The Atlantis Gene (The Origin Mystery, #1)

by A.G. Riddle

Toba Protocol is real. 4+12+47 = 4/5; Jones 7+22+47 = 3/8; Anderson 10+4+47 = 5/4; Ames

We know that every human being on the planet is directly descended from one man who lived in Africa around sixty thousand years ago—a person we geneticists call Y-Chromosomal Adam.

“Religion is our desperate attempt to understand our world. And our past. We live in darkness, surrounded by mysteries. Where did we come from? What is our purpose? What will happen to us after we die? Religion also gives us something more: a code of conduct, a blueprint of right and wrong, a guide to human decency. Just like any other tool, it can be misused.

Science lacks something very important that religion provides: a moral code. Survival of the fittest is a scientific fact, but it is a cruel ethic; the way of beasts, not a civilized society. Laws can only take us so far, and they must be based upon something—a shared moral code that rises from something. As that moral foundation recedes, so will society’s values.”

We so often seek what we’re deprived of in childhood. Sheltered children become reckless. Starving children become ambitious. And some children, like Helena, who grow up in privilege, never wanting for anything, surrounded by people who don’t live in the real world, people who drink their brandy every night and gossip about the sons and daughters of this house and that house… sometimes they only want to see the real world, to live in it and make a difference. To have genuine human contact, to see their life mean something.

I wait, wondering if the story is over. Finally, I say, “Father, we have very different ideas about what constitutes a happy ending.”

Perhaps there is no solace in rest for a hard-working man.

If you live your life based on what you see on YouTube, you’re going to make some pretty poor decisions,