It Was A Good Story...

...to explain a lot of things in the world to ignorant early civilizations, and to give people a good outline for how they should act with respect to morality; but the truth is the Bible, or any other religious book as far as I am aware, never addressed subjects going back more than several thousand years from the present time, and probably not more than a few thousand or so years before it was written. I believe that now though, the time has come and long since passed, that people need to realize that the Bible and other religious books were written by people, and then later transcribed by other people in the languages of the world. These people could have had no to extremely little knowledge of the world when it began, and how it developed over the eons, so to explain anything these books say, and still say, religious people attribute the words of such books to God.

I am not really a believer in God as most people understand God. I believe in spirituality but not a God Almighty per se, yet I do believe in one overwhelming spiritual power - that of the universe itself. Without going further into my spiritual beliefs though, I want to further address the beliefs of they who believe in the truth of such religious books, and who do not give any credence to the science that states the world is millions or billions of years old, to people who will not accept the truth in front of their own faces because they refuse to give up a claim they have made for years - that the Bible or other religious books such as the Quran explain everything. They simply do not, despite the fact that people believe them to be the word of God.

If these religious books were the fonts of all knowledge as they seemingly claim to be, then why is there no mention of so many things, that we have proof of having existed. The religious books make many mentions of animals throughout there texts. Animals of all types, especially domestic animals, and wild animals that caused a threat to ancient people, seemed to be mentioned often in these books. For example sheep, lions, goats, serpents, locusts, birds, are all mentioned in religious books, as are others. These animals are also mentioned in lay historical accounts of the ancient times. Something the religious books make no mention of, nor are they mentioned in historical accounts, are living dinosaurs; well that is unless you ant to give credence to a few tales of the Loch Ness Monster and to the knights fighting fire breathing Dragons (but then again dragons that breathe fire are a bit much).

Now, all of a sudden, some Christians who are strict creationists have developed a museum wherein they display dinosaurs and other prehistoric life and try to explain that all of these creatures lived within about the past few thousand years or so, and that they have proof of this in religious texts, and the word of God. They are apparently trying to make their argument, which is a religious argument, seem to be based upon science with the creation of a 'Creation Museum'. I am sorry but I just cannot buy into it. If that makes me a heathen, then so be it; but I would rather be what I believe to be a fairly intelligent heathen than a person who insists in believing that the world is only a few to several thousand years old, and that all of the dinosaurs walked the earth within that time frame. Believe what you want, teach it in public schools if you want (along with science), but don't ram it down my throat as being gospel and therefore the truth. There is just too much evidence out there to suggest otherwise than it being true, and too little evidence to suggest likewise in support of its so called truth.

Still the Bible and other books may be the word of God to man, but then again who is anyone among mankind to think that God told us all there was to tell, or even that God told us the truth. Pretty assuming on the part of anyone who believes in the word of God to believe that mankind was worthy enough to hear it all. I guess that has always been one of my biggest gripes with organized religions, each faith seemingly preaches about God, and the word of God, as if their religion was the final word on everything. Science can get that way sometimes too, but the thing about science is that it is constantly challenged, constantly rewritten, and always evolving because of more and more evidence about, and therefore more and more understanding of the universe. Just my opinion, but I believe it to be somewhat pompous and overbearing on the part of religious zealots to claim that they were special enough to have heard it all from the mouth of God as if mankind was His confidant.

An Addendum 9added at 1705 hours 05/31/2007: I fully grant there may be a God, even though I believe otherwise than conventional religious wisdom. If you prefer to believe in God over science, or science over God okay by me. I think there is a lot of truth in the Bible, and other religious tomes, but do not agree that any of them are all explicative of the universe, and that stands even if they truly are the words of God in those books. It just amazes me how a person could even for a moment believe that mankind is so special that God revealed all there is to reveal to us; and that is exactly how the curators of this museum seem to be coming off.

All the best,

Glenn B