Unfortunately, no criminal action will be brought against either the “Cult” or Judge Meyer, because the “Cult” is the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the method of suicide the youth chose was to refuse treatment that would have given him a 70% chance of survival.

TJM author Luci recently wrote about another senseless death associated with Jehovah’s Witness prohibition on accepting blood transfusions.

Basically, JWs are prohibited from consuming the blood of an animal. “Church” leaders decided that hospital patients can be fed intravenously, a blood transfusion is food.

What?

TJM reader Jerry Jones (his link) commented:

Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that when human blood is transfused into their body’s circulatory system that the transfused human blood remains to be human blood and continues to function as human blood. Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that if blood is eaten, then the ingested blood enters the body’s digestive system, where the blood would be treated by the body exactly the same as it would treat a hotdog, a potato chip, or any other food item.

Before you start thinking that I’m singling out JW’s, remember that MANY religions/dogmatic beliefs require the individual to harm himself/herself in the name of worship and/or conformity. Judaism (and others) requires the partial amputation of male genitalia. Sects of Islam require adherents to flog and/or lacerate themselves as a part of their worship. (Check out “Ashoura”) Female Genital Mutilation is still widely practiced in several locations around the world. Foot Binding, an old Chinese custom, has crippled millions of women.

Dogmatism turns otherwise rational people into lemmings. Religion is the single largest source of Dogmatism. Religion is also the most “Protected” in its application. Without Religion to back up this boy’s decision, his parents would have been brought up on child endangerment charges, he would be declared a ward of the court, and his doctors would be ordered to begin treatment.

Read more:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/11/religion_kills.php
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/29/jehovahs.witness.ap/index.html

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPg3kjKBRc[/youtube]

⁷For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?

Lying for god. What a great concept! In fact, let’s carry the theme of lying through the rewriting of the Bible. Let’s put words in Jesus’ mouth. In fact Faustus, the Manichean Bishop, and opponent to Augustine, said:

Many things have been inserted by our ancestors in the speeches of our Lord which, though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially since – as already it has been often proved – these things were written not by Christ, nor [by] his apostles, but a long while after their assumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with themselves, who made up their tale out of reports and opinions merely, and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the apostles of the Lord or on those who were supposed to follow the apostles, they maliciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits according to them.

John Chrysostom, 5th century Bishop of Constantinople gives us a clear view on the Church’s stance on lying to “spread the word:”

Do you see the advantage of deceit? …
For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind …
And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived.
(Treatise On The Priesthood, Book 1).

Even Martin Luther could justify the idea of lying for the cause:

What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.

And they lie to us yet today…

1. While on the Cross Jesus said, “My God my God, why hast thou forsaken
me” (Mark 15:34). How could Jesus be our savior when he couldn’t even
save himself? Those aren’t the words of a man voluntarily dying for our
sins; those are the words of a man who can think of a hundred other
places he would rather be.

2. Jesus said, “whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of
hell fire” (Matt. 5:22). Yet, he himself did so repeatedly, as Matt.
23:17, 19 and Luke 11:40 and 12:20 show. Shouldn’t he be in danger of
hell too?

3. Except those of biased Christian writers, there isn’t one writing
outside the Bible in all of ancient history that clearly refers to Jesus
of Nazareth.

4. Isn’t Jesus a false prophet since he wrongly predicted in Matt. 12:40
that he would be buried three days and three nights as Jonah was in the
whale three days and three nights? Friday afternoon to early Sunday
morning is only one and a half days.

5. Jesus’ prophecy in John 13:38 (“The cock shall not crow, till thou
[Peter] hast denied me three times”) is false. Mark 14:66-68 shows the
cock crowed after the first denial, not the third.

6. How could Jesus be our model of sinless perfection when he denies he
is morally perfect in Matt. 19:17 (“And Jesus said unto him, Why callest
thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God”)?

7. In 1 Cor. 1: 1 7 (“For Christ sent me [Paul] not to baptize but to
preach the gospel”) Paul said Jesus was wrong when he said in Matt.
28:19 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them….” So
how could Jesus be the fountain of wisdom?

8. How could Jesus, whom the New Testament repeatedly refers to as the
son of man, be our savior when this is clearly forestalled by Psalm
146:3 (“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom
there is no help”) and Job 25:6 (“How much less man, that is a worm? and
the son of man, which is a worm”)?

9. How can Jesus be God when he repeatedly said he was not God’s equal,
wasn’t God? Obvious examples are: John 14:28 (“…for my Father is
greater than I”), John 20:17 (“I ascend unto my Father, and your Father,
and to my God, and your God”), and John 7:16 (“My doctrine is not mine
but his that sent me”).

10. While on the Cross Jesus said, “Forgive them Father they know not
what they do.” To whom was he speaking? They say, “God.” But I
thought he was God. How can God speak to God if there is only one god?
That’s two gods.

11. Jesus told us to “honor thy father and mother” (Matt. 15:4), but
contradicted his own teaching in Luke 14:26 (“If any man comes to me and
does not hate his father and mother … he cannot be my disciple”).

12. In John 3:13 (“And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that
came down from heaven, even the Son of man…) Jesus erred because 2
Kings 2:11 (“. . . and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven”) shows
Elijah went up earlier.

13. In Matt. 16:28 Jesus said, “There be some standing here, which shall
not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his
kingdom.” Yet, they all died and he never came.

14. Jesus told us to “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you,” but
ignored his own advice by repeatedly denouncing his opposition. Matt.
23:17 (‘Ye fools and blind”), Matt. 12:34 (“O generation of vipers”),
and Matt. 23:27 (“. . . hypocrites … ye are like unto whited
sepulchres…”) are excellent examples of hypocrisy.

15. Even many of the staunchest defenders of Jesus admit that his
comment in Matt. 10:34 (“I came not to send peace but a sword”)
contradicts verses such as Matt. 26:52 (“Put up again thy sword into his
place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword”).

16. The Messiah must be a physical descendant of David (Rom. 1:3, Acts
2:30). Yet, how could Jesus meet this requirement since his genealogies
in Matt. 1 and Luke 3 show he descended from David through Joseph, who
was not his natural father (the Virgin Birth)?

17. Jesus told a man in Mark 8:34 that “whosoever will come after me,
let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” The obvious
question is: What cross? He hadn’t yet died on the cross. There was
nothing to take up. That man would have had no idea what he was talking
about.

18. In Mark 10:19 Jesus told a man to follow the Commandments. Yet one
of those listed by Jesus was “defraud not,” which isn’t even an Old
Testament commandment.

19. In Luke 12:4 Jesus told his followers to “Be not afraid of them that
kill the body.” But Matt. 12:14-16, John 7:1, 8:59, 10:39, 11:53-54,
and Mark 1:45 show that he hid, escaped, and slunk around often.

20. In Luke 23:43 Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today shalt
thou be with me in paradise.” But how could they have been together in
paradise that day if Jesus lay in the tomb for three days?

21. For Jesus to be executed for our sins makes about as much sense as
my son telling a judge that he would accept execution for my crimes.
Although a nice gesture, it has nothing to do with justice. What judge
worthy of the title would agree?

22. Lastly, in Matt. 15:24 Jesus said, “I am not sent but unto the lost
sheep of the house of Israel,” but later told his followers to “Go ye
therefore, and teach all nations” (Matt 28:19). To whom, then, are they
to go–only to the Jews, or everyone?

-A special thanks to Dennis McKinsey whose site, Biblical Errancy, can be found in our links.

I realize that not all Christians are Bible-thumpers, and not all Bible-thumpers believe exactly the same thing. When answering these questions, feel free to skip those which do not apply to you. It might be helpful to explain why a certain question does not apply, but it’s not required.

The KJV Bible as the literal word of God:

There are no questions in this section, because I don’t consider it worthwhile discussing things with people who actually believe that God spoke to Moses in Elizabethan English. For The KJV Bible to be the literal word of God, that’s exactly what would have had to have happened, that’s what literal means: exactly, word for word, what someone said.

The Bible as the word of God:

Where in the bible, if anywhere, Does the Bible say it is the Word of God?

How do you know this applies to the Bible as we know it today, and not some other collection of books? For example, how do you know it refers to the gospels of John, Mark, Luke and Matthew, and not the gospel of Simon, Thomas, and Peter?

What’s to keep someone from writing whatever they want, or altering existing stories to fit their need, then using this passage to prove God wrote it? Today, of course, we could compare with other versions of the Bible, but what about hundreds or thousands of years ago? Did God correct the mistakes and strike down the blasphemers?

Depending on your answer to the last question, tell me how you feel about the fact that this page was typed by God himself. James’s name is just on it for legal reasons. By the way: I, your Creator, say you’re a poop head, the Bible is bogus, and you should send Reverend James 10% of your gross income.

The Bible, The Koran, The Book of Mormon, and other books are supposedly the word of God. Many other works are supposedly inspired by God, gods, god-like aliens from the Pleiades, etc. Why should I accept your favorite, and not one of the others?

If God has personally told you that the Bible is His word, why should this out-weigh his personal communication to me saying that it isn’t?

Biblical Inerrancy:

I claim that the Bible contains contradictions, errors of fact, and suspicious omissions…especially regarding matters of physical science. A number of people have tried to explain away these errors. I am not impressed. If you intend to defend Biblical inerrancy with one or more of the following arguments, please be prepared to answer the associated objections. You do not need to reply to answers to objections that you don’t plan to use. If you see the Bible as containing mostly metaphor, as opposed to literal truth, you can skip down to the section on Biblical Metaphor.

If you claim that there are no apparent flaws in Bible, and thus there is nothing to explain, Why do I see flaws?

If your answer involves a defect in my mental ability, Why is it more likely that I suffer from this disorder than you?

If your answer involves a lack of faith on my part, how does this apply to Islamic fundamentalists, who are quite willing to die for their faith?

If your answer involves rude comments about my parentage, please keep it to yourself.

If you claim that the apparent flaws in the Bible are the result of misrepresentations and passages taken out of context:

Why is it so easy for me to distort the word of God? Shouldn’t an all-powerfull, all-knowing being be able to write more clearly?

Why should I believe that your religion’s leaders are not similarly distorting the word of God for their own selfish gain?

If you claim the King James Version is linguistically flawed due to archaic language and / or poor translation:

Why did God allow this to happen?

If God allows flaws in some versions of the Bible, Why should we presume that he corrected any version?

Why should I accept your favorite version as being the one version God decided to correct?

If you rely on “original” versions in a variety of archaic languages, please pay special attention to the next questions.

If you claim it requires extensive interpretation, study and research to properly understand the Bible:

Why did God make his word so hard to understand?

Why should I accept your favorite interpretation as being correct?

Why not just study nature instead, as science does? There is, after all, no chance that nature is a fraud.

If you claim it requires divine revelation to properly understand the Bible:

Why is your personal revelation endorsing the Bible superior to my personal revelation condemning the Bible?

Why should we accept divine revelations that point to the Bible while rejecting revelations that point to the Koran, The Vedas, The Kalevala, or any of countless other texts?

If revelation is a reliable source of information, why not just rely on it, instead of a book?

If you claim apparent contradictions are the result of metaphoric use of language:

Why did God make his word so hard to understand?

Why should I accept your guess as to which parts are metaphoric, and which are literal?

When I use metaphor, I use it to get around the limitations of language and the human mind. If you assume God uses metaphor for the same reason, why would he have created those limitations in the first place? If you assume God uses metaphor for a different reason, please explain that reason.

Occasionally people write to tell me they see the Bible as just another inspirational work:

What do you find inspiring about the atrocities that constitute much of the old testament?

What do you find inspiring about the new testament’s message of eternal damnation for those who fail to embrace exactly the right set of beliefs?

Why should I slog through the racism, sexism, absurdities and atrocities to find the occasional bit of inspiration when there are thousands of other inspirational works available?

Why should I rely on any book for inspiration when sunsets, flowers, and big piles of sauerkraut with wieners chopped up in them are all readily available?

Gays:

Most Christians are pretty nice folk, but one loathsome sort of Christian uses the Bible to justify homophobia, gay bashing, and a lack of compassion towards those suffering from AIDS. I have little tolerance for this, as the tone of these questions might suggest:

If AIDS is God’s punishment to Gays for anal intercourse, does that mean lung cancer is God’s punishment for smoking? If so, do you plan to picket Aunt Mildred’s funeral carrying signs saying “God hates Smokers?”

If AIDS is God’s punishment for sex, why is a little piece of rubber so effective at preventing it? Are all sins absolved when committed in conjunction with rubber, or just those related to sex? Can I, for example, worship graven images so long as they’re made out of rubber?

In forty years do you expect your discrimination against gays be more or less embarrassing to your grandchildren than your grandparents’ discrimination against blacks is to you? You may, of course, skip this question as irrelevant if you’re a racist too.

Christian Metaphysics:

Can anyone explain:

Why did God sacrifice Himself to Himself so that He could correct a mistake He made Himself?

How does the crucifixion count as an appropriate sacrifice? Jesus spent a few hours, maybe a day, in agonizing pain; but it was no greater pain than millions of others have suffered. If Jesus really is God, then He knew exactly what was happening, and exactly how long it would last. When it was done, He supposedly ascended to heaven and became the all-powerful ruler of the universe. This is infinitely greater compensation than even the faithful will receive, and infinitely less torture that the damned will receive.

Please reconcile these two statements: “Without evil, there can be no good”, “God is all-good.”

Please reconcile these two statements: “With God, nothing is impossible”, “You can’t be saved unless you accept Jesus as your savior.”

Extra-Credit Questions:

If you answered any question beginning “Why did God…” by saying it is not our place to question God, explain why you feel free to question his decision to make me an Atheist.

List at least three ways God is better than Santa Claus. Here’s my list of ways Santa is better:

1. The only punishment Santa delivers is a withholding of presents. Even at that, he usually brings coal. Useful stuff, coal.
2. If you’re not good enough, Santa gives you another chance next year.
3. The evidence for the existence of Santa is much stronger: I get presents from Santa and hear radar tracking reports about Santa on the news every year. Millions have even seen Santa, I am among them. Even if 99.99999% of the sightings are false, that is still certain proof of Santa.
4. Santa doesn’t care if you believe in him, only if you’re good or bad.

If there is an afterlife, why haven’t Isaac Asimov, or Carl Sagan written books about it yet? “Paper burns” is not an acceptable answer. Funny, in a twisted sort of way, but not acceptable. (Lest anyone mistake my feeling, these men were among the greatest intellects to ever walk the face of the Earth, and I miss them both terribly.)

Why do Christians assume that the parable “Kissing Hank’s Ass” is about them?

If you only have time to answer one Question:

There are many books that are so good that once I start reading them, I can’t put them down. The Bible is not one of them. How is it that God, or an author directly inspired by God, does not write as well as (for example) Michael Crichton?

-Thanks to Rev. James Huber

“Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone. And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?” (Num. 11:16-20)

Great! Finally, some meat! And from the sounds of it, a lot of it! In fact, enough to eat for not 1,2,5,10 or 20 days; but at least enough for a month! Sounds like a great promise. And did God deliver? You bet he did!

And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp. (Num. 11:31-32)

Now, a cubit is about 1.5 feet (a man’s elbow to fingertip) and a day’s journey is about 7 miles. That’s a lot of quail! But wait, didn’t God promise them that they would eat the quail for a month? Until it was “loathsome” to them? Sure did! (Num. 11:19-20) Let’s see what happens next:

And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague. (Num. 11:33)

So much for that promise!

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

However, let us examine the original crime and punishment and see if this dogma holds true. First, does God himself believe that we should be damned for the sins of our ancestors? The Bible supports both ideas; yes and no. If you wish to serve a god which is more unjust than our legal system, here are your supporting verses:

Gen. 9:21-25 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father …. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan [Ham's son]; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

Exodus 20:5 I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Exodus 34:7 Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children unto the third and to the fourth generation

Num. 14:18 Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Jer. 16:10-11 Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? … Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord.

If you wish to believe that the god you serve is more ethical than that, here are your supporting verses:

Deut. 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

2 Kings 14:6 But the children of the murderers he slew not: according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the LORD commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

Jer. 31:29-30 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity.

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Now, let us examine just what Adam’s punishment was:

Gen. 3:17-19 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Hmmm. No mention of separation from god, or hell for that matter. And I believe that god’s original intent for Adam, before he sinned, was to “dress and keep” the Garden of Eden. (Gen. 2:15) So, Adam’s punishment is to do what god intended him to do in the first place. Okay. As a matter of fact, the Earth gets cursed by god due to Adam’s sin. Eve’s punishment is merely one verse:

Gen. 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Apparently, before the whole apple ordeal, popping a watermelon out of a hole the size of a grape would not have hurt! That’s right, we had no nerve endings or pain receptors before sin entered the world. And to love your husband is a punishment forced on to the woman as well (and thy desire shall be to thy husband).

Keep in mind that in not one place in the verses concerning Adam’s punishment does the Bible mention hell or the concept of his posterity being “born into sin” and, thusly, damned to hell. As a matter of fact, there is no mention of hell anywhere in the Old Testament. Every single place that you find the word “hell” in the Old Testament has been mistranslated. The original Hebrew in its rightful place is “sheol,” which in most of the OT refers to the grave and in some places refers to the underworld below Earth. The ideology of a “hellfire and brimstone” hell comes to us from the New Testament.

And, after all, should you choose to believe in a god that would not punish a man for the sins of the father (as shown by the above scriptures), how could you believe that that same god would damn you to eternal suffering for 75 years of “sin?” Seems like quite the unjust price to pay as our own legal system, while far from perfect, is more lenient than that.

• Was man created before or after the animals? Well, Gen. 1:25-27 says after:

²⁵And 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. ²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

While Gen. 2:18-19 tells us that man was created before the animals:

¹⁸And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. ¹⁹And 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: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

If you want to go one step further, the next verse is a tell-tale sign that God is not the omniscient being that we give him credit to be:

²⁰And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

So, here we have a God that knew that the animals needed animals of the same species and different sex, but he expected that Adam would find a “help meet for him” among the animals? Surely an omniscient God would have for-seen this blunder and would have created Eve right along with Adam instead of having him waste the years it must have taken to give names to all the beasts of the field and the fowl of the air. (I suppose that the Penguins and Ostriches got left out of this naming ceremony) Of course, I am getting ahead of myself because the next question is:

• Man and woman; created at the same time or separately? Keep in mind that Gen. 1 is a chronological account and names just what was made on which day:

²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

According to this version, God created woman at the same time as man. The story reads quite clearly: beginning of the 6th day, animals first then man and woman. The second account is quite different (Gen 2:20-22):

²⁰And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.²¹And 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; ²²And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

In this account, we have the following order: man first, then the animals and finally woman. Which account is the correct order of creation?

• Where did the birds come from? Looking at Gen. 1:20-21:

²⁰And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. ²¹And 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.

Okay, so they came from out of the water. Or, Gen. 2:19:

¹⁹And 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: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

Well, maybe they came from the ground. And as for the great “meaning of life” everyone is so desperately searching for? It was right in Genesis all along (Gen. 2:19):

¹⁵And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Next post: Original Crime and Punishment.

Genesis 1

¹In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. ²And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. ³And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. ⁴And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. ⁵And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 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. ⁸And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. ⁹And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. ¹⁰And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. ¹¹And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. ¹²And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. ¹³And the evening and the morning were the third day. ¹⁴And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: ¹⁵And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. ¹⁶And 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. ¹⁷And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. ²⁰And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. ²¹And 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. ²²And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. ²³And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. ²⁴And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. ²⁵And 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. ²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. ²⁸And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. ²⁹And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. ³¹And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

We’ve all heard this story before. The last time you may have heard it was in Sunday School. More recently, you may have looked up these verses due to all the debate surrounding the idea of introducing “Intelligent Design” into the public school system. (Folks, let’s face the reality: I.D. is simply another way to say “Creationism” while trying to keep a straight face.) But, have you really read it? I mean, with the logic switch turned on? Let’s take away the stigma and guilt of questioning the Bible, if only for a moment. What exactly can we derive from this first chapter of Genesis?

1. God created light with no source. After all, the sun is not made until the fourth day. For those that hold true to the idea that God created the universe within the confines of the laws of physics (being that He is the architect of those laws), this simply defies explanation. If this is true, what was the need to create a sun? And why don’t we see this all-encompassing light in the middle of the night? After all, there is no reference to God extinguishing that light…
2. There is some kind of transparent iron plate between the Earth and outer space. What’s more, there is water just on the other side of it! As you all well know, this “dome” around the Earth has been a complete nuisance to NASA and their useless attempts to launch anything beyond it.
3. (Time to sleep, more tomorrow.)

Just a quick, random thought. If God is omnipotent, could He not have merely thought everything into existence? I mean, certainly that would have been more time efficient. Maybe he would not have needed to take a day off for “rest.” He could have used the time He saved for the real important questions like, “Do I really want to put the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the middle of the Garden?” As far as Intelligent Design goes, how intelligent was it to create a tube that leads to both the lungs and the stomach? Surely there must have been a better system than people choking to death.

But folks, this is but one creation story of the two that are in Genesis. Fundamentalists will say that one is a synopsis or commentary on the other. This simply cannot be true, as the two stories conflict and contradict each other too much. The real answer: the Pentauch (first 5 books of the Bible) was not written by one person, Moses, as we are taught. Rather, there were several authors. More on that and the conflicting stories of “Creation” in our next posting, “In the Beginning…2.”