Probably among the most familiar of familiar phrases in the English language is one that starts out “In the beginning God created…” However, there are alternative non-theological variations on that phrase that fall more in the realm of natural philosophy (or as we call it today, science). What’s at stake is the credibility of God’s alleged word vs. the credibility of the word of science. Christians might believe the Bible, but they put their real faith in science when they turn on their TV set or board an aircraft. So too should they put their money on the scientific scenarios of the creations.
In the beginning God said a whole bunch of stuff central to His creation of life, the Universe and everything.*
Continued from yesterday’s blog…
Botany is next up on the creation agenda. Of course you need land and water before you can have a garden (hydroponics and phytoplankton aside) so the ordering is, well, in order. Except God then makes a mistake. He starts off all things botanical with grass, which, truth be known, is a pretty complex and highly evolved plant. There were lots of simpler plants that pre-existed grasses. Even the dinosaurs existed before grass did! What God should have said is that “let the Earth bring forth algae and phytoplankton and mosses and ferns”. That would have been a detail which would have made botanical atheists stand up and take notice of Biblical bona-fides.
But, just when you think the Biblical creations gets things in a reasonable and logical order, here comes the next bit – the creation of the Sun, Moon and stars. The relevant quote, in case there’s any doubt:
Genesis 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Okay, the Moon and the stars aren’t all that relevant, but what did all those plants, those grasses, herbs and fruit trees, do for solar energy (photosynthesis) before the Sun got created? This is without question a major Biblical screw-up; the height of all that’s illogical in the scientific ordering of things, but then the Bible and science are not exactly bedfellows. Science on the other hand has the Sun and the Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago – plants came much later on and thus they never lacked for solar energy.
The screw-ups keep on keeping on. Next up we have the creation of marine life and avian life. Unfortunately for God, He screwed up by including whales among marine life. Okay, whales are marine creatures, but they are not fish. Whales are mammals. God apparently created whales before the end of the fifth day of creation. After the fifth day had ended, and the sixth day had begun, God then apparently created mammals, like cattle, and lots of other critters that in the fossil record preceded whales, as well as those things that “creepeth” upon the earth for example (I assume worms and snakes, etc.). What’s the relevant proof?
Genesis 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
We note that whales were created before other beasts as outlined in Genesis 1:24. Yet, as any biologist will outline for you, whales evolved from land mammals and went back to a marine habitat. Whales are a relatively recent product of natural selection. They were hardly an animal that kicked off the mammalian branch of the tree of life, contrary to what God says.
Take as a further example the creation of the male and female of the human species, which is I’m sure a bit more relevant and personal to all you readers. The barebones (as it were) were given in Genesis 1:26. Now, finally, God gives out the details!
Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2:21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
Genesis 2:22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Well at least now we get some sort of explanation – the male created from common dust; the female from the masculine rib. Details are still thin on the (dusty) ground, but the dust-and-rib theory is at least something that scientists can explore and play around with. Hands up all of you who attended high school biology class or university Biology 101 and got the dust-and-rib explanation? I thought so. Biologists have found a more convincing explanation. If you don’t need dust, and you don’t need ribs, then you don’t need God either in the equation. That aside…
Now if you’re a male, are you overjoyed that your original alpha-male ancestor was made out of ordinary everyday garden-variety dust? Would you be happy if you had been made out of dust motes? If you’re a female, does it tickle your fancy that you’re (well your sex is) just a second generation afterthought (there is quite a break in Genesis between Adam’s creation and Eve’s coming to the party); a creation from a masculine rib? Does any of this strike you as slightly ridiculous? That’s all the more so since the creation of the original alpha-male and alpha-female afterthought was just a one-off. Post-dust and post-rib it was creation by that time-honoured mechanism – sex, which is smelly and messy and rather hit-or-miss. I mean hey, if dust and ribs work, well when you’re on a winner, stick to the original blueprint. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. God should have left the dust-and-rib instruction manual behind. So, if a modern loving couple wants a bouncing baby boy, well a bit of housework will round up the raw material. If it’s a little girl, well hubby can have a rib job at the local clinic. Okay, that’s ridiculous. But if it’s ridiculous now, it was equally ridiculous back then.
Now kindly note another creation screw-up here. We’re all familiar with the concept of day and night; morning and evening. Now the question is what celestial object is responsible for there being light and darkness, day and night, morning and evening? Did I hear you suggest that the Sun was the orb responsible? If so, go to the head of the class.
But it comes to pass that we have this verse:
Genesis 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And then we have this verse (repeated from above):
Genesis 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
So the upshot here is that day and night, morning and evening, existed prior to the creation of the Sun. Wow! Neat magician’s trick that!
Now kindly note yet another creation screw-up here.
Recall: Genesis 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Recall: Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Now recall: Genesis 2:18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone.
Now recall: Genesis 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.
In Biblical parlance, this is the equivalent of the chicken and egg question. Which came first, man or beast? The Bible provides statements for both that’s can’t both be correct, so take your pick. Whichever you pick, the alternative then has to be nonsense. Odds are neither version is correct.
Now if God is perfect, there can be no Biblical screw-ups. If there are Biblical screw-ups, then either God isn’t perfect or the Bible is NOT God’s Holy Word. A reasonable explanation is that the Bible was written by non-perfect humans, and God doesn’t exist since the errors, the screw-ups, were never corrected by Him. God never proofread His own Holy Words!
One further anomaly that proves just about beyond any doubt that Genesis is the work of man and not of God; we note the endless repetition of “And God said.” My question – prior to Adam, just who was around back then to copy down anything that God said? And if the answer to that is nobody, then presumably God is just talking to Himself! Or, more likely as not, the entirety of Genesis, creation and all, is just an early example of what would later become known as science fiction.
*Kindly note that all Biblical references have been taken from the Book of Genesis that appear in the King James Version of the Bible.
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