There
is little doubt that the Greeks in expressing their own take on the
creation of this planet postulated that, “In the beginning there was
chaos.”
Their mythology continued with the idea that it was the
introduction of love and order that was credited with the separation of
the light from the darkness. I have sort of observed that only the
infinite shades of grayness, and that original state of this immense chaos
actually survived along with the later introduction and intervention of
this illiberal thinking man; and of course, with the gentle hand of his
feminine “helpmate.”
I fully realize I have left out of this intentionally understated
scenario, the omniscient hand of God and his overly publicized and
mythological counterpart, the Devil, but my initial description is,
perhaps based a little more on Greek mythology than the Biblically
inspired mythologies of our Judeo-Christian heritage.
There
are as many mystical and imaginative explanations for the beginnings and
creation of mankind as well as for this increasingly abused planet that we
inhabit, as there are distinctively different religious beliefs.
There has now been added to this mix our modern and ever-expanding
technologies, earth sciences and anthropology that provide us with an even
more in-depth comprehension and reasonable reality-based explanation for
most of our observed physical realities.
I can certainly understand how primitive man, in his desperate
search for any comprehensive explanation for environmental events and the
relevant cognition of his own existence, became vulnerable prey to all
sorts of unfounded superstitions.
It wasn't until these last few centuries that a new and more
realistic understanding of mankind and his fantastic universe that is so
infinitely diverse actually blossomed with man’s increasing command and
knowledge of the physical sciences.
The tragedy of mankind's
more recent fate sadly arose and stubbornly remains with
the unsuccessful integration, or should it be said segregation of science
from religion; a sound case of denial of reality. It
would be a most humorous anomaly to picture the Catholic Pope working in a scientific laboratory in
order to establish the authenticity, of say, the Shroud of Turin. In fact, modern science
has already unequivocally dismissed the Shroud's authenticity while the
faithful believers of the church stubbornly continues
to refuse any acknowledgement of these well-established scientific findings. This obvious
discrepancy between even modern mythological beliefs and self-evident reality is slowing undermining any remaining
credibility of so many of our deplorably antiquated and soon to be totally out-of-touch
religious institutions. God is certainly not dead; that which never was has
neither life nor death. In reality all we ever had was our ancient and totally un-realistic
perceptions of a totally man-conceived deity that was historically offered to the uninitiated
and naïve
masses as a comforting but all too often horrifically oppressive religious opiate.
If these earlier unrealistic teachings were only the innocent attempts
by some religious despots to metaphorically explain to an uneducated and naïve
population, the unknown, why can't we now simply recognize the truth and retire
many of these now useless and malevolent falsehoods? We have been so miraculously blessed
(perhaps sometimes damned!) beyond any imagination by some of the most fantastic
discoveries. These modern physical sciences have given mankind an even greater
understanding of and an increasingly command over his intriguing environment and have
provided some of those long-awaited explanations of previously unexplained natural
phenomena; the witch-doctor has been long replaced with an ever-expanding
knowledge of medicine. Where we have so sorely failed is that our antiquated and religiously held
mythologies, which once offered mankind rather acceptable, though not necessarily
realistic explanations of the unknown, have prevented too many of us from advancing our
knowledge and accepting these obvious realities. For a brief period in my own life I had
served as a psychotherapist at a state university, a generally respected profession that
is still sadly perceived by some rather backward and ignorant Christian fundamentalists as "the work of the
devil." There had been those terribly ignorant and oppressive elements
that too accompany our
religious superstitions that have denied even the inexhaustible intellectual
mastery of man; that one marvelous quality that should separate us from all
the other animals. If mankind
advances his thought process into an arena that aptly precludes the understandings and
beliefs of our religions, the response of the powers that be was to have simply declared
that thinker a heretic.
Mankind has always seemed to strive for something better, and in that
too often hopeful and sometimes desperate search, he has attempted to legitimize
and compare future possibilities of greener grass too often with an unrealistic perception of
"those good old days." This common scenario is no doubt the very basis for the
mythological story of Adam and Eve in that greener grass Garden of Eden. We have
all been plagued from time to time with that common behavioral and psychological activity
of avoiding the reality of the moment because of its perceived unpleasantness. Before I
had lived long enough to understand the importance of living life to the fullest in any
given moment I wrote a number of poems that revealed a deeper understanding
that apparently laid rather dormant for too much of my life:
MOMENTS
A moment
comes, a moment goes,
It has no place and has no time,
It comes and goes like wind that
blows.
It passes
no time, it passes no place,
And never passes
the next in line,
It's on the move
as though at race.
Moments past are forever lost,
While moments now are what we have,
And no future's gained at any cost.
So live and Love, and do it now,
For now is all we have at hand.
The time we share will never stop,
And moments come like seeping sand.
March 3, 1961
The Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve is well known by almost every
individual in our Western culture. It is widely shared by all three major Western
religions as the official, unquestionable and religiously offered anecdote of man's
humble beginnings on this earth following that magical seven-day creation. Although the actual
story is no doubt a well-conceived and intended myth, this literary allegory
was certainly and ingeniously impregnated with all
sorts of hidden meanings that can suggest reasonable explanations of why mankind is often
so retarded in their all too tightly held belief systems. It is quite understandable that
primitive man with the employment of a great imagination and a burgeoning intellect that had not yet
had today's advantage of scientific knowledge was able to have created so many logical
explanations for mankind's very existence. It is a revealing testament to the innate divinity of mankind
that he had been as creative and diverse in these various and grand tales of creation. The very notion
that there existed something so majestic and metaphysical beyond the reality of what man
could have easily observed in his immediate environment was an indication of the great
intellectual potential of man himself. The fact that mankind the world over had the comprehension of
something greater than himself, clearly indicates that this ability must have been a trait that was and
still is inherent in the entire human race. The other side of the story, of course is the
employment of this same intellect that can be equally stubborn by rationalizing any
unfounded explanation of reality into the belief that these
mythologies are real. Be damned if we
do believe these various myths and be damned if we don't seek further explanations and understandings of our universe.
Damned if we fail to grow and too often equally damned by the some new discoveries that
have the potential of the total destruction of mankind as well as his fragile environments.
It was so profound of the Hebrews to have so masterfully envisioned
that Garden of Eden and that mythological tree. I have asked many people to describe what
they know of this tree and most have some sinister idea that the tree and that serpent
that offer the fruit to Eve was somehow rooted in evil. It was aptly described as the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. I would suggest in our more modern terms of
interpretation that the fruit of that tree possessed the power to have imbued man with the
ability to encounter, observe and possibly comprehend the realities of our existence. It
is interesting that Greek mythology had a similar tale forbidding the opening of Pandora's
Box as another of those ominous taboos. In both cases, the warning entailed the
consequence that man could not return to his previous state of innocence that may have
existed before the dramatic breach.
The other query that I often have for friends is to describe that
Garden of Eden that must have come into being at the same time the earth had been created
by God and to perhaps also suggests its historical whereabouts. Please understand that I
am only searching for a theoretical/imaginable garden that only existed as part of the
grand mythology of ancient Judaism. Certainly most everyone has the concept that the
garden was idyllic in nature and that the garden had probably provided the full range of
substance needed for the survival of Adam and Eve. The location is generally speculative
but there is the idea that the garden had been limited to some specifically definable
area. Some of us even had the image that it may have been walled of from the rest of the
world since there had been the edict that man had been cast out of the garden. For me, I
have come to hold the notion that the garden was and still is actually this entire planet
that has evolved to the magnificent point of possessing almost every imaginable resource
necessary for the commodious existence of all life, including man himself. Mankind on a
daily basis is living out that original conception of man being duly expunged from this
garden for having come into the intimate possession of knowing both good and evil, that
Chinese yin and yang of the reality of life on this earth. The immense destruction and
abuse of our modern environment is the direct consequence of the poisonous and toxic
byproducts of mankind's industrialization and the over-consumption of natural resources
beyond their inherent ability to regenerate. Our knowledge certainly has the potential
effect of separating us from the natural benefits of this environment as long as we
continue to abuse the earth in so many different and diverse ways.
Our ancient heritage and the view of this earth that had been developed
so long before scientific discoveries simply didn't contain the conceptualization of
diminishing resources. The most basic concept of primitive man was probably akin to the
idea that survival could be insured by some seasonable act of homage to the gods like some
rain-dance or material sacrifice. Please those gods and the earth would continue to
provide all that was needed for survival and that survival no doubt had a very elemental
dynamic of day-to-day. The strategies that may have well-served ancient man no longer
apply to a modern environment. Mankind has the ability to destroy this planet by even the
simplest means like global overpopulation in the notice absence of sanctioning birth
control by religious institutions. We are killing ourselves and bring this planet to the
brink of destruction because we are holding too tenaciously to beliefs that only serve the
few who benefit from the continued employment of human slavery, both physically and
spiritually. Those antiquated beliefs about our origin and the very nature of our
existence have needed to be tossed aside. If we blindly continue to be ruled and oppressed
by old mythologies and their misguided explanations of creation the earth as we know it
may have to be recreated. I'm not sure that any of us humans will survive that
catastrophic event and it may take another million years to regenerate the resources
needed to give rise to another animal as noble as the potential of present mankind.
There are as many explanations for our present state of potential
destruction as there are people on this planet. But with as many possibilities as there
are the most common thread linked to our potential annihilation is the aggregate denial or
avoidance of reality. A liberal by traditional definition is one who is well read. The
word liberal comes from the same Latin root as the word library and to paraphrase
what George de Santayana had once postulated, when we fail to learn from history we are
tragically condemned to repeat it. In the broadest sense, mankind has relentlessly
partaken of the forbidden fruit and opened every Pandora's Box ever presented to him. We
are unable to close the box and what we have learned cannot be totally forgotten. The
great hope is that we will take the good of the fruit and use its empowerment to save what
is left in our earthly garden in which we still thankfully and miraculously reside.
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