“We do not see the name of Noah or of Adam in any of the ancient dynasties of Egypt; they are not to be found among the Babylonians and Sumerians. We cannot comprehend how the father of all nations has so long been unknown, not until the time when the Jewish books began to be known in Alexandria and were translated into Greek under one of the Ptolemies.
In the natural course of things Adam’s name should have been carried from mouth to mouth to the farthest corners of the earth. I will venture to affirm that it has required a miracle thus to shut the eyes and ears of all nations – to destroy every monument, every memorial of their first father. What would the Roman philosopher and orator, Cicero, have thought, if a poor Jew, while selling him balm, had said, We are all descended from one father, named Adam.
Cicero would doubtless have inquired about the great monuments, the indisputable testimonies which Noah and his children had left of our common father. After your so-called Deluge, he would have said, the whole world would have resounded with the names of Adam and Noah, one the father, the other the restorer of every race.
These names would have been in every mouth as soon as men could speak, on every parchment as soon as they could write, on the door of every house as soon as they could build, on every temple, on every statue. You mean to tell us that you knew so great a secret, yet concealed it from us? Every people has attributed to itself some imaginary origin, yet none has approached the true one.” – Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, entry under Adam….Wilfred A. Elders
The Bible has the following either implied or stated as fact:
Our universe was spoken into existence out of nothing…by a floaty thing in the sky
Plants were created before the sun was.
The first man was created from dust.
The first woman was made from a rib taken from the first man. (we both have the same number of ribs however)
They are in a garden that has ‘magic’ fruit, to make people live forever and be smart.
There is a talking snake. (did it have legs I wonder)
Incest was used to jump start the population.
There are Angels…good and bad…and demons.
There are giants and Unicorns.
There are witches, wizards and magicians.
There are bad Angels that rape human women.
Human pregnancy/reproduction is possible with no human father. (just like some of the other gods around the time of Jesus).
People can rise from the grave and walk the streets. (Zombies anyone?)
People live as long as 900+ years.
Dinosaurs and people lived together.
God commits genocide by flooding the earth and only saving 8 humans. (apparently the thought of just starting completely over never occurred to Him)
God makes the Sun stay in the sky so a human battle can be completed.
There is a talking, burning bush somewhere in the mountains of the Sinai desert .
There is a talking donkey.
People (other than Moses) can change wooden staffs into live snakes
A man sees Jesus in a beam of light…and all of Jesus’ thoughts and wishes are downloaded to him. (Hollywood Blvd. anybody?)
There is a man that lives inside a fish for 3 days.
Insects are said to have 4 legs (would a God REALLY be this stupid??)
The cure for leprosy is dove blood sprinkled on the toes (REALLY??)
If you position mating livestock in front of a stripped stick, they will produce stripped offspring.
Today we can actually disprove most of these Biblical assertions/stories.
Do mainline Christians really believe any of this is true? Or is it just the fundamentalists wackos among us.
I spent a lot of time on this reply, it needs to be on the blog front page.
Hi Marianne, Thank you for writing.
You write:”
I am a scientist that is paying attention. I have spent 30 years in biochemistry, which includes cell biology, toxicology, pharmacology, inflammation, biophysics of DNA and RNA, and medical research in general.
Great, I’ve always wanted to talk to someone in the research. If you are comfortable with it, could you tell me where you received your degree, what degree you have, and what particular field you work in today?
You write:
“Most scientists do not have any proof for what you say. It is all just “tradition.” They just assume evolution did this, and evolution did that. There is no proof. What the lay person perceives as proof is just scientific speculation, based on this traditional thinking.”
So are you saying here that you do not agree with or accept evolution?
How old do you think the earth and our universe is?
You write:
“you make several unsubstantiated comments. Like Noah did not exist. Well there are records of him, just like there are records of Julius Caesar. There was a garden of eden, and the description of what happened to it is consistent with the syrian african rift – most of it fell into this pit. The bible knew about this rift before modern science did. And the descriptions of the Garden match up with local areas, if you understand tectonic plate shifts.”
Here is what I actually wrote in my reply to your earlier post:
“Looking around and paying attention and studying the world we find the evidence that there never was a world-wide flood, which means we are not descended from Noah’s 3 sons. We find that real humans have been walking the earth for at least 200,000 years (means that there was no Adam and Eve as the Bible relates), which also means there was no fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, which means there is no Original Sin…which also means there is no need for a redeemer (Jesus) for our (non-existent) original sin .”
I did not say Noah never existed (although I do doubt that he did) I said there is NO evidence of his supposed flood, and you will find the evidence for this fact is all over the internet. You say there are records of him…could you perhaps guide me to them?
Regarding the Garden of Eden, there are many stories and guesses as to where it was. The Discovery and Nat Geo channels have had a few specials about that, and it has variously been placed in Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, and Kenya. The Great Rift Valley which goes through Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, and goes right by the Afar depression…you know where Lucy and her brethrens bones are found, also the border area between Namibia and South Africa, and probably other places I haven’t heard about. Yes, I am familiar with plate tectonics
The Largest DNA study on record at this time is the IBM, Nat Geo Genome Project which has over 350,000 DNA samples right now, and they are showing all the existing human bloodlines come from Africa, primarily the Ethiopian, Kenya area and the border area between Namibia and South Africa.
And why would there be a Garden of Eden if Adam and Eve did not exist?
You write:
“I do not accept the Jewish archeologist denying the Exodus or Joshua. I say the opposite. They are uncovering new evidence every day. They have sites where the Red Sea was crossed, and the pharoah’s chariots are still down there, under water. THey also have sites where the Israelites offered sacrifices in the desert, with hebrew symbols. The israelites were instructed to leave markers along their journey, and these markers have been found. “
You do not accept the Archaeological evidence? Do you have other scientific evidence that refutes this? Is this part of your field today? Also it’s not just one archaeologist.
There has never been a discovery of Pharaohs chariots in the Red Sea, or the Reed Sea for that matter, and believe me they have been looked for. If you insist there is…could you please point me to the evidence, as I have scoured the internet for almost three years now for evidence of this (and other Biblical things) and have had no luck at all.
To the best of my knowledge many, many archaeologists have scoured the Sinai for a hundred years looking for any evidence at all that over a million Hebrews wandered there for 40 years and have found absolutely nothing. There is even no evidence at Kadesh-Barnea where a million Hebrews supposedly spent the majority of their time during this 40 years. You know that the evidence of Joshua defeating the town of Jericho and Ai are lacking also, don’t you? I haven’t heard anything at all about markers.
You write:
“Most modern church and theology seminaries are getting away from the truth, not going toward it. Much is crap. They need the holy spirit to know truth, not a man getting paid a salary. He is just a hireling.”
I guessing here that you are an evangelical fundamentalist and believe in the literal Bible as being inerrant in all matters. Would I be right? I think a lot of what the modern church and seminaries are doing is trying to keep up with the emerging science that somehow impinges on religion. This is what’s going on with the Old Testament and Genesis specifically. The circumstantial evidence against Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, Tower of Babel, Exodus, Joshua, and the subsequent fallout from these stories being false…nothing but myth, is changing our world of religious thought. Denying facts do not make them go away.
You write:
“As far as time on the earth, no data is any better than the tool that measures it. There is no realistic tool that can measure over 500o years. The rest is speculation, and going off the standard curve, which is bad science.”
Have you heard of Potassium Argon dating? There are also about 20 or 30 radioactive element methods of dating besides the common C-14
In it I reference a Christian writer and scientist who actually works in the age-dating field. I have there a link to a PDF file about age-dating that the man wrote especially for Christians. Also I will post his contact data here: Dr. Roger C. Wiens RCWiens@MSN.Com Dr. Wiens has a PhD in Physics, with a minor in Geology. His PhD thesis was on isotope ratios in meteorites, including surface exposure dating.
He was employed at Caltech’s Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences at the time of writing the first edition. He is presently employed in the Space & Atmospheric Sciences Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
He has published over twenty scientific research papers and has also published articles in Christian magazines. Dr. Wiens became a Christian at a young age, and has been a member of Mennonite Brethren, General Conference Baptist, and Conservative Congregational, and Vineyard denominations.
Whole PDF article can be found at: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html
Age Dating in the many ways and methods used by science nowadays works…there is NO real dispute about this…except from YEC’s
You write:
“If you want to know Jesus, he will make himself known to you, in a way that is unique to you.”
Is there really a need for Jesus…if there was no Adam and Eve and consequently no “Original Sin”?
The following is part of a discussion between me and a very intelligent Catholic apologist. We have been at this off and on for many months now and I truly enjoy “talking” with him
Qb: “Now wait a minute. 1) If you believe that man was alive around 250,000 years ago then that’s when Adam was around not 6,000 BC. And “all the earth” can mean either the whole globe or the known world at that time (which could be localized). The moral of the story works fine in either case. You haven’t disproved the flood story by demonstrating that there wasn’t one when Creationist say Adam lived. You’ve demonstrated that either the flood was 250,000 years earlier or you’ve disproved that it was local not global. IOW’s your disproved their interpretation of scripture, you haven’t undermined the bible’s moral story that humanity pays for its sins.”
Me: No, actually there is no evidence for a world –wide flood…ever. There has been no time in at least the last 100 million years that I (courtesy of science) know of, when the earth was completely covered with water. The Biblical story doesn’t make much sense if it is interpreted as a local flood. Why go to all that trouble to build a boat structure (that would have actually been impossible for the times) like described in the Bible, when all you would have to do is herd the animals to the surrounding hills or mountains.
The story just doesn’t make any sense at all; in any context you try to put it. Logic and geology and archaeology and palaeology say the story is false. All the information given in the bible, the little and large clues about time and place and people do not lead any further back than 10,000 years, and for thousands of years this is what organized religion has been telling people is the truth. The Bible is 100% true in all matters they say. This Christian book is the be-all-end-all in the life of man. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. This is supposedly one of the Pastoral Epistles of Paul, but was probably written a hundred years after his death by an anonymous author so we probably should discount everything it says.
I digress…sorry. What I am trying to say is that the Bible has these stories that the Church has been saying are true for 2000 years. It has all these chapters with all these sayings and instructions that the church has passed off as truly inspired from God and therefore true in all ways…it has ground this stuff into our brains for 2000 years…killed to further its vision…browbeat all who would dissent…demonized those who would not accept.
Now humans have grownup and we have learned about our world and its history and for the first time in over 200,000 +- years we can view and plot what has been our and our planets history. It’s a foggy view at times, but sometimes things are crystal clear…we know things that people who lived many thousands of years ago couldn’t have even visualized or wouldn’t have thought possible. We can prove things of the past with circumstantial evidence.
We can genetically plot the rise of man from the orangutans or monkeys. We can genetically plot the meanderings of humanity for tens of thousands of years, across the whole face of the earth. A real God would have known this and would not write a story that can so easily be dismissed nowadays. The stories of the Bible are myths written by men to tell around the campfire or to entertain children…they have no basis in a real God…way to many mistakes that we can now see, they do not resonate as truth in today’s time because of the false stories that are passed off as truth…there is absolutely no sign of transcendent knowledge which we would expect a God to have.
Yes the story of Noah’s flood does have a moral, but it a false one because it tells that God will kill you if you do not bow down to him….but where is the God who tells false stories, where is a omniscient God who would know that people would pass off this story as true for 2500 years only to have it disproven later by a much smarter people…people who don’t believe in magic or demons or provably impossible myths. There is no God…its getting clearer all the time.
The further I investigate the Christian religion and survey the timelines and civilizations that were flourishing around the Levant and Mesopotamian areas, in the supposed time of Adam and Eve, the more I realize that the creationist people at ‘Answers in Genesis’ (AiG) are right in their most loudly proclaimed message. The whole truth or lie of the Bible and the Christian religion is depended on that single chapter of Genesis. The information given in this seminal work of Christianity absolutely has to be true or the whole house of cards falls apart.
AiG and their brethren, the hundreds of evangelical fundamentalist sects out there, have to have this key grounding to their beliefs or the whole theological mess makes no sense.
The earth and the universe have to be only 6,000 to 10,000 years old; otherwise their Noah’s Flood and ‘Flood Geology’ story falls apart because it is dependent on the figuring of generations since Adam. The Tower of Babel explanation is connected to the timing of the spread of language and the 6 procreating passengers of the Ark. The story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden play the most important part of all.
All of these stories intertwine and depend on each other to shore up the modern day exegesis of the Christian faith as expressed by evangelical fundamentalism. The drama that is to follow Genesis has to have the elements of this first chapter in it to make sense, for Jesus mentions both Adam and Eve and Noah in the New Testament scriptures.
Matthew 24:37-39: (Jesus speaking) “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
Matthew 10:4: (Jesus Speaking) “And he said unto them, ‘Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female?”
It needs to be mentioned that of course Jesus had the Hebrew ‘Bible’ (Tanakh) to read in his time on earth, as all the old stories, including Genesis, had been recorded and saved by Hebrew scribes around 500 to 600 BC, probably during or just after the exile. So if Jesus were not the Son of God or God Himself (that Trinity myth gets me so confused) and have firsthand knowledge of these happenings, at least He would know the story and know it was part of His heritage
After the flood subsided and the sons and daughters-in-law of Noah (Noah had no other children according to the Bible) spread over the earth they of course were to multiply and subdue the earth again, and they all spoke one language, as they came from the same land and family. This ties the Tower of Babel story inextricably to the Noachian Flood. If a normal person were to hear or read the stories of Genesis (and who hasn’t?) and our beginnings without applying any basic reasoning skills or knowledge of what’s going on in the world now, I think the normal response is to believe they are reporting actual historical happenings.
These stories in Genesis and the other Biblical writings of the Hebrews of the Old Testament and the later scribbling of Paul and other writers of the New Testament have been pushed upon the Western world as an absolutely-totally-accurate description of how our world and humanity began. Well they have to do this because we’re talking about ‘The God of Everything’ and it’s not possible that He could be wrong, if He is found to be wrong then He has no real authority or potency…in fact He would not be a God.
For two thousand years they have pretty much got away with it. In the Dark Ages after the downfall of Rome and in the Middle Ages up till around the 1800’s there was little-to-no resistance to the Christian world-view and in fact you could get into serious trouble by actually speaking out about and denying the truth of God, Jehovah, Yahweh and Jesus. Actually, in some places you could get into serious trouble up into the 1900’s for sins against God.
The church and its leaders were quick to protect their turf and muzzle any dissent or opposition to their perceived “Truth.” It is factual recorded history that many many thousands, maybe millions of human were killed in the establishing and early continuation of Christianity. Many Popes and early leaders of the ‘Mother Church’ were totally depraved and preyed on their flocks, much wealth was stolen and put into church vaults and Cathedrals and buildings and to supporting extravagant lifestyles of the elite. All in all, the rise of the Christian faith has been a bloody non-Godly event in our human history.
Now, the Christian faith and its sourcebook, the Bible, is facing increasing pressure to prove itself to be a religion of truth or actual relevance as more and more evidence of our earth’s history and the history of mans beginnings is coming into focus. When this Bible was written I doubt there was much thought given to us humans eventually being able to figure out what actually-really happened in our past. The Hebrews were writing in a time of mythical constructs and beliefs, they had already been through a number of gods before and none of them proved to be strong enough or able to bring the people together. A synthesis was needed. The Egyptians and Sumerians were next door so to speak and they had pretty well developed theories of godship…Hmmm.
There are many methods to date old artifact, and dating only as far back as 4,000 or 5,000 BC is totally easy and totally doable by a plethora of dating methods that can be easily cross referenced, and for a lot of the times, there are written records. Egypt and the Mesopotamian area of this planet are arguably the most studied, measured, and scrutinized places on earth. Archaeology has been going on in the Holy Land and surrounds forever, it seems. Scholarly men and women have been digging up and analyzing every sign of ancient habitation for over 200 years there. We have a tremendous store of factual data on the real history and goings on in this area of the earth.
The Bible says that the earth was created in 6 days and that Adam and Eve were created on the last day…or maybe the first day…depends on your interpretation. The religious right says this was 6,000 years ago, plus or minus a few years
It is an easily checked fact that Egypt in the Nile valley and Sumeria in Mesopotamia were functioning city states/civilizations at this time. A little harder to find, but the facts are out there, is that the Indus Valley Civilization in parts of what is modern day Pakistan and India and the Chinese civilization in Asia were flourishing at the Biblical time in which God was supposedly creating the earth, our solar system, the whole universe, and Adam and Eve. You have to wonder what these people were thinking… 🙂
The Sumerian civilization lasted from the first settlement in Eridu in the Ubaid period in the late 6th. millennium BC through the Uruk period in the 4th. millennium BC and the Dynastic period of the 3rd. millennium BC until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd. millennium BC. These dates are not disputed by archaeologists who work in the field, and are fully supported by many different methods of dating…in short, these are facts. The Sumerians already had a pantheon of gods as evidenced by their artifacts and ruins, but that did not include Jehovah or Yahweh. The plains of Shinar and the Tigris and Euphrates fall into this real estate, and some say the Garden of Eden was in this area. So why didn’t the Sumerians know of our God? (Hint: he wasn’t invented yet)
In Egypt, by about 5500 BC, small tribes that were living in the Nile valley developed into a series of unique cultures that demonstrated a firm understanding and control of agriculture and animal husbandry. They can be identified by their unique pottery and personal items they produced, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in Upper Egypt, the Badari, was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools, and its use of copper.
In southern Egypt, the Naqada culture, similar to the Badari, began to expand along the Nile by about 4000 BC. Over a period of about 1000 years, the Naqada culture developed from a few small farming communities into a powerful civilization whose leaders were in complete control of the people and resources of the Nile valley. By 3100 BC Upper and Lower Egypt were unified under Narmer and he became the first king or pharaoh of the First Dynasty. For nearly 3,000 +- years after this event Egypt was the center of civilization
Again, as in Mesopotamian ages, the Egyptian ages are easily found and cross checkable by different methods and held to be true by working archaeologists and other scientists all over the world. These ages are known facts as opposed to the myths written by a tribe of wandering Hebrew sheep/goat herders.
So what do you think the reaction of the average ancient Egyptians would be to God/Yahweh/Jehovah moving to and fro across the earth while they were trying to farm it and build monuments and such? Those Egyptians were around then, of that there is no doubt at all. What were the Sumerians thinking as this God/Jehovah/Yahweh was flying around setting up the Garden and making the “first” humans in the middle of their farm fields and interfering with their building of the first true cities.
Something seems to be incompatible and out of place here. The actual-real-physical evidence says there was no “Garden of Eden” here and that humans had been around for many thousands of years before.
So there was no actual-real-physical creation of Adam and Eve anywhere near 4,000 BC in or around the Middle Eastern area. If in fact there is a God who created the first Humans he did not make them there, and he did not make them in or about 4,000 BC…and we can prove it. Christians have a book written by a tribe of sheep/goat herders that has many-many errors of dating and impossible goings on. This book has no more reality attached to it than the works of Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, or any other religion. It has no more claim to be true than any other. Actually less if you factor in how much scholarship has been expended on it and come up with no factual proofs of its beginnings
What happens if the story of Adam and Eve is proven wrong? Do we just say ho-hum and go about our business, but still believe in Christianity, still believe in the divinity of Jesus? Do we still believe in Angels and magic?
What do we do with the story of Jesus? If Adam and Eve are not true…they weren’t created in a garden somewhere in Northern Africa or around Mesopotamia about 6,000 years ago, and all the real evidence points to this; what do we do with Jesus? There is no need for him to redeem original sin that never happened, in fact we can break free of this 6,000 lb. elephant that we have carrying around on our back since Paul invented this lie. To carry this even further, we can break out of this creepy drama that God supposedly set up for his creations to go through and maybe set up a rational version of SkyGod worship. 🙂
The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that the creation of Adam and Eve is not a real historical event and that the Bible timeline in relation to the beginnings of humanity and the earth is just wrong in ALL ways…it is all made up by our human ancestors…there is no truth there.
As for the other crap that the people at ‘Answers in Genesis’ believe such as; Ice Age after the flood, Neanderthals being offspring of one of Noah’s sons and living after the flood, etc,….well, I won’t even go there…yet
Paul uses the story of Adam and Eve to form the basis for the Christian doctrine of Original sin. “Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.” Paul of Tarsus wrote in his epistle to the Romans in about 58CE. However Chapter 3 of Genesis does not use the word ‘sin’ and Genesis 3:24 says they are expelled ” lest he put forth his hand and take also of the ‘Tree of Life’ and eat, and live forever.” (So Adam and Eve were not immortal at their original conception)
St Augustine of Hippo understood Paul to have said that Adam’s sin was hereditary. “Death passed upon all men because of Adam, in whom all sinned.” The concept of ‘Original sin’, that all men are born in a condition of sinfulness and must have redemption became a cornerstone of most Christian theological tradition. However Judaism, the Eastern Orthodox churches, Congregationalist churches, and the Mormons don’t share this belief.
Over the centuries Christian beliefs have come to say that the serpent that tempted Eve was Satan or that Satan was using the serpent as a mouthpiece…although there is no mention of this identification in the Hebrew Torah
Early church followers held that because Eve was the one who tempted Adam to eat the fruit she (Eve) and ALL women who followed her were the first sinners and especially responsible for the ‘Fall.’ Tertullian would tell his listeners in the second century CE that women were the devils gateway, and go on to explain that they were responsible for the death of Jesus.
We can see that the story of Adam and Eve is a pivotal point in Christianity. The exegesis of the early chapter is the basis for the theology of the New Testament. If Adam and Eve did not play out as Genesis says it did, then there is no need for Jesus to redeem our sins…indeed, we have no sins, as the original story mentions none. It is only Paul, writing some four thousand years later, who puts this whole fiction into action. It is Paul who comes up with the idea and later writers pick it up and run with it and expand upon it.
Now what happens if we remove Adam and Eve from the mix entirely? We have this book that was written by Hebrews, Jews, and later Christians over a period of perhaps 800 to a 1000 years. By the actions and words of one man (Paul) who lived a few years after Jesus practically the whole world of Christian thought and theology hangs.
In the Biblical sense Adam and Eve did not exist. The story of men and women living on this earth far transcends the petty story found in the Bible. Adam and Eve were not the beginning of the human race; they are nothing more than a footnote in a fictive mythological story written by some of our ancestors. The story of humans goes back many hundreds of thousands of years and is spread over the whole earth. We did not come from two progenitors 6000+- years ago. Our footprints, handprints, tools, habitats, art, and handiwork have been found all over the globe going back a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, and many more years.
We humans have a history that is told in archaeological artifacts and human bones and pottery and stunning artwork on cave walls. We find finely crafted spearheads in animals that have not walked the earth for over 10,000 years, we find Homo sapiens skeletons superimposed with Neanderthal bones in Israeli caves from 50,000 years ago, we find 10,000 year old graveyards in the middle of the Sahara desert…relics from a time when the Sahara was green and home to ancient animals and human societies.
We humans also have sciences now that can read the ancient stories entwined in our blood. The stories that are told there….are not the stories of the Bible. We did not spread out all over the earth from “East of Eden” 6000 years ago. By that time humans were everywhere; in China and Southeast Asia, in Australia and Borneo, in North and South America, all of Europe, and many of the smaller ocean islands.
There is archaeological evidence of “us” all over the place and in time periods going back hundreds of thousands of years. The evidence is overwhelming, there are no doubts anymore. Adam and Eve as a Biblical truth…is not the truth.
Christianity, as well as Judaism and Islam, and all the other religions are relics of a time when we humans were making up gods…when we thought we needed them…when we had no way of ascertaining what was real in our world and what was myth. Some of us still look and hope to find a higher being that they can lay their troubles on, someone who can make them happier and richer and healthier, while forgetting to look inside themselves and finding their own will.
Jesus was only needed to redeem our sins brought on by the downfall of Adam and Eve…our ‘original sin’ Most of Christianity relies on the story of Jesus as their basic reason for being. In fact if you follow all the lines of reasoning you will find that Adam and Eve is essential to the whole story of God. Take away Adam and Eve and it all falls apart.
Boy, I tell you it’s hard to keep up with all the science going on “out there.” Came across an article in the magazine “Archaeology” just today, dated September/October, 1996 In the article a team of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania Museum have found potsherds from a Neolithic village in Iran’s northern mountains that show the earliest evidence yet of wine-making.
Seems old Noah of ‘The Flood’ fame is going to have to give up his title of “world’s first wine-maker” His Flood supposedly happened around 2300-2200 BC and he planted a vineyard, made wine, and got drunk (this takes about 3-7 years by the way…to grow grapes to make the wine that is) after leaving the ark.
According to the scientists in the article, the Iranians were making wine about 2700 years earlier than Noah.
“Residue on a potsherd dating to the time of the first permanent settlements in the Middle East suggests that wine-making began 2,000 years earlier than previously thought. The sherd, ca. 7,000 years old, came from one of six two-and-one-half-gallon jars excavated two decades ago from the kitchen area of a mud-brick building in Hajji Firuz Tepe, a Neolithic village in Iran’s northern Zagros Mountains. Using infrared spectrometry, liquid chromatography, and a wet chemical test, Patrick E. McGovern and a team from the University of Pennsylvania Museum found calcium salt from tartaric acid, which occurs naturally in large amounts only in grapes. Resin from the terebinth tree was also present, presumably used as a preservative, indicating that the wine was deliberately made and did not result from the unintentional fermentation of grape juice.
Analysis of the Hajji Firuz Tepe sherd comes in the wake of two other recent discoveries of early wine-making in this region where grapes grow in the wild. Residue from a jar from Godin Tepe, in the nearby middle Zagros Mountains, was dated to 5,100 years ago, until now the earliest evidence of wine-making. Grape presses dating to the late third millennium B.C. have been found at Titris Höyük in southeastern Turkey.”
Go to link HERE
So this Christian person writes to me and calls me a snob and complains that what I write is offensive for him to read. He accuses me of conjecturing on the basis of what I have been taught and therefore think I know…Well…DUHH…where does knowledge come from?
He writes:
“As a Christian, your atheistic views and dogmatic snobbery about them is offensive to read, the fact is that you don’t know – you are only conjecturing based on what you think you know and have been taught. You are no better off in your belief system than anyone else, so your high horse judgmental attitude is a put off; no different than any other fanatic, so get over yourselves.”
He is commenting on my blog of July 12, 2008 called: “More Evidence against Noah’s Flood.” Go Here for blog.
My ‘belief system’ is science, and yes I believe that my belief system is far superior to your Christian belief system when talking about the real world. Its superiority comes from empirical knowledge that is transparent and accessible for all to see and test…and learn about. Your belief system is a book that was written by many different authors over roughly a thousand year period. It has many facts in it about geographical areas and some historic personages, but it is very flawed despite the denials by Christians…who either ignore the evidence or refuse to learn it.
It (Christianity) is also responsible for hundreds and hundreds of years of repression, torture, murder, death by any number of causes by believing in the power of prayer and just plain ol’ suppression of the human spirit. I don’t let Islam off the hook either…if anything they are much worse today. The wars between Christian sects in the Middle Ages though was probably worse than any Christian / Muslim conflicts…so far.
He writes:
“That said, I like the scientific approach and take the evidence presented here seriously. As a critical thinker, I correlate between opposing views and take such opposite views as presented here with my own beliefs and research them out to further gain insight. I know that no conclusive answer will be had until Judgment Day, so I don’t get into this “know it all” game with people.”
Scientific knowledge is pretty much all I use in this blog. I’m not just making the stuff up. I have been studying what I write about many years, and I don’t write about it if I don’t believe it. I think one can come to a logical conclusion on the evidence that is out there right now. There is no evidence, despite what the evangelical fundamentalist say, for a world-wide flood…ever…in the earth’s history. That is not my personal opinion (well, yes it is actually), that is the opinion of the sciences that work in fields that somehow impinge on that myth of a flood. That scientific opinion comes from lifelong work and study of literally hundreds, or possibly thousands, of scientists.
He writes:
“From what I have ascertained, a local flood in the Mesopotamian area some where between 3000 BC and 2300 BC is quite possible, and God’s Word to Noah written by Moses could very well have been in the context of that area as far as Noah need to know. There are also interpretation and time gaps from historical accounts that can account for minor discrepancies when trying to account for events thousands of years after the fact. So you trying to to pin “disproof” by variations of interpretation and context, just shows your atheistic bias – a dogmatic desire to “Not Believe in God.” So don’t make the mistake of excluding yourselves from being part of a sect as well, as offensive as that may be to join the rest of “us” in darkness figuring things out as best we can. Restricting the Flood to this local area also takes care of the only 8 people spawning humanity again “disproof” idea you present.”
There is archaeological evidence for a large local flood in the Mesopotamian area around 2900 BC, however there is no evidence for one around 2400 to 2300 BC, which is the time zone that most Christian apologists place Noah’s flood. The DNA evidence says that the human race existing nowadays does not come from either two or eight people. With all the other real evidence that backs up this statement in one way or another, I think I’ll go with this worldview.
He writes:
“Another point, is that I’m currently researching the aftermath and tribal dispersal of the people listed in Genesis 7-10, this historically bears out. So it is unlikely that one event didn’t occur while the subsequent events did. The fact that this probably was a local flood and beared out factually from there, doesn’t seem to be explored here. I think that shows a bias and not an actual pursuit of knowledge. You are too happy to gloat “see, there is no God” and “see, you Christians are stupid” for any serious critique of your own views to be part of this information.”
You might want to check into the information about the Earth being populated from pole to pole in the times that are recorded in the Bible. The evidence from the earth sciences is that the world was teaming with humanity and never suffered a total wiping out such as the ‘Deluge.’ We all came from Africa, not Mesopotamia, and there is very long DNA evidence backing that up. I’m sorry if that disturbs you, or you think I am gloating too much. All the information is on the Internet and strangely enough, it comes from actual scientific sources, not atheist sites.
He writes:
“Suit yourselves, but I’ll take this information with a grain of salt and add it to the rest in my research, it does help and thanks for the research. And I’m as appalled by so-called Christian theorists that take no time to actually add any scientific research to their theories and likewise present a bias view. Besides that, I know there is a God and He’s My Father – if you don’t that’s your choice, but don’t get up on a high horse and deny things you really don’t know based on perception of finite knowledge.”
I am writing from the position of someone who is throwing the information out there. Many people will not read a scientific journal or magazine or take night classes in archaeology or religious studies, but might read a blog. My opinion, from all I have studied so far, is there probably isn’t a God. There is just overwhelming evidence in all science fields that there is many-many problems with all religions, not just Christianity. The Actual and Real evidence is just not there.
Christianity has no more superior knowledge, or more proofs, or claims to be more real than any other religion. In fact the reality of there being sooo-many different religions, and so many offshoots of mainline religions, each feeling that they have the only “truth”, speaks to the probable case of there not being Any truth…to Any God.
The geographical universality of the Deluge may be safely abandoned Neither Sacred Scripture nor universal ecclesiastical tradition, nor again scientific considerations, render it advisable to adhere to the opinion that the Flood covered the whole surface of the earth. Maas, A. (1908). Deluge. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved December 15, 2008 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04702a.htm
So, 100 years ago the Catholic Church was admitting ‘The Flood’ probably wasn’t a real event
Naturalists (early scientists) were disputing the ‘The Flood’ as early as the 1600’s. Here The Nile River has supported over 5000 years of civilization without interruption. Here
The following civilizations were all centered in the lands written about in the Bible. There are archaeological records of many floods in the area, but that is to be expected because the area has two major rivers flowing through it. Hammurabi of course figures in the tales of Gilgamesh. All the evidence keeps pointing to ‘The Flood’ story being local or most likely just a myth. The Sumerian civilization (ca. 4500–4000 B.C.) The Akkadian Empire (ca. 2350–2150 B.C.) The Babylonian Empire was an Amorite state in Lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi (ca. 1728 – 1686 BC, short chronology) created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad. Wikipedia: Here
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