Biblical Cryptozoology: Part Two

Cryptozoology is an endeavour to establish the reality of animal species (often mega-fauna) that are currently unverified or totally unknown. New species (usually insects and micro-fauna) are being discovered everyday. Alas a lot will never be verified because we humans unknowingly have driven them to extinction. Mythologies around the world are full of unknown mega-fauna, which truth be known, if they have or had existence it is or was extraterrestrial in nature. Here I briefly look at the most popular of all mythological texts, the Bible, to see what might be of zoological interest. 

You won’t find references in the Bible to the Yeti, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, the Cyclopes, or other similar beasties that interest wildlife biologists in the hunt for unverified, but possible examples of terrestrial wildlife. However, that doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t contain descriptions of a whole host of unknown creatures – the province of modern cryptozoology. Taking in turn the realm of the air, the land and the sea, what do we find?

Note: All references below refer to the King James Version of the Bible.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

LAND:

*The Behemoth is referenced once only in Job (Job 40:15) and is the Biblical kissing cousin of the Leviathan (see below). Behemoth is a primordial land monster inhabiting marshlands and rivers who likes to chomp on grass, like an ox. It’s presumed by modern scholars to be the hippopotamus, but proof-positive is lacking given the once-only reference.

*Hairy men: There’s no reference to current hairy ape-men like the Yeti in the Bible. Yet there is this interesting passage from Genesis 27:11 – “And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man”. Make of that what you will.

*Lambs with Horns: In Revelation you get two references to ‘lambs having horns’. The first (Revelation 5:6) tells of a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. However, it’s further stated that these represent the seven spirits of God (whatever that really means though I’m sure mystics and scholars have it all under control), so it doesn’t really represent something zoological. Then there’s that third beast from the earth that “had two horns like a lamb” but obviously wasn’t since it “spake as a dragon” (Revelation 13:11). So what exactly was it?

*Giants: Genesis, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua all testify to the existence of giants. From “giants in the earth” otherwise known as the Nephilim; “the land of giants” (more Nephilim); “remnant of giants”; to the “valley of the giants”, there were giants aplenty. I gather it was the presence of giants (the Nephilim) that so terrified the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness that they refused to continue their trek to the Promised Land. Instead, they preferred to do an about-face and return to Egypt! That cowardice pissed off the Almighty and he thus caused them to be condemned to wander about the wilderness for another forty years. So what terrified God’s Chosen People?

By the way there’s nothing overly unique about Biblical giants. Greek mythology is chock-a-block full of giants, good, bad but usually ugly, as they are in many other cultures. Their popularity remains through the ages, and though not a staple of our society, stories or descriptions about those elusive hairy man-apes relate beasties that are anything but dwarfs.

*Serpents: We all know about the serpent (a.k.a. Satan) in the Garden of Eden, but wait, there’s more shape-shifting in store. There’s that parlour trick preformed by Moses and Aaron before the Egyptian pharaoh to impress said ruler enough to “let my people go”. That parlour trick was turning a rod or staff into a serpent and back again. In Numbers God sends a fiery serpent to bite His Chosen People – exactly where they were bitten isn’t related, but the bite must have been poisonous for many died! However, Moses did some hocus-pocus and some who were bitten lived to tell the tale. Isaiah then talks about a “fiery flying serpent” also a “piercing serpent” and a “crooked serpent” – presumably all one and the same serpent. Jeremiah talks about that biting serpent the Lord likes to utilize. Revelation goes full circle and equates the serpent with the dragon which is equated with Satan. Whether there’s anything here anomalous from a zoological point of view is in the eye of the zoologist.

*Satyr: You wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Isaiah 13:21 & Isaiah 34:14 lend credence to the satyr that half-goat, half-human hybrid one normally associates with ancient Greece.

*Unicorns: While I’m sceptical about horned lambs, unicorns are a well established part of mega-fauna mythology from many times and places. The unicorn gets its due in the Bible as a real creature. Check out Isaiah 34:7 for example. 

SEA:

*The whale or big fish that swallowed Jonah and kept Jonah alive inside his innards would have to be a unique species to science.

*The Leviathan is some sort of primordial fire-breathing sea monster of the Old Testament (Isaiah, Job, and Psalms), the kissing cousin of the Behemoth (see above).

*Sea monsters are given the thumbs-up in Lamentations 4:3.

*A weird composite beast arises from the sea in Revelation 13:1-2: a hybrid of leopard, bear and lion (which are hardly marine animals) with seven heads and ten horns. That’s all sort of akin to Daniel 7:3-7. Here Daniel describes four different beasts arising from the sea. The first was like a lion with eagle’s wings. The second was like a bear (a pseudo-bear obviously). The third was a four-headed pseudo-leopard with four wings. The last was something radically different or diverse, something “dreadful and terrible” with iron teeth, nails of brass, and ten horns. Then another little horn pops up and starts speaking! That sounds something technological, like the ‘Wheel of Ezekiel’. As with Revelation 13:1-2, the first three beasts, despite arising from the sea, are hardly typical marine animals. Something’s screwy somewhere! 

An interesting question arises. I gather or at least I assume that none of the above beasties entered onto Noah’s Ark in mating pairs, two-by-two, especially the more terrestrial and aerial ones. So, how did they survive that flood to produce offspring that would raise hell further on down the track? 

CONCLUSION: There’s much here to interest those who like to read and study mythology, especially animal-related mythology, comparative mythology and symbolism. There’s not much here to excite the cryptozoologist, although those ‘giants’ might be of interest to physical anthropologists, and the Cherubim and Seraphim to those who like to play around with the reality of possible ancient astronauts.

Biblical Cryptozoology: Part One

Cryptozoology is an endeavour to establish the reality of animal species (often mega-fauna) that are currently unverified or totally unknown. New species (usually insects and micro-fauna) are being discovered everyday. Alas a lot will never be verified because we humans unknowingly have driven them to extinction. Mythologies around the world are full of unknown mega-fauna, which truth be known, if they have or had existence it is or was extraterrestrial in nature. Here I briefly look at the most popular of all mythological texts, the Bible, to see what might be of zoological interest. 

You won’t find references in the Bible to the Yeti, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, the Cyclopes, or other similar beasties that interest wildlife biologists in the hunt for unverified, but possible examples of terrestrial wildlife. However, that doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t contain descriptions of a whole host of unknown creatures – the province of modern cryptozoology. Taking in turn the realm of the air, the land and the sea, what do we find?

Note: All references below refer to the King James Version of the Bible.

AIR:

*Cherubim: Of all the weird and wonderful creatures that appear between Genesis and Revelation, Ezekiel takes first prize for the most weird and wonderful of all. Ezekiel, assuming here he hadn’t consumed too much fermented grape juice, witnessed a whirlwind, a great cloud, full of fire with much brightness and overall the colour of amber, when as he puts it all came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month. Okay, maybe it’s a volcanic eruption (or perhaps a descending spaceship)! Well, apparently it’s not volcanic in origin for it then comes to pass that there were four creatures associated with this phenomenon which Ezekiel ultimately identifies as a Cherub (Ezekiel 9:3) or Cherubim (Ezekiel 10:14).

Ezekiel also says that these four living creatures (or perhaps crew members) “had the likeness of a man” (i.e. they were humanoid but not human).  And each of these creatures had four faces and four wings. The four faces were akin to those of a man, an ox, an eagle and a lion. And these creatures glowed. On second thought, maybe Ezekiel had consumed a bit too much grape juice! However, to be fair to the man, if you’ve never had a close encounter before and no concept of ET, then you can only interpret and describe what you see in terms you are familiar with, like an eagle or lion or something that’s akin to a man but not a man. 

Anyway, Ezekiel also describes the glowing craft or vehicle associated with this quartet, which in ancient astronaut literature is noted as the ‘Wheel of Ezekiel’, a Biblical UFO encounter. Then he hears a voice, which in his confused state assumes must be a deity, in fact The Deity (well, that’s understandable – back then I probably would have assumed the same not being acquainted with ancient astronaut and UFO lore and the whole concept of life on other planets). In a similar way to his description of aliens in familiar terms (somewhat like a man), Ezekiel could explain in the only way possible the message he was given as a ‘message from God’. The messengers certainly weren’t his next door neighbours holding a conversation with him! 

It would appear that the creatures who posed as the Lord or who Ezekiel misinterpreted as the Lord departed around or about Ezekiel 3:2-14. Thus Ezekiel concluded his ‘first contact’, a close encounter of the third kind.

However, there was a second coming, a repeat performance around Ezekiel 8:1 when it came to pass for Ezekiel in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month. Again you get descriptions of those four faces, slightly altered as this time round as the four faces were akin to a cherub, man, lion and eagle (Ezekiel 10:14) – the ox had gone, so maybe these weren’t the exact same aliens. But you still get the technology of the wheels and the clouds and the brightness and the fire and the lifting up and departure, and so ‘second contact’ ended by the conclusion of Ezekiel 10.  

Something seems amiss at first glance however as first contact was in the “thirtieth year” but second contact was in the “sixth year”. I gather the thirtieth year was his 30^th year in captivity down by the river at Chebar, while his sixth year was his 6^th year back at home following. At a minimum that means at least six years between first and second contact, not that that has any great significance.

There is however one more follow-up to these four-faced creatures. Revelation, like Ezekiel, is dominated to a nearly excessive degree with four living creatures. Revelation 4:7 relates another four creatures, all with now familiar faces – lion, calf, man and flying eagle. But in the time elapsed since Ezekiel’s day (a time that hasn’t actually arrived yet apparently), these aliens had sprouted an additional pair of wings, for a grand total of six wings as related in the following verse, Revelation 4:8. Maybe these creatures have differing number of wings due to age (they grow more wings as they grow older), or sex (females have four wings; males six wings or vice versa) as something part and parcel within their own natural selection and evolution.

These six-winged beasties are probably the Seraphim as related in Isaiah 6:2 and 6:6. They like to cry out “holy, holy, holy” (their catchcry), exactly the same phrase you get uttered in Revelation 4:8. They, the four beasts with the six wings, were also blessed with a myriad of eyes (as in way more than two) on all sides. Lots of eyes can be found in Greek mythology too. Argus was a 100-eyed giant, ultimately slain by Hermes who presented the corpse to Hera (Mrs. Zeus) who incorporated the eyes of Argus into her iconic symbol – the peacock.

In any event, four-winged ‘spirits’ were commonly depicted in ancient Mesopotamia so there’s nothing unique about Ezekiel’s neural network and visions and so perhaps Ezekiel wasn’t hitting the bottle after all.  

These intelligent beings might be thought of as outside the province of cryptozoology or zoology full stop, yet the Sasquatch/Bigfoot, Yeti and similar hairy hominoids are considered legit. But since Ezekiel’s creatures are unknown humanoids to science, intelligent or not, whether they fall in the realm of cryprozoology or not, well that’s just unnecessarily splitting hairs. Still, one could argue that the Cherubim (and Seraphim) might fall more into the interests of astrobiologists and/or ufologists if my premise is correct and they are really extraterrestrials.

*Cockatrice: Both Isaiah and Jeremiah acknowledge the cockatrice which is a relatively small two-legged dragon, but with the head of a rooster. In some versions it’s cited instead as a basilisk, which in legend is king of the serpents with the evil eye (much like the Gorgon, Medusa), though without wings. Some editions just wimp out and call it a viper.

*Dragon: There are many references to the concept of dragons in the Bible, but the biggie is Revelation 12:3 – “And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.” And Revelation 12:7 – “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.” Of course in this context the dragon is equated with Satan, but “seven heads and ten horns” has to be a rather weird description of Satan, an original angel, methinks. Still, here’s the reference: Revelation 12:9 – “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” So there!

*Flying Horse: When you think of a flying horse you think of Pegasus, but Pegasus doesn’t get a mention in the Bible. But, you do get a relation of Pegasus, cited in 2 Kings 2:11 when Elijah gets abducted, placed on a chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire and gets transported to heaven whether he likes it or not. I presume that in order to get from ground level to heaven the horses must have had wings. Then there’s Revelation. I think Revelation 9:17 is confusing the concept of the horse with the dragon since one doesn’t normally associate a horse’s mouth spewing forth smoke, fire and brimstone! And our poor very confused author of Revelation has trouble distinguishing a lion’s head from a horse’s head – even a very young child can tell the two apart. However, later on down the track we get white horses and riders (one of which I gather is J.C. himself – as a rider, not as a horse) heading hell bent for leather to strut their Revelation stuff. Presumably, those horses will be descendents of Pegasus, otherwise by the time they (the riders) reach terra firma from heaven it’s going to be splat-city (unless they have parachutes of course).

*Locusts: In Revelation you also have a plague of locusts appear, which doesn’t sound too unusual or anomalous, except these locusts were shaped like horses and had the faces of men and crowns on their head which was covered in the hair of women and teeth that you associate with lions and the tail of a scorpion. Are you getting the impression the author here either had some magic mushrooms for breakfast or else was puffing on the good stuff?

To be continued…

God’s Population and Environmental Policy: Genesis 1: 28

One part of the Bible that people like and take seriously is that God commands people to have sex – with the opposite sex of course, even if only for the purpose of producing more people who will grow up and eventually have sex, etc. Humans tend to be very good at this, regardless of race, IQ, occupation, status, income, overall health or even disabilities. Unfortunately, the consequences have been less than a utopian paradise or heavenly.

Most would agree that humans have had less than a perfect record when it comes to observing and keeping the Ten Commandments. But there is one other commandment that predates the Big Ten that humans have taken to heart and have had no trouble at all obeying. But instead of leading to positive results, this commandment has led humanity into turning our home, Planet Earth, into a cesspool of filth and suffering even death on a massive scale, not just for us but also for the innocents that had no say in the matter as well. The root cause is God’s population and environmental policies.

Though God’s population and environmental policy isn’t confined to just this one Biblical chapter and verse, that specific chapter and verse, Genesis 1: 28, is probably the most destructive statement in all of recorded history. Genesis 1: 28 is God’s population and environmental policy for mankind. It basically amounts to breed, like, well like rabbits! Further, there’s a subclause that suggests we speak loudly and carry a big stick and let Mother Nature know in no uncertain terms who is King of the Mountain. 

God's policy on population growth is flawed. God's not a Greenie or an environmentalist! We all know the passage from Genesis 1: 28 (King James Version) - It goes something like this: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

In fact, it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re starving, are poverty stricken, have little if any access to basic amenities, the need to obey Genesis 1: 28 is so strong that little else matters. We’ve all seen horrendous images of the greatest of the great unwashed living in filth and poverty with children not much more than living skeletons, and dying like flies. Fast forward a generation and it is déjà vu all over again, only it’s now twice the number of the greatest of the great unwashed. Despite living in the most appalling of conditions, you can count on the universal – sex. And of course the poorer you are the more you will take dominion over resources in order to survive. A poverty-stricken man would gladly kill the last surviving member of an entire animal species if it brings in enough money to get him and his family through another single day.      

It’s normally Mother Nature’s way to keep population growth under checks and balances, except, thanks to God, humans prove the disastrous exception to the rule. When human populations suffer to the extent that death on a massive scale starts to transpire, other humans provide assistance to get them over the hump. Thus, the next time disaster strikes and people start dying off, you have a situation where they are even more in need of assistance since those who would have died the previous time lived instead to breed more - the next generation, now under the gun. Human compassion, or morality or ethics – presumably also a gift from God – always lauded, ultimately can lead to even greater need for compassion. It’s a vicious cycle.

Of course when it comes to non-human species, humans are not quite so compassionate, moral or ethical. It’s that “subdue” and “dominion” bit. Humans don’t wait for Mother Nature to take charge, rather assume responsibility themselves, as a logical extrapolation of Genesis 1: 28.  Here in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the ACT government authorises yearly the culling (i.e. – shoot to kill) of multi-thousands of kangaroos because these animals allegedly have a detrimental effect on the native environment of the ACT (i.e. – they get in the way of humans). Never mind the fact that the animal is a native (not an invasive species) to the area and their presence predates human settlement by millions of years. Also, never mind that humans outnumber kangaroos by thousands to one. Even locally, humans vastly outnumber the kangaroo. Guess which of the two species has the higher impact on the natural environment. The example of the kangaroo can be retold in other contexts thousands of times over – the American buffalo for example. That's quite apart from humans killing animals for 'sport'; not for food or clothing, but just for a hell of it; because it makes the brave hunters feel big – king of the mountain in fact. Genesis 1: 28 strikes again, and again and again.  

Now Genesis 1: 28 is ultimately a Biblical impossibility because it is unsustainable, as should already be bleeding obvious to blind Freddy, and should have been obvious to God Himself. But God is selfish. God wants worshipers and the more the better. God may well want more and more and more humans to bow and scrape to Him, but at what ultimate cost to the Earth He allegedly created; all those plants and animals He allegedly created; and His ultimate alleged creation, humanity?

Apart from mice and rats (which have a low ecological footprint), there's probably no wild mammalian species still in existence that outnumbers us anymore. There's something seriously wrong when there's threatened and endangered species, some  that now only total 500 to maybe (if lucky) 5000 individuals left, when humans are seven billion strong and ever accelerating in numbers, especially in Africa. What hope is there for God's animal creations? We've living in an era of mass extinction right now, and we're the cause. What lifestyle for humans when there's no more fit air to breathe; no fit water to drink; all natural resources depleted; disease and hunger rampant.

God may enjoy all those billions of humans here and now with billions more to come worshiping and praying to Him, but those "fish of the sea" are a fraction of what once was; ditto the "fowl of the air" and ditto, ditto "every living thing" - well, maybe not cockroaches, not yet at least (until they become a human food source of last resort and you'd eat them if it were down to a choice of that or starvation - besides they're rich in protein). The Book of Revelation maybe impossible nonsense, though the ‘End of Days’ (for humans) might not be, thanks to Genesis 1:28. It would be rather ironic if God just barely spared mankind via Noah’s Ark, only to have mankind go kaput because of that other extract from Genesis.

Of all of God’s crimes against humanity, which have been numerous (like the Genesis Flood), this apparently innocent statement contained in Genesis 1: 28 in the long term will be the one with the most implications, and ultimately the worst one of all, and God made it, and an all-knowing God should have known better. Of course that’s if you place any credibility in Biblical quotations. But that’s another topic.

The Creation: God vs. Natural History: Part Two

Probably among the most familiar of familiar phrases in the English language is one that starts out “In the beginning God created…” However, there are alternative non-theological variations on that phrase that fall more in the realm of natural philosophy (or as we call it today, science). What’s at stake is the credibility of God’s alleged word vs. the credibility of the word of science. Christians might believe the Bible, but they put their real faith in science when they turn on their TV set or board an aircraft. So too should they put their money on the scientific (natural history) scenarios of the creations.

In the beginning God said a whole bunch of stuff central to His creation of life, the Universe and everything.*

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Botany is next up on the creation agenda. Of course you need land and water before you can have a garden (hydroponics and phytoplankton aside) so the ordering is, well, in order. Except God then makes a mistake. He starts off all things botanical with grass, which, truth be known, is a pretty complex and highly evolved plant. There were lots of simpler plants that pre-existed grasses. Even the dinosaurs existed before grass did! What God should have said is that “let the Earth bring forth algae and phytoplankton and mosses and ferns”. That would have been a detail which would have made botanical atheists stand up and take notice of Biblical bona-fides.

But, just when you think the Biblical creations gets things in a reasonable and logical order, here comes the next bit – the creation of the Sun, Moon and stars. The relevant quote, in case there’s any doubt:

Genesis 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Okay, the Moon and the stars aren’t all that relevant, but what did all those plants, those grasses, herbs and fruit trees, do for solar energy (photosynthesis) before the Sun got created? This is without question a major Biblical screw-up; the height of all that’s illogical in the scientific ordering of things, but then the Bible and science are not exactly bedfellows. Science on the other hand has the Sun and the Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago – plants came much later on and thus they never lacked for solar energy.

The screw-ups keep on keeping on. Next up we have the creation of marine life and avian life. Unfortunately for God, He screwed up by including whales among marine life. Okay, whales are marine creatures, but they are not fish. Whales are mammals. God apparently created whales before the end of the fifth day of creation. After the fifth day had ended, and the sixth day had begun, God then apparently created mammals, like cattle, and lots of other critters that in the fossil record preceded whales, as well as those things that “creepeth” upon the earth for example (I assume worms and snakes, etc.). What’s the relevant proof?

Genesis 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

We note that whales were created before other beasts as outlined in Genesis 1:24. Yet, as any biologist will outline for you, whales evolved from land mammals and went back to a marine habitat. Whales are a relatively recent product of natural selection. They were hardly an animal that kicked off the mammalian branch of the tree of life, contrary to what God says. 

Take as a further example the creation of the male and female of the human species, which is I’m sure a bit more relevant and personal to all you readers. The barebones (as it were) were given in Genesis 1:26. Now, finally, God gives out the details!  

Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 2:21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

Genesis 2:22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Well at least now we get some sort of explanation – the male created from common dust; the female from the masculine rib. Details are still thin on the (dusty) ground, but the dust-and-rib theory is at least something that scientists can explore and play around with. Hands up all of you who attended high school biology class or university Biology 101 and got the dust-and-rib explanation? I thought so. Biologists have found a more convincing explanation. If you don’t need dust, and you don’t need ribs, then you don’t need God either in the equation. That aside…    

Now if you’re a male, are you overjoyed that your original alpha-male ancestor was made out of ordinary everyday garden-variety dust? Would you be happy if you had been made out of dust motes? If you’re a female, does it tickle your fancy that you’re (well your sex is) just a second generation afterthought (there is quite a break in Genesis between Adam’s creation and Eve’s coming to the party); a creation from a masculine rib? Does any of this strike you as slightly ridiculous? That’s all the more so since the creation of the original alpha-male and alpha-female afterthought was just a one-off. Post-dust and post-rib it was creation by that time-honoured mechanism – sex, which is smelly and messy and rather hit-or-miss. I mean hey, if dust and ribs work, well when you’re on a winner, stick to the original blueprint. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. God should have left the dust-and-rib instruction manual behind. So, if a modern loving couple wants a bouncing baby boy, well a bit of housework will round up the raw material. If it’s a little girl, well hubby can have a rib job at the local clinic. Okay, that’s ridiculous. But if it’s ridiculous now, it was equally ridiculous back then.

Now kindly note another creation screw-up here. We’re all familiar with the concept of day and night; morning and evening. Now the question is what celestial object is responsible for there being light and darkness, day and night, morning and evening? Did I hear you suggest that the Sun was the orb responsible? If so, go to the head of the class.

But it comes to pass that we have this verse:

Genesis 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And then we have this verse (repeated from above):

Genesis 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

So the upshot here is that day and night, morning and evening, existed prior to the creation of the Sun. Wow! Neat magician’s trick that!

Now kindly note yet another creation screw-up here.

Recall: Genesis 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Recall: Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Now recall: Genesis 2:18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone.

Now recall: Genesis 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.

In Biblical parlance, this is the equivalent of the chicken and egg question. Which came first, man or beast? The Bible provides statements for both that’s can’t both be correct, so take your pick. Whichever you pick, the alternative then has to be nonsense. Odds are neither version is correct.

Now if God is perfect, there can be no Biblical screw-ups. If there are Biblical screw-ups, then either God isn’t perfect or the Bible is NOT God’s Holy Word. A reasonable explanation is that the Bible was written by non-perfect humans, and God doesn’t exist since the errors, the screw-ups, were never corrected by Him. God never proofread His own Holy Words!

One further anomaly that proves just about beyond any doubt that Genesis is the work of man and not of God; we note the endless repetition of “And God said.” My question – prior to Adam, just who was around back then to copy down anything that God said? And if the answer to that is nobody, then presumably God is just talking to Himself! Or, more likely as not, the entirety of Genesis, creation and all, is just an early example of what would later become known as science fiction.

*Kindly note that all Biblical references have been taken from the Book of Genesis that appear in the King James Version of the Bible.

The Creation: God vs. Natural History: Part One

Probably among the most familiar of familiar phrases in the English language is one that starts out “In the beginning God created…” However, there are alternative non-theological variations on that phrase that fall more in the realm of natural philosophy (or as we call it today, science). What’s at stake is the credibility of God’s alleged word vs. the credibility of the word of science. Christians might believe the Bible, but they put their real faith in science when they turn on their TV set or board an aircraft. So too should they put their money on the scientific (natural history) scenarios of the creations.

In the beginning God said a whole bunch of stuff central to His creation of life, the Universe and everything.*

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. [God creates photons and electromagnetic energy.]

Genesis 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. [This makes little sense, but it’s a division of heavenly ‘waters’ from the earthly ‘waters’. There’s earthly ‘waters’, and then there’s everything else above the earthly ‘waters’ – the firmament.]

Genesis 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. [The distinction between land and sea is noted as the earthly ‘waters’ undergo a partial phase change.]

Genesis 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. [Botany makes an appearance.]

Genesis 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. [The creation of the Sun, the Moon and the stars is noted.]

Genesis 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. [God creates fish (including whales) and birds.]

Genesis 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. [Add to that the invertebrates, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.]

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

These are statements, but not explanations, far less adequate explanations. It’s akin to sleight of hand, the snap of the fingers, the waving of a magic wand. Its parlour tricks that dazzle but you’re left none the wiser. You’re awed by magicians’ tricks because you can’t figure out how they do them; and they’re not telling!

We note by the way that microbes, bacteria, viruses, unicellular critters, etc. don’t get a mention in Genesis. There’s no “And God said, let there be microbes”. That’s one major omission. Of course humans didn’t have microscopes back then and I guess God forgot to tell His scribes about the reality of the greater part of Earth’s biomass so that’s why they didn’t get a mention. All of God’s creations would fall apart at the atomic seams if it wasn’t for the strong nuclear force, so why didn’t God take credit for that? Okay, so the human author(s) of Genesis presumably didn’t know much about atomic physics, but they did know about gravity (the force that really dominates the Universe, including much of reality back on Terra Firma, including much of their reality. So why no “And God said, let there be gravity”? 

Those significant omissions aside, and they are significant, religion, as in the Bible, gives you various creation statements as we’ve seen. If the Bible gives you creation explanations of any kind, they are downright weird, if not supernatural, and certainly not verifiable explanations. Science tries to give you logical explanations for creation events and to the best of its ability, verifiable explanations.

So, God created the “heaven and the earth”. Heaven apparently is as in all things not earth – the rest of the cosmos. Out of what did God create heaven and earth? Out of nothing? Out of some pre-existing primordial matter that presumably God didn’t create but had available to Him as a raw resource? Or, alternatively, if He did create this primordial stuff, then He then took some time out to figure out what to do with it. Decisions, decisions! I mean if God is immortal; and the heaven (cosmos) and earth aren’t, then a lot of water passed under the bridge between God, and God’s creation of heaven and earth. In any event, where are the details? If I told you I had created a jumbo jet in my heavenly garden shed, you’d ask questions. You’d require the nitty-gritty details, as in made out of what, and what size – life-size or toy model – and can it fly. Was it carved or assembled from pre-existing parts or were the parts all created from scratch, and if so where did I get the raw materials from? 

Now even I have to admit, when it comes down to the creation of “heaven” (the Universe or cosmos presumably), scientists (cosmologists) come out with some pretty far-out-star-scout statements too. And some pretty far-out-star-scout details, but at least there are details. The nitty-gritty is that 13.7 billions years ago (science – vs. 4004 BCE God), there was a Big Bang which somehow created the Universe (matter, energy, time and space) from nothing, and to top off the silliness, that all happened in a space way, way, way smaller than a pinhead. Pull the other one fellows! However, at least they do have some observational evidence – runs on the board – to support at least the 13.7 billion year ago event (though little else), evidence which the 4004 BCE Biblical version lacks. For example, there’s the measured redshifts of the galaxies which suggest the cosmos is expanding. Reinforcing that there’s the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) – the temperature of the cosmos – which keeps getting cooler as the cosmos expands. CMBR measurement meets CMBR theory. Also an area when observation matches prediction is the cosmic ratio of hydrogen to helium. So, the Big Bang has runs (as in details and evidence) on the board. Genesis 1:1 doesn’t.

The “earth” part on the other hand has science on a far, far firmer ground. Astronomers have certainly witnessed the overall process by which extra-solar planetary systems are currently forming, and extrapolation then gives the process that created our Sun and planets, including the Earth, isn’t difficult. In brief, it goes something like this. Interstellar dust clouds rotate and contract due to gravity. Contraction down into a much relatively smaller volume makes for extreme heat and pressure. That heat and pressure eventually triggers nuclear fusion – a star is born. The surrounding debris under gravity contracts to much smaller bodies where the heat and pressure isn’t quite enough to trigger fusion. Those smaller bodies become the orbiting planets – like Earth. As I said, observations are made, explanations are given and details are, well, detailed. So when it comes to accounting for the creation of the Earth, it’s science on top by a mile, or two or ten.

As to the creation, or separation, of land and sea, well you certainly don’t need supernatural processes to account for that. Take a lump of mud or sand; add water; stir until everything is a uniform mixture or slurry. Let stand. What happens? The mud/sand sinks or settles to the bottom (gravity again) and you have separation of church and state – sorry, land and water. Science trumps God again. The Bible should have mentioned gravity and density, but it failed to do so. The Bible should have also mentioned the atmosphere when noting the separation of the land from the waters. Somehow God forgot to mention His role in separating out the atmosphere from the lithosphere and from the hydrosphere. That’s another major oversight IMHO. 

To be continued…

*Kindly note that all Biblical references have been taken from the Book of Genesis that appear in the King James Version of the Bible.

All Things Natural History: Introduction

Hi there everybody. In this, my latest blog, the accent will be on natural history; the natural and social sciences like biology and anthropology and archaeology and similar sorts of things. Not really included here are the hard physical sciences. For those, see my blogs "All things natural philosophy", and "All things extraterrestrial". For religion, see my "All things irreligious".