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Vedic Creationism

By razib on October 24, 2006.

US author offers 'Vedic alternative' to evolution theory:

Offering a "Vedic alternative" to Darwin's Theory of Evolution, an American author has claimed that human beings devolved from the "realm of pure consciousness", as testified by archaeological evidence discovered over the past 150 years.

"We did not evolve up from matter. Instead, we devolved, or came down, from the realm of pure consciousness, spirit," author Michael A Cremo, said, citing many archaeological, psychological and genetic examples.

I have stated before that Creationism might be most prominent in American fundamentalist Christianity, but it is not limited to it. The reality is that I suspect that a "Creationist" bent is the default human mode, ready to kick in sans science. Note that this "theorist" uses similar talking points to convential Christian Creationists, replace "matter" with "monkeys," and instead of coming down from a "realm of spirit" we are endowed with souls.

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Excellent. We should demand that all publicly-funded institutions which teach ID also teach Vedic creationism.

A version of this vedic stuff was somewhat in vogue in America and Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century, as promulgated by Max Heindel, Rudolph Steiner, Madame Blavatsky, and others.

Yeah, those Theosophical types who descended upon India to find new bullshit amidst the old pile.

I agree with "csrster" that the Discovery Institute should be required to add this "point of view" to their agenda. After all they are for open minded debate, aren't they?

I think that modern quantum mechanics has made it quite clear to anyone paying attention that "matter" isn't at all what it seems to be. Matter as a kind of manifestation of "consciousness" (whatever that is, exactly) is far more tenable now than it ever was under naive realism understandings of physics. And it would also help explain these inconvenient data.

As for Michael Cremo book, from the Amazon reviews it appears to be just another creationist attack on the validity of stratigraphic and geochemical dating.