The Fall of Man

The Fall of Man as seen by Thomas Paine

“The Christian Mythologists, after having confined Satan in a pit, were obliged to let him out again to bring on the sequel of the fable. He is then introduced into the Garden of Eden, in the shape of a snake or a serpent, and in that shape he enters into familiar conversation with Eve, who is no way surprised to hear a snake talk; and the issue of this tête-à-tête is that he persuades her to eat an apple, and the eating of that apple damns all mankind.

After giving Satan this triumph over the whole creation, one would have supposed that the Church Mythologists would have been kind enough to send him back again to the pit: or, if they had not done this, that they would have put a mountain upon him (for they say that their faith can remove a mountain), or have put him under a mountain, as the former mythologists had done, to prevent his getting again among the women and doing more mischief.

But instead of this they leave him at large, without even obliging him to give his parole—the secret of which is that they could not do without him; and after being at the trouble of making him, they bribed him to stay. They promised him ALL the Jews, ALL the Turks by anticipation, nine-tenths of the world beside, and Mahomet into the bargain. After this, who can doubt the bountifulness of the Christian Mythology?

Having thus made an insurrection and a battle in heaven, in which none of the combatants could be either killed or wounded—put Satan into the pit—let him out again—gave him a triumph over the whole creation—damned all mankind by the eating of an apple, these Christian Mythologists bring the two ends of their fable together. They represent this virtuous and amiable man, Jesus Christ, to be at once both God and Man, and also the Son of God, celestially begotten, on purpose to be sacrificed, because they say that Eve in her longing had eaten an apple. Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Authors emphasis 

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Adam and Eve Are Dead…Finally

Well actually they never existed…and the proof is available for all to see.

Christian scholar Dennis R. Venema is the BioLogos senior fellow for science and the biology chairman at Trinity Western University.  He writes that the chimp genome displays “near identity” with the human genome as detailed by (Francis) Collins’s team.  The detailed analysis involves sequences of genes and the makeup of individual genes, but especially important are the locations of “pseudogenes” that are seemingly no longer active. The cumulative evidence, Venema concludes, shows that “humans are not biologically independent, de novo creations, but share common ancestry” with prior primate species.””

Atheist-turned-Christian Francis S. Collins is the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a federally funded organization. Collins’s wrote a 2006 bestseller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, where he said there are scientific indications that anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors perhaps 100,000 (currant science says 200,000) years ago, long before the apparent Genesis time frame, and that they originated within a population that numbered something like 10,000, not two individuals. Far removed from the traditional belief that God specially created man and woman in the Garden of Eden, and they were biologically different from all other creatures alive at the time.

In his recent (2011) pro-evolution book, The Language of Science and Faith, Collins and co-author Karl W. Giberson step up matters, announcing that “unfortunately” the concepts of Adam and Eve as the literal first couple and the ancestors of all humans simply “do not fit the evidence.”

The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis has long been subjected to scientific challenges, but “there was a lot of wiggle room in the past. The human genome sequencing took that wiggle room away” said Randall Isaac, executive director of the American Scientific Affiliation.  DNA science is totally changing what many believed about human beginnings.

Will the Adam and Eve question become a groundbreaking science-vs.-religion dispute, in the 21st-century? The modern day equivalent of the once disturbing argument about whether the Sun orbits the earth or vice-versa?  The possibility is there: the emerging science could be seen to challenge what Genesis records about the creation of humanity and also the species’ unique status of being created in the “image of God,” Christian doctrine on original sin and the Fall, the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, and, perhaps most significantly, Paul’s seminal teaching that links a historical Adam with redemption through Christ.

The fall-out from the non-historicity of the Biblical Adam and Eve will be huge.  Many people in the earth sciences have known for some time that the Genesis stories are just myth, the science behind the notion is just too darn strong to endlessly ignore.

South Carolina pastor Richard Phillips, chair of the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology worries, “Can the Bible’s theology be true if the historical events on which the theology is based are false?” If science trumps Scripture, what does this mean for the virgin birth of Jesus, or his miracles, or his resurrection? “The hermeneutics behind theistic evolution are a Trojan horse that, once inside our gates, must cause the entire fortress of Christian belief to fall.”

All these years Christianity has been working under the assumption that Genesis is true and that all humans who lived in the past, and are alive today, are descendents of Adam and Eve.  The whole dogma of original sin and the blood sacrifice of Jesus to redeem humanities sin goes out the door.  Combine the fact that DNA, and other evidence, says that Adam and Eve did not exist…with other revelations that science is making about the Biblical myths, and I predict that Christianity is facing a real crisis of belief.  
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God and Creation…the early years

Science is nothing more than organized common sense.  Kenneth R. Miller

So God is just having a normal day telling all the Angels and Satan and Archangels, Michael and Gabriel what to do, and suddenly thinks, “I’m going to make a Universe and some planets and maybe some live things to play around with.”

So he gets in his creation mode and conjures up (Ex-Nihilo) gasses, rocks, metals, water, fire, space, time, and any other thing that goes into making up this Universe we happen to live in.  He probably lets it cook for a few billion years and things start to happen as the Universe makes stars and planets and blows up and re-condenses and expands and contracts and generally does it thing, as it has for over 14 billion years now.

Now God apparently decides to make our world personally and he makes the firmament about 4.5 billion years ago, and he hovers to and fro over the waters and divides the land from the water and makes light and then the sun and moon and stars in the sky and animals and grasses and finally after about 4.499999 billion years or so he makes poor ol’ Adam, then pulls a rib from him to make Eve. Now all the while he is doing this creating and starting things in motion, he’s thinking to himself. “How can I make this creating stuff more interesting?”

After thinking for awhile he calls Satan and Michael over and whispers into their ears for about an hour.  Every now and then either Satan or Michael pull back and look at God like he’s crazy, but they go back to the huddle and whisper some more. The other Angels just stand around wondering what’s up with the bosses and why they’re whispering back and forth.

Now we cut to earth, and Adam and Eve, in this perfect garden that God has set up for them. They’re running around naked and all, pruning and watering the garden for a few (8?) years. Then out of nowhere comes Satan and does the apple/fruit of some kind…thing with eve, and then slithers out of sight before God comes.

We all know what happens next…God kicks them out of the garden, gives them pain, etc., etc. Just remember that it wasn’t till a few (4 or so) thousand years later that Paul decided they were part of his theology.

Now they are kicked out of their home with nothing but the God provided skins of some animals on their backs. They have nothing…they finally find a cave to live in and after some further wrangling with God and the Devil they start their family. The family thing didn’t turn out so well…they birthed and raised the first killer and they were left alone, until at the age of 130, they had another son, and then more sons and daughters.  Some say as many as 35 or more children…I really feel sympathy for Eve on this.

Now all this was supposed to have happened 6000 years ago.  God makes these hapless souls and promptly kicks them out of safety and into a world where they were clueless. The world was teeming with deadly diseases, poisonous plants, and killer animals.  They didn’t know a thing about making shelters, finding safe water, finding or making food, when to plant, what to plant, how to plant, how to kill and skin animals for clothing and shelter, how to make the necessary tools an ancient human would need for survival.

They had nothing in the way of knowledge about the ways of natures, how to make things they needed to raise up from the level of animals, how to live safely and comfortably and plan for a future they could not comprehend. They had no medicines, no knowledge of the possibility of medicine and how to treat any of the human ailments that we are all prone to. All they knew was the ‘Garden’ and the care of God.

Somehow they managed to survive and give birth to a race of people that numbered in the 10’s of millions about 1500 to 1600 years later ???

Then the Bible says that God gets really mad at these humans he had created, so he decides to kill them all…well, except for Noah and his family.  God reasons that this will rid the world forever of all these people that dis-respect Him. So somewhere around 2300 or 2400 BCE he floods the world and kills millions and millions of people, but He saves Noah and his sons and all the wives, and then he remakes the whole world to make it look like there was never a flood…just to confuse us later.

A couple hundred years after the flood was over the world was once again covered with humanity…millions and millions of people were spread everywhere on the face of the earth.  God looks down at Babylon and sees the people are now building a city and making really really tall buildings.  For some reason this kinda’ pisses God off, so he lowers himself from the sky, and with magic, he makes them stop speaking Akkadian and start speaking Hebrew, German, Chinese, Ojibwa, Spanish, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Canadian, Egyptian, and Esperanto.

This is when He really starts to mess with modern people’s minds…you see Babylon had already been built, and the towers were there, before He caused the ‘Flood.’  And of course the people then living in those faraway places (Spain, China, Japan, Canada, America, etc., etc.) were speaking their own early versions of their countries language…before the ‘Flood’ even.

So somewhere God kind of messed up when He plotted, and passed on to Moses, this great adventure us humans are part of…He hasn’t keep the lines of evidence in proper order, but possibly this is part of the plot…keep us on our toes, so to speak.

I can’t seem to get out of Genesis.  There are just so many things wrong with that story

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No Conflict in Science and Religion he says..

Again with the column, it’s just so much easier to write here, and it gives me another column :-}

You write:
>>Why can’t you see it in a slightly different light? The Bible and science deal with two totally different areas of human life. Science deals with the physical world and the Bible is about the moral world. One without the other is simply incomplete.<<

I completely agree with you. They are two worlds we are talking about. Although, science seems to be self-contained. Most scientists see no need for religion. The only real conflict happens when religious ones tries to tell someone who is schooled in the sciences that there was a worldwide flood and that the earth and universe are 6000 to 10,000 years old…and maybe a few other things. Oh, and when someone says magic is real, they tend to get a blank look on their face.

You write:
>>There is no need to find any contradiction between creation and evolution as the Bible clearly says that earth appeared first, then came plant life and it was followed by animal life. Man came to the scene only at the last stage. We see general agreement between the two. I believe that God was behind that evolutionary process which I call creation.
I say that the Bible has nothing to say about the age of the universe at all. In fact it is only logical for a Bible believer to think that the universe is indeed millions of years old. The word ‘day’ in Genesis could never be understood as twenty four hour day. We say that a day is twenty four hours on earth based on earth’s relation to our Sun. We know that day is not twenty four hours in Mars, for example. <<

I suppose there could be a chance that someone started all of this, but it was Billions of years ago, and man was probably not a special creation, just one in the long line of bi-pedal mammals. But, if we were created specially, then the one creating us had to have a creator, and so on, and so on, etc. etc.. To believe otherwise makes no logical sense. Regarding the24 hour days of creation, there are a LOT of people here in the States that will disagree with you. Not that I agree with them. A day on Mars is a few minutes longer than 24 hours. It’s year however is well over 600 days, compared to our 365. The length of day is predicated on rotation on planetary axis

You write:
>> That our universe is guided by immutable laws is unquestionable. That every action has its equal and opposite reaction is a universal law of science. This is true both in the physical and in the moral realm. Since every man failed miserably in the moral realm, God in His love has made a provision in Christ which if any one accepts would be beneficial for that individual. If some one does not want that provision, that individual is wholly responsible for his/her actions.<<

I agree with the first parts about the laws and science. I totally disagree with the fails miserably in the moral realm, but I agree about Karma part 🙂 Paul made up the part about original sin and inherited sin. God himself said that the son does not inherit the sins of the father. But, he also said the son does inherit the sins of the father, so who knows. Besides that whole “Garden of Eden” thing was a set up…A real God would have known exactly what was going to happen, so that too was probably allegory.

You write:
>>God to me is not a mere feeling. I transact business with Him on a daily basis. As for me I handed over my case to Christ and He is now responsible for me. My past is forgiven and as I continue to take advice from Him daily, I am strengthened for day to day living. This I did just as I hand over a civil case to an advocate because I can not handle it alone. If some other person can handle it alone, let him/her do it alone.

Christ to day is my advocate and I know that He is going to be my judge tomorrow. I think it is very wise on my part to hand over my case to today’s advocate who is going to be tomorrow’s judge. What do you think?<<

I applaud you.

Thank you very much for your reply. Srsly.

Christian or Scientist…yes / no

Would you answer these questions if given to you by a friend?

Do you expect your children to go to a regular secular colleges?

Would you like all schools to teach creationist/Christian beliefs in science classes; i.e. Evolution didn’t happen?

Do you think that our government should be Christian based and run from a theological perspective?

Do you think our government should be able to tell its citizens how to live, love, marry, raise their children, etc?

Should our government be able to follow the Biblical principles of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?”

Do you believe that evolution is “bad science?”

Do you accept the geological column as described by scientists as real?

How old do you think the earth/world is?

How old would you guess the universe to be?

How old do you think humanity is?

Describe briefly how you think our world began.

Do you think that men/women lived at the same time as dinosaurs.

Do you think the whole world was flooded at one time (Noah’s Flood) about 4000 to 4300 years ago.

Do you think intelligent design (ID) is about science or religion?

If you believe it is science; who or what is the intelligence behind it?

If you believe it is religion; why would you want it taught in public schools? Separation of church/state issues here.

Have you heard about Neanderthals?

Do believe that were real?

Do you know how long ago they lived?

Describe where you think they came from.

Do you think that scientists commonly lie about what they find, or the truths they uncover.

Do you think there are magical forces in the universe?

How big a part of your life does religion play?

Do you think non-religious people are ‘bad?’

Do you think people of ‘other’ religions are bad or mislead?

Have you seen proof of a Christian God, or Muslim, or Hindu, or Brahman, etc.?

If yes; please describe.

Do you always follow Biblical teachings?

Do you think the Bible is literally true in all ways?

Do you think men/women are inherently good or bad?

Do you think Adam and Eve were created 6000 years ago in the “Garden of Eden?”

Since Neanderthals were alive at that time; where did they come from?

Did Cain marry a Neanderthal, or his sister?

Do you believe that scientists can accurately date artifacts from thousands of years ago?

Do you know how many methods there are of dating prehistoric artifacts?

If you are a Biblical literalist; do you believe all methods of dating artifacts are lies/wrong?

I have a few overtly Christian friends I am going to ask to answer these questions. In a proper non-confrontational, friendly manner of course. Some times the different thoughts they express are very confusing. It’s like they mix and match world views. Might be fun, or I might lose some friends. Hope not.

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