Creationism can suck my giant scrotum sack!
okay, now that the title has scared away the baby-Christians, let's get started, shall we?
First, I wish to point out that I am not an atheist. I will not choose to disbelieve because some of the things my church said didn't sit well in my mental tummy. I am, and probably always will be, a believer. Well, a "hoper", anyway.
There are only two things I will take on faith.
- That God exists. Let's face it, there's not a lot of corroborative evidence for that is there? So, faith it is!
- That the Bible is His inspired message. He crafted its contents. And if I'm gonna believe #1, I might as well believe #2.
Having said all that, there is one thing I will not take on faith, and that is what other people claim the Bible says or what the scriptures might mean. Humans are fallible and vain. They are often mistaken about many things and they hate to be seen as ignorant and uninformed about them. Which means you can be sure that there a lot of crazy notions out there about the contents of the Bible. And I mean crazy
That means I try to study the Word objectively, logically and even skeptically. I ignore established doctrines, dogma, and other unsubstantiated beliefs and just try to figure out what God was really trying to say. However, not only has the Bible changed over the years, so have we. That means that a good deal of the Bible might not mean what we think it does. So sometimes we have to step back and try to figure out what it meant to the people at the time of its writing.
Not an easy task, let me tell you!
So, what does the Bible say about Creationism?
Oddly enough... not much: "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth."
That's it. Creation done! Nothing more to see here.
But what of the seven days, you are asking. Isn't that creation?
Uhm. No. More like... re-creation.
I could go into how the earth would recover from something like a nuclear winter, and how the seven days parallels such a recovery, but let's get to Genesis 1:27-29 where, on the Sixth day, God makes man(kind) and gives him two commandments. One of them is about what he can eat. You'll notice no eating animals and certainly no farming.
Then there's another commandment: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.
That word, 'replenish'. You do know what it means, right? It means to replace that which was there before and is now gone. And what does that mean? It means that at some point before God said, "let there be light," the earth must have been teeming with life. And something happened to all that.
They don't mention that in those churches, now, do they? And yet, there it is.. in Biblical print.
The whole Creationist mumbo-jumbo doesn't appear to sit well with what the Bible says. Furthermore, the Creationists claim that the Bible dates the earth at around 6,000 years old. Well, I tell you that it says no such thing! All it says that it has been about 6,000 years since the days when Adam was created. And what's more, the Bible never tells you how much time passed between the creation of man on the sixth day and the creation of Adam (the first farmer). It could have been ten hours or around 2 million years.
Of course, science has shown us that it was probably the latter.
I don't expect you to agree with me. You were probably raised to believe something else. Something you were told by others and you might not have questioned it. But a faith not questioned is like a house poorly built. All I ask is that you start evaluating your beliefs. Question what you've been told. Shake the tree a few times and see if there's any fruit.
And if something clicks, share with others. It's only right.
As for evolution, I don't see anything in the Bible that contradicts that idea. However, I am not an expert on evolution so I'm not going to go into that. I don't want to be wrong and give you bad info. But it's not out of the question.
So grab your Bibles. Open to the first page. Read. Question. Consider. Pray. Contemplate. Think about it in an objective, logical and skeptical manner. Don't expect everything to make sense right away. It could take months before you hear that 'click' in your understanding.
And if you should decide to become an atheist, that's just fine. You at least looked beyond the fairy-tale world that others have imposed upon you since you were a child and that's good. You took the time to think for yourself.
God would approve.