Dear Reader,
I assume you have not forgotten the last edition of your favourite Munch Report, focusing on all these Doomsday Stories,
and yet, whilst it had some kind of funny connotations, I must admit, this year feels like a
"Doomed Year".
Although I don't want to spoil your preparations for Christmas, the year 2015 has seen so many dramatic events that I can not remember anything like it :
Environmentally it was the hottest year ever, and as a result freak floodings and winds ( Hurricane Patricia, 200 mph winds, 879 Mbar, strongest ever) .
The frantic efforts from 150 World “Leaders” in Paris ( the largest meeting of world leaders ever )
to restrict global warming to an increase of 2 degrees Centigrades
which will be much too little , much too late .
And world politics focusing again on events with scenes of Mass Murder and Mayham ( not only in Europe ),
fuelled by war and religious beliefs and practices.
All of this brought home by Television and Social Media as part of a “ Reality Show” that is unbearable to watch, but still attracts its audiences.
And the events that are "biggest ever" , no matter how gruesome, get prime time slots.
One might be wondering, where did it all start ( to go so horribly wrong ) and where will it all end.
So whilst we still can't see The End , let's focus today on The Beginning, shall we ?
I know, I know, wrong sequence, but that's the liberty of the editor, so what's the heck !
I assume you have not forgotten the last edition of your favourite Munch Report, focusing on all these Doomsday Stories,
and yet, whilst it had some kind of funny connotations, I must admit, this year feels like a
"Doomed Year".
Although I don't want to spoil your preparations for Christmas, the year 2015 has seen so many dramatic events that I can not remember anything like it :
Environmentally it was the hottest year ever, and as a result freak floodings and winds ( Hurricane Patricia, 200 mph winds, 879 Mbar, strongest ever) .
The frantic efforts from 150 World “Leaders” in Paris ( the largest meeting of world leaders ever )
to restrict global warming to an increase of 2 degrees Centigrades
which will be much too little , much too late .
And world politics focusing again on events with scenes of Mass Murder and Mayham ( not only in Europe ),
fuelled by war and religious beliefs and practices.
All of this brought home by Television and Social Media as part of a “ Reality Show” that is unbearable to watch, but still attracts its audiences.
And the events that are "biggest ever" , no matter how gruesome, get prime time slots.
One might be wondering, where did it all start ( to go so horribly wrong ) and where will it all end.
So whilst we still can't see The End , let's focus today on The Beginning, shall we ?
I know, I know, wrong sequence, but that's the liberty of the editor, so what's the heck !
So, the question is
" where did it all start " ?
In previous societies of the ( ancient ) world , regardless which continent or island group they belonged to, people’s belief focused on the question
“who we are and
where did we come from”,
and each had its own Creation Myth.
The indigenious people of Africa, China, North and South America, Skandinavia,Pacific Islands, etc,
they all had an answer to this fundamental question,
and it is surprising how similar they are ,
or better
how much in common these stories have,
even when they originated in so different places.
But of course they all expressed a 'religious' belief, and their “view of the world” .
Usually these views take the form of creation accounts in the sacred books of the religions concerned.
What is also interesting is that they all describe a "something" before the creation event.
“Somebody" or "Something" was already there, so to speak.
In one of the oldest myths,
perhaps 2600BC,
the Sumerian people believed that the
Goddess Nammu was “the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth” .
In other stories like in China, it was already a “living person” ,
P’an Ku, who grew for 18000 years
inside a cosmic egg,
and when it hatched,
the shell above him became the sky and the one below the earth.
Usually these views take the form of creation accounts in the sacred books of the religions concerned.
What is also interesting is that they all describe a "something" before the creation event.
“Somebody" or "Something" was already there, so to speak.
In one of the oldest myths,
perhaps 2600BC,
the Sumerian people believed that the
Goddess Nammu was “the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth” .
In other stories like in China, it was already a “living person” ,
P’an Ku, who grew for 18000 years
inside a cosmic egg,
and when it hatched,
the shell above him became the sky and the one below the earth.
|
Makes sense to me, but where did the egg come from ????? Any idea, you city dwellers and other hobby (chicken or egg) farmers ? (Just as a matter of interest, the “egg story” is also central in stories from Mali and Egypt.) |
ÜAnyway, that’s all in the past, so to speak.
Today, we have all the answers, almost…I mean , today we talk science.
And it is convincing, at least at first sight.
As mentioned before, we live in an era, where only "big bangs” get recognised in the eye of the “beholder” :
the Biggest Sale ( Black Friday ? ) , the Biggest Brother ( who is watching ?) , the Biggest Flood ( Tsunami ? Noah's Arche ? )
so naturally, here, in our modern world, a finally convincing story :
the Biggest Explosion ever,
The Big Bang Theory.
Today, we have all the answers, almost…I mean , today we talk science.
And it is convincing, at least at first sight.
As mentioned before, we live in an era, where only "big bangs” get recognised in the eye of the “beholder” :
the Biggest Sale ( Black Friday ? ) , the Biggest Brother ( who is watching ?) , the Biggest Flood ( Tsunami ? Noah's Arche ? )
so naturally, here, in our modern world, a finally convincing story :
the Biggest Explosion ever,
The Big Bang Theory.
|
Believe it or not, it is not a new theory ! It was first proposed in 1927 by, no, you are wrong, not a scientist, at least not primarily, but a religious man : The Belgian Roman Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre. No idea, how he overcame his schism in life, but to give him credit, he was a well recognised Cosmologist and Astrophysicist. |
Georges Lemaitre 1894-1966
|
Anyway, the basis of this theory lies in the observation that galaxies appear to be moving apart from each other,
suggesting that our universe is expanding.
As a consequence, to put it mildly in my non-scientific words :
“what grows bigger, must have been smaller” !!
Clear ?
And , if we follow the contracting movement back in space and time to the beginning, what to we find :
The BIG BIG BANG, THE BIG BIG BOOM,
BOOMBADABOOM !!!!!!!!!!!
the explosion, the single atom from which all the universe emerged 14 billion years ago.
So here we have it : Creation story number xxx !
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1. HOWEVER : It does still not explain what was before the BIG Bang. The ANTE BIG BANG Situation. Some theories claim that the universe is not only expanding, but after a certain time will start contracting ( Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Brian Cox ), meaning there might have been a Universe before it imploded,and out of its ashes came…..the new universe. And even parallel universes are in discussion , but who can tell. |
2. Anyway, we have to admit that we really don't know what the world was before its creation . But as we are “cool” observants, we see how things around us change , grow, are born, and die. So we are not “better” than the ancients, we just weave these observations into our own creation “myth”. Nothing ever changes. |
In fact, and this is the interesting point, now we are almost “back to religion” :
“The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that
the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths.
It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
“The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that
the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths.
It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
So if there is a connection, even a small one , between the Big Bang Theory, and Hinduism, then here is a story :
|
Contrary to popular understanding, Hindus recognise one God, Brahman, the eternal origin who is the cause and foundation of all existence. And where does he come from ? |
|
Well,
you ignorant, you disbelievers , you disco goers and celebrity addicts
Yes,
YOU OUT THERE I AM TALKING TO YOU !
HAVE A GUESS !!!!!
you ignorant, you disbelievers , you disco goers and celebrity addicts
Yes,
YOU OUT THERE I AM TALKING TO YOU !
HAVE A GUESS !!!!!
BINGO
There is indeed one tradition in Hinduism where
the creator god Brahma emerged from an egg and created the world !
( The nature of the Purusha, the creation of the gods and other details of the embryo creation myth have been described variously by the later Hindu texts.)
the creator god Brahma emerged from an egg and created the world !
( The nature of the Purusha, the creation of the gods and other details of the embryo creation myth have been described variously by the later Hindu texts.)
MY THESIS :
THE ANTE BIG BANG SITUATION :
So here is my thesis, the one that will make Scientists gasp for air,
and Newsweek will write about this, my last edition of the Cosmic Ocean series, soon .
There can be only one conclusion left to what was before the BIG BANG !
A small EGG that was laid by a chicken that came from a different universe and got lost, and the egg became so hot that it exploded
in a BIG BANG !
Anybody out there who wants to argue ?
THE ANTE BIG BANG SITUATION :
So here is my thesis, the one that will make Scientists gasp for air,
and Newsweek will write about this, my last edition of the Cosmic Ocean series, soon .
There can be only one conclusion left to what was before the BIG BANG !
A small EGG that was laid by a chicken that came from a different universe and got lost, and the egg became so hot that it exploded
in a BIG BANG !
Anybody out there who wants to argue ?