My travels around the world has taken me to most of continents, and many countries. It has opened my eyes to different cultures, beliefs, habits and behaviour.
I happen to believe in evolution, but do not dismiss divine creation. My trip to the
Galápagos Islands (see flim of dancing Mocking birds) in the Pacific Ocean, the birthplace of
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, helped to seal my beliefs, yet instill in me the understanding of how the growth of the human population is destroying our planet. We are changing the habitation, the species that exists there, by introducing our ways of living, introducing new species that knock out the indigenous species, and removing or destroying plant life and vegetation that sustains life.
I love to take a window seat on a flight, and watch the ever changing world float by there down below me as we fly at 35,000 feet. It looks so flat, and I know that this is an illusion, because I know there are many hills and valleys to be climbed and cross. I love to see the patchwork of fields, criss crossed by roads, railways, and rivers, seeing traffic, cars, lorries, trains, and wonder if the occupants know or realise that someone is looking down on them.
I look at the buildings, towns and cities, trying to work out which place, the name, they are. I see the pollution, mans waste, mans desire for energy, goods and chattel’s, resulting in a haze that is very visible, and have to remind myself that I too have the desire for the energy and chattel’s contributing to the destruction of our world.
It is very strange how it is only in the recent years that we humans have become aware of
Global Warming, of how we humans are creating too big a carbon footprint.
Why? How?
The simple answer is our governments, our religious leaders and the media that are feeding us information that they want us to know about, information from their point of view, from their perspective, knowledge and understanding. To brainwash us, to change our understandings, and to influence us.
It is very strange that in recent worldwide conflicts, the British population was in a majority in favour of the conflict, and yet, just 15 miles across a stretch of water, the French had a majority against the conflict.
What caused this difference in beliefs? Information that was being fed to the populations.
It is the same with all beliefs, religion, politics, business, education. It is the information that is being fed to us, that is brainwashing us, changing our beliefs.
It is national or religious holidays where I see these differences most, that I feel or sense big changes in beliefs.
For me as a British citizen, a suppose a Christen, (what I am I do not know as I have been exposed to so many beliefs), that
Christmas is so important. The whole of the UK comes to a stop. There are no trains, buses, on the 25th December. All shops are closed, restaurants are closed, cinemas, theaters remain closed. Only the essential services operate in a somewhat normal way. It is a time for the family, the children.
Yet, many people from other countries, other cultures, do not know what is happening in the UK, that it is closed for the day, shut down.
Then, how many people in the UK realised that countries of the same belief system say as Turkey were closed, shut down for their important time of the year, their holiday, where people traveled to send time with their families, where businesses, shops etc were closed?
In Turkey it was their holiday, their
Bayram, in other countries it is called
Eid ul-Fitr or
Id-Ul-Fitr often shortened to
Eid. It is the end of the holy month of
Ramadan.For me I could not understand, why, I could not contact people, why were telephones unanswered, why were there none of my contacts on
Skype, Gizmo (read about how you can contact me or make free phone calls will ViOP) or MSN?
Many people only see or understand what they have in their world, their country, their town village or home. They have no realisation of anything outside their own understanding, their world.
On a trip to
Peru, going “off track”, not to the tourist areas, we came to a village market, where “westerners” never frequent. They were dressed in their typical national costumes, selling their local produce and food. An amazing experience to see other cultures. We were told not to take photographs, as they may take offense, object to this.
All these people dressed in so colourful clothes, with big red cheeks. Yet who were the odd ones out? Who were being viewed as if they were aliens from outer space, with their hiking boots, all weather clothes? Us, the tourists.
(Pictures wll follow).How often do we step outside our own shoes, and see things from a different view, a different perspective?
(See the film What the Bleep do we Know– click to visit web site).
It is when we begin to see things, understand things from others points of view that we will become aware that it is a big world out there, that our
Cat on the Mat or
Map of the Territory is not that of others, and we can ask:-
“Who or what put our beliefs in our head, or influenced our thoughts and behaviours?”