THOMAS PAINE ON GENESIS

THOMAS PAINE ON GENESIS

Fragments Of The Answer

Genesis

THE bishop says, "the oldest book in the world is Genesis." This is mere assertion; he offers no proof of it, and I go to controvert it, and to show that the book of job, which is not a Hebrew book, but is a book of the Gentiles translated into Hebrew, is much older than the book of Genesis.

The book of Genesis means the book of Generations; to which are prefixed two chapters, the first and second, which contain two different cosmogonies, that is, two different accounts of the creation of the world, written by different persons, as I have shown in the preceding part of this work.
The first cosmogony begins at chapter i. 1, and ends at ii. 3; for the adverbial conjunction thus, with which chapter ii. begins, shows those three verses to belong to chapter 1. The second cosmogony begins at ii. 4, and ends with that chapter.

In the first cosmogony the name of God is used without any epithet joined to it, and is repeated thirty-five times. In the second cosmogony it is always the Lord-God, which is repeated eleven times. These two different stiles of expression show these two chapters to be the work of two different persons, and the contradictions they contain, shew they cannot be the work of one and the same person, as I have already shown. The third chapter, in which the style of Lord God is continued in every instance except in the supposed conversation between the woman and the serpent (for in every place in that chapter where the writer speaks, it is always the Lord God) shows this chapter to belong to the second cosmogony.

This chapter gives an account of what is called the 'fall of Man,' which is no other than a fable borrowed from, and constructed upon, the religious allegory of Zoroaster, or the Persians, of the annual progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the Zodiac. It is the fall of the Year, the approach and evil of winter, announced by the ascension of the autumnal constellation of the serpent of the Zodiac, and not the moral fall of man, that is the key of the allegory, and of the fable in Genesis borrowed from it.

The Fall of Man in Genesis is said to have been produced by eating a certain fruit, generally taken to be an apple. The fall of the year is the season for the gathering and eating the new apples of that year. The allegory, therefore, holds with respect to the fruit, which it would not have done had it been an early summer fruit. It holds also with respect to place. The tree is said to have been placed in ihe midst of the garden. But why in the midst of the garden more than in any other place? The solution of the allegory gives the answer to this question, which is, that the fall of the year, when apples and other autumnal fruits are ripe, and when days and nights are of equal length, is the mid-season between summer and winter.

It holds also with respect to cloathing, and the temperature of the air. It is said in Genesis (iii. 21), "Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and cloathed them." But why are coats of skins mentioned? This cannot be understood as referring to anything of the nature of moral evil. The solution of the allegory gives again the answer to this question, which is, that the evil of winter, which follows the fall of the year, fabulously called in Genesis the fall of man, makes warm cloathing necessary.

But of these things I shall speak fully when I come in another part to treat of the ancient religion of the Persians, and compare it with the modern religion of the New Testament. [NOTE: See editorial note prefixed to these fragments. The views of Paine as to the Persian origin of the story in Genesis are those of many learned critics, among others Rosenmaller and Von Bohlen; while Julius Millier insists that not sin but physical suffering is connected with the Fall in the narrative. (Doctrine of Sin, Edinb., p. 78.) For the Eastern and Oriental legends see my Demonology and Devil-Lore, ii., pp. 68-104. -- Editor.] At present, I shall confine myself to the comparative antiquity of the books of Genesis and job, taking, at the same time, whatever I may find in my way with respect to the fabulousness of the book of Genesis; for if what is called the Fall of Man, in Genesis, be fabulous or allegorical, that which is called the redemption in the New Testament cannot be a fact. It is logically impossible, and impossible also in the nature of things, that moral good can redeem 'physical evil.' I return to the bishop.

If Genesis be, as the bishop asserts, the oldest book in the world, and, consequently, the oldest and first written book of the bible, and if the extraordinary things related in it; such as the creation of the world in six days, the tree of life, and of good and evil, the story of Eve and the talking serpent, the fall of man and his being turned out of Paradise, were facts, or even believed by the Jews to be facts, they would be referred to as fundamental matters, and that very frequently, in the books of the bible that were written by various authors afterwards; whereas, there is not a book, chapter, or verse of the bible, from the time that Moses is said to have written the book of Genesis, to the book of Malachi, the last book in the Bible, including a space of more than a thousand years, in which there is any mention made of these things, or any of them, nor are they so much as alluded to. How will the bishop solve this difficulty, which stands as a circumstantial contradiction to his assertion? There are but two ways of solving it:

First, that the book of Genesis is not an ancient book, that it has been written by some (now) unknown person, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, about a thousand years after the time that Moses is said to have lived, and put as a preface or introduction to the other books when they were formed into a canon in the time of the second temple, and therefore not having existed before that time, none of these things mentioned in it could be referred to in those books.

Secondly, that admitting Genesis to have been written by Moses, the Jews did not believe the things stated in it to be true, and therefore, as they could not refer to them as facts, they would not refer to them as fables. The first of these solutions goes against the antiquity of the book, and the second against its authenticity; and the bishop may take which he please.

But be the author of Genesis whoever it may, there is abundant evidence to show, as well from the early christian writers as from the Jews themselves, that the things stated in that book were not believed to be facts. Why they have been believed as facts since that time, when better and fuller knowledge existed on the case than is known now, can be accounted for only on the imposition of priestcraft.

Augustine, one of the early champions of the christian church, acknowledges in his 'City of God' that the adventure of Eve and the serpent, and the account of Paradise, were generally considered as fiction or allegory. He regards them as allegory himself, without attempting to give any explanation, but he supposes that a better explanation might be found than those that had been offered.

Origen, another early champion of the church, says, "What man of good sense can ever persuade himself that there were a first, a second, and a third day, and that each of these days had a night when there were yet neither sun, moon, nor stars? What man can be stupid enough to believe that God, acting the part of a gardener, had planted a garden in the east, that the tree of life was a real tree, and that its fruit had the virtue of making those who eat of it live forever?"

Maimonides, one of the most learned and celebrated of the Jewish Robbins, who lived in the eleventh century (about seven or eight hundred years ago) and to whom the bishop refers in his answer to me, is very explicit in his book entitled 'Moreh Nebuchim,' upon the non-reality of the things stated in the account of the Creation in the book of Genesis.

"We ought not (says he) to understand, nor take according to the letter, that which is written in the book of the creation, nor to have the same ideas of it which common men have; otherwise our ancient sages would not have recommended with so much care to conceal the sense of it, and not to raise the allegorical veil which envelopes the truths it contains. The book of Genesis, taken according to the letter, gives the most absurd and the most extravagant ideas of the divinity. Whoever shall find out the sense of it, ought to restrain himself from divulging it. It is a maxim which all our sages repeat, and above all with respect to the work of six days. It may happen that some one, with the aid he may borrow from others, may hit upon the meaning of it. In that case he ought to impose silence upon himself; or if he speak of it, he ought to speak obscurely, and in an enigmatical manner, as I do myself, leaving the rest to be found out by those who can understand me."

This is, certainly, a very extraordinary declaration of Mairnonides taking all the parts of it. First, be declares, that the account of the Creation in the book of Genesis is not a fact, and that to believe it to be a fact gives the most absurd and the most extravagant ideas of the divinity. Secondly, that it is an allegory. Thirdly, that the allegory has a concealed secret. Fourthly, that whoever can find the secret ought not to tell it.

It is this last part that is the most extraordinary. Why all this care of the Jewish Robbins, to prevent what they call the concealed meaning, or the secret, from being known, and if known to prevent any of their people from telling it? It certainly must be something which the Jewish nation are afraid or ashamed the world should know. It must be something personal to them as a people, and not a secret of a divine nature, which the more it is known the more it increases the glory of the creator, and the gratitude and bappiness of man. It is not God's secret but their own they are keeping. I go to unveil the secret.

The case is, the Jews have stolen their cosmogony, that is, their account of the creation, from the cosmogony of the Persians, contained in the books of Zoroaster, the Persian law- giver, and brought it with them when they returned from captivity by the benevolence of Cyrus, king of Persia. For it is evident, from the silence of all the books of the bible upon the subject of the creation, that the Jews had no cosmogony before that time. If they had a cosmogony from the time of Moses, some of their judges who governed during more than four hundred years, or of their kings, the Davids and Solomons of their day, who governed nearly five hundred years, or of their prophets and psalmists, who lived in the mean time, would have mentioned it. It would, either as fact or fable, have been the grandest of all subjects for a psalm. It would have suited to a tittle the ranting poetical genius of Isaiah, or served as a cordial to the gloomy Jeremiah. But not one word, not even a whisper, does any of the bible authors give upon the subject.

To conceal the theft, the Robbins of the second temple have published Genesis as a book of Moses, and have enjoined secresy to all their people, who by travelling or otherwise might happen to discover from whence the cosmogony was borrowed, not to tell it. The evidence of circumstances is often unanswerable, and there is no other than this which I have given that goes to the whole of the case, and this does.

Disgenes Laertius, an ancient and respectable author, whom the bishop in his answer to me quotes on another occasion, has a passage that corresponds with the solution here given. In speaking of the religion of the Persians as promulgated by their priests or magi, he says the Jewish Robbins were the successors of their doctrine. Having thus spoken on the plagiarism, and on the non-reality of the book of Genesis, I will give some additional evidence that Moses is not the author of that book.

Aben-Ezra, a celebrated Jewish author, who lived about seven hundred years ago, and whom the bishop allows to have been a man of great erudition, has made a great many observations, too numerous to be repeated bere, to show that Moses was not, and could not be, the author of the book of Genesis, nor of any of the five books that bear his name.

Spinoza, another learned Jew, who lived about a hundred and thirty years ago, recites, in his treatise on the ceremonies of the Jews, ancient and modern, the observations of Aben-Ezra, to which he adds many others, to shew that Moses is not the author of those books. He also says, and shews his reasons for saying it, that the bible did not exist as a book till the time of the Maccabees, which was more than a hundred years after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity.

In the second part of the Age of Reason, I have, among other things, referred to nine verses in Genesis xxxvi. beginning at ver. 31, (These are the kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel,) which it is impossible could have been written by Moses, or in the time of Moses, and which could not have been written till after the Jew kings began to reign in Israel, which was not till several hundred years after the time of Moses.

The bishop allows this, and says "I think you say true." But he then quibbles, and says, that "a small addition to a book does not destroy either the genuineness or authenticity of the whole book." This is priestcraft. These verses do not stand in the book as an addition to it, but as making a part of the whole book, and which it is impossible that Moses could write. The bishop would reject the antiquity of any other book if it could be proved from the words of the book itself that a part of it could not have been written till several hundred years after the reputed author of it was dead. He would call such a book a forgery. I am authorised, therefore, to call the book of Genesis a forgery.

Combining, then, all the foregoing circumstances together, respecting the antiquity and authenticity of the book of Genesis, a conclusion will naturally follow therefrom. Those circumstances are --
First, that certain parts of the book cannot possibly have been written by Moses, and that the other parts carry no evidence of having been written by him.

Secondly, the universal silence of all the following books of the bible, for about a thousand years, upon the extraordinary things spoken of in Genesis, such as the creation of the world in six days -- the garden of Eden -- the tree of knowledge -- the tree of life -- the story of Eve and the Serpent -- the fall of man and of his being turned out of this fine garden, together with Noah's flood, and the tower of Babel.

Thirdly, the silence of all the books of the bible upon even the name of Moses, from the book of Joshua until the second book of Kings, which was not written till after the captivity, for it gives an account of the captivity, a period of about a thousand years. Strange that a man who is proclaimed as the historian of the creation, the privy-counsellor and confidant of the Almighty -- the legislator of the Jewish nation and the founder of its religion; strange, I say, that even the name of such a man should not find a place in their books for a thousand years, if they knew or believed anything about him or the books he is said to have written.

Fourthly, the opinion of some of the most celebrated of the Jewish commentators that Moses is not the author of the book of Genesis, founded on the reasons given for that opinion.

Fifthly, the opinion of the early christian writers, and of the great champion of Jewish literature, Maimonides, that the book of Genesis is not a book of facts.

Sixthly, the silence imposed by all the Jewish Robbins, and by Maimonides himself, upon the Jewish nation, not to speak of anything they may happen to know or discover respecting the cosmogony (or creation of the world) in the book of Genesis.

From these circumstances the following conclusions offer:

First, that the book of Genesis is not a book of facts.

Secondly, that as no mention is made throughout the bible of any of the extraordinary things related in [it], Genesis has not been written till after the other books were written, and put as a preface to the Bible. Every one knows that a preface to a book, though it stands first, is the last written.

Thirdly, that the silence imposed by all the Jewish Rabbins and by Maimonides upon the Jewish nation, to keep silence upon every thing related in their cosmogony, evinces a secret they are not willing should be known. The secret therefore explains itself to be, that when the Jews were in captivity in Babylon and Persia they became acquainted with the cosmogony of the Persians, as registered in the Zend-Avesta of Zoroaster, the Persian law- giver, which, after their return from captivity, they manufactured and modelled as their own, and ante-dated it by giving to it the name of Moses. The case admits of no other explanation.
From all which it appears that the book of Genesis, instead of being the oldest book in the world, as the bishop calls it, has been the last written book of the bible, and that the cosmogony it contains has been manufactured.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EASTERN & WESTERN BELIEF

     One thing that I immediately noticed about Eastern teaching, which is 180 degrees opposite to Western teaching is their entire basic concept for why the world is as we find it today, complete with suffering, cruelty, poverty, starvation, etc. How could this be if the universe was created by an all loving; all powerful God who had a definite plan and goal in mind when he created it and pronounced it all to be “good” on the seventh day of His creation? Well of course Western theologians will explain this apparent disparity by explaining that it was all perfect then when God created it, but that since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, that creation was condemned along with them and thrown into confusion.  But in the light of modern science, that is absolutely ridiculous.

       We know for a fact that the universe has been in existence for billions of years and our own earth for at least millions. We know that man is in fact the newest species to evolve of all existing animal life and that our earth was plagued with comet strikes and upheavals of momentous proportions causing extinction of large numbers of species long before man ever stuck his head out of the primordial mud. So how do theologians account for that? If all of this chaos is due to Adam and Eve, and of course SATAN, we mustn’t forget him; then how do we account for the chaos and random disasters of colliding planets and imploding stars along with their solar systems all throughout the universe?  Well of course any self-respecting priest will tell you: “It’s all just a mystery. We poor fallen children of Eve can’t possibly hope to comprehend the ways of God.” Well, I’m sorry, that’s not an answer; that’s simply uninformed and meaningless rhetoric.

       Now don’t get me wrong, Eastern thought does not have answers as to why planets collide or why suns implode either, but at least they don’t blame it all on a man, a woman and a talking snake. You and I have been led to believe by ministers, priests and theologians that God created man to live eternally in the paradise of Eden where there would have been no aging; no pain during child-bearing, or for that matter at all, no sickness and no death.  Well, that’s absolutely ludicrous.

     Aging, pain, suffering and death already existed in the animal kingdoms for millions of years, what plausible reason is there to believe that it would have been any different for mankind? The entire theorem is faulty.  To believe that death is strictly the punishment for sin is absurd. What sins did the animals commit? But that’s all right; blame everything on man and of course, the other scapegoat, Satan. Make man feel even more unworthy than he is; tell him that he was “born in sin and shaped in iniquity” and deserving only of death, but that God, in His mercy has made provision for man’s salvation, which of course is only receivable at the hands of his chosen people or chosen priesthood. This of course turns mankind in general into the surfs and vassals of said priesthood that will then ration out and dispense their blessings or curses depending upon how obedient the surfs and vassals are to the will of the priesthood. No, sorry, I’m not buying into it, although I did for many years.

       Eastern theology or rather cosmology begins on an entirely different premise and even though its genesis is far older than that of Judaism or Christianity it is far closer to modern science in that it postulates the creation of the universe very much in the same mode as the “Big Bang” theory. The ancient Hindu holy books, the Vedas postulate that the “formless” undifferentiated energy and matter which have always existed; basically willed themselves into material form in an explosive act of creation. Consequently since all energy and matter came from God, then God exists in all energy and matter and there is no atom or molecule or sub particle that is not part and parcel of God. Now while God in his cosmic, formless and changeless state is in fact perfect and eternal, God in the form of matter and energy is found to be in a lesser state and not perfect nor eternal and is always subject to change and hence suffering if the created becomes obsessed with the desire to maintain his material form and material identity indefinitely.

       The entire of creation or the material worlds is termed in the Vedas as both, Maya, or illusion, and as God’s Lila or God’s Play. It was simply God’s desire to manifest outside of Himself. And it was His will to create a universe, peopled with beings like Him, and see how they would inter react and what feats they could perform together and separately. Therefore, the creation was never intended to be perfect because, by its’ very nature of change and evolution, it could never be perfect or eternal. It was only intended as a playground and school wherein the soul could grow through experience. The writers of the Vedas, had no concept of “original sin”; nor did they blame the often abysmal state of things in the world on an Adam and Eve or on a rebellious spirit son of God, Satan. The universe to them was simply as it is and still evolving, and wherever possible, it is our responsibility as sentient Sons of God to make life better not only for mankind but for our animal brothers and sisters as well and for plant life and mother earth. We were to respect all life because all life is part of God. No one ever gave us license to abuse other life forms.

       The Vedas are far closer to modern science in that they not only fit in with evolution, but even postulate parallel spiritual evolution; so that as each soul grows and matures, it earns a more evolved and higher body in its’ next life or incarnation. They also teach that self-realization, direct experience of God, or enlightenment is the birthright of every living being and is not dependent upon blind faith, nor on the whims of a priestly class who can dole it out to obedient surfs or withhold it from those not in their favor. Enlightenment is achieved by self-effort in the practice of certain tried and proven methods of meditation which channel energies and innate knowledge which we already possess as sons of God to a point where we can experience a direct connection with the Almighty.

     These are in fact the same procedures and methods which enabled great spiritual teachers and leaders of the past like Moses, Buddha and Jesus to be the great souls that they were.   Every one of them went into the dessert or forests and practiced meditation for great lengths of time prior to their emergence as Holy Men. Likewise, all of the great mystics in the Church, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Theresa of Avila and others, all practiced forms of meditation which elevated them to the heights that they ascended. None of them reached those advanced levels simply by attending church on Sundays and going to confession, in deed they reached those levels despite the guilt trips and constrictions of the churches that they belonged to by bypassing the priesthood and going directly to God.  In prayer we speak to God, but in meditation, we listen for God to speak to us. There must be two way communication; not a monologue.

       This is why even Dr. Carl Jung spoke highly of yoga and meditation. In one of Self Realization Fellowship’s booklets (SRF was founded by Paramahansa Yogananda), Jung is quoted as saying: “Quite apart from the charm of the new and the fascination of the half-understood, there is good cause for Yoga to have many adherents.  It offers the possibility of controllable experience and thus satisfies the scientific need for facts; and besides this, by reason of its breadth and depth, its venerable age, its doctrine and method, which include every phase of life, it promises undreamed-of possibilities”.

       To quote a great Indian spiritual teacher at the turn of the century, Ramakrishna, the Ramakrishna Order in their tract, “What Is Vedanta?” quotes him stating: “Vedanta is a philosophy taught by the Vedas, the most ancient scriptures of India.  Its basic teaching is that our real nature is divine.  God, the underlying reality, exists in every being.  Religion is therefore a search for self-knowledge, a search for the God within .  We should not think of ourselves as needing to be SAVED.  We are never LOST. At worst, we are living in ignorance of our true nature.  Find God.  That is the only purpose in life”.

     So rather than a deity who stands apart from his creation and has the right to destroy it all if it doesn’t suit him, Vedanta proposes a deity who is both transcendental on the one hand and yet always imminent and personally present in every atom of the material universe on the other hand.  It proposes a universe and planet which is not alien and frightening, but rather one in which everything and everyone is divine, related and has value; certainly a theory which if carried to its logical end would truly unite all of the families of mankind and even animal life; as opposed to some of the theories we espouse today which destine some for high purposes and others worthy only of exploitation and death. 

       Since the ONE became many, then we might say that we are in effect all reflections or clones of that original one reality that many call God. Fifty years ago, this kind of thinking may have sounded odd. But now with science practicing cloning and genetic engineering, such thinking is not so far fetched.  Of course more highly spiritualized individuals far more accurately reflect that divinity than does a homeless person lying in the gutter, but God is present there too.  This is why when the apostles asked Jesus to show them the Father, he responded, “He who has seen me has seen the father”. It is, likewise why he later said that if someone gave his followers so much as a cup of water he would bless them because “He that did it to one of the least of these my brothers, has done it unto me”. So according to Vedanta, the purpose of each and every one of us is to find within ourselves our own divinity, help others to find theirs and mold the world in such a way as to help even those lower on the evolutionary ladder to move up and eventually find their divinity until at last all are free.

       This is simply a far more positive approach to life and a loftier goal than believing that “The End Is At Hand” and longing for the destruction of the wicked. And it represents a far more compassionate deity than one whose only answer to rebelliousness and ignorance is to destroy everything and start over. Then too, teachers of Vedanta and meditation do not expect or ask you to accept these theories with blind credulity, but simply ask you to go into the laboratory of your own soul, try the methods they have used for centuries and see if you don’t have the same experience of reality and transcendence which the Great Masters like Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Ramakrishna and Yogananda had. This is a living and evolving path. 

       It isn’t just something that happened two thousand years ago once for all time. In John 14:12 Jesus asked his followers why they wondered at the things that he did and inspired them by saying that they would do even greater things.  One wonders based upon that why there have not been so many “greater things” done in the Church over the last 2,000 years; while in the East, thousands of such miracles have occurred right down to this day. Of course the Church will label such miracles wrought by Eastern teachers as demonic or staged by the devil to mimic the miracles of Christ, but they exist none the less.

       Now admittedly, not all Christian denominations are living in the 15^th century with its fire and brimstone ravings. Some like the Unitarians, Quakers, and Unity churches are also on the higher path toward self-realization and would also make fine homes for gay men and women or for that matter anyone who feels that they are stagnating where they are. I personally, was simply attracted to Vedanta and Buddhism because I still had a very bad taste in my mouth for anything with the name Christian attached to it. But the aforementioned basically non-sectarian churches would also be fine choices. Some people might feel uncomfortable with Eastern thought because they feel that it runs contrary to Western thought but that is not entirely true. We had great Transcendentalists in this country like Emerson and Thoreau in the 19^th century who certainly would not be considered foreign, although certainly not main stream.

       While they were writing about transcendentalism, southern white Christians were twisting Bible verses to justify their right to keep slaves and abuse their women and children. Hell, even members of the Ku Klux Klan claim to be Christian and will try to justify themselves and their behavior based on some vague Bible reference, yet I can hardly imagine Jesus donning a hood and lynching people.

       How much longer will the Christian Right and some major denominations of Christianity and even some sects of Judaism continue to persecute God’s gay children based upon their clever cataloguing of obscure Old Testament texts, improperly translated from ancient Hebrew and Greek which “appear” to argue against homosexuality?  Many of those same texts authorize the death penalty for unwed mothers and sex outside of wedlock, but I don’t hear too many preachers daring to open that “Pandora’s Box”; they might lose too many members and too many votes that way. They rave on and on about abortion, but can’t explain what happened to the fetuses in the wombs of those unwed Judean mothers who were stoned to death under the Mosaic Law. I don’t recall anywhere in scripture where the mothers were allowed to live until after they gave birth and then stoned to death afterward. So apparently killing the fetus along with the mother is OK in God’s eyes. Hmmm; strange religion I would say. Inspired by God? I strongly question that.  

       Well, enough of that. I just wanted to explain why it was not possible for me to take my new found belief in the divinity and oneness of all mankind back with me into one of the major institutional churches and work for the good of mankind from there. Even Jesus said in Matthew 9:7 “…neither do people put new wine into old wineskins.  If they do,

the wineskins will burst”.  So it simply was not feasible for me to work from within the confines of an institutional church.

       During my studies under a wide variety of Hindu and even Sikh Masters, I have not found any contradiction nor disparity between their teachings, and this is certainly what one would expect from self-realized Masters teaching Truth. I have found great freedom within Vedanta; not childish concepts of freedom. I most certainly am not free to harm creation or free to exploit others. No, along with freedom comes responsibility to try to touch others lives and to try to make the world a better place, not just pray for it to be better and leave the hard work of transformation to others. Yes, Vedanta or Sanatan Dharma, as it is also known, is a religion or philosophy which tends to physical and spiritual emancipation, but coupled with a healthy sense of that which is ethical and right. 

HOW FAR WILL FUNDAMENTALIST GO IN LYING TO SUPPORT THEIR VIEWS?

Just to show you how far Christian Fundamentalists will go to advance their theories and attempt to give so called scientific proof for their beliefs, I present you with the following ridiculous assertions that are made on a website entitled “Amazing Bible Discoveries by Dr. T.V. Oommen”.  It can be found at: <www.biblediscoveries.com/arkofcovenant.html>. 

In the article, Dr. Oommen contends that a Christian archeologist, a Ron Wyatt of Tennessee, discovered the Ark of the Covenant back in the early 1980’s in Jerusalem, buried in a cave which he believes was located directly under the site of the crucifixion of Jesus. The article claims that four angels directed Ron Wyatt to the site and allowed him to examine the contents of the Ark, revealing the original Ten Commandments and other related items. He further contends that God miraculously arranged for the site of the crucifixion to be directly above where the Ark was buried for a special reason. 

You see in ancient times, the High Priest would go into the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem and sprinkle the blood of sacrificial lambs on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant as a special sacrifice to God for atonement of the people of Israel.  Both Dr. Oommen and Ron Wyatt contend that there was a hole in the bedrock where the cross was placed with a shaft leading down into the cave directly above where the Ark of the Covenant was hidden and that God arranged for the crucifixion to take place there so that the blood of Jesus would drain down that shaft onto the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, thereby making atonement for all of mankind.  Ron Wyatt contends that he took samples of the dried blood on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant and had them analyzed and here are the results:

“Now I can tell you the rest of the story. When Ron found his way to the upper part of the cave in which the Ark is kept, he noticed dried blood above through a crack. This was verified to be the same crack he had seen on the bedrock. Then he found that the stone box in which the Ark was resting had its lid broken into two and separated. The implication is obvious. When the soldier pierced Jesus' side with a spear, his blood flowed down through the crack and drops of blood fell on the Mercy Seat! Later on, when Ron was able to go into the cave and inspect the Ark, he found dried blood on the Mercy Seat, with animal blood on one side and human blood on the other. This was verified by blood analysis on samples he brought back to America. In a two page leaflet Ron issued in mid-1993 and on his video, 'Presentation of Discoveries', based on a live presentation a few years back, the blood work results are mentioned. Essentially, it was human blood of a male; there were only 24 chromosomes in the white blood cells (the red cells do not have genetic information). What this implies is that Christ had only half the number of chromosomes normal humans have, half of 46, plus a Y chromosome which had to come from a non-human source, and that source has to be the Heavenly Father! It is possible that further blood analysis will be done in the future, but Ron would prefer the scientific world confirm that the sample he brought is from the Ark, and presently there is no way to do that. So any further blood analysis results would be subject to the same kind of skepticism that Ron's critics have raised.”

Now scientifically, this is absolutely ridiculous and beyond any possibility and I now present you with the explanations of genuine scientists, not Christian scientists.

The condition of a living organism having only half the number of chromosomes that it is supposed to have is called “haploid” and this is what scientists say regarding this condition:

“A cell is haploid if it contains exactly half of a species’ typical full set of genetic material. Haploid cells are often used in sexual reproduction.

 Most cells within a human (and other animals) are diploid, which means they have two copies of each chromosome. Sex cells, however, are haploid – they have only one copy of each chromosome. This is not exactly the same as monoploidy; rather, one of two differing copies of the same chromosome is in the haploid set. A monoploid cell, however, is likely to be identical to the cell it was copied from.

In animals, haploid cells are found only in sex cells. In fungus and certain algae, however, haploid cells are the norm. Male bees, wasps, and ants are haploid because of the way they develop: from unfertilized, haploid eggs.

Spontaneously and induced haploidy were reported in several animal species, including Drosophila, salamander, frog, mouse,chicken et al. Usually haploidy in animals produces physiologically abnormal individuals that die during embryogenesis.

Haploid development is a normal part of the life cycle for some animals, but it has not been observed in mammals. Studies in mice have revealed that the preimplantation developmental potential of haploid embryos is significantly impaired relative to diploid embryos. The reasons for the severely limited developmental potential of haploid embryos in mammals have not been discerned. Development of haploid rabbit parthenogenones is also inefficient. This indicates that the mammalian genome, in contrast to genomes of other organisms, is subject to gene regulatory mechanisms that disrupt the ability of a haploid genome to support early development.”  

So based on Dr. Oommen and Ron Wyatt’s theory that the blood of Jesus had only 24 chromosomes, what does this make Jesus?  The “Rabbit of God that taketh away the sins of the world” or the “Chicken of God” or worse yet, the “Fungus of God”?  It all just goes to show how far Fundamentalists will go to deliberately lie to their children and to the public in general in order to give some kind of scientific basis to their irrational and historically and scientifically undefendable beliefs.

THE FOUNDING FATHERS THOUGHTS ON ORGANIZED RELIGION

THOMAS JEFFERSON AND OTHERS ON SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

     “The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man” (Letter to J. Moor, 1800).

     “The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion” (Letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800).

     “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes” (Letter to von Humboldt, 1813).

     “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own” (Letter to H. Spafford, 1814).

       “Nature has constituted utility to man the standard and test of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same act, therefore, may be useful and consequently virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced” (Letter to Thomas Law, 1814).

     “As the circumstances and opinions of different societies vary, so the acts which may do them right or wrong must vary also, for virtue does not consist in the act we do but in the end it is to effect. If it is to effect the happiness of him to whom it is directed, it is virtuous; while in a society under different circumstances and opinions the same act might produce pain and would be vicious. The essence of virtue is in doing good to others, while what is good may be one thing in one society and its contrary in another…” (Letter to John Adams, 1816).

     “Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to steal, murder, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality” (Letter to J. Fishback, 1809).

      “Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must disbelieve? “(Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to N. G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller, 1814.    

     “The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations.  The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious.  If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes; fools and hypocrites.  To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

-Thomas Jefferson

     “Our rulers can have no authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.” (Notes on Virginia, 1785).

       Now these last words of Jefferson are especially timely to me because if, as Jefferson said: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.” Then how, may I ask is my serving my country in the military injurious to others? And if the legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others, then how am I injuring others by marrying the person that I love? And if the legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others, then how am I injuring others by adopting a child that no one else wants?

       Other great Revolutionary War period thinkers had similar feelings on separation of Church and State such as Thomas Paine:

Thomas Paine
(1737-1809; author of Common Sense; key American patriotic writer)

      “As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of government to protect all conscientious protesters thereof, and I know of no other business government has to do therewith.” (Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776. As quoted by Leo Pfeffer, "The Establishment Clause: The Never-Ending Conflict," in Ronald C. White and Albright G. Zimmerman, An Unsettled Arena: Religion and the Bill of Rights, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990, p. 72.)

      “Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.” (Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791-1792. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, pp. 499-500.)

      “Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance but the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms: the one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, the other of granting it.” (Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, p. 58. As quoted by John M. Swomley, Religious Liberty and the Secular State: The Constitutional Context, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1987, p. 7. Swomley added, "Toleration is a concession; religious liberty is a right.")

      “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish [Muslim], appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the profession of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this?” (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Paul Blanshard, ed., Classics of Free Thought, Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1977, pp. 134-135.)

      “Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.” (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 494.)

      “Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.” (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 494.)

      “The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief against the character of the Divinity, the most destructive to morality and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist.” (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 494.)

     The Adulterous Connection Of Church And State. (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 500.)

       Despite his pre-eminent role in early American deism, [Elihu] Palmer (1764-1806) is scarcely remembered today. He has been overshadowed by his friend and associate Thomas Paine (1737-1809 [Elihu] Palmer's first major public address after moving to New York was given on Christmas Day 1796. He came out swinging, rejecting the divinity of Jesus as a "very singular and unnatural" event, and condemning as both immoral and incomprehensible the doctrines of original sin, atonement, faith and regeneration. The lecture was well attended and widely read when published. Reaction from the Christian establishment was swift and predictably hostile, but something in Palmer's message caught on with many of his auditors and readers. Invitations to speak poured in from Baltimore, Newburgh and even Philadelphia. The following is part of the text of his public address:

     “Twelve centuries of moral and political darkness, in which Europe was involved, had nearly completed the destruction of human dignity, and every thing valuable or ornamental in the character of man. During this long and doleful night of ignorance, slavery, and superstition, Christianity reigned triumphant; its doctrines and divinity were not called in question. The power of the Pope, the Clergy, and the Church were omnipotent; nothing could restrain their frenzy, nothing could control the cruelty of their fanaticism; with mad enthusiasm they set on foot the most bloody and terrific crusades, the object of which was to recover the Holy Land. Seven hundred thousand men are said to have perished in the two first expeditions, which had been thus commenced and carried on by the pious zeal of the Christian church, and in the total amount, several millions were found numbered with the dead: the awful effects of religious fanaticism presuming upon the aid of heaven. It was then that man lost all his dignity, and sunk to the condition of a brute; it was then that intellect received a deadly blow, from which it did not recover until the fifteenth century.

     From that time to the present, the progress of knowledge has been constantly accelerated; independence of mind has been asserted, and opposing obstacles have been gradually diminished. The church has resigned a part of her power, the better to retain the remainder; civil tyranny has been shaken to its center in both hemispheres; the malignity of superstition is abating, and every species of quackery, imposture, and imposition, are yielding to the light and power of science. An awful contest has commenced, which must terminate in the destruction of thrones and civil despotism; in the annihilation of ecclesiastical pride and domination....

     Church and State may unite to form an insurmountable barrier against the extension of thought, the moral progress of nations, and the felicity of nature; but let it be recollected, that the guarantee for moral and political emancipation is already deposited in the archives of every school and college, and in the mind of every cultivated and enlightened man of all countries. It will henceforth be a vain and fruitless attempt to reduce the earth to that state of slavery of which the history of former ages has furnished such an awful picture. The crimes of ecclesiastical despots are still corroding upon the very vitals of human society; the severities of civil power will never be forgotten”. –Elihu Palmer

(Elihu Palmer, Principles of Nature; or, a Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery Among the Human Species, 3rd ed., 1806; as reprinted in Kerry S. Walters, Elihu Palmer's ÔPrinciples of Nature': Text and Commentary, Wolfeboro, N. H.: Longwood Academic, 1990, pp. 82-83. )

       Now, some two hundred years later, freedom, democracy, and education in this country are once more threatened by the same forces of ecclesiastical bigotry and fanaticism which existed then in Elihu Palmer’s day, only now they have built up an extensive power base of money and all of the political power which money can buy to further their agenda. They have the ability to manipulate the markets; create shortages; deprive us of our pensions; destroy the economies of nations in one geographical area so that they may boost the economies in another area where THEY stand to benefit the most. It’s all within their grasp and there is absolutely no one, Republican or Democrat that seems to be willing to stand up against them. Of course not; it would be political suicide.

      

    

BLATANT CONTRADICTIONS

                                                    BLATANT CONTRADICTIONS

Not only is the Genesis account an unsatisfactory explanation of how our world situation came to be the way it is, but theologically, it, and large portions of the Old Testament are a blatant contradiction of other portions of the Bible and especially the New Testament.  I John 4:8 tells us that “God is love” or in essense that God is the personification of love. The Apostle Paul in I Cor 13:4-7 defines Love in these words:

 “ Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (New International Version UK).

     Even the Old Testament in Proverbs 10:12 tells us that “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.” And yet Lev 17:11 tells us that “it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” Likewise in the New Testament Heb 9:22 tells us that “without the shedding of blood thee is no remission of sins.” So which is it ?

      If love “covers all sins” rather than blood, then why did Yahweh require thousands of animal sacrifices yearly and why did God The Father of the New Testament require a human sacrifice in the form of Jesus in order to forgive the sins of Adam and Eve and mankind?  Why could he not have just forgiven Adam and Eve ? And why condemn the children for the sins of their parents?  And if according to the Apostle Paul, Love “ does not envy” and “is not easily angered” and “keeps no record of wrongs”, then why did Yahweh say: “For I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” ? Exodus 20:5. Jesus in Matt 18:22 tells us that we should forgive ou brothers up to seventy seven times, yet his Father could not forgive Adam and Eve once ? 

     These are not trivial contradictions.  They call into question the entire nature of God. Is He a God of Love and a God worthy of devotion or is He a tyrant who gives us free will on the one hand while at the same time warning us that the penalty for exercising that free will is death and destruction ? Can God just forgive and forget as his son instructs us to do? Or can He only be appeased by blood? And yet these teachings are the basis for at least three of the world’s major religions.

     Is it any wonder that these three religions have never been able to effectively co-exist and have in fact been the main source of much of the suffering and strife experienced by millions over the last two thousand years. Is it any wonder that these kind of teachings continue to inspire and be the basis for terrorism and war down to this very day; each of them looking upon the others as infidels ?  Like Father, like son.  They are incapable of forgiving and forgetting; incapable of compromise; they are only appeased by revenge and the outpouring of blood.

     And yet while inseparably linked by their concepts of  “The Fall of Man”, each of these religions claims to be distinctly and uniquely the “Chosen People” to the detriment of the other two.  And of course all three see other religions which do not share their commonality as definitely beyond the pale, they see those worshipers as pagans and infidels. Judaism, Islam and Christianity all claim to be based on a unique revelation direct from God and that they are distinct from other religions in their rites and practices which God imparted directly to them.

     The Jews and Moslems claim circumcision as a unique rite imparted to them by God through the patriarch Abraham to set them aside as holy and consecrated to God and unique from all other men. Yet archeological findings reveal that circumcision was practiced by the priestly classes of Egypt and by African tribes way before the days of Abraham.  The Jews took great pride in their Ark of the Covenant, the small wooden shrine which was carried with poles by the Levite priests and which contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments. But arks of similar design containing statues of deities were carried in procession by the Egyptian priests long before Aaron fashioned the Ark of the Covenant. Likewise the rituals surrounding animal sacrifice and purification practiced by the Israelites were not all that different from those of their surrounding neighbors, the Egyptians and Babylonians.

     The Jews claim to be the first practitioners of monotheism, but that is also untrue as we know that monotheism was first practiced in Egypt under the reign of  Pharoah Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) and his Queen, Nefertiti long before Moses or the captivity of the Jews in Egypt. Many of the psalms written by Akhenaten centuries before the Exodus are identical to psalms purportedly written by King David at a time much later in history. The Epoch of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian account of the Great Flood predates the Genesis account of the Flood of Noah by many centuries and those writings exist in stone and can be dated as do the ancient Egyptian texts and are far earlier than any of the Biblical writings,  existing copies of which only date back to the period of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews in the sixth century BC. So one can be justified in wondering, is Judaism the result of a direct revelation of God to the Hebrew patriarchs or merely a creation of a much later date by Jewish scribes and scholars during their captivity in Babylon and based partly on the monotheism of Akhenaten and the rituals and ancient writings of their captors, the Babylonians? I find it odd that the Israelites, who felt justified in practicing genocide in the name of God on their neighbors, the Canaanites and Phillistines due to those people’s practice of child sacrifice, include in their scriptures a laudatory account of their patriarch Abraham in the act of sacrificing his own son Isaac, who but for the grace of God would have ended up as a burnt offering. See Genesis 22:1-12.

     Likewise one can ask the question, is Christianity so unique as to be clearly the result of a direct revelation of God through his son, Jesus or is it merely a compilation of faiths extant during the first century in Israel and other areas along the trade routes which connected to Israel?  No one is saying here that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist, there is historical evidence that he did. But were his teachings so unique and revolutionary or were many of them in existance before and during his time on earth?  We know for a fact that the Essene community which existed in the land of Israel prior to and during the preaching tours of Jesus taught basically the same concepts of purity, piety, forgiveness and brotherhood that Jesus taught because we now have their writings which were discovered in the 1950’s. Other facets of what make up our current belief system of who Jesus was, but which he did not clearly state himself during his lifetime and were attributed to him after his death may well have come from other earlier sources.

     The Vatican was built upon the grounds previously devoted to the worship of Mithra, one of the greatest gods of ancient Persia. His worship began around 600BC and flourished until the 2^nd century AD throughout a large portion of the ancient world. The entire Messianic idea originated in ancient Persia and this is where the Jewish and Christian concepts of a Savior came from. Mithra was considered a great traveling teacher and master.  He had twelve companions and performed miracles.  He was called “the good shephered”, “the way, the truth and the light”’”redeemer”, “savior” and was considered the mediator between God and men.  He was identified with both the lion and the lamb, as was the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah” and the “Lamb of God, Jesus.  His ceremonies included a sort of baptism to remove sins, anointing, and a sacred meal of bread and water, while a consecrated wine, believed to possess wonderful power played a prominent part according to the International Encyclopedia.

     Profesor Franz Cumont of the University of Ghent wrote that the worshippers of Mithra “held Sunday sacred, and celebrated the birth of the Sun on the 25^th of December.” He added that they believed in a Heaven inhabited by beatified ones and a Hell peopled by demons. They believed in the immortality of the soul, in a last judgement and in a resurrection of the dead and upon a final conflagration of the universe. (“The Mysteries of Mithras”, pp 190,191).

     In the catacombs at Rome was preserved a relic of the old Mithraic worship.  It was a picture of the infant Mithra seated in the lap of his virgin mother, while on their knees before him were Persian Magi adoring him and offering gifts. This is not unlike carvings in the Temple of Karnak in Egypt picturing the young infant god Horus, seated on the lap of his virgin mother Isis.  Mithra was purportedly buried in a tomb and after three days he rose again.  His resurrection was celebrated yearly.  Mithra had his principal festival on what was later to become Easter, at which time he was resurrected.  His sacred day was Sunday, “the Lord’s Day” and his religion had a Eucharist or “Lord’s Supper”.

     Now is this all merely coincidence or are we seeing here a pattern used by the Church long after the death of Jesus and his apostles for the metamorphosis of Jesus from merely an enlightened itinerant teacher to the Son of God? Let’s face it, most of what is taught by the institutional Church of today, far more than what can be found in the gospels, was assembled at the time of Constantine in the fourth century AD including the present Bible canon or list of which sacred writings, of which there were thousands, were to be considered what we now call the Bible. Out of those thousands of writings only 66 were selected to make up the Bible. Is it possible that Emperor Constantine, who saw an opportunity to unite his vast empire through creating a powerful State Religion, engineered which writings and teachings would be acceptable and which would not ? which writings would support the divinity of Jesus and which would not ? And we must not forget St. Helena, the mother of Constantine who was the real star of the time.  She went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and came back with enough pieces of the True Cross and enough True Nails to build a small condominium complex. She also found Mary’s kitchen table, the Veil of Veronica and the original manger from Bethlehem after all of those items had been lost for three hundred years.  She even located all of the original holy sites like the room where Jesus ate the Last Supper, even though Jerusalem had been burnt and sacked by the Romans some three hundred years earlier and there had undoubtedly been some reconstruction during the intervening years.
     And is this also why the vast numbers of scrolls which were discovered in the mid 20^th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hamadi writings have only recently been translated and released to the general public more than fifty years after their discovery? Were Israeli and Christian authorities doing all within their power to keep those writings from the general public out of fear that they might somehow contradict rabbinical and Church teachings?

INTELLIGENT DESIGN ???

Collisions of Stars

Background

Like human beings, stars evolve and change their appearance substantially during their lifetime. They are born from the collapse of huge galactic gas clouds and contract under the influence of gravity until they become hot enough for nuclear reactions to ignite their interior. Stars spend most of their life burning their nuclear fuel quietly. A good example of a typical star, a so-called Main Sequence Star, is our sun that is currently burning hydrogen into helium. Once their nuclear fuel is exhausted, stars die. Depending on their mass they either blow up tremendously first, then eject their envelopes and finally leave behind a cold and very dense remnant, a so-called White Dwarf, or they end their lives in a spectacular explosion, a Supernova. Such a Supernova leaves behind the most exotic objects in the universe: either a Neutron Star, something like a giant atomic nucleus of about 10 km radius, or a Black Hole.

Collisions between stellar objects do occur quite frequently in the universe, either in places with a high density of stars like in a Globular Cluster  or in binary systems, that emit according to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity Gravitational Waves and finally coalesce. Collisions between a Black Hole of a few solar masses and stars like our sun occur quite frequently in Globular Clusters.

The Five Worst Extinctions in Earth's History

Here are details of the five worst mass extinctions in Earths history and their possible causes, according to paleobiologist Doug Erwin of the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of Natural History. Erwin said estimates of extinction rates are from the late John J. Sepkoski at the University of Chicago:

Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, about 65 million years ago, probably caused or aggravated by impact of several-mile-wide asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater now hidden on the Yucatan Peninsula and beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Some argue for other causes, including gradual climate change or flood-like volcanic eruptions of basalt lava from Indias Deccan Traps. The extinction killed 16 percent of marine families, 47 percent of marine genera (the classification above species) and 18 percent of land vertebrate families, including the dinosaurs.

End Triassic extinction, roughly 199 million to 214 million years ago, most likely caused by massive floods of lava erupting from the central Atlantic magmatic province -- an event that triggered the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. The volcanism may have led to deadly global warming. Rocks from the eruptions now are found in the eastern United States, eastern Brazil, North Africa and Spain. The death toll: 22 percent of marine families, 52 percent of marine genera. Vertebrate deaths are unclear.

Permian-Triassic extinction, about 251 million years ago. Many scientists suspect a comet or asteroid impact, although direct evidence has not been found. Others believe the cause was flood volcanism from the Siberian Traps and related loss of oxygen in the seas. Still others believe the impact triggered the volcanism and also may have done so during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. The Permian-Triassic catastrophe was Earths worst mass extinction, killing 95 percent of all species, 53 percent of marine families, 84 percent of marine genera and an estimated 70 percent of land species such as plants, insects and vertebrate animals.

Late Devonian extinction, about 364 million years ago, cause unknown. It killed 22 percent of marine families and 57 percent of marine genera. Erwin said little is known about land organisms at the time.

Ordovician-Silurian extinction, about 439 million years ago, caused by a drop in sea levels as glaciers formed, then by rising sea levels as glaciers melted. The toll: 25 percent of marine families and 60 percent of marine genera.

Throughout the history of life, extinction has been a natural and inherent part of the Earth's ever-fluctuating biodiversity.  Environmental changes and interspecific competition necessarily produce "unsuccessful" organisms, species not well suited for survival in their ecological niche.  The result of such a condition is either evolutionary adaptation or extinction.  In the latter case, an evolutionary line is ended, and, as is often the case, new lines emerge to fill the vacated niche space.  Thus, life forms appear and disappear and biodiversity is maintained through a complex balance of speciation and extinction.

The only explanation that has been posed, and, perhaps, the only explanation that can be posed for periodicity is that mass extinctions have and ultimately extraterrestrial cause.  Astronomical forces seem to be the only ones to act with sufficient precision to explain the rather exact schedule of mass extinction events under the periodic theory.  The regular timing of the cosmos could possibly inflict mass extinction on the Earth via climatic changes or even regular bolide impact events.  In the case of the latter, it has been postulated that periodic disturbances in the comet cloud, perhaps caused by the passage of our solar system through the outer reaches of the Milky Way or by a hypothetical dark star or tenth planet, send comets hurtling toward Earth at regular intervals.



Mass extinctions are often signifiers of large-scale climatic, environmental changes, often global in nature.  Many organisms are naturally unfit for these changes and are lost, while some adapt to the changed environment.  Mass extinctions often leave behind a great deal of unused niche space and the opportunity for adaptive radiation is great.  Trends will of course appear as the fossil record is viewed over the long term.  Some taxa will survive well through the traumatic mass extinction events while other forms will be repeatedly lost.  Specific examples will be examined later in respect to each major extinction event.  One of the most important aspects of the macroevolutionary record is the profound differences found between what adaptations are helpful in regard to "everyday" survival and survival in the midst of a mass extinction event.  In this way, these events significantly shape what lines persist and what lines become evolutionary dead ends.

References
Donovan, Stephen K. Mass Extinctions.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
Ridley, Marc. Evolution.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell Science, 1996.
Stanley, Steven M. Extinction.  New York: Scientific American Books, 1987.

     Now does any of the foregoing support belief in an almighty, omnipotent, omniscient, omni benevolent deity who created everything directly and for a specific purpose and who “numbers the hairs on our heads and notices even the fall of a sparrow”? Of course fundamentalists would argue that the reason for planetary calamities and imperfections in animal and human life forms is all due to Original Sin. However I don’t believe that Adam and Eve existed when all of the aforementioned global calamities and extinctions of life took place some 65 million plus years ago.

GENESIS CREATION ACCOUNTS

Being that the basis of all of the negative theology which modern day fundamentalists use to condemn not only homosexuals, but man himself as being “born in sin and shaped in iniquity originates in the Genesis account of Adam and Eve,  I think that we should examine that account carefully. The first thing that one notices in reading Genesis is that there is more than one account of creation, apparently written by several different authors at different points in time and then meticulously pieced together in an attempt to make it look as though written by one author. But the attempt is anything but “seamless” and riddled with contradictions. Modern day linguists and historians know for a fact that there were at least two distinct sources for Genesis; they call them “E” for Elohist sources, “J” for Yahwist sources and possibly more. The Elohist renderings of Genesis and creation appear to be the more positive of the two while the Yahwist versions of the same events are far more negative and punitive.

       Just to give you some examples, the Elohist version of creation found in the first  chapter of Genesis  describes all animal life created as male and female at the time of their creation, including man and woman. And God gives dominion to both man and woman over all of the other animals and tells them that he has given them “EVERY PLANT BEARING SEED UPON THE FACE OF THE EARTH AND EVERY TREE…” Gen 1:29. God closes chapter one by declaring : “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” Gen 1:31.

       But then the second chapter of Genesis begins the Yahwist version which rearranges all that and God starts doing some “take backs” and reorganization of pecking order in his creation.  In the second chapter of Genesis, Adam is not created simultaneously along with Eve; no, in the second chapter of Genesis God parades all of the animals past Adam and has him name them and when no suitable partner is found for him, as an after-thought, God creates Eve from Adam’s rib; thereby aluding to the fact that she should be dependent upon him and subservient to him.

        Also God now changes his mind and tells them that one of the trees that HE planted in the garden is deadly and that they should not even touch it lest they die.  A deadly tree in the midst of a perfect garden which God Himself had declared “good” only one chapter before?  Also God had given man and woman “dominion” or control over all animal life in Genesis 1:28, so how is it that one of these creatures over which Adam had dominion at this point (no fall from grace yet) was able to trick him and decieve him? And if this talking serpant was in fact the Devil as Church writers and theologians would lead us to believe, then where in deed did that “evil” come from since God had created everything? How or why would God even allow this? Jesus taught us in Matt 7:17,18 that “Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” So if that’s the case? Then where did the Devil or this talking serpant come from? This seems a little odd to me. But don’t take my word for it, read it for yourselves.

       There is an answer to all of this, but it’s going to be a real “Mrs. Marple twistaroo” that you would never have guessed in 6,000 years.  And now are you ready for this? For $6,000,000 dollars, eternal mental and intellectual freedom, freedom from guilt and hangups and hell fire; do you want to know the answer? Do you want to see what’s behind door number 2 ?  Or would you rather play it safe with your cozy god; hold onto your scapulars; confess to the world and to your brothers and sisters that you are a worthless, fallen child of Eve; worthy only of death and eternal fire unless some compassionate angel should show you mercy by urinating on you to cool the flames.  

      
     Well, whether you want it or not, here’s the answer: THE ONLY ONE TELLING THE TRUTH IN GENESIS IS THE SERPENT, and I will explain to you why I believe this to be the case. Am I not glad that I put this toward the end of my book? If I had put it in the beginning, you would never have read this far.  Seriously, though, allow me to advance my theory and it is only a theory, but one which I feel explains the radical difference between Eastern and Western thought and spirituality.