Friday, December 14, 2007

Post 30 - Just means that I am slow.

Earlier today the ever-present lady love of my life was rereading some of her bible, specifically genesis, and found herself amazed by some of the claims set out therein. Remember, the bible is the word of god and therefore, though scribed by men, reflects the words, thoughts and intentions of the creator of the universe.

It is nice that mankind has had a constant reminder of our perfect creation and that simple facts, taken in context, have bolstered and reinforced scientific discovery of the means, places and mechanisms set out during our creation.

One can only wonder though, has the original story stood the test of time or should we take a closer look at some of the details. I know, I know. The devil is in the details. But so is the truth, is it not?

Now I looked at 5 or 6 different translations of the bible at the free site (link) and they were too varied and cryptic to compare next to one another. Now I don't want to pick one and then take crap for getting the wrong translation (technically it shouldn't matter but I split literary hairs much thinner than some of the publishers) so I decided to go with a list from these guys.

Here's a synopsis by action and day. I have added comments as to the possibility of this order with the current set of physics [my comments are bracketed, the parentheses are from the original list]

Day One

  1. Watery, formless planet Earth suspended in the darkness and void of space (no stars, no sun, no moon, no planets - except for Earth). [This is obviously a typo with no stars and other cosmic features earth would be a cold dead lump of ice. Since earth contains elements heavier than Iron there had to have been at least one supernova before its creation. There's no other way to create super heavy elements without some catastrophic action occurring before hand. This explanation is also inconsistent with the Heliocentric model of the solar system.]
  2. Light. [One will have to wonder where the light came from since the Sun, moon and stars are days away. Taken literally it's not so hard to imagine but the common 'oh a day back then could have been a million years' argument makes this seem like an awfully long time to be holding a lamp.]
  3. Separation of light from the darkness - and the first indication that the planet is rotating (day and night cycle produced). [The planet rotates, that's fine. But why not just create the sun first to make things easier? If I was going to build a car in my garage I wouldn't wait for 3 days to turn the light on. Even using a temporary flashlight/glowstick/lamp would be clunky and inefficient. Oh well, Day one is over with.]

Day Two

  1. Formation of Earth's atmosphere, separating the water into two parts:
    (a) oceanic and subterranean water
    (b) atmospheric water. [I would like to call Shenanigans here because there are a few details left out. 'Atmospheric water' is never mentioned in any translation of the bible I have been able to find. Most editions allude to...well here's the King James Version: "6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

    7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so." Now one has to beg the question. I just checked my physic's book and found no mention of 'firmament.' In fact I had to check wikipedia just to come up with some interesting answers. I will let you judge them.

As I see it this verse only goes to show how the world works. There is the flat, solid overturned bowl of the earth sitting between two great layers of water. One is above the earth and the other is supporting the world from below. Need I only invoke the words 'gravity' and 'outer space' to convey the correct view. The earth closely resembles a sphere with bumps and valleys that rock and sway to the tune of isostasy and tectonic motion. Also the sky is not a layer of water, even atmospheric water it's air with evaporating water in it. Let's move on.]


Day Three

  1. Dry land and oceans. [Fair enough. Spade work on a very large scale could accomplish this. It's odd that there's no mention of the world being a single landmass before breaking up and drifting out into our modern continents.]
  2. System to water the entire land surface using subterranean waters (involving springs or mist, or both). [Oh everywhere on Earth gets water. I guess this place doesn't count for much. No biggie.]
  3. Vegetation, seed-bearing plants, trees that bear fruit. [Here's another example of where the bible doesn't quite shine. Without animals, insects and symbiotic relationships these plants are going to have a shitty time trying to reproduce. If the seven day account is true then that's ok. But if it isn't then god must've taken care of all that pollination. Either that or all the animal and insect species evolved on their own from single-celled creatures. No wait, there's no mention of evolution in the bible so god must have taken care of it.]
  4. Garden of Eden (probably). [And where did that end up? Oh right, it got smooshed in the
    flood way later.]

Day Four

  1. Sun [Bout time! Now god can relax his flashlight hand. I bet his thumb smarted a good bit after so much time. At least now, with a sun, we can justify having a planet out in the middle of nowhere without a universe to pester it.]
  2. Moon - complete with established orbit so as to mark passage of time (months, seasons, and years). [Nice touch, god. Throw in a little reflector action so night time isn't such a hassle for the plants. It should be noted that nearly every translation does not say the sun and the moon but rather the 'greater light to rule the day and a lesser light to rule the night' That stinks. Moonlight is really starlight. Must be another typo right?]
  3. Stars and other planets. [Genesis 1:16 is about as far as I can usually get into the bible before I have to put it down out of principle. To spend this amount of time and then dismissively mention 'he created the stars also' is like writing a book on one skin cell and how it was put together and then casually mentioning that there are six billion other people out there. No big deal though right, this is how the universe came to being.]

Day Five

  1. Water creatures of all kinds. (All that had “the breath of life” were vegetarian.) [Well I hope this includes algae and plankton or a WHOLE lot of fish are going to be pretty hungry. I wonder why there's no mention of the horrific freakishly weird critters that live in the deep dark of the ocean (also in my nightmares) What's weird to me is that terrestrial plants (dry land) all bear weird similarity to sea plants. Stranger still the fossil record and DNA evidence suggest that life came out of the ocean onto land and not vice versa. Typo?]
  2. Birds (all vegetarian).

Day Six

  1. Land animals (all vegetarian): (a) creatures that move close to the ground (small animals), (b) large animals, and (c) animals of use to man as livestock. [We've finally managed to get close to some consistency with natural observation. Land animals did come AFTER sea critters. However I am fairly certain that some fishes had figured out that eating their neighbors works just as well as a survival strategy. I mean there are flesh eating microbes. Come to think of it the emphasis on vegetarian life is a little weird. Oh well, could just be a typo. Spell check much, god?]
  2. Man. [No comments]
  3. Woman (saving the best for last?). [Ah now we come to my favorite part of the bible. God is done and now it is up to people to get busy with the babies. It does seem a little gross that Seth and Cain have to get busy with their sisters but hey. That is out of scope for this post.]
So as we can see it is so easy to forget that the bible is one hundred percent accurate and contradiction free. However, and I know I'm just being difficult and proud here, there are a few questions I have that make me wonder if a couple parts got skipped or shuffled around.

Consider cosmic background radiation. Even the coldest deepest darkest corner of space is about 3 degrees kelvin. Pesky scientists would say that's just residual radiation from the big bang. Maybe. Or maybe god flicked a giant cosmic booger into the great attractor just to be funny.

Earth is round. Why not just make mention of this simple and obvious fact? If you sculpted a world hanging in the void of space and intended it to rotate your options for shape are a little limited. Round or...well round is about all you get. Earth would have been much more interesting as a ringworld but oh well. Maybe next time.

I really worry about that line 'he created the stars also' because there are an awful lot of stars. IN the milky way alone there are hundreds of billions. Our galaxy is not unique either, there are billions if not trillions of galaxies out there. I cannot convey the scope and scale of the universe. No one can. It's like our brain only evolved to suit life on a single planet that would never discover our true place in the cosmos. No wait! I mean its like our brain was designed to only comprehend life on earth and nowhere else ever.

Lastly the whole Adam before Eve thing just makes me wonder. See dudes have a Y chromosome which is basically a retarded X chromosome. See our reproductive gear is much simpler since we don't gestate babies we just spam out the Y's. You'd think that would imply that females would come first and then men would be derived from them but that's not what the bible says so I must be wrong.

I hope at least one person found some enlightenment from this post. I would also like to provide shout outs to Biblegateway and Christian Answers

It has been fun but now I must go. If anyone manages to read this and likes or dislikes feel free to comment as you will.

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