<a name='The_Axial_Age'></a><h1>The Axial Age</h1><br />Between world of gods and God came a transition known to some as the Axial Age, a term first coined by Karl Jaspers and covered  much by Karen Armstrong. This period stands out as the time when some humans began to decide that a monotheistic system of worship served better than a polytheistic one.  The Axial Age, previous eras and consequences of the Axial Age on the site Religious Tolerance excellently summarizes the period:<br /><br />In the years centering around 500 BCE, great advances in religion, philosophy, science, democracy, and many forms of art - occurred independently and almost simultaneously in China, India, the Middle East, and Greece. Spiritual foundations were laid which humanity still use today. 3 In these times of social upheaval and political turmoil, a new elite became the carrier of a new cultural and social order. Great religious leaders rose to prominence attracting a mass following, and many sociological, cultural, economic and spiritual changes were made:<br />	In China, many individual thinkers, such as Confucius, Lao-Tse<a href="tiki-editpage.php?page=Lao-Tse" title="Create page: Lao-Tse" class="wiki wikinew">?</a>, and Mo Tzu, began to reflect on the ethical and metaphysical implications of human existence. From their teachings arose Confucianism, Daoism and Jainism.<br />	In India, the authors of the Upanishads expanded the scope of their explorations to include metaphysical thinking in the search for the ultimate truth and the meaning of life and death. India experienced a dramatic socio-political and intellectual transformation, and produced the teachings of the Buddha and Mahavira. Like China, new teachings ran the whole gamut of philosophical schools of thought, including even skepticism, materialism, sophism, and nihilism.<br />	In Palestine, the prophets Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Deutero-Isaiah<a href="tiki-editpage.php?page=Deutero-Isaiah" title="Create page: Deutero-Isaiah" class="wiki wikinew">?</a> made their appearance. The law and moral code of the Israelites dates back to before this age.<br />	In ancient Mesopotamia, cultural developments were relatively close to those in ancient Israel. However, concepts including the belief in a transcendent creator God, and full subservience of the political rulers to a God did not materialize. 4<br />	In Greece, developments were more philosophical than spiritual. Greece witnessed the appearance of:<br />	Thales, Xenophanes, and Heraclitus who regarded all existence to be in a state of flux -– one cannot step in the same river twice,<br />	Parmenides, who discoursed on the nature of permanent ‘being’ as opposed to ‘becoming’, and<br />	Democritus, who devised the first atomic theory of nature.<br /><br />Here we begin to see a distinct change from humans feeling that forces beyond their control determining how their lives proceeded to understanding the forces in the world. The leap from from comprehending the forces to trying to control them is miniscule. Well, almost. Using the forces of nature for human benefit really did not fully take hold until the Industrial Revolution of the XVIIIth century.<br />A Triple Conjunction<br /><br />During the years 577bce to 575bce the three outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto aligned around 9° Taurus for the only time from the Neolithic Period forward.<br /><br /><a name='The_Combination'></a><h2>The Combination</h2><br />Some may naturally see the connection between the Axial Age and the Triple Conjunction as coincident, but<br /><br /><a name='Stepping_Forward'></a><h2>Stepping Forward</h2><br />The most revealing step forward comes at the dawn of the Age of Reason. This grand steep toward secularism cannot help but remind that secular thought also arose as a need during the Axial Age.<br />Stepping Back<br />Saturn's Connections<br /><br />As happens at historical crossroads<br /><br /><a name='Saturn'></a><h1>Saturn</h1><br /><a name='Conclusions'></a><h1>Conclusions</h1><br />The history and the out<br />