Creation and it's place in faith Pt 2.

The previous post ended after the first chapter of Genesis. As we have seen, the entire text is rife with scientific errors. These are not errors that are contrived and difficult to observe and understand; the most obvious of these is the fact that the creation and properties of the stars are completely wrong. It is telling that many creationists are willing to try and convince people of the validity of a young Earth and the creation story, yet don't seem to be arguing about the compositions of stars. This is because unlike the creation of Earth, a subject we know a lot about yet not enough to give hard facts, it is a losing argument.

Following is the next chapter of Genesis. This uses the same translation as I used in the previous post found at the following link; http://library.thinkquest.org/29178/agenesisS.htm

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.
2 And by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

As previously explained, the scientific creation of the Earth comes about by a process of a star producing the necessary elements to create a dense body, that star spewing it's contents into space once it goes supernova, and the parts proceeding to coalesce around another star. This process, from what we can observe takes a very long time. Certainly the estimate of seven days is way short of the true length of time needed, which is closer to billions of years from the first ignition of the star that creates the necessary components. Earth itself is believed to have formed about 4.54 billion years ago, as part of a solar nebula, a ring of dust that contributed not only to the formation of our own Sun, but the creation of the other planets of the solar system. It's worth noting that no mention of these other planets is made in any part of the Genesis creation story.

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven.
5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth; and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.

Another example of the metaphysics present in the Genesis account, the book describes how water used to be distributed by rising from the ground in a mist. This celestial watering method appears to have fallen out of favour of God later on to be replaced by rain. Mist of course is known to exist, but it does not spring out of the ground. It is formed naturally by water droplets suspended in the air at ground level, much like clouds in the upper atmosphere are, when the air is particularly cold. Even if water were to spring from the ground as described, there is no real system by which this can occur. There would have to be a necessary amount of pressure distributed evenly beneath the ground that allowed the mist to be push up out of the ground. The ground could conceivable hold all the moisture to be distributed, however it would quickly become spongy and swamp-like, certainly unsuitable for larger plants such as bushes to root effectively.

7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
8 And the LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.

While the idea of humans being formed out of dust is ridiculed by some, there is a small grain of truth to this. Abiogenesis theories (the study of the formation of life) suggest that the first forms of primitive life, nothing more than self-replicating proteins encased in lipids, might have first began within certain formations of rocks that provided a molecular "scaffolding" around which these organic chemicals could have formed and then bonded. However, this again is a natural process, and is only applicable to the very first creations of life. No "breath of life" is necessary for this process to take place. The spontaneous creation of humans in this manner would be akin to a bomb exploding in the middle of a building and all of the bricks falling in the impact back into their original position, leaving the building intact. As it happens we know a lot about our biological history, and clear relations to the Great Ape family of animals and a common ancestry with them show that we emerged, like all other life on Earth, from the process of evolution, a topic I shall cover at a later date.

9 And out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers.
11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12 And the gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there.

Mentioned here is the river of Pishon and the land of Havilah. While there are some theories as to the exact location of the Pishon within the real world, there is no clear evidence exactly where this river can be found. Indeed, the text seems to suggest that the following four rivers converged on the point where Eden can be found.

13 And the name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush.

Again another river and land are mentioned. While the Gihon doesn't have a definitive real-life equivalent, Cush is often associated in other parts of the Bible with Ethiopia. This is an important fact to keep in mind in regards to the other two rivers;


14 And the name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Unlike the other two rivers above, the Tigris and the Euphrates are both rivers that can be positively identified. They happen to run almost parallel to each other, starting Turkey before moving into Iraq. Though they have their origins in the eastern part of Turkey, the Gihon, if it does indeed flow around Ethiopia as it suggested, is about a thousand miles away from it's source. At present there is no direct river running from Turkey to Ethiopia, and neither the Tigris nor the Euphrates come close to it, with both rivers running off into the Persian Gulf long before they run anywhere nearby. Young Earth creationists tend to disregard ideas such as tectonic plate movements since the requisite millions of years needed cannot work within the the short time scale of 6000 years. Even a catastrophic event such as the Great Flood, another subject I shall be covering later, wouldn't have changed the geography so drastically to remove a river running from eastern Turkey all the way to Ethiopia, or indeed move the entire land of Ethiopia far enough away from Turkey and Iraq to make the geography work.

15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die."

This is quite an obvious statement to make, one that has been made by many over the years, but if God had created a paradise for humans to live in why place a tree within that would cause humanity to be cursed forever? Logistically this is like a parent giving their child a series of toys along with a knife, and then telling them not to play with the knife. Invariably curiosity will get the better of the toddler and you'd most likely be taken away for child abuse. As is mentioned in the later parts of Genesis, the concept of sin and by extension good and evil were not present in the mind of the first humans. This is something we shall discuss later on.

18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."
19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
20 And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.

As is the case with the repeated creation of the Heavens, God is said to create every animal and the birds again in this chapter. This is nothing short of a blatant contradiction, one that doesn't require an understanding of science to see. One also has to wonder how, logistically, Adam named every creature on the face of the Earth, and indeed why Adam doesn't go to the trouble of naming any of the vegetation, or any marine animals.

21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh at that place.
22 And the LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
23 And the man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man."

This passage is of particular contention amongst many religious groups, specifically in relation to attitudes towards women. Since Genesis claims that woman came directly from man this is seen by some as a license to consider women lesser creatures to men, subservient due to their method of creation. As we know from science however this is just not true. For one thing, it would be impossible to recreate a female from the tissue sample of a male owing to the fact that the DNA, the genetic code that determines the outcome of an organism's physical properties, is markedly different for males and females. DNA is paired up in most organisms in strands known as chromosomes. Everyone has two pairs of each chromosome, with only one from each parent contributing to their offspring. Even if the XY chromosomes, the pair of DNA structures that contribute towards the sex of a person, were manually changed by God, there would still be a major issue with inbreeding owing to Adam and Eve's genetic similarities. Incest, as it happens, isn't much of a problem for the Bible in terms of explaining creation, since such actions are required to explain how the entire of humanity could come from a single biological pair. The act of incest is genetically detrimental to humans however, since genetic diseases such as hemophilia can only be expressed if the chromosome pairs from both parents carry the mutated gene, described as being recessive. An incestuously conceived child will most likely suffer from sterility, stunted growth, increased asymmetry of the face and reduced resistance to disease. Presumably the second generation of humans descended from Adam and Eve would have expressed many of these physical disorders, provided that the mechanisms behind genetic inheritance were the same.

24 For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

There is not much to say about this passage, apart from to note the mention that Adam and Eve were not ashamed of their nakedness, a phenomena attributed to the Bible to their lack of understanding of good, evil and knowledge. In a sense this is the Bible's argument for the old saying "Ignorance is bliss". This continued idea of Adam and Eve being devoid of Sin (in the literal, Biblical sense of the world) brings into question the significance of the idea of Original Sin, a topic we will go into with the next post.

Part 3 coming sometime next week.