THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO PETE __________________________________ In the beginning... we haven't got a verifiable clue. From time immemorial we, the so-called  'human' species of animals have tried to make some sense of where we are in this 'universe'. This is virtually impossible. We developed 'language' to try to describe out 'plight'. Our 'plight' was: how are we going to survive. It is no secret that the 'human' developed 'brain-power' because survival was useless from physical strength alone. Man was not a physically strong animal. The strength had to be developed from 'brain power'. 'Man' developed from something else. We really do not know what, except that we must have to be here, on the planet we call Earth. Well, maybe some 'god' didcreate us. We don't know and will never know. The whole notion is conjecture (guess/belief). All 'Man's' ' theories' rely on past personal/communal experiences. The sun rose in the 'morning' and went away after a certain period (which became the 'evening'). The sun gave us warmth and comfort. When it 'disappeared at night-time, it gave us no comfort. At this darkness, the 'stars' appeared. In a sense they gave us some comfort ( a sort of pre-television) and their changing patterns gave way to myths (sorry...much as television programmes do). These myths have changed with time, since the nature of the universe is a change from one state to another. So when we look at the stars NOW they are not the stars of THEN, when Man first looked at them. Therefore the experiences NOW are not what they were THEN. The universe (as we call it) moves in mysterious ways and usually forwards in what we choose to call TIME. A theory, is the allocation of personal experience/s (and experiment)  to certain phenomena that occurred and was observed through the senses that Man developed. These senses are (usually) much less than other animals because Man had developed other means of survival, which is why he/she cannot compete with other fauna/flora for any sort of supremecy (in the end). Note: a bacterium will always 'win' over anything a human animal can do; that's it's job. Our senses are derived from our conception due to the circumstances of the progenators of our birth, over which we have no control. We are the subject of our birth through the genes of our parents. We are also subject to the ingestation of food, water and minerals, etc. that were available at the time of our conception and subsequent birth. These changed as time went on and Man 'developed' but the basics remain the same. To deny change is to deny life (as we know it). The writers of the I Ching understood this, otherwise they would not have written it. Change is crucial to survival. It is called knowledge. Knowledge is data collected from experience that allows us to change towards survival. Survival is not some god-given event. It is a process by which we come to be what we are. To deny change is to deny life itself, whatever that may be. From the notion that the stars somehow 'controlled' Man's activities, there arose a belief system that the stars controlled our activities (astrology). These activities of the planetary motion devolved into stories and myths to make some sense of what a life must be about. They were anthropomorphised into names (gods) and were adored for their appearance at time that were crucial to survival. Our closest star is the sun. And yes, it does control our activities. Without it, we would not be here. That is in OUR part of the universe. Not everywhere (perhaps) but OURS. There was never an aim for mythology to do anything, merely to try to explain something that could not be understood by any other means at the time. Mythology was meant to explain something incomprehensible; to give some comfort/purpose to one's life (assuming that one needed this). That life was very difficult and still is. Mythology, however, developed into some sorts of belief system. A system, derived from certain happenings that at certain times, happened or occurred. They may or may not occur now, at this present time. So 'gods' appeared. Gods are things that are worshipped. To worship is to revere an event that occurs in Nature, for example, the rising and setting of the sun, which was the object of their gaze that blinded them and made them fear. At the same time of fear was an awesome feeling that this blessed object directed their lives because of its benefcial nature to give them crops to eat, for goodness sake. These ancestors of ours would have very different ideas about natural events. They would mark them and draw them or use any material available to them to iconise them or tell stories of them that are incomprehensible to us because we do not observe the same events they did in our lifetime. These images and icons are everywhere presented on this planet where the perpetrators of these images and icons cannot have possibly known of others' existence. Man's knowledge is planet-versal in this instance.

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