Who or What Made Them?

To make it simpler, each debate is set up with only 2 choices. However, there are more than 2 candidates in many cases. I've tried to combine them as reasonably as possible, but it doesn't quite work in all cases. So if you really want to offer an alternative explanation feel free to add it to the Guestbook near the end. And if there's a lot of discussion in the Guestbook, I'll just have to make a new set of debates including those options!

Generally, the options available in these debates are:

• Nature
• Human beings
• Aliens
• God

So on to the first debate!

The rock formations at Markawasi (also written Marcahuasi) in Peru are quite amazing. They are on a plateau high in the Andes Mountains and have been dated back to 6,500 years ago. What is incredible about these rock formations is that they appear to be sculptures of animals and people, among other things. The experiences visitors have had there have led this "stone forest" of sculptures to be called Peru's "Sacred Forest."

So what's the deal here?

Well, one group of experts, like Daniel Ruzo who lived at the site for years in a little cabin, thinks the formations are sculptures made by the ancient culture of people who lived in that area thousands of years ago. This group claims that the rocks were created by the people of this ancient culture to represent the different animals and people. Actually, there are some who have suggested that aliens helped them!

The other group, like geologist Robert Schock, believe that the rocks are just natural formations. People "see" the animals and human heads in the rocks because we have a tendency to interpret things in meaningful ways.

I know what he means - there's a hill in Edinburgh called "Arthur's Seat" that looks just like a lion lying down with its head up (when viewed from a certain angle).

Not to be unfair, but the rock formations at Mount Rushmore are the real deal when it comes to sculptures made by human beings - yes, I know they're a lot more recent!

So, are the Markawasi rock formations more like Arthur's Seat or Mount Rushmore?

The Nazca Lines are enormous geoglyphs found in the desert near the town of Nazca in Peru. Due to the dry desert conditions these lines have been preserved from the time they were created, around 2,000 years ago.

At first glance you'd think the local people made them, and yes, there were people there called the Nasca people. So what's the mystery here?

Well, to start with, they're really huge. The largest one is nearly 270 meters (890 ft) long, covering an area nearly 500 square kilometers (193 square miles). That's a lot of work to make one, and there are several hundred in existence!

Then, and this is a biggie, you can only see what they represent from the air. That's why no-one (in recent history at least) had noticed them until people flew over the area in airplanes in the 1930s. So how could the people have built them if they couldn't fly?

Finally, why would this ancient culture make these huge figures in the desert? There are some suggested reasons of course, like they're for astronomical purposes, worshiping gods, even just for the sake of art! Maybe so.

Crop circles are sections of flattened crops that form large intricate patterns when viewed from the air. They usually appear in fields overnight, without anyone seeing who made them.

The first possibility, which I'm discounting here, is that they are just natural phenomena. The forces of nature just happen to make these amazing, enormous designs in the middle of fields of grain! Sorry, I'm not buying that one.

Of course some say crop circles are just natural phenomena. If that's your pick you'll have to say so in the Comments section at the end!

The second possibility is that people made them. Sure, people have been able to make some crop circles, and have claimed them as hoaxes. But here's the problem. Over the years there have been a large number of these crop circles appearing, overnight, without anyone seeing or hearing anybody making them. When you see how enormous they are (check out the video below) you can understand that it's quite an undertaking to make one of these designs, pretty hard to do in the dark too! And lots of them haven't been claimed by anyone as hoaxes.

Also, the method of flattening the crops seems to involve some kind of electromagnetic energy, one not available to the general public. Sure, it could be some kind of secret military technology. Why they're making these amazing and quite beautiful designs in the middle of farmers' fields is not clear though!

So the next option is some kind of paranormal activity. That means aliens in UFOs! Hey, without another explanation crop circles could be made by alien beings from other worlds. Of particular interest to me is the idea that these "aliens" are from a different plane of existence, not necessarily beings from other planets.

I love mythical creatures! They appear in tales of wonder, legends, and mythologies all around the world. Some of these creatures are beautiful, bringing good fortune and happiness; others are dangerous and evil, and a hero has to appear to do battle and defeat them. Many of these creatures have supernatural powers that have no physical explanation. A number of them are chimeras, combinations of one of more creatures, such as a horse or a lion with wings. Some are even combinations of human beings and animals - like the centaur that is half man half horse, or the mermaid whose lower body is like a fish. Fascinating!

So where do these creatures come from?

Could be just our imagination. In all cultures people make up tales to teach their children about good and evil, threatening them with dangerous witches (like the Russian Baba Yaga), to keep them from misbehaving. The men also love to tell tales of how they defeated "monsters"! So perhaps dragons and unicorns, fairies and phoenixes, and even the Scottish Loch Ness Monster are just created by human beings from our imagination. Ah, surely not Nessie!

Yes, there is another possibility! Some of them could be real, existing creatures. Yes, there could be a creature or creatures living in Loch Ness! Some of them could have existed in the past. Dragons look quite like those flying dinosaurs really, don't they? And fairies could be some kind of spiritual being, normally invisible in our physical realm but real nonetheless. Others we probably invented - the centaur seems to be a case of mistaken identity, for example, when people who had never seen horses saw riders on horseback for the first time.

Now things are really getting interesting!

So, where did human beings (that's us!) come from? Obviously we didn't make ourselves - we still haven't figured out the cloning technique so obviously we didn't make all the people who've lived for millennia already.

The first possibility is that we are the result of the forces of nature. We just appeared here on the earth naturally, without any interference from outside, or plan, intelligent design, or whatever. We evolved from simpler animals as a result of random mutations and survival of the fittest or other such processes.

There's certainly some truth here. Obviously we're related to the apes, just as they are related to the monkeys and other mammals, and so on. So our appearance on the earth isn't magical, we didn't arrive from somewhere else. We were born here just like all the other living things that populate this planet.

Yes, here's the final question - who or what made God!

Now before you rush into saying there is no God, I've got you covered. That means that human beings created God. As can be seen in Michelangelo's famous painting "The Creation of Adam" detail here, the fingers of God and Adam are reaching out to touch each other, signifying that God gave life to Adam. But it could just as well be the other way round! Adam could have created God in his image to make sense of the world he found himself in!

The other option of course is that God does have a real existence. In this case, since God is the creator of all, no-one made God. For many believers this means that God has always existed, God is eternal, wasn't created, just is. That kind of works! Another way of looking at it is that God created God - well, probably some aspect of God was already in existence but God made Him/Herself into the creator God. I'll not get too theological here, let's just say God made God!