the origin of life and the universe

tell us more about the concept awen, being a celt l am interested!
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well, most of my posts are about it in one way or another. i am only part celt but the gundlestup cauldron [forgot spelling lols] was found in denmark so who knows what celtic is eh! :)
the awen has a very ancient roots, going right back to the 'cave cathedral culture' if i got it right, my view of it is contemporary though. best ask at obod [order of bards ovates and druids] forums if you want a more celtic answer.

to sum it up, i think the druids saw space as something from which all things arise, the stars, the sun the moon then earth. so they saw a kind of unmanifest version of everything that is manifest, then between the two is the language of magic, a collection of archetypes to which their astrology, gods and we connect.

it is a both a universal ‘source’ [keyword] and 'the way' of things, everything that we are, and what gods are, would be manifest of or making utility of this pool of life.

really there is only one thing; the awen, even infinity is only a partial explanation ~ as is anything else we may think of.
 
Interesting Z.
Looking at old civilizations, they invested a lot of energy into charting the cosmos.
All the old monuments were not just to look awe inspiring, but were markers of various points in the sky.
These days we have observatories of many kinds, but they are kind of removed by a few steps from the average person who pays such things virtually no heed at all.
Perhaps this is why we are all in step with artificial time (as opposed to natural time) and have lost our feelings of intimacy and connection with the earth and the cosmos.
We spend too much time gazing into our electronic navels or being mesmerized by the flames and the shadows on the cave wall.
 
Looking at old civilizations, they invested a lot of energy into charting the cosmos.
All the old monuments were not just to look awe inspiring, but were markers of various points in the sky.
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exactly, there is a connectivity as if reality is a load of points and each has a field, yet all fields are actually one thing [the awen]. the way these points connect has peculiar properties according to their patterns, one pattern correlates with e.g. taurus the bull, which in turn matches certain universal characteristics [archetypes]. so you connect to tour region of the cosmos, your position to that and all other archetypes denotes a relationship, this collectively charts the set of relationships and the transpire over time.

science would argue that astrology is wrong because the earth is not the centre of the solar system, yet the sun is not the centre of the universe, in fact there is no centre specifically, everywhere is the centre of the singularity. hence your position upon earth is central! your relationship to the cosmos is universal.

there is another set of many such correlating patterns of reality, the ancient iberians [ancestors of britons], built circles and stones in alignment with the points between mountains. the very ancient egyptians done the same in the first pharaoh’s tomb, they connected the door of the tomb to where two mountains met on the horizon. this denoted the path of the soul into elysium.

so there are all manner of ‘connectives’ all via a single medium ~ the awen. :)
 
The medicine wheel in North American tradition is like that.
It is a clear marker of celestial references and is used also to bring the diverse groups together at key times.
Kind of like an Indian stonehenge.
 
yes i read about that, its very similar. :) circle dancing too, the pre druidic britons who built the stone circles were into that so i believe. both are representations of the cyclic nature of things we see around us. the indians also had a 'great spirit' notion which maybe similar to the awen.
 
4-5wrld

Here is a quote from the page


At the Native American Star Knowledge Conference held in South Dakota in June, 1996, senior Oglala Sioux spiritual elder Looks-For-Buffalo (Floyd Hand) revealed that ancient prophecies are now coming true. These prophecies, heralding immense changes for humankind, point to the imminent return of the Star Nations, what the white man would call extraterrestrial cultures.


The Hopi, Sioux and other tribal traditions hold that at this point in history, we are about to transition from the current pattern of civilization to a radically-different way of living. This change is so profound that it is called the passage from the Fourth (current) World to the Fifth World! By "world", the native traditions refer to a slow gradual rise of the human population to a period of widely-shared cultural and technological high civilization. The implications of these indigenous teachings are staggering. For this means that we humans have gone through three previous Worlds, in which our ancestors rose to a peak of civilized living, only to crash back to a primitive level.
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i certainly agree that we are going through an immense change, this is inevitable given our misuse of our material resources + greed etc. we could easily fall back to an almost stone age way of life.

don’t know about the aliens, perhaps that is a confused translation of ancient thought to modern. the ancients may have considered they were from the stars just as their temples pyramids ect were built to send them back. yet i feel this is more a stellar origin for the soul, rather than on the material plane.

thanks for the link. :)
 
seconded,
reminds me on a new religion on tv recently [based in s.america?] which has extra terrestrial beliefs and of course there are heaps of new age books on channeling etc concerning same, as well as the older theosophy of Nick A [?] of the 7 rays [eg 'the 7 stars of the great bear [ursa major] are the originating sources of the 7 rays of our solar system...we are considering the expression of the shamballah force in terms of Will ie of divine purpose,latent in the mind of g#d since the beginning of time and the dawn of creation. In g#ds mind, that idea is seen whole and complete. In manifestation it is gradual, self revealing evolutionary and demonstrated activity' alice bailey 'esoteric astrology' written 1934].
the dog star sirius amd the pleiades seem particularly important in evolutionary consciousness in both the old and the new eg Hand Clow 2012: Home
 
of the 7 rays eg ‘the 7 stars of the great bear
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hmm there are also 7 rays and 7 orb realms in both the tibetan and egyptian books of the dead. maybe a correlation there somewhere, the orb realms exist between worlds/realms.

we are considering the expression of the shamballah force in terms of Will ie of divine purpose,latent in the mind of g#d since the beginning of time and the dawn of creation. In g#ds mind, that idea is seen whole and complete.
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i don’t think we ever arrive at the whole and complete, i think there are just universals in terms of principles and elements all from and within the awen. this way any existence will always ‘work’ in a similar way to the world. this is just my opinion, though i have had quite lengthy debates concerning infinity VS whole and complete and usually break them down. i could be wrong though, yet we end up with all sorts of problems like; ‘who created the creator’ and when was the beginning and end etc etc.
 
_Z_ said:
hmm there are also 7 rays and 7 orb realms in both the tibetan and egyptian books of the dead. maybe a correlation there somewhere, the orb realms exist between worlds/realms.
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Hi Z!! Seems like a while since I saw you here.

But to the quoted statement....
The human mind has evolved and adapted to see patterns. Across the planet there are individuals who attach significance to almost every number. I suggest that you throw all such banalities out the window. This universe in which we find ourselves cannot be relegated or confined to a few simple primary numbers. To do so is to find oneself at 6's and 7's. There are, of course, some very significant numbers but they are not simple whole numbers. And even there it is not individual numbers but the patterns that they contribute to that demand audience. When people talk about science/physics/mathematics they/we/me tend to focus in on the number 'proofs' as though there were only the two schools needing reconciled, (quantum theory and Einsteinian physics). Chaos theory is still so new, (first postulated circa 1982?), that it barely figures into the thinking of the discussions we have here. Yet it and it alone has symmetry with that great enigma of mathematics, the significance of prime numbers. Using the equations of chaos theory we find meaningful patterns, (i.e. so persistent they cannot be 'chance'), in everything from musical scores to the distribution of galaxies in galactic clusters. We do not understand them yet but they are there taunting us, awaiting explanation. To get caught up in what is nothing but a wishful thinking as to the significance of some primary whole numbers is no more than saying the pebble you picked up on a beach somehow bestows one with a statistical advantage when playing lotto. It is not only not true it is a distraction from the significance of some sets of numbers we are yet to fully reason out and comprehend. You do not travel to Holland to learn to climb mountains.
 
To Native and your OP,

Creation myths explain nothing. Well none that I have looked at, and I must have, by now, looked at most of them. Some of them are infused with a raw intellect and an observational capacity that demands respect and are such adroit explanations they can seem almost supernaturally accurate. But they are not. Every generation throws up its share of people who think outside the box, who have a gift for observation and apply logic to it. Such minds had mystery and power and so they were recorded and mythologised.

Abiogenesis is a deliberately pejorative term used by some religionists, usually creationists, who revel in the arrogance of a smug ignorance they call 'faith'. Usually such people misrepresent science to be stating 'facts' when science, as you know, only presents hypothesis. Life, on this planet, got started at least 3 1/2 Billion years ago and science does not yet have the ability to detrmine exactly how. But just using DNA/RNA science is quite sure about the timescale. I predict that in the next 20-30 years we will travel far down the highway of knowledge on this subject. And, again, I predict that that which we tend to most malign, the virus and phage, will at that time be understood to be the 'origin' and the key to unlocking the mystery of what life is and how it evolves.
 
yes the OP 'in the beginning' was just picking up a point made by a govt report on religious education in scotland that children were confused about the creation of the universe/life, whether in a religious or scientific way of thinking, which depends on their upbringing and beliefs they were fed and/or drawn to, even at an early age.

My daughter for example 'believes' the truths of science over the 'man in the sky' god/baby talk still pervasive in primary schools at least and that was after attending sunday school and sussing out for herself her own thoughts on the matter. Of course it would have been different if l had brought her up in a christian household, or would it?

however it seems the new 'assessment for learning' protocol is moving towards a more sprituality rather than specifically christian led personal development in this more multicultural society- but old habits [sic] die hard so rote learning is still the norm unless they receive more indepth teachings regarding the value of both subjects [science and religion or the is and the ought or is that the other way around according to your perspective?] with regard to a broader understanding of the world. How morals and meanings influence, how biochemicals influence, how we conceive of the facts of cosmology etc.

Religious education here now encompasses moral and social development ultimately to enhance tolerance in a pluralistic society and for the pupil to have confidence to air their views without ridicule.

agreed we are early on in the comprehension of what we are bamboozled by but personally we build on what has gone on before the next geshalt shift and perhaps it will always be speculative fascinating as it is dont you think?
 
I am here, so of course I find it all fascinating ;)

I started a thread a couple of years ago inspired by my sons experience of religious education at his school in Argyll. Ostensibly this was because his teacher was a Presbyterian tyrant of the worst kind. And while the curriculum itself proposed a broad look at belief and spirituality I was concerned that this was heavily compromised by the bias of the teacher. My son has achieved above and sometimes well above average success in every other subject in his schooling. The only blemish on his academic record was delivered by this woman and not because Sam did not understand his lessons but because he was smart enough to ask difficult questions. Questions she punished him for.

More broadly under the current government we have seen an increase in the number of 'faith' schools. Such segregation to my mind is completely unacceptable. There is a collusion between state and religion to increase the capacity of religion to brainwash our kids. Something my personal ethics finds abhorrent. Like in the Zeitgeist film educational establishments are being infiltrated by religions to pump irrational and confusing nonsense to a group that is vulnerable to that tactic. To my mind it is nothing short of child abuse, something the religions have a long history of.

I believe that religion should form no more than a few months study under the social studies and history. And it should highlight the factual history of its barbarity. To do anything else is not 'education' but an effort of giving religion more merit than it justly deserves.
 
The thing is nobody really knows with absolute certainty how things really came to be.
It is, at the end of the day, really just educated guesses.
But that is hard to teach in schools of any kind as then they look ignorant to the students and the biggest lesson being taught is that the ones in control know what they are doing and why and they have everything of importance figured out.
So they teach their conjecture and educated guesses as being "the way it is".

I had some experience with teachers in college who were big on their pet interpretations and the ones who answered things based on those biases (basically just parroting back what the teacher had said) got the best marks.
Many papers I wrote came back with lots of red writing on them, as I was "too existential" in my ideas and so got correspondingly low marks.
But it was only one class that was that way, at least to that degree.

All of these religious notions (including evolution) which cover the origins of things should all be started out with the disclaimer that all material is just theories and it all should be handled that way throughout the entire course.
Even science doesn't have the handle on things yet either.
 
my children are taught creationism as their school is C of E. this i find highly annoying, i don’t mind it being taught but not as fact! incidentally druidry and many other kinds of spirituality will be added soon nationally, although i doubt if many teachers will mention it.

i think the atheist pov should be taught primarily, although this too is not certain, so in both cases [atheism and religion] they should be taught as probable truths not actual.
 
thanx for comments all, l think we all concur on the speculative nature of the subject matter and the need to broaden the scope on educating so called 'truths'; the times they are a changing hopefully with more eclectic teaching and more enlightened pupils who cannot disregard scientific theories well propagated in the media etc.

Nevertheless there are faith schools who do extremely well academically [thinking of a london based sikh one] who took in under performing pupils from disadvantaged schools who increased their results rapidly due to a] excellent enthusiastic teachers b] peer group levels of commitment or c] that fact that the pupils themselves orgranised their assemblies/themes of the day inculcating faith/belief in a higher power that will help them in their endeavours if they believe in themselves and what they are capable of.

I know some classrooms are so huge that the ones at the bottom or with psychological problems get kinda lost in the process and the ones at the top probably bored [but then they are the ones who will stimulate themselves out of school and within the family intellectual ambience].

Should these be govt funded or not? l think not but certainly here in scotland there are catholic schools which are state funded; in the glasgow area bigotry is still a culturally big thing still leading to violence, sad but true.

In actual fact pupils taking higher and advanced RE is increasing perhaps reflecting an interest in spiritual understanding in general, lets hope the curriculum conjoins it with critical thinking and philosophical analysis too,
 
Nevertheless there are faith schools who do extremely well academically [thinking of a london based sikh one] who took in under performing pupils from disadvantaged schools who increased their results rapidly due to a] excellent enthusiastic teachers
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insane people always are enthusiastic :D, believing in a made up deity is a bit like believing your teddy bear is alive.
the point is that it is not right to teach imagined truths, a school has only one duty and that is to teach knowledge. sure there are things we don’t know about, then that isn’t knowledge is it thus it should be taught as such. opinions are not relevant, all should be secular and none should be religious.

this applies to all belief systems including atheism.
 
a school has only one duty and that is to teach knowledge.
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I agree to a point.
I think that the schools primary focus should be on teaching pupils how to learn, how to figure things out, how to think critically and solve problems.
Life is one string of problems after another and so the better one is equipped to deal with that aspect of reality, the more successful they are likely to become.
Some schools are starting to do this, but yes, primarily they are there to ram that curriculum into their brains.
 
shawn said:
The medicine wheel in North American tradition is like that.
It is a clear marker of celestial references and is used also to bring the diverse groups together at key times.
Kind of like an Indian stonehenge.
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From what I understand of the Medicine Wheel, the celestial references are more like the cardinal points...North, South, East and West. The number 4 does seem to figure prominently in their way of breaking things down, and they seem to reference back to these four, plus up and down. These are the six directions one would smudge with sage, for instance, with an additional "up", making a total of seven directions.

I'm sure that stars and constellations play a part in their way of looking at things, but I haven't seen the Medicine Wheel itself connected directly to stars or constellations. More like directions and seasons. But you may know something I don't...
 
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