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Saturday, October 23, 2010

Happy... Creation Day?

Today, of all days, is supposed to be the day in which the universe began to exist. This is, according to the ridiculous idea that God created the Earth in six days just according to the Bible.

It would have been epic

Well, this is not exactly in the Bible, since it has no reliable dates (or reliable anything) in it. The one who came with the wonderful idea that the Earth was created on this very day was James Ussher, Anglican Archbishop of Armagh during the XVII century. Usher, in his religiously medieval mind thought “well, since the Bible is the word of God, and therefore, it’s perfect we can add the ages of the generations in there and come up with an accurate date of the creation of the universe.” He did so, counting from present to past and concluded that the universe was created on October 23, 4004 BC.

Most logical minds will read this and think that Ussher was a crazy creationist, but let us remember that he lived in the 17th century, when science and dating methods were not very advanced, and America had been discovered less than 100 years ago. So, we can’t really compare Usher to today’s creationists and criticize him for that.

On the other hand we have today’s creationists who, even after the huge amount of evidence that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, still believe and defend a dating method so ridiculous and simplistic.

Creationists will pretty much tell you that a day like today the universe was created. “Let there be light”, because without light, God wouldn’t be able to see what the hell he was doing.

Then (if I remember my bible well) came the sky, to separate the sky (duh) from the water. Oh yeah, everything was covered in water. This might mean that the first thing God created was water, along with light, which leads us to believe that God didn’t know where he was swimming. It might have been a sewer.

Then came the separation between land and water, and putting all sorts of plants in the land. I wonder what was God thinking when he created pot. Or mushrooms. If God created them, it must have been for a reason, right?


Then came the Sun and the Moon, and so far this has to be the biggest flaw in the reasoning. Where would light come from if it isn’t from the Sun or Sun-like stars? No, seriously, this has the logic of a child’s tale.

Then came the animals. Forget about the genetic resemblance among species, it was God who created them all. Forget about fossils of prehistorical animals, it was God. Forget about radiometric dating, it was God. Forget about reason and evidence, you only need God.



And finally came human beings, those who would put that pot in good use. Here, also forget the genetic similarity between primates and humans.

And finally, in the seventh’ day God rested. It doesn’t matter that He will screw his creation with a flood, which He already knew since he is “all-knowing”.

Ussher might have made this “reasoning” and we can understand that in the 17th century it was possible. But nowadays? How is it possible to think that all these nonsense actually happened?

On the other hand, scientists will study rocks and come with an approximate date. No sure and exact answer because that we cannot know. It requires a huge ego and arrogance to think we can know the day of our creation with such exactitude. And it requires even more arrogance to think we were created from the “breath” of a divine being, the same who created everything we know, and that it loves us.

It makes much more sense to accept that we evolved from lesser beings, after looking at the evidence. It might be cold, it might be less romantic, but it is true. You can either trust scientists or you can still believe myths that have the logic of a child’s tale.

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Blasfema libremente

"Que esté permitido a cada uno pensar como quiera; pero que nunca le esté permitido perjudicar por su manera de pensar" Barón D'Holbach
"Let everyone be permitted to think as he pleases; but never let him be permitted to injure others for their manner of thinking" Barón D'Holbach