The Spirit of Civilization
Adam and Eve
“O KINGS of the earth! He Who is the sovereign Lord of all is come. The Kingdom is God’s, the omnipotent Protector, the Self-Subsisting. Worship none but God, and, with radiant hearts, lift up your faces unto your Lord, the Lord of all names.”
(Baha’u’llah, Proclamation…, 1860s.)
The story of Adam and Eve is about human psychology, culture, family values and spirituality. I cannot accurately say, that it is not about natural history. It just explains natural history in parables, which teach people in the language and culture that they could understand at that time, about the spiritual reality underlying all natural history.
I believe that Moses is a Manifestation of God, Who revealed the truth about the origin of mankind. His story compliments science and natural history.
The purpose of life on earth is so that human beings can know and love God. Almighty God created us, because He loves us. I believe this because there is only one God, Who has said so, over and over again.
I am no big authority about God or religion. Everything I write is my own personal opinion. It is my personal perspective of spiritual reality. You will have your own personal perspective of spirituality, before and after reading my stories. Spirituality is a vital feature of human nature and civilization, so, I must comment on it to make this story holistic and complete.
Divine education, revealed in the Sacred Writings of all the world’s major religions, is causing the mystical transformation of troops of Hominidae into families and tribes of civilized human beings. HomoSapiens is gradually evolving into HomoSpeis. Intelligent man is evolving into spiritual man.
We are created to recognize, worship and submit to, only that one true God. All human beings have the capacity to recognize God. Doing so is completely voluntary. Not doing so is like being blind; it’s a spiritual handicap, a gross perversion of human nature.
Spiritual reality is made by Almighty God, not man. While faith is a voluntary attitude and action, the truth just is what it is and it doesn’t really matter what we think about it.
Besides the idea God, human language is the most primal attribute of human consciousness; it’s the foundation of human psychology. “First there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). It seems like religion and language evolved at the same time, in the exactly identical process. I agree that language is as much a way of thinking, as it is a way of communicating.
Just like one bacteria eating another, began the process of the divergence of the animal kingdom from the plant kingdom; the development of language, which is based on the rule of law, ie., the rules of grammar; and the law of marriage and the subsequent evolution of the human family, began the divergence of the human kingdom of life on earth, from the animal kingdom. In other words, intellectual, moral, spiritual and social rules, like the rules of grammar and the law of marriage, are the difference between animals and civilized human beings.
Maybe Adam had a Cro-Magnon father and a Neanderthal mother, or vice versa. That’s why the Bible refers to Him as the first and only man. He was a completely new race of Hominin. This genetic and cultural crossbreeding between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal produced modern, civilized Homo Sapien.
Apparently, Homo Heidelbergensis diverged into Cro-Magnon Man in Africa and Neanderthal in Eurasia several hundred thousand years ago (Wiki, Neanderthal). They were probably in constant contact, interaction and interbreeding right there in the fertile crescent the whole time. Its the mixture of African and Eurasian people that spawned human civilization.
Of course, that had been going on long before the historical Adam lived. I guess that’s a question that Baha’u’llah answers with His saying about there being many Adams. Its interesting that scientists investigating the stone age megaliths all over the world have discovered a global pattern in the megaliths.
I wonder, and this is pure personal speculation, not any official religious or scientific ideas, I wonder if the stone age civilization that I’ve been reading and hearing about (Deek Jackson, New History of Humanity, YouTube, 2013), which built giant intricate megalithic structures all over the earth, is the civilization that Adam founded, which was destroyed by the flood.
Many of the ancient megalithic structures are under water. The biggest capital cities of any such civilization would have been near the coastline, which was several hundred meters lower than it is now, because much of earth’s water was frozen in the ice age glaciers.
The age of the structures is very diverse, so they weren’t all built at the same time. However, it seems very interesting that there are giant, astonishingly technologically advanced, stone megaliths on every continent. In fact, you could reasonably argue that the most advanced technology on earth is the pyramids.
Another interesting little bit of information is the idea that while the hominin family of life on earth, originally diverged from the animal Kingdom in Ethiopia millions of years ago. Apparently, following the idea revealed in the Holy Bible about the four rivers running out of the Garden of Eden, two of which are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and the reference to beginning to wear clothing makes sense, because the people were adapting to a much cooler northern ecosystem.
Adam revealed the human language by naming all the animals and plants in the Garden of Eden. That is referring to the beginning of language and history. He also revealed the law of marriage, the very first rule of law other than, “Thou shalt have no other gods beside Me” (Moses, about 3500 years ago).
The gods are things like money, or CEOs or even things like democracy and freedom and equality. God makes the rules in the divine Kingdom of God. The rules are whatever God says they are and the divine civilization is the only sustainable civilization. Man made civilization is inherently unstable and not sustainable.
God usually reveals the Word of God, the divine education, through the Manifestation of God. The Word of God is actually not just religion. It is the very first substance, the divine rule of law, that everything else is made of. The Manifestation of God is a Man, Who God creates to speak to us in human language. He is a Servant of God, a perfect reflection of the names and attributes of God, with no selfish ambition, perfectly submissive to the will of God.
Neuroscience of Human Consciousness
The human nervous system and endocrine system are two systems that compliment each other and generate human consciousness. The endocrine system consists of several glands that secrete chemicals that contribute to our senses, into our blood stream. For example, increasing or decreasing our sense of fear, aggression, attraction or affection.
Our nervous system senses our body and the ecosystem around us. It also enables us to act. While the endocrine system is primarily chemical, the nervous system is both electrical and chemical. The brain stem generates signals that cause our heart to beat, our lungs to breathe, etc. Our limbic system is the center of our brain and, along with the endocrine system, generates our emotions. Emotions are our motives.
The Cerebellum, attached to the back of the brain stem, enables us to stand and walk and balance. Proprioception is our consciousness of our own body. It enables us to know the position of our arms and legs, even if we can’t see them.
The Cerebrum is where we think. Especially the prefrontal cortex of the Cerebrum. The primary auditory cortex is usually on the left side. Broca’s Area, in front of the auditory cortex, enables us to talk and write language. Wernicke’s Area, behind the auditory cortex, enables us to understand language. Together with the Anterior (front) Singulate Cortex, located between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system, this cluster of cortexes make up the executive decision making cortex.
The executive decision making cortex enables us to respond to our instincts and emotions voluntarily. This is the precursor to freedom. The language processing cortexes enable us to communicate with each other. The Word of God is revealed in language. Divine education transforms hominins into civilized human beings.
Language is the most primal set of rules of distinctively human consciousness. It enables all people who follow the same set of rules to understand each other. The entire universe, including human beings are governed by natural laws. The divine rule of law adds a supernatural capacity that teaches human beings how to be civilized. Humans are not born civilized, we learn how to be civilized, from our family and through education.
Divine Education
The story of Adam and Eve is a story about the creation of the human family. I agree that the Book of Genesis is referring to the divergence of human kingdom of life on earth from the animal kingdom of life on earth, awakening of human consciousness. It’s not necessarily about any one person.
I also believe that Adam and Eve lived in Eastern Turkey during the last ice age and eventually migrated into Iran and created a stone age civilization that was eventually global in scale and then, was destroyed by rising sea level during the end of the ice age.
They developed language and agriculture, and unfortunately immorality and crime, but while many people seem to be fascinated by the immorality, crime and war, another major theme in that story is the origin of the human family.
Yes, Adam ate the fruit. That probably means that He sinned. Perhaps it refers to His personal struggle to be a servant of the people around Him, rather than another alpha male, dominating those people. The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil implies the benefit of making rules. The knowledge of good and evil is making rules. The benefit of making the rules is a sense of authority and superiority. Man made rules cannot be sustainable. God makes the rules.
Along with the knowledge of good and evil, comes the responsibility to be good and not evil. That responsibility separates us from the animal kingdom of life on earth. It is the basis of our free agency. Selfish ambition is the darkside of human nature.
The knowledge of good and evil is the consciousness of making the rules. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the cause and effect, the many consequences of making our own rules, instead of voluntary submission to the rules revealed by God. The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is some immediate benefit gained. While making the rules may feel good and have material advantages, the long term consequences of man made rules are death and destruction.
It’s kind of like walking off a cliff. Gravity just is. It has the same effect whether you believe in it or not. The universe is not punishing you for falling off the cliff, you fall because gravity is one of the divine rules of law. It is a constant feature of the structure of the universe. Just like submission to God is the inner essence of all true religion.
Jesus Christ sacrificed His life to atone for our sins and for every sin of every human being who accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, according to God’s judgment, not any human judgment.
The reason the Bible implies that Adam was the only man alive is that, that story is referring to the divergence of the human kingdom of life from the animal kingdom of life.
The divine education revealed by Adam caused that divergence. Adam’s attitude of humble service, instead of selfish, arrogant alpha male dominance, was an entirely new form of consciousness, which Adam first introduced into human consciousness. It was our first step towards learning the divine language, revealed in every true religion.
One of the most significant and unique features of human nature revealed by Adam is His growing together and becoming one family with His wive, Eve. Society became organized around the family, consisting of a man and a woman and all of the grandparents and grandchildren, etc.
Reverence for our ancestors became natural. History became a facet of human consciousness. We started farming and when we starting farming, we started keeping records of our private property.
In Eurasia, the enclosure of land into private property was dispersed around to the families, rather than all the land and the people belonging to one alpha male. At the same time the people of Asia were evolving into families and tribes, the people of Africa, migrating from Ethiopia down the Nile River Valley into Egypt were evolving into an imperial culture, with one alpha male owning all the land and all the people.
These two civilizations, Mesopotamia and Egypt, evolved independently and have continued to influence each other ever since then. Now, they’ve grown together, with all the other ancient and more recent civilizations, into one universal and divine civilization.
God makes the rules in our lives. When we follow the rules that God reveals, then we prosper. When we decide to make our own man made rules and follow them, then we suffer. The results of following our own man made rules, instead of following the rules God has revealed, are suffering and death.
Pride and its cousin prestige are the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is when we try to decide what is right and wrong, instead of seeking the truth and practicing voluntary submission to the rule of law revealed by God. Selfish ambition and pride and prestige, an attitude of superiority or inferiority, are the root cause of all conflict and contention in human history.
The difference between the divine rule of law revealed by the Manifestation of God and any man made rules, is that the Great Being is the Source of the Word of God. He created the Manifestation of God to be a perfect reflection of His Names and Attributes. In the Realm of the Manifestation of God, the slightest trace of self assertion is a grievous error.
The Manifestation of God is the first Creature, who reveals the Word of God. While we can each receive intimate communication from God pertaining to ourselves. Only the Manifestation of God reveals the Word of God for all humanity. These divine Teachers, such as Adam, Noah and Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster and Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and the Bab and Baha’u’llah, and others, are each individual human beings. They are also all one and the same divine Teacher.
About 6 or 13 thousand years ago, Adam lived in eastern Anatolia, around the source of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. He is a Manifestation of God, a divine Teacher, Whose revelation of the Word of God caused the mystical transformation of a troop of Homo-Sapien, into the first tribe of civilized human beings. Adam eventually migrated into Iran, from where human civilization has been radiating ever since.
I say 6 or 13 thousand years ago, because the Biblical time line says that Adam lived around 4004 BC, and the earliest pottery and other archaeological evidence preserved in the dry north African climate is around 12,000 years old, and the end of the last ice age and hence the Flood, is around 13,000 years ago.
So I figure, considering all the scientific evidence and religious stories about the origin of man that I’ve read, human nature and civilization really started diverging from the animal kingdom in waves of progress starting with Australopithecines adapting to the savanna in east Africa. Then, the Word of God, the divine education, revealed by Adam in eastern Anatolia and then Iran; causing the mystical transformation of a troop of Hominidae into the first tribe of civilized human beings.
My description may not be perfectly accurate or complete. Its more like a hypothesis, than a theory. Ethiopia is another neighborhood the Bible associates with the origin of man. So, perhaps civilization flowed down the Nile into Egypt from Ethiopia, and into Mesopotamia from Anatolia separately. The two civilizations, the Hyksos and the people of Kemet, eventually grow together into one human nature and civilization.
Or perhaps the Biblical reference to Ethiopia is referring to the origin of Hominidae in east Africa, while the story of Adam and Eve living in the Garden of Eden, near the source of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, refers to the evolution of HomoSapiens Sapiens and the original revelation of the divine rule of law, language and the law of marriage in particular, the origin of the human language, history, family and civilization.
Some of Adam’s children were farmers, others were hunters, implying that the revelation of Adam is associated with the development of agriculture. So, language and faith, marriage and family and agriculture are all associated with the origin of human nature and civilization. Each one of these features of human nature and civilization is a set of rules.
God makes the rules for all HomoSpeis. He doesn’t write down all the details about how to farm or how to build houses. He leaves that up to us. What He does create are the laws of nature; and we prosper when we live in harmony with those natural laws and suffer when we violate them.
Perhaps imperial civilization and private property are the Yin and Yang of civilization. Equally important features of human nature and civilization which must be proportionally balanced for a civilization to remain sustainable. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom after all, not a democracy or any other form of man made social, political or economic ecosystem.
The key point to remember is that the difference between an animal and a civilized human being is the personal responsibility that we all have for our thoughts, words and deeds, and our conscious and voluntary submission to a common law, such as the laws of grammar, so that we can speak and understand each other and even think. Thinking is a function of language.
Agriculture
Gobekli Tepe (National Geographic, Jun 2011) is an ancient religious complex discovered in southern Anatolia which is older than any city ever discovered. It seems like an ancient university, more than 12,000 years old. Stonehenge is more than 5000 years old. The Egyptian Pyramids are thousands of years old. This implies that religion and spirituality are far more ancient than any civilization.
Baha’u’llah’s oldest son, Abdu’l Baha, says that Damascus Syria is the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth.
It seems like the Indo-Europeans developed a spirituality and culture, architecture and technology around the circle, while the Egyptians developed their philosophy based on the Pyramid. Which corresponds with the Semites building forts and palaces, while the Persians built hospitals and universities.
As these tribes moved back and forth, from summer camps to winter camps, especially in the mountain ranges in Turkey and Iran, they discovered that the grain they had been processing the year before had gone to seed and had grown into a nice field of grain they could harvest.
After many years and generations, the people started spreading the grain around on purpose and then began to claim ownership of the fields, and the concept of private property evolved. They eventually developed towns and cities to protect the people and defend the fields from wandering tribes of people, fighting over the land and the food. As the economy became increasingly agricultural and communal, as opposed to troops of hunter gatherers, the people began to develop money in order to facilitate trade.
It’s a lot easier to trade your produce for money and then use the money to buy what you want and need, than it is to try to find people who have what you want, who also want what you have. So money, private property and history were developed along with the domestication of plants and animals in the agricultural revolution, the neolithic age.
The Ubaidi period in Mesopotamia culminated in the Sumerian civilization, which was not Semitic, which implies that it was Iranian, i.e. Aryan, and was eventually absorbed by the Semitic, Akkadian empire.
Kemet [Egyptians] and the Hyksos [Asians], the people from the Levant, could have been separate branches of our family tree, two human civilizations that originally developed independently, and have gradually grown together.
Biological research has revealed that the Hyksos interbred with the Neanderthal people. The Africans did not. They’ve been growing together the whole time. And of course, the Israelites, our spiritual ancestors, are growing up right on the boundary between the Kemet and the Hyksos. Maybe they are the Hyksos.
Egypt and Sumeria seem to start up about the same time. According to Wikipedia, Egyptian civilization was 1000 years old by the time King Sargon, one of the original alpha males in the history of human civilization, first united all the people of Mesopotamia into the Akkadian Empire 4300 years ago. After about 200 years the Akkadian Empire fell apart into Assyria in the north and Babylon in the south.
Apparently about 5900 years ago, the climate had changed and the deserts around Egypt and Mesopotamia became even more arid than they already were. So the people began congregating in the river valleys and establishing state level societies.
This clashing and merging of Semitic and Aryan people in the plains of Mesopotamia has been going on for at least 6000 years now. The competition between Shia and Sunni Islam is just the latest version of that cultural boundary. The Hittite Empire of Anatolia is another Indo-European culture that starts up about 3800 years ago in Anatolia, ie., modern day Turkey, at just about the same time the Semitic Babylon was arising in Mesopotamia.
The boundary between the Kemet and Hyksos, the Cro Magnon and Neanderthal, the African and Eurasian people has been shifting back and forth for many millennia. Noah was probably from an ancient Proto-Indo-European culture which lived around the small inland sea before the Mediterranean Sea poured in and filled the Black Sea Basin. An event recorded in many ancient stories as the great flood.
All I know is that, everyone influences everyone. Ancient stories imply that people were very provincial in ancient times, traveling hundreds of miles to find a mate from the same tribe. So, while they often tried to maintain their racial and cultural purity, the mirror neurons in our central nervous system causes everyone to influence everyone. We always come together into one family, because we already are, only one family.
So it seems to me like, in one instance human civilization came down from Ethiopia into Egypt, and in another instance from eastern Anatolia into Iran and Mesopotamia, and that the two civilizations gradually converged into one human civilization; just like CroMagnon Man and Neanderthal Man converging into one common human nature and civilization, Homo-Sapien Sapien.
Noah and His Family
Like the story about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the story about Noah and His family and the great flood is probably as much a psychological and spiritual transformation, as it is a historical event.
If the stories about that global stone age civilization are true, and I see no reason not to think so, then perhaps the civilization founded by Adam and destroyed by the flood is much older and larger than we thought.
The flood was caused by the ice age glaciers melting. My research about uniting natural history with religious history has led me to this idea that there was a global stone age civilization, which was destroyed by the rising sea level during the end of the last ice age.
The historical stories and traditions that have been taught for thousands of years are a legitimate aspect of our understanding of history and culture, and of natural and spiritual reality. They’re facets of our collective memory. Science and religion are complementary attributes, the Yin and Yang, of our search for truth.
I figure that Noah founded Gobekli Tepe. It was a university, where people were taught about economics, agriculture and spirituality. After the ice age ended and sea level rose 300 meters, flooding all the big coastal cities, causing the civilization Adam founded to fall into a dark age, Noah taught people how to be civilized again.
The difference between an alpha male and a Manifestation of God is that an alpha male is a result of selfish ambition and competition. The Manifestation of God is perfectly submissive to the Will of God. The Manifestation of God usually suffers severe persecution and is often executed. An alpha male usually accumulates extravagant material wealth at the expense of the people around him.
Prehistoric human beings were animists. We recognized the spirit in all things. After many generations, people wondered about their relatives dying and the nature of the soul. They investigated and reasoned with each other. They recognized that the animating power, the life force in all things, is sacred.
Some people say that human spirituality began as hallucinations as a result of using various powerful herbs. Other people think that human nature and civilization was started by aliens. I think that human nature and civilization is an inherent feature of not just earth, but the entire universe.
I think there are billions of planets like earth, which naturally generate life and that life naturally evolves into rational souls and spiritual civilizations. We probably have been contacted and influenced by aliens, but I’m pretty sure that human nature and civilization and spirituality are inherent features of the chemistry of earth and the fabric of the universe.
I’m right and everyone else is wrong is a half truth. Everyone wants to be important, that is a normal and healthy facet of human consciousness. Some people insist on being more important than other people, which is a distortion, an exaggeration of our natural instinct for self preservation and self respect, just like cancer is the out of control growth of natural biological processes.
Religion and spirituality are the personal and social process of attraction to, seeking, finding and loving God and complete and permanent submission to His authority. God makes the rules in our lives. That is the very essence of human nature.
Submission to God is a conscious and completely voluntary attitude and action. Failure to submit to the rule of law, revealed by the Manifestation of God, is a gross perversion of human nature.
Being born again is all about that divine education and voluntary submission to God. We have no control over our physical birth. Our spiritual birth is all about our personal responsibility, our free agency and our voluntary submission to God. Personal responsibility, free agency and voluntary submission to God are all one thing; spirituality, civilized human nature.
Human beings are noble creatures. Evil is the absence of goodness. It exists and is harmful, it just has no substance. It’s a failure to do what is good and right. Evil is making up our own rules, instead of following the objective, divine rule of law. In other words, its practicing selfish ambition, which is a failure to practice Islam.
Like, light is made out of photons, and darkness is nothing other than the absence of light. Or being born without arms, except that not having faith is an eternal condition, not having arms will end with your life on earth.
Hell is spiritually far away from God. Heaven is near God. Hell is created by man, refusing to seek and know and love Almighty God. Its sedition against God’s Authority over His Kingdom. Heaven and earth and everything between them, including all of natural history and the entire universe and everything in it, are the Kingdom of God.
Human beings are born incomplete. Education, especially divine education, completes us. Socialization, education, communications and relationships are inherent features of human nature. Everyone influences everyone.
Divine education is the light, the truth, the way of life that all human beings are created to learn and practice. The Manifestation of God is the one and only Source of that spirituality. All the prejudice, conflict and contention, crime, war, poverty and violence are symptoms of the lack of divine education. Spirituality is an inherent attribute of human nature and civilization that must be activated by divine education.
Moral and spiritual reality are like gravity and the speed of light; they just are, whether we believe in them or not. They’re the basis of the natural law that all human civilization is founded upon. God does not need us to believe in Him or His rules. We, on the other hand, do need to believe in God and submit to His divine law; in order to be truly happy, healthy and wealthy, civilized human beings.
Religion, family and civilization are manifestations of the integrative aspect of human nature. The parallel, disintegration facet of human nature and civilization includes: The clans adopting totems. You know, the eagle and the bear clans, etc. And as their relationships, prejudices and respect for their ancestors evolved, the natural animism became perverted by the human desire to be more important than other people and their totem poles became more and more elaborate status symbols. Eventually, the natural animism evolved into an artificial paganism, and their totem poles became their gods.
These twin threads of human history, one integrating, the other disintegrating, are over. The Book of Revelations mentions that satan, the dragon, will be thrown into the lake of fire. Hinduism teaches us that Kalki [time, the Eternal or the destroyer of foulness, quarrel] is the anticipated Tenth Avatar (Anupam Premanand, p223) and a fairly accurate description of Baha’u’llah.
Perhaps Noah was one of those Proto-Indo-Europeans, Who lived while that last ice age had caused sea level to be much lower than it is now. He lived near the north shore of a much smaller inland sea, where the Black Sea is now. The ice covering most of Eurasia and North America was melting and sea level was rising.
About the same time, some of the people who lived in Doggerland, the land under the North Sea, were migrating into Britain. Retreating away from the rising sea level and following the receding glaciers. Similar experiences were happening all over the world and are recorded in the stories of the people.
Noah was teaching the people around Him that there is only one Almighty God, and that the people ought to love and obey God, and love and respect each other. The people just laughed at Him.
Noah built the Ark, the Mediterranean Sea broke through the Bosporus and suddenly poured into the basin, filling up the Black Sea. The scoffers drowned. Noah and His family floated around the Black Sea for 3 months or so, and then drifted ashore on the south shore of the Black Sea, near Mt Ararat in eastern Anatolia.
Noah’s family is the only family that survived the flood. I figure that among other things, that is at least a metaphor about, the entire human race is one family. A metaphor is an analogy is a parable, right? Well, slightly different variations of a figure of speech anyway.
Adam, and then Noah, lived during the earliest dawn of human civilization, in what is now eastern Turkey. The Divine Education, the Word of God, revealed by Adam and then Noah is the primary impulse influencing human beings to gradually begin organizing ourselves into families, tribes and social organizations more sophisticated than troops of hunter gatherers.
Spirituality is the initial impulse that has caused human nature and civilization to evolve, not agriculture, business, crime or war or anything else. It was the divine education, first revealed by Adam and then Noah, which began the long slow process of improving ourselves, of learning and practicing spirituality and family values and advancing our civilization. We’ve made a lot of progress, and we have a lot of progress to make.
Gobekli Tepe, the ancient temple in southern Anatolia, is evidence that religion is far more ancient than civilization. Religion causes civilization, rather than being a consequence of civilization. Adam and Noah both lived in eastern Anatolia, not far from Gobekli Tepe.
Adam migrated from Turkey into Iran and founded human civilization there. Noah probably founded Gobekli Tepe. Abraham probably went there when His father moved the Family from Ur in Mesopotamia to Harran, which is a village not far from Gobekli Tepe or Harana Tepe.
The Manifestation of God causes civilizations, by teaching people the truth about spiritual reality, not by force. They are always peaceful servants, divine teachers, teaching people about loving and respecting each other.
They are not weaklings or innocent victims. They are just peaceful, divine Teachers. Their teachings ring true, because they are true. They always conform to the underlying spiritual structure of reality.
Unfortunately, Their followers are not always so peaceful.
Asshur Bani Pal founded the first library in Nineveh. He also hung people, upside down and alive, outside Nineveh, until long after they were bare skeletons, in order to intimidate people into obeying his rules.
Neolithic culture, ie., agricultural, is well established in the Nile Valley by 8000 years ago. The first evidence of writing appears about 5200 years ago. King Menes founded the first Egyptian dynasty around 5150 years ago. The Old Kingdom, in which most of the Egyptian pyramids were built, lasted from about 4700 – 4200 years ago (Wikipedia, Egypt).
Abraham lived about 4700 years ago. The divine education revealed by these three Prophets of God, Adam, Noah and Abraham, started the supernatural process of transforming human nature into a new kingdom of life on earth, entirely separate and distinct from the plant and animal kingdoms of life on earth.
Neolithic culture begins showing up in the archaeological evidence in Iran about 10,000 years ago. The Median Empire arises about 2800 years ago, followed by waves of civilization ebbing and flowing back and forth from Egypt and Mesopotamia, India, Anatolia and Chorason, Choresmian and Transoxiana, the lands all around Iran. (Wikipedia, Iran)
Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia and the Zagros mountains along the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf, lasted from about 6500 – 4200 years ago. The Akkadian Empire lasted from about 4200 – 2700 years ago. Babylon was a big empire from about 2700 years ago until the Assyrians arose from 2540 years ago to approximately 2330 years ago. Babylon reemerged from the ashes of the Assyrian empire and then was absorbed by the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great.
King Cyrus founded the Achaemenid Dynasty in Persia. His son, King Darius consolidated it into a vast empire that included Lydia [Turkey] and Egypt and everything between India in the south, Kazakhstan in the north and Greece and Libya in the west. The Achaemenid [Persian] Empire is probably one of the most significant episodes in the evolution of human nature and civilization. It was the Zoroastrian civilization, which, after Israel, did more to advance the cause of human rights than any other civilization in history, until the American Revolution.
Asian Philosophy and Culture
In China, there was a legendary culture now called the Xia Dynasty, which was preceded by the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors. The Xia Dynasty lasted from about 4000 – 3600 years ago. The Shang Dynasty lasted from about 3600 – 3100 years ago. The Zhou Dynasty, invading from the west, ruled from about 3100 – 2600 years ago and eventually fell apart into the Spring and Autumn Period and then the Warring States period.
Confucius and Lao Tsu, Plato and Aristotle, the Buddha and possibly Zoroaster, the ancient Mormon prophet Nephi and the Israelite prophet Daniel, arguing with King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, about whether the Israelites should worship the one true God or King Nebuchadnezzar, were all teaching their ideas during that same time, about 2500 years ago. It seems to be a very significant time in the spiritual evolution of human nature and civilization. one of the punctuations in the evolution of human spirituality.
The Qin Dynasty lasted about 15 years and then the Han Dynasty started from about 2200 years ago and lasted from 200 BC until 220 AD. The Chinese people attain their cultural identity from the Han Dynasty. The name China comes from Qin, pronounce Chin. The Silk Road and trade with the Roman Empire and India were flourishing. The Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty were at their greatest extent at approximately the same time (Wiki/China).
Neolithic culture first appears in India approximately 9000 years ago. Bharat is the original name of India. It means descendant of Emperor Bharata or held together. The Hindu epic Mahabharata seems to be the story of Indian civilization coming together starting about 4000 years ago. Just imagine all those hundreds of generations of teenagers.
The Lord Krishna (3228 – 3102 BC), is another ancient Manifestation of God like Adam, Noah and Abraham, Who taught the people of India to love and respect each other, to practice moral, ethical and spiritual principles, the divine rule of law. He is a Divine Teacher, causing the mystical transformation of human nature and civilization on the Indian subcontinent and now, all around the world.
Aryans migrating into India from north western Asia established the caste system, which declared the indigenous people to be untouchable. 2500 years ago the Nanda Dynasty and then about 2300 years ago the Mauryan Dynasty united Afghanistan, Pakistan and India into one big empire. (Wiki/India)
Ayurvedic Medicine, Hinduism and Buddhism have spread out from India inspiring a universe of spiritual civilization throughout Asia. Buddhist monks from India first brought Buddhism into China, influencing the evolution of Confucian culture in China and influencing the Shinto culture and evolving into Zen Buddhism in Japan.
From 4700 years ago to 3500 years ago, about the same time that Egypt, the Sumerian Empire, and then the Akkadian Empire, first began to gather human beings together into tribes and empires, far more sophisticated than troops of hunter gatherers, the Minoan civilization, based on the Island of Crete, was flourishing in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenician civilization, based in Lebanon, flourished from about 3500 years ago, until about 2500 years ago.
Hellenic or Greek culture was absorbed into the Roman Empire. Christianity spread into Europe through the Roman Empire, causing the mystical transformation of human nature and civilization in Europe. (Wiki/Celts) The Phoenicians and Greeks were most likely trading with the Celtic tribes on the west coast of Europe. The Standing Stones in Scotland are older than the Pyramids in Egypt.
Celtic Wisdom
Apparently, those Proto-Indo-European people first evolved in southeastern Europe, north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and have spread out in waves of migration all the way to India and America. There’s an argument in the academic community over whether Germany or Ukraine is the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
The Germany/ Halstatt hypothesis claims that the names of certain plants and animals in the original Indo-European language is evidence that central Europe is the origin of the Indo-Europeans. The Ukraine hypothesis seems to be much more popular and I think that the divine education revealed by Noah in the region of the Ukraine would have been a powerful impulse for the advancement of human nature and civilization.
Beginning about 2700 years ago, not long after King David and Solomon, and the Chinese were in their Spring and Autumn period, the Hallstatt Culture in Central Europe was evolving into the Celtic culture in western Europe. The Ocean was a highway, connecting all the people living along the west coast of Europe.
The DNA of the people of Great Britain is divided with the people in the east more closely related to the people of Doggerland and the Angles, Saxons and Danes. The Celtic people in the west, are more closely related to the Solutrean culture and the Basques and Vikings.
Celtic civilization probably started out in all of northern Europe. In any event, the Siberians migrated all the way to America 30,000 years ago. The barbarians from the north demolished civilization in Iran and then became part of a new civilization, over and over again for thousands of years.
It was the domestication of the horse that enabled the Proto-Indo-Europeans to dominate the people around them. And they had to work hard to survive in the harsh northern climate, causing the evolution of an aggressive work ethic. They established the caste system in India and declared the original inhabitants of India to be untouchable.
The Celtic Druids are the same as the Brahmans of India. The Angles, Saxons and Vikings invaded Britain in waves of violent competition for land and resources. It turns out that the Solutrean industry from the west coast of Europe is the same as the Clovis industry in America, indicating that Europeans were probably the first human beings to discover North America after all.
More recently we’ve invaded America in a second wave of migration and colonized most of the world. Now, thanks in large part to the American Revolution against imperialism, we’ve replaced imperialism with a global federation of self governing nations, which are just now learning how to function in harmony within themselves, with each other and within our natural habitat.
This migration and interaction of the families, tribes and nations of the world has been an inherent attribute of human nature and civilization for as long as Homo Sapien has been evolving on this planet. Education, socialization, language, relationships, trade and migration, back and forth all across earth, all contribute to human consciousness evolving in waves of progress.
Troops of Homo Sapien were evolving into families and tribes of increasingly civilized human beings, first along the Nile, the Euphrates and Tigris, and the Indus and Ganges River Basins, and then spreading out from Northeast Africa and all across southern Asia. Kind of like the Cambrian explosion of life in and around the coral reefs, only this time it’s an explosion of civilizations around earth’s great rivers.
The civilization founded by Adam was destroyed when, all those big coastal cities were flooded and that global stone age civilization fell into a dark age. Noah probably founded a university at Gobekli Tepe, from which our present civilization is arising in fits and starts.
Noah’s grandson Asshur probably founded Nineveh, which eventually became the capital of Assyria. Noah’s great grandson Nimrod founded Babylon and created one of the first empires and an oppressive government, teaching the people to depend on and worship king Nimrod, rather than God.
Abraham refused to worship king Nimrod and eventually migrated from Mesopotamia to Syria and then Canaan.
The Tower of Babel is probably a story about civilization attracting people, “the barbarians from the north,” from all over the world; and the cultural diversity of the immigrants, their lack of a common language and culture, a common law and ethics, etc., causing the civilization to collapse. In other words, the story of the Tower of Babel is a story about the lack of a common understanding of the rule of law, the lack of one common language and one common faith, causing the end of civilization.
Our one common faith, divine education, and the divine rule of law taught in that divine education, are essential features of human nature and civilization. No civilization is sustainable without them.
And again, the Word of God has way more meaning and significance than I can possibly understand, let alone describe.