WHO ARE WE?

Who are we? Where did we come from? The attempts of answering these questions can be condensed into two basic schools of thought, already engaged for decades in adversity and mutual disagreement for one another's theories: the creationists and the evolutionists.

The followers of the former believe in the rigid interpretation of religious scriptures, whilst those of the latter believe in a materialistic view of external phenomena, fundamentalists on one side and scientists on the other.

In our century these two schools have already come to head several times, in an ongoing battle with victories and losses to both sides, through betrayals and desertions, conquests and capitulations and at the end of the day it takes on the characteristics of a war, a “Holy War” in eyes of the former and a “Just War” through the eyes of the latter.

The creationists had hardly finished commemorating the collapse of the unsustainable theory of spontaneous generation, and Darwin 's ideas had already started to win the world over. What followed was a succession of debilitating heated debates, proof and counter-proof and there were even many lawsuits too. The most recent chapter ended with a cloned sheep, exhibited by doctors as a trophy, and a panoramic photo of Mars – empty and without the faintest sign of life – proudly ridiculed by preachers.

But which of these two basic concepts would be correct? The former claims that man was made from clay, and the firstborn woman came from his rib? Or could the first primitive human couple have appeared from an ape species? Are we made of clay or did we descend from monkeys? If in case we have the misfortune to admit that the whole of humanity had originated from incestuous relationships between the descendants of the first family, it follows that we should consider hanging a picture of a gorilla or chimpanzee in our ancestral gallery, however despite this, in reality none of us would be willing to do so. Today too, we do not see any type of genetic traces that could prove either the followers of the Genesis theory or of the scientific one, and neither is man born with a rib less than a woman, nor it is noticed in the many nationalities that live on Earth any special preference for bananas.

Nevertheless, there is something fundamental that exists, which is common to both theories that are apparently so opposite from each other. Both are exclusive products of the human intellect. They were molded by the intellect. Neither are results of a spiritual search.

So it is only the work of the intellect interpreting metaphors of a spiritual characteristic in a literal manner. The intellect does not have the capacity to replace the merely terrestrial thoughts in its analyses, since it itself is already a product of the material brain. That is why, it compresses everything that it comes across in concepts that are far to limited, twisted and hopelessly bound to the terrestrial sphere of space and time.

So through this distortion all the spiritual teachings that had been passed onto to humanity suffered as time went by. Nothing remained pure. Nothing was understood in its most profound meaning. Parables, prayers, psalms and prophecies were all retained, hindered, deformed and compressed into very restricted concepts. What remained of the original teachings, after being compressed through this intellectual sieve, were far from what they were really meant to mean.

Here I would like to illustrate to what point the influence of the brain has over religious topics today: A Brazilian theologian recently made clear that “according to the evolution theory of the universe, now we know that the body does not have a spirit” (sic). It seems to be of a case of an apostasy (or of an alteration, that rests on the ideology of how one see things), of a deserter that turned coat and joined the enemy.

In fact, on the enemy's side the situation is even worse, for there, the adoration of the idol, the intellect, is a pre-established condition for an aspiring applicant to be able to receive the rank of scientist. And it is precisely one of the exponents of this scientific army (a Nobel prize winner, at that) who assures us that “life happened by chance, when at a certain moment some chemical elements combined together and started to copy themselves” (sic).

According to this idea, the billions of human beings on Earth, the countless animal, vegetal, viral, dinosaur, bacterial and whale species, plus all life forms that populate the planet or had populated it already, including the polemic primordial monkey couple, are the result of a fortuitous combination of some chemical elements - coming from who knows where - that took place three billion years ago that, by chance, without further ado, decided to make copies of themselves and resulted in what we have today. On other planets, like Mars for example, these chemical elements did not want to reproduce, and that is why today, we do not see any Martian scientist trying to explain how life appeared…

Such an infantile and inconsistent explanation as to the origin of life, is capable of getting a justified burst of laughter from an illiterate peasant, it is the best science has to offer as the result of intellectual work. This should serve as proof to people who are still awake, that the intellect is completely incapable of supplying answers that question the psychic and spiritual being of man. Science is useful in explaining and classifying phenomena of an exclusive material nature, however it becomes overwhelmingly frustrated when it dares try to explain things that are well above its narrow and limited sphere.

We are not made of mud originally, simply because we are spiritual beings that come from the spiritual sphere in creation. Therefore, it is there that our search should be directed. However, not with the doubts of the intellect held fast to Earth, but with the attributes of the spirit itself. On the other hand, what developed from the apelike animal was not man, which is a spiritual being, but only his material body, that is nothing other than a wrapping, a clothing that allows the spirit to live and act here on Earth.

This simple evidence can be enriched excessively with much more detailed explanations. But, to achieve that first of all it is necessary for one to free one's spirit and mind respectively, from all types of religious and scientific dogma. For as long as man voluntarily insists on binding himself with these two handcuffs, he will automatically continue to exclude himself from higher learning.

Roberto C. P. Junior