According to Bible literalists, God created the universe in six twenty-four-hour days, 6,025 years ago. During the six days of creation, God created the first man, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and then created the first woman, Eve, from one of Adam’s ribs. Of course, as science clearly shows, these claims are myths. Nonetheless, countless Christians across the world, and most Evangelicals in the United States, believe these claims are true. They must believe these things because their view of Scripture as inspired, inerrant, and infallible demands it. This is why you find Evangelicals defending such abhorrent behaviors such as rape, murder, slavery, and genocide.
Adam and Eve had two sons Cain and Abel. It is assumed that Mr. and Mrs. Adam had other children, including daughters, but outside of a third son born later named Seth, the Bible mentions no other children. Adam and Eve’s children had children of their own, so a big question is who they had sex with. Their mother? Their unnamed sisters? Women who lived on Earth already when they were born? Fallen angels? Space aliens?
In Genesis 4:1-8 we find a story about Cain murdering Abel:
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
Upset over a rejected offering to the Lord, Cain killed his brother. The Lord was not happy with Cain:
What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
Cain, a keeper of livestock, was cursed by God. The Lord said from that day forward Cain would be a failed farmer and a fugitive/vagabond.
Cain replied:
Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
Who, exactly, were the people that Cain feared would “find and kill him”? According to the Bible, the only people on Earth at the time were Adam, Eve, and Cain. Was Cain afraid his parents would kill him? In come Evangelical apologists with all sorts of explanations, but their protestations are nothing more than personal opinions. Remember, when you hook your wagon to Bible inerrancy — not adding to or taking away from the Word of God — you are forced to accept what the text says.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Preachers can and do answer every question raised by those lines. After all. when you can make it up as you go, all
answers are easy. Having all the answers is very powerful. I believe the source of every religion’s power is that they all explain the world, life’s mysteries, and even puzzling, irrational, contradictory, cryptic lines of text written in remote antiquity by who knows whom?
It’s astonishing that supposedly educated and intelligent people can believe the sheer nonsensical nature of these stories. I’d lay odds that whoever it was who originally wrote the stories didn’t actually think they were portraying fact, rather they were attempting to join together things they had heard and perhaps experienced in some way, then give them a theological twist. To think that a being with so much power to hand that it could create a universe would allow itself to be immersed in a confused and certainly ignorant set of circumstances as that described is just plain stupid. To understand this is to understand how Trump has been elected again.
Geofft, that’s also been my take on scriptural writings. They strike me as prose and poetry not so dissimilar from Dr Seuss, Maurice Sendak, and/or the random riffing of Trump. It suggests Trump’s utterances my be more deliberate than they appear on their face. That is assuming Trump is calculating and playing to the vulnerability of a large part of humanity to random incoherent appeals to emotion.
Renowned Bible scholar “Dr.” David Tee responds:
https://theologyarchaeology.wordpress.com/2024/11/21/answering-unbelievers-arguments/
Money quotes:
One of the reasons we do not engage unbelievers that much anymore is that they never accept the answers provided to them when they raise the same arguments every atheist has raised for thousands of years. [then maybe you need to come up with better explanations]
….
Here is the problem with that statement. Most bible scholars are not Christians. We knew one who was an atheist yet felt he could tell everyone what the Bible really said.
….
There is little point in rehashing the debate because many unbelievers do not accept the answers given. But as the Bible says, preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who do not believe. So do not cast pearls before swine when this topic arises. Just stick with Mosaic authorship and you will be fine. [Yes, stick with ignorance and outdated theories.]
….
Then the unbelievers’ concept of biblical inerrancy is full of errors and does not do the topic justice. They do not understand the biblical text nor want to. We know that Adam and Eve had 3 named sons and countless unnamed sons and daughters. Being not named does not minimize their lives or mean they did not exist and help build the pre-flood world population. [Countless unnamed sons and daughters? Really? Evidence, please..]
Unbelievers are creating these faulty issues so they can ruin the faith of the believer so it is best to not engage them when this happens to you. Protect your faith as we only get the information that God wants us to know and pertains to our salvation and belief in him;
Ah once again “Dr”. tee and his Ministry of Propaganda. He does sound like the person in a dictatorship who would constantly remind it’s citizens not to watch television shows from the “decadent West”, because they might give people naughty thoughts and ideas, like wearing blue jeans, smoking cigarettes, having illicit sex or reading books by George Orwell..
What a total dope. When Tee refers to ‘unbelievers’ what he means is people who value truth, and evidence, and reason and who aren’t subsumed by some innate desire to believe something that, quite patently, cannot possibly be true.
And yet, dear Mr. Thiessen just keeps engaging.
A bit off subject but………..
According to Bible literalists, God created the universe in six twenty-four-hour days, 6,025 years ago. During the six days of creation, God created the first man, Adam.
Anybody visiting Bruce’s site ever hear of the James Webb Space Telescope? The latest astronomical observations suggest the Universe we reside in may contain two (2) Trillion Galaxies. 2 Trillion. Considering each galaxy has on average, 200-300 Billion stars each. with how many planets and moons? ……………..well:
The Lord was certainly productive that week, 6,025 years ago. Interestingly Adams offspring have never set foot on
nary a one of those other celestial spheres outside of our own moon. His offspring have sent a few satellites around this solar system.
Do christians ever consider that maybe the lord is invested in something (life perhaps?) outside of this little pale blue dot? I mean thats a lot of work, just for Adam and his offspring.
BTW, I still have issues understanding how Moses took care of all those dinosaurs on the Ark.
I’m pretty sure I got into trouble in Sunday school for asking about other people beyond Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. I also NEVER understood why God was such a d!ck about not accepting Cain”s offering. It seemed like Cain was a talented farmer who gave his best, yet the on-the-carnivore-diet deity didn’t want to eat his veggies and had a tantrum, telling Cain off. I thought God was rather rude. A gift is a gift, right?
Yeah. I always wondered about the Cain thing, and other inconsistencies. But try to ask a fundie about those? Hoo boy.