Forbidden Archeology: Beyond Creation vs. Evolution

[Dharma Flower]

To date, all key scientific and philosophical evidence points away from an eternal universe and toward an eternal Creator. From a scientific standpoint, honest scientists admit the universe had a beginning, and whatever has a beginning is not eternal. In other words, whatever has a beginning has a cause, and if the universe had a beginning, it had a cause. The fact that the universe had a beginning is underscored by evidence such as the second law of thermodynamics, the radiation echo of the big bang discovered in the early 1900s, the fact that the universe is expanding and can be traced back to a singular beginning, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. All prove the universe is not eternal.

That's not exactly correct. There are differences of opinion in the scientific community. One common understanding in the scientific community is that we live in an oscillating universe, where every Big Bang is eventually followed by a Big Crunch. This would perfectly fit the Buddha's description in the Agganna Sutta of how the universe expands and contracts.

 

[Dharma Flower]

The idea that some are fallen from spirit to flesh, sounds more applicable to the fallen angels than to mankind. Some may think we are one and the same...but that doesn't really make much sense, or fit with Scripture. Some may believe we are some sort of hybrids, based rather loosely on - Genesis 6:4 To which I say - perhaps.

According to the Biblical teaching, Adam and Eve fell due to their giving into temptation, much like how the traditional Buddhist teaching is that our ancestors fell from a higher state due to temptation as well.

If Adam and Even had not sinned, it's commonly believed by Christians that they would have lived forever, because of their access to the Tree of Life. It's also commonly believe that Adam and Eve were closer to God than we are now and that they didn't suffer like we do.

I am not trying to endlessly speculate about what may or may not have happened millions of years ago. Instead, I am taking the Buddha's word for granted, much like how Biblical creationists take the book of Genesis for granted. I am simply trying to accept the plainest meaning of the Buddha's words on how our species originated.

 

[wayfaring man]

Wrong again. My claims are testable and confirmable. That beats unsupported claims any day of the week.

One who witnesses of themself has the most bias witness the world can afford.

 

[wayfaring man]

According to the Biblical teaching, Adam and Eve fell due to their giving into temptation, much like how the traditional Buddhist teaching is that our ancestors fell from a higher state due to temptation as well.

If Adam and Even had not sinned, it's commonly believed by Christians that they would have lived forever, because of their access to the Tree of Life. It's also commonly believe that Adam and Eve were closer to God than we are now and that they didn't suffer like we do.

I am not trying to endlessly speculate about what may or may not have happened millions of years ago. Instead, I am taking the Buddha's word for granted, much like how Biblical creationists take the book of Genesis for granted. I am simply trying to accept the plainest meaning of the Buddha's words on how our species originated.

True Adam and Eve did kinda fall away...but they were flesh, not spirit - which I believe your first analogy stated - to which I refered to sounding more like angels falling.

One major problem with taking anyone's word 'for granted' is - even if that word is right, the 'taking for granted part' leaves a broad opening of uncircumspect reckoning, which allows for a wide magin of error in how we interpret / apply that 'word'.

 

[Dharma Flower]

True Adam and Eve did kinda fall away...but they were flesh, not spirit - which I believe your first analogy stated - to which I refered to sounding more like angels falling.

One major problem with taking anyone's word 'for granted' is - even if that word is right, the 'taking for granted part' leaves a broad opening of uncircumspect reckoning, which allows for a wide magin of error in how we interpret / apply that 'word'.

When I read the Buddha's teachings, I also turn to commentaries from Buddhist masters throughout history, since it helps me to better understand the meaning and intent of the Buddha's teachings. This is much like how a Christian might turn to Luther or Augustine's writings to understand the meaning of the Bible, instead of just relying on their own personal interpretation.

 

[wayfaring man]

When I read the Buddha's teachings, I also turn to commentaries from Buddhist masters throughout history, since it helps me to better understand the meaning and intent of the Buddha's teachings. This is much like how a Christian might turn to Luther or Augustine's writings to understand the meaning of the Bible, instead of just relying on their own personal interpretation.

Sometimes it helps to consider another human's point of view.

Scripture tells me however that The Holy Spirit is our main source for being taught / instructed.

1 John 2:27 John 14:16-17 John 14:26 Job 32:7-8

 

[Dharma Flower]

I am not a creationist. As a Buddhist, I don't believe in a Creator God in the first place. I do agree, however, with the point made by this video:

In dealing with matters of prehistory, our beliefs aren't based on the evidence as much as they are based on our interpretation of the evidence.

Whether one is a creationist, an evolutionist, or a believer in the Buddha's teaching, our understanding of prehistoric stone tools and skeletal remains will be shaped by our presuppositions.

The reason for reading a book like Forbidden Archeology is to see dozens of cases of when human tools and skeletal remains were found millions of years deeper in the fossil record than the evolutionary timeline would predict.

 

[wayfaring man]

Often the more one learns about stuff - the more they realize how little they know.

Don't figure we can necessarily / accurately declare who and what we are... The Spirit says there's primarily only one kind of human - those for whom Christ died and rose from the dead.

This is evidently the case whether we recognize it or not.

1 John 2:1-2

 

[Gene2memE]

[QUOTE="Dharma Flower, post: 70587169]
Forbidden Archeology has about 900 pages of documented evidence. Unless you've read it for yourself, I will assume that you are just passing along second-hand opinions from what others have said regarding the book. In the meantime, there is a condensed version available.

In the first pages of the book, one can see some of the praise and recognition that Forbidden Archeology received from mainstream sources.[/quote]

I have a rather worn copy that I bought at a thrift shop in the early 2000s, when I was first interested in that sort of stuff. Along with von Daniken, Chopra, Icke, Pye and others.

I won't claim to have read it all, but certainly more than half.

A decade and change of reading, debate, research and writing on C&L, I think I'm yet to find any original claim of theirs that can be substantiated. It's almost as if they had their conclusions already in place, then tried -poorly - to make the evidence fit.

Hey, maybe you do have more in common with creationist than you think.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I’ve come to the realization that, as a Buddhist, I have nothing to gain from believing in the mainstream theory of evolution.

Holding accurate beliefs, is its own reward.

Having said that, the truth of a proposition isn't dependend on what you can "gain" from accepting it.

Buddhism, like Hinduism, traditionally teaches that, rather than evolving from lower life forms, we instead devolved from higher beings.

Then Buddhism, like Hinduism, is wrong about that.

If humans devolved from higher beings, rather than evolving from lower species, then we should expect to find the remains of humans from millions of years before they are supposed to have existed under the evolutionary timeline

Really? What do the remains of "non-physical humans" look like?

In Forbidden Archeology, Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson documented dozens of archeological discoveries, human fossils and tools found millions of years lower in the fossil record than expected. The book explains that, because these evidences challenged the current paradigm, they were either explained away or suppressed:
http://www.krishnapath.org/library/vedic-science/hidden-history-of-the-human-race-free-download/

And out come the conspiracies.

Here is one example of an archaeological discovery which challenges the Darwinian view, instead fitting the ancient Buddhist and Hindu interpretations:
http://phys.org/news/2015-05-oldest-known-stone-tools-pre-date-homo.html

???

It is widely known that tools were being manufactured and used by ancestral species of homo sapiens.

Hack, chimpansees in the wild today manufacture and use tools.

The traditional Buddhist understanding may conflict with modern science, but a committed Buddhist might decide to believe the Buddha’s words over modern science

And the buddhist would be wrong to do so.

, especially when dealing with prehistory, before any of us were around to witness what really happened.

You don't need to be around to understand and know about events of the past.

As the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn explained, scientists are not purely objective, instead they interpret the data based on whatever prevailing theories will allow. Everyone must evaluate the evidence for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions:

But you aren't evaluating any evidence. You're just clinging to your religious beliefs.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

well, a lot of the ancient wonders if my memory is right that scientists still don't know how they were made. Like the ancient pyramids, and a lot of megalithic monuments.

"therefor, all of science can be ignored"?

 

[Dharma Flower]

A decade and change of reading, debate, research and writing on C&L, I think I'm yet to find any original claim of theirs that can be substantiated. It's almost as if they had their conclusions already in place, then tried -poorly - to make the evidence fit.

This is a recent lecture of Michael Cremo, which gives real discoveries from mainstream scientists of extreme human antiquity:

It just so happens that the Buddhist and Hindu scriptures support extreme human antiquity as well.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

To date, all key scientific and philosophical evidence points away from an eternal universe and toward an eternal Creator. From a scientific standpoint, honest scientists admit the universe had a beginning, and whatever has a beginning is not eternal. In other words, whatever has a beginning has a cause, and if the universe had a beginning, it had a cause. The fact that the universe had a beginning is underscored by evidence such as the second law of thermodynamics, the radiation echo of the big bang discovered in the early 1900s, the fact that the universe is expanding and can be traced back to a singular beginning, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. All prove the universe is not eternal.

Actually, that merely refers to the "start" of the expansion. The space-time continuum.
The beginngin of time itself, within the universe.

We have no clue what did or did not exist at T = 0.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yes, that is correct. The inventions that Forbidden Archeology mostly focuses on, however, are stone tools and other primitive objects found in the fossil record millions of years before mainstream science would predict.

Again, there is nothing in the sciences that "predicts" that stone tools of ancient human ancestors couldn't exist.

Were you under the impression that for some reason only Homo Sapiens was allowed to use stone tools?

 

[AvgJoe]

That's not exactly correct. There are differences of opinion in the scientific community. One common understanding in the scientific community is that we live in an oscillating universe, where every Big Bang is eventually followed by a Big Crunch. This would perfectly fit the Buddha's description in the Agganna Sutta of how the universe expands and contracts.

Yes, there are a lot of opinions out there. Being a Christian, I go with the Bible when it says that the universe is not eternal, that it had a beginning, and that the beginning was its creation by God (Genesis 1:1). This truth has been denied by philosophers and so-called scientists who have come up with a variety of different theories in an effort to “prove” the eternality of the universe. Further, others will say that matter and energy are eternal, following the first law of thermodynamics—“Energy can be transformed (changed from one form to another), but it can neither be created nor destroyed.”

Philosophically, why do we have something rather than nothing at all? If the universe had a beginning, then it must have a cause, and therefore cannot be eternal. And every drop of evidence we have points to the universe having a beginning. Numerous scientifically minded people have expressed a desire to find a loophole to the scientific fact that the present order of nature had a beginning. Unfortunately for them, such a loophole does not exist. Here are five proofs that the universe is not eternal:

(1) The universe is running down, and something that is running down must have started at some point. The second law of thermodynamics states that the universe is running out of usable energy.

(2) The universe is expanding. This was confirmed through the Hubble telescope many years ago, and it is interesting to note that the universe is expanding from a single point, meaning the entire universe could be contracted back into a single point. Also, note that the universe is not expanding into space, but space itself is expanding.

(3) The radiation echo was discovered by Bell Labs scientists in 1965. What is it? It is the heat afterglow from the Big Bang. Its discovery dealt a death blow to any theory of the universe being in a steady state because it shows instead that the universe exploded.

(4) Galaxy Seeds. Scientists believe that, if the Big Bang is true (first, there was nothing, then, BANG, something came into being), then temperature “ripples” should exist in space, and it would be these ripples that enabled matter to collect into galaxies. To discover whether these ripples exist, the Cosmic Background Explorer – COBE – was launched in 1989 to find them, with the findings being released in 1992. What COBE found was perfect/precise ripples that, sure enough, enable galaxies to form. So critical and spectacular was this finding that the NASA lead for COBE, said, “If you’re religious, it’s like looking at God.”

(5) Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity means that the universe had a beginning and was not eternal as he had previously believed (Einstein was originally a pantheist). His theory proved that the universe is not a cause, but instead one big effect—something brought it into existence. Einstein disliked his end result so much that he introduced a “fudge factor” into his theory that allowed for an eternal universe. But there was only one problem. His fudge factor required a division by zero in his calculations—a mathematical error any good math student knows not to make. When discovered by other mathematicians, Einstein admitted his error calling it “the greatest blunder of my life.” After his acknowledgment, and upon confirming further research that showed the universe expanding just as his theory of relativity predicted, Einstein bowed to the fact that the universe is not eternal and said that he wanted “to know how God created the world.”

Further, it should be understood that every effect must resemble its cause. This is because, simply put, you cannot give what you do not have, so it is impossible for an effect to possess something its originating cause did not have. That being the case, how can one believe that an impersonal, amoral, purposeless, and meaningless universe accidentally created beings that are full of personality, morals, meaning, and purpose? Only mind can create mind. In the end it is either matter before mind or mind before matter, and all scientific, philosophical, and reasonable evidence points to the latter.

 

[Dharma Flower]

Again, there is nothing in the sciences that "predicts" that stone tools of ancient human ancestors couldn't exist.

Were you under the impression that for some reason only Homo Sapiens was allowed to use stone tools?

Until this discovery was made, Australopithecines were believed too primitive to have made and used these tools:
http://phys.org/news/2015-05-oldest-known-stone-tools-pre-date-homo.html

What if, instead of modifying our understanding of Australopithecines, we instead believed that humans like ourselves made and used the tools instead and lived at that time?

The book Forbidden Archeology gives dozens of examples of human artifacts and remains found millions and millions of years deeper in the fossil record than predicted. In this lecture, Michael Cremo explains some of these discoveries which were then suppressed because they didn't agree with the mainstream narrative:

It's also worth noting that the 4-million-year-old footprints Louis Leaky discovered looked more like anatomically modern human footprints than that of an ape-like creature, yet it was out of the question that anatomically modern humans could have left them:

The footprints themselves were an unlikely discovery because they closely resemble modern human footprints, despite being almost 4 million years old. It is noted that the toe pattern is much the same as the human foot, which is much different than the feet of chimpanzees and other non-bipedal beings. The footprint impression has been interpreted as the same as the modern human stride, with the heel striking first and then a weight transfer to the ball of the foot before pushing off the toes.[9]
Laetoli - Wikipedia

This is an excerpt from Forbidden Archeology, which includes relevant quotes from mainstream scientific sources:

In 1979, researchers at the Laetoli, Tanzania, site in East Africa discovered footprints in volcanic ash deposits over 3.6 million years old. Mary Leakey and others said the prints were indistinguishable from those of modern humans. To these scientists, this meant only that the human ancestors of 3.6 million years ago had remarkably modern feet. But ccording to other scientists, such as physical anthropologist R. H. Tuttle of the University of Chicago, fossil bones of the known australopithecines of 3.6 million years ago show they had feet that were distinctly apelike. Hence they were incompatible with the Laetoli prints. In an article in the March 1990 issue of Natural History, Tuttle confessed that "we are left with somewhat of a mystery." It seems permissible, therefore, to consider a possibility neither Tuttle nor Leakey mentioned--that creatures with anatomically modern human bodies to match their anatomically modern human feet existed some 3.6 million years ago in East Africa. Perhaps, as suggested in the illustration on the opposite page, they coexisted with more apelike creatures. As intriguing as this archeological possibility may be, current ideas about human evolution forbid it.

Knowledgeable persons will warn against positing the existence of anatomically modern humans millions of years ago on the slim basis of the Laetoli footprints. But there is further evidence. Over the past few decades, scientists in Africa have uncovered fossil bones that look remarkably human. In 1965, Bryan Patterson and W. W. Howells found a surprisingly modern humerus (upper arm bone) at Kanapoi, Kenya. Scientists judged the humerus to be over 4 million years old. Henry M. McHenry and Robert S. Corruccini of the University of California said the Kanapoi humerus was "barely distinguishable from modern Homo." Similarly, Richard Leakey said the ER 1481 femur (thighbone) from Lake Turkana, Kenya, found in 1972, was indistinguishable from that of modern humans. Scientists normally assign the ER 1481 femur, which is about 2 million years old, to prehuman Homo habilis. But since the ER 1481 femur was found by itself, one cannot rule out the possibility that the rest of the skeleton was also anatomically modern. Interestingly enough, in 1913 the German scientist Hans Reck found at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, a complete anatomically modern human skeleton in strata over 1 million years old, inspiring decades of controversy.
Forbidden Archeology Sample chapter

 

[Dharma Flower]

Yes, there are a lot of opinions out there. Being a Christian, I go with the Bible when it says that the universe is not eternal, that it had a beginning, and that the beginning was its creation by God (Genesis 1:1). This truth has been denied by philosophers and so-called scientists who have come up with a variety of different theories in an effort to “prove” the eternality of the universe. Further, others will say that matter and energy are eternal, following the first law of thermodynamics—“Energy can be transformed (changed from one form to another), but it can neither be created nor destroyed.”

Philosophically, why do we have something rather than nothing at all? If the universe had a beginning, then it must have a cause, and therefore cannot be eternal. And every drop of evidence we have points to the universe having a beginning. Numerous scientifically minded people have expressed a desire to find a loophole to the scientific fact that the present order of nature had a beginning. Unfortunately for them, such a loophole does not exist. Here are five proofs that the universe is not eternal:

(1) The universe is running down, and something that is running down must have started at some point. The second law of thermodynamics states that the universe is running out of usable energy.

(2) The universe is expanding. This was confirmed through the Hubble telescope many years ago, and it is interesting to note that the universe is expanding from a single point, meaning the entire universe could be contracted back into a single point. Also, note that the universe is not expanding into space, but space itself is expanding.

(3) The radiation echo was discovered by Bell Labs scientists in 1965. What is it? It is the heat afterglow from the Big Bang. Its discovery dealt a death blow to any theory of the universe being in a steady state because it shows instead that the universe exploded.

(4) Galaxy Seeds. Scientists believe that, if the Big Bang is true (first, there was nothing, then, BANG, something came into being), then temperature “ripples” should exist in space, and it would be these ripples that enabled matter to collect into galaxies. To discover whether these ripples exist, the Cosmic Background Explorer – COBE – was launched in 1989 to find them, with the findings being released in 1992. What COBE found was perfect/precise ripples that, sure enough, enable galaxies to form. So critical and spectacular was this finding that the NASA lead for COBE, said, “If you’re religious, it’s like looking at God.”

(5) Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity means that the universe had a beginning and was not eternal as he had previously believed (Einstein was originally a pantheist). His theory proved that the universe is not a cause, but instead one big effect—something brought it into existence. Einstein disliked his end result so much that he introduced a “fudge factor” into his theory that allowed for an eternal universe. But there was only one problem. His fudge factor required a division by zero in his calculations—a mathematical error any good math student knows not to make. When discovered by other mathematicians, Einstein admitted his error calling it “the greatest blunder of my life.” After his acknowledgment, and upon confirming further research that showed the universe expanding just as his theory of relativity predicted, Einstein bowed to the fact that the universe is not eternal and said that he wanted “to know how God created the world.”

Further, it should be understood that every effect must resemble its cause. This is because, simply put, you cannot give what you do not have, so it is impossible for an effect to possess something its originating cause did not have. That being the case, how can one believe that an impersonal, amoral, purposeless, and meaningless universe accidentally created beings that are full of personality, morals, meaning, and purpose? Only mind can create mind. In the end it is either matter before mind or mind before matter, and all scientific, philosophical, and reasonable evidence points to the latter.

Everyone agrees that the universe is expanding. The question is whether the universe will someday stop expanding and begin to contract. If matter cannot be created or destroyed, why would we expect the universe to have a beginning? It seems more likely that it's always existed in some form, expanding and contracting with Big Bangs and Big Crunches. You aren't able to prove that an oscillating universe isn't the reality.

 

[Gene2memE]

This is a recent lecture of Michael Cremo, which gives real discoveries from mainstream scientists of extreme human antiquity:

It just so happens that the Buddhist and Hindu scriptures support extreme human antiquity as well.

That was a mess. I'd like 90 minutes of my life back.

Maybe 15 minutes of it deals with anything that remotely resembles paleontology, archaeology or history. The rest is a woo filled journey through neo-Platonism, consciousness/mind-body dualism, parapsychology, spirit possession, mis-understood statistics, mythology, mis-representation of standard scientific positions, and an almost limitless number of psuedo 'insert branch of the sciences here'.

Its mindnumbing - a Gish gallop of epic proportions. Unevidenced, unsourced, unscientific, unsound and really unworthy of any serious consideration.

The way he quote-mines Rodney Brooks' 2001 Nature article is breathtaking in its dishonesty. I have that article, and Dr Brooks says nothing like what Cremo claims.

I flirted with this stuff, in an academic way (one of my degrees is in history), nearly 20 years ago. I come to the same conclusion now that I did then - Messers C & L really don't have much of a clue of what they're talking about.

 

[Subduction Zone]

One who witnesses of themself has the most bias witness the world can afford.

That is why scientists put their ideas out there for others to test. You appear to be trying to attack science based upon your lack of knowledge. That is never a winning strategy. It is also rather hypocritical of you since you rely upon the science that you deny to even post here.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Everyone agrees that the universe is expanding. The question is whether the universe will someday stop expanding and begin to contract. If matter cannot be created or destroyed, why would we expect the universe to have a beginning? It seems more likely that it's always existed in some form, expanding and contracting with Big Bangs and Big Crunches. You aren't able to prove that an oscillating universe isn't the reality.

You are a bit behind the times. The Big Crunch is not an answer today since the universe continues to speed up in its expansion.