I quite often think about our beginnings, (the beginnings of the human race I mean, of course, not my personal beginning, which is of very little importance).
No, I mean the way or ways that we started, and there are numerous ‘guessers’ who have put up a myriad of suggestions over the years, some interesting, some exciting and some downright stupid.
The prime theory at the moment is that we all started out as one person, somewhere in central Africa, though how one person can start a race, all on their own is a mystery to me, plus of course the fact that if this were really so, we would all be terribly inbred, and I doubt very much that we would have lasted even the short period that humans have been here, if this theory were true.
It also strikes me as strange, that this one person could also be the first black person, the first white person, the first oriental person and the first Nordic person, all at the same time!
Another popular theory is the one where we all, or rather our distant ancestors all, were brought here by some interstellar travelers, though I can’t understand why they would go to all that trouble, unless we are just a sort of ‘plant-nursery’ being brought on to be re-planted in some other galaxy.
Maybe that is what all the UFO’s are about; they are simply here to pick up a few specimens for the replanting that’s going on in Andromeda at the present time!
I think the thing that makes this theory popular is the fact that a lot of ancient stone carvings, rock paintings and ancient stories, have pictures or descriptions in them that do look something like our idea of what aliens, in their special suits look like.
Could be true, maybe not!
Next, we go back much earlier than theory number one, to the time before there were any living creatures on Earth at all, apart, possibly, for plants, who incidentally must have been the very first carriers of some primitive form of DNA, just as all plants do today.
This theory is what we call evolution, that freaky, chance filled extravaganza where everything happens by pure chance, following the trail of climate change, earth cooling, massive amounts of water and a lot of thunderstorms.
It goes basically, as far as I can tell from reading, that at some period all the conditions here were such that there were exact proportions of various exotic chemicals lying about everywhere, some of them if the puddles, ponds and lakes that were all over the place.
The many lightning bolts that were striking Earth then, occasionally hit one of these pools and low-and-behold, electricity plus chemicals created another set of DNA, primitive again, but different in structure to the variety the plants were using.
The waters contained all sorts of other nourishing chemicals and the created cells, with their DNA prospered, divided, and grew, first into tiny primitive water creatures and then onward and upward, through millions of years of dinosaurs, finally reaching ‘manhood’, and the rest has been pre-history!
The next theory of the human race is the religious one.
God created everything, complete and perfect and things are now as they have always been, since he made the Earth, and us in it. What is more, numerous Christians are quite convinced that this all happened six thousand years ago.
My personal feeling is that this is the hardest one of all to believe, but I accept that I may be just as wrong as anyone, and this could be the real one!
To me, the funniest theory is the one that states that the Earth happened in mush the way any one of the theories above claim, but for one thing. The followers of this theory are quite convinced that the Earth is flat!
You can show them photos of Earth, taken from space, which tends to convince me, but the Flat-Earthers are quite convinced it’s all a trick.
Show them other photos, of every heavenly body we can see well enough to distinguish its shape, (Jupiter for instance), and they say it’s our flatness that makes Earth unique. I’m afraid they are never going to convince me.
And finally, there is the theory that space and time are infinite, and everything has always been there, changing and progressing over trillions and trillions of years, but always there, which rather shoots down the big bang theory, doesn’t it.
I’m sure there are a myriad of other theories to explain how it all began and any one of them could be correct.
The fact is, I believe that none of us, ordinary mortals, scientists, or religious leaders knows the absolute truth, little bits of all the theories may be right – it’s an interesting idea to think about though - as I said at the beginning, I quite often think about our beginnings!
© 2023 Brian Lee
