It seems some people need reminding of our planet's history. National Geographic has recently featured religious stories, obviously to please the wacko sector of the US Bible Belt, now extending its ruthless claws into Europe. Although I have to give it credit: the series exploring Bible stories tries on one hand to lay out creationists' theories in an even-handed manner and then brings on a specialist to add some realism to the debate, some of them driving a combine harvester through the whole senseless mess Bible theorists wish to regard as fact.
First on the agenda is the idea that we were all created in 6 days with the Creator resting on the seventh. Now far be it from me to knock a man when he's down, but if it takes several thousand strong individuals half a decade to build Beijing's Olympic Stadium, I can't see how one "creator" can landscape Earth in a three-hundredth of that time period. I mean, where did he keep all the test tubes and fertilizer? And on top of that, let us not forget that "God" would have had to do a lot of digging, irrigation and channeling.
Now let us turn to the evidence:
Article 1: The Flood
These Bible-bashers like to bang on about their beloved flood, the one Noah was supposed to have built an Ark so big it was able to fit all the animals of the world in it. How did Noah manage not only to build a boat which takes people these days with 21st century technology a couple of years to make, but also to go out catching the creatures, classifying them and stopping them from eating each other? Oh yes, and writing wasn't invented then, so he'd have had to either have a bloody good memory or be the pioneering artist of his time. Imagine what a guy Noah would have been! Actually, I'm just picturing the job ad...
Article 2: Adam and Eve
So these two were our originators, eh? How did Cain and Abel reproduce? Two men, brothers, wow - medical science was advanced then! No, in all seriousness, the Bible does say that God had created other beings by then, including other women. Otherwise we wouldn't have stayed for long in His own image: we'd have had deformities from day one.
Article 3: The Creation
Despite the overwhelming evidence categorised by Charles Darwin in his Theory of Evolution, and the research done by serious scientists who believe in spending valuable University money on realistic projects, the Bible scholars tell us that only one book has all the evidence in it to prove how we arrived on Earth - a book written by dozens of people into many languages, some of which have since died out, translated dozens of times from the original, and whose original purpose was to be a rulebook, a guide and a kind of answerer of all the questions local people were asking at the time. What do kids ask parents at some stage? "How did we get here?" I'm sure it's not a recent development.
Article 4: The Commandments
The early parts of the Bible were written originally to keep people under control and to make sure they didn't do things which, even then, were seen by the leaders as barbaric. And so, Moses set out the Ten Commandments. I can't disagree with them either, although sometimes my neighbour's wife is hard to resist... The whole idea was to establish the first law and order. That's what Leviticus is. It is a good legal base. The Bible is simply an all-in-one guide book, setting up rules, defining boundaries of good behaviour, pointing out what the truth was to people back then. What we must not see it as is something we should strictly adhere to today.
For example, it declares the pig as unclean and unfit for consumption. Then, yes, when it contained an extreme viral strain of ringworm and some other toxic diseases. Nowadays it is as edible as lamb, chicken and beef. So why do fundamental Christians still see the need to tell us they're the guardians of truth? Are they so afraid of being proven wrong by the mountain of evidence to the contrary of their own delusions that they need to be even more vehement?
Summing Up:
I should add that in order to be a good debator, you have to admit to some failings or flaws, and while I succumb to the Bible's superiority in all areas of morality, even providing clarity to the lives of people who can't make up their own minds, stability to those who are living turbulent times, and happines to some who have gone through periods of darkness, I still believe the whole concept of adherence to a document thousands of years old requires a supernatural effort of willpower and blind faith, which I for one cannot comprehend.
1 comment:
Ooh, you are treading on bloodied ground here Mr Litski!
I just want to add that the whole idea of Faith is that you require no proof, and that for many, believing in something unproven, beyond what the Bible says, is all that is required.
One would think that Scientists are the polar opposite - looking for truth - but the fact is, some of the biggest god-botherers are in fact Nobel prize winning scientists. Why? The further they dig into the world and how it is put together, the more they find that they simply cannot comprehend.
That atoms can stick together in the specific ways that they need to, to sustain life - the infinite impossibility of life forming, and sustaining for as long as it has, is just stupendously incredible.
Science can explain how, but it cant' explain why.
The saddest thing in any religion is that there are always people who are desperate to stamp out all opposite feeling or belief just in case it upsets their own little world.
On one hand, everyone has a right to believe in what they want, but on the other, a world without any kind of faith, where nobody believes in anything unless it can be put in front of them and experienced by them, is a very sad prospect.
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