:"it is possible that man came into existence after the animal.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 192)
I believe He is telling mankind that it must continue to investigate the
matter."
:"the useful thing is to meditate on what Abdu'l Baha really meant,"
yeah. excellent point.
imho a useful place to begin that meditation
is the definition of the word "man."
and imho this is the crux of the perceived conflict.
if the definition of "man" is "chemical soup, meat puppet, combination of
various amino acids etc.", then it is evident that there is no difference
between a jelly fish and a man, except degrees of performance/success at
altering the environment to enhance the odds of spreading of the genetic ident.
if the definition of man is "spiritual being interfacing with material
environment", then in the cave at lascaux we have evidence of a man being
protrayed --by men.
we have evidence that 100,000 years ago a man consciouisly shaped a stone
into the image of 2 men for no materially perceptible purpose.
we have evidence that a man carried a stone containing the accidental image
of a form like his around with him, handled it, had some emotiional
regard/attachment to it, several hundred thousand years before that.
we have no evidence of any other species to this date engaging in activities
like this.
nor do we see any evidence of any activity "higher" than the >possibility<
that whales are sufficiently self/other conscious to not desire beached whales
a death by predator. but even then we have no evidence that is this is not
simply an arbitrage on the possible return of the beached to the pod.
thus, we have concrete evidence of "spirit" at the time of the man carrying
stone with image; and no evidence of it elsewhere, while having evidence of a
materialist defintion of "life" in prions, crystals, or the behaviour of a
decent prairie fire.
and again, no conflict at all between the Master's comments and the >praxes<
of science, but the option to see conclict with the "worship" of science.
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