5/20/18

Human Social and Intellectual Evolution Are Works In Progress

Knowledge generally is compartmentalized except for some very basic common shared public education and information about certain matters. As great philosophical changes and insights arise those ideas usually are interpreted in ways that run toward extremes without consideration of the need to understand the idea as a discovery that can change or interact with numerous ideas instead of being self standing. Evolution is such an idea.

Evolution was taken to be in conflict with Biblical data. In fact evolution was in conflict with what people had understood the Bible to mean on certain matters in the absence of scientific information that was more accurate and detailed than that provided by non-scientific clergy. In fact the Bible is not in conflict with evolution theory and in many regards is consistent with it. Clergy over history have been heavily involved with politics and political evolution of mankind and human social organization, mostly for the good. Original sin; human nature wrapped up in thermodynamics and the processing of food for energy, procreation and so forth, implicitly renders mankind violent and thoughtless of the rights of others to exist. In plainly evolved nature also known as the wild kingdom anything not kin is just food if its edible.

The kingdom of God is different than that. The kingdom of God entails all of the rights of modern mankind as thinking, civilized beings one could want. There were basic commandment; a decalogue that set forth the right course for mankind differentiated from animals and renormalized to go so long as they could follow all of those rules. Of course mankind could not, for a number of reason. The Old Testament is replete with copious lamentations and complaints of God about the faithlessness and wanderlust of Israel.

Christians too have often some trouble in accepting the facts of evolution and the genomic foundation or etiology of mankind. As biological beings some have a surfeit of pride concerning human ancestry. If 14 million years ago homo erectus was a humble ancestor with innumerable lines that evolved into various later species of hominid that eventually were all killed off except for homo sapiens sapiens, they might think that mankind came from apes, instead of realizing that mankind is today one of five species of primates- apes without tales.

Adam and Eve (adamas means brown dirt and Eve’s initial name was Edith) ate of a cultivated fruit tree. Cultivating fruit trees is a result of a tree of knowledge; a rise of knowledge about how to graft trees with various branches to produce better fruit. When they ate of the apple (only little crab-apple sized fruits without cultivation) they also discovered they were naked and needed clothing. God kicked them out of the garden of Eden where humans as just animals could live the animal life and made them work and bear children. Humanity was ready for social evolution rather than simple animal evolution at that point.

Adam and Eve may have lived in a space-time anomaly without the passage of time; perhaps as pure spirits, or they may have represented a local people that became learned about manufacture and clothing, there are several ways to interpret the ancient literature or Biblical historical account written for people of the era of 2000 B.C. to the present day, yet it is plain that they were sent from a paradise of easy living to labor in the normal Earth. When Cain the blacksmith killed his brother Abel the goat herder, Cain was marked and sent out into the world of pre-existing peoples. He had sons and became established. His may have been the first civilization that was eventually destroyed during the time of Noah.

The lost first human civilization and the flood are amongst the easiest to account for as well as to misunderstand. During the late Pleistocene about 12,000 B.C. sea levels rose. A Mesopotamian civilization near the Persian Gulf behind a river deposition berm might readily have been flooded by a tidal surge, storm and glacial melting flood from the great rivers upstream. Survivors of the flood; Noah and his family might have been deposited on the hills of Ararat or Urartu as it was known before transliteration by Jewish scribes in the first millenium B.C. The borders of ancient Urartu- a vanished kingdom were generally uphill from the Persian Gulf with rather vague boundaries.

 The interpretation of ancient Biblical material in such a way as to more correctly understand its references is a work that requires an interdisciplinary approach with history, linguistic philosophy and Biblical scholarship as well as science; geology biology and astrophysics cannot harm either.

 Anthropology and archeology enable one to discover that human farming did begin about 12,000 B.C. Before that people were hunter gatherers and perhaps animal herders. Cain killed Abel. Settled agricultural cities eliminated the pastoral societies the historian Arnold Toynbee noted. The children of Noah went out in the world and became the founders of nations. They changed the societies they arrived in with the cultural dispersion of knowledge that has evolved human societies forward since, well since Adam and Eve left Eden.

Genesis 10; “1 Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.
2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.

3 And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.

4 And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.

5 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.”

Giants mentioned in Genesis, of the era were probably a few remaining Neanderthals with a larger body size comparable  in physical development to pro football players amongs clerks. European and Oriental genomes have a small percent of Neanderthal or denisovan components respectively.

It would be interesting to account for the creation account in Genesis. People often find it in conflict with scientific cosmology yet I think it is remarkably accurate myself, considering when it was written and for whom it was given. I wrote a book that is free to download on the topic ;

http://www.lulu.com/shop/garrison-clifford-gibson/god-cosmology-and-nothingness-theory-and-theology-in-a-scientific-era/ebook/product-22947558.html

Cultured atheists are not the only ones that are dismissive of the church. The church is of course different than the Bible. The ideal Christian church before the third coming of Christ (the second was after resurrection) to Earth differs from the actual church on Earth that has a structure most often reflecting that of hierarchical or corporate organizations instead of a priesthood of believers as Martin Luther pointed out. Church structures make pew sitters instead of peer participants out of people, and poorly educated in science, evolution, Bible scholarship and philosophy church leaders have tended to make little fiefdoms of their churches wherein they are petty nobles whom commoners tithe. It is a wrong and inefficient way in an advanced post-industrial society.

So much of the atheism that sends so many people on the road to hell happens in the absence of an inclusive church that welcomes all people as beginners, intermediates and elders to priesthood of believers churches where all share the three levels of roles and where all lead in professing true, non-hypocritical faith. God is true yet evolution is true. God is a personal God who is omnipotent and omniscient yet the world is pre-determined concurrently with humans having free will. Actually one ought to be a scientist as well as a philosopher, historian and theologian with some anthropological training as well to better understand the Bible.

 The final point I will make here is that the end times mentioned in the Bible book of the revelation of John as an apocalyptic event occurred in the first century ad. The destruction of Jerusalem was one of numerous events foretold by the Lord Jesus. He said they would occur before the last of the present generation was dead. They did. He was the greatest prophet as well as the Son of God and an equal member of the trinity. After that the kingdom of God was supposed to increase until most of the people were Christian. There is no particular end date to that besides it being when the age of the gentiles is fulfilled. When humanity can go no farther of its own efforts. When human destiny is fulfilled all will be resurrected for judgement.

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