From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Plato's STATESMAN/Age of Kronos
Date: 2 Jan 93 13:45:24 GMT
Organization: HTE




As I've amply demonstrated in a number of t.o articles, neither the
sauropods, nor the large flying creatures of the antediluvian age,
either pterosaurs or teratorns, nor the largest carnosaurs could live in
our world;  all positively required a heavily attenuated perceived
gravity to exist.  The laws of physics do not, to my knowledge, ever
change.  A reduced felt effect of gravity in antediluvian times could
arise in only one way;  earth in orbit around something other than and
smaller than our present sun, one pole of earth pointed forever straight
at the smaller star(s) (the possibility of a small binary system), and
creatures on earth experiencing the gravitational pull not only of
earth, but of the other body as well.

Logically, our present system must have arisen when the present sun
captured the older system. Also logically, all of the pieces of the
older system, or at least most of them, would still be around, captured,
and orbitting the sun.  The one or two largest things which we see in
the present system, Jupiter and/or Saturn, must be what remains of the
old star or binary.

Hesiod, Ovid, and other classical writers speak of the antediluvian age
in similar terms:  "...a golden age when Kronos (Saturn) was the king of
heaven.  Our present sun is the "king of heaven" now.  The brightest and
most conspicuous thing in the sky...  that's what the term means.

Primative peoples (in our day and age) tend to worship whatever strikes them
as most awesome, amazing, exciting etc. in life.  I can and will cite
several examples:

1.  The well known cases of "cargo-cultists", in which a crashed
    aircraft becomes a religious shrine for primatives who had not
    previously seen one.

2.  The American state religion of NFL football.

3.  Rednecks worshiping their WWF heroes.

4.  Astronomers, members of the t.o crew etc. worshiping Carl Sagan
    (similar to 3).
    
5.  Africans destroying former idols, and creating new ones in the image
    of Putt Mossman (the Evel Knieval of the 30's) after a fabulous
    motorcycle dive off of a waterfall (which Mossman walked away
    from).
 
6.  Cases of primitives worshipping a volcano.


Two of the least large, least impressive, least assuming, inconspicuous,
non-candidates for deity in the entire universe today are the
far-off planets Jupiter and Saturn.  An overwhelming majority of people
in the world couldn't even find them or point them out.

And yet, just 4000 years ago, these two planets were the two chieftain
gods in every nation on earth, every religion on earth...  the two most
feared entities in existence.  Given present realities, this not only
makes no sense, it is impossible.

I have claimed that this planet once orbitted a small electromagnetic
star, one pole forever pointed straight at that star, animals on the
earth feeling gravitational pull not only of the earth, but of the star
as well.

This is the gist of what Velikovsky, Talbott, Cardona, and a number of
others are saying about the antediluvian system.

Only this allowed the giant antediluvian animals.  There is one other effect
you'd notice.  There would be no seasons.  You would simply choose the
sort of weather you liked, and then live at that latitude.

You might expect Greek and Roman authors to mention that.  They do.

Ovid mentions Zeus (Jupiter) completing "a year of four seasons".  He
goes on:

   "Then for the first time, the scorched air glowed with parching heat,
   and ice hung frozen by the winds..."

According to standard theory, the familiar pattern of the seasons whould
have been with us since long before man lived on this planet.

The notion of having to EXPLAIN the recent coming into existence of the
ordinary cycle of the seasons is impossible given standard beliefs.

Other Greek authors repeatedly refer to antediluvians as "children of
Kronos", or "nurselings of Kronos", meaning people of the age of Saturn.


The following is from Benjamin Jowett's translation of Plato's dialog
STATESMAN.

^  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: THEODORUS; SOCRATES; THE ELEATIC STRANGER;
^  THE YOUNGER SOCRATES

^  Socrates. I owe you many thanks, indeed, Theodorus, for the
^acquaintance both of Theaetetus and of the Stranger...

^  Str. Then let us divide sciences in general into those which are
^practical and those which are-purely intellectual.

^[long discussion of topics unrelated to catastrophism]

^  Str. I think that we may have a little amusement; there is a
^famous tale, of which a good portion may with advantage be interwoven,
^and then we may resume our series of divisions, and proceed in the old
^path until we arrive at the desired summit. Shall we do as I say?

^  Y. Soc. By all means.

^  Str. Listen, then, to a tale which a child would love to hear; and
^you are not too old for childish amusement.

^  Y. Soc. Let me hear.

^  Str. There did really happen, and will again happen, like many other
^events of which ancient tradition has preserved the record, the
^portent which is traditionally said to have occurred in the quarrel of
^Atreus and Thyestes. You have heard no doubt, and remember what they
^say happened at that time?

^  Y. Soc. I suppose you to mean the token of the birth of the golden
^lamb.

^  Str. No, not that; but another part of the story, which tells how
^the sun and the stars once rose in the west, and set in the east,
^and that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which
^they now have as a testimony to the right of Atreus.

[See Velikovsky's WORLDS IN COLLISION] for details.]

^  Y. Soc. Yes; there is that legend also.

^  Str. Again, we have been often told of the reign of Cronos.

[...the reign of Saturn, the golden age.  Again, given the history of
our system as is usually presented, this conversation would not
take place.]

^  Y. Soc. Yes, very often.

^  Str. Did you ever hear that the men of former times were
^earthborn, and not begotten of one another?

[either an exageration, an embellishment, or something for which I nor
anybody I know has any explaination]

^  Y. Soc. Yes, that is another old tradition.

^  Str. All these stories, and ten thousand others which are still more
^wonderful, have a common origin; many of them have been lost in the
^lapse of ages, or are repeated only in a disconnected form; 


[Plato's character even goes so far as to explain the embellishments, etc.]


^but the
^origin of them is what no one has told, and may as well be told now;
^for the tale is suited to throw light on the nature of the king.

^  Y. Soc. Very good; and I hope that you will give the whole story,
^and leave out nothing.

^  Str. Listen, then. There is a time when God himself guides and helps
^to roll the world in its course; and there is a time, on the
^completion of a certain cycle, when he lets go, and the world being
^a living creature, and having originally received intelligence from
^its author and creator turns about and by an inherent necessity
^revolves in the opposite direction.

^  Y. Soc. Why is that?

^  Str. Why, because only the most divine things of all remain ever
^unchanged and the same, and body is not included in this class. Heaven
^and the universe, as we have termed them, although they have been
^endowed by the Creator with many glories, partake of a bodily
^nature, and therefore cannot be entirely free from perturbation. But
^their motion is, as far as possible, single and in the same place, and
^of the same kind; and is therefore only subject to a reversal, which
^is the least alteration possible. For the lord of all moving things is
^alone able to move of himself; and to think that he moves them at
^one time in one direction and at another time in another is blasphemy.
^Hence we must not say that the world is either self-moved always, or
^all made to go round by God in two opposite courses; or that two Gods,
^having opposite purposes, make it move round. But as I have already
^said (and this is the only remaining alternative) the world is
^guided at one time by an external power which is divine and receives
^fresh life and immortality from the renewing hand of the Creator,
^and again, when let go, moves spontaneously, being set free at such
^a time as to have, during infinite cycles of years, a reverse
^movement: this is due to its perfect balance, to its vast size, and to
^the fact that it turns on the smallest pivot.

^  Y. Soc. Your account of the world seems to be very reasonable
^indeed.

^  Str. Let us now reflect and try to gather from what has been said
^the nature of the phenomenon which we affirmed to be the cause of
^all these wonders. It is this.

^  Y. Soc. What?

^  Str. The reversal which takes place from time to time of the
^motion of the universe.

[cosmic catastrophe, reversal of earth's poles]

^  Y. Soc. How is that the cause?

^  Str. Of all changes of the heavenly motions, we may consider this to
^be the greatest and most complete.

^  Y. Soc. I should imagine so.

^  Str. And it may be supposed to result in the greatest changes to the
^human beings who are the inhabitants of the world at the time.

^  Y. Soc. Such changes would naturally occur.

^  Str. And animals, as we know, survive with difficulty great and
^serious changes of many different kinds when they come upon them at
^once.

^  Y. Soc. Very true.

^  Str. Hence there necessarily occurs a great destruction of them,
^which extends also to-the life of man; few survivors of the race are
^left,

[catastrophe]

^and those who remain become the subjects of several novel and
^remarkable phenomena, and of one in particular, which takes place at
^the time when the transition is made to the cycle opposite to that
^in which we are now living.

^  Y. Soc. What is it?

^  Str. The life of all animals first came to a standstill, and the
^mortal nature ceased to be or look older, and was then reversed and
^grew young and delicate; the white locks of the aged darkened again,
^and the cheeks the bearded man became smooth, and recovered their
^former bloom; the bodies of youths in their prime grew softer and
^smaller, continually by day and night returning and becoming
^assimilated to the nature of a newly-born child in mind as well as
^body; in the succeeding stage they wasted away and wholly disappeared.
^And the bodies of those who died by violence at that time quickly
^passed through the like changes, and in a few days were no more seen.

^  Y. Soc. Then how, Stranger, were the animals created in those
^days; and in what way were they begotten of one another?

^  Str. It is evident, Socrates, that there was no such thing in the
^then order of nature as the procreation of animals from one another;
^the earth-born race, of which we hear in story, was the one which
^existed in those days-they rose again from the ground; and of this
^tradition, which is now-a-days often unduly discredited, our
^ancestors, who were nearest in point of time to the end of the last
^period and came into being at the beginning of this, are to us the
^heralds. And mark how consistent the sequel of the tale is; after
^the return of age to youth, follows the return of the dead, who are
^lying in the earth, to life;


^simultaneously with the reversal of the
^world the wheel of their generation has been turned back, and they are
^put together and rise and live in the opposite order, unless God has
^carried any of them away to some other lot. According to this
^tradition they of necessity sprang from the earth and have the name of
^earth-born, and so the above legend clings to them.

[more embellishment;  the idea of the reversal of the world's celestial
orientation, observed during one of the catastrophes after the flood,
required some sort of a story to go with.]

^  Y. Soc. Certainly that is quite consistent with what has preceded;
^but tell me, was the life which you said existed in the reign of
^Cronos in that cycle of the world, or in this? For the change in the
^course of the stars and the sun must have occurred in both.

^  Str. I see that you enter into my meaning;-no, that blessed and
^spontaneous life does not belong to the present cycle of the world,
^but to the previous one, in which God superintended the whole
^revolution of the universe; and the several parts the universe were
^distributed under the rule. certain inferior deities, as is the way in
^some places still There were demigods, who were the shepherds of the
^various species and herds of animals, and each one was in all respects
^sufficient for those of whom he was the shepherd; neither was there
^any violence, or devouring of one another or war or quarrel among
^them; and I might tell of ten thousand other blessings, which belonged
^to that dispensation. The reason why the life of man was, as tradition
^says, spontaneous, is as follows: In those days God himself was
^their shepherd, and ruled over them, just as man, over them, who is by
^comparison a divine being, still rules over the lower animals.

^Under him there were no forms of government or separate possession of
^women and children;

[ Feminists should love this one.  As I've noted, a lot of what we
regard as morality was simply unnecessary given the conditions; we have a
very sharp contrast with the Judeo/Christian version.


^for all men rose again from the earth, having no
^memory, of the past. And although they had nothing of this sort, the
^earth gave them fruits in abundance, which grew on trees and shrubs
^unbidden, and were not planted by the hand of man. And they dwelt
^naked, and mostly in the open air, for the temperature of their
^seasons, was mild; and they had no beds, but lay on Soft couches of
^grass, which grew plentifully out of: the earth.

^Such was the life
^of man in the days of Cronos, Socrates; the character of our present
^life which is said to be under Zeus, you know from your own
^experience. Can you, and will you, determine which of them you deem
^the happier?

^  Y. Soc. Impossible.

^  Str. Then shall I determine for you as well as I can?

^  Y. Soc. By all means.

^  Str. Suppose that the nurslings of Cronos, having this boundless
^leisure, and the power of holding intercourse, not only with men,
^but with the brute creation, had used all these advantages with a view
^to philosophy, conversing with the brutes as well as with one another,


  [The antediluvian telepathic communication.
  Again, as I've noted, Semitic and Japhetic languages should be very
  closely related, there being no racial difference and man being language
  capable long before the geographic split-up (the Caucasus mountains) of
  the two groups.  The two groups are, however, totally unrelated.  The
  entire thing behaves as if human communications were of some altogether
  different sort prior to some point in time within the last 10,000 years,
  after which speech such as we know it arose, and groups living in
  contact with eachother, e.g. the forbears of the Indo-Europeans or the
  forbears of the Semites, developed their characteristic forms of speech.

  The working hypothesis amongst many catastrophists is that the much
  greater electro-magnetic nature of the world allowed telepathic
  communications, not only amongst men but the higher animals as well, and
  that the tale of the tower of Babel indicates the breakup of this older
  system.  Thus Plato's statement above.  Thus also the seemingly strange
  fact that pheonetic alphabets only arose within the last 4000 years or
  so, particularly if you were to believe that man had been here and
  speech-capable for millions of years.  In reality, a phoenetic alphabet
  would not have occurred to anybody before the flood and the
  tower-of-Babel event.]


^and learning of every nature which was gifted with any special
^power, and was able to contribute some special experience to the store
^of wisdom there would be no difficulty in deciding that they would
^be a thousand times happier than the men of our own day. Or, again, if
^they had merely eaten and drunk until they were full, and told stories
^to one another and to the animals-such stories as are now attributed
^to them-in this case also, as I should imagine, the answer would be
^easy. But until some satisfactory witness can be found of the love
^of that age for knowledge and: discussion, we had better let the
^matter drop, and give the reason why we have unearthed this tale,
^and then we shall be able to get on.

^  In the fulness of time, when the change was to take place, and the
^earth-born race had all perished, and every soul had completed its
^proper cycle of births and been sown in the earth her appointed number
^of times, the pilot of the universe let the helm go, and retired to
^his place of view; and then Fate and innate desire reversed the motion
^of the world. Then also all the inferior deities who share the rule of
^the supreme power, being informed of what was happening, let go the
^parts of the world which were under their control. And the world
^turning round with a sudden shock, being impelled in an opposite
^direction from beginning to end, was shaken by a mighty earthquake,
^which wrought a new destruction of all manner of animals.



^Afterwards, when sufficient time had elapsed, the tumult and confusion
^and earthquake ceased, and the universal creature, once more at
^peace attained to a calm, and settle down into his own orderly and
^accustomed course, having the charge and rule of himself and of all
^the creatures which are contained in him, and executing, as far as
^he remembered them, the instructions of his Father and Creator, more
^precisely at first, but afterwords with less exactness. The reason
^of the falling off was the admixture of matter in him; this was
^inherent in the primal nature, which was full of disorder, until
^attaining to the present order. From God, the constructor; the world
^received all that is good in him, but from a previous state came
^elements of evil and unrighteousness, which, thence derived, first
^of all passed into the world, and were then transmitted to the
^animals. While the world was aided by the pilot in nurturing the
^animals, the evil was small, and great the good which he produced, but
^after the separation, when the world was let go, at first all
^proceeded well enough; but, as time went there was more and more
^forgetting, and the old discord again held sway and burst forth in
^full glory; and at last small was the good, and great was the
^admixture of evil, and there was a danger of universal ruin to the
^world, and the things contained in him. Wherefore God, the orderer
^of all, in his tender care, seeing that the world was in great
^straits, and fearing that all might be dissolved in the storm and
^disappear in infinite chaos, again seated himself at the helm; and
^bringing back the elements which had fallen into dissolution and
^disorder to the motion which had prevailed under his dispensation,
^he set them in order and restored them, and made the world
^imperishable and immortal.

^  And this is the whole tale, of which the first part will suffice
^to illustrate the nature of the king. For when the world turned
^towards the present cycle of generation, the age of man again stood
^still, and a change opposite to the previous one was the result. The
^small creatures which had almost disappeared grew in and stature,
^and the newly-born children of the earth became grey and died and sank
^into the earth again. All things changed, imitating and following
^the condition of the universe, and of necessity agreeing with that
^in their mode of conception and generation and nurture; for no animal;
^was any longer allowed to come into being in the earth through the
^agency of other creative beings, but as the world was ordained to be
^the lord of his own progress, in like manner the parts were ordained
^to grow and generate and give nourishment, as far as they could, of
^themselves, impelled by a similar movement. And so we have arrived
^at the real end of this discourse; for although there might be much to
^tell of the lower animals, and of the condition out of which they
^changed and of the causes of the change, about men there is not
^much, and that little is more to the purpose. Deprived of the care
^of God, who had possessed and tended them, they were left helpless and
^defenceless, and were torn in pieces by the beasts, who were
^naturally fierce and had now grown wild.



^And in the first ages they
^were still without skill or resource; the food which once grew
^spontaneously had failed, and as yet they knew not how to procure
^it, because they-had never felt the pressure of necessity. For all
^these reasons they were in a great strait;

[The fall of man]


^wherefore also the gifts
^spoken of in the old tradition were imparted to man by the gods,
^together with so much teaching and education as was indispensable;
^fire was given to them by Prometheus, the arts by Hephaestus and his
^fellow-worker, Athene, seeds and plants by others. From these is
^derived all that has helped to frame human life; since the care of the
^Gods, as I was saying, had now failed men, and they had to order their
^course of life for themselves, and were their own masters, just like
^the universal creature whom they imitate and follow, ever changing, as
^he changes, and ever living and growing, at one time in one manner,
^and at another time in another. Enough of the story, which may be of
^use in showing us how greatly we erred in the delineation of the
^king and the statesman in our previous discourse.


[The discourse leaves the topic of the age of Kronos at this point.]







  
-- 
Ted Holden
HTE