Reading the printed writings of yesterday gave rise again to further writings for today. First of all, I only wrote the first of two addendums yesterday. Then, the writings of yesterday disturbed some old notions that now need addressing, such as the continuity of existence, the interaction between the old concepts of the ‘temporal’ and the ‘eternal’ and the transitions and function of the high god image in world religions.
The best place to begin, is at the beginning.
These constitute a collection of bones to chew on for a while. But, as Canada’s famous philosopher Whinny the Pooh said: ‘The best place to begin, is at the beginning.’ That in my case is addendum 2, which was left unattended yesterday.
Addendum 2 for Human Destiny:
The meaning and purpose of human existence has been a topic of interest, examination, debate and maybe even wars throughout recorded human heritage - history that is - and before. Two aspects stand out for me as I review the results of my readings, investigations and studies.
First there is the almost universal notion among the religions of humanity that we are destined for something better than this earthly existence and that we need to start at a very low beginning.
The Heidelberg catechism: As a human I was conceived and born in sin and am inclined to all evil.
An example of this is a teaching I was subjected to as a youngster taking in Heidelberg catechism classes such as the following. “As a human I was conceived and born in sin and am inclined to all evil.” No kidding, I knew I was not perfect, but inclined to - not just capable of - all evil? As an aside, in 1992 I wrote my own catechism, as is posted on this website.
Returning to my observation of the universal teaching of life on earth as being inadequate an other example comes to mind and that is the one of the Gnostics from around 200BC to 500AD. They held that a spark of light was trapped in matter on this earth in the human body, which had to be freed through the teaching of Gnostic wisdoms.
This was in opposition to the sinful Christian believers who had to be saved from their sin through faith, not knowledge. The debate between these two religions carried on for hundreds of years. Also in the Hindi teachings we find the idea that humans have to become more pure and the Buddhist also strive to improve the human lot through deeds of merit.
So, we find this universal notion of the human, being inadequate as he or she is. This is not just the notion that there is room for improvement; No, No! We are talking about a notion that the human is fundamentally flawed and needs to be redeemed through one method or another.
As I studied the emergence of humanity within and from the continent of Africa in such books as ‘Deep Ancestry’ by Spencer Wells, a differing perspective emerged. Humans had done very well according to those new records, starting off with wooden spears, fire and some stone tools it only took one thousand of contiguous sixty year life times to put men and women into space, among other things.
Add to this that our world population is seven billion, reasonably well fed and living in relative peace with a slow but steady improvement for the lower billion of humanity. The complexity of our present human society is far beyond any in our history and functioning tolerably well.
My point is that the evidence today is proof that imperfect human beings are quite capable of an impressive performance improving their own society in many aspects.
This is our reality today and it is incumbent on us, as humankind to take notice of this process and its results. That means for us to become aware of our responsibility to intentionally continue with what we began not that long ago.
<8:40am, break and back at 8:59am>
In conclusion or rather as extension of the above observations, I put forward the view that we humans have a destiny and also a duty to explore all that is possible in this our human realm, enhancing consciously existence and its interconnectedness as this is brought into expression by us in our realm within the totality of Existence Divine, all informed by our handed down traditions.
<9:07am, end of addendum 2.
Other ideas needing elaboration.
- Necessity for earthly existence relating to temporal/ eternal existences.
- Continuity of existence.
- Transition of the high god image.
- Physical states: Matter, radiation (e-m), plasma, particles.
<9:18am and 9:41am~
