The Antichristian Phenomenon

I have been reading many debates between irreligious and religious people concerning the argument of intelligent design. These debates, from what i have seen, are endless, because neither side has the sufficient arguments in order to finish off the other. And so, these debates go on, but with the religious side always having a moral advantage, because of the incapability of the others to disproof their claims. Before i start explaining further, it should be noted that when i’m referring to “religious” i mean the supporters of the three dominant religions: christianity, islamism and judaism. Since i live in a christian environment, i shall use the word “christianity” as a key-word for all three religions.

So what does this trick consist in ?

I have to admit that this is a very intelligent trick, but it has two edges. By doing this, the christians take the fight directly into the “enemy territory”- that is science. They actually try to turn the tables on non-believers and use science-the all-time arch enemy of religion- in order to prove the existence of the christian god. However, there is also a second perspective to this strategy: by doing this, they admit themselves that their “holy book”- which is supposed to hold absolute truths and offer irrefutable proof of its claims- does not actually do that and is inconsistent. However, few people seem to notice this aspect, and, by and large, the christian offensive is succesfull. By taking the debate to the scientific field, the talks could go one forever, because, as i previously admitted, science, despite the progresses made, is still incomplete and does not offer all the answers we need in tracing our origins (and probably never will). Despite the overwhelming evidence for the scientific theories, they are still not proven in all of their aspects. Thus, this climate creates the perfect ground for christian intelligent design argument.  Of course, their arguments are just speculations, but they are intelligently crafted, thus making them extremely hard to reject. For a few refferences you should check the following http://www.antichristian-phenomenon.com/db0/evidence/ , paying particular attention to Brian’s responses in the comments.  Also, if you want, here is another http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis.htm .

Unfortunetly, many irreligious fall into the trap of debate on such grounds, and this only makes the situation worse. The christians always come up with arguments (i repeat, even if they are just speculations), thus making them look good, and keeping the possibility of truth in religion, wide open. Worse, some opponents to these claims run out of arguments to support their cause, mainly because of not having a particularly wide knowledge concerning science and biology.

I, myself, admit that i don’t shine in the scientific area, and biology has never been my favorite subject in school. Besides basic knowledge, i can’t really keep up in a scientific debate about biology (astronomy maybe) .

However, their intelligent design argument must not be attacked by discussing biology and the validity of scientific theory. We must take the fight back to their own territory.

Preparing for the counterattack

So what’s wrong with this argument ? Well, in order for it to be succesfull and to make them reach their goal- that is to prove the existence of the christian god- at least two things should be valid:

1. The bible theory about creation must be valid and plausible in the context of the knowledge we posses today
2. Their scientific claims, about intelligent design to be true.

While they have not proven by any means the second point, let’s, for the sake of the argument, admit it possible. After all, as an agnostic, although i reject the claims of every known religion on earth, i accept the possible existence of superior intelligence, and superior beings, that we, as limited beings cannot perceive. So let’s accept the possibility of intelligent design. Does this point towards the christian god ? By all means NO ! Let me give a simple example as to why not:

Let’s suppose a random woman, from the street, goes to a five year old child, whom she never met, and says: “I’m your mother, therefor you must obey me !”. And the child says: “I don’t know you, you’re a fraud and i don’t obey you”. Then, the woman starts giving the child scientific, biological arguments, proving that every child comes from a mother, concluding, as a result, that she is his mother and he should obey her.The christian argument is by no means better than what that woman said, which proves that their intelligent design argument is not only baseless, but also extremely stupid. In order to make it count, they have to prove that the bible creationist theory is without error and is completely valid. Well, let’s take a look at it (just like that woman should prove- via DNA test- that she is the rightful mother of the child).

Beating them back to their own grounds

The creationist theory has been discussed countless times, but just for the sake of it, i’ll add one more to that. The christians (again, i must point out that i am also referring to the other two religions) claim that their “holy book” is unique, without error, and holds the absolute truth, that no other book holds.

We will prove that the bible, in many points, copies the ancient summerian and babylonian legends (among whom the jewish people lived), and that with our current knowledge of the universe and of our planet, they are no more than a simple ferry-tale. I will also refute their desperate arguments to make their book seem valid.

An analysis of the seven days of creation

First day

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night.’ And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

What light ? Where did this light come from ? Where are the astral objects (stars) that produce this light ? It is clear that the author did not have the slightest idea of where the light actually comes from.

Second day

And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.”  So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.  God called the expanse ‘”ky.’”And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.”

According to this, the Earth is surrounded by water. This is clearly taken from the old sumerian legends (that appeared aprox. 2000  years before the biblical myths did) according to which this world is surrounded by an infinite ocean of water. Almost all ancient peoples imagined the primordial chaos as a limitless realm of water. The bible is no different. Of course, we have proven that there is no water in space, just perfect vacuum. Again, the “creation” of this day is proven false.

Third day

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

Again, i ask: where the hell is that cursed sun, to produce that light energy, so that the plants can initiate their photosynthesis without which they are unable to exist? Of course, the christians will say that god can do anything and that he could have made them resist one day without sunlight. But then, why didn’t he leave things like that, so that the plants would never need solar energy ? Or why didn’t he create the sun before the vegetation ? Oh, let my guess “the Lord works in mysterious ways”……aaaa…right…

Forth day

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

So we finally have some stars. And a moon. But he says that he made them in order to separate day from night. But let’s take a look at the first day. Didn’t he do that already ? God clearly suffers from a serious amnesia. Oh, and the stars were created to assist the inhabitants of a tiny, ignorable planet, in the whole context of the universe. And all these stars, that develop in millions of years, created in one day.It is clear that the author had only an abstract notion of space and stars. He thought they were a couple of hundred tiny things up there, that helped them during the night. Not some celestial bodies, that are billions of light years away from us.

Fifth day

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. [...]

Comment: Nothing interesting here. I’ll give god a break this time.

Sixth day

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” [...] Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth,  and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Of course, from now on, everyone knows the story of Adam and Eve. How Adam named every animal existent on Earth (quite a busy bee- but what about the still undiscovered species ? he forgot some! how will we name them?), how god created Eve from Adam’s ribs etc. However, the interesting thing here is that god said he will create man in his image. The christians claim that their god is perfect. It is obvious to everyone that this world, along with our race, is entirely imperfect. How could god, if perfect, create something imperfect ? They say that it’s man’s fault, because by our sins we became imperfect. But how can something perfect become imperfect ? If we were perfect, than there was no possibility of mistake. So it means we weren’t perfect to begin with. So, again i ask, how can something perfect create something imperfect ? One more bullet in the intelligent design.

Seventh day

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

“A subject for a great poet would be God’s boredom after the seventh day of creation.”- Fr. Nietzsche

The “one million year day” argument

Of course, with the new discoveries, the christians had to “adjust” their religion and standards a little so they tried to create puerile and comical explanations. Such is the case with the explanation that the biblical “day”, in which god created another element of the universe is not the 24 hour day we commonly refer to, but actually an entire aeon, of millions of years, because god exists outside our solar system, so he had nothing to do with our perception of time. Let us quote the first words, that open the bible, shall we ? “God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” Well, i agree that they didn’t perceive the day as having 24 hours back then.For them the day began at sunrise, and ended at sunset. Also, the bible says Adam died at the age of 930 years. Yet, he was created in the sixth day. Shouldn’t he be something like 2 million years old at the point of his death ? I rest my case.

Other myths in Genesis or the bible in general

Man’s creation from earth: According to Babylonian legends, man was created from earth,  and Kingu’s blood.

The stars: In Babylonian myths, Marduk managed the evolution of the Moon and of the Sun, divised the year into 12 parts and “drew”  upon the sky the stars, into Zodiac constellations. Notice any simillarities ?

Satan’s revolt : The christians claim that Satan initiated a revolt against God, in order to bring his reign to an end, and 1/3 of the angels were with him. Following his defeat, Satan was cast down from heaven, along with his rebel angels.

According to Sumerian and Babylonian legends, Tiamat and Apsu gave birth to Anshar and Kishar, who, in turn gave birth to many more gods, including Marduk. They enslaved Tiamat and Apsu. Apsu decided to punish them for this, but he was killed. The ancient gods, displeased with how Tiamat handled this situation, with the lesser gods dominating them, dared her to initiate a revolt. She put Kingu in charge of her armies, but they were defeated by Marduk, who later became the supreme god. Kingu and Tiamat are considered, by the babylonian legends, to be demons. The two of them, along with all of the demons who sided with them, were sent to live in the underworld kingdom of Ereshkigal (the land of the dead aka hell- in christian tradition).

Of course, revolt is present in every story and are inspired by the politics going on in our world, the rebellions, the dethroned leaders etc. Sumer legends and the bible are now different . The only difference is that here Marduk is more in Satan’s than in God’s position, since he was not the primal creator to begin with. Of course, he was the protector of Babylon, so, for political reasons, since Babylon ruled a vast amount of lands, he had to prevail, right ?

Noah and his ark: We all know the story. Almost in every ancient mythology there were floods, droughts and all kinds of “punishments” inflicted by the gods, when there were actually bad years for agriculture, famine, and some rivers or seas flooded their surroundings (natural disasters that happen quite frequently nowadays too). As an example, we have the story of Atrahasis, of ancient Babylon. For some reasons that i am not going to develop, their gods wanted to destroy the human race with a flood. One god- Enki- who had a sympathy for humanity and in particular for a wise man- Atrahasis- wanted to save at least him so he ordered the human to build an ark, take his family and a pair of each specie of animals and stay there until the flood ends.

The tower of Babel: Babylonians used all sorts of people from different races to work on their constructions. Of course, they spoke different languages. So much for the bible explanation that god mixed their languages so they would not finish the tower thus preventing them from reaching the heavens. Oh, by the way, why didn’t he stop our space program than ?

As you can see, the Genesis is irrelevant, false and inspired by the “pagans” that “god” wanted to destroy.

A common-sense question

Seeing the similarities between these theories, and the fact that they were born long before the first words of the bible came to life, why must we regard them as simple myths, but the bible as the words of god ? Why is this Jehowa more special than Tiamat, Apsu, Ishtar, Anu, Enlil, Marduk, Kingu and any other deity invented by man ?

What about the author of Genesis ?

Well, for that age, he was one of the wisest, the elite of his society. He gathered stories and information provided by other peoples and races and drew his own conclusions about what he thought was right regarding the earth and its creation. He was ignorant about the universe and the world around him, but that’s because he didn’t posses the information we do. The old testament is an interesting mix of mythology and history. What makes me angry is that this mythology has been presented as “the words of god, the absolute truth” for so many ages and it still blinds people to this day. It is quite incredible that this creationist theory is regarded as valid, even today.

Conclusion

I have proven in the first part of this article that the christian argument of intelligent design, even if one way or another proven as true, it does not lead us to believe that the christian god is real and that he created the universe and the earth. For that, the book of Genesis needs to provide irrefutable arguments and evidence for it. And, as i had analyzed, the explanations and theories offered there are, for our age, more than childish. Also, i have pointed out its similarities with so many other myths that were spread across the world, long before the book of genesis and the christian god were mentioned.

Thus, it is clear that the christian god is no more than a tribal myth, a man-made legend. Trying to prove through science and biology the existence of god, in the context of Genesis, is more than comical and has nothing to do with common sense and logic, only with pipe dreams created by the ones who try to hold on to ancient and dying beliefs.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 6:40 am and is filed under Reading the Bible, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.