2 Beliefs

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2 Beliefs in the Origin of Life

• 1. Creation The story of Gods Love
• belief shared among Christian and Jews.
  According to creation God created people and the
  universe.
• Genesis, the first book of the Bible, starts
  with the story of creation, means the
  beginning, and the author is Moses. God created
  heaven and earth all this happened in a period
  of short time the Bible says six days.
• On the sixth day, God made the first man and
  woman. Every creatures was made according to
  their own kind This means they did not evolve.

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Gods plan for humans was this

• That man and woman would reflect the image and
  likeness of God
• Have a relationship with Him
• Be responsible for the earth, and
• Multiply into families tribes and nations
• Genesis continues with humanitys tragic fall
  into sin and death, and of the unfolding plan of
  salvation by God through His covenant with
  Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 17). The
  first civilizations spread out after the
  chronicle of a great flood, from which humanity
  was saved through one man (Noah) and his family.
• The Importance of Creation
• According to Christian belief, creation is very
  important. Creation proves that God loves people,
  and people are important to God. If we do not
  accept the truth of creation, then we believe
  that God is not important, and we do not have to
  worry about Him.

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2. Myths and Legends

• Oral legends or myths are stories in various
  traditions or superstitions. Definitely, they are
  not true, but they show a natural desire to
  people to believe that they came from a higher
  order, not some lower form of life.
• 3. Theory of Evolution
• A British naturalist, (1809-1882) Charles Darwin
  concluded that all forms of life changed or
  evolved over a very long period, more than six
  days mentioned in the Bible. According to him,
  life on earth was a gradual natural evolution. He
  wrote his ideas in a book, The Origin of Species
  (1859).
• The 3 Stages of Evolution
• 3 stages of life
• 1) The Age of Fishes 5 billion to 400 million
  years ago, the earths crust formed, and simple
  single-celled organism appeared at sea. This was
  the Age of Fishes and amphibians became dominant
  species (strongest group) of life.

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2. The Age of Reptiles cold-blooded animals
dominated. The biggest reptiles were the
dinosaurs, which ruled the earth, like a
Jurassic Park.

• 3. The Age of Primates after reptiles came the
  Age of mammals, are animals who give milk to
  their young. About 40 million years ago, it was
  believed that two different species of primates
  (highest mammals) developed led to the Age of
  Primates. The first primates appear was the lower
  apes, monkeys and chimpanzees. The second were
  more skilled group the human species came along
  the very skilled primates.
• Evolution said, the highest primates stood up
  like the Java man discovered by Eugene Dubois, a
  Dutch physician in Indonesia. Peking man was
  discovered in 1929 by a group of Chinese and
  European archaeologist near Beijing (formerly
  called Peking), China.

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Finally, evolutionist claim that the highest
primates became the human beings who walk today
Homo sapiens (wise man). They smart, walk and
look straight. They evolved some 250,000 years
ago.

• Examples of homo sapiens were the cave dwellers
  the Neanderthal Man and the Cro- Magnon man.
  Dated 70,000 and 35,000 years ago remains of
  these human were found. Relics paintings were
  found in Germany, France and Spain, showing
  drawings of hunting and cave life. Remains of
  crude humans have been found in other places such
  as East Africa and Palawan.
• Missing Link
• Scientist admit that there is a missing link,
  or a common ancestor of humans and apes whom they
  have not yet found. Nobody has ever found the
  missing link in the theory of evolution that
  could explain how humans came from primates and
  fish.
• Due to the lack of proof about the missing link,
  evolution does not meet the standard of science.

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Professor Sir Karl Popper of the London School of
Economics, a philosopher of science, stated that.
Evolution is not a fact. It is not a science.
In the opinion of all scholars, evolution is only
a theory.

• More Questions about Evolution
• According to its critics, evolution may be the
  best answer, but it falls short of proving the
  origin of life. Three more questions about the
  theory of evolution need questions about the
  theory evolution need explanation. Perhaps you
  can discover the answers to them someday.
• First, the evolution theory points to Africa,
  South and East Asia, or even Europe, as the
  origin of people. However, archaeological
  discoveries show that the first civilized people
  came from Asia. The Asian people spread
  civilizations to Africa, the Americas and Europe.

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Second, material artifacts, dinosaur fossils and
geological formations suggest millions of years
of natural change that favor evolution. The Bible
story of creation mentions a shorter time span of
change (days). Perhaps, time has many
definitions, and what is one day to God may be a
million years or so to us.

• Third, evolution theory claims that, without
  divine instruction, organisms naturally changed
  or mutated into higher organisms through natural
  selection (survival of the fittest). However,
  this contradicts science. An organism or
  mechanism left on its own decays. It does not
  improve. A mutant is sterile and cannot multiply.
  It left on its own it will not grow or improve.
  It takes someone to take care of a pet to enable
  it to live. Even with the best of care no monkey
  has turned into a human yet. In short, creatures
  survive when taken care of, and not because they
  mutate or are the strongest.

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A Bitter Controversy

• Darwins theory was greeted with a storm of
  protest when it first arrived. Some scientist
  accused Darwin of saying that people descended
  from apes. Religious leaders stated that he
  denied Gods role in creation, contradicted the
  Bible, ignored the human soul, and failed to
  explain why humans were supreme on earth. Many
  Catholics and Protestants believed that the words
  of the Bible had to be interpreted literally, and
  they condemned evolution. Since then, many
  religious people have concluded that the
  evolution theory does not denied Gods role in
  creation. They believe that God is still the
  creator of life, but the Bible story of creation
  was symbolic, and not a literal one. Others
  continue to believe that Darwins theory was an
  error.
• In 1929, an American school teacher named John
  Scopes was brought to trial for teaching
  evolution in class, which was then not
  acceptable. He was acquitted, and the Scopes
  trial opened the door for other teacher about
  evolution. By the early 20th century, evolution
  had replaced creation as the only explanation on
  the origin of life in most schools. Nowadays,
  creation is not the acceptable explanation of
  life on earth in secular (non-secular) schools.

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3 Racial Equality

• Myths on Race
• This racial prejudice led to Western colonialism
  and imperialism. But those days are over. Today,
  people recognize that skin color just makes
  people different from one another. God gave all
  people natural rights, regardless of color, sex,
  and intelligence.
• Types of Race
• Race means skin color, ethnic (tribal) origin,
  and birthplace. The variations in human skin
  color are entirely due to the effects of climate,
  geography and intermarriages in human societies.
• Finally, multi-racial marriages produce a mixed
  race child, in which one color may be prominent.
  There are different mixed races, such as the
  Chinoy, Eurasia, Mestizo, Fil-American, etc. In a
  world becoming increasingly open to migration and
  intermarriages, many countries have become
  melting pots of people with different racial
  colors.

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4 The Cradles of Civilization

• Civilization means a people with high developed
  resources and skills, as seen in their religion,
  government, law, economy, arts, sciences and
  military. The opposite of a civilized society is
  a primitive or barbarian society.
• To be a civilized person is the highest
  compliment society can bestow on anyone.
  Civilized people believe in a higher being or
  god, obey an authority with the law and order,
  possess language and writing, respect the life
  and property, bury the dead, take care of
  children, women, and the elderly, have evidence
  of wealth and culture, engage in trade and
  commerce, live peacefully with their neighbors
  and have a good reputation or image. Civility
  means to behave peacefully and respectfully.
• Uncivilized people are violent and troublesome,
  disrespect others life and property, steal and
  destroy communicate in crude language, may even
  be illiterate, do not bury the dead, do not care
  for children, women, and the elderly, do not have
  to obey the laws, do not like music, art, or
  literature, do not study or try to improve
  themselves, look dirty, ragged and poor.

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Why Asia?

• The Bible states that God put the first
  civilization in Asia. History and archaeological
  findings prove this story is true. As a scholar
  remarked, Its incredible how there was an
  explosion of knowledge in one place, all at a
  relative short period of time. The first peoples
  and civilizations from Asia spread to other
  continents Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
  The spread of civilization was Gods plan for the
  salvation of humanity, as our study of world
  history will show.
• By creating life in Asia, God put people in the
  most hospitable place for their survival and
  growth into families, tribes, and nations.
  According to the Bible, a great flood destroyed
  the world after creation. Asia has the highest
  elevated landforms, and the survivors of the
  flood found land to start again.
• Secondly, Asia is where the sun rises. A sunrise
  symbolizes beginning a new day, a new season, a
  new life.

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The Ten Cradles of Civilization

• The earliest civilization are known as the
  cradle of civilization. These cradles of
  civilization nurtured the earliest developed
  societies of people. The first cradle of
  civilization were located in the continent of
  Asia. In due course, these civilizations spread
  to Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Americas.
• 10 Cradles of civilization in the world are as
  follows
• Mesopotamia 2) Egypt and North Africa 3)
  Mediterranean
• 4) Palestine 5) India 6) China 7) Asia Minor 8)
  Iran 9) Central America
• 10) South America
• How Civilization Spreads
• Civilizations spread out in two ways 1) by
  direct contact with another people, or 2) by
  indirect contact through third parties.

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Direct contact happens when people personally
transfer their culture to another through
marriage, colonization, or trade of goods and
services.

• for ex. Someone may share with another their
  religion, or their skills, or their gadgets.
• Indirectly also through third parties. One
  person may acquire something from a civilization
  not his/her own, and then pass it on to another
  person. For ex the Phoenician got the alphabet
  from Mesopotamians. Then, the Phoenician traded
  with the Greeks, who liked the way the
  Phoenicians wrote down words and numbers. The
  Greeks added the vowel signs to improve the
  alphabet. Then Alexander the Great took the Greek
  language to other lands during his conquest. And
  so on. This story shows how a cultural asset
  spread indirectly on to many nations.

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Questions

• Who are the experts on World history/civilization?
  
• Why is geography important?
• What the ways of measuring time?
• Name the 3 major beliefs on the origin of people
  and briefly describe each.
• What are the major differences between evolution
  and creation?
• Define language and writing and how why is it
  important?
• What are races and how attitude change about
  race?
• What is civilization?
• Where are the ten cradles of civilization?
• Described the difference between civilized person
  and a barbarian?

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End Chapter 1

• Thank you!