In the Beginning

I like to keep my life in balance. When my friend at work forwards me an article from Fox News that says Obama is a terrorist, I promptly find the quickest fact checker site (Snopes) and go to work on whatever new lame news story he has drummed up.

In the same manner, I have watched several scientific and historical documentaries as well as read several books about how the Bible/Christianity/Religion/Etc. is a terrible way to guide your morals. Instead of letting, Dawkins tell me what is true or not, I turned to analyze the Bible myself. 

Now before you click on to some other webpage, hang with me a second. Penn Jillette called the Bible one of the best proofs for atheism an unbeliever could need. So with that in mind, I opened up to book one, verse one and read:

"In the beginning..."

When I attended Sunday school, it was taught that the subsequent passeges are literal. Yes, Literal. Not Mythological, or Allegorical. Literal. Given the fact that I was...5, it made total sense that a supreme being constructed our complex world in 6 days (took day seven off). 

There are a boatload (no pun intended Noah) problems here. So, let's say there is a supreme being who can do whatever they want, then why not create the world in one day?  Also important to keep in mind that this was an oral culture. Most of this stuff did not see paper until much later...Sorry peeps, but this is folklore story telling at its finest and almost every culture possesses one. We just inherited ours from ancient times.

In a nutshell:

Day One: Let there be Light, Seperating day from night 

Day Two: Seperation of land from water, Plants

Day Three: Stars/Solar System (including our sun)

Day Four: Birds/fish

Day Five: Cattle and creeping things (things that walk on 4 legs...)

Day Six: Male and Female

Day Seven: Nap

So I noticed something interesting, it says God created male and female, but then a chapter later it describes how God created the first woman Eve from Adam's (first man) rib. The only clear point (besides that the bible only takes one chapter to contradict itself) is that the writer wants to start out the Bible showing that the man is in charge.

There are so many other passages that need to be mentioned from Genesis, but this is one you can start with and realize right away that the Bible should not be taken literally. So Christian or Atheist, read Genesis 1 and 2 and read it critically. Read it from the point of view of what we know about science and the world around us. Does this seem possible? Forget what the alternatives may or may not be. Just analyze this. Think. Read. Question.

Start there. It's better than just ignoring the truth.