Friends, a long, long time ago our ancestors must’ve looked much like this. Sure, it’s not a pretty sight but we humans had to start somewhere. The more important question to me is: where are we now and where are we heading?
Well, let’s first consider the image and try to ascertain what it tells us. Semi-humans in that time were moving from ape-hood to human-hood. Note the hair and the nudity. Silicon implants or penis-lengthening or hair-blonding or face-lifts had not yet been discovered so what you saw in those days is what you got, like it or lump it!
Clothes hadn’t been made yet so it was impossible for the semi-humans to dress up to the nines. They couldn’t hide behind their clothes, use them as bait, or to camouflage physical shortcomings. There weren’t hair removal salons then either or gymnasiums. Cosmetics weren’t part of the mix either or eyebrow darkening, so blemishes were there for all to see.
Yet the couple shown seem happy enough and they even seem to exhibit affection for each other (although the man might be holding her so she doesn’t get away!).
What strikes me about the image is its simplicity, its innocence.
It contrasts strongly with the average couple of today who, between divorces, lead busy, stress-filled lives. They are juggling kids, careers, lovers, mortgages, alcoholism and drugs, social climbing, sagging breasts and tummies, wrinkles, bad breath, dinner parties, kid’s sports, car repairs, fights with neighbours, dogs barking, garbage collections, gray hair, noise pollution, etc, etc.
With all this to contend with, it seems as if we might have made some bad decision way back then, perhaps a procession of bad decisions. We’ve gone from simplicity to complexity. We’ve gone from the possibility of being eaten by wild animals to being eaten by cancer or dying from heart-attacks caused by obesity and stress.
Instead of local conflicts over food, we now fight as nations or as groups of them and kill millions. Instead of using clubs, we have nuclear weapons. Instead of planetary purity we live in a badly polluted world which may burn us and the fish in the ocean are rapidly being depleted as are wild creatures and the icecaps.
Yes, between back then and now it’s obvious that some bad choices have been made.
Can we unscramble the eggs? Or is it too late?
David, this was the funniest piece I have read in a long time! Brilliant.
Yeah, where did it all go wrong?
Clothing is remarkable for all it has done for humans and for all it does to separate us. Burkas that cover a lady’s face, anyone? – Am not just picking on one group. That is but one example. Clothes are important to how I get treated – depending on where I go and what I wear.
We are still primal creatures “under it all.”
That line about the man holding her so she won’t get away was hysterical. After I wrote a comment one day about the birth of my son and how the moment my husband knew it was his.. – that was a reflection of how my husband’s primal mind works and had nothing to do with me. We were in love and there wasn’t any question it was his child. BUT still, he wasn’t so interested in the child – until he got that primal cue – and then he knew it was HIS.
Back to my point that we are still primal creatures underneath our clothing.
Thanks!
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Grace, I’m so glad you liked this article. It’s interesting to think about why we ended up where we are and where we are headed. Not many people engage in such reflections.
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Clothing belonged to the first wave of technology, along with primitive tools/weapons. Moderns don’t see it as “tech”, but it is. The genesis myths worldwide feature humankind being nurtured by some food-bearing tree (refer to the marvelous but out of print book by Henry Bailey Stevens, “The Recovery of Culture”). Closer to this society’s home, Genesis 1:29 depicts the creator giving “every herb bearing seed (nuts) and every fruit containing a tree-producing seed (tree fruit)” to serve as meat/food, “meat” being the SOLID sustenance of any species. For felines, “meat” is flesh. For humans, “meat” is fruit and nuts–tree crops. It is wrong to refer to “flesh” as “meat,” unless you are a lion. Flesh is NOT true human “meat” and the fact that people can live entire lifetimes without it speaks volumes. Felines cannot live apart from the taurine in flesh.
The picture in the article shows a very barren environment, but we need to look at the HABITATS of the OTHER TWO higher primate species–gorilla and orangutan, both of whom occupy EQUATORIAL habitats albeit in different continents–to determine wherein lies our true GENESIS or beginning.
Anatomically and physiologically, the human is a frugivore, not a vegetarian. Darwin said as much, and his was a scientific echo to the mandate of Genesis 1:29 to eat tree crops. Our closest cousins in form are these two higher primates and their food preferences are fruit. The equatorial forests are perfect for providing some tree crop or another year round. This is not so in the savannah or other tree-sparse habitats.
The beauty of this diet is the almost total lack of any need for fire or technology. Who needs fire at the equator? And, yes, we may have had more hair, but in any event, NATURE DOES NOT FASHION ANY BEING INTO AN ENVIRONMENT THAT INHERENTLY PROVES HOSTILE. Humans MOVED away from “home” and suffered the consequences.
This diet is dependent more on PERENNIAL plants than on annual plants. Perennials like trees do NOT have to be destroyed to gather the yearly or seasonal yield, and they stand year after year providing their respective cornucopias.
Adamah (the primordial human) was not a gardener, but rather an orchardist. Neither clothing nor technology like reapers, combines, plows, etc. was needed. With more time came more opportunity to wonder and wander–the trees will be there when you return. Such a life provides the chance to be unencumbered by “possessions.” Why drag everything around? Nor was a tragic attachment to property part of our collective curse, and with that the social property that continues to curse us in the guise of border-defined nations. No species save ours transforms the NATURAL sense of spatial identity (territoriality)–which naturally must occur in the true natural habitat, for us in the rainforest–into artificial tracts of land that leads to covetousness and incessant warfare over land/resource conquest.
By craving flesh, the first “fallen” humans now required tools/weapons along with fire, lest the parasitized flesh of animals lead to disease. With clothes, fire capture and tools/weapons, the first flesh eaters were “freed” from their equatorial moorings to travel into NON-HUMAN habitats, even unto the barren, frigid polar regions.
The occupational “offspring” of Adamah were Cain and Abel, who extracted food from ANNUAL plants (grains, legumes, vegetables) and animals, respectively. This occurred beyond the now fabled orchard dubbed “Paradise,” from the ancient Persian word, “paradesa,” wherein fruit and nut trees were grown. On the cross, Jeshua is reputed to encourage the “good thief”–one of two fellows sharing his fate–by promising him that on that day they would be joined in PARADISE, not a garden.
In schools they report ADVANCES in human progress via various “revolutions,” the earliest including those that led to “agricultural (“Cain”)” and the domestication of animals (“Abel”).
There is a saying, “Greater gods for greater men, and lesser gods for lesser men.” As hunting, fishing (which is merely hunting in the water) and trapping humans moved far beyond the protection of the equatorial rainforest, they entered extremely inhospitable non-human habitat. These places had seasons that were more marked, and at least one (winter) where tree crops were absent. In such places, the shedding of blood for flesh came to be an artificial “necessity.” Gods were fashioned that not only approved of the kill, but who demanded blood sacrifice. War gods like Jehovah–among others–rose above more pacifistic, nurturing concepts of deity. Utter destruction of “the enemy” was warranted. Flesh-eating humans had finally devolved into that which nature made them not–a streamlined predator, equally good at killing all manner of living beings as well as each other.
Clothing created nudity, bareness and nakedness. In truth, THERE IS NO SUCH STATE AS NUDITY, ET AL. One must PUT something on and then TAKE it off before one can be naked. Is your cat or dog or the bird in the tree naked? Of course not. NO ANIMAL IN ITS NATURAL HABITAT REQUIRES ARTIFICIAL COVERING. Again, no creature evolves in HOSTILE habitat.
Humans are now so far down the road from the peak of frugivorous purity into the valley of eternal bloodshed and habitat destruction that they are literally poisoned by the Cult of Culture and strangled by all of its tentacles–superstition/religion, statecraft, fashion, miseducation, etc.
The lid to King Tut’s sarcophagus shows a regal being holding the SYMBOLS OF PRIMITIVE POWER, the shepherd’s crook (ABEL) and the farmer’s flail (CAIN). When humans fell into the labor intensive, tool-requisite diet that focused not on tree crops but rather on “annuals and animals,” the unnecessary “work” had to be organized along lines of gender, age, etc. Societies were fragmented by the new diet. In ages past, the families were tight and they roamed from one fruited arbor to the next. Not so today.
We are deceived by our apparent–not real–control over the environment by means of tech devices that allow for an even further fragmentation of the basic social unit. The car, the phone, e-mail, etc. give a false sense of “staying together” despite the fact that its proponents often live thousands of miles apart. A very social animal, most humans would NOT stray from the extended family WITHOUT such falsely “connecting” means.
Another tragic outcome of the human abandonment of Paradise is the TRASHING of our true habitat–the destruction of rainforest, home of MEGA-DIVERSITY not to mention the place where what we were would have been able to continue to EVOLVE–and that largely to support the FLESH diet through increased grazing and farming areas that once proudly sustained trees.
Humans no longer identify with their true habitat. As such, they have crowned themselves GODS on Earth, free to travel at high speeds from pole to pole, to inhabit all therein, and to replace TRUE animal and plant natives anywhere and everywhere.
RETURNING to the equatorial rainforest to nurture tree crops with a much smaller band of fellows from our species–surely not 6 billions–and employ far less tech (maybe even abandon clothes and the false concept of nudity) is always an option, but not to this race of maddened, miseducated buffoons. Two million people flocked to Chicago to celebrate the Black Hawks’ conquest of the Stanley Cup yesterday–did two million people flock to the Gulf of Mexico to protest the greatest act of ecocide in human history–the BP oil blowout? Did 200,000? How about 20,000? 2,000? Maybe 200??? Sorry, if that happened, missed it on the news.
Sadly, modern humans are hypnotized by “bread and circuses,” as in the days of decadent, falling Imperial Rome. Keep them eating garbage and watching TV and they’ll never spring from their chairs to protest their own self-annihilation engineered by the few for the insane many.
“Those whom the gods would destroy are first made mad.”
But then again, “Hope springs eternal.” We just need to be reminded WHO and WHAT we are, and WHERE we came from and where we need to return.
Nothing else really matters, fashion and clothing notwithstanding.
Ted PanDeva Zagar
PanDeva@aol.com
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David G Reply:
June 13th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Wow, Ted, that was quite a mouthful! I’m sure it will create a reaction.
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Ted Zagar Reply:
June 13th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Hahaha! My mother always said, “Don’t speak with your mouth full!”
Thanks for the great website. I only recently discovered it and I enjoy each thoughtful piece by you and your readers.
Ted
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TJ Reply:
June 14th, 2010 at 4:19 am
Ted, your comment reminds me of Anastasia whom I wish to be with.
http://groups.google.com/group/the-venus-project
Grace Reply:
June 15th, 2010 at 11:14 am
NATURE DOES NOT FASHION ANY BEING INTO AN ENVIRONMENT THAT INHERENTLY PROVES HOSTILE. Humans MOVED away from “home” and suffered the consequences.
Probably, for sure, it was a forced change of location or perhaps, the desire to just see what is over the next hill.. for sure it was the moving away from the equatorial weather that forced us humans to get clever with clothing and of course, hunting animals provides skin and fur as well as meat.
Because I was deeply affected by Chariots of the Gods when I was a young girl, Iam inclined towards the myth that humans – or perhaps, some humans descended as a result of extraterrestrial travelers that performed the first human genetic genomes on this earth. To be subservient to the needs of these gods. The myth that gods that could rule our lives only persisted because some enterprising sociopath realized he could control masses of people with such a myth. The infallible Pope was born and many a charlatan since. Cave paintings from thousands of years ago depicting flying craft, don’t lie, IMO.
Christ, Buddha and many a documented yogi have tried to set us free – if anyone would listen. The only problem they all have in commom is that they told humans that they would have to let go of their attachments to self. That really turned people off. OR maybe we had to develop a sense of self in order to have something to renounce?
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We have become too smart for our own good. All the primitive parts of our brain that we are not even consciously aware of are making decisions for us and we now have the technology developed by our more recent advanced brain to carry out these very primitive emotional decisions.
If all we had was a a stick or a rock we could not do too much damage, but a gun or rocket or nuclear weapon and we are a serious danger.
We are smart in technology, but not wise in how to live together peacefully. We have lost that knowledge as we became more “civilized”. Sadly the technology will probably destroy us before we are able to regain our lost knowledge of how to live as part of the enviroment instead of “masters” over it.
Wonderful piece Ted!!!
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The creation myth is just that; a myth; a fairy tale designed to keep young children in awe. The evolution theory is still just that; a theory. But another story emerged several millenia ago which puts into a better perspective what we humans are, how we got here and perhaps explains why we are unable to return to such simplicity.
The story of the Anunaki or the creation story of the ancient Babylonian (or Iraq) civilization tells of an alien race coming to this planet, manipulating the genetics of the existing primates in order to create a race of slaves for their mining needs. The new breed (or humans) viewed the Anunaki as ‘gods’ until they got tired of being slaves. Eventually the hybrids revolted and drove off the ‘gods’ and the rest, as they say, is history.
While there is no physical evidence of this story being true, the oldest known writings on the planet talk of this event. Whether true or just fable, the fact remains humans are different than the primates but not by their intelligence. Their genes are different.
We can speculate ’til the cows come home on how humans got here, but judging from the seemingly innate nature of humans to be egocentric, selfish and self-serving, I tend to believe it is indeed in our genes to be ‘different’ than the other species on this planet but not necessarily better. And I doubt we can even go back to that simple-ness we see around us in the animal world.
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
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Oh boy, a big O can of worms! If on one hand, man is a natural occurance on this planet? How can anything man does or developes be not a natural part of (evolution) on this planet? If on the other hand, man is somehow unique, or not an occurance of natural evolutionary processes, only then can we be determental, (do unnatural things) to this planet or world we live in. The question in my mind is mans inhumanity to man. Carl Sagan said in his book “Cosmos”; “how can the universe not unfold as it should?” I really enjoy the discussion, thanks!
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TJ & Anastasia 4Ever.
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TJ, who the hell is Anastasia?
Jeannie, our ‘technological’ brain has far outstripped our commonsense. Talk about children playing with fire!
Americagulag, I loved your last sentence.
76-water, if you saw soldiers in action or footage of a human raping or murdering a woman or a father or mother committing incest with their children I don’t know that you would think that humans were unique. Our primitive, base instincts are very strong.
Grace, Anastasia again. Will someone enlighten me?
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Amerikagulag Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 3:09 am
Dave, I can’t take credit for it. I believe it’s a Jimmy Hendrix quote.
It is, however, one of the most profound and deep statements I’ve seen spoken by any human.
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
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Ha, David it was only an unsubstantiated impression that TJ misses and loves someone named Anastassia. I know what it is like to love someone who once was and to know that the love is undying. He just touched something in me with what he said. Again not knowing more myself, David. Best to all, people.
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Ted Zagar Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 1:00 am
My friend David was moved enough by a dream several days ago that he contacted me by e-mail. All of this was going on at the very time that I was writing my piece about clothing and human origins at the equator, diet, etc.
David dreamed that I was once again in the company of a female (my beloved died in 2002 of brain cancer) whose hair was a color between blonde and brunette. She was a very mature, quite together person and he was engaged in conversation with her as I walked ahead.
There were other details but TJ’s remark set me off on a web hunt and I think that I may have found his Anastasia. She lives in the great expanse of taiga in the Russian wilderness and prefers to wear no clothes when not in the presence of people. She communes with animals and has psychic abilities. By her influence a series of books are being released in the hope that world peace and the understanding of many things about life would result.
Here is a URL that might shed some light on THIS Anastasia, and I would not be surprised if this turns out to be TJ’s referenced Anastasia
http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/jan1/anastas.htm
Cheers to all,
Ted PanDeva Zagar
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I also believe earth was/is visited by others from a distant galaxy.
The Abrahamic faiths all wait for another visit from the “messiah” which could be interpreted as a return visit from ‘heaven’.
I think the reason most people cannot remember their first 2-3 years is because we do not have language skills as babies to put events into words.
When a person is inebrieted with drugs/alcohol and is still walking & talking then that is when I think the limbic brain takes over. How else to explain black outs?
Maybe we evolved naturally but then why do apes not seem to be turning human?
Also because apes & other animals have no language that humans’ haven’t decoded, we assign them to a lower class – I always wonder what my dogs would tell me if they had the power of speech. They communicate their needs easily with no speech, but I’d like to hear their opinions too.
I’ve never heard that perspective about paradise before, very interesting, love to hear about what I don’t know.
Hope everyone here is well & in good spirits.
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I really liked the Anastasia links. If true, perhaps there is hope for humanity.
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Ted Zagar Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 4:18 am
My friend David who had the dream just responded to my Anastasia link and he stfrongly believes that this is the woman in his dream with whom I have become only recently linked (not romantically, but nevertheless on some lofty, significant level).
I find all of this intriguing. Only of late do I discover this web site. David G writes a piece on our origins and mentions clothes. I reply with a perspective on human genesis–our most remote ancestors tending an orchard sans clothes–and then TJ is reminded by my genesis narrative (where clothes and tech free humans tend trees for their fruits and nuts) of Anastasia, a woman who prefers a clothes free existence and who eats the protein-rich offerings of pine trees and who has befriended animals and seeks world peace.
If this woman is special, psychic, etc., IS IT POSSIBLE THAT SHE IS AWARE OF OUR MUTUAL CONVERGENCE TO THIS POINT IN TIMESPACE, AND THAT, FURTHER, SHE HAD A HAND IN FRIEND DAVID’S DREAM?????
Lots to think about.
I’ll muse later about my thoughts on how the Great Science of Astrology has been minimized by the Cult of Culture, but how its resurgence is assured by the rise of the Age of Aquarius/astrology. The fading two-millennium Age of Pisces–which rules fossil fuels–was symbolized by 2 Fish (and considering its place opposite Virgo on the zodiacal wheel, a Maiden/Virgin carrying loaves or shafts of grain–the CULT of the VIRGIN MARY has run the length of the Age of Pisces). All of the Old and New Testament prophets HAD to be stargazers as forecasting is a process that involves both right brain/left brain involvement–intuition/subjective perception and also science/objective facts.
Alas, KEY SYMBOLS of astrology have been misunderstood, leading people away from knowledge into the fog.
Jeshua took a crowd into the wilderness to a high place, fed them 2 fish and 5 loaves, and the collected remnants filled 12 baskets. Cute story–”the miracle of the fish and loaves.”
One problem. He was a Nazarite, and thus ate no animals, not even fish. “Abandon your nets and I will make you fishers of men’s souls.” He threw the money CHANGERS (not lenders) out of the Temple as they were exchanging foreign currency for Temple coinage so that they could buy goats and doves for blood sacrifice, an abomination to the Nazarites as well as to the vegetarian Essenes (Dead Sea scroll authors) and Therapeutae (families who dwelled in Egypt with whom the fleeing Holy Family likely lived after Jeshua the baby was sought by Herod’s murderous troops at age 2).
Pisces-Virgo ROSE during Jeshua’s time, and in the spirit of the Magi (Zoroastrian/Persian astrologers) who attended his nativity, he followed the mandate of Genesis 1:14 to use the “lights in the firmament of the heavens to serve as signs.”
So he was “feeding”/teaching the cosmic Mega-Environmental science of astrology in the best place possible–a high place in the desert where the rising and setting of spheres is best observed–and the teaching had the stamp of Pisces/2 Fish-Virgo/Maiden with Loaves. The “remnants” of the teaching filled the 12 zodiacal baskets, suggesting that learning is ongoing, but we learn WITH BOTH the inner and outer cycles–which are linked–each firmly within our view.
The CROSS in the heavens that ties together the four fixed signs of TAURUS/BULL, LEO/LION, EAGLE/SCORPIO (the Scorpion is the low end symbol that rises to the top via transformation, governed by Scorpio/Pluto) and the ANGEL/Man/Urnbearer/AQUARIUS was GROSSLY MISUNDERSTOOD by the author of CHARIOTS OF THE GODS to be ancient extraterrestrial astronauts when he read the Book of Ezekiel, the prophet-astrologer whose vision included a vehicle with four heavenly occupants with heads of a lion, bull, eagle and angel/man that author (and convicted fraud and admitted liar and false embellisher of his misleading writings) Erich von Daniken mistook for the helmets of alien spacemen.
As a much-published Wellness Astrologer, I will discuss why I believe that space travel is impossible unless you devolve into mechanized beings or androids. Like author Steiger, I prefer to be open minded about anomalies like space craft, etc. but we seem agreeable to the notion that these are TERRESTRIAL in origin, perhaps remnants from a collapsed techno-society that is so old as to be all but forgotten. Atlanteans? If we ran everything into the ground today and the few survivors became quite primitive, would it not be possible that space junk would continue to fall from the skies–maybe even something programmed to look/act intelligent (nearly ALL military space programming is secret even unto Congress)?
Well, got to do some work!
Later and enjoy this very moment,
Ted PanDeva Zagar
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Grace, we’ve all loved someone who didn’t reciprocate or died. Memory can be cruel sometimes.
Ted, your loss is tragic. But as Buddha said: we must expect loss during our lives. It’s easy to say, I guess. I looked up your link. Interesting.
Kate, my own feeling is that a mutation took place, similar to that which eventually allowed some reptiles to fly (birds).
It’s funny that humans who have dismissed the ‘GOD’ explanation often take up the ‘beings from outer space’ theory. I think there are too many similarities between humans and apes to seriously consider that as a possibility but who knows?
Ted, humans are desperate to add other dimensions to their view of life because to think that we are just a cosmic accident, to think that we are alone in the universe, to think that we have no other purpose than that of mindless procreation is all too hard for the average person to deal with.
I can deal with that reality harsh as it is but that is just my reality. If others want to embrace aspects of theology or spiritualism or be inspired by the thoughts of a naked woman in Russia, whatever floats their boat is fine with me and more power to them.
On this blog we try our best to seek truth. Sometimes the truth is not very palatable.
P.S. Ted, as an afterthought, I just Googled PanDeva Zagar and it came up with some interesting results. I suggest that my other friends on DC do the same.
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I don’t think it’s where we went wrong, but rather where Nature went wrong. After millions of years of producing life-forms that operated purely on instinct, Nature figured it would step it up a notch and dabble with sentience. It backfired, and now nature can’t contain the fire it created. Or, for a more relevant metaphor, the crude oil eruption. Nature gave us the very tools we would need to fight it, and each other. A war without end. I won’t say that we never should’ve been here; I’ll simply say Nature’s first foray into creating self-aware creatures was a bad first run, overall. When the whales or the elephants finally evolve into highly intelligent beings capable of building and communicating through written language (if, of course, their human predecessors don’t kill them off beforehand), Nature will have wisely removed a few traits from the formula of sentience, such as greed and prejudice, and will have instilled a more socially-based collective survival instinct rather than the “every genetic line for itself” instinctual drive we were given. We’re just a first draft on Earth’s cosmic drawing board, nothing more. We’ll go away, eventually, and make room for a more capable and nobler species.
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We sure are a flawed ‘first draft’ Late Revolution. That’s why claims that we were made by some ‘loving god’ are so ridiculous.
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I too find it strange when people deny evolution.when I was young I was taught to not only ask questions but to question answers. I joined a local youth club which was church affiliated.We were told to raise our hands if we believed in God> Mine was the only hand which stayed down. The Church leader told me if I did not believe in God I better leave immediately, Which I did. I’m still a non believer now 50 years on. If there is a God, he sure has a strange way of running the mess we are in now, Ah well, tomorrow is another day
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David G Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
You are lucky to have escaped the clutches of the religiously deranged, Robin! Good on you.
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