Author's Commentary on
metagenesis
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The
Light of Genesis and the Light of Science
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When I wrote "Metagenesis", my intent
was to show how "The Light of Genesis" and "The
Light of Science" were compatible to an amazing degree,
and that the spiritual messages of Genesis are surpisingly
supported by the discoveries of modern science.
In doing so, I preserved seven great messages that were
contained in Genesis 1-3, while introducing many of the
amazing revelations of modern science. Those seven
great messages (I to VII) are highlighted below.
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Genesis 1: The Beginning
(I) God created the entire Universe from nothingness,
according to
His perfect reason, His Logos: Science has
supported this understanding to an amazing degree. I
chose the picture of the "Eye of God" nebula that
was taken by the Hubble space telescope as the artwork for
this section of the piece.
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(II) The Universe was created through
a great unfolding that honored the concept of the Sabbath:
though I believe the account in Genesis is greatly simplified
and somewhat flawed from the perspective of modern science,
in Metagenesis, I provide from science the reconciling concept
of the seven dawns.
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Day 1: From the seed of Creation to the dawn
of light: featuring Cosmology's Big Bang, and the Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB) radiation as observed by the Cosmic
Background Explorer (COBE). Hubble discovered that
distant galaxies were observed to be moving away from ours at
a rate proportional to their distance.
Hubble's law (V =H x D) suggested if the Universe were
collocated at some time in the past (D = V x T) then
the age of the Universe was of the order of 1/H. |
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| Day 2: From the dawn of light to the dawn of
stars: featuring astrology's view of the Eagle Nebula, courtesy
of the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists believe that
stars in the Eagle Nebula are born in clouds of cold hydrogen
gas that reside in chaotic neighborhoods. The soaring
tower is 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers high,
about twice the distance from our Sun to the next nearest star.
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Day 3: From the dawn of stars to the dawn of
planets: featuring the theory of Stellar Nucleosynthesis,
critical to astrology, cosmology, and nuclear physics, and the
discovery of the Periodic Table, the cornerstone of modern chemistry
(below). Scientists believe that elements are created
by nuclear fusion, fission and secondary reactions that occur
within the confines of stars. Later, stars may nova, distributing
large amounts of matter around neighboring stars, that may condense
to form planets. A photograph of Martian dawn is shown
on the left (courtesy of NASA). |
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| Day 4: From the dawn of planets to the dawn
of life: featuring the theories of ancient earth geology,
and abiogenesis and the new theories of the RNA world. Our
understanding of these systems has been greatly enhanced by
the discovery of the mechanisms of cell division and of the
structure of RNA and DNA, as shown below. Scome scientists
theorize that the earliest forms of replicating biochemicals
were ribonucleic acid (RNA) based. |
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Day 5: From the dawn of life to the dawn of multicellular
life: featuring the theory of endosymbiosis, the fossil
record of the Cambrian Explosion, and the diverse cells
of living tissue. Scientists believe that diverse
protists formed symbionts during the evolution of both animal
and plant cells (see below). Eventually protist diversity
led to the formation of primitive invertebrates, that gave
rise to arthropods like the trilobite, shown in fossilized
form here (left). Protist diversity eventually gave
rise to further cell specialization and diversification
(see human cells two figures below).
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Mitochondria are thought to have descended
from close relatives of typhus-causing bacteria.
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Phylogenetic analyses based on genetic
sequences
(comparative DNA sequencing) support
the endosymbiosis hypothesis.
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Epithelial Cells
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Bone Cells
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Nerve Cells |
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Day 6: From the dawn of multicellular life
to the dawn of humankind (and the beginning of God's
Sabbath): featuring the theory of the evolution of the
phyla and of the descent of man. Perhaps science
has made no greater discovery than that of the intrinsic order
of life. At once, all of the life sciences came together
as a beautiful symphony, revealing the harmony of all living
species on earth. Gaia theory postulates that our entire
planet may well be the embryo of a single super-organism,
destined to escape the confines of our solar system, and to
grow through new dimensions of God's glory.
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Day 7: From the dawn of humankind to the dawn
of civilization
(and the end of God's Sabbath): in Metagenesis, the
rise of civilizatoin ends the seven day journey of creation.
Historically, this end of the Sabbath may have occurred
in ancient Mesopotamia, whose artwork is shown on the right.
Spiritually, the end of the Sabbath came from The
Fall of Adam and Eve, and the appearance of the duality
of man, perhaps best depicted in the story of Cain and Abel
(second from the left, below). |
Dawn of Civilization |
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Genesis
2: Adam and Eve
(III) All humankind descended from a first human couple,
traditionally called Adam and Eve in Genesis and in science,
and that we are all linked in a great tree of descendency,
the brotherhood of man: Both mitochondrial
DNA studies and Y chromosome studies have tended to reach
agreement on this amazing fact. Remarkably, here science
and Genesis have been in total accord.
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I also offer the hypothesis that Adam and Eve may have been
born from the same fertilized egg cell. That Adam was
formed as a fertilized egg containing a key deletion, inversion
and fusion mutation, which reduced our chromosome count from
48 to 46. And then, during the first cell division,
Eve was formed, when the sex chromosomes divided aploidally
to yield an XYY Adam and an X Eve.
In this way, Adam came first; Eve was created from the
side of Adam, and the key mutation was given to both. If
this first cell division had not occurred this way, Adam would
have been alone, and humankind would not have survived.
To me, this little bit of science fiction helps reconcile
Genesis with science, and affirms the equality of the sexes,
and the miracle of God's creation.
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(IV) At first, Adam and Eve lived in
spiritual harmony with God and with God's Creation:
Modern science suggests that we lived as a troupe of
animals for a long time prior to developing language and the
ability to efficiently store and reuse knowledge. This
indeed was a time of harmony in the Garden of Eden.
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Genesis 3: The Fall
(V) Two great trees (metaphorically speaking) existed
that were part of the Logos, God's perfect reason:
"The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" (the
arts and sciences), and "The Tree of Life" (the
world genome). Science suggests that these metaphors
stood for the ability to record and transfer knowledge from
one generation to the next, and the unfolding world genome
itself. Here modern science and Genesis are in total
agreement.
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(VI) Humankind separated from the harmony of God's
Creation and of God when it started to rely on its own understanding
of Good and Evil, giving rise to the duality of humankind:
that is the ability to do great wrong and the ability
to do great right, and also the ability to rationalize both
by means of their own short sightedness.
I believe the fall is a spiritual separation from a God;
a spiritual death. From that point on, humankind had
to survive on its own primitive understanding.
Modern science asks us to understand that the portion of
our minds that has inner-dialogue, the center of ego and
consciousness, is very primitive. It has only existed
for at most 300,000 years, while our mammalian brain has
been evolving for over 300 million years. Perhpas,
when we started listening to our ego, and we separated from
the higher consciousness exhibited by the rest of our mind,
we fell spiritually and lost communion with God.
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(VII) The fall involved the adversary of God, which
is personified as the serpent or Satan, which to me is an
adversary in the mind of every human: Humans
are capable of false beliefs that oppose God's will for
Creation, and they are capable of sharing those beliefs
with others and creating Beasts that pillage and destroy.
In evolution, predators and their prey are said to evolve
as an "antagonistic coevolution". As the
predator gets stealthier, the prey must get better at hearing
and seeing. As the predator gets faster, the prey
must also get faster.
There are similar concepts in "evolutionary psychology".
For me, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
is best likened to "intraspecies antagonistic coevolution".
When humankind preys on itself, it is evil. When humankind
develops methods of synergistic cooperation and methods
to detect and control evil, it is good. The greatest
good is love. The psychological belief in "an
adversary" is at that heart of this dualistic coevolution,
and the ability to do good or to do evil is at that heart
of all humans.
Our spiritual salvation lies in our overcoming this illusion
- that we are separate from nature and that "other"
humans are our enemy - and returning to spiritual life,
our place in the garden of Eden and the Kingdom of God.
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Joining
the Lights of Truth
The inspired story of Creation written in Genesis
1-3 contains eternal Truths - Truths that have been confirmed
by modern science after 3,000 years of study. The correspondence
of these Spiritual Truths should give everyone extraordinary
faith in the love and guiding Spirit of God, and the complimintary
paths to Truth that religion and science bring.
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Richard Malina
Metadynamics Ministry
rmalina@wi.rr.com
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