Personal Philosphy - approaching viewpoint

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Date Line May 2, 2007

As I stumble around trying to discover the history and influence of R1a/R1a1 haplogroups, I find I must also explore major sections of European and world history.

The focal point must remain Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent. This is the region where agriculture emerged, and where we find the first evidence of cities. Hence it is the cradle of civilization.

On 5 January 2004, National Geographic News published a story of Spencer Wells (Arguably the father of DNA archaeology) in which he is quoted saying, "Each drop of blood is essentially a historical document. Our DNA tells the story of the journey of our species."

Wells went on to assert, "As often happens in science, technology has opened up a field to new ways of answering old questions—often providing startling answers."

The answers, or postulates, which I have raised over the past year are recognized to be both startling and frightening to a segment of people who are using DNA for genealogy purposes.

Numerous members of that group have made it clear the they find the connection between haplogroups and culture to invoke concepts of racial superiority. Unfortunately, it is their own concept of what constitutes “superiority” which is the source of their psychological problems, or mental disorder.

Differing cultures have delved into varying approaches to humanity and its cause for being. These have had a uniform religious context; but only because religion is the search for understanding, and the framework for imposing logic upon observed reality.

Religion is the context in which the philosophy, medicine, science, and probability theory emerged. It is a context in which both nature and chance interact in a causal, or conclusive, manner.

So we are clear, I my framework, the concept of a deity has a clear meaning; it is a entity, or force, which established is fixed rules and a context for those rules to be applied in.

It is not an entity which gives a damned about any given individual or group. It takes no personal interest in any creature, nor does it interject changes into the world.

There is no “Intelligent Design” beyond the existence of chance and its application to affect clearly observable evolutionary change. The nature of that change being that any one component must interact positively with all other components, or it will become extinct.

Which brings us back to culture and religion. An objective view of all religions show they contain the same basic rules of conduct; but that these rules have been culturally applied in different manners. The manner of application dictates the changes the culture will affect, or evidence.

In judging the “superiority” of a culture, it is necessary to judge the affect that culture has on all components of life, or necessary for life.

One of the primal rules of religion is that we are the caretakers of the earth. Aboriginal cultures, hunter gatherer cultures, are known to take this to an extreme where no unnecessary changes are made, and even the gathering of food, or creation of shelter, dictate no waste. Waste, of course, being the ultimate abuse of the environmental component.

The “Do no harm” mandate of the Hippocratic Oath is evidenced in the interaction with many components, and is mandated in various religions.

Fertile Crescent religions, those which have survived, are noted by their concept of “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” It is a simple expression of the idea that you do not want yourself harmed, so do not invite harm by hurting another.

Obviously, many cultures have the rule and take great pride in their method of violating it. Historically, there can be little debate that such cultures have become extinct.

But cultural extinction does not necessitate the haplogroup extinction. To the contrary, the evolution of the haplogroup can create a brand new cultural, or religious, structure. Ultimately, if the evolutionary process fails to create a compatible life force, the group will become extinct (example? The otherwise successful Neanderthal.)
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Side note: Those asserting various interpretations of Western religions are noted for ignoring the implication of the first commandment. In practice, they even fail to realize what that commandment is purported to be: “Go forth and multiply.”

That commandment is the mandatory initiation of the evolutionary cycle; all else is just the process by which the interaction between the multitudes are defined and controlled.

It must be noted that some religious variants omit multiplication, they negate the first commandment, and attempt to perfect the state of our purported existence prior to its issuance. Which ultimately displays their ignorance and portends their biological extinction.

“Go forth and multiply” is the commandment which co-joined the Big-Bang and is an absolute component of existence; one which applies to every cell, every atom, every instance of matter or energy (not even exempting the "laws" of conservation of matter and energy, which are constantly revised to include new discoveries).