Monday, January 01, 2007

Theory of Devolution - Overview

A definition for the current age must surely be 'The Materialistic Age', well at least for so-called First World countries. Third World countries still suffer desperate poverty. Many countries are a mixture of both conditions. However, this has existed for as long as humans formed tribes and nations. Wealth often came through oppression resulting from an imbalance of power. Today, technology has introduced entertainment, transportation, productivity and a measure of wealth for the masses previously reserved for oppressors and royalty. Technology will increasingly play a vital and important part in the future but if technology equates to tools then it is not a new phenomenon. Tools made of wood, skin, bone and stone followed by the control of fire preceded the manufacture and use of papyrus and the building of the earliest pyramids. The Bronze and Iron Ages came later. This speaks volumes about the importance of the written word to our earliest ancestors and indicates the focus and direction of their great intelligence.

Tools or technology is thus all part of the current state of humankind. This differentiates humans from the animal kingdom, but it is not the only thing. The most primitive of people also have strange behaviours. They practise the worship of seen and unseen entities that they reason deserve their sacrifices and worship activities. The actions could arguably be an instinctive response of the spirit, but there is no question that it is a conscious decision of the mind. Animals too, may appear to have strange behaviours, such as the dog that turns in circles before settling down to sleep. We understand this to be a good defensive action, but it is instinctive, not one of its intellect.

Whether humans have this extra quality, along with intelligence, called the spirit, is debatable because by definition, it is not physical and therefore it is not physically detectable, but we see its results, like the invisible wind, that reveals itself by its effects.

There is a story that precedes writing, about a time when the spirit was the most significant and important part of the human being and apparently there was no need for tools. The human's name was Adam and he communicated easily, naturally and openly with his creator who was his Father and God. As a loving father, God saw that Adam needed a wife. It is significant that he took a rib from Adam to make a wife for him. He did this after putting Adam into a 'deep sleep' - the first anaesthetic.

This reminds us that when God created the birds and animals the record says repeatedly that after their kind they would increase in numbers, implying that He created male and female for each creature. Adam's rib was a simple way to get all the genes and DNA, the signature parts of him that made him uniquely human. Her name was Eve. They lived in a beautiful garden, called Eden. It provided for their every need and for the needs of their animals. Adam's most difficult task was to name the animals.

The state they lived in, in Eden was very different to their end state. This end state is the same state we have today, or is it?