What Makes People Tick?

Lately, I've been researching the historical accuracy of and the history 'behind' the Biblical account of creation and early life on earth. This means examining for instance the Biblical account of Creation, the story of Noah's Flood and the story about the Tower of Babel.  The Babylonian  Enuma Elish creation myth is a lot like the one in Genesis; the story of Noah's flood and ark is for instance also told in the Epic of Gilgamesh .

I've been trying to think of religious topics to write about that won't upset too many people, none at all if possible. So, I started thinking. What can I write about and what experiences can I share with an audience to help foster understanding and respect between peoples? One of my main interests when it comes to the world's religions is to look at the similarities instead of the differences. So, I've decided that I will be focusing on just that - our similarities. What kind of similarities? Many believe that the world was created by a Higher Power or Creating Force. Most have a basic system of laws like those against murder and theft. Many religions hold that there are clean / good and unclean / bad / forbidden foods. Prayer, meditation and becoming a better person are encouraged by all religions I know of. It is similarities like the ones above that I want to write about and focus on. I want to look at the basics that connect people of all religions - the...

Copy of a short piece I wrote for another blog of mine. First published 12-06-2011 Happened across an article in the Daily Mail today from back in 2009 that caught my fancy. In short, it describes the find of a bunch of carved ancient stones long buried at Gobekli Tepe in eastern Turkey / Kurdistan. This site predates other ancient sites such as Stonehenge or the Pyramids by several thousands of years, meaning it is the oldest such site that has been uncovered to date. Not only does this site teach us amazing new things about our (humanity´s) past, we also learn more about the region, the practices and possible lifestyle and beliefs of the people alive at the time, and oh as an afterthought - reshapes what we thought we knew to be true about human development. Isn´t is just awesome when history, religion and science come together! Some quotes from the article: Carbon-dating shows that the complex is at least 12,000 years old, maybe even 13,000 years old. That means it was b...

Found an amazing article online at the website of the Daily Mail that has me reeling with wonder. I reckon it fits right in at a blog entitled "what makes people tick", as it sheds an amazing amount of light on what made humans tick - long before they even learnt how to write! Check it out here: Do these mysterious stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden?

Reading a newspaper article about an iceberg four times the size of Manhattan that recently broke off the Petermann Glacier in Northern Greenland, the phrase “It’s been a summer of near Biblical climatic havoc” jumped off the page at me. The recent forest fires in Russia and the flooding in Asia are cited as examples. What I find interesting about that phrase is that it could refer to several different things. My first thought was that it referred to the Book of Revelation (the final book of the Christian New Testament) in which the end of the world is described. Thinking on it some more, I realised it could also refer to the Flood or perhaps even the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (both from the Book of Genesis ). Interesting how an article from a New Zealand newspaper referring to something being “biblical” straight away makes me think that it refers to the New Testament. The article continues and mentions climate change and global warming, and how the breaking off of this i...