Cellular
March 31, 2008Scientific research like this interests me beyond imagination. I find it fascinating how researchers find pieces of real-world evidence that actually support many myths and legends found in cultures all over the world. Fire raining from the sky, as in Sodom and Gomorra, is not something exclusive to the bible/torah - similar myths and legends can be found all over the world. The same thing goes for the story of Noah, and the big flood God caused to whipe the slate clean. Stories of such epic floods can be found in cultures as diverse as the Mayans, Egyptians, and our Christian/Muslim/Judaic cultures (let’s face it, those last three are more or less the same).
To me, this indicates that various global disasters are somehow engraved in mankind’s collective consciousness. It is not hard to imagine that the end of some ice age, which obviously would lead to a dramatic rise in sea level and loss of habitable land all over the world, has somehow made its way to various folk tales and myths, passed on from generation to generation, until someone decided to pen them down - like the writers of the Old Testament did.
Personally, I think cellular memory can account for more of these kinds of cases. Take the dragon, for instance. Dragons appear in cultures all over the world, in one form or another. In any case, lizard-like creatures that may or may not breath fire. Now, how can you explain that cultures that have never had any contact with one another, share the concept of the ‘dragon’?
To me, cellular memory is something that may explain this. Even though this is utterly speculative, with no roots in any proper scientific studies that I know of, I think it would be feasible that our early ancestors - small rodent mammals - who lived during the ages of the dinosaurs, somehow engraved “memories” of these gigantic creatures into their cells, over long periods of time.
Evolution took its course, eventually leading to us - a species with a very well developed brains, most likely the first ever brain capable of ‘wording’, of ‘communicating’, bits and pieces of this cellular memory, leading to the fact that the ‘dragon concept’ manifested itself all over the world.
Despite there being no scientific base for these claims, it seems reasonable to me, it makes sense to me. It can explain many startling similarities between vastly differing cultures, cultures that may not have even existed alongside one another during the same timespan.
Think about this one for a while. It’s interesting material, and I’ve always been saddened by the fact that studies into this matter are far, far beyond my capabilities.
Stories of such epic floods can be found in cultures as diverse as the Mayans, Egyptians, and our Christian/Muslim/Judaic cultures (let’s face it, those last three are more or less the same).
As in, Emmentaler, Mozarella and Gorgonzola are more or less the same? :P
Comment by herman — March 31, 2008 @ 11:17 pm
Christian/Muslim/Judaic cultures (let’s face it, those last three are more or less the same).
Not to be redundant to herman’s post, but as a non-religious person even I know that those three are worlds apart as religions. Sure, they share the same common root “god” but that’s about it. For example, both Judaism and Islam refute the New Testament and consider it blasphemy. Christianity embraces Judaism’s Torah as the first part of its “Old Testament” and considers Islam’s Qur’an to be the work of “the devil”. As you should know, there are countless other major differences between the three.
Please note I’m not defending any one of the above three; I don’t profess any of them. I’m not an athiest (a religion itself) or agnostic, just not religious at all. It simply irks me to see supposition and/or stereotype put forth as fact.
Comment by Morgan — April 1, 2008 @ 11:02 am
The Qur’an only considers speaking of God as “having a son” is wrong, but doesn’t refute the NT, it merely states it contains errors inserted by humans.
Same thing for the Torah - which isn’t “Judaism’s Torah”, it’s both Christians’ (in Greek) and Jews’ (in Hebrew) and in fact everybody’s Torah, created by Judaic and Israelite religious and literary elites - however, the Jews are the ones to have preserved the original Hebrew texts, which is nice.
Judaism, as we know it, comes from the same Hellenistic cultural source as Christianity or rather, as Jesus (I know this is a controversial statement, but it’s for a fact). It has developed in its own unique direction, but when Judaism uses the word Torah it does not mean the OT but much more.
I actually don’t know if “Christianity” considers the Qur’an to be a diabolic work - I mean, officially, i.e., clergy claiming that. Obviously, that would be sad since Muslims, and the Qur’an, love Jesus, generally. :)
But I do have to say that you approach the matter from a very “who hates who” type point of view. I wouldn’t take that approach because it’s silly and it’s of no interest to common believers. And I agree with Thom it’s far more interesting to see what they have in common.
As for the cellular thing theory, I’m not sure if I understand it really.. sounds good. But I’d just say there’s always been more contact between far-away cultures than we tend to think there has been.
Comment by herman — April 1, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
I think it’s all interesting, to even have a discussion on this. My perspective is that, and I like symbolism, if you have that line (no I didn’t talk about a line earlier, well maybe in a conversation I had with a somebody today), there is always people on either side, somewhere in the middle, and then all over throughout. Some Christians probably say it’s diabolic. Which I do not agree with. Just as some Jews would say Christians should be accepted and allowed to be. I’m not particularly religious, although it fascinates me.
I like your cellular theory, and it does kind of make sense. Kind of like collective memory I suppose. I suppose we share background with all living mammals. Who know’s were the apes strayed off and became humans? Or maybe humans strayed off and became apes. No, don’t quote that. I don’t know enough about Biology. It’s more a rhetorical question. It’s like that memory was imprinted though. Like us humans, generally, are scared of heights, spiders, and snakes. Cause we learned the hard way perhaps. So maybe those early Morgonucodons (not sure on the spelling there, but the rodents from the distant past), saw the fire-breathing dragons? And that’s why people from far different cultures and places around the world speak about dragons? Just checking that I’m following. So it might be interesting to know, which cultures, based on the Geology of Earth, you know like, Pangaea so to speak, actually have traditions about dragons, and which also had the rodents in question. Right?
Did I hijack this?
I sort of stumbled upon this page as I was looking for beautiful pictures, and couldn’t help but butt in.
Comment by jen — April 2, 2008 @ 1:19 am
>I’m not an atheist (a religion itself)
No it’s not. That’s stupid.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/02/18/is-science-faith-based/
Comment by Eugenia — April 2, 2008 @ 9:32 am
Eugenia, atheism != science. Your link does not apply.
We are also grossly off-topic here, btw.
Comment by Administrator — April 2, 2008 @ 9:38 am
Fine here are some other links then, here and here. Saying that atheism is a religion, is an insult to me, sorry.
Comment by Eugenia — April 2, 2008 @ 9:56 am
For all intents and purposes, many of the atheists out there profess their atheism with as vigorously as religious folks do. Many, many atheists look down upon religious people, and constantly belittle them. Happens all the time. You’re not one of them, by the way, Eugenia :).
From your first link:
Utter bullshit. I do not believe in god or any other deity, and yet, I am decidedly NOT an atheist. I don’t want to be associated in ANY way with “atheism”, seeing the ‘wrong’ type of atheist completely hijacked the term to profess their supposed moral superiority.
In its strictest meaning, yes, the guy is right. But out in the real world, atheism has become much more than simply ‘not believing in a god’. It’s become a way of life, with its members acting a lot like religious folk.
Don’t bother to reply here, by the way, I’ll turn this into my next blog post. If anyone wants to comment here, it will have to be on-topic, else it gets deleted.
Comment by Administrator — April 2, 2008 @ 5:06 pm