Literally the bible... part 2

Oh man... Here we go again...
GENESIS, CH. 2 (New International Version)


¹ Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

So, we left off with the earth all done n' shit.

² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

Because being all powerful and able to do anything at all at any time is exhausting. Wait... what?

³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Ok, the nap He took makes us have to grovel in churches and sing hymns in boring, monotone fashion? I'm jumping ahead here, forgive me (hehehe, like he has a choice!)

⁴ This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

But we went through this last chapter! How would your book sell if the second chapter was just the characters saying things like "remember how we used to ..." and then recounting the entire thing?

⁵ Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground,

But he made the water before the land. That's what happened in the previous chapter, isn't it?

⁶ but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.

^Sigh...

⁷ Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Ok, on a side note here, if we extrapolate this, we can assume that once a person starts breathing, they have been fully created. Ergo, life starts at the first breath and not at conception. This leaves the abortion debate a moot point. Fetuses don't breathe. But I'm getting ahead of myself again. So man was made of mud and had the breath of life breathed into him by god. I wonder what god's breath smelled like. I'm picturing pepper and mangoes, but I'm just guessing.

⁸ Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

^{So man was originally created as a landscaper.}

⁹ The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So the tree of life and the tree of knowledge were separate trees? What happens if you eat from both trees? Would you live forever and know the difference between good and evil? If so, you'd be a damn sight cooler than you are now. What were you thinking? Idiot... next time eat BOTH fruit!

¹⁰ A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.

^{Ok, we have our first bit of geography. Rivers flowed from Eden.}

¹¹ The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.

I feel like a Hardy boy! "Ok, we have a place where four rivers diverge and there's a lot of gold!"

¹² (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.)

^{"Now we have even more information! This mystery will solve itself in no time!"}

¹³ The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.

Pfft... No... I won't... Can't... Will not compare ZZ Top to the bible... Can't stop... I said lord take me downtown, I'm just lookin' for some Cush!

¹⁴ The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Now we can find out where it is. I am so gonna find this place! And build a Wal-Mart!

¹⁵ The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

"And don't sleep with my wife like the last landscaper did! Had to send him and the entire staff to hell!"

¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;

^{"Ok... Where's the bacon tree?"}

¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

"Sounds legit. Don't eat the poisoned stuff. I sure hope someone doesn't come along and tempts me into eating the fruit... that person would doom their entire group to millenia of suffering and oppression at the hands of the group of people who were stupid enough to fall for it! Imagine how THAT would be!"

¹⁸ The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

"For I am sick of seeing him shagging the dog."

¹⁹ Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

^{"Australopithicus aferensis, Australopithicus africanus, Homo habilus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo erectus, and Homo neanderthalus, We don't need you anymore, thanks. The line for extinction forms on the left."}

²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

^{"Dammit! Who's gonna make me sammiches and open my beer?"}

²¹ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.

Yeah, my frat buddies did that to me at the pledge week, too. They also drew a dick on my forehead. (Just kidding, I'd never join a fraternity!)

²² Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

"So finally my sticky-outy bit won't be so confusing!"

²³ The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

See that!? Who gave the original gift of life? Just 'cause you women do it now doesn't mean that we haven't in the past! It was our idea! Bro-burned!

²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

... Ew.

²⁵ Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Because they were HAWT!

Stay tuned because next time Eve screws it all up. Leave it to a woman...

Literally the bible... part 1.

(America's foremost creationist recreating his O face... Think about that next time you're feeling romantic...)

I'm not one to disparage the religious beliefs of others (snicker). However, literal biblical interpretation seems to be... ridiculous. After all, if one takes the bible literally, one has to contend not only with the inconsistencies and logical mistakes, one also has to ignore the mountains (literally... Mountains) of evidence that suggests the earth is much, Much, MUCH older than they say it is. However, their defense is to tell me to read the bible as a history book, taking it seriously and using it not as a guide to lead a moral life (which is strange, because there are some things in it that I don't consider moral... at ALL) but as literally as possible. So here we go...

GENESIS, CH. 1 (New International Version)

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Ok, so far no testable hypotheses, but I'm willing to go along...

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Hang on a second. If the waters were there, there was a form... the form of oceans. What exactly is meant by this?

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
From where?

4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Uh... ok.

5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
So that was the first day. How did God know how long a day was without the light? Oh yeah... omniscient.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.”
But all the oceans connect with each other. The border that separates the Atlantic from the Pacific is imaginary.

7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.
Ok, land, got it...

8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
The vault was sky? So in the beginning the universe was a pool? I don't get it.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.
Ok, here's the land. Gotcha. Still don't know where the light came from if the universe was water, though.

10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Ok, so we've separated the water from the air, the land from the water. So far, actually, one could kind of say that this is the way the earth formed... kind of... if you squint really hard.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
Woah there, Kemosabe... First of all, what's a "kind?" Second, how did the seed bearing plants survive without insects to pollinate them? Spore release on the wind? That's quite inefficient. Mosses use low flowing water to spawn, and ferns used the whole air/spore deal, but those don't bear fruits... Fruits and seeds are different "kinds" from those other plants. Well, lets keep going...

12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
See the above retort.

13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
Ok, so plants, who now are totally reliant on insects for reproduction, were in the beginning completely separate from the insects. Did the fall make god so pissed at everything that the plants needed bugs to crawl along their reproductive organs? That apple was a much bigger deal than we thought.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,
So god made the seasons AFTER the plants... What?

15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.
Didn't he already make lights?

16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
The moon reflects sunlight, it doesn't produce it. And where did the light come from before he made the light later in the week? Is anyone else confused?

17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth,
Again, confused.

18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
I should hope so. The day/night thing involves the rotation of the earth. If we didn't rotate, one area would cook and the other would be void. That would be SERIOUSLY bad planning.

19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Ok, three days pass before the days are seperated. Makes perfect sense.

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”
Here's the kicker. God creates creeping life. www.talkorigins.org for a full refutation of this concept.

21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Hell yeah it's good! We all love chicken fingers, even though they don't fly.

22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”
So god needed to tell the critters to do what is needed to reproduce? Did they really need encouragement? I don't.

23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
To recap: God creates things all out of order and in strange ways, with no discernible pattern or method other than magic, and humans aren't even in the picture yet, even though we, ostensibly, ARE critters.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so.
Wait... livestock and other animals are of a separate group of "kinds" from the birds and the sea-critters? What kind of weirdness is this? And did the land produce them or did god create them?

25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Ok, so far god made chicken fingers before hamburgers, but included puppies with hamburgers (metaphorically speaking). Should we eat puppies? I'll try it... but I'm skeptical.


26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So god makes man out of "their" image. I'm sure he means the angels, but you try to get something this vague past Scientific American. Also, "rule over" doesn't really mean "eat," although that would have made medieval England much more interesting...

27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Good. At least both men and women get equal dominion over the world! Think about how it would be if just MEN had the power!

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Once again, I know that I don't need any encouragement...

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
God wanted us to be vegetarian. Sweet!

30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Ok, so lions, with their sharp, pointy teeth, sharks, with their MANY sharp pointy teeth, and raptors, with their scary, MANY sharp pointy teeth, were supposed to be veggies. I've never seen a meat plant. But maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
In less than a week... If we're made in "their" image, why can't I get my house cleaned in an hour, much less create universes in a week?

Stay tuned for next time, when we take all that above stuff... and contradict it.