Sunday, April 1, 2007

Humanity's "Mulligan"

Humanity’s “Mulligan”

There is a significant date in our history when suddenly our brains were capable of articulating the third dimension of our visual perspective. But this is only the tip of the Iceberg. This is a leading indicator of a giant leap forward in our intelligence as a species, and a surge in scientific discovery and creativity that went unrecognized as a symptom of human evolution.

The Renaissance was fought at every turn by the religious elite whose personal enrichment relied on maintaining a dependent population through illiteracy and bearing too many children. As the religious elite lavished themselves with the tithes of the huddled masses, there finally arose out of Feudal Europe, a peasant war that brought about the reformation.

Then there was a sudden surge in creativity which gradually brought about revolutionary discoveries in engineering and science. (Some would say they were re-discoveries due to the destruction of the Ancient Royal Library of Alexandria, which is thought to have fallen victim to the decree of Theophilus in 391 .

The human mind at this point made enormous strides forward in Europe. The Chinese had long since invented the compass, paper and gun powder, but even then their art still depicted visual perspective using symbolic references as a means of distinguishing foreground and background objects.

"The laws and principles of perspective were first clearly described by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) in his Notebooks, where he outlined a suitable course of study for the artists including, as well as perspective, the arrangement of surface muscles, the structure of the eyes of man and animals, and botany. He called perspective 'the bridle and rudder of painting,’…" -- R. L Gregory Eye and Brain: The psychology of seeing. 1973 McGraw-Hill, New York, NY

It is at this point in history that men should have reevaluated the cognitive abilities of the ancient writers, because the ancient writings of divinity were made by men incapable of properly perceiving the world as we do today, and those that could were quickly tortured into submission or killed by the likes of the Spanish Inquisition.

The early Renaissance represents a sudden neurological development in humans that passed unrecognized by historians who only recently began to add Psychology to their equations.

This period also brought about revolutions in music. So sudden was the world introduced to amazing talent in such a brief period, it’s amazing how no one wondered how dim the human senses were for so many thousands of years before the Renaissance, or even the depth of that dimness through the progression backwards through history. Nobody had sense enough to build lenses before the 1500’s.

The ancient writings of basic history and the writings of how we should treat each other must be immediately called into question, because we are using documentation from inadequate primitive thought processes.

Religion was for a primitive species of man.

Using my favorite golf term as a metaphor, humanity does deserve a “Mulligan,” but not religion.

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