Foolish Thoughts for a Friday on Evolution

I grew up watching movies like Baby, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I never doubted that stuff like that couldn't be real. I knew how to distinguish between a profiteer and a believer. I knew enough never to talk about it too much in public. At the same time, I also remember my teachers not discrediting any of these theories. (I've been realizing more and more how much of a liberal schooling I had - and that's saying something for catholics today!)

I'm more interested now to find out about places that have a 'history' of sorts with natural phenomena or ancient peoples that somehow knew more about our solar system than our western civilization did back in the 1300's. A temple in Angkor has some peculiar art work about creautes that (I assumed) come from more modern legend. There is even a carving of a stegosaurous. How would they know about dinosaurs? Our culture did not study dinosaurs until the early 1800's. And yet, here in this little temple on the other side of the world is a carving of a stegosaurous! Not of the bones or some fantasical creature, but the dinosaur!

I never imagined that people before us had found the bones of dinosaurs, or if they had, that they would think that the bones were of anything but a dinosaur. Ancient Mysteries did a show on Greek mythology. They wondered if the great creatures (like the centaur, griffin and cyclops) weren't really based on fossils found by the Greeks. There is even other speculation about some creatures from the Bible. I think that all of this is wonderful! To find out how we created these myths and legends, how they have influenced us. I used to love to study Greek mythology! When I was younger I used to imagine what it must have been like to worship at the different temples. To speak as though the gods really were walking among us, and see how it influenced everyday deeds (like how you treat your guests). Now...it's different. Like we have been going about studying ourselves, our history, our planet all wrong. Yet, look what we have created.