In 1859 when Charles Darwin's Origin of The Species book was released, a lot smaller percentage of the population than today, could read. Education was not compulsory and was not accessible to all.
As a result of this only a certain subset of educated people would have actually been able to read the book. This meant that the theory was a lot more widely accepted in 1859, a shade under 100 years before the discovery of DNA, than it is today.
One of the interesting results of this Victorian status quo, was that the Christian church pretty much accepted the theory straight away. That is not to say they agreed with Darwin that life evolved without the help of a divine creator. More rather they agreed that the evidence for natural selection was overwhelming.
This, I remind you again, was in a time when they had no idea of the existence of DNA, and the documentation of the fossil record had barely started.
Before we go on, think about that for a second; men (for there were no women) of god, who wholly believed in the bible and heaven and hell and all of that, accepted Darwin's theory simply because they were educated.
God's Whip
Regardless of whether you believe in a god or not, it is pretty hard to argue against how religion in its various forms, has been used to subjugate and bully the masses, especially when employed by the state.
When Britain and America were involved in the slave trade, both countries used religion to keep their human cargo in check.
The British Empire's use of religion manifested itself via the missionaries, brutal sadist who would travel to India and Africa in order to introduce Christianity to the 'savages'.
The missionaries made sure they focused on the suffering of Christ, that way they could present suffering as a virtue. The oblique message was, you have to pay for your time in eternal paradise, with suffering and pain. You should be happy for the opportunity to be a slave.
In America today we still see the traces of their version of subjugating via religion, in evangelical Christianity. The method of delivery was different, however the message was the same; suffering, and therefore being a slave, is all part of god's plan.
It is telling that today, the most evangelical states in America, are also the same states who fought to keep slavery in the American Civil War, hence the continued existence of the Southern Baptist Church.
A Convenient Truth
So the church in the UK happily accepted Darwin's theory, as to dismiss it at the time, was considered absurd. However they modified it somewhat, and it so horrified Darwin, that he was compelled to write his second book on the subject; Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.
At the time of writing his original book on evolution; Charles Darwin decided to leave out any mention of human beings. He did so not because he felt that somehow homo sapiens was outside of evolution, but because blasphemy laws still existed, and it was still possible to be jailed for such a ridiculous thing.
Also he probably felt that the ensuing debate would get in the way of his amazing discovery, that we are all descended from an ancient common ancestor.
However the church leapt upon the omission, but not the way you would expect them to. The church put forward the notion that indeed natural selection and evolution was real, and that modern man, had 8 different progenitors.
They claimed that this explained the different races, they also claimed that god in his infinite wisdom had created this state of affairs. God had seen to it that white people had descended from the higher apes, whereas everyone else had come from lower, inferior stock.
This, they said, justified slavery or any other brutality meted out on any non-white person, because they were just like dumb, unfeeling animals.
Wow!
Back To Reality
Today of course, we know that there were around 20 different hominid species (not all related to us) that emerged in the 6 or so million years since our ancient ancestor split from the ape-like creature that created us.
For years we talked of a 'missing link', however that is no longer a factor, we can see quite clearly the 6 million year progression in the fossil record that took us from an upright walking, plane dwelling, ape-like creature, to the full wonder and glory of homo sapiens.
For some people this is easy to accept, for others it is easier to come up with convoluted reasons as to why Darwin was wrong. Regardless of whether you accept it or not, the fossil record is right there for you to access, either online, or at your nearest natural history museum.
Perhaps one day, as many people will understand and believe the theory, as did in 1859. In that respect, for once we want to go backwards.
Further reading:
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex: wiki
Darwin and the theory of evolution - British Library article
Church owes Darwin apology over evolution, says senior Anglican
Darwin and the Church: Cambridge University
The Pope Would Like You to Accept Evolution and the Big Bang
Letters From Darwin:
Letters From Darwin - The Evolution Of The Eye
Letters From Darwin - An Evolutionary Coin Flip
Letters From Darwin - Understanding Probability With A Universe In A Box
Image source
Orangutan (cropped) by Dawn Armfield at Unsplash
The biggest problem in people's understanding of theory of evolution is that they don't make any difference between faulty statement such as - "the men descended from monkeys", and the right one - "men and monkeys have a common ancestor".
This is quite awesome. I see religion more as a tool than means to salvation. A lot of scientists have been brutally killed for blasphemy when chruches were still very powerful. I cant imagine the kind of world we would have if the influence of churches didn't wane.
The same tactics is still being employed in most parts of Africa where religious leaders ride in luxurious Jets and the poor followers contribute their hard-laboured tokens to support the luxurious lifestyles of their leaders. Religion is a complete scam. Thanks for sharing this
Beautiful photography
good idea
Religion has way to many problems to list .
I did not know that the missing link was discovered . do you have reference to this
You might not think so but we do agree on most items . The items that we don't agree I respect your position .
thanks
Thank you for reminding me, I wanted to put that link originally, however I will just drop this here for you now. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/evolution/7550033/Missing-link-between-man-and-apes-found.html
I think the whole missing link thing was a bit unfair, because it is like saying I want to find the creature that was 99.99% chicken, but not yet chicken, and that I will consider a missing link.
I believe we will just keep on finding these missing 'links' until the whole picture is full. Anyway that article I linked is from 2010 and has some pretty stuff in there :-)
There's nothing wrong with a bit of healthy, respectful debate! :-)
Cg
thank you
This is an astonishing find almost complete skeleton . What has eluded the scientific community for many years . I am looking forward to their report . I hope it doesn't take years , but they need to be correct to avoid speculation .
This is from 2010 no report yet
As a human biologist, I can really appreciate this post, nice insight to the world of Darwinism.
I still don't know what to make of Darwin evolutionary story right from the first time I learnt about it in school until now. I just try to see his views as the radicality of his high intelligence.
There is no theory in history, that has had as much scrutiny as the theory of evolution; it has been proved again and again and again, in many, many different ways. They were not just Darwin's views, they were observations of objective fact.
Cg
Well, this is complicated subject. To me the most important question is'Is there consciousness beyond physical reality?'
If your conclusion is yes, then that open many more doors to talk about. It imply that some form of intelligence exist beyond physical form forever. Then that imply we don't need physical body to exist, but like we can see right now you have it. So next question is who build our bodies way there are. Is that creation from intelligence from beyond physical reality to have experience physical experience or our bodies are part of evolution of physical reality itself.
If we take hypothesis that some form of consciousness can create whatever world, I think we shouldn't explain it more in that sense. It just can create.
If we take hypothesis that intelligent life came from nothing when two molecules collided by accident , that raises many question to me. First one is how those two molecules colliding created consciousness? Don't see any evidence that two molecules can create consciousness out of nothing and start chain that we should call evolution. Yes, colliding of molecules can create some form of chemical reaction, but that doesn't mean those reaction couldn't me programmed by some intelligence.
The answer is quite demonstrably, no.
Nobody is claiming that.
Unfortunately most people misunderstand how evolution works, so they come up with a lot of wild theories of their own, not realising that evolution has been thoroughly researched and tested, again and again, and again . . .
Cg
If I understand, you are saying consciousness is product of material reality? If so, what is the process of material world creating consciousness?
For the record, I have totally opposite opinion of that.
Consciousness is just a word we use to describe the interaction between our brains and bodies. It cannot be pinned down to one area of the brain, however that does not make it mystical in any way, it simply means we cannot describe it yet, in the same way how at one point we couldn't adequately describe what stars were.
At that point some people decided to call stars angels, or aliens, or whatever mystical story they could think of, however that didn't detract away from the reality that stars were other suns, sometimes they represented entire galaxies.
So consciousness is something we cannot yet adequately describe, however we do know that it does not reside outside of the brain, many tests have determined this, and nobody is yet to prove otherwise.
So in that sense, I guess that's the long way of saying it is part of material reality, because without that reality, there is no consciousness. The process of creating a material world, that can create beings to appreciate it, is well explained via the Big Bang theory and evolution.
Of course we run into another area we can't adequately describe, what happened before the Big Bang. I am happy with the simple answer, we don't know yet. Others, will again, like they have been throughout history, be happy to fill that ignorance with magic and mysticism, god, aliens, cosmic vibrations or whatever.
At one point we close that gap in knowledge, and the magic jumps back to another gap. Every time we find out something we did not know before, the answer has never been magic, it is always something amazing, but explainable and ultimately, predictable.
Cg
Don't know is there one proof for Big Bang. The 'proofs' for Big Bang are just speculations.
To not write long comment here, I'm gonna write about it soon as I planned already. But in short there were many who experienced NDE and OBE, some people who can consciously leave their body and have OBE, people who are experts Remote viewers and many other examples. That all combined can tell there is more to it then just activity in brain.
So it wouldn't be I'm saying only someone else experiences, I had many experiences of my own, some of them I will describe in next few articles.
People appear to have a bias and always have. Opinions based on bias. Or even opinions based on propaganda. In reality, I think we are largely babes in our understanding. Imagine what exists in the Vatican basement, archeological repositories, private collections. Who has the power to create history or the path of science and understanding?
I do not see any evidence of finding the missing link.
I see lots of people trying to claim so, but their evidence is spotty at best.
There is a device that will be invented in the future that will allow scientists to see the aura. This will show, conclusively that man didn't evolve from apes, even if root stock did evolve from proto-apes. Something amazing happened about 40,000 years ago.
And the problem with finding any evidence of the 40,000 year history/evolution of man, is that each advanced civilization was destroyed. We have remnants of the last advanced civilzation, and a bit of the one before that, but i doubt we will ever find anything of the four before that.
The pryamids and other advanced tech previously buried in Antarctica will be indisputable evidence of previous advanced civilizations. But, we will probably have to wait for The US to collapse a lot, before people start divulging all they have seen down there.
It's statements such as this,
and this, that make any kind of rational conversation extremely difficult.
Cg
Yes it does.
Because in my realm, they are all real.
In your realm, they are not even science fiction, they are fantasy.
So, your facts, to me, are a fantasy
And my facts, to you, are a fantasy.
But, i am not here to convince you. I am writing these replies so that any readers may know that there is something else out there.
And further, these two inventions/exposures are going to happen in most people's lifetimes. And it will change science, archaeology and anthropology soooo much,... that i consider it important to crack open the door just a little. People being aware that such things "could" exist makes the coming reveal less harsh.
I wish i could easily show you what is going on, but most people trained in the old school of science are repulsed by any of this information. They just don't want to see it. And because of free will, they never have to see it.
But, this is not the first time that humanity has run into such reveals. However, this lifetime is going to see more changes to science than anything the renaissance through at us.
Is that code for; I can show you a bunch of maths that doesn't make sense, unless you have faith that I'm telling the truth.?
Or
I have actual concrete proof of all of these things I'm saying, which anyone with the requisite mathematics/physics/biology degree would be able to verify is true. However everyone who has ever seen this does not want to become famous and co-publish these results?
Because I have to admit, I'm tending towards the first; however I retain an open mind, try me. Trust me, I will never be repulsed by scientific information, show me and I promise to use my free will to see it.
Cg
This is hard to put into words, because you believe that reality is fixed. And that there is physics (and metaphysics be damned).
I believe in a world where two people can witness the same thing, and tell two different stories.
And, if you add a camera along with the two people, you will either get the camera showing a third thing, or showing nothing at all (usually some type of camera failure)
This is easier to talk about on the emotional level.
A person who is down will notice everything that is bad and horrible about the world.
A person who is up will notice everything that is good and wonderful about the world.
Although they walked along the same path.
And such is free will. With free will you can literally not see something.
Person A says: Look at that flying saucer.
Person B says: I don't see anything.
And, if you had a completely omniscient being there and asked them, who is correct, they would say both and neither. Because, there really is nothing there. But, there is also a flying saucer and hundreds of other entities all in an intertangled web of now-creation. Most people don't see anything. Some people see the flying saucer. Some people see the angels. Some people see the fairies. Some people see the earth spirits.
OK, say I accept all of that, how do you use that to prove or predict anything of any significance? Like say for instance an aura detector being one day invented?
Cg
Well, if i remember your previous writings correctly (that they are yours, and i am not mistaking them for someone else) you believe strongly in the past being the past and the future being undefined.
To me, the past is mutable.
There are many things you can do that change the past.
But, in the same breath, we are all creating the future. There are points in the future that are very much set. Like, we have built a train track to that destination, and now are driving our train down those tracks. We, all of humanity, would have to tear up the train tracks and move them to avoid this destination. So, we are heading for these specific destinations. (things like no more war, abundance mentality...)
Lets say you knew about IR light. The only thing required is to build a detector. So, it is only a matter of time before you built such a detector.
Lets say you had an ancient text that talked about IR light and the detector they built. Now, you are even more sure, that all you have to do is find a way because it has already been done, now you just have to repeat it.
And such it is with this quantum aura lens.
People can already use their third eye to see this. And there have been many scientists who have created devices that have helped many see (but not all). There is definitely something there. And there are ancient texts about how such a thing can be built. Now, it is just a matter of time before one is created.
I loved your post. So very true.
It is amazing that in this century - that something so logical, (and with fossils), it's close to empirical fact... - but is somehow still a debating point.
Hopefully your post will snap someone out of their delusional state! lol
It is amazing, I can only try and help in my own little way :-)
Cg
religion has had its fair share in the history of mankind, Darwin then like most scientists today believed solely in the physical, the fossils are here to prove them, yes,but mans divinity goes beyond the ape evolution theory. at first the evolution from apes was mainly linked to Africans, black monkey is still a common insults to the blacks today.
as a geologist, i also work with fossils, a lot of paleo information are stored in them, the adoption of the theory was a nice one even though it was not accepted in its entirety
I think you mean the perception of Man's divinity.
However if it truly did, then religious people would have a lot easier times accepting the facts; or at least monotheistic religious people. They just can't seem to accept that if God made man in his image, he decided to do a caricature with the apes.
Cg
Darwin's theory and assumptions are definitely interesting... From his concept of evolution to natural selection and survival of the fittest. All of these aims to understand the historical and biological origins of man. So it is not surprising that theory of evolution by Charles Darwin calls for criticisms since it opposes the teachings of the bible.