FAITH

Of gods and aliens

By FRANK SENGE KOLMA
MAN, despite his earth bound god sense and believe system, has always flirted with the idea that other sentient beings occupy time and space and other worlds.
Extraterrestrials, as various books and movies have introduced to us, have been credited with phenomena that defy human comprehension, such as the monoliths of Easter Island or the pyramids of Egypt.
Extraterrestrials flying in unidentified flying objects (UFOs), we believe, have developed technologies to traverse space and time and keep themselves well-hidden while observing us in our terrestrial cocoon.
Not any longer, we hope.
Our own Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes, launched within weeks of each other in 1977 have already left the Solar System and are now in interstellar space.
On Aug 25, 2012, Voyager 1 accomplished what no human made object had ever done before. After exploring Uranus, Neptune and the outer reaches of the Solar System, the spacecraft entered interstellar space.
In December 2018, Nasa (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) reported that Voyager 2 had also crossed the outer edge of the heliopause, the boundary between the Solar System and interstellar medium.
As at Jan 1, 2019, Voyager 1 was 21.708 billion kilometers from earth, becoming the most distant human made object in space.
It has been hurtling through space at a speed of 17 kilometers per second (62,140 km/hr) for 45 years.
Its sibling Voyager 2 carries equipment that will continue to send back information on its surroundings, providing first ever observations of interstellar space.
Man has finally left the clutches of his star, the sun, and is travelling into deep space for the first time.
It is no small feat. The spacecraft will continue sending back data for the next four to five decades. And by the estimates of their makers both can journey for a further 300 years before reaching what astronomers call the Oort Cloud and take 30,000 years to pass through it.
In 40,000 years Voyager 1 will pass within 1.6 light years from the star Gliese 445, in the Constellation of Camelopardalis. It will be closer to that star at that point than our own sun. The Voyagers are destined perhaps to eternally traverse only the Milky Way galaxy. This one galaxy, out of the millions said to be out there, is just way too big to leave it at all the speeds our human crafts are travelling at now.
Such is the enormity of our universe.
On board the Voyagers are 57 intellectual property items drawn from throughout the world thought to be the highest forms of human achievements here on earth.
A bamboo flute music from East Sepik is one item that is on board the twin probes.
The only reason for these items to be in the space craft at all is the chance that if intercepted by alien intelligent life forms, it would inform the aliens of our existence. They are our interstellar greeting cards.
If in one transmission word arrives back that there is a world out there teeming with plant and animal life, how will that affect man who believes himself to be the centrepiece of all creation in the universe?
More especially, how will that affect his faith and belief system because man believes himself the king pin, the jewel in the crown of creation. It is time man took a leap in faith and looked beyond his own egocentric, geocentric view of the universe and prepared for when others might join the party.
It is inconceivable that the atoms and molecules that form all matter in the universe, which coalesced at some time about 4.5 billion years ago, geologists tell us, to form life on earth including human life, might not have been repeated elsewhere in the entire universe. It is altogether plausible that life has emerged elsewhere in the universe.
We cannot claim that we are the only sentient beings in the universe when our knowledge of the vast cosmos is infinitesimal.
It is true that we grow our faith, our social, political and economic systems and processes for our own collective good. They have worked and sustained the species and changed as life, circumstance, environment and knowledge have changed. That is as it should be but our faith-based belief systems have lagged far behind. What is worse, they have been a drag on human advancement for generations.
It is time now to realise that that belief systems, as with all else, must be dynamic and not static.
Indeed, gods have come and gone in the affairs of humankind down through the ages, but man has endured.
It is he (man) who wakes one set of gods and worships them for the time they are allowed to hold court and then with a careless shrug man dismisses that lot and waves another in to take their place.
God is human for the present with human attributes and limitations, in keeping with the limitations of those who keep the faith.
Time is arriving, though, when God will come into Its own and that will be the day we truly know It as It ever was and will be.

Harsh reality confronts Morata’s evicted

By JACK NOAH YAMAHA
THE world is operating based on people’s theories and concepts.
Some concepts have been omitted by critics, scholars and researchers with new findings and experience as the world advance with new discoveries.
Other theories remain a mystery as there is nothing to debate due to lack of evidence or proof to say otherwise, time is of essence to everything including evolutions.
Evolution and the way of thinking of a man changes over time with new experiences.
My theory is based on what I have learnt and experienced as a media personality and also a person who comes from the very tiny part of the world where I believe land is everything for me.
People have different ways of thinking and reasoning ability that is one of the things that makes one person unique from another.
As a Papua New Guinean I am proud to say that I love my country where our very constitution gives more liberty to people compared to people from other parts of the world. Honestly I could say that we sometimes or most of the time abuse and take much advantage over our constitutions.
Our constitution is there for democracy to thrive, which gives much freedom but it also limits some of our rights to an extent to ensure that there is accountability and responsibility.
Before the idea of having a government, money, economics, trade, law and order etc., the world was simply a place of adventurer and discovery, a place to move around in search for food and the “barter system” of exchange.
Finally, humans decide to settle down in communities in selected locations; the idea of moving from one location entailed danger and uncertainty.
The increase in the number of family members made constant journeying difficult.
Since people were very intelligent they decided to do gardening instead of searching for food, and for protein they decided to go tame and raise livestock. So they claimed each piece of land once they settled into it, and off course there must be arguments over land and trade.
I assume the idea of having group of chiefs to oversee and resolve issues and also engaging man to ensure there is no argument or stealing within the community resulted in the forming of police force, commerce and trade, formation of government and the idea of having central locations to trade resulted in the building of towns and cities.
Colonisation also helped in the process and development of the evolution of having self-governance and so forth. Back then people really respected the system and way of life introduced and also gave up their land which now becoming state land under the 99 years lease agreement. In reality, we were nomads before and we are still today! You know why? Because we still moving and searching for a better life to survive.
However, most of the systems introduced have been compromised. Here we focus on land and eviction. Land is becoming a scarce resource. People kill each other over a piece of land, many evictions take place either by the State or those with land titles.
There has been a lot of evictions going around the country including Port Moresby. Currently people from the Morata area being evicted to make way for the title holder of the land to develop it.
Over the years the struggles the people endured to live a better live for their children. Their improvements to whatever plot of land their had settled in simply went down the drain in just an hour.
Should we blame the state? Is it the people’s fault not to enquire in the first place?
The point is, back then people were aware of other people’s land and property and respected it. If they were to cross the border a warning was issued.
In a recent interview with victims of eviction, most of those spoken expressed frustration for not being informed of the eviction to allow them ample time to resettle elsewhere. Concerns on why the authorities had not issued such a warning before they settled in were raised as well.
Here in the capital and other towns and cities there are pockets of customary land within state-owned land under the 99-year lease agreement which is also an issue left unresolved.
In the past, there were few evictions. It is understandable that with the increase in population and for the Government to maximise economic production to bring is revenue, infrastructure has to be built, including roads and bridges. And land has to be leased for commercial purpose for investors to invest.
However, on the other hand, the very people who work in government departments to implementation government policy are themselves victims of the eviction exercises. The very people who play a vital role in building local the economic, especially those in the private sector are also affected as well.
While government is focusing on building infrastructure, people are struggling to rebuild their lives again from eviction, those who lost their propreties in the process.
There is a greater need for more awareness, especially when it comes to land, although Lands department provides information on customary and state land and certain gazetted areas for development as not all people are literate to access and understand such information.
This might seem to be an excuse for educated elites but it is the reality. Evicting someone who has settled for over 50 years is like tying a rope around the person’s neck.