Only in New Zealand!

Love this.

via ODT 

And this:

Last week a campaign by New Zealand Atheist Bus Campaign raised $20,000 in public donations to fund bus ads which read "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life".

Now go enjoy life!

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Obama's godless Thanksgiving proclamation

Blag Hag
November 29, 2009 5:35 AM
by Jen

Obama's godless Thanksgiving proclamation

Every year once the President is done with the serious duty of pardoning a turkey, he addresses the country with a Thanksgiving proclamation. However, Obama's speech was a tad bit different than those in the past - he left out references to God. Well, not completely. His single reference to God was tucked inside of a George Washington quote:

Today, we recall President George Washington, who proclaimed our first national day of public thanksgiving to be observed "by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God," and President Abraham Lincoln, who established our annual Thanksgiving Day to help mend a fractured Nation in the midst of civil war.

But those were George Washington's words, which were balanced with the practicality of Lincoln's quote. Obama himself didn't invoke a deity. When you compare this to some of the things Bush said during his last Thanksgiving proclamation, you can see the difference:

On this day, let us all give thanks to God who blessed our Nation's first days and who blesses us today. May He continue to guide and watch over our families and our country always.

We recognize that all of these blessings, and life itself, come not from the hand of man but from Almighty God....

Having arrived in the New World, these early settlers gave thanks to the Author of Life....

And as noted by Jill Stanek, "President Bush called the 1st celebrants "Pilgrims," Obama said they were "European settlers."" A subtle but significant difference.

Some nonbelievers don't care when Obama gives a shout to non-believers or simply leaves God out of his secular speeches, but I think it's important. If our President invokes God like belief is normal, required, and patriotic, it alienates the "Nones" of America. By simply keeping his Thanksgiving proclamation secular, Obama is making baby steps toward a more inclusive environment. Yes, there is certainly more I think he could be doing, but I'll take what I can get for now.

Jesus Venn Diagram

via Blag Hag

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Why God Needed iCal

'Coz god nearly forgot Noah and The Floating Zoo.

I don't blame god. A hundred and fifty days is a long time. I would've forgotten everything if I had 3 months of relative peace & quiet away from evil human beings.

---

A¹. Noah and animals enter the Ark

B¹. Flood increases on the Earth

C¹. Mountains covered, all living things die

D¹.Waters cover the Earth

E. God "remembers" Noah, God's wind blows over the waters

D². Waters begin to recede

C²: Mountain-tops become visible, Ark rests on the mountains

B²: Flood recedes from the Earth

A²: Noah and animals leave the Ark

 

(source)

The World's First Floating Zoo

We'd only lived a couple of million years, and god had already decided we were irreversibly wicked by then?

God said.. "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence.. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
~Genesis 6:13-14

God was angry enough to send the world aflood; what about the state we are in now? Aren't we about a billion times more evil than we were pre-flood days? I say we deserve more than just a couple of tsunamis a year. Our sinful species ought to be completely and wholly eradicated, just like the good ol' days.


1) OK we all know the ark was 450ft x 75ft x 45ft. But seriously, was that big enough for all of earth's animals? Some are tiny but most are huge and need lots of running around space. I mean, have you ever been to a zoo?

And how did he build such a huge ark in such a short time? He only had 7 days for chrissake. And the man himself was 600-years-old!

2) How did Noah go about collecting all the animals and making sure they'd obediently go into the ark? If any of you watch Animal Planet, you'd know animals ain't that easy to handle, ma'am.

3) How were they fed & cared for? Or rather, how was the ark being cleaned of animal dung throughout the boat trip?

If the bible serves to sometimes act as a record of history, what is The Flood supposed to reflect, historically?

I can only guess this may have something to do with the ending of the ice age, where some animals may have travelled (on their own, no doubt) to safety just before their entire home turned into the Arctic Ocean. Have you watched Ice Age?

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How To Choose A Religion: The Flowchart

via holykaw

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My new favourite website: Reasons.org

On resolving the "incest problem":

Not until the time of Moses were laws established forbidding a man from marrying a sister or niece. The timing of this command makes perfect sense biologically, for genetic defects as a result of intra-family marriage would not begin to crop up until after the first few dozen generations.

On the mystery of Cain's mark:

The necessity of this mark indicates that the population of the human race had reached (or would reach) such a level that mistaking Cain for someone else would be a problem.

The text says nothing about what kind of mark Cain received or about its being passed on to his progeny. I see no basis for believing that any one of the races of man carries the mark of Cain.

Read the rest of Finding A Wife for Cain on Reasons.org

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The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses

Click here for The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses by Cracked.com

This one's my favourite:

This is a man's law, right here. When Conan became king at the end of Conan the Destroyer, you can bet he made sure there was a rule just like this his first day in office. "Ladies, we respect your right to resolve disputes in whatever manner you feel necessary for the situation. But, DO NOT GRAB THE JUNK." 

The words in the Bible are actually those of God, speaking to the Hebrews and taking time to add the junk-grab rule into the supplemental commandments that didn't make it into the original 10. This had to be right after God realized his plan for a male-dominated society had a fatal flaw, which is that the women could prevail in any conflict simply by grabbing the men's junk. 

Now, you nervous, liberal types are complaining that this is barbaric and misogynistic. Perhaps, a little context helps. Just a couple of pages earlier, in Deuteronomy 23:1, we get this:

"Emasculated by crushing?" Gah! Everything in the Bible has to be understood in context of the times these people were living in. And, apparently, these people lived in a time when "crushing" the nuts was so common that the crushed-nuts victims were an entire demographic that had to be accounted for in the law. Call these commandments savage if you want, but if you were God, how many nuts would you have to see "crushed" before you overreacted? We're thinking the answer is two.

Of course, if you're not a believer and don't think this "grab the nuts, lose a hand" commandment is from the almighty at all, then it becomes obvious what happened: The rule was handed down by some angry clergyman within the first minute or so of having his junk crushed. All perspective tends to go out the window at that moment.

Go here for all of The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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The Man Who Can't Be Killed

Cain said to the Lord,
"My punishment is more than I can bear... I will be a restless wanderer... and whoever finds me will kill me"

But the Lord... put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.
~Genesis 4:13-15

Why was this even necessary? Why does god want to protect Cain?

Is this the bible's way of showing us that god is forgiving and merciful?

And what was the mark that was so hideous that even potential Cain-murderers would shy away from taking his life?

And, without loudspeakers, e-mail or Twitter, how did "everyone" know & recognise that THIS was the mark of the man who can't be killed?


• There's a good explanation here, including how Cain's face was turned completely black. Racist uproars ensue, yes.
• Roger Kovaciny, professional bible translator, provides a pretty convincing answer here. There was no change in skin colour, apparently.


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The Bit Where Cain Kills Abel

I admit I thought god was too much for playing favouritism with Abel.

I mean, they both brought stuff. Maybe Cain didn't have a particularly good harvest that year? All the bible says is:

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. ~Genesis 4:2

That's hardly enough information to determine the actual reason why Cain only brought "some of the fruits of the soil".

Did you think that maybe Cain, being the elder child, wanted to keep some of the fruits for his parents too?




• The Q'uran has a similar story of Adam & Eve's sons killing each other, but no names are mentioned.
• A few scholars suggest the periscope may have been based on a Sumerian story representing the conflict between nomadic shepherds and settled farmers.
(source)

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Sell The Vatican, Feed The World

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God's First Formula

via 100 notes

Adam & Eve Genealogy - Family Tree up until Genesis ch39

I finally completed this a couple of nights ago (phew!). Let me know if I missed out anything!

Click here for larger version in JPG
Click here to download in PDF

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The Facebook of Genesis

This had me ROFLMAO! Full story here.

Also see: The Story of Creation (via Twitter)

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Was Jesus Black, Jewish, Italian, Californian, American Indian, Irish, or a Woman?

There were 3 good arguments that Jesus was Black:
1. He called everyone brother
2. He liked Gospel
3. He didn't get a fair trial
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish:
1. He went into His Father's business
2. He lived at home until he was 33
3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his Mother was sure He was God
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian:
1. He talked with His hands
2. He had wine with His meals
3. He used olive oil
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian:
1. He never cut His hair
2. He walked around barefoot all the time
3. He started a new religion
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was an American
Indian:
1. He was at peace with nature
2. He ate a lot of fish
3. He talked about the Great Spirit
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish:
1. He never got married.
2. He was always telling stories.
3. He loved green pastures.

But the most compelling evidence of all - 3 proofs that Jesus was a woman:
1. He fed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was virtually no food
2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't
get it
3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was still work to do

Source.

Gay Scientists Isolate Christian Gene

Too good to not share!

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Would Jesus discriminate?

A certain Singapore transgender named Ms Chor Lor, whom I absolutely adore (I don't know her personally, but she inspired me to start blogging, truth be told), recently blogged "Would Jesus discriminate?"

People will always say, gays are not accepted, homosexuals are not accepted, but seriously, if we were to come face to face with Jesus now, will he really discriminate? Or it is just these people themselves who are discriminating in the name of another?

The full article that inspired Ms Chor Lor's blog post can be found here:

Gay-friendly church asks 'Would Jesus discriminate?'

It's something to think about, for christians and non-christians alike.

Original Sin of Adam & Eve in The Garden of Eden as Cause of Random Disorder & Law of Entropy

Remember when I was asking where did Cain & Abel get their wives from? And I figured they must have married a sibling since they were basically the first humans on earth, apart from Adam & Eve.

Yes I could have googled it and gotten instant answers [see pic at right]. But if I googled everything, that would interfere with the whole exploratory nature of this journey, wouldn't it?

I spoke to a staunch Christian friend recently, and yes, apparently it is widely known that Cain & Abel probably married their sisters.

The same Christian friend also agreed that Adam & Eve were indeed apes - they've been taught this since young. This was an enlightening moment for me! Here I was worried for nothing that the young christians of the world were hero-worshipping Caucasian-looking gods and first humans and all.

I'm still stuck at Genesis 4 and haven't gone past it yet. Today I came across this wonderful article which also explains the current topic we're on (which explains the title of today's post) - same questions being asked:

Q: Where did Cain get his wife?
Adam begat MANY children and some had migrated into the land of Nod long BEFORE Cain arrived and ‘knew his wife’. He simply married one of his ‘cousins’ who was ALREADY there.

There's a very good explanation as to why incest/ inbreeding was "OK" for the first humans:

...after “The Fall” and their expulsion from the Garden, the earth and the environment were still near-pristine. This accounts for their longevity (Adam lived 930 years) and the long lives of the early patriarchs as well. Genetically, they and their progeny were still near perfection (no mutant genes), which allowed the necessary intermarriage of near kin to populate the earth according to God’s edict.

There's more:

God just informed the “mud-people” they’re going to DIE (the Law of Entropy)! They would also know pain and sorrow: God told Eve (Mother of all living) that she would bear children in PAIN. Pain was something new too. (Genesis 3:16 - ‘… in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and [but] he shall rule over thee.’)

That her “desire” (not sexual in this instance) shall be to [for] her husband means that FROM NOW ON, she will want to be the BOSS (no offence, ladies). Naturally, because Adam blew it (his stewardship) back in the Garden when the Serpent tempted Eve. Where was Adam? Why wasn’t he looking after her? Then he blamed the whole thing on HER! How ‘bout that?

Love it, just LOVE it! There's more on pooping, sweating, and feminine intuition. Click here for the entire article.

All Life Is Ultimately Inbred, Zebra or Otherwise

I got a very interesting comment from a Captain Cranium on my last blog post. I shall re-post the comment here, verbatim, because he makes very good points & it's worth a blog post of its own.


( Captain Cranium, by the way, has a very cool website called Cranium's Ark and you should definitely check it out. )

I think you have it right. Whether you subscribe to a creationist or evolutionist view, all life is ultimately inbred, zebra, person or otherwise, since all species had a starting point. (which raises some interesting questions regarding evolution, since you need male and female of the species to produce offspring--we must assume that there was some kind of genetic "backward compatibility" which allowed the pre-zebra to mate with the zebra, as it would seem a long shot at best to hope that the first zebra male and the first zebra female evolved simultaneously, yet separately and within close proximity to one another.

Plus, the bible seldom mentions daughters in the lineage, so the absence of female offspring isn't surprising. Of interest is to note the ages of offspring from Adam to Noah. Except for Methuselah, the ages exhibit a regular decline, which one would expect in a limited gene pool. And an anomaly like Methuselah, isn't surprising also.

Similarly, when the gene pool is significantly limited again, with Noah and his family, the maximum human life becomes 125--again, a not unexpected result from a scientific standpoint, considering the amount of "inbreeding" up to that point. All of which might make one think the authors of the bible were extremely well versed in genetics.

Similarly, when the gene pool is significantly limited again, with Noah and his family, the maximum human life becomes 125--again, a not unexpected result from a scientific standpoint, considering the amount of "inbreeding" up to that point. All of which might make one think the authors of the bible were extremely well versed in genetics.

It's interesting, the more science uncovers, the more the bible gets right. For over 100 years science was certain the universe didn't have a beginning, then Hubble notices the red shift and confirms what a 4000 year old book has been saying all along.

"The more science uncovers, the more the bible gets right" -- perhaps so, I don't doubt the bible has intention to falsify any of earth's records of history.

It's just that, I can't help but have this niggling feeling the bible leaves out a lot of things. It's the whole "I'm not lying, I'm simply withholding the truth".

Over the centuries, I'm pretty sure plenty of things have been misinterpreted, mistranslated and misconstrued.

Cain and Abel.. Where did they get their wives from??

Update: Apparently it's well-understood by anyone who goes to bible school that Cain & Abel did marry their cousins or sisters. (I interviewed many a staunch christian on this matter to get some answers)

As for the matter of incest - as they were the first humans, their bodies were supposedly quite pure and not chock-full of diseases like we are, hence no worries about double recessive genes causing disfigured children with terminal disorders.


I was going to do up a family tree starting from the First Family of Adam & Eve and their offspring Cain & Abel and so forth... You'll have to wait for it another day. It's here.

While re-reading Genesis 4, it hit me loud & clear:

Where did Cain & Abel get their wives from?

If Adam & Eve were the first humans on earth, and Cain & Abel were the first and only offspring of the first humans on earth... Where did the other humans come from?

Namely, the humans that Cain & Abel were taking to be their spouses?

This doesn't make sense.

My best guess is Adam & Eve had more offspring - female children this time. And married them off to their two sons.

I know. INCEST GALORE.

How else to explain this then?

If this is true, then, I'm sorry to say this, but it means every single one of us is an inbred.

How many of us have realised the holy books are always male-centric?

Reading Genesis 2 & 3 now.

I'm surprised, again, that the bible isn't all about frightening you with rules & regulations. This bit here is actually quite sweet:

Genesis 2:24
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

I recall a Muslim friend telling me the Q'uran explicitly spells out that man & woman are equal.

How is it then, that half of the Muslim & Christian world hold the view that a man has the right to lord it over his wife? Just because god "made a woman from the rib taken out of the man" ? Or is it because of this one culprit sentence:

Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you. -Genesis 3:16

And because of this, women have suffered. And suffered, and suffered. Throughout the ages.

Why? Because everyone believed these words came from GOD.

A more plausible explanation would be some mysoginist scribe who didn't quite like his mother or sister, decided to add that bit in. Just to spite women. Forever & ever Amen!!

But if you really must believe these are god's words because of your unshakeable 'faith', then why condemn the woman? By right, we should all damn the serpent. No one thought of that? Why?

image © Julie Bell

Because it's more convenient for a man to blame all of life's failures on a woman.

Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life -Genesis 3:17

So much for men working the earth to feed the family. In places like Indonesia & the (very catholic) Philippines, it's common that the women do all the work (toiling in the fields, factories etc) & take care of the entire family. The men don't do much, other than procreating & then abandoning wife & children. Often the women work in neighbouring (more developed) countries as domestic helpers. The children are looked after usually by their grandmothers.

The point of this is, men have often been the ones to (mis)interpret words of the holy books to their convenience.

There's a reason why women have been denied education for centuries. The moment women learn how to read & write, they start to realise what a farce the 'holy books' have been. They start to question - is this truly what god would have said/wanted?

If god is love and god is fair, why is it the 'rules' in the holy books usually favour/ benefit the men?

Think about it.

An Open Letter to a Muslim Journalist “Spy”

(What is the present Malaysian government going to do with these 2 spies?)

An Open Letter to a Muslim Journalist “Spy”

Saudara,

I just read that recently you and a friend visited one of the churches that I belong to. I was surprised that you had to do it in disguise.. You should have told the Catholic community there that you were coming and we would have given you a grand welcome.

Such was the experience of the MP for Shah Alam, Khalid Abdul Samad from Pas, who was even given a standing ovation when he visited and had a dialogue with the parishioners of the Church of the Divine Mercy in Shah Alam last year.

Some time back I was attending a Mass (Catholic worship) in a Catholic church in Petaling Jaya and was very moved by the presence of a group of Muslim students together with their Muslim professor who had taken them there as part of their “exposure programme”. None of them were converted.

You see we are not an underground church nor do we function in a clandestine manner. Our hearts are on the holy and not on the hideous. We even pray for Najib the PM, though I feel we do not pray enough for the Opposition. We also pray for people like you who do more harm than good to the name of your religion of peace, tolerance and compassion.

Further, what takes place in Catholic churches is highlighted in our in-house newspaper which was quite unknown to the whole population and whose readers formed an insignificant number – until the Government decided to prevent it from using the word “Allah”. Alas, the Herald should thank the Government for making it so well-known today.

Religious Misfits

It is a pity that you have gone through so much trouble to “investigate” under guise what is going on in Catholic Churches or that “Muslim teenagers were being converted to Christianity in Kuala Lumpur 's churches every Sunday”. You should have gone directly to the Special Branch, which sends it officers to visit our churches occasionally. Surely they will be able to tell you that you would be only wasting your time!

As for the information that Muslims are being driven in droves into Catholicism (which you have concluded to be “false” in your article) it has been a fallacious and stale rumour for quite some time, spread by those who have an obsession and paranoia or by the increasing number of lower echelon zealots or “Little Mullah Napoleons” running riot with their brand of religion.

In Feb. 2006, the Mufti of Perak, Haji Harussani Haji Zakaria, claimed that 250,000 Muslims (of which 100,000 were Malays) had apostatized themselves, while 100,000 more had submitted applications to do so. Of course he was unable to substantiate his claim because it was false.

In Nov. 2006, about 500 Muslims protested in front of the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Ipoh following a SMS wherein the same Mufti had disclosed that about 600 Muslim students of the Ungku Omar Polytechnic were to be baptized by national mariner Azhar Mansor!

The church was not converting Muslims but instead was holding the First Holy Communion Mass (one of the rites of initiation to the faith) for 98 Catholic children, many of whom were traumatised by the sight of a threatening mob. Imagine the very unfortunate impression the young Catholics would have got of Islam and of Muslims.

The mufti who had proven to be more of a misfit, was not man enough to own up. He blamed it on an SMS sent out by a woman! Why no action was taken against the mufti, and why the authorities remained mute (on both occasions) over his “mischief” remains but a mystery. You must have been motivated by the mufti.

If indeed the Catholic Church has the conversion of Muslims as its hidden agenda, it would surely have started converting hundreds or even thousands of impressionable young Muslims through its Catholic Mission schools which have existed for as long as 100 years, But no such thing has ever happened.

The Muslim classmates and friends that I had in St Michael’s Ipoh are still good and respected Muslims today, and such was their appreciation and respect for the La Salle Brothers that they made sure that their children in turn would attend a La Salle school or a Convent!

Sacrilegious

Sadly, your disrespect knew no bounds. You chose to abandon all human and religious decency with impunity as a journalist and a Muslim. Under pretense of being a Catholic you participated in the church service and even partook of the Holy Communion (a white and sacred wafer) strictly meant only for Catholics.

You consumed the white wafer which Catholics hold as very sacred and treat with utmost reverence, and both of you spat out the remnants, photographed it and published the picture in an article entitled "Tinjaun Al Islam Dalam Gereja:Mencari Kesahihan Remaja Murtad" which was published in the May 2009 issue of the Al Islam magazine.

.

I shudder to think of what could happen if the reverse took place -- if for instance two reporters from the Herald were to enter a mosque disguised as Muslims, partake of the rituals and desecrate something which the congregation considers very sacred.

I can imagine Khairy Jamaluddin leading a group of Umno Youth thugs and burning the effigy of the Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur and even threatening to set fire to a few churches, and Zulkifli Nordin rousing up a mob and invading the Herald’s office and demanding that it be shut down for good; or certain Muslim NGOs insisting that the two journalists be jailed under the ISA!

It makes me wonder how does a “creature” like you exist in this country? Are you the product of the educational, social or even religious system or process created by Bolehland’s leaders (also read as “Umno”) over the past 30 years?

How is it possible that you could blatantly trespass into a place of worship, violate its sanctity, insult its adherents, even publish your transgression and completely ignore the implications and consequences (will there be any)? What gives you such audacity?

It all points to the reality of you being a cog in Umno’s machine – a political party that has politicised religion for its survival by creating unfounded insecurities amongst Muslims and a distrust of other religions. Meanwhile it dominates, dictates, decides and even defines what non-Muslims can and cannot discuss, deliberate on, and display in print.

Najib’s 1Malaysia is really Malaysia in one big mess!

As I join my Catholic brothers and sisters in forgiving you (a Catholic duty we are reminded of!), I also pray that you will feel the full weight of God’s wrath upon you.

I feel sad for the many good Muslims in this country who have a respect for peoples of other faiths, for not only have you insulted Catholics but you have insulted them too. Islam would do well without religious misfits like you!

Martin Jalleh

(15 July 2009)

jallehmartin@yahoo.com

What Did Adam and Eve Look Like?

Re. Genesis 2:14 - Out of the four rivers, two are familiar: Tigris & Euphrates. I remember learning about them in school.

Isn't it interesting now, that they flow through Iraq?

Both the christians & muslims prophesise that the Euphrates will dry up - the muslims go one step further and predict that the dry-up will 'reveal unknown treasures that will be the cause of strife and war.'

It's already happening. It's oil. The treasure is oil. What do you think the never-ending Iraq War is about?

Back to the Tigris-Euphrates rivers. So, my question is, have these rivers been around for 4 billion years? It's highly likely, yes. But did god itself name them so?

I think they were given names (or were already named) at the time the bible was penned.

I don't think god named Adam & Eve either. Remember god is a force of energy. Animal, human and plant Life forms came out of that force of energy (over billions of years okay? Stay focused.)

I think man - quite likely the first storyteller, the first scribe, named them Adam & Eve. If the story that has been passed down tells you that the first male human came from dust, you will name him Dust. Dusty. Dustin. And that's literally what Adam means.

So what did Adam & Eve really look like?
We're clasically conditioned to believe they were anatomically-perfect light-skinned blonde-haired things.

Although thankfully, for diversity's sake, there are some depictions of Adam & Eve looking like Uyghurs.

And some may think A&E were the original hippies.

But stay focused!

The first human beings on this earth looked like apes.
Therefore, Adam & Eve were apes.

The Beginning - Genesis 2

Before we get on to Adam & Eve, i have two things to say about Genesis 2:2

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

1. Why is God almost always referred to as a "he" ? Who started this? How do we know if god is male or female?

If it's for simplicity's sake/ ease of reference, why don't we use the word "it"? Same number of letters as 'he', but this isn't Twitter so who's counting.

Or perhaps, just keep repeating the word God instead of using some sexist pronoun...
e.g. "By the seventh day God had finished the work God had been doing; so on the seventh day God rested from all God's work..."

Sounds better much, no?



2. The Creation is conveniently condensed into seven days.

Yes, I know it wasn't exactly done in seven days literally - 1 day could've meant 10 million years.

What I'm curious about is - the 7-day week is somewhat modern, no? (modern as in 586 BCE, compared to the actual 4.54 billion yr old age of the earth.) OK the Jews had a 7-day week... but that is waaaaaaay after The Creation. Whoever decided to pen down history at the time made a momentous decision to follow their own local calendar at that point in time.

If the scribe had been living in a country/era that had a 9-day week, Genesis 2:2 would say the world was created in Nine Days.

We haven't always worked around 7-day weeks throughout history, and even till this day, there are the culturally traditional who may clock by on weeks ranging from four days to twenty days.

What do you think? Do you accept the 7-day creation because it is familiar and convenient?

The Beginning - Genesis 1

So far so good. Sounds about right in accordance with scientific theories of the big bang.

Yes, i do know that it wasn't exactly done in six days. 1 day could've meant 10 million years.

How old is our earth again? ... OK, Wikipedia says it's 4.54 billion years old.

And so god created everything and god saw that everything was Good. I generally prefer to use the more neutral-sounding 'The Creator' or 'The Great Computer in the Sky' than the word 'God'. Somehow the English word "God" is very much associated with christianity. Do you feel the same? For simplicity's sake, i shall set my preferences aside & continue using the word "God" - as we are questioning the christian bible after all.

OK, this is something i've been thinking about for a very long time -

Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

So, by pure mathematical deduction - - -

Y'all know the first humans look like this, right?

Therefore - God must look like this.

As humans were made in god's image.

The bible tells us so.

So remember: Everytime u go to church or say your prayers at night -
this is the face of The Almighty Creator of Heaven & Earth, the one that you pray to for guidance and strength.

Toss out the window all that childhood imagery we were brought up with - somehow or other god was always pictured as a sagely, white-bearded, Caucasian grandfatherly (read: male) figure in flowing white robes.

The other question is -- well, obviously we've evolved since Lucy here. If god had the form of a human being, Do you think that throughout the ages, 'God' would've evolved along with us too?

I know the bible & the q'uran share the same roots. But, i wonder if the Q'uran has the same verse about us being created in the image of God?

Because from what i've gathered, Muslims believe god has no form - god is simply a being. And this, i must say, is in line with my personal belief that The Creator is a purely neutral being -- it is but a formless, raceless, genderless, supreme force of energy.

OLD TESTAMENT

I was born & bred in a moderate Muslim country, baptised in a catholic church only at the age of two, raised by an atheist father, catholic mother and Taoist grandmother. My grandmother prayed to the gods of the earth, sky, the Guan Yin (whom i wholly believe is one & the same as Mother Mary), and if i'm not mistaken there was also a Kitchen Deity. So what does that make me? Answer: A very accepting person.

It doesn't matter what religion u choose to follow - my family of mixed blessings taught me all religions teach you to do good. All faiths provide you much needed guiding principles on how to be a decent, civilised human being on this earth. I don't think there is any one religion that is superior to any other - although many spend a lot of time & energy (and sometimes shed blood & lose lives?) trying to disprove that.

Every religion has its own 'manual' or holy book. Sometimes people take it too literally & live by every word. My argument is the same for all holy books - how do you know for sure how true it is? Is it really the word of god, handed down by word of mouth and then transcribed into what we now think is the truth & nothing but the truth?

Back to our journey. Let's flip open the bible.

I see the words 'Old Testament'. I'm a little surprised -- i presume this is a Christian (meaning Protestant, i.e. not Catholic) bible, and i'd always been told that Protestants don't believe in the old testament.. That their bible & beliefs only begin with the birth of jesus christ! So Protestants do learn the old testament after all. And rightly so, u can't possibly believe in animals if you didn't learn about the dinosaurs.

By the way, i get the feeling Protestants hate being called Protestants. Did the name come from a group 'protesting' against the catholic church? I was also told the first Protestants came to be because some King of England wanted to marry a second wife and the catholic church at the time wouldn't allow it. So he formed his own church, one that might condone his polygamy perhaps, and thus the first non-catholic Christians i.e. Protestants were born. Is this true?

While I await your discussion on how Protestants came about, I shall begin reading Genesis.

In The Beginning

I only have one bible with me and i'm not going to compare & contrast with different versions. But you can share your version if you think it's supposedly more 'authentic', 'superior' and/or 'accurate'.

Our questioning journey will be based on this 'New International Version' which I have next to me. You'd be pleased to know it was Printed In China and that a portion of the purchase price (I thought all bibles are free?) has been "provided to International Bible Society to help spread the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world!"

Yes it came with that exclamation mark at the end.

Having said all of that, I admit I sometimes (okay, often) have a tone of sarcasm, but that's just me - let's not forget the ultimate goal here is to question & hopefully 'enlighten' ourselves together. I am no expert in the subject matter.

And also, as a good friend of mine once said, he'd rather people spend time & energy splitting hairs on what the bible says/didn't say etc than trade child pornography on the internet. I couldn't agree more.

So let us begin.