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Common Sense is Anathema to Bible-believing Creationists
by Lee Salisbury
www.dissidentvoice.org
March 5, 2005

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The religious-right and its advocates, mainly fundamentalist clergy and their legislator-favorites believe the Genesis creation story is factually accurate, literal truth. Does science affirm this creationist view? Is a literal creationist account something a rational person accepts? Let's look at the Book of Genesis and consider a few of the many questions an honest inquirer should ask.

On the first day, God created light calling it day and darkness calling it night with a morning and an evening. There is yet no sun. Science tells us that the sun is the primary source of light in our universe. Mr. Creationist, please explain where does light come from when there is no sun? If you say the light came from God, than you acknowledge darkness came from God. Why did God create darkness when the universe was already dark? Without a sun for earth to rotate around, how could there be a morning and evening, a day and night?

On the second day, God created a firmament or expanse to divide the waters below the firmament from the waters above the firmament. God called the firmament Heaven. Mr. Creationist, of what was the firmament comprised that enabled it to overrule the force of gravity and keep the waters above from crashing down on the earth? Why hasn’t the Hubbell Space Telescope that sees 15 billion light-years into space ever detected a firmament, a heaven, or this heavenly ocean of water? Creationists say the water came down in Noah’s flood. If Noah’s flood is historically accurate, why do archaeological and geological finds show no Flood indicators in ancient settlements like the 9,000 year old Catalhoyuk in Turkey, a short distance from Mt. Ararat? If humans were just as wicked after the Flood as before the Flood, what does the Flood say about God’s omniscient wisdom?

On the third day, God gathered the waters and the land under the firmament and called them Sea and Earth. Then God created grass, herbs, fruit trees, and their respective seeds. At this point in creation there was no sun. Biology teaches that plants need photosynthesis for the sun's light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into nutrients. If the creation days are epochs biology tells us the plants would die without the sun and photosynthesis. Mr. Creationist, if God is an intelligent designer, why didn’t God create the sun before He created the plants?

On the fourth day, God created the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens for signs, seasons, days, and years. Some suggest this was the Big Bang? Astronomers estimate the Big Bang was 15 billion years ago. Adding Luke's 4,000-year genealogical record from Adam to Jesus and the 2,000 years from Jesus to the present suggest the universe is about 6,000 years old. Mr. Creationist, how do you reconcile the huge difference of the Bible's 6,000 year age of the universe and the astronomer's 15 billion years? Astronomy seriously contradicts the Bible’s reliability.

Astronomers tell us there are billions of other galaxies in the universe each with billions and billions of stars. The Bible tells us God named every star. Is it rational to accept that the God who supposedly: 1) created days and nights without a sun; 2) created plants without the sun’s needed photosynthesis; 3) punished humanity with a Flood knowing humanity would continue in the same wickedness…created and named all those stars in a 24 hour day just 6,000 years ago?

Further, God spoke everything into being. Is there evidence for God creating through the spoken word? If God creates through the spoken word why doesn’t God speak to the earth He created and command tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes to be still? Jesus said, "he that believes in me shall do the same works I do" Jn14:12. If Christians did as Jesus said, than we’d have evidence. The fact that there is no evidence today for either God or Christians creating through the spoken word.

Without considering the 5th and 6th days of creation in which Adam and Eve eat from a tree of knowledge and converse with talking snakes, these are a few simple questions any person with a little common sense should ask believers in a literally factual Bible. Amazingly, creationists have no rational, evidence-based answers for these questions. Even more amazing, the media sits bye and never challenges their specious answers concocted solely to justify their theological wishful thinking.

Is the public well served when clergy and legislators promote ideas defying logic and science and for which there is no better evidence for than a literal Snow White or a literal Peter Pan? Should such people be respected especially when they are in positions that frame public policy and law? You decide!

Lee Salisbury is a former evangelical preacher, founder of the Critical Thinking Club of Minnesota, and writes for www.axisoflogic.com and www.dissendentvoice.org.

Other Articles by Lee Salisbury

* Santa Claus, Jesus, and the Solstice
* Do You Condemn Gays Because the Bible Tells You So?
* History's Troubling Silence About Jesus

*
Any Ole God Will Do

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