No Answers In Genesis
I like to chat with evangelists. I usually learn something, they might learn something, and we both get to sharpen our wits a bit in parrying each other’s arguments. I’ve had online conversations that have gone on for weeks.
My problem is that I really love the Bible. I consider it one of the foundation documents of Western civilization. Its stories, poems and proverbs are so much part of our culture that I don’t think it’s possible to be fully literate without familiarity with Scripture. You miss some really good jokes, for one thing. “He sold his birthright for a pot of message” groused one of Theodore Sturgeon’s characters about H.G. Wells. Makes no sense unless you know the story of Jacob’s deal with Esau. P.G. Wodehouse’s witty title “The Aunt and the Sluggard” is lost if you don’t know Proverbs 6:6.
Love of the Bible becomes a problem when one’s correspondent is attempting to use Scripture to prove his point about the existence of God. The argument goes like this: God exists, and the Holy Scriptures, his Word, prove it. The conversation then becomes one long Bible study from Genesis to Revelation, as various “proofs” of the Bible’s historicity or inerrancy are presented and shot down, with each side calling upon two thousand years of commentary and criticism and the occasional bit of archaeology.
This can be lots of fun, as I said, but only if both sides are honest and at least conventionally sane. Here’s a touchstone: if the theist believes in a literal Adam and Eve and Noah’s Ark, don’t waste your time talking about Scripture. One of you is speaking from a place of reason and logic, the other is committed to fantasy and delusion. There is no common ground on which you can base a discussion. It is like trying to find your way to the hotel using a map of Middle Earth.
Here’s just one example of what I mean. We know that our planet is a sphere, revolving around a star we call the Sun, in an arm of a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, in a universe containing hundreds of billions of galaxies. The Bible account of the creation of the universe begins with a flat earth being created on the first day, an overarching vault (from a root word meaning beaten out, as one would beat out a brass bowl on an anvil) created on the second, and the sun, moon and stars placed in that vault on the fourth day. The ancient belief that the world was flat extends even into the New Testament, where Satan tempts Jesus by taking him to a high mountain and showing him all the kingdoms of the earth (Matthew 4:8), something impossible on a sphere. Hebrew cosmology was lovely and poetic, but we know it cannot be literally true. Shaking the firmament will never cause stars to rain down upon the earth “even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.” (Revelation 6:13)
The best rejoinder I’ve ever heard to “The Bible says...” is, “Captain Kirk said, ‘What does God need with a starship?’”The two statements are of identical truth-value. When the Biblical literalist proves the existence of God, then we can discuss any books God may have authored. Until then, it’s just a circular argument: God exists because he says he exists in the book he caused to have written which we know he inspired because it says he did....
My problem is that I really love the Bible. I consider it one of the foundation documents of Western civilization. Its stories, poems and proverbs are so much part of our culture that I don’t think it’s possible to be fully literate without familiarity with Scripture. You miss some really good jokes, for one thing. “He sold his birthright for a pot of message” groused one of Theodore Sturgeon’s characters about H.G. Wells. Makes no sense unless you know the story of Jacob’s deal with Esau. P.G. Wodehouse’s witty title “The Aunt and the Sluggard” is lost if you don’t know Proverbs 6:6.
Love of the Bible becomes a problem when one’s correspondent is attempting to use Scripture to prove his point about the existence of God. The argument goes like this: God exists, and the Holy Scriptures, his Word, prove it. The conversation then becomes one long Bible study from Genesis to Revelation, as various “proofs” of the Bible’s historicity or inerrancy are presented and shot down, with each side calling upon two thousand years of commentary and criticism and the occasional bit of archaeology.
This can be lots of fun, as I said, but only if both sides are honest and at least conventionally sane. Here’s a touchstone: if the theist believes in a literal Adam and Eve and Noah’s Ark, don’t waste your time talking about Scripture. One of you is speaking from a place of reason and logic, the other is committed to fantasy and delusion. There is no common ground on which you can base a discussion. It is like trying to find your way to the hotel using a map of Middle Earth.
Here’s just one example of what I mean. We know that our planet is a sphere, revolving around a star we call the Sun, in an arm of a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, in a universe containing hundreds of billions of galaxies. The Bible account of the creation of the universe begins with a flat earth being created on the first day, an overarching vault (from a root word meaning beaten out, as one would beat out a brass bowl on an anvil) created on the second, and the sun, moon and stars placed in that vault on the fourth day. The ancient belief that the world was flat extends even into the New Testament, where Satan tempts Jesus by taking him to a high mountain and showing him all the kingdoms of the earth (Matthew 4:8), something impossible on a sphere. Hebrew cosmology was lovely and poetic, but we know it cannot be literally true. Shaking the firmament will never cause stars to rain down upon the earth “even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.” (Revelation 6:13)
The best rejoinder I’ve ever heard to “The Bible says...” is, “Captain Kirk said, ‘What does God need with a starship?’”The two statements are of identical truth-value. When the Biblical literalist proves the existence of God, then we can discuss any books God may have authored. Until then, it’s just a circular argument: God exists because he says he exists in the book he caused to have written which we know he inspired because it says he did....