?
I'm not sure.
Maybe it's just an example of fence sitting, but I don't think so.

Maybe when we truly know the answer we'll be ready to take our place in the universe at large because surely by then we would have put aside our petty differences.

Naive and idealistic I know, but sincere and heartfelt nonetheless.

Great thread as usual mate.

Well for me I think I find all three lacking.

The geological/archeological record seems too fragmented to be 100 % accurate, The religious view leaves out the massive amounts of evidence in the fossil records of the other hominids and Dinosaurs and the Ancient Alien angle is missing one crucial bit of proof, Real solid concrete physical evidence.

For me personally there doesn't need to be an eternal explanation ( God or aliens ). Transitioning from "animal" to whatever one wishes to call the state we exist in now, makes perfect sense to me. Certain animals develop social behaviors out of necessity. Ants are a great example of extremely complex societies that replicate time and time again - seemingly with programmed precision ( An anthill in Galveston behaves just like an anthill is Budapest does - with minor variations ).

Homo homo sapiens, and our ancestors were extremely disadvantaged creatures in a hostile environment. We have no exoskeletons, venom, claws, pincers, stingers, or fangs. We're actually rather weak as far as almost all forms of life go.

What we did have was some special predisposition towards working in groups. Sure. Many argue that it was opposable thumbs, bipedalism, or complex primary and secondary vocal chords that gave us the edge. But my humble opinion is to disagree and submit that what made us different was an ability to understand the concept of shared, group effort. One early human hunting for meat was more likely to end up prey. But ten such humans? They gain the strategic benefit of numbers.

In my opinion this simple ability to equate the group interest with self interest is what led to our large brains, language, and tool making.

Invention, or innovation, are funny things because they rely upon what has already been created, before, as a requisite for progress. To me this process explains why the "learning curve" spiked so sharply somewhere between ten and twenty thousand years ago. Those early ancestors had reached a critical mass of population where local technologies could spread, be shared, and included into the life of the tribe.

Once this cross pollination of discovery and innovation began - it was like lighting a rocket. As long as populations continued to grow and spread - the dissemination of new technologies was assured. In fact these technologies, at some point, began aiding in their own dissemination - the wheel, roads, domestication of oxen and horses. These things were like gas upon the flames of advancement.

That is how it's been working since. Each new idea opening up a hallway that leads to countless future new ideas.

After this many centuries... that's a lot of doors already open, and countless more waiting.

So, in the end, my opinion, good Sir, is nature is to blame for it all.

~Heff

reply to post by SLAYER69

What has driven us? Natural disasters and events which required biological and neurological adaptations and developments? Divine intervention or Ancient Alien manipulation? In reference to the latter two, and If so, whats the end game?

All of the above, I don't have a problem with god being a great geneticist.

Righteousness and bloodline are so important in the Bible?
Why?
and it is necessarily righteousness as in good, but perhaps the right bloodlines.

And if we some of us are of that bloodline, then that would make me wonder if they are coming back for us.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Well for me I think I find all three lacking.

The geological/archeological record seems too fragmented to be 100 % accurate, The religious view leaves out the massive amounts of evidence in the fossil records of the other hominids and Dinosaurs and the Ancient Alien angle is missing one crucial bit of proof, Real solid concrete physical evidence.

edit on 28-11-2012 by SLAYER69 because: (no reason given)

There are records in mythology, the giants depicted in mythology are dinosaur fossils.

Maybe aliens don't want to be noticed?

I actually believe in a mix of all three. God as the creator-source-of-all. Aliens who have had a hand in human history and perhaps our genetics. And mother nature and evolution that deliver the rest. Thats a great Trinity right there. Excellent topic btw.

reply to post by neo96

People saying "man was too dumb" aliens had to help, that hogwash.

And with that in mind I also think our ancestors were much more intelligent then people give them credit for and don't believe for a second they didn't actually have contact with some form of alien or supernatural entity, as in Ezekiel's vision,

Or I once researched the ancient culture more advanced then early mankind, but we have the lack of evidence.

And in the beginning was the word. the word was a great scribe, scribes were considered
www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk...

Gods associated with writing

Writing was a highly regarded skill and closely associated with the divine. Hieroglyphs were known as "medju netjer" ("words of the gods") and so it is not surprising that a number of the gods were depicted as scribes or associated with writing.

Thoth was the patron of scribes and was generally credited with the development of hieroglyphs. He was often depicted as a scribe and was responsible for recording the result of the "weighing of the heart" in the halls of judgment. Seshat was the Goddess of writing (and either the wife or daughter of Thoth). She recorded the life of each person on the leaves of the sacred persea tree and was the official biographer of the Pharaoh.

So if Moses was taught in the ways of Egypt, and Christ fled to Egypt,

Just thinking off the top of my ancient brain, I will post more later.

Add to that the interesting importance of measurement in the Bible and in the book of Revelations, and the rod and the staff and the measuring rod.

Back to bloodlines, the women of the Bible play a more interesting role then we can imagine, I used to have all this stuff documented but lost it all.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Quite the interesting thread once again Slayer, kudos.

My personal view is that as humans have grown in numbers, so has the amount of brilliant minds. As we've become smarter by listening to those smarter than us in the 21st century, I believe this to be true throughout all of human history.

Taking the above into consideration, I believe the following:

We have been driven to success primarily by nature. The need for fire for example to illuminate the darkness and cook our food, keep us warm.

The need to create shelter to keep ourselves out of nature's harmful path.

The need to create social structures and community in order to save us from ourselves in a sense.

So all of these were the direct result of nature. Do I believe that ET has had some influence on our development throughout the centuries? Most likely.

I think in our more primitive and non-technologically inclined history, ET would have had a better chance at influencing events and even our biology without there being much notice. This kind of thing would be planned for a long time and their end game I image would also be done over a very long period.

Being an intelligent race who is space faring, I would think they understand the evolution of intelligent species better than we would.

As for God, well I think the web of life certainly has had an impact on us. Philosophy and what later became religious theology was a catalyst for many many positive things within our cultures in the past.

I don't think that there is a "God" in the monotheistic sense however, so I can't say there was any direct and conscious attempt to change our route or drive us into a certain direction.

The end game I think is to graduate from being mud boots ( D&D folk will get that reference).

I think many many new doors, experiences, knowledge etc, will open up for us once we have a concrete ability to travel safely through space. I think then and only then will ET present themselves to us.

So it's 2 of them for me as I replace the idea of God as you've presented it to more of a spiritual, self appointed development.

~Tenth

reply to post by Stormdancer777


Yep religion has shaped the path of mankind just as much as technology has heard somewhere that if the dark ages had never ocurred we would be way further than we currently are.

Excellent thread once again and as always Slayer.

I'm in the camp that we've gotten here through our own momentum.
We've a fairly nice progressive development timeline of evolution in the fossil record to indicate this, though there are some questionable gaps and debates regarding how some of the pieces fit together if at all, the progression is still there.
We don't find any indication of remains anywhere in history of any hominid more 'advanced', or more appropriately 'developed', or adapted than we ourselves are.

Additionally, fairly recent, we've indication of a punctuated equilibrium in adaptive development in the human species where we've found indication that our brains are actually smaller than 'modern' humans 15,000 years ago.
Head shrinking in the 21st Century
That's a pretty huge developmental/adaptive change in a relatively short amount of time compared with what we see in the fossil record.

On a more extreme note, I found this blog that frames research into literally down-sizing humanity, making us smaller bodied through purposeful engineering as a willfully designed adaptation in response to resource depletions, population increase, etc.
The Incredible Shrinking Man

Back to the shrinking brain; this is a natural adaptation/development.
There's no indication of any outside interference.

There are, of course studies like Bio-SETI that are looking for clues, or actual messages in our DNA that would indicate artifice, but, nothing as yet has given even a ghost of a blip.

We got here on our own. We've had a tough time of it and have certainly almost been the very cause of our own extinction at least during the 20th Century, but, we're here none the less with evidently no help from anyone else.

It'd certain be fun were any of the mythologies literal tellings of actual super beings avaunting about up to whatever petty mischiefs and machinations they've been depicted as getting up to, but, at best, such tales are of the exaggerated deeds of mortals or simply pure fantasy dreamed up as explanation for why some things are the way they are.

I don't see why it can't be some mixture of all three. It appears to me that none of the 3 have ALL of the answers.

There is no doubt that mankind has suffered an acceleration progression. At least part of that is neatly wrapped up in the natural progression of one accomplishment forming the foundation for more, greater accomplishments. A house cannot be built without a foundation, and once the foundation is there it MUST be built, given human nature. The complexity of the end result (is there ever REALLY an "end result"? Not as long as progress is still being made) is only limited by the ingenuity of the builders.

There may be an external architect or architects, but the actual builders, the workers, are none other than us, humanity, and the natural progression of discovery upon discovery. We make our own destiny, collectively and individually, regardless of who or what set the design in motion.

As for a God or gods, I do not discount that involvement, as it DOES appear necessary to me in order to have brought order out of the chaos of nothingness to begin with. With that said, it's not a verifiable, falsifiable, or repeatable thing, and so outside the purview of science. One would expect that deities won't jump through hoops on command for experimental purposes, so the point is really moot - believe as you will, and allow other men to believe as THEY will in such matters.

Ancient alien involvement is possible, but I've yet to find a REASON for it. Perhaps I don't need to, however, because they did not consult with me before their meddlesome interventions. It does not make sense to me to train monkeys as slaves when my own technology is vastly superior, especially in light of the notion that any such meddling and development is not going to bear fruit for thousands of years, if ever. What would be the purpose of it? I know not, nor do I need to, I suppose. Just because I can't figure out a rational alien mindset in the matter doesn't mean that THEY couldn't. I'm fairly certain that some aliens don't think quite like I do, so I wouldn't expect to be able to get behind their eyes and into their brains to discover the reasons they would do the things they might.

I believe it's our animal heritage that drives us to do the things we do, more so than we really understand or realize. I believe most of our collective behavior is entirely instinctual, genetic. Man looks at itself, and dreams up something more grandiose and dramatic than what we truly are as a creature in nature. But we are understanding more and more just how robotic our bodies and minds really are. You think you are in control, but in reality, the programs of your subconscious control everything you do and how you perceive your world and being, just as the body is driven by it's own processes that controls your moods, feelings, perceptions, sexual urges...etc.

I'm thinking some kind of combination between all 3.I can't how ancient man was able to construct some edifices like the pyramids,etc.without extra help,knowledge from elsewhere.