And how is your devas turned humans not any less
"magical"? At least the Bible says that God created man and
woman (thus establishing the origins of marriage as between one
man and one woman and the notion of husband and wife as one
flesh) and through whom the rest of humankind came from.
Yours is that devas just turned into humans i.e. the origins of
humans are not explained, they are just accepted as one
manifestation of rebirth. In short, the first man just popped into
existence. When did this happen?
As to time of the Fall, the Bible does not specify the time. But
it probably took place not too long after the events in Genesis
1.
no what, they are not human at first, if u mean the origin of devas
or sentient beings in samsara, then the infinity world
systems/universe/samsara never have a real origin, as it's
falsehood, given the analogy of the mistaken rope as a snake.
it's like asking can u find an origin of u in your
dream?
yes, u just pop into the dream at night. samsara is the
dream with no beginning. when one woke up, u are the Buddha, The
Awaken One.
i think ours is more rational
in scientific way in term of "alien" beings, u
can imagine the coming of some "alien" transparent beings,
eaten some food and slowly living here become non transparent and
cannot fly anymore. ours are more gradual through times. they both
have quite the same "image of man". these fallen devas can live for
hundred of thousands of yrs in the beginning and reincarnate into
human. the life span of human decreases and increases
through times too depending on their deeds.
the concept of time is
time
The Buddhist teaching about time is closely linked to the
doctrine of impermanence (see entry). What we see as the passage of
time when analyzed in large segments becomes ungraspable when
analyzed on the level of single moments of time. Nonetheless, when
operating on the ordinary level of discourse, the Buddha taught
about the passage of time on both the macrocosmic and microcosmic
levels. Just as all beings are born, grow old, get sick and die, so
too do entire world-systems come into being, achieve stasis, decay,
and cease to be. And every moment of thought can also be seen as
coming into being, abiding, decaying, and disappearing.
The length of the process on the level of a world system is
called a great aeon, or mahakalpa in Sanskrit. The length
of a mahakalpa is calculated as follows: "Starting from a
lifespan of ten years, for every hundred years the age of people
increases by one year, and their height increases by one inch. This
keeps on increasing until the lifespan of humans reaches a full
84,000 years. Then this is followed by a process of decrease in the
same ratio. For every hundred years, there is a decrease of a year
and an inch from the lifespan and the height of a human being,
until his age reaches ten years again. One complete process of
increase and decrease makes up one kalpa--16,798,000 years. A
thousand of these make up on small kalpa. Twenty small kalpas make
up one medium-sized kalpa. Four medium-sized kalpas make up one
great kalpa (1,343,800,000,000 years). Each of the four stages
takes up twenty small kalpas--twenty kalpas for coming into being,
twenty kalpas for dwelling, twenty kalpas for decaying, and twenty
kalpas for going empty." (EDR I)
"The very first kalpa [of a particular world-system] , of
course, begins the cycle of coming into being, stasis, decay, and
emptiness. Those four terms are explained as follows. A thousand
small kalpas together make up a middle sized kalpa. One middleÄ
sized kalpa covers a period of coming into being. A period of
stasis also spans twenty small kalpas, a period of decay is twenty
small kalpas long, and a period of emptiness is also twenty small
kalpas.
"'But,' you say, ' I can't possibly conceive of that long a
period of time.' Well, if you can't grasp this concept, then I'll
shrink the kalpa down a bit for you to enable you to understand.
Let's discuss the lifespan of a person. A person's lifespan extends
for several decades, and those years span the time of being born,
the time of growing old, the time of sickness, and the time of
death. Those four different periods of time are synonymous with the
coming into being, stasis, decay, and emptiness of a worldÄ system.
http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/BuddhistDict/BDT.html
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