On the question of origins we may believe in the assumption on which the big bang theory rests that matter, space and time miraculously, came into existence as a cause in itself; or we may believe like creationists that God had no beginning but that He was the cause of matter and space-time; or we may believe that matter jumps in and out of existence and could appear in two or more locations at the same time as was discovered to be happening in quantum dimensions. 

 

All of the philosophical, religious and scientific assumptions, beliefs, speculations and theories help to satisfy the human curiosity about a beginning point or a first cause. It is difficult to even imagine an existence without a beginning or an end because our detection and perception fields have such distinct limits and show reoccurring cycles each with a beginning and ending, a beginning that cannot be traced and an ending that cannot be predicted precisely. 

 

Once a thought is written down it has become solid and can only be changed by another piece of writing that will rebuke or replace it. Long before people could read or write they verbally passed information, knowledge, ideas, occurrences, events and thoughts on to each other. 

 

They probably used examples of real life events, just like we do today, to better explain abstract concepts. But as we all know, the verbal exchange of real life events is vulnerable to change because the experience of reality is relative to the opinions, mind frame and spatial position of each relator. Not only that, the narration of events relies on fallible memories, while lies and fantasies often interfere turning facts into fiction. 

 

The philosophers, scientists, healers and artists of past times did not get their knowledge from books. They got their information through the spoken word and by means of personal experiences, experiments and explorations. Nature was their teacher and explaining to each other was their medium. They did not write academic papers but they may have made illustrations -in the sand or on rocks; or 3-D models -from clay, shells or wood to put their ideas out into the world. 

 

The human race has come a long way since then but we still find the same questions were asked all those years ago difficult. We are using assumptions and hypotheses to answer the hard questions. There are questions that up to this day remain unfathomable despite the theories and terms that science has developed to try and explain them, questions like: Is there a God, who are we; how do our bodies function; what happens after we die; what is this life in us? Our language has evolved to include words like atoms, neurons, space-time and electromagnetism but none of these words provide answers to any of these questions, the only purpose they serve is to help scientists and philosophers better explain their ideas, theories, assumptions and hypotheses about these questions. 

 

The ancients noticed how nature is made of the same solid-, fluid-, gaseous-, and fire- elements that constructed their own bodies. They saw nature express unpredictable mood swings in weather patterns; how it is controlled by rhythmic cycles causing seasonal births, growth, changes and deaths. They appreciated how nature nurtures millions of living species. No wonder their thinkers or storytellers’ personified nature by calling it a mother –“mother nature” and “mother earth.” 

 

But there cannot be a mother without a father. How can a female energy reproduce without merging with a male energy? Did the ancients personify the powerful, invisible, intelligent, omnipresent, energy moving as life and driving reproduction of all living things within Mother Nature, calling it God the father long before they learned to write? 

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The ancients believed that Mother Nature and Father God are intelligent. They found ways to connect and communicate with them. They did this through altered states of consciousness by taking in natural plant-based chemicals and or by singing, dancing, chanting and playing on instruments; in other words, moving rhythmically in order to reach a synchronised harmony with the motions of nature. Up to this day Pantheists believe that god is everything that exists. 

 

Creationists believe in a father god but that this god created Mother Nature and exists separate, from his creation. Dualists do not call the life force a father or a god but rather the mental world and believe that the physical worlds or Mother Nature exist separately from mind and animists say that God is a spirit, they say spirit enters and withdraws from physical bodies. Idealists on the other hand believe that mind is everything, while naturalists say that there is no mental world but that the natural world studied by science is all that exists. 

 

Then there are the Pan Atheists who also agree that god is a deity separate from nature but that all of nature is an expression of this deity. 

 

Even though the belief in both or either Mother Nature or father god has been preserved in the form of mythological or metaphorical stories none of which can be claimed to be the ultimate truth, since absolute truths only exist for one moment at a time and in the consciousness of a single mind. All things, events, memories and ideas are always relevant to an individual’s personal experience of these. People experiencing the same event, object or encounter at the same moment may form common memories, personal interpretations and ideas about the event, object or encounter, however each commonality will differ with regards to the unique memories, exclusive interpretations and different ideas constructed by individual minds over a period of time. The reality of every event and every encounter moves further and further away from the moment of truth into fallible memories as moments pass by. A collective experience that happened an hour ago is no longer real, as subtle bits of information are being lost as well as added on by each individual that was part of it. If ten people were to turn the same novel into a movie not one of the movies will be the same. Whether the truth is written down or over told different understandings and misinterpretations will always creep in. 

 

Physical objects are the closest that we will ever get to absolute truths since they exist for longer periods than just a moment at a time. That is why scientists trust in objective and not in subjective realities because they are able to observe and do physical experiments on touchable things over longer periods of time and trust that the object which they are observing and experimenting on will remain unchanged or at least show measurable changes over a period of time. A rock will remain exactly the same over a long period of time while a plant may show small changes over a period of days and water may show changes within a few minutes. 

 

Although Physicists conduct experiments only on physical objects, they cannot deny the interdependence between matter and the non-physical nature of conscious experiences and the information of mind. They make use of imaginary thought experiments to come up with theories and make up scientific terms to describe supernatural phenomena like the inherent movement of matter. They guess that it must be a force that binds the solar system and calls it gravity, they say it is also a force that binds atoms and calls it electromagnetism, they claim that the strong force binds the nucleus of atoms and the weak force causes radioactive decay. They sometimes have to rely on insignificant findings to prove that their theories could be correct.  However their proofs rely on the mind constructions of individuals who need to persuade and convince others to accept them as factual or true. Even “truth” and “reality” are terms to help us better understand subjective concepts. 

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People will always come up with potential answers, theories or conclusions about one or more of the previously mentioned hard questions and there will always be one or more followers who will agree that a specific answer, idea or conclusion makes enough sense or provides enough physical proof that it could be called a truth. 

 

Atheists insist that the idea of a supernatural god moving as the life force in matter is ridiculous but they allow themselves to believe that mother nature is the sole creator, destroyer and sustainer of all that can be seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled. 

 

Ontology is a philosophical construct that deals with the nature of things and produced materialists who just like atheists claim that matter is everything; 

 

Panpsychism believe that all forms of matter are interdependent and consist of variable, inseparable degrees of consciousness. 

The ancient ideas that was passed on by word of mouth and later by the written word telling about mother nature and father god became collective ideas that grew larger as their audiences grew larger. Not only scientist but also creationists have accepted the collective idea regarding Mother nature since nature can be observed, touched, smelled, heard, tasted and experimented with, justifying them to produce theories and beliefs about it. 

The ancients knew that Mother Nature and father God whom they have personified are intelligent therefore they found ways to connect and communicate with them. They did this through altered states of consciousness by taking in natural chemicals and or singing, dancing, chanting and playing on instruments. After reaching a certain level of happiness, intuition or enlightenment they would ask Mother Nature and or father god not to destroy their homes, families, animals and crops.

-Preface by Celia Claase