Readers: I am posting this most recent e-mail as an example of the lengths one must go to in order to make biblical events surrounding the earth’s creation seem reasonable. In my new book, “Disproving Christianity: Refuting the World’s Most Followed Religion”, I discuss the book of Genesis and the order of creation at great length- including the ways in which the Bible tells time compared to our scientific understanding of earth’s origin and contradictions that Genesis creates including the secondary creation story. But here, I will simply post an e-mail from Colin, along with some minor commentary on my part (visible in RED).
David,
My name is Colin and I’ve inadvertently stumbled upon your work and blog. I have taken it upon myself to simply respond to your blog entry/writing, “Where Did We Come From part 1“, with what I feel to be at least a viable, plausible, response to a few points that you’ve made. I hope to hear back from you.
Colin,
I will surely respond to your queries. I’d first like to thank you for taking to time to read my work and form a response. Your e-mail indicates that you are responding to “Where Did We Come From PART ONE”- This was meant to be a kind of introduction to a children’s book which I am writing in order to give kids an understanding of origin the doesn’t involve the supernatural, so please excuse the briefness of the article- I extend into the topic at greater length in my book (Disproving Christianity)- which I would recommend that you read as someone who finds biblical literalism as an interesting topic. With your response, however, you are trying to prove that the millions of years of earthly evolution which we have witnessed via radiometric dating and various scientific methods are parallel to biblical scripture and can be understood by reading the book of Genesis in the Bible- this is simply not true.
With respect to Genesis “and the evening and the morning were the 1st day” being the age of the earth, you have overlooked one very important point; Genesis 1:1 & 2. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.” There is no stated defined time between “In the beginning….” (vs. 1), and when He said “Let there be light….” leading to the advent and conclusion of the first day (vs. 3-5).
In other words, the very statement that “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” does not indicate with any specificity when “In the beginning” actually was. Neither is it at all stated that immediately after the heaven and earth were created that He began the six days of creation starting in vs.3. While it may appear to imply this, it is certainly not conclusive beyond any doubt. For example, I may buy a house and take ownership of it, but I may not move in and occupy it for several days, weeks, or even months – but it would still be my house. Therefore, if heaven and earth were created and God began/continued creation of other things (celestial, or even other dimensions unknown, but certainly speculated by even Einstein himself), then the earth may very well have been a few million years old before creation on it ever began.
This is an interesting, though unoriginal, approach to the interpretation of scripture. I have heard this argument many times before but it fails under pressure; for example, if ‘God’ was active and the earth had been created- it stands to reason that a perfect creator would begin “in the beginning” and not wait millions of years to inhabit the earth with humans. But it really doesn’t matter because the basis of the argument is the age of the earth, which you insist can biblically be represented as millions of years (this is a stretch, by the way). Assuming the in the beginning, doesn’t literally mean in the beginning, you still have the problems associated with the creation of other animals. The Bible still indicates (this cannot be argued) that all life on earth was created within a six-day period; this is a statement which can easily be disproven as there is plant-life on earth and animals that existed millions of years before man evolved- or, as you believe, God created Adam from “dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7, 21-23).
It would also stand to reason that if they were both (heaven and earth) created “In the beginning”, you would need a clear, definitive, establishing of what “heaven” actually is (immediate universe/galaxy, other galaxies, all galaxies, the entirety of space and outer space, etc.) for there to be sound science. It stands to reason that “heaven” in vs. 1 would also have to be 6,030 years old (approximately) if it was created at the same time the earth was, and if it is in fact the very heaven referenced in vs. 6-8. I think that we can both agree that this is not the case. Unless you can account for what is considered a tangible, conclusive, calculation of age with respect to “heaven”, then your argument is flawed.
Also, heaven here in vs. 1 (Heb. shamayim) would seem to indicate somewhere other than our immediate universe, as it has a dual meaning including the visible arch in which the clouds move, as well as to the higher ether where the celestial bodies revolve. The word in verses 6, 7, & 8 (Heb. raqiya) is translated atmosphere meaning lit. a firmament or visible arch of the sky, from a root word meaning canopy indicating our immediate sky. Another point to note here as well, is that vs. 1 states that in the beginning He created the heaven and the earth, but in verses 6 – 8 He created Heaven on the second day – 2 whole days after the earth. While the point could be made that it is in fact the beginning that’s being described over several verses, He said “Let there be….” for everything else but the earth. (Reading this, I wonder if it enters your mind how far you must stretch each individual word in order to make a realistic reading of the bible- it begins to sounds pretty ridiculous.)
With respect to dinosaurs, we read in Genesis 6:1 – 4 how fallen angels/demons (sons of God) had sexual intercourse with human women (daughters of men) and produced giant offspring measuring upward of 13′ – 15′ at maturity. They were also different in that some also had six toes and/or fingers. It’s therefore just as likely that these same demonic spirits might also have had intercourse with animals (people do this today) and produced dinosaurs. (Do you know how ridiculous this sounds? Do you honestly believe that dinosaurs are the offspring of 13-15’ tall demon-spawn having sex with animals? Btw, in reality when one engages in sexual behavior with another species (people do this today)- the end result is not offspring… That is what makes them a different species.)
I would like to discuss the Gnostic Gospels with you as well, but I’m sure that now is not convenient as I would hopefully receive a response to what I’ve outlined here. I spent a great deal of time in my early adult life (before the internet – at the library if you can believe it) studying these gospels and ultimately “trusting” in their validity.
I hope to hear back from you.
Sincerely,
Colin Pipkins
Thank you again, Colin, for taking the time to respond to my work. I hope you’ll read my more in-depth explanation in my book. But I’m hoping you’ll understand why I chose not to spend much time showing you scriptural errors when you make claims about dinosaurs and humanity coexisting from fallen angels having intercourse with human women and producing giant offspring (how would a human woman give birth to a 13-15’ creature we ask ourselves) that then have sex with other various animals and create an entirely new species of animal- and explain the existence of dinosaurs.
Reasonably Yours,
David G. McAfee
The Skeptical Writings of David G. McAfee 
” I spent a great deal of time in my early adult life (before the internet – at the library if you can believe it) studying these gospels and ultimately “trusting” in their validity.”
Well, Colin, that’s your problem (among others). You should have spent all that time studying the massive amounts of scientific and historical evidence and analysis that puts the lie to your inane beliefs and your bizarre cargo cult version of logic. One of the most basic tools of science is Ockham’s (or Occam’s) Razor, which informs us that the bible is superfluous when it comes to understanding the history of the universe, that it is pointless to try to interpret it as consistent with what science tells us, and that it is almost certainly not an accurate document. To start with the contrary assumption that the bible is accurate and then try to shape everything around that is deeply, fundamentally, intellectually dishonest.
I totally agree with your assessment of the rational approach; however, I don’t think you can accuse someone delusional with being “dishonest,” as long as they are consistently true to their delusion.
However “unoriginal” it may be, it is absolutely amazing to me how people who desperately cling to their position, citing and claiming “science”, would give such an inadequate, insufficient, impotent response to very viable, plausible, possibilities. It is a pathetic attempt by someone who has yet to effectively answer my response.
As to why a “perfect Creator would begin ‘in the beginning’ and not wait millions of years to inhabit the earth with humans”, I will answer with some simple analogies; when a seed is planted in the ground it does not immediately spring forth. When an infant is born it does not walk, talk, or run immediately.
And you have yet to answer my question (that you’ve conveniently redacted as to why, with modern science, and the vastness of the universe and all of the BILLIONS of other galaxies and universes that we know of, has not one shred of organic life been found/discovered – no insect life, no plant life, moss, etc. I’d like a VIABLE scientific explanation since you seem to have all of the answers.
It was also extremely convenient for you to post a response on your blog, along with carefully selected parts of the email that I sent to you, yet you conveniently forgot to respond to my email until I contacted you a week later.
It is a pathetic attempt at a response by someone from the community that holds to the “THEORY” of evolution – I state here that it has yet to be conclusively proven, and yet those that want what they want will cling to it just as they claim we who believe in the God of creation cling to what we believe in.
It is also amazing how David refused to include ALL of the information that I sent in the email.
And to respond to Jim Balter’s apparent innocence with respect to any conclusive hard science, I will include here the balance of the email that I sent David.
I would suggest that each of you that claims hard science as the basis for your belief look at the following link. I would also strongly encourage David to be fully forthcoming with respect to responsible dialogue. In other words, it is irresponsible for you to effectively select what you wish from a given discourse and give such a pathetic answer as, “I’m hoping you’ll understand why I chose not to spend much time showing you scriptural errors …..” which does not answer the question at all.
I would also point out that you have blatantly left out the fact that I stated these 13′ – 15′ tall humans would be 13′ – 15′ AT MATURITY in your reply to that portion.
I would expect Jim Balter and John F. Felix to look at the following link and to remember the words of the greatest scientist Albert Einstein,
“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe…an intelligence vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
Here’s the link:
Click to access life.pdf
Dr. Ashish Tewari
Professor
Department of Aerospace Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016 India
Specialization: flight mechanics and control.
Interests: spacecraft attitude dynamics and control, active control of flexible aircraft and spacecraft, nonlinear optimal control, re-entry trajectory modeling and guidance, aeroservoelasticity.
Ph.D. (Aerospace Engineering)
University of Missouri-Rolla, USA.
M.S. (Aerospace Engineering)
University of Missouri-Rolla, USA.
B.Tech. (Aeronautical Engineering)
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Senior Member:
American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA).
Actually Colin let me stop you right there. According to the universe and math you are very very wrong on the statement about organic life. There are 10 x 10^23 stars in just our universe (100000000000000000000000). I think it lands us near 500 billion stars in the Milky Way alone, minus the amount of planets and stars unable to support life i.e. Binary or Magnetars or Pulsars, minus the amount of planets NOT in the “goldilocks zone”, minus the amount of planets of the wrong size or composition, minus extinction level event impacts on the planet, is a 0.01% is 1 in 10000 in our galaxy.
The calculable chances of at least bacterial life or greater are insurmountable. It’s about the same chance you have of dying in a car wreck or getting cancer or something. By these odds even if we just count the stars in the Milky Way the …amount of planets by percentage able to contain life would be around 50000000. Even if you take away the ones with bacteria or aquatic life or even war or something of this nature..lets say we make another 0.01% of the amount of planets we have left in our equation we still have 5000 planets that would contain multiple celled organisms up to and including a high form of life like we claim to be.
The mathematical odds of baterial life or greater NOT existing are impossible.
The odds of an invisible man living in a demi-realm watching over everything we do in all his omnipotent splendor is remote to none.
The fact is you can take vague scriptures and try and bend them to anything you want them to mean. Its still a book and only that, or more accurately a series of religious writings from different times that weren’t even considered at the time to completely represent the entire christian view since so many were left out. The Bible wasn’t magicked up by any god using people to write it. It was put together in Turkey by an ecumenical council from assorted religious writings that the council deemed to fit thier needs. There are many many gospels and writings that were considered and not added because they couldn’t explain thier doctrine through them. This has been the issue with religious nuts ever since. If it can’t be explained by one book then it can’t be true. Even then everything gets twisted and mutilated until it resembles something else.
Can you use either mathematics or the scientific method to prove a god? The day a “scientific” creationist actually uses something other than blind fanaticism and more or less resembling something from our actual provable reality like math, science, or physics to make a case for god;will be the day that women actually have sex with demon/angel hybrids and pop a T-Rex from thier Vaginas. (Impossible on top of retarded btw)
Thanks,
Michael
P.S. Were you on some kind of drug when you actually suggested that women gave birth to dinosaurs? Seriously? Even overlooking the genetic impossiblity of this …..you do realize thousands of dinosaurs were a bit over 15 foot tall right? I think you could benefit from some serious psychiatric care my friend.
Actually Michael, let me stop YOU right there. I’m not very sure as to where you might have invented this fraudulent, fictitious, theory (actually, an UNeducated guess in your particular case) which would provoke you to begin such benign, senseless, foolish, and slanted ramblings that have revealed your true ignorance.
If you want “mathematics or the scientific method to prove a God” then read and learn something for once in your life and don’t speak such utter foolishness without knowing what you are talking about:
The probability of life arising by chance is billions of times more remote than the probability of a copy of Oxford Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.
Suppose you take ten coins and mark them from 1 to 10. Put them in your pocket and give them a good shake. Now try to draw them out in sequence from 1 to 10, returning each coin to the pocket after it is drawn.
The chance of your drawing coin No. 1 is 1 in 10. The probability of drawing 1and 2 in succession is 1 in 100, while that of drawing 1, 2, and 3 in sequence is 1 in 1000.
Your chance of drawing 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the correct sequence is 1 in 10,000. Ultimately, the probability of drawing all the ten coins in their proper sequence from 1 to 10 will be the amazing figure of 1 in ten billion!
This simple problem illustrates how odds multiply against a chance occurring of ordered events.
Continuing in a similar vein, imagine a blindfolded person attempting to solve a Rubik’s cube. The chance of achieving a perfect match on all the six faces would be about 1 in 50 billion billions (i.e., fifty followed by 18 zeros).
Similarly, the probability for a single, highly unsymmetrical protein molecule to be formed by the action of chance and normal thermal agitation is almost zero.
Proteins are the essential constituents of all living cells, and they consist of five elements, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur, arranged in long chains of molecules called amino-acids. Each chain consists of as many as 40,000 atoms of the five elements.
The sequence in which the links of the chains are put together matters enormously. There are only a few specific sequences that support life. Any other sequence might be poisonous to living matter.
It has been calculated that the links in the chain of even the simplest amino-acids could be put together is 10(48) (one followed by 48 zeros) ways.
The odds of a single chain of protein of an arbitrary sequence forming randomly out of the five constituent elements are even greater than those of arranging the atoms in a particular sequence.
As there are 92 natural elements, all distributed at random, the chance that the five specific elements may randomly come together to form a protein molecule is about 1 in 10(160) (one followed by 160 zeros), a number too large to even express in words.
When multiplied with the probability of producing a specific chain sequence, the odds become 1 in 10(208) (one followed by 208 zeros)!
It is practically impossible for all these chances to have coincided to build even a single molecule of protein purely by chance, because the amount of matter that must be shaken together to produce this feat would be millions of times the matter in the observable universe.
Furthermore, for such a chance to occur on earth would require almost infinite time; 10(243) years! Indeed, if we assume 500 trillion shakings of matter per second, which corresponds to the order of magnitude of light frequency (wavelengths between 0.4 and 0.8 microns), we find that the time needed to form, on an average, one such molecule
(degree of asymmetry 0.9) in a material volume equal to that of the earth is about 10(243) years.
In the discussion given above, we are considering merely a single protein
molecule. Life in its simplest form (single cell) would require hundreds of millions of such identical molecules as building blocks. As in the coin drawing example, we can appreciate that the probability of each copy of molecule arising purely by chance gets multiplied (compound probability), until we are left with a practical impossibility of life occurring by chance.
By the way, it’s not just the New Testament involved in this debate; I believe that you might want to address many of the Jews in this world that have had reliable scripture virtually all of that nation’s existence.
It never ceases to amaze me that those that are so bent on denying God His rightful place in this world and in their lives will so readily acknowledge the law of man (common civil ordinances that every society is bound by), yet deny that this very code of conduct originated with Him.
Go figure……
I will just add that I do not have the time required to address each and every potential reply, whether positive or negative, that I’m sure this will attract (people seem to love controversy).
It was my sincere desire to have respectful dialogue on the issue by way of a private email to David. If he was unwilling or did not have the time, he should have said so. If he had enough information on his position in the public domain then he should have said that also.
Instead, it seems that he has chosen to make this a matter of public debate and the Bible clearly teaches not to argue with a fool…….it will only make you a fool.
However “unoriginal” it may be, it is absolutely amazing to me how people who desperately cling to their position, citing and claiming “science”, would give such an inadequate, insufficient, and impotent response to very viable, plausible, possibilities. It is a pathetic attempt by someone who has yet to effectively answer my response.
As to why a “perfect Creator would begin ‘in the beginning’ and not wait millions of years to inhabit the earth with humans”, I will answer with some simple analogies; when a seed is planted in the ground it does not immediately spring forth. When an infant is born it does not walk, talk, or run immediately. A star is born, lives, and dies over many, many millennia. A bottle of fine wine is cultivated over time and then stored for an extended period of time.
If you’ve always existed, you’re simply not in a hurry for anything – you have all the time in the world to do whatsoever you wish, whenever you wish, with what you’ve created; your impotent response still does not answer the questions.
And you have yet to answer my question (that you’ve conveniently redacted) as to why, with modern science and the equipment that goes with it, and the vastness of the universe and all of the BILLIONS of other galaxies and universes that we know of, has not one shred of organic life been found/discovered – no insect life, no plant life, moss, etc. I’d like a VIABLE scientific explanation since you seem to have all of the answers.
It was also extremely convenient that you posted a response on your blog, along with carefully selected parts of the email that I sent to you, yet you conveniently forgot to respond to my email until I contacted you a week later.
It is also amazing how David refused to include ALL of the information that I sent in the email. There wasn’t much more to it other than that which I’ve included below.
In response to Jim Balter’s apparent naivety with respect to any conclusive hard science, I will include here the balance of the email that I sent David.
I would suggest that each of you that claims hard science and logical thinking as the basis for your belief look at the information in the link below as well as the credential of the author below the link.
I would also encourage David to be fully forthcoming with respect to responsible dialogue. In other words, it is irresponsible for you to effectively select what you wish from a given discourse and give such a pathetic answer as, ” I’m hoping you’ll understand why I chose not to spend much time showing you scriptural errors …..” which does not answer the question at all; no, I certainly don’t understand.
I would also point out that in your response you have blatantly misrepresented what I stated when I said that these 13′ – 15′ tall humans would be 13′ – 15′ AT MATURITY.
I would expect Jim Balter, John F. Felix, and anyone else who may also be so disposed to secular dogmatism to look at the following link and to remember the words of the greatest scientist Albert Einstein
“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe…..an intelligence vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
Here’s the link:
Click to access life.pdf
Dr. Ashish Tewari
Professor
Department of Aerospace Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016 India
Specialization: flight mechanics and control.
Interests: spacecraft attitude dynamics and control, active control of flexible aircraft and spacecraft, nonlinear optimal control, re-entry trajectory modeling and guidance, aeroservoelasticity.
Ph.D. (Aerospace Engineering)
University of Missouri-Rolla, USA.
M.S. (Aerospace Engineering)
University of Missouri-Rolla, USA.
B.Tech. (Aeronautical Engineering)
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Senior Member:
American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA).
Please be advised that I will not waste time responding to each and every response that this post will inevitably gender (people just love controversy), whether positive or negative.
As the Bible clearly and wisely teaches, if you argue with a fool, you become a fool as well.
Take on more than one interpretation of the fables to show that none make sense. And weren’t the writers themselves literalists? It seems to me that errantists are as foolish as inerrantists- just different in approach.
Not only does science not tell us how the heavens go, but where is the evidence for Heaven and free will that Roy Jackson demands in ” The God of Philosophy?”
One errantist amused me with sayng that the redactors knew that the two accounts of creation weren’t literal, but why presume that when he more like as silly as inerrantists themselves! Another told me that the Deluge means renewal. We don’t need that account for that metaphor1
Inerrantists-fundamentalist
Errantists- silly expositors of the fables to obscure their often misanthropnc nature, falsely using modern knowledge.
Theology, no matter how refined its finery, ranks with the paranormal, and Rev Billy Crackers and Pope Ratz = Sylvia Brown[e] and van Praagh!
this is crazy. i know because i used to be just like him but now i cant stand how they don’t have answers for the basics of life or anything else for that matter. its just blind faith and that is dangerous.