Religion – Creationism and my doubts

I realize that discussing or writing about religion is like dancing on the edge of a razor, as many take their religions very seriously, and do not like having those religious view challenged in any way.  But, while I respect your right to hold those beliefs, I feel in no way obligate to be silent on mine.  That said, let’s proceed.

How many religions are there in our world today?  Well there Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity (in the broad sense), and Islam to name the big ones.  There is even still paganism today, and yes paganism is a religious theology, not the Satan worshipping occult that many would have you believe.  I will be concentrating my writing on the big three, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as that is where I have spent the most of my time researching, with the major focus on Christianity.

How many Christian know that all three religions stem from the same tree?  Judaism sprang for Egyptian slaves about 1500 years before Jesus.  Christian from the dead of Jesus, and was codified about 300 years after his death.  And Islam actually came forth from Judaic and Christian theologies in about 800 AD.  Yes, the Muslims do believe in Jesus and the Virgin Mary, just not the same as Christians.  How many Christian know that the Old Testament of their Holy Scriptures or Bible is really little more than a collection of writing predating Jesus, and actually contain the holy book of Judaism?  Yes, the first 5 books of the Old Testament are actually The Five Books of Moses, or the Jewish Torah.  Even Muslims believe the Torah is a Divine Book, though they believe it was modified after Moses’ death, so all three of these religious philosophies sprang from the same soil, like it or not.

So let’s look at the very foundation of three of the largest religions in the world today, The Book of Genesis, and the story of Creation…

There are researchers around the world trying to valid The Book of Genesis as a factual record of the creation of our universe. I know that there is a search for evidence of the great flood, and some claim to have found evidence of the remains of Noah’s Ark on Mt Ararat.  There are those arguing Intelligent Design, claiming that the human race is so special and different from all the other species on this planet, that it would be statistically impossible for mankind to have developed here by accident or by some normal and natural process.  I could almost let this go were not for one simple problem, I’m a skeptic. I have yet to find any situation where there is something that exists for which no proof of its existence can be found, except for the idea of God.  So, I got to thinking, how would I go about finding evidence to support God?  Certainly if God was any more than a manmade phenomenon there would be proof somewhere, and if the Bible is God’s Holy Scripture, you’d think it would be in this book.  For me Genesis became the key.  First there is the question of the creation of the universe, excuse me, heaven and the earth.  Heaven and earth are supposed to have been created in 6 days, as he rested on the 7^th.  Some have told me that they believe or accept that days were not really days but geologic periods covering the millions of year that we now know the planet has existed.  Problematic for the logical thinker in me, but something I might be willing to accept, if not for the more a interestingly problem, in those 6 days he only created those things that were good and that he liked but nothing that displeased him which he destroyed and replaced.  This is problematic because, we do know today that dinosaurs roamed this planet some 65 million years ago and, other then in the fertile minds of some, there is no evidence that dinosaurs and mankind ever co-existed.

But what became the most important problem for me, when did Adam appear.  Even putting the dinosaur issue aside, the paleontological record would seem to indicate that the human race has been around for a couple of hundred thousand years.  BINGO, the lightbulb went off over my head…  The begats!  Surely if there was any credence to Genesis, Adam would have dated way back.  So I ran the begats, from Adam to the first individual who can be successfully dated in more modern history, Abram or Abraham as he was renamed in his 99^th year.  Every piece of information I can find puts Abraham on Earth sometime between 1400 and 1300 BCE.  So by starting there, and dating the begats backward, we place Adam’s arrival at somewhere around 5000 BCE.  So whether or not you can rationalize day 1 thru 5 as varying geological or paleontological era, we can place at least the end of day 6 to approximately 7000 years ago, long past the records of mankind’s exist.  There is today evidence of mankind in China 9 to 10 thousand years ago and some 400 thousand if you include the discovery carbon dating of the Peking Man.  There is evidence of mankind’s existences dating back at least 20 thousand years in South, Central and southern North America.   All of these defy the story as told by Genesis.  And yet, Genesis believed to be the true and accurate story of our creation by millions.  To make it even worse, I have asked some faithful Christians if they can explain these discrepancies, only to be told that “The Good Book” is the only true book of God and that he deliberating place these thing on Earth only to test our faith.  COME ON, REALLY???  So this God of benevolent love and peace, or anger and vengeance, depend on where you are reading, would also lie to us to test or loyalty.  Sorry, I don’t believe it.

With this very first book at the foundation of three religions so fatally flawed and inaccurate, I cannot place a great deal of value in anything that comes after it.  The Torah, and everything created or written after it, is a creation of man, and I believe God, as we know it, is also a creation of man in an effort to explain at the time that which was inexplicable.

I will close again with the idea that, I neither believe nor disbelieve in God.  Whatever created the universe as we know it today is completely beyond our mortal explanation or understanding?  That may change someday, but for now, my just as comfortable with the possibilities that the human race, no matter how great we think we are, could be nothing more than a cosmic accident.

I try to live a clean and honest live, do what is right because it is right, not out of fear of retribution or punishment in the afterlife, or fear of a vengeful God.   When my time comes to depart this plane, I am willing to accept whatever happens…

Your comments or questions are welcome, even though I may well ignore some of them.