Egyptian pyramids

I can remember standing in the desert near Cairo and gazing across the Sphinx to the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the most impressive structures on Earth, and counting myself extremely fortunate to be there. The pyramid carries some impressive statistics. It stands 450 feet tall (137mtrs) and consists of two million blocks of stone, weighing from the most common at 2.5 tons up to 50 tons. The weight of the pyramid is six million tons. The four corners are almost perfect right angles and align almost exactly to the four points of the compass. The sides slope at a perfect 52 degrees, or would do had not the smoothly polished limestone finishing blocks been removed and used in building works in Cairo. It is one one of the original Seven Wonders of the World. Impressive though the statistics are, they do not reveal the true magnificence of this wonderful construction. I have to admit that upon entering the pyramid and climbing up the narrow cramped access shaft to the upper burial chamber, which was surprisingly cool, I experienced an eerie feeling of stepping back into history, and a strong feeling of trespassing.

To have seen this pyramid when perfectly smooth and dazzlingly white in the desert sun must have been an incredible sight.

So impressive are the pyramids that it has caused many to wonder how they could possibly have been built some 4500 years ago. Some even go as far as to suggest that it is not possible for these structures to have been made by the labours of men, but were instead made by aliens.

Who built the pyramids, aliens or men?

The case for the Aliens:

The pyramids are so accurately aligned with the points of the compass that only aliens could have achieved this all those thousands of years ago. The angle of the slope of the sides is so precise only aliens could achieve this. The blocks are so heavy and the pyramid so tall only aliens could achieve this. In the period 2500 BC man did not have the tools or knowledge necessary to build the pyramids, so only aliens could have done it. How the aliens built the pyramids is not known, but they would have employed the use of advanced construction equipment.

The case for men:

Never underestimate the ingenuity of man. We are today so used to using machinery to carry out virtually all our major construction work that we sometimes forget that machinery, in terms of historical events, is a very new development, its only been around a couple of hundred years or so. Mankind managed very well without it for many thousands of years. We have long forgotten the techniques that were used in the building of the pyramids, but this doesn't mean that we are unable to work out how it was done.

In order to try and establish who built the pyramids we have to examine the evidence that we have. We have only the pyramids themselves, the excavation sites where the blocks were quarried from, and historical accounts.

The evidence:

Lets start with the excavation site. If like me, you have been there, you will know that it looks pretty much like any other quarry you might see today, except there is obviously no machinery. At the quarry face there are blocks cut into the rock but not yet cut away. There are rough hewn blocks scattered around ready for transporting and on-site finishing. The entire quarry shows obvious signs of systematic development of cutting blocks out from the face and transporting them from site. The rough hewn free standing blocks show the scars of repeated chisel blows where they were chiseled out of the rock face. There is nothing in the manner of these blocks that is anything other than old fashioned quarry work using a mallet and chisel. Nowhere is there any sign of advanced technology having been employed, just the opposite. The blocks were hewn out of the rock-face by manual labour, the signs are unmistakable. The chisels used were made of copper, the hardest metal then available, but even they were only good for about 100 blows before blunting, even though limestone is relatively soft and easy to work compared to hard rock such as granite. As the chisels were blunted they were exchanged for re-sharpened ones, and the process was repeated with a team of blacksmiths constantly re-sharpening and tempering the chisels.

How were the blocks transported to the pyramids? By man power. The vast majority of the blocks weighed in the region of 2.5 tons and were transported on wooden sledges. They could of course have chosen any size for the blocks, but this must have been the optimum size, any bigger would probably have slowed them down. A team of men with ropes could drag the sledge across the clay floor, and this could be eased with a little water tipped in front of the runners helping the sledge to slide easier. It is estimated that it may have taken 10 years just to build the ramp from the quarry to the pyramids. In this manner all the blocks could be transported to the site of the pyramid without presenting any insurmountable challenges. So far no alien technology required, it could all be done by well organised teams of men, and a great deal of manual labour. During the time of the annual flooding of the Nile the stone blocks could have been floated to the site of the pyramids on rafts, making the task a lot easier.

The work force was was not one of slaves , the Egyptians didn't need slaves. The Nile supplied a very fertile land where farming was relatively easy and food abundant. This civilisation had time on its hands, no wonder they were such great mathematicians, astronomers and architects. The work force was primarily made up of farmers, recruited nationwide for a period ranging from a few months to a few years, and they served their time for their king, much like serving National Service today in the armed forces. A total of 20,000 to 30,000 workers would have been needed for the task, ranging from unskilled hauliers, semi-skilled quarry men, skilled quarry men, masons who finished the blocks, men who placed the blocks, officials and caterers. A village was purpose built to house them all and they were well fed and cared for in return for their work. The remains of the village can still be seen today.

Now for making the pyramids themselves. About 2,550 B.C., King Khufu, the second pharaoh of the fourth dynasty, commissioned the building of his tomb at Giza. Some Egyptologists believe it took somewhere in the region of 80 years to construct the pyramid. Having man-hauled the blocks to the site of the pyramid the obvious problem now is how to stack them up. There are a number of ways this may have been achieved, all of which require a ramp, or a system of ramps, as the only method available to the ancient Egyptians was man-power, and they had that in abundance.

The actual method of ramps used is not known with any certainty, but it most likely started with a single ramp by which means the blocks could be hauled into position. The blocks were laid down in layers, each successive layer being a little smaller in area than the one below it to give the pyramid its shape. As the blocks are layed onto a level surface, the same height as the ramp, no lifting was required, only hauling of the sledges. Removing the blocks from the sledge may have involved no more than dragging the block off the sledge. The entire pyramid could have been built using this simple system without a single block actually having to be lifted off the ground! No alien technology required. Very smart people these Egyptians.

As each successive layer was laid the ramp would need be heightened, and lengthened so as not to be too steep. Eventually this method would reach a limit where the size and construction of the ramp would be nearly as complex as the pyramid. The easiest way around this problem is to curve the ramp around the pyramid as the pyramid increased in height.

Finally, all that remained was the placing of the top stone, followed by the placing and fitting of the smooth white blocks. As the facing stones were placed so the ramp could be removed as they worked their way back down. The pyramid required a certain amount of interior design and construction for the burial chambers, and this was no easy task. The blocks that protected the burial chamber were 50 ton blocks of granite. Even with the huge teams of men at their disposal and a system of ropes and overseers guiding them, it would have been a difficult and dangerous task. There are still marks visible on the blocks and in the interior of the pyramid that were used to guide the blocks into position. Difficult yes, impossible no.

It was men that built the pyramids, make no mistake. Do not underestimate the intelligence of the ancient Egyptians or the trained manpower that was at their disposal. It was a colossal effort of team work taking 80 years to complete.

How did they align the corners of the pyramid so accurately with the four points of the compass? This was the easy part. It just takes a curved wall facing more or less North as judged by the stars. Select a rising star on the Eastern horizon and mark a line on the top of the wall pointing to it. Mark another line on the wall when it is low on the Western horizon. Take the line straight down the wall , using a plumb line, and then extend it along the ground until it meets the other line. Bisect this angle and you now have a line pointing exactly due North.

There are any number of very simple methods that can then be employed to construct a right angle that will then align with the other points of the compass. After that its just a question of placing markers in the ground for the four corners of the pyramid. As I said, that part is easy, it does not require alien technology, just a little brain power.

How did they achieve such a perfect 52 degree angle of slope? Because they were clever! They were masters of angles, a skill they had acquired in part through astronomy, and also through a good knowledge of mathematics. Each mason that worked on finishing the outer blocks had a template with an angle of 52 degrees that he used to cut his block to fit. After that it was careful alignment of block to block as they placed them carefully on the inner blocks. It was literally done step by step.

Mystery solved, that's how it was done. Maybe not using that exact method, but something very like it. There is absolutely no need to suggest that it couldn't be done by man power, and certainly there is no need to go to the ridiculous lengths of suggesting it was done with the help of aliens. That idea is pure nonsense.

Why were the pyramids built? They were tombs for the king. The Egyptians had long observed a point in the sky around which all the stars appeared to rotate (the north celestial pole, today marked by the close proximity of the Pole Star) and believed the area to be an immortal place. The alignment of the pyramid to the compass points was to align it with the 'immortal place' in the sky, and the shape was believed to represent the rays of the Sun. The pyramid was in fact a device designed to transport the king to the immortal place so that he may live forever, as would all the workers that assisted in its construction.

N.B. The theory of how the pyramids were actually built is not my own pet theory, but one considered by experts in the field as to be the most likely. It is a known fact how the stones were carved out of the quarry. Graffiti inside the pyramid reveals that teams were used in competition with one another, with the best performers receiving 'bonuses' of extra beer or days off. The workers village is a known fact. The ramp from the quarry to the pyramid is a known fact. That the huge work force was recruited is a known historical fact. The labour force required and the time it would have taken has been very carefully calculated. The type of ramps used is open to question, but all are agreed that ramps were used, there is no other way it could have been done. And it was done.

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Evolution and Consciousness

Two of the leading proponents of the development of life being guided by an intelligence are biology professor Michael J. Behe and philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer. Stephen Meyer explores the structure and function of DNA in his magnum opus, Signature in the Cell. In this book, Meyer explains how DNA codes for proteins and why this process cannot be imitated by random mutation and natural selection. I will now briefly describe these findings.

There are four DNA bases, represented by the letters A, C, T, and G, which are arranged into 3-letter combinations (essentially 3-letter words), called codons. Each codon, or 3-letter word, represents one of twenty different amino acids that link up in specified sequences to build proteins. Also, there are codons that specify when to start or stop the building of a protein.¹ Amino acids form proteins by linking together one at a time, based on the DNA instructions, and then folding into 3-dimensional structures. The specific 3-dimensional structure of the protein determines its precise function.²

You can think of this process as translating one language into another. You start with the language of DNA, which consists of 3-letter codes. Each of these 3-letter codes translates into one of twenty possible amino acids. During protein synthesis, amino acids are linked together in discrete chains hundreds of units long. The precise arrangement of these amino acids in the chain is crucial to the development of the protein. If the amino acids are not arranged in the proper order, a functional protein will not be produced. Therefore, if the codons are not arranged properly in the DNA, then the amino acids will not link up properly, and a functional protein will never be made.

Even a simple protein requires a chain of 100+ amino acids. Again, these amino acids must be arranged in a specific order to code for a functional protein because most combinations of amino acids will not fold into a stable functional protein at all. Remember that DNA encodes for one amino acid at a time with 3-letter “words”, or specific sequences of bases. Therefore, to encode for a simple protein requires that 300+ DNA bases be arranged in a specific order so that the amino acids link up in a proper sequence to produce a functional protein. Then, add to this the correct words, or codons, for starting and stopping the protein making sequence. These codes must be at the beginning and end of the coding region to initiate and end protein production respectively. This is akin to producing a 100 word paragraph of coherent text with a capital letter to start the paragraph and a period at the end. To produce such a paragraph by random processes is highly unlikely. Just imagine a monkey given a typewriter and blindly typing letters at random to try and produce an entire paragraph of coherent meaningful text.

To stress this point once more, consider that “though proteins tolerate a range of possible amino acids at some sites, functional proteins are still extremely rare within the whole set of possible amino-acid sequences”.³ In other words, if you link amino acids together at random you will be hard pressed to create a functional protein, just as you would be hard pressed to create a paragraph of meaningful English text by way of randomly placed letters. Therefore, if the DNA bases were arranged randomly, they may exhibit codons (3-letter words) for specifying amino acids to link together to form a protein, but these amino acids would most likely link together in such a way as not to produce a functional protein. In fact, the chances of producing any functional protein of 150-amino-acids by combining those amino acids by chance is 1 in 10⁷⁴.⁴ Now take into consideration the fact that many proteins require far more amino acids than 150.⁵ As the number of amino acids in a protein rises, the chances of producing one by linking amino acids by chance just gets worse. Finally, one has to take into consideration the start and stop codons that must be in the proper place to start and stop the sequencing of amino acids for protein production. So, just as there is a low probability of combining English letters into a meaningful sequence, especially one that’s at least 150 words (or letters), in length, by pure chance and random processes, it is similarly implausible to suggest that DNA bases could be randomly arranged to create functional proteins.

Meyer refers to the information encoded in DNA with the term “specified information.” This means that it is complex, as the information does not follow a repeating pattern, and specified, meaning that a specific arrangement of bases performs a specific function.⁶ This is the kind of information found in a language or computer code, whereby the specific arrangement of parts determines its meaning or function and a random arrangement confers nothing. Basically what’s happening when you arrange DNA bases properly to code for a functional 3-dimensional protein is that you’re hitting a target sequence out of a vast space of possible arrangements of those bases.⁷ That target sequence does not get hit by ‘chance’, especially not over and over again. Meyer further asserts that specified information is only known to be caused by intelligent agents.⁸ Computer code and language are just two examples, whereby a specific arrangement of 0’s and 1’s in computer code and letters and punctuation in language confer meaning. However a random arrangement of these constituents would only produce non-functional or non-meaningful gibberish.

Now, the argument has been put forth, most notably by Richard Dawkins, that you could start with just one protein and then modify it little by little, or amino acid by amino acid, until it turns into another protein quite different from the original.⁹ This would be akin to modifying my last sentence one letter at a time until it turned into a completely different coherent and meaningful sentence. You may be able to anticipate the problem already. To change the sentence letter by letter, or even two letters at a time, would take that sentence through a whole host of unmeaningful sequences until it finally arrived at the new meaningful sentence, whatever that may be. The problem turns out to be even worse for proteins. This is because if you change too many of the amino acids in a protein, it will not only degrade function, but the amino-acid sequence that constitutes the protein will cease to fold into a 3-dimensional shape altogether. Therefore, one protein cannot morph into another protein with a completely novel function. If you start changing the amino acid sequence of a protein, function quickly degrades, and the process soon leads to amino acid sequences that fail to fold into a stable structure at all.¹⁰ Dawkins, however, imagines that proteins can change their shape little by little to successively approximate a completely different shape necessary to perform a completely different function. As stated above, this is of course, a purely imaginary line of reasoning. It does not reflect reality. Proteins have specific shapes to perform specificfunctions, thus emulating language or computer code. And as Meyer points out, the only known cause of specified information is an intelligent agent.

What are we to conclude from these findings? One way out would be to posit the existence of extraterrestrials from somewhere else in the universe who seeded life on this planet. However, this only pushes the problem further back to how the Aliens themselves were created. It is much more plausible, especially with respect to the findings from NDE’s which we will be discussed later, that an intelligent consciousness underlies the material world and is intimately involved with its creation from the atomic level on up. Because if a consciousness is responsible for forming the DNA bases into meaningful pairs, where would this consciousness lie? It must be woven into the very fabric of reality. It must underlie the material world itself, able to form and direct matter. Now, we will explore one more line of evidence that points to an intelligence at work in nature.

In his landmark book, The Edge of Evolution, Professor of Biology Dr. Michael Behe explores the inner workings of the cell to conclude the impossibility of the sophisticated systems therein arising by randomness and natural selection. As an example, Behe describes IFT (intraflagellar transport) which constructs and maintains the cilium, which is just one of many “molecular machines” within the cell.

In a nutshell, IFT consists of mini railroad cars (specialized proteins called IFT particles) that carry cargo (various proteins needed to construct the cilium) to their proper locations and deposit the cargo for construction of the cilium. As an analogy, think of railroad cars going up and down a steel structure carrying building materials to make a building. The cars have to bring many different kinds of parts, including parts needed for the floor, parts needed for the walls, parts needed for building the windows of the building, and parts needed to build the balconies. Actually, the cilium is far more complex than this, requiring about 200 different kinds of building materials, or proteins that construct the cilium.¹¹ So, the cars, or IFT particles, that carry the proteins must be able to bind to and carry a vast array of different kinds of proteins. Furthermore, all of these parts have to be deposited in just the right location—window parts must be placed at the proper window building position, floor parts must be placed at the floor position, and so on–and at just the right time. Another interesting fact about this process is that the railroad cars, or IFT particles, have two different “motor” proteins, one for powering the cars up the cilium and a different “motor” protein for its trip back down the cilium. Now, here’s the biochemical explanation for how this construction works. Quoting Behe:

“Biochemical studies show that IFT can be conceptually broken down into several parts. The first part consists of the motor proteins that carry the IFT particles along the interior of the cilium. The motor protein that carries the particle toward the tip of the cilium is different from the one that carries it back. The trip out is powered by Kinesin-II, one member of a family of kinesin motor proteins that perform a variety of jobs in the cell . . . The trip back is powered by a dynein motor protein . . . Exactly what causes IFT to shift from kinesin-powered transport to dynein transport at the tip of the cilium remains unknown. The second part of IFT is called the IFT particle. It’s the container that grabs hold of the correct proteins to be carried in or out and releases them at the proper point.” ¹²

Behe further elucidates that “the IFT particle consists of sixteen separate proteins that bind together in one aggregate.”¹³ This 16-protein complex can be separated into two protein-complexes, one containing six proteins and the other ten proteins. Each of these structures “contain substructures that are known to be particularly good at binding diverse proteins—exactly what you need to transport the many kinds of protein cargo that travel by IFT along the cilium.”¹⁴ Indeed, as mentioned before, the cilium which IFT constructs is made of about 200 different kinds of proteins. Therefore, the IFT particle is a specifically designed protein for its job. It is designed to be able to bind to and carry a variety of different proteins.

This system of construction machinery also boasts not one, but two, motor proteins that are designed to carry the IFT particle up and down the interior of the cilium. If that’s not enough, when building this system, there is some sensing mechanism that senses the amount of material that the cilium needs, evidenced by the fact that “after construction is completed the trains keep coming at about the same rate, but now some of the cars are empty.”¹⁵

You can imagine the sophisticated control mechanisms that must go into the construction project, with genes controlling how much of each protein to build and when to build them, how many IFT particles to send with loads of protein, and when to cut production. Furthermore, all of the proteins used in construction require acute specification. The IFT particles must be precisely engineered to be able to bind to all of the differently shaped proteins that make up the cilium, the motor proteins must be precisely engineered to function as motors to move the IFT particles up and down the length of the cilium, and each protein that goes into the actual building of the cilium requires precise engineering to fit with all of the other parts and create a functional cilium. As you can tell, this process is integrated, complex, and coherent. Furthermore, DNA provides the instruction manual for building the entire structure, including instructions for building the molecular machines used to construct the edifice, instructions for building each of the around 200 proteins that compose the building blocks of the structure, and control instructions for coordinating the entire process.

It should be blatantly obvious by now that an intelligence is behind this process. You don’t randomly throw together a skyscraper. It takes careful planning; blueprints of the building must be drawn up, resources gathered together at the building site, all of the construction workers given specific assignments, and foremen and supervisors to manage the entire process. A cellular machine requires just as much. In the case of the cilium, DNA contains the blueprints for making the building, as well as the information needed to coordinate the project, make the IFT particles (construction workers) to do the work, and make all the building materials. The cell is miraculous in that it has the ability to make both the work force (construction machinery) and all of the materials needed to make up the structure (essentially many different kinds of proteins). Stephen Meyer’s concept of specified information is also relevant here. In IFT, we have a specific arrangement of parts that perform a specific function. This is evident in the building process and in the completed structure. Again, this requires an intelligence to arrange the parts into a functional pattern.

It is useless to invoke a Darwinian, stepwise scenario, for this process. That is because the process is so integrated. Without an IFT particle, there could be no cilium. Without the control instructions for coordinating the construction project you would have a mess of unregulated IFT particles, carrying unregulated proteins, at unregulated times. The project would never be able to build a coherent machine. And if you are missing many of the around 200 proteins needed for building the cilium, well, you can’t build it. Complex integration is the key to understanding intelligent design. Gradual evolution doesn’t work because without any one of the parts, the others couldn’t function. Therefore, a bottom-up approach doesn’t work. Instead, a top-down approach whereby the end product (cilium) is thought up first, or envisioned in the mental realm, then the many details of how to build that product are worked out in succession, and finally the whole system is implemented at once. Intelligent agents do this all the time. We think of a new idea, say to build the first automobile. First, we must think about what function our new structure is to have. In our example of the automobile, the function is to move people and objects quickly from one place to another via roads. Then, we should consider what parts are needed and how they will connect to perform the desired function. For instance, a car would need wheels that turn, a motor to power the car, a steering wheel to steer the car, and so on… We would have to figure out how to connect all of these parts to produce a functional automobile. Once we have the entire plan with all the parts and how to connect them in our minds (the mental realm), we can then begin to manufacture and arrange the material constituents to conform to our mental image and create the world’s first automobile. So, we start with figuring out what function we want a new machine to perform. Then we have to think of a design that will enable that function to be performed. The design requires not only the parts that will be used, but how those parts will connect. Once we have this mental image, we can go to work building our new structure.

In essence, we take ideas from a mental, non-material realm, and then manifest those ideas in the material realm. This is simply an imitation of what a greater intelligent consciousness does to create the machinery that sustains life. How else are we to explain intelligent workings at the cellular level without an intelligence that penetrates into the deepest aspects of the material world? And where else do we find intelligence than in the workings of conscious agents? Different types of cells require different functions, which require different kinds of protein machinery, which in turn requires the guidance of an intelligence to form. From DNA on up, life is intricately designed.

So, all of creation is first envisioned in the mental realm. To implement these creations in the material realm requires a conscious intelligent entity to arrange and organize matter in conformance with the desired function and design. For life to show evidence of intelligent design, consciousness must underlie material process and have the ability to form and manipulate the material world. To take a line from Physicist David Bohm, it forms and in-forms the material world.¹⁶ It is the basis and mover of all energy in the universe. This underlying consciousness not only forms all of the matter in the universe, it also provides the information to organize matter into functional systems, such as DNA and living cells. As we will see after looking at the evidence for consciousness after death, this consciousness has its source in a realm outside of our known concepts of space and time. It is a realm of infinite energy in a non-local space. Our consciousness is in fact identical to this One Source Consciousness. Now we turn to the unassailable evidence for life after death.

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