Re-Education - Wisdom - Evolution

By Liborio Altamore

In Re-education - Wisdom Evolution, Liborio Altamore stands on the shoulders of the giants of history, philosophy, and metaphysics to discover what light the past can shed on the problems of the twenty-first century. By digging deep into history, religion, philosophy, and culture, Altamore traces a path for how we can improve the future (Kristine Morris).

Re-education - Wisdom - Evolution opens up the mind to what life really is. It is a journey in which the past is revealed through the eyes of perceived history. As a student about to take my GCSE exams, this book has cleared my mind as to what subjects I want to take and answers questions regarding religion, philosophy, education, science, the mind, the world around us, and many other subjects that arent taught in school but are vital for understanding ourselves and life itself. For me, this book isnt life described through one mind, but hundreds. It is a collection of evidence from great books and people through the ages. I enjoyed reading it as it is detailed but not difficult to understand. It has added depth to my knowledge and understanding of most things and is therefore a must read for anyone looking to learn (Jessica Spigler).

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524682194

Liborio Altamore

Liborio Altamore, like many millions of others around the world, has always enjoyed discovering the answers to controversial questions. He is convinced that to live is to find out for yourself what is true by using your intelligence. As he was reaching retiring age, he decided to spend the rest of his life expanding his mind, and to achieve a good result he decided to try to follow Isaac Newton’s example when he said: ‘If I was able to see further than others, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants’. His cultural education and his knowledge have sprouted from deep meditation and an intense bibliographic research on fundamental subjects like: ancient history, archaeology, religions, philosophy, psychology and cultural education. His main sources are the written works of the best in the field. This operation has shown him that certainly we are not omniscient and our knowledge is limited by our own lack of awareness of our true nature and the world around us. Looking at linguistic, geological and archaeological evidence from around the world, the outline of prehistory differs markedly from our received wisdom. That concerns him because wrong beliefs do create faulty cultures and those create chaos among societies. Human history and our chaotic behaviour are a clear example of it. He feels that people, as they are all seeking better education, to achieve that, they fundamentally need to be also re-educated and made aware of possible alternatives, and that there are better ways to obtain happiness by applying different principles in accordance with new wisdom. He is confident that once he has laid the fruits of his research in front of the people’s eyes, and has proved the validity of his argument, many will learn something that could help us to change the entire world.

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© 2017 Liborio Altamore. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Published by AuthorHouse  06/29/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8209-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8210-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8219-4 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part Two

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

INTRODUCTION

What are we doing here on Earth? Where did we come from? What is the meaning of life? Who or what is God? Most of us have asked questions like this at one time or another. And while some will have found answers in what they have been taught or told to believe, many continue to harbour grave doubts because the teachings and the beliefs of others can’t entirely satisfy their intellect.

My life’s experiences have shown me that if I had received a sound education, if I had lived among a less corrupt people, or if when I was young I had been made aware of the false principles followed by society, then I would have stood a better chance of living an accomplished life.

As retirement approached, I decided to spend the rest of my life expanding my mind, and I decided that the best way to solve this would be to follow Isaac Newton’s example when he said: ‘If I was able to see further than others, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants’. My cultural education and my knowledge have sprouted from deep meditation and an intense bibliographic research on fundamental subjects like ancient history, archaeology, religions, philosophy, psychology and cultural education. My main sources are the written works of the best in the field: ‘the giants’.

The disadvantages I suffered are also being experienced by the vast majority of the world’s population.

Education…More Education…Better Education. Everybody is screaming, demanding education, which shows just how vital a part education plays in the fulfilment of our desires. However, as we educate ourselves, perhaps we should also re-educate ourselves, initially by re-evaluating some of our most basic principles

We need to arouse people’s awareness of a different prospect of life, especially when they are still young, because humans are like trees, easy to straighten when young, almost impossible when old. People must be made aware of other possible alternatives, and that there are better ways to obtain happiness by following different principles. Principles are deep, fundamentals truths, classic truths, therefore deserve the best of our attention.. Being able to discern real principles, brings a sense of clarity, exhilaration and freedom and with that reveal the reality of a different life that every human being is aiming at. Such new experience also shines some light on the chaotic behaviour that has afflicted humans since the beginning of their history.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the religions of the world are often contradictory, confused and in chaos. Perhaps we need to go back further, to a time before so much diversity and difference of opinion existed. Perhaps we should take another look at the old gods…

If we shine some light on the tangled web of religion, with the intention of revealing the unblemished truth, it’s possible that we’ll gain a clearer insight into the dilemmas and the problems that have always afflicted us.

Most – if not all – of the answers to the biggest mysteries are out there. We’ve simply been looking in the wrong places. Let’s search elsewhere, explore the deepest, darkest realms of our past, and see what we can unearth. You may be surprised by what we find…

The old gods are still extant and we believe in them today without realising it, camouflaged as they are in different guises. It’s time we brought them once more into the light.

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

Religion is the relic of a pagan world. As in a wrecked ship, many humans stay attached to it and fear abandoning it, even if the coast is clearly visible only a few metres away. (Anonymous)

Going back to basics

Buddha once said something like this: ‘Do not believe in traditions simply because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. But after observation and analysis, should you find something that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.’

Many philosophers have tried to make us understand what is of real value in our lives, and the things we should yearn for in order to live happily. Jesus, most of all, tried to do this; it is believed that he even performed miracles and sacrificed his own life just to convince us to change the way we think, act and live.

Some say that it was not God who created Man, but Man who created God. So could it be that religions were created when a few men were elevated to the status of a god, like Buddha and Jesus Christ, even though they never professed to be the god into whom they were transformed by their followers?

Is the God in which so many firmly believe only one of the many gods of the ancient past? Did the gods really exist anywhere outside of legend? And is it possible that they became confused with, or gave rise to, the ‘real’ God, the Creator?

Two thousand years ago, the historian Diodorus Siculus made mention of ‘the lawgivers who have arisen in Egypt and … among the Greeks.’ These ‘lawgivers’, including Moses on Mount Sinai, Minos in Crete and Lycurgus of Sparta, claimed to have received their laws from God, Zeus or another higher power. They were clearly politically astute because, as Diodorus remarks, ‘they held that the common crowd would be more likely to obey the laws if their gaze were directed towards the majesty and power of those to whom their laws were ascribed.’

Using this clever subterfuge, laws were created and simultaneously transformed into religious practices to be followed blindly, as asking questions of any kind would be considered unholy.

In our attempt to discover the truth about God, in our attempt to define Him, we should ask if He is an omnipotent being that possesses an infinite power, or the infinite power itself. An infinite power, as such, can never be possessed by anyone, because no one can be superior to it. Therefore God is that spirit, the infinite power, from which sprang the creation of the whole world, a world created to perfection, a showcase for the laws of nature. Is God the one who tells us: ‘Get down on your knees and adore me’? God is not going around the world imparting orders, because He is ‘Order’ as it is being demonstrated by nature. If humans live in chaos, that is only because they are misusing their natural talents. Is He the one who expects to be obeyed and feared? Is He the one who needs to be loved by humanity? To try and answer those questions we need to ask a simple question. Can God really need anything? No, God doesn’t need anything because He is God and everything he wants is within his power. We are the ones in need. We are the ones who seek power and admiration. We are the ones who want to be obeyed and feared. God is love. But what do we mean by love? Love germinates from sensitivity. To love is to have that extraordinary feeling of affection without asking for anything in return. Love is sharing.

People say that friends are precious and that true friends are rare and difficult to find. But why do we want friends? It is because we want to share. We want to share our thoughts and our feelings, whether they are of happiness or sorrow.

When we love, we are happy human beings, for that happiness itself is God. As Jesus and other mystics have said, ‘God is within us. God is love.’ We can also see Him by looking at His creations: the stars, the planets and our home, the Earth. God is the name properly given to the creator of our world -- the universe.

Leo Tolstoy said: ‘Man should use the spiritual inheritance he received from the wise and venerable men of the past, but he should examine it first with his own intellect and accept parts of it and repudiate others. It is bad to irritate people by rejecting their customs and traditions, but it is worse to ignore the demands of your conscience and intellect by following the customs of the crowd. Disrespect for tradition has not caused a thousandth part of the evil that has been caused by observing traditions, customs and institutions that have become meaningless.’

He also said:

‘The real wisdom is not to know everything, but to know what is necessary, what is less necessary, and what is completely unnecessary. Among the necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well – that is, how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness in one’s life.

An intellectual life is like a man who carries a lantern in front of him and the lantern lights his way to the last minute.’

Philosophy is like a well kept garden, where plentiful varieties of fruits of excellent quality are growing and are admired by everyone, but very few people pick them. We should all be encouraged to take advantage of this garden, which is at everyone’s disposal.

If we really wanted to, we could change the world in one day, simply by following the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you’.

By putting this into practice, we could eliminate the need for laws and law enforcement. Wars and terrorism would become things of the past as the world would be free from oppression. Dissent among families, societies or religions would disappear. We would create the kind of society that can live in harmony, and that would guarantee natural and above all psychological well-being. Ultimately, we would glorify our Creator and achieve real happiness. By practising this precept, we would remove the yoke that the gods tied around our necks when they created us in their own image, a yoke that we still carry now and probably will continue to carry until we realize that having been created in the gods’ image also implies that we possess the same character, the same weaknesses and the same faults.

After all, the Golden Rule is fundamentally human in origin, and carries with it no higher ideals or commandments. So come on, people, let’s start being kinder to others, and maybe even put them first. The advantages outlined in the previous paragraph surely make this an appetising proposition.

Indeed, this sounds relatively simple in principle, but in reality it would be impossible to achieve, unless we unite our ideas and act together.

Gandhi adopted a similar system, an ethic of reciprocity, to obtain the independence of India from British rule, with complete success and a minimum of bloodshed.

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About two thousand years ago, throughout almost the entire world, people believed in the existence of the gods.

The ancient Greeks believed that the most important gods and goddesses had their residence on Mount Olympus. They all belonged to the same family and Zeus was the father and the king. He used to be portrayed sitting on a throne, holding thunderbolts in one hand and the scales of fate in the other.

The ancient Egyptians maintained that the first to reign in their country were the gods, and their king was Ra (the creator), a celestial god who, after he had created the Earth, also created the sky, the plants and the animals, before finally creating Man. Ra was an invisible God who manifested himself only periodically and took various forms, often possessing the head of a falcon with the sun-disc resting on his head. After some time, Ra divided his kingdom between his two sons, Osiris and Seth. Later Horus, the son of Osiris, reunited the kingdom once again.

But the cradle of the gods was in the land of the Sumerians, where it is believed human civilisation may have originated. Sumerian civilisation flourished in Mesopotamia, in the land between the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates, basically in today’s Iraq and Kuwait. Apparently it was from there that men were scattered all over the Earth, and with them the cult of the gods. According to Sumerian scripts, the gods at that time divided the sky and the Earth among themselves, and also the people, in order to be served and adored by them.

According to the Bible, it was precisely in that land that the Patriarch Abraham received the order from the God Yahweh to leave his father’s land and to follow Him to that place that He would show to him. Yahweh promised Abraham abundant riches and a progeny as numerous as the stars in the sky, on the conditions that Abraham followed all his laws, and acknowledged Yahweh as the only true God.

It is from Abraham that the people of Israel originated, it is from the people of Israel that Jesus Christ originated, it is from Jesus Christ that Christianity originated, and it is from Christianity that many people have been taught that He, ‘Yahweh’ (a name that henceforth will be substituted with ‘God’) is the Only True God, who must be obeyed and adored. The Koran, also, is based on Abraham’s story.

At present, more than half of the world’s population admits to following these teachings, even if only in a superficial or distorted way; but to what extent did the teachings given to Abraham conform to the truth?

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Through the millennia, countless manuscripts documenting the affairs of human history will have been lost or destroyed. Indeed, the infamous destruction of the ancient libraries at Carthage, Pergamum and Alexandria, among many others, bear testament to this.

Rather than trawling through the scattered and incomplete remains of these ancient texts, perhaps we should begin by taking a look at the one book familiar to almost all of Western civilization, and which we already know makes mention of the old gods: the Bible.

After scrutinising this collection of ancient teachings and legends, it becomes evident that many of the Bible’s stories cannot be referring to the real God, but only to one of the gods who wanted to be recognised as the real God. The Old Testament, Greek mythology and the Sumerian legends all deserve the same credibility, as many of their stories are common to all three.

In this sort of research, we are bound to encounter a mixture of fact and fiction, and so firstly we must attempt to separate one from the other. This is a very difficult process, because the various strands of these works have become interwoven. Luckily, contemporary advances in archaeology and science have made this less of an impossible task.

It is now possible to take the nuclear material of any human cell (not necessarily from the sex organs) and introduce its twenty-three sets of complete chromosomes into the female ovum; this procedure can result in the conception and birth of a predetermined individual – a so-called ‘made-to-order baby’.

Furthermore, researchers in many countries have perfected a process called ‘cell fusion’ which makes it possible to fuse cells rather than combine chromosomes within a single cell. As a result of such a process, cells from different sources can be fused into one ‘super cell’ holding within itself two nuclei and a double set of paired chromosomes. When this cell splits, the mixture of nuclei and chromosomes may split in a pattern different from that of each cell before the fusion. The result can be two new cells, each genetically complete, but each with a brand-new genetic code, completely different to the ancestor cells.

This means that cells from hitherto incompatible living organisms, for example, from a human and from a mouse, can be fused to form new cells with brand new genetic mixes, resulting in brand new animals that are neither human nor mice as we know them.

Cloning is now a reality, and one has to wonder if the same sorts of biological experiments were ever attempted in the ancient past. Could this explain the missing link that scientists talk about when referring to Darwin’s evolution theory in regard to mankind? There is no smoke without fire.

Berossus, a Babylonian historian priest from the third century BC, wrote that the gods generated many horrible beings.

Alexander Polystoris of Miletus, a historian of the first century AD, states that all sources of information regarding the writings of Berossus still existed in his time and were carefully kept in Babylon. He says the writings that Berossus was referring to encompassed fifteen millennia.

Those writings included the history of the sky and the sea, the origin of humanity and of those who occupied the role of sovereigns, and what went on thanks to them.

Berossus simply handed down what the writings said and the following is part of his text: ‘Men appeared with two wings, some with four and two faces. They had one body but two heads, the one of a man, the other of a woman. They were likewise in their several organs both male and female. Other human figures were to be seen with the legs and horns of goats. Some had horses’ feet; others had the limbs of a horse behind, but in front were fashioned like men, resembling centaurs. Bulls likewise bred there with the heads of men; and dogs with fourfold body, and the tails of fishes, and also horses with the heads of dogs, men too and other animals with the heads and bodies of horses and the tails of fishes. In short, there were creatures with the limbs of every species of animals. Of all these, were preserved delineations in the temple of Belus at Babylon’.

Ancient statues similar to these descriptions are also displayed in the British Museum in London. It is possible that this tale’s baffling details hold an important truth.

Could it be that what is commonly known as Greek Mythology is in reality ancient history, as it was known in that part of the world? Writings found on clay tablets, discovered during excavations at archaeological sites of ancient Sumerian cities that have been dated to the fifth millennium BC, more than two thousand years before the Greek civilisation flourished, describe not only how the gods created man, but also the various attempts they had to make before succeeding in forging man as he is now. All the attempts were based on the manipulation of genes – their own and earthly creatures – as can be inferred from the story written by Berossus and from other ancient Sumerian writings.

The Greek poet Hesiod, who lived in the eighth century BC, supports the idea that mankind today is the result of a fifth human race created by the gods in the past, and this last one is the one that most resembles the gods themselves. Interestingly, we also have that line in the Book of Genesis where God is purported to have said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’.

If we ask why God created man, the logical answer, according to the scriptures, is to ‘honour, serve and adore Him’. Basically God created man so he could be his devoted servant, who would attend to all the tasks he was given, with maximum efficiency and without complaint or expectations.

Extending this line of argument, if man was created for material reasons, one cannot exclude the possibility that the gods conducted a few experiments, creating other beings, before they achieved the result that most suited their requirements. So it is possible that they created giants, centaurs, sirens and harpies, all of them with human, or more precisely, with the gods’ characteristics. Certainly, creatures like the giants and the centaurs would have turned out to be very useful, if not indispensable helpers in the constructions that were made in ancient times, such as the walls of Jericho, and many other megalithic constructions spread all around the world, including the Great Pyramids. These buildings are commonly defined with the words ‘gigantic’ or ‘cyclopean’, adjectives that derive from the names ‘giant’ and ‘Cyclops’. The Cyclops, according to Greek mythology, were destroyed by the god Zeus, when, having rebelled against him, they attempted to scale Mount Olympus, where Zeus and other gods resided.

Maybe it is not by coincidence that the Bible tells us that the Israelites fought against giants in an area not far from Jericho, and this happened long after the time of Noah and the great flood.

‘Hear, O Israel; you are to pass over the Jordan this day, to go to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said Who can stand before the sons of Anak? Know therefore this day that he who goes before you as a devouring fire is the Lord your God; he will destroy them and subdue them before you; so you shall drive them out, and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you’. (Deut. 9 v 1, 3)

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Today, it seems preposterous to consider that the old gods did exist; yet, when allowed to speak for themselves, these universal memories from mythology and the Bible tell a coherent and detailed story.

Alas, the truth is that nobody attaches any importance to the fact that the vast majority of religions extant today are based on ancient legend. These religions also had to submit to the imposition of a cult of monotheism, based, as we shall see, on foundations that reveal themselves to be ambiguous, if not absolutely false from the beginning.

Divisions and wars have afflicted the human race from the very beginning, and while the principles of every religion advocate unity and peace, the results in real life have been completely the opposite.

Humanity seeks to achieve a united world, and maybe for this very reason, people tend to congregate under the shield of a religious faith worshipping God, or unite themselves in a political system led by a sovereign ruler. Unfortunately men cannot accomplish this dream without creating sentiments of antagonism that breed opposition and therefore enemies.

CHAPTER 2

‘The religious spirit is part of the human nature; it begins in Man by itself like a tree that sprouts in the country without having been planted. It will produce the fruits that will reveal the human nature if the tubers of religion are not grafted to it.’ (Arthur Schopenhauer)

The Bible

The first eleven chapters of Genesis tell us how God created the world, about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the patriarchs’ chronology, Babel’s tower, Noah and the great flood. It is right to think that those preliminary stories are very important as they have always assumed a real meaning in our society.

Pictures based on these stories have been painted by many great artists and can be seen in books, churches and museums all over the world, adding substance to human religious vocation and belief.

However, although the biblical scripts appear to be clear and fluent, one has to acknowledge that every single word and every single story needs to be thoroughly examined, if we want to establish the truthfulness and accuracy of the biblical concepts.

Genesis, on the first page, tells us that ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters.’ (Genesis 1 v 1-2)

Then God created the light and separated it from the darkness, and He called the light ‘Day’ and the darkness ‘Night’. Out of nothing He created the firmament with all the stars in it. He finished creating the entire world in six days, out of nothing, by simply saying the words ‘Let there be’.

The descriptions in Genesis Chapter 1 give us a clear idea of the magnitude of this immensely powerful Spirit, who can accomplish absolutely anything He wants by simply expressing a wish.

Chapter 2 appears to have been written by a different author, and this part of the biblical text seems to be purely an extract from the ancient Babylonian scripts that are widely known today, although ignored by most people of the monotheistic faith.

In this second chapter the theme changes slightly, and as we are told in more detail about the creation of the first human being, Adam, we lose sight of that immensely powerful Spirit.

‘Then the