Look at the Cosmos, and Compare that with what Christian Apologists Claim to Know for Sure

Do Christian apologists provide definitive answers to questions about the cosmos and humanityʼs place in it? The questions are obvious and based on known scientific data.

Leaving aside for a second the question of God, Jesus, heaven/hell, whom the vast majority do not claim to have seen or heard, letʼs look at the cosmos we can see. It may not only be weird but “weirder than we can imagine” (to quote J. B. S. Haldane). And it appears like we do not come into the cosmos so much as come out of it. In fact complexity appears to be how the cosmos flows, click here.

That being said, it appears like the cosmos might also be viewed as an immense experiment with all this matter and energy in constant flux, shaken endlessly—with incessant birth and death going on in teensy portions of the cosmos like on the quaking surface of our particular rock hurtling through space. Incessant life and death, evolution and extinction, even major extinction events, with the odds of another major asteroid strike or super volcano eruption increasing over time, along with the inevitable aging and inflation of our sunʼs diameter whose solar wind will destabilize our moonʼs orbit causing it to approach the earth too close and explode, raining death from above, an inevitable extinction event.

What I am saying is that the cosmos gives with one hand and takes with the other. At best it is in equilibrium with life and death, evolution and extinction. And it appears that if one wanted to reject the idea of a cosmos weirder than we can imagine but instead wished to posit some transcendent God or Demi urge for its origin, then it appears that about the best one could come up with on the basis of what we know is a Tinkerer of some sort. Judging by all the extinction events, both massive and continual and inevitable in the future, one might even wonder how many cosmoses of different types and sizes this Tinkerer might have tried out before setting up this experiment with this much matter and energy roiling about for billions of years.

As for the human species, it just arrived on the scene in the last cosmic second, and could conceivably be snuffed out the next, and the stars could go on burning for eons more. In fact I read two articles recently that said the cosmos has yet to reach its maximum number of either stars or planets!

Or, conversely, if humanity does survive longer than a cosmic blip and our species gets off the cradle planet and starts spreading throughout the cosmos what will humans look like a billion years in the future? Will those humans look back at us a bit like we look back at Australopithecus? How might genetic and cyber technologies alter our species, or the environmental pressures of having to survive on different planets? Will we use new technologies to uplift other species to human-like levels of sentience, or even find ways to join our sentience with theirs? What will AI be like in future? Maybe humanity is a stepping stone to some future silicon based life forms, or advanced sentient non human species? And so we might be here merely to pass along the torch.

Of course if something like the Carrington Event (massive solar storm from 1859) occurs and a solar flare explodes the worldʼs transformers (luckily the only danger was to telegraph lines back then), our present electronic-based civilization might crumble, since we couldnʼt possibly swap out all the exploded bits and get all the electronics back online even for water pumping or refrigeration in over a year. Same thing if the super volcano in Yellowstone erupts, or antibiotic-resistant microbes continue to evolve.

Does any Christian apologist really imagine he has definitive answers to all such questions, very real questions too, since new stars and planets are indeed continuing to form, and by all astronomical data they have enough fuel to continue to burn for billions of years should humanity take a tumble back toward barbarism or even extinction. Heck, humanity might even evolve into something less cerebral and more ape like. That appears to be yet another possibility.

Also, nature is basically one big buffet. Sometimes they eat you to death, or weaken you to death, sometimes they live off your juices just a little and are relatively benign, and sometimes they produce juices you can eat too (i.e., symbiosis — like the way we breathe the farts of algae and trees). But basically nature is constantly grinding up old organisms and spitting out new ones. How can one be sure what kind of weird ass Designer or Tinkerer came up with such a scheme?

Complexity is how the Cosmos flows. Mathematical Models of Reality and the Fine-Tuning Argument do not constitute proof of the kind that Intelligent Design advocates insist they do. (ADDED BONUS: “The Dexter of Parasites”)

Look at the way a river becomes thousands of separate tributaries as it nears the sea, a neat visual analogy for complexity—a single river that breaks off into multiple branches without direct application of intelligence being involved because thatʼs what water and land do together. That is an increase in complexity that illustrates how basic and inherent in nature complexity is.

Lena River Delta, Russia

The island complex at the north end of Spring Lake, Pool 2, in the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area shows a variety of floodplain forests, wetlands, and aquatic vegetation

The Yukon River Delta, Alaska

Changes in the connectivity of the channel network structure on the Wax Lake Delta reflect its growth. The Wax Lake Delta is the only portion of the greater Mississippi River Delta complex that is growing over time.

Mathematical models have been produced to help explain the formation of such complex intricate formations on earth. There are models based on detailed computational fluid dynamics as well as competing models such as rule-based cellular morphodynamic models. As we will see, the formation of such complex intricate non-living formations does not lend distinction to the ideas of Intelligent Design advocates at the Discovery Institute.

To understand how complexity arises from relative simplicity, letʼs start at the beginning…

Our cosmos had to cool down for the first sub-atomic particles to congeal out of the unbelievably high energies and temperatures at our cosmosʼs birth. As it began to cool the first subatomic particles congealed into atoms, and then due to the force of gravity (the basic attraction of masses to other masses) those simple atoms congealed into stars. The pressure of gravity pushed those simple atoms together until atoms with more protons and electrons began to arise. Then many stars eventually exploded and heavier even more complex atoms were formed by the force of such explosions including carbon, nitrogen, oxygen up to uranium and beyond. Then as planets and asteroids cooled down, along with the insides of comets, the carbon and other atoms in space began to bond together forming longer chains of atoms.

Simply by virtue of the process of the cosmos Cooling Down, and also by virtue of Masses Attracting Other Masses, complexity arose.

The earliest most violent energies of the cosmos cooled down and congealed into subatomic particles that congealed into simple atoms that were attracted to one another by gravity that formed stars that formed the whole range of more complex atoms that began to congeal into molecules, some of which congealed into longer self replicating molecules.

So the second law of thermodynamics and the attraction of mass to other masses brought forth ever more complexity.

Consider this further analogy, you take a bottle of ink and throw it at a wall. Smash! The ink spreads forth. In the middle, itʼs dense. But out on the edge, little droplets of ink get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns. In the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. You and I, sitting here in this room, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. We are the little curlicues on the furthest edges of the ink. So we define ourselves as being only that… as one very complicated little curlicue, way out on the edge of that explosion. Way out in space, and way out in time. But billions of years ago is when everything including “you” began. You donʼt feel that youʼre still the big bang. But you are… Youʼre not just something thatʼs a result of the big bang. Youʼre not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are a moving embodiment of a process that has remained in motion since the big bang.

But weʼve learned to define ourselves as separate from it. Some people even view the intelligibility of the cosmos and humanityʼs intellect as something separate from the cosmos. But we are the cosmos, embodied, which is why it is perfectly reasonable that it is intelligible to us.

But getting back to the river and all those tributaries that multiply and divide and subdivide in increasing complexity, the river of life appears to function in a similar fashion, and involves genes that get duplicated and mutated, which happens all the time. And whatever proteins these genes code for donʼt have to be 100 efficient. As more genes get duplicated they get added to ever growing cascades full of similar gene and hence similar protein complexes. Lifeʼs Ratchet and similar works listed here, here explain how the development of ever more complex processes proceeds by one process building on another, branches continuing to form, like all those tributaries of the river I mentioned. Each step in gene mutation and new protein formation leads to both new possibilities as well as new restrictions as to where future mutated branches as a whole may lead. This is not a sign of organisms being directed with a vast amount of forethought, but it is evidence that complexity is a natural ratcheting process inherent to the cosmos.

As for what nature and the cosmos is in essence, that remains a mystery about which all one can say is that the cosmos is constantly in motion and the evolution of life goes hand in hand with death and extinction. We live in a cosmos as fine-tuned for rainbows and sunny days as it is for floods, droughts—as fine-tuned for the evolution of replicating life forms as it is for their death and extinction—as fine-tuned for zygotes as it is for tumors—as fine-tuned for predators as it is for prey—and as fine-tuned for parasites as it is for parasites that live on those parasites that live on those parasites that live on those parasites, etc., up to five levels deep according to the latest examples known, right down to strands of genomic material parasitizing other strands of genomic material—see, “The Dexter of Parasites” here.

Speaking of the cosmos as a whole, nobody knows exactly what the cosmos is in essence, nor how it functions on every level. It functions in locally observable instances via feedback of one part to another—but feedback is inherent in nature, the simplest sort being the mutual attraction of two masses for one another, and later the way whole molecules attracted other molecules, and later, the way some larger molecules attracted smaller molecules and started replicating themselves (as even a single strand of RNA can do in a test tube with raw materials, or as a strand of viral RNA does inside a living cell, or as other strands of parasitical genomic material do inside living cells).

On some level physicists argue that the cosmos as a whole might even function via feedback from all parts to all parts, without centralized sovereignty, like the Internet, which is to say it is not necessary to imagine the cosmos as having to function in the style of a human despot, an American corporation, or Christian theology. It may function via decentralized intelligence, rich in circular-causal feedback, both local and universal feedback loops. That is also how the brain-mind system appears to function, via a constant feedback process.

How does the human ability to develop and use mathematical equations fit into the picture? Humans are pattern seekers, and when a mathematical equation can be used to model the curve of some observable measurable squiggly line in nature, we take note, just as we take note when a cloud looks like a human face.

As for purely theoretical mathematics, it is a vast enterprise with many different schools, and most of it does not resemble anything in nature, but it follows the axioms of whatever school of mathematics it is related to, and axiomatically speaking 1 = 1, which is no great mystery. Rats, pigeons, raccoons, and chimpanzees—can perform simple mathematical calculations, and human infants also have a rudimentary number sense.

But, do mathematical models equal reality? How can they, when it is plain that no word equals the thing in itself, no map equals the territory in itself, and no model of reality equals reality in itself, not even mathematical models.

Math is a model of reality, not reality itself. Newtonian equations define gravity at one level, via one perspective, but you need different, Einsteinian light-bending equations to model the effects of gravity on vaster levels. As soon as we discover new interactions that bend energies in new directions we need more equations to model those reactions. But reality itself is beyond math.

Some wonder if there is a mathematical basis to the cosmos that is nearer the essence of the cosmos than anything else we see, hear, or feel. But as I said, no word equals the thing in itself, no map equals the territory in itself, and even mathematical models are models of reality, not reality itself in its multi-faceted fullness.

Each field of mathematics is like the game Candyland. You accept certain axioms to begin with. You have a pre-set board and pieces, then you shuffle the cards and deal them out one by one following the directions on each card according to the rules of the game, but the game is determined by the axiomatic rules you agreed to start with, and it unfolds as you play it and move in different directions, whereby you discover your path through Candyland. In similar fashion each field of math unfolds based on the axiomatic rules one starts with, so new “discoveries” in math are not necessarily of things that exist in some Platonic realm of perfect math, nor “in the mind of God the mathematician.” Instead, mathematical discoveries unfold as you play each game by the axiomatic rules you agreed to start with in the first place.

Speaking of axioms, how do we know that 1 is not 2, or as in the case of symbolic logic, A is not B? Well, animals, even single-celled animals such as amoeba can tell the differences between things. They can detect and chase prey, they can tell when things are different and when they are similar, and they learn to react according. In similar fashion, mathematicians and poets with far more than just the single-celled capabilities of an amoeba, but instead with 100 billion cells in their brains connected via a trillion electro-chemical synapses, tend to notice far more astutely than your average amoeba when things are different or when they are similar or analogous to one another, such as when clouds look like faces or mathematical equations look like curves measured in nature, hence the faculty of noticing “differences” and “sameness” is rife in nature, and obviously comes in handy whenever equations from different fields of math or physics resemble one another or contain elements that overlap with one another.

So, on the topic of the discoverability of the cosmos, discoverability is inherent in us because we are children of the cosmos. We did not come into this cosmos, we came out of it. As for the essence of what a “cosmos” is, that remains a great question — we only have limited hypotheses concerning this cosmosʼs origin, as well as limitations concerning our knowledge of its size since telescopes can only see so far, and if the cosmos expanded faster than the speed-of-light early on then most of it still remains invisible to our telescopes since the light from those most distant parts has not yet even reached our telescopes. Even if our telescopes could see to the end of our cosmos this might not be the only cosmos there could be cosmoses outside our own. This cosmos might also begin anew or sprout other cosmoses. Our knowledge in all such cases consists of multiple possible hypotheses, along with our limited knowledge of the cosmoses smallest and largest dimensions, or even the number of dimensions in our cosmos. What IS a cosmos, what can it or canʼt it do?

As for the claim that the cosmos is “fine-tuned,” one can only ask, “fine-tuned” for what exactly? Fine-tuned such that life and evolution are merely in equilibrium with death and extinction?

We see a cosmos that is fine-tuned merely to the extent that there is

• life/death
• evolution/extinction
• hosts/parasites
• predators/prey
• calmness/emotional tsunamis
• clarity/confusion
• happiness/sorrow
• pleasure/suffering
• beauty/ugliness

And our speciesʼ hard won knowledge and wisdom (that took ages to acquire) is merely in equilibrium with ignorance and easily acquired cultural prejudices picked up by each newborn.

Civilization seems to evolve like organisms do, via a lengthy ratchet process, acquiring knowledge slowly and painfully, generation after generation, and the ratcheting isnʼt guaranteed as one can see from historyʼs many pratfalls along the way, kind of like the way so many subspecies or cousin species become extinct for every species that flourishes.

One also cannot help but notice that there are hermit species and social species, herbivores and carnivores, animals that mate for life, others that live to mate… and some that eat their mates. In nature thereʼs also mothers who eat their sons and daughters, fathers who kill other fatherʼs children, daughters who eat their mothers, sons that mate with their mothers, and brothers and sisters who kill and/or devour each other in the womb. For examples see here.

Nature is basically one big buffet. Sometimes they eat you to death, or weaken you to death, sometimes they live off your juices just a little and are relatively benign, and sometimes they produce juices you can eat too (i.e., symbiosis — like the way we breathe the farts of algae and trees). But basically nature is constantly grinding up old organisms and spitting out new ones. Not sure what kind of weird ass Designer or Tinkerer came up with such a scheme.

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ADDENDUM BY LANCE EMIL

Ed wrote, “Feedback is inherent in nature, the simplest sort being the mutual attraction of two masses for one another.”

In all factuality there are probably a great many more subtle things going on beneath that attraction than you or I or maybe any human will ever know (re. Higgs field which gives mass to things, search for gravitons, etc); when one studies matter and the universe at a quantum level weird things start to happen: the universe seems to be studying you (or at the very least, interacting strangely with you - like it “wants” what you expect it to do while youʼre watching, but when you look away, not so much; hand-in-the-cookie-jar style).

I think the problem with looking for “intelligent design” in anything is semantic: I know dolphins speak, but their language is beyond my comprehension; dolphins know something I DONʼT AND PERHAPS NEVER WILL. And for the present, they donʼt seem all that inclined to teach me how. If there is an “intelligence” reflected in the way the universe acts with respect to me, and I donʼt have the intellectual fortitude to understand the language of a species of mammal living on my own planet, how am I supposed to understand that intelligenceʼs language? As you so succinctly point out above, complexity becomes form seemingly all on its own. To me - trying hard to avoid purely mystical thinking along the way - this sure looks “intelligent.” But then, so do dolphins.

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The Inevitability of Lifeʼs Origin?

Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature?

From the standpoint of physics, there is one essential difference between living things and inanimate clumps of carbon atoms: The former tend to be much better at capturing energy from their environment and dissipating that energy as heat. Jeremy England, a 31-year-old assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has derived a mathematical formula that he believes explains this capacity. The formula, based on established physics, indicates that when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could mean that under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life.

Englandʼs theoretical results are generally considered valid. It is his interpretation — that his formula represents the driving force behind a class of phenomena in nature that includes life — that remains unproven. But already, there are ideas about how to test that interpretation in the lab.

“Heʼs trying something radically different,” said Mara Prentiss, a professor of physics at Harvard who is contemplating such an experiment after learning about Englandʼs work. “As an organizing lens, I think he has a fabulous idea. Right or wrong, itʼs going to be very much worth the investigation.” Click here for more info.

People who don't know me often call me an atheist. But in all honesty... the scientific and NT questions simply run too deep for me to recite with both head and heart any of the creeds of Christianity

I want to believe in God and a personal afterlife, and like Frank Schaeffer, author of “Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace” (son of the apologist Francis Schaeffer), I do not deny myself prayers to God. I try in all ways to learn what is true, including prayer to God during times of questioning, questing and need. But both the cosmos and the Bible raise many questions of pain and suffering as well as competency of the Designer (who is possibly a Tinkerer), including whether the human species will even last. The stars have billions of years of life left in them since they burn via nuclear fusion and more stars continue being born in distant clusters. One can easily imagine the stars outlasting humanity by far. I also wonder how much truth lay behind the stories of Jesusʼ miracles in the Gospels. Regarding the latter question, Jesus was probably an apocalyptic prophet, but I tend to doubt the resurrection and other miracle stories, in fact you can see certain stories about Jesus grow in the telling from Mark to Matthew, Luke and John: “Gospel Trajectories & The Resurrection (questions as well as sources to read or listen to)”

Furthermore, almost all the miracles occurred either in some unspecified “wilderness” or in small towns in Galilee, i.e., Jesus never visited the largest cities of Galilee nor is spoken of as having performed miracles in them such as Sepphoris which was located near Nazareth, nor did he perform miracles in other large cities like Caesarea Philippi, Tiberius, Hippos (the last two being on the shores of the Lake of Galilee). Instead, three smaller cities, mere towns, Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum encompassed the area where Jesus performed most of his miracles, which scholars have appropriately nicknamed “the Evangelical Triangle.” Even after the people of those towns allegedly saw Jesusʼ miracles the citizens did not hail Jesus and start to follow him. So the Gospels have Jesus denouncing the three towns where he allegedly performed most of his miracles, and warning that judgment would fall on them. As for Jesusʼ greatest nature miracles, they were only said to have been seen by a few apostles in a boat (stilling a storm, walking on water), or on an unnamed mountaintop (the transfiguration, three apostles were allegedly there). Interestingly, the fourth Gospel, allegedly written by the same John who was one of the three apostles who viewed the transfiguration, does not mention that particular miracle at all. The only large city Jesus visits is Jerusalem where he is captured and crucified, and he performs no public healings there per the synoptic Gospels but merely preaches (except for one miracle of healing in Jerusalem mentioned in the late fourth Gospel). Even the late added narrative of the bodily ascension of Jesus in Luke-Acts, is said to have only been seen by the remaining eleven apostles. Here is a guy rising into the clouds, but apparently doesnʼt want everybody to see it. Even weirder is how in Luke the raised Jesus proves he is flesh and bone and then “led them out” of Jerusalem to Bethany, but with no mention of anybody noticing, no mention of people spying the raised Jesus, or the apostles shouting Hosanna as this resurrected flesh and bone Jesus allegedly is leading his apostles out from one large city to a nearby town (compare all the Hosannas when Jesus entered the city). In other words, Jesusʼ exit is very hush hush. And as I said Jesusʼ alleged miracles are only said to have happened in out of the way places, like some unspecified “wilderness” or on an unspecified “mountaintop” or in three towns in particular (not even cities) in Galilee (where they rejected him), or the most spectacular miracles are only seen by a few apostles. Not sure I believe such stories, including the raising of Lazarus tale in the fourth Gospel which seems to have resulted from combining earlier tales in earlier Gospels, resulting in a new story: “Scent from heaven? Who nose? Do tales of Jesusʼ anointing, resurrection & bodily ascension, bear the aroma of truth?”

Add to that the way the resurrection tales contradict one another, and how nobody sees Jesus exit the tomb. His bodily resurrection is an implied miracle in the first and earliest Gospel but is declared in the two last-written Gospels of Luke and John to be a very physical resurrection. The earliest telling in Mark says only that the tomb is declared empty. The closest we come to a first person letter from someone saying they saw the raised Jesus is where Paul mentions in two letters that “he appeared to me,” thatʼs all he says about it, and lists some appearances to others, with no times or places mentioned nor anything that was said or heard. And Paul says Jesus had a “spiritual body” instead of mentioning that Jesus had “flesh and bone” like in the last Gospels written, Luke-Acts. The earliest Gospel, Mark, does not have a post-resurrection appearance story. It just ends with the women fleeing an empty tomb, frightened, and telling no one anything (the Greek is highly emphatic, involving a repetition of the same Greek word to emphasize that the women did not say “anything” to “any[one]” [the Greek reads, oudeis oudeis], so how and when did the story about the discovery of an empty tomb arise? One wonders, since the text states emphatically that the women did not say “anything to anyone” about such a discovery. Sounds like even the empty tomb story might have arisen later. Paul certainly doesnʼt mention it, or the women. But later Gospels build considerably on that tale in Mark). Meanwhile the number of words and lessons allegedly taught by the resurrected Jesus AFTER he was raised, continued to rise in number from Mark to Matthew, and then reach their peak in Luke-Acts and John. Obviously the story was growing over time. “The Word About The Growing Words Of The Resurrected Jesus”.

Also see “New Testament Questions Galore From a Wide Range of Christian and Non-Christian Biblical Scholars”

So I donʼt know what to believe. Because nature contains a variety of pains that humans have struggled to bypass or avoid via intelligence, city planning, safety regulations, modern medicine and dentistry, and advanced detection devices that predict the weather and other changes in the environment (including marking danger zones), rather than accept such pains as part of Godʼs wonderful design. And itʼs not “sinners” who are plagued most by natureʼs pains but people unlucky enough to be in the paths of disasters and epidemics, or unintelligent enough not to take safety measures, or economically impoverished so their city or country cannot afford modern safety techniques and conveniences. Therefore natureʼs pains are not focused on “sinners.”

Also, the human species seems destined to perish while the cosmos goes on, and we might not even be the coolest species in the cosmos. Meanwhile the Gospels plead “mystery,” and Jesus says in places that he spoke to crowds (in those towns I mentioned) in ways “that they might not understand,” then then damned them for not hailing him and following him.

Ah, but there are miracles around the world if you read some Christian apologists. Especially in South America, where Catholicism is huge, or where the Pentecostal revival in the Philippines took place. Though other Christians doubt and question the wealth of Catholic miracles, and still other Christians doubt the alleged miracles in the Philippines. And we see the web articles and books by Joe Nickell who has been investigating a lot of allegedly Catholic miracle stories. While Keith Augustine has a web article about NDEs that raises many questions Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences. (Keith also has a book coming out in 2015, co-authored with Michael Martin on NDEs) Endless debates.

I figure that if there really was an infinite Being, one that did not want to remain very mysterious and behind the scenes, and/or that wanted everyone to be “saved” via trusting in tales of one true religion, wouldnʼt it be plainer?

So Iʼm agnostic, painfully so as I grow older, since I canʼt help but wish that this life and its memories does not end like everything else I see ending around us. I have lived long enough to see the next generation grow up ignorant of many of the key moments in history, song, literature, comedy and drama from my generation. The past seems doomed to be forgotten, along with the individuals in it. Cultural movements being and then end. Ideas change as well as styles. My own memories of earlier decades has declined, which I notice when I talk with friends from decades past. Iʼll keep praying and hoping. Add to that some meditating (hat tip Will Bagley).

See also this blog post with links to Miracles from all religions (including amazing coincidences that seem to just happen and are not related to a religion), when viewed together, provide a crazy mixed bag of “evidence.” Miracles from all religions (including amazing coincidences that seem to just happen and are not related to a religion), when viewed together, provide a crazy mixed bag of “evidence.” So how can “God or WhateverIsOutThere” expect us to know what to make of them?

Randal Rauser and Ed Babinski: On Storytelling, Atheism, Christianity, God, the Cosmos, Miracles, Near Death Experiences, Scientific Hypotheses and Religious Beliefs

Randal Rauser

Randal, Thanks for your kind words here concerning something I wrote. You think I am a “great storyteller?” I think ancient Hebrews were “great storytellers” and I suspect you agree with me there, especially concerning the primeval history section of Genesis from the six-day creation to the Garden of Eden, Flood, and Tower of Babel stories.

Two items to clear up before proceeding further:

1. Please call me “Ed,” rather than “Dr. Babinski.” I do not hold a doctorate only a bachelorʼs in biology.

2. I am not an “atheist.” I am a former born again Christian who experienced what some call “charismatic/Pentecostal” phenomena, such as the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” and “speaking in tongues,” see here. As a Christian I was very interested in apologetics and a big fan of the Inklings (C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Tolkien), George MacDonald, G. K. Chesterton, Francis Schaeffer, InterVarsity Press authors who wrote works on apologetics, and, Josh McDowell. After leaving the fold I was invited to reply to McDowellʼs claim that the Christian experience was “unique,” and did so here. Today, I am an agnostic who hopes for an afterlife (that is, if a God or some sort of cosmic consciousness exists).

   I edited a book, Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists, click here, that includes testimonies of people who left conservative Christianity for more moderate pastures, or liberal pastures, or who became adherents of other religions, or agnostics, or atheists. I also wrote a chapter on “The Cosmology of the Bible,” click here, and click here to read some of the replies the chapter received, as well as counter-replies by my atheist friend Ben.

Ed Babinski (circa 1995)

Randal, Your Comments to Me From Your Blog Appear Below, Followed by My Responses Which Are Indented

Ed, youʼre a great story teller. Your Achillesʼ heal is in moving from story telling to formal argument. How do you move from “This is the ‘natural history’ of human origins and the human place in the universe” to “Therefore, there is no God”?

Randal, Itʼs “heel,” not “heal.” And your own Achilleʼs heel consists in missing my point that stories raise questions, and questions precede formal arguments. Nor do formal arguments have any advantage over informal ones as told in stories, not when it comes to the crucial matter of basic intuitions--the same basic intuitions that constitute the demarcation lines where even formal arguments either convince or fail to do so.

I did not declare, “There is no God.” Nor is there any need to do so. My point was that before any debate begins there are points about the cosmos we may agree on, points based on scientific investigation, points that are unsettling and that even make a Divine Tinkerer Hypotheses appear as likely as a Divine Designer Hypothesis.

In fact, knowing the cosmic story and humanityʼs place in it is a necessary precursor to arguing formally about it. I would like us to begin by agreeing that the cosmos has a story, see The Great Story site here, or see The Big History Project here.

Daily life for most involves long stretches of repetitive events that have minimal emotional, philosophical, or religious impact. It is in between such long stretches that the high drama takes place like being born/dying, getting wed/divorced, graduating/dropping out, getting hired/fired, holiday cheers/jeers, sporting event cheers/jeers, days of grand beauty/days of natural disasters, wonderful health/catastrophic illness, or, changes in oneʼs world view. A story can compress into a few hours the peak events in a personʼs life, the lives of a generation, a country, empire, planet or galaxy.

Stories let us see through other peopleʼs eyes the ways humans affect one another and the ways nature affects us. Stories are how we learn about the world and others.

The story I shared with you is that we live in a cosmos where life is in equilibrium with death, in which living organisms arise on infinitesimally small quaking planets that orbit stars that emit dangerous solar flares, all of which lay in the asteroid-strewn and radiation-filled vacuum of space. And life arises at the expense of high mortality rates of the young per each generation, such as the enormous percentages of dying zygotes and dying young of all species, not to mention mass extinction events. See my comments here on mortality rates, extinction events, and the questions they raise for the Intelligent Design hypothesis. Nor are those the only questions that a study of science raises, there are questions concerning how efficiently and/or beneficently the cosmos was “designed,” click here for examples. Astronomers have mapped out the lifetimes of stars depending on their mass and numerous corroborating stellar observations, and determined that stars are born and die (our own sun is a second-generation star, made partly from the exploded remains of a supernova whose explosion forged the heavier elements found on our planet). And our star, following the lifetime of others of similar size and mass, will one day expand in size to a red giant and burn up the earth long before the cosmos as a whole comes to an end. Though before our sun expands to become a red giant the Andromeda galaxy is due to collide with our own Milky Way galaxy since they are on a collision course -- but Iʼm speaking about a billion years from now. (Speaking of which “heat death” is no longer the only option as to how the cosmos will end, see here -- the leading hypothesis is the Big Rip in which time and space continue to expand at the current rate of measured acceleration till they rip apart at the edges like a balloon pumped with too much air or a Hippo leaping into a pair of size 12 khakis.

Scientific knowledge in areas as diverse as physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology and biology continues to expand like the surface area of a balloon being pumped each year with greater knowledge and inter-disciplinary research is common. But is that what we see in the religious world where adherents of rival religions, denominations, sects, and offshoots abound? Even focusing on Christianity alone, do Christians exhibit as much unity throughout their history as one might expect given the list of divine advantages that they claim they alone possess? Christians claim they possess

1. the worldʼs only truly divinely inspired writings,
2. the Holy Spirit guiding them into truth, and,
3. the personal gift of special divine grace.

Scientists make no claim to such supernatural advantages. But Christians do claim such advantages, yet Christianity consists of divisions too numerous to mention and Christians remain the greatest debunkers of the views of other Christians, including todayʼs rival interpretations of the authority of the Bible, rival views concerning a wide range of theological questions and divisions still unsettled, rival views of spiritual or sacramental authority, sanctification, purity, divine commands and laws. To see some recent examples in print click here. As someone told me, “The ‘no-true-Christian-would-do-or-believe-XYZ” game is one of the more popular among, well, Christians.”

Put another way, religious believers remain convinced on the basis of

1. personal or internal experiences that are not shared by (or remain invisible to) those of other religions, and,

2. holy doctrines, dogmas and sacraments that appear unfalsifiably true to the religious believer but not shared by those of other religions. Hence, in religion, “Blessed are those who did not see, yet believe”. But that doesnʼt do much for people of other religions who believe in theirʼs without seeing, and it does even less for people with questions. The cosmic questions are obvious, while questions pertaining to the diversity and rivalries of religions raise yet more questions and add more confusion. Nor do I have to claim that everyoneʼs personal or internal religious experiences are false in order to ask, How can God expect me/us/everyone to know what to make of the diversity of religious beliefs and stories? We are presented with a mixed bag of evidence here as well as in the case of what we see in the cosmos. But letʼs look at some personal experiences below to illustrate what I mean.

1. Amazing healings. (Craig S. Keenerʼs book on Miracles is top heavy with tales of Protestants and Pentecostals who say they have been miraculously healed, though it appears light on stories from Catholics [Marian and saintsʼ miracles], Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Native Americans, New Agers, Wiccans, Scientologists, Tribalists or Aborigines. It also does not discuss cases of spontaneous remission from terminal cancers that happen on a statistical basis, see here. Or, herbal and nutritional supplements claimed by some to be involved in their remissions. Yes people tell stories that involve amazing healings. One such tale comes out of Cambodia concerning a three-year-old healer whom multitudes are flocking to see. But what does this demonstrate concerning the truth of any one religion? And why are there no cases of a limb being regrown in Keenerʼs book though he has scoured the literature worldwide? So what does God expect us to believe?

2. Amazing, astonishing coincidences. Do they point in the direction of one religion being true? See here, here, here, here, here, here, and lastly see, This Is My Lucky Day, a video featuring jaw-dropping scenes in the lives of people walking or driving who are very nearly killed, and in the final scene some bank robbers in their escape vehicle are literally surrounded when several police vehicles arrive, but the police donʼt realize they have surrounded the robbers, so the police all leave their cars simultaneously and rush into the bank together, leaving the police cars empty, so the robbers simply drive off!) Yes, there are amazing coincidences. Certainly Iʼd expect Christians to have them too, not just bank robbers. And see the other cases above! The trouble is interpreting the full width and breath of such data. Or as someone once said, the basis of all superstition is recalling all the hits that affected you (or your beliefs) the most, and forgetting all the misses and near hits everyone is subject to in real life each day.

3. And what to make of UFO sightings, including first person tales of abductions or contacts with aliens? A college professor and his son had a long experience they wrote about in detailed form. Thereʼs annual conferences concerning the latest UFO evidence and contact stories. Thereʼs generals who have made pro-UFO statements. Thereʼs video footage and first-person testimonies of sightings from around the world. What about tales of ghostly apparitions that range from minor to major sightings, and benign to frightening stories? What about stories people recount of seeing beings of light, angels, demons, deities other than the Christian variety, or even those who say they saw the sun come down out of the sky and dance beside them (I know a Catholic couple who told me first hand that they experienced this along with other Catholic travelers on a Marian pilgrimage). What does “God” expect us to make of such stories?

4. Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and/or Out of Body Experiences (OBEs), see here. NDEs have been experienced by people of all religions or none. Atheists experience NDEs as often as other groups, percentage-wise, see here. (Though people of all groups whose heart are restarted usually say that they recall nothing, just as in dreamless sleep. What is one to make of that? Is God squandering a possible opportunity to reach more people?)

The majority of NDEs (and of course, OBEs) involve leaving oneʼs body, hovering for a while then returning again. NDEs in which people go to another realm and actually meet a Being of light, are rarer, and the Being of light is most often interpreted as another human who had gone on before, or a deceased loving relative, rather than a specific religious figure. Also, NDEs most often lessen a personʼs fear of death.

The rarest NDEs involve long memorable excursions in other realms. Sometimes Evangelical Christians claim to have experienced such an NDE, and they write a Scripture-packed bestseller about their visits to heaven and/or hell and believe their conservative religious interpretations have been vindicated.

Other Evangelical Christians after their NDE have grown convinced that God will include more people in heaven rather than fewer. For instance, see in the case of Mary C. Neal, here. She became convinced that everyone is given a “choice” what to believe not only in this life but also after they have died and seen for themselves the next life.

Sadhu Sundar Singh was raised a member of the Sikh religion in India but converted to Christianity in his teens after hating it at first, but then had a vision of Jesus and became a missionary to Tibet where he suffered persecution and imprisonment, but continued to return there to preach. Reading about him reminds one of the conversion story of Paul in the New Testament. Sundarʼs fame grew in India and he toured Europe as well, but on the way to Tibet for one last missionary trip he was never seen again. He wrote a few small books featuring simple lessons and stories of his journeys. He claimed to have visited a Maharishi who was over 300 years old, and he used to fast for tens of days at a time, during which he experienced OBEs and says he visited heaven and hell, and he wrote about such visits in Visions of the Spiritual World (London: Macmillan, 1926). But he was also a universalist who believed even those in hell would one day be saved, see here.

Howard Storm thought little of religion prior to his experience (which was perhaps an OBE--since no one can verify that his heart stopped that night he was in hospital for a severely bleeding ulcer), but it was such an overpowering experience that he afterwards quit his well paid job as Chair of an Art Dept., attended a seminary and became a Christian minister. His experience began when a trip to a hellish place, then he prayed the only prayer he could remember, “Jesus loves me,” and a Being of light appeared overhead and lifted Howard out of that place. Then he met with other Beings of Light and asked them questions, including “Is there life elsewhere in the cosmos?” (He was shown both humanoid and non-humanoid forms of intelligent life.) And, “Whatʼs the best religion?” (They replied, “Whichever one brings you closest to God.”) I heard two different testimonies he taped concerning his experience, that were recorded over a decade earlier that his book, and perhaps before all of his seminary education had been completed. At that time he made it sound like people raised in other religions might also draw near to God via which ever religion they were most familiar with and that brought them closest, like the view of C.S. Lewisʼ lifelong friend, Don Bede Griffiths, who ran a Christian-Hindu ashram in India for decades. Howard even said at that time that he believed God would make the transition comfortable for each person, altering what they first saw depending on their previous lives and religious beliefs. But after years of preaching, Rev. Howard Storm now seem more enamored with conservative Evangelicalism.

Betty Eadie, whose story happened to become a bestseller, is one of many who felt great love during their journey to the other side, and she does not fear death, her religious beliefs were also transformed in the process.

Dannion Brinkley, another whose story happened to become a bestseller, experienced a lengthy afterlife excursion that convinced him to become spiritual but not religious. Afterwards he spent time comforting people who were dying from terminal illnesses, and heʼs worked with Dr. Raymond Moody (the bestselling author of, Life after Life) at Moodyʼs institute.

As already mentioned, NDEs are experienced by people of other religions. Mormons experience as high a number as others, but there is no rush by such people to leave Mormonism and convert to Evangelical Protestantism. One Buddhist in Thailand says he met a talking turtle that was divine. Another fellow was revived from a major heart attack by an Evangelical Christian cardiologist who gave the paddles once last time after praying, but while on the other side he didnʼt meet angels or Jesus or God, but met “Bob” who comforted him. One famous atheist philosopher, A. J. Ayers, had an NDE in which he says, here, that he met “two creatures who had been put in charge of space. These ministers periodically inspected space and had recently carried out such an inspection. They had, however, failed to do their work properly, with the result that space, like a badly fitting jigsaw puzzle, was slightly out of joint. A further consequence was that the laws of nature had ceased to function as they should.” Pretty odd! Dannion Brinkley, previously mentioned, says he spoke with some Beings of light who admitted they had failed in their mission. Apparently World War 1 was a plan concocted by heaven to end all wars, but, they admitted sorrowfully, the plan failed (Iʼm recalling that last bit from memory.)

During an NDE some have seen and heard crazy looking beings and other things that do not harmonize well with any particular religion, see here. See also this paper that raises questions concerning NDEs from a non-supernatural perspective. And this paper as well, by Neuroscientist, Sam Harris.

My point is that religions, denominations, holy books and their rival interpretations are just as diverse and confusing as the array of weird and amazing tales people tell about their first hand experiences. So if one were to take into account the sum total of evidence one might have to conclude that God mumbles, or that God chooses to mumble for some “reason” that is just as incoherent to us as a genuine mumble might be.

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To Continue with What Randal Said & My Further Response, Indented Beneath It.

Take Carl Saganʼs famous statement that the cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be. That goes beyond what is “universally apparent” too. Now some cosmologists speak of multiple universes as a way of explaining apparent cosmic fine-tuning. And by doing so they (1) falsify Saganʼs claim even as they (2) embrace premises about things not universally apparent.

So hereʼs what Iʼd like you to do Ed. Donʼt just tell a story for me. Take the next step to articulate your worldview based on your story. Go out on a limb. Explain to us how you think this natural history of human origins and the human place in the universe that youʼve described entails a set of claims like “Therefore, there is no God” and “Therefore, human beings cease to exist when they die” and “Therefore, Christianity is false” and whatever else.

I did not say “the cosmos is all that ever was or will be.” Nor must I get you to say it. The questions Iʼve raised above are ones that raise themselves.

Nor did I claim “Christianity is false.” I said letʼs begin with knowledge we both have access to, such as knowledge about the cosmos, and that life and death are at best in equilibrium in it, as well as the evidence of inefficient designs, and evidence that the vast majority of the cosmos is deadly to life, which only arises on infinitesimally small quaking planetoids near flame-stars, as well as noting the lack of clear evidence of beneficence. See examples by clicking here. Instead we observe a cosmos that is a mixed bag in which life may arise, but dies in large numbers each generation, even in mass extinction events. Thatʼs the kind of evidence thatʼs visible to both of us. And I added that this evidence could be explained just as well by the existence of a Divine Tinkerer rather than a Divine Designer.

I suggested we also look at first hand stories from around the world by people who claim to have experienced amazing healings, coincidences, visions, NDEs. But again we see a mixed bag. I added that Christians were the greatest debunkers of each otherʼs views, and wondered about that in light of the fact that Christians claim they have the worldʼs most inspired book, and the Holy Spirit to lead them into truth, and Godʼs grace at work in their lives, advantages that they claim believers of no other religions have. So the question remains, what does God expect us to believe in lieu of such a mixed bag of testimonies from the cosmos and other people, and religious disagreements?

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Randalʼs Last Paragraph & My Response in the Indented Paragraph Beneath It

Once youʼve done that we will no longer have my apple compared to your orange. Instead we will have two apples that can be compared for their respective strengths and weaknesses. And in particular we will be able to see where you follow me, and Sagan, and cosmologists who endorse multiple universes, in going beyond “things not universally apparent” in the articulation of your worldview.

I do not need to have an orange to compare to your apple. I was pointing out that evidence from the cosmos, as well as from the variety and diversity of personal stories, as well as the fact that Christians claim to have the greatest supernatural advantages but have been constantly debunking each otherʼs views since Christianity began (and it doesnʼt look like itʼs going to get any better since the arrival of freedom of belief and inquiry), presents us with a mixed bag. And, How can God expect me/us/everyone to know what to make of such a mixed bag?

The Holy Heavens of the Hebrews

The ancient Hebrews pictured the Lord and His “holy heavens” lying somewhat nearer to the earth than we imagine today:

He bowed the heavens and came down.–2nd Samuel 22:10

The Lord came down [from heaven].–Genesis 11:5

Elijah was lifted up by a whirlwind to heaven.–2 Kings 2:11

Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended?–Proverbs 30:4

Angels “ascended and descended” on a “ladder” reaching to “heaven.”–Gen. 28:12

Ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.–John 1:51

The ancient Babylonians, Assyrians and Hebrews, pictured heavenly creatures like angels (seraphim, etc.) with bird-like wings flying through the earthʼs atmosphere to a “heaven” lying directly above the earth rather than through light-years of space lacking an atmosphere and where bird-like appendages would prove useless. (The ancient Mesopotamian tale, “Etana and the Eagle,” features Etana use of an eagle to fly to heaven.)

“Manna,” the food supplied to the Hebrews in the wilderness, falls from heaven.–Exodus 16, Numbers 11 & Deuteronomy 8

Angels who told of Jesusʼs birth “went away from [the shepherds] into heaven.”–Luke 2:15

A “star [of heaven]…went on before the [wise men], until it came and stood over where the child [Jesus] was”–Mat. 2:9

Such a “star” would have to be incredibly small to lead the wise men and then stand directly above the house where Jesus was born. Such a tale also helped reinforce belief in the holiness of the heavens, since those heavens were depicted as being able to direct people in a miraculous fashion.

The heavens were opened unto him [Jesus at his baptism], and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven.–Matthew 3:16-17

On the morning of Jesusʼ resurrection, “an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.”-Matthew 28:2

At “the Ascension,” “[the resurrected Jesus] was lifted up…and a cloud received him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9), whereupon Jesus took his seat “in the heavens…in the true tabernacle [tent], which the Lord pitched.”–Heb. 8:1,2

And Jesus will return in the sky “seated at the right hand of Power” with the “clouds of heaven.”–Mat. 26:64

The Lord will descend from heaven…and we shall be caught up…in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.–1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17

Heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending upon him [Peter], as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth.–Acts 10:11

…a door standing open in heaven, and the…voice…said, Come up here.–Revelation 4:1

And there was a great earthquake…and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. And the sky was split apart…and [men] hid themselves in caves…and said to the mountains…hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne.–Revelation 6:12-16

I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.–Acts 7:56

The “heavenly city,” the “New Jerusalem” “comes down out of heaven” to earth.–Revelation 3:12, 21:2

God is in heaven, and you are on the earth.–Ecclesiastes 5:2

The heavens are the heavens of the Lord; But the earth He has given to the sons of men.–Psalm 115:16

Further corroboration of the ancient view of the near proximity of God and heaven overhead, is not hard to find. The Babylonians built towers, called ziggurats, reaching toward heaven to attract the sky godsʼ attention. (Compare the Bibleʼs tale of the “tower of Babel”—Gen. 11:5) Mountains were like natureʼs ziggurats. Abraham ascended a mountain to sacrifice his son to the Lord. Moses spoke to the Lord after having ascended a mountain. (Ex. 19:20) Jerusalem was built on a holy hill nicknamed “Mt. Zion.” Jesus was transfigured on a mountaintop.And the resurrected Jesus was seen on a “mountain which Jesus had designated” in Galilee (Mat. 28:16), or is said to have ascended into heaven from a mountain near Jerusalem (Acts 1).

Based on the authority of many such Bible verses, the heavenly/spiritual realm was believed to lie “above” the earth and so near that climbing a mountain brought you relatively “nearer” to God. Of course, we know today that climbing a mountain only brings you infinitesimally “nearer” to the nearest star that still lays millions to billions of (conventional) miles away.

Moreover, the Hebrews had to be warned, many times, not to worship what lay “above” them, i.e., “the sun, moon, and stars, all the host of heaven.” (Deut. 4:19; 17:3; 2 Kings 17:16; 21:5; 23:5; Jer. 7:18; 19:13; 44:17,19,25) They never suspected that the earth was just as much a “heavenly object” as all the stars they “looked up to.” They never suspected that the earth was an integral part of them, sailing among the other “heavenly bodies.” If they had, then they would never have been tempted to “worship” objects that lay “above” their heads—because the earth lay equally “above” all those other heavenly objects depending on oneʼs perspective. Or as Nietzsche once put it, “So long as thou feelest the stars as an ‘above thee,’ thou lackest the eye of the discerning one.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Sage as Astronomer,” Beyond Good and Evil)

For thousands of years (until the Protestant Reformation), pagans, Jews and Christians agreed that the stars lay “above” man and “nearer” to God, while Christians added that the earth was a “sink of impurity” with hell lying at the earthʼs center. Such a view was inspired by Biblical passages that spoke of the heavens above the earth as the holy abode of God and angels (Ps. 115:16; Eccles. 5:2; Gen. 11:5,7; 28:12; Isa. 40:22; Heb. 8:1,2; 2 Kings 2:11; 2 Sam. 22:10; Luke 2:15; Mat. 23:22; 26:64; Acts 1:9), with sheol, hades, the land of the dead, hell, lying beneath the earth (Job 11:8; Ps. 71:20; 88:3,6; 1 Sam. 28:8,13,15; Amos 9:2,3; Philip.2:10; Rev. 5:13).

Today, of course, we know that the sun, planets and stars lying “above the earth” are not “nearer to God” nor “nearer to a heavenly/spiritual realm” than we are on the earthʼs surface. And some people even dare to believe that perhaps God has given man not just the “earth” but also the “heavens” too, to explore.

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Ancient Hebrew Metaphors Demonstrate the Relative Size Difference Between Their Cosmos & the Modern One (The Latterʼs Size Being Based on Telescopic Observation

Ancient Hebrew psalmists drew a parallel between the height of the “clouds” and the wondrous height of their Lordʼs “truth”:

For Thy lovingkindness is great to the heavens, And Thy truth to the clouds.–Psalm 57:10

Comparing the heights of Godʼs truth to the heights of the clouds no longer impresses modern man. Today we look down upon the clouds from aircraft and measure “heights” in light-years.

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[Can] the heavens above be measured?–Jeremiah 31:37

The phrase, “cannot be measured,” refers in Hebrew to any great height, or number of finite things that no one would dream of measuring or counting one by one: “As the host of heaven cannot be counted, and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the descendants of David.” (Jer. 33:22) Actually, the “descendants of David” total an incredibly smaller number than the number of known stars in the cosmos, but to the Hebrews both sets of numbers appeared equally “immeasurable.” Compare, Genesis 41:49, “Joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure.” Such things appeared “immeasurable” to the ancient Hebrews because they could not conceive of ways of measuring them. Two thousand years later we have developed ways of measuring the “height” of clouds, the moon, the sun, and other galaxies. So, today, “measuring the heavens” is somebodyʼs job.

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When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou are mindful of him?–Psalm 8:3-4

Does this verse demonstrate that the Psalmist was inspired by God to describe how small man appears when compared with the size of the modern cosmos? Hardly. No “inspiration” was necessary. The “heavens” referred to the clouds, and to the sun, moon and stars that the psalmist believed did not lie far above the clouds, along with the angelic heavenly realm lying not far above the sun, moon and stars. Any similarities between this ancient verse and modern day cosmic angst is merely relative. No doubt the cosmos must have felt intangibly huge to the ancients, regardless of their belief that the earth beneath their feet was the flat firm foundation of creation. In fact it may be that their cosmos felt more intangibly huge to them than our cosmos does to us because we can fly round the world, above the clouds, gaze at photos of outer space, and open a book on astronomy and read the distances to stars and galaxies set down for us in tangible numerical form.

Of course, knowing what he know today about the heights of the heavens, we are not likely to make the same poetic analogies as the ancients, like comparing the Lordʼs “truth” to the “height of the clouds,” which sounds less grand than it did to the ancients. Neither do we believe, along with the ancients (including the ancient Hebrews), that climbing a mountain or a tower brings us literally nearer to God.

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Things Ancient Near Eastern Creation Stories Have in Common

1. They Begin With About Four Basic Elements

   All ancient recipes for creation begin with the simplest of ingredients because the ancient mind was unaware of the complex differences between things and could only conceive of such differences in the broadest of categories, such as distinguishing between “earth, wind, water, light and darkness.” Such were the “elements” of creation. Hence, according to ancient Egyptian tales of creation, nothing existed in the beginning except a waste of “waters,” also known as “the deep.” Greek tales speak of “earth, murky night, briny deep.” Babylonian tales speak of “waters.” Some ancient Sumerian tales spoke not of water, but of another basic ingredient, a mountain of “earth” that existed in the beginning. Phoenician/Canaanite tales speak of “the beginning of all things” as “a windy air and a black chaos which embraced the air and generated a watery mixture, and from this sprang all the seed of creation.” The Hebrew tale in the book of Genesis has the “spirit of God” (the literal Hebrew word for “spirit” also meant “wind or breath”) moving on the surface of “waters” with “light” and “earth” to follow.

2. They Invoke A Belief In the Magical Power of Words

   Many ancient tales of creation, not just the Hebrew one, attributed supernatural power to a godʼs “word,” i.e., simply “say the magic word” and things instantly appear, disappear, or are transformed. According to the Egyptian Book of the Dead every act of creation represented a thought of Temu and its expression in “words.” A host of Egyptian creation myths agreed that the agency of creation was the godʼs “word.” The pre-Babylonian civilization of Sumeria believed that all things existed and were created by the “word” of Enki. In fact, they viewed the “word” of all their gods as a definite and real thing—a divine entity or agent. Even Sumerian personal names reflected their belief in the power of the “word,” including names like, “The word of the wise one is eternal,” “His word is true,” and, “The word which he spoke shakes the heavens.” After the Sumerians came the Babylonians and their creation tale, Enuma Elish (nicknamed by scholars, the “Babylonian Genesis”), which began, “When Heaven had not been named, Firm ground had not been called by name…when no name had been named.” The Hebrew tale arose out of that same milieu.

   Added to the ancient belief in the “magic” of “naming” things, was also the belief that the “word” of a ruler or king must be obeyed, and the gods were believed to rule over nature much like kings were believed to rule over their fellow men, i.e., by “divine right.” Therefore, whatever a god said, was “done” in nature. A fragment from Sumeria states, “Thy word upon the sea has been projected and returns not [void].” The Babylonian Enuma Elish, states, “May I [Lord Marduk, the Babylonian creator], through the utterance of my mouth determine the destines…Whatever I create shall remain unaltered, The command of my lips shall not return [void], it shall not be changed.” Compare the Hebrew usage of the same phrase in Isaiah 55:11, “So shall my [the Lordʼs] word be which goeth up from my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, For it shall have done that which I desired.”

3. They Divide The Ingredients in Two

   It was a common feature of early Greek cosmological beliefs, which they shared with those of the Near East and elsewhere, that in the beginning all was fused together in an undifferentiated mass. The initial act in the making of the world, whether accomplished by the fiat of a creator or by other means, was a separation or division. As the Hebrew myth has it, “God divided the light from the darkness…and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.”—W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. I, (Cambridge Univ. Press: 1962)

   Ancient tales of creation often involved a division of primeval stuff into two equal halves—like cracking a cosmic egg in two and making “heaven” out of the top half and “earth” out of the bottom half. A Sumerian tale of creation has heaven and earth arise from a celestial mountain split in two. In Egyptian tales a god and goddess are pulled apart: “Shu, the uplifter, raised Nut (a water goddess) on high. She formed the firmament, which is arched over Seb, the god of the earth, who lies prostrate beneath her…In the darkness are beheld the stars which sparkle upon Nutʼs body.” The Egyptians also employed the less mythologized concept of a celestial dome (above which lies “the heavenly ocean”). In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, a water goddess is split in two by the creator to form upper and lower bodies of water, the upper half also becoming a “heavenly dome” that held back vast celestial waters. The Hebrew tale in Genesis has the creator make “a firmament in the midst [middle] of the waters, that it may divide…the water which was below the firmament from the water which was above the firmament.” Both the Babylonian and Hebrew tales continue with the “earth” being created in the lower half of the recently divided waters.

   It is interesting to note that the Father of Protestantism, Martin Luther, was adamant that the Bible spoke of waters lying above the moon, the sun, and the stars. He countered the views of astronomers of his day with the words of Scripture:

   Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of heaven, below and above which heaven are the waters…We Christians must be different from the philosophers [astronomers] in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the waters above the heavens, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity; with our understanding.–Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, Vol. 1, Lutherʼs Works, Concordia Pub. House, 1958

   Also, a Hebrew psalm referred to “waters above the sun, moon, and stars”:

   Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him stars of light! Praise Him highest heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens!–Psalm 148:3-4

   Furthermore, when the book of Genesis described a “flood” that covered the whole world, and reduced the world to its pre-creation watery beginning, the story states that the “flood gates of the sky” were “opened.” Neither did the author of that fable suppose that all the water above the firmament fell to earth, but that the “flood gates” had to be “shut” to stop more water from falling, and the creator had to promise not to flood the earth again with such waters. So, the Bible agrees with Luther that “the waters above the firmament” remained “up there”–and this agrees completely with ancient tales of creation in which the world arose from a division of waters which encompass creation still, and which the creator keeps at bay, having prepared a place in the “midst of such waters” for the earth.

4. They Make Do With Whatʼs At Hand, Like a Potter Might

   Ancient creation accounts never explain where the first “waters,” or “earth,” or “darkness,” came from. Nor do the various creators make everything “out of nothing.” They often have to resort to creating plants, animals and human beings out of the earth or from parts of divine beings. Sometimes this includes molding creatures like a sculptor molds images out of clay—then imparting some magic to them. The Hebrew tale of creation in Genesis is no exception. It does not say where the water and the darkness came from “in the beginning.” Neither does it say that the “earth” was created out of nothing, but simply that “the dry land appeared” after the creator “gathered together the waters into one place.” Moreover, the Hebrew creator does not create vegetation and living creatures out of nothing but has “the earth” sprout vegetation, and “the earth” bring forth living creatures. Nor does the Hebrew creator make man out of nothing, but, “formed man from the dust of the earth.” Then “blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being,” kind of like blowing on a clay sculpture to magically bring it to life. Neither was the divine “breath of life” shared only with man, for the same phrase is used in regard to every living creature that the earth brought forth, “all in whose nostrils was the breath of life.” (Gen. 7:21,22)

   In the Babylonian tale, Enuma Elish, the creator of heaven and earth, Marduk, is called “the god of the good breath [of life],” and he creates man from something divine, the blood of a diety. So there is a “divine connection” between man and the gods. (Sort of like the Hebrew tale where man is created in the “image” of the divine creator and brought to life by divine breath.) Alternate creation accounts from ancient Babylon have mankind springing up from the ground, or created from the flesh and blood of a god mixed with clay, or even fashioned by the chief Babylonian god with the help of a divine “potter”—not unlike the Genesis account of man being “formed [molded] from the dust of the ground.”

5. Their View of Creation & Cosmology is Based on Appearances

   Another factor most ancient tales of creation share is that living things do not evolve from one another but are each made separately in the form in which the author already was most familiar. Plants and animals are described as having been created in the forms in which they appeared in the authorʼs own day. In a similar fashion, the earth was described as being created in the form in which it appeared to the ancient mind, which was “flat.” The earth appeared to be the flat and firm foundation of creation, while the sun, moon, and stars appeared to be relatively smaller than the earth and less solidly “set” in creation since they moved across the sky, hence even their creation came after the earthʼs—like light bulbs screwed into itʼs ceiling. And such objects might even “fall to earth.” (Some of the tiny bright lights in the sky were referred to as “wandering stars,” since they did not move in unison with the rest—though much later mankind discovered that those “wanderers” were not “stars” at all, but planets) And the earth appeared to lie beneath a vast dome stretched out above it. The ancient mind focused on the most basic of elements and the most basic of appearances when it came to its creation stories.

   Likewise, alternating periods of “day and night” were perceived by ancient earth dwellers as constituting the rhythm of the whole cosmos. The Hebrews even divided their cosmic creation account into “mornings and evenings,” “nights and days.” But today astronomers recognize the earth as merely one of a class of objects that spins on its axis and circles stars, with many other objects out there, each having their own “days and nights” of differing durations. There may even be a planet somewhere that spins so slowly on its axis that one side of the planet experiences perpetual “day” while the other side experiences perpetual “night.”

   Lastly, every one of the “six days” of creation in the Hebrew tale is devoted to creating things for the earth alone, or creating plants and animals to fill it. When the sun, moon, and stars are created, it is merely to light the earth below, and for signs and seasons on earth. Even on the first day of creation when the Hebrew creator made “light,” it was so He could set up “days and nights” for the earth. How earth-centered is that? Or how naively based on appearances as seen from earth?

6. It is Not Necessary to Impute “Divine Inspiration” to Such Creation Stories. Only a Low Level of Creative Imagination is Required to Explain the Origin of Such Tales

   The level of inspiration required to explain the origin of naive and simplistic concepts like the elements being divided into “earth, wind, light and darkness,” “believing in the power of magical words,” “dividing the ingredients in two,” “making do with whatʼs at hand,” and, “things created as they appeared”—is equal to the level of mental sophistication of a young child. In fact the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics conducted a study during the 1980s on the mental sophistication of children and discovered that almost one-half of children aged ten years and younger in the United States and other countries believe the earth is flat. And those who say it is round picture “round” as a giant pancake or a curved sky covering a flat ground. One in four thirteen-year olds also believes the earth is flat.

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“Evenings & Mornings” / “Days & Nights,” Were Created Before the Sun?

Genesis tells us that the creator “divided the light from the darkness” and instituted “evenings and mornings.” But He did that “three days” before the “sun” was made! So the sun was kind of an afterthought, and alternating periods of light and darkness were Godʼs primary creations. The book of Job like the book of Genesis, agrees that “light and darkness” do not rely upon the sun, but have their own separate and distinct dwelling-places:

Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?–Job 38:19

Therefore the belief arose, especially among Christians, that the light of “day” had no relationship to the light of the sun. Indeed, in the fourth century, Saint Ambrose wrote in his work on creation:

We must remember that the light of day is one thing and the light of the sun, moon, and stars another—the sun by his rays appearing to add luster to the daylight. For before the sun rises the day dawns, but is not in full refulgence, for the sun adds still further to its splendor. (Hexameron, Lib. 4, Cap.III).

Ambroseʼs teaching remained one of the “treasures of sacred knowledge committed to the Church” right up till the Middle Ages at which time Jews could still be tortured or condemned to death for disputing it! Like all dogmas it inspired subversive humor from those forced to assent to it:

“Which is more important, the sun or the moon?” a citizen of Chelm asked the rabbi (“Chelm” being a village of Jews who lived in the shadow of the Inquisition).

“What a silly question!” snapped the rabbi. “The moon, of course! It shines at night when we really need it. But who needs the sun to shine when it is already broad daylight?”

(Joke drawn from Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor, Henry D. Spalding, Ed., New York: 1969)

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According to the first chapter of Genesis, the earth was created before the sun, moon, and “the stars also” (notice how the “stars” were regarded as mere trifles, lumped together at the end of the inventory). This order of creation is absolutely farcical. Our earth is a child of the sun. The offspring could not have existed before the parent.

The sun, moon, and stars were “made and set” in heaven “to give light upon the earth?” When we look beyond our solar system into the mighty universe of other suns and planets, we see that the cosmogony of Genesis is a dream of childish ignorance. When the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras dared to suggest that the sun was as large as the Peloponesus (the southern part of Greece) he startled his Greek contemporaries. What must have been the notions of a grossly unscientific people like the Jews? For them it was easy to regard the sun, moon, and “the stars also,” as mere satellites of the earth, “set” up in the sky as lanterns for the human race.

George William Foote, “The Creation Story,” Bible Romances

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Further Comparisons Between Modern Astronomy & Ancient Near Eastern Creation Tales

1. A Lot of Work To “Not Light” The Earth

   If the sun, moon, and stars were created “to light the earth,” then why create over a hundred billion galaxies whose light is invisible to the naked eye? (Only two nearby galaxies can be seen with the naked eye, and they appear no brighter than two dim stars in our sky.) In other words, over a hundred billion galaxies produce light that can only be seen with our most powerful telescopes, and it took telescopes recently mounted in space to detect 99/100ths of those galaxies. And galaxy is composed of about a billion stars, some of which are far larger than our sun. Therefore, the creation account in Genesis would be more believable if it told us how much trouble God went through to not “light the earth” with the rest of creation.

   Astronomers are even hypothesizing that the cosmos may contain “dark” matter and “dark” energy, so much “dark” stuff in fact, that most of the cosmos might still be invisible to us even with our satellite telescopes surveying it to a depth of thirteen-billion light-years in every direction. Again, thatʼs a lot of work to do to “not light” the earth.

2. Stars Are Still Being Created

   According to the Bible, God made the stars on the fourth day of creation. Even more remarkable is the fact that He is creating them still, though the latter miracle is considered not worth mentioning by any of the Bibleʼs authors. (I wonder why? The creation of new stars is being chronicled continually in magazines and journals like Astronomy, Sky & Telescope and The Astrophysical Journal, just to name a few.)

   And God is still creating new planets (that continue to form out of rings of matter circling stars—see the above mentioned magazines).

3. Uninhabited Planets Have Their Own “Great Lamps To Light Their Nights & For Signs & Seasons”

   Genesis 1:16 depicts the sun and moon as “two great lamps” [literal Hebrew translation]. Those “great lamps” were made to “light” the earth, to “rule” the earthʼs days and nights, and, “for signs and seasons” on earth. But a couple thousand years after the Bible was written, astronomers discovered a curious thing about that “great lamp” the moon. They discovered that Mars has two moons. Yet Mars has no people who need their steps “lit” at night, or who need to know the “signs and seasons.” Even more curiously, it was discovered that Neptune has four moons, Uranus has eleven, Jupiter has sixteen, and Saturn has eighteen moons (one of them, Titan, is even larger than the planet Mercury). The earth was created with just moon, and it “rules the night” so badly that for three nights out of every twenty-eight it abdicates its rule and doesnʼt light the earth at all—at which time creationists bump into each other in the dark.

4. Other Plants Raises the Possibility of Life on Other Worlds, From Simple to More Complex Forms of Life. But the Bible Says the Sun, Moon & Stars Were “Made and Set” Above The Earth After the Earth Had Been Created and to “Light the Earth” And For “Signs & Seasons [Literally, Holy Festivals]” on Earth

   What fraction of stars in our Galaxy might play host to planets that can support multi-cellular life? Lineweaver and others have calculated the probable extent of hospitable space for complex life in the Galaxy, called the “Galactic habitable zone.” The criteria include distance from deadly supernovae, enough heavy elements to form terrestrial planets, and enough time for life to evolve. Based on these criteria, the Galactic habitable zone is an annular region between 7 to 9 kiloparsecs from the Galactic center and contains about 10% of the Milky Way stars with ages between 4 to 8 billion years old. [The Milky Way, like most of the 100 billion other galaxies in the cosmos, contains roughly a billion stars.]–Science, Vol. 303, Jan. 2, 2004 www.sciencemag.org

   Keeping in mind the above “odds,” there may be plenty of possible planets on which life might exist. But what does that imply about the Bibleʼs understanding of the cosmos when interpreted literally as in Genesis and the New Testament? See the following quotations to understand the questions raised by the notion of “[intelligent] life elsewhere in the galaxy.”

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“A New Heaven?” Even for People Living in Distant Galaxies?

According to the book of Revelation a “new earth” and a “new heaven” will be created after Jesus returns. Occupants of other planets throughout the hundred billion galaxies of our present “heaven” will no doubt be surprised to receive such an unearned favor, all because of what happens on our little world. Or is this simply another example of how the Hebrews viewed the earth as the flat firm foundation of creation with the heavens above created simply for the earth below?

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Though it is not a direct article of the Christian faith that the planet we inhabit is the only inhabited one in the cosmos, yet it is so worked up from what is called the Mosaic account of creation, the story of Eve and the forbidden fruit, and the counterpart of that story, the death of the Son of God—that to believe otherwise renders the Christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air.

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

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So long as people believed, as St. Paul himself did, in one week of creation and a past of 4,000 years—so long as people thought the stars were satellites of the earth and that animals were there to serve man—there was no difficulty in believing that a single man could have ruined everything, and that another man had saved everything.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Fall, Redemption, and Geocentrism,”Christianity and Evolution

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Did Jesus die uniquely to save the sins of human beings on planet Earth, or is he being strung up somewhere in the universe on every Friday?

Michael Ruse, “Booknotes,” Biology & Philosophy, Vol. 14, No. 1, Jan. 1999

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The Tower of Babel

The tale of the tower of Babel is an explanatory myth, an early attempt to account for the diversity of language and the diffusion of humanity after the legendary flood of Noah:

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, let us build us a city and a tower.–Genesis 11

Next thing you know, “God” “comes down” to “see the city and the tower,” but He complains that “nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do,” or, “nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” So God decides to “confuse their tongues.”

But doesnʼt Godʼs complaint make more sense today than it did back then? Today we have accomplished things deemed “impossible” by the ancients. We have “measured the heights of the stars,” “searched out the foundations of the earth,” laid claim to the moon, sent space probes beyond Pluto, diminished or halted plagues (via modern plumbing, sanitation, vaccines and antibiotics), avoided deadly lightning strikes (via the invention of the lightning rod), greatly increased the odds of infant survival, etc. In short, we have reduced the destructive potentials of acts of nature that were previously considered “acts of God.” Mankind is also unlocking the secrets of DNA, and probably will unlock secrets of artificial intelligence too. All this despite the language barriers that “God” allegedly set up at Babel. Surely it is absurd to think that the same God who allowed man to develop all of the above marvels once pulled a hissy fit over a bunch of brick layers? (“And they said one to another, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, let us build us a city and a tower.”)

Furthermore, compare the way “God” reacts in Genesis chapter 11 (the story of the tower of Babel) with how “God” reacts in Genesis chapter 3 (the story of Adam and Eve being tossed out of paradise). God complained about the city of Babel, worried that “Nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do,” so God reacted by “confusing their tongues.” While after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit “God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ So God banished him from the Garden of Eden.” Such stories merely resemble the way all ancient gods were depicted, jealously guarding their “knowledge,” their secret of “eternal life,” or other divine things.

Let me add that all known languages were not imposed upon mankind once and for all at “Babel.” Linguists and etymologists have found that languages are a product of evolution and keep evolving. Just compare Old English, Middle English and Modern English. Or compare the various European languages that evolved from the Latin tongue spoken by people of the Roman Empire.

Today however, the number of languages spoken on earth is diminishing; thousands of languages have become extinct. I guess itʼs Babel in reverse. The “curse” has been reversed?

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The Heavens Are The Lordʼs

The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lordʼs: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.–Psalm 115:16

So man was only “given the earth,” and not heaven. For “the heavens are the Lordʼs.” So should we not be afraid to have left footprints and garbage on the moon in the Lordʼs heavens? Should we not tremble after having launched spacecraft named after pagan gods (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo) into the Lordʼs heavens? Speaking of “Mercury, Gemini and Apollo,” the Bible even forbids mentioning the “names” of “other gods!” (Exodus 23:13) Seems to me that the same followers of the Bible who picket abortion clinics need to start picketing NASA. We need to stop mucking round in the Lordʼs heavens before something bad happens like it did at the “city and tower of Babel.” Space exploration must stop! Man was only given the earth! Just to be safe we also ought to point our telescopes away from the heavens. Itʼs an invasion of Godʼs privacy.

I was watching TV when the Challenger shuttle exploded. That was a sad thing. Was there anything that you could have done? Were you mad because they came too close to your territory? Weʼre sorry.

–Jose, in Childrenʼs Letters to God, compiled by Stuart Hample and Eric Marshall

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A Chronology of the Raqiaʼ & “Waters Above the Raquiaʼ”

The Hebrew Past

• Raqiaʼ is solid throughout the OT.

Fourth to Third to Second Century BCE

• The Book of Enoch (in one of its oldest sections, “The Book of Watchers”) affirms a solid firmament.
• •The Book of Jubilees affirms a solid firmament above which are half the waters of creation, and above which God lives. (Jubilees 2:4-5,8-10; 19:23-28)

Second Century BCE:

• Hebrew scholars translate their Scriptures into Greek (the Septuagint or LXX version of the Hebrew Bible) and employ the Greek word stereoma, based on stereos, which means “firm/hard,” as the closest equivalent to the Hebrew word, raqiaʼ. And the Song of the Three Holy Children [found in some copies of the Book of Daniel after 3:23], says that “waters be above the heavens” and are called upon to bless the Lord, but after the reader is brought closer to the things of the earth, clouds are called upon to bless the Lord, thus distinguishing between the two.

First Century CE:

• The authors of the NT assume a three-tier cosmos, consisting of God in heaven above, a flat earth below, and people/beings “under the earth” (Philippians 2:10; Revelation 5:3, 5:13; see also Ephesians 4:9–10).

Second to Fifth Century CE:

• Origen, a second-century church father, calls the firmament, “without doubt firm and solid; and it is this which ‘divides the water which is above heaven from the water which is below heaven.’” Ambrose, a fourth-century church father, comments, “the specific solidity of this exterior firmament is meant.” Jerome, a fourth–fifth-century church father, and translator of Genesis from Hebrew into Latin, translates raqiaʼ as firmamentum, based on firmus, which means “firm/hard.” Augustine, a fourth–fifth-century church father, says, “the term ‘firmament’ does not compel us to imagine a stationary heaven: we may understand this name as given to indicate not that it is motionless but that it is solid and that it constitutes an impassable boundary between the water above and the waters below.” Augustine adds, “Whatever the nature of the waters [above the firmament], we must believe in them, for the authority of Scripture is greater than the capacity of manʼs mind,” a phrase echoed by Martin Luther as late as the fifteenth century.
• Jewish writings agree with those of the Christian fathers: In 2 Enoch [dated by some to the first century CE] Enoch is placed on a cloud, transported above the first heaven, and shown “a very great Sea, greater than the earthly Sea.” The Testament of Adam says, “waters [mighty waves] are above heaven” and praise God in the fifth hour, while clouds are distinguished from such waters by being made in the sixth hour. Rabbinical works mention the firmament and the waters above it, and speculate as to the firmamentʼs composition and thickness. [For citations to statements made in the preceding two paragraphs, see Paul H. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above,” Parts I and II, listed in note 2.]

Fifth to Fifteenth Century CE:

• Most medieval theologians follow the lead of the Bible and church fathers and claim with certainty that waters lay above the planets and stars. But what kind of waters? Thomas Aquinas says such waters must be material, but he adds that their nature depends on the composition of the firmament–as is his custom, he describes various possibilities. But the most popular view of the firmament is as a “sphere of fixed stars” above which lays a “sphere of water” in liquid or crystalline form, and by “crystalline” most mean “liquid.” Indeed, in the twelfth century, Bartholomew the Englishman explains that the waters above the starry firmament are called “crystalline, not because they are hard like a crystal but because they are uniformly luminous and transparent.” Such waters are said to reflect downward the light of the luminaries and to prevent the melting of the firmament. [Edward Grant, Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200–1687, first paperback ed. (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press), 1996, p. 103; and Grant, “Journey Through the Spheres: The Cosmos in the Middle Ages,” lecture delivered at Rice University, Houston, Texas on Friday, March 14, 1997, https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/101]

Sixteenth Century:

• Martin Luther, in his Lectures on Genesis, writes of “this marvelous expansion of thick mist Moses calls a firmament… (whose) Maker gave solidity to this fluid material.”

• John Calvin, unlike Luther, is more influenced by astronomy than the Bible, and he writes: “Things that we observe plainly show the fixed stars are above the planets, and that the planets themselves are placed in different orbits… the sun, moon, and stars are not confusedly mixed together, but each has its own position and station assigned to it” [John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, trans. James Anderson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1949) Psalm CXLVIII, p. 305]. Calvin also admits that the biblical description of the moon as one of only “two great lights” is at odds with astronomy: “If the astronomer inquires respecting the actual dimensions of the planets, he will find the moon to be less than Saturn”; but Calvin excuses such a gaff by claiming Genesis 1 features a “gross method of instruction.” [Commentary on Genesis, trans. John King (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1948), pp. 79, 87; see also, Scott M. Manetsch, “Problems with the Patriarchs: John Calvinʼs Interpretation of Difficult Passages in Genesis,” Westminster Theological Journal 67 (2005): 13–15.]

  Iʼm willing to bet that the ancients, not having the benefit of Calvinʼs astronomical knowledge, held a more Lutheran view of the cosmos; compare their opinions below:

  • “Moses describes the special use of this raqiaʼ, ‘to divide the waters from the waters,’ from which words arise a great difficulty. For it appears opposed to common sense, and quite incredible, that there should be waters above the heaven” [Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, trans. John King (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1948) pp. 79, 87].
  • “Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of the heaven, below and above which… are the waters… We Christians must be different from the philosophers in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the waters above the heavens, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity with our understanding” [Martin Luther, Lutherʼs Works, vol. 1, Lectures on Genesis, ed. Janoslaw Pelikan (St. Louis, MI: Concordia, 1958), pp. 30, 42, 43].

Nineteenth Century:

• Anglican theologians and scholars contribute to a book that sums up the growing challenge to interpreting Genesis and other parts of the Bible in a literal fashion. One contributor writes, “The root [of raqiaʼ] is generally applied to express the hammering or beating out of metal plates; hence something beaten or spread out. It has been pretended that the word raqiaʼ may be translated ‘expanse’ so as merely to mean empty space. The context sufficiently rebuts this” [C. W. Goodwin, “On the Mosaic Cosmology,” Essays and Reviews (West Strand, London: John W. Parker and Son, 1860), p. 220 n. 1]. Two contributors to Essays are indicted for heresy and lose their jobs, but are reinstated later. Published four months after Darwinʼs On the Origin of Species, more copies of Essays are sold in two years than of Darwinʼs Origin in its first twenty.

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The Bibleʼs Geocentrism

For most of recorded history people imagined that their feet were planted on firm ground, terra firma. The view presented in the Bible is no exception. The Bible depicts the earth as the firm, immovable, “foundation” of creation:

Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth.–Hebrews 1:10

The sun, moon, and stars were created after the “foundation of the earth” was laid. (Gen. 1:9-18)

Who hath established all the ends of the earth?–Proverbs 30:4

He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter, forever and ever.–Psalm 104:5

The world is firmly established, it will not be moved.–Psalm 93:1 & 1 Chronicles 16:30

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?…Who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner stone thereof?–Job 38:4-6

For the pillars of the earth are the Lordʼs, and he set the world on them.–Samuel 2:8

It is I who have firmly set its pillars.–Psalm 75:3

Who stretched out the heavens… and established the world.–Jeremiah 10:12

The only time the Bible depicts the earth as moving is during an earthquake:

The earth quaked, the foundations of heaven were trembling.–2 Samuel 22:8

The earth quakes, the heavens tremble.–Joel 2:10

I shall make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken from its place.–Isaiah 13:13

There was a great earthquake…and the stars of the sky fell…as if shaken from a tree.–Rev. 6:12,13

Though the Fathers of Protestantism (Luther and Calvin) agreed with the Catholic Church of their day that the earth was a sphere, neither Protestant nor Catholic theologians could see a way to avoid the Bibleʼs teaching that the earth does not move. The verses regarding that matter appeared crystal clear to major religious leaders. They also agreed that the Bible teaches that the sun and stars move round the earth.

For instance the Bible says, “He can command the sun not to rise” (Job 9:7), rather than, “He can command the earth to stop moving.” That God would direct His command at the sun rather than the earth, implied a geocentric perspective.

Likewise, Martin Luther pointed out that when the book of Joshua discussed the miracle of “Joshuaʼs long day,” that day was lengthened because “Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth.” (Joshua 10:12) Speaking of the sunʼs movement, the Bible also states: “The sun rises and the sun sets, and hastening to its place it rises there again.” (Eccles. 1:5, NASB) The mere mention of “rising” and “setting” might be disregarded as being due to oneʼs earth-bound perspective, but speaking of the sun “hastening to its place” so that it may “rise there again,” is not so easy to explain away. It means the author of Ecclesiastes believed that the sun moved daily around the earth. Compare Psalm 19:4-6, “In [the heavens] He has placed a tent for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; it rejoices like a strong man to run its course, its rising from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them.”

As for the stars, the Bible teaches that they too move across the sky: “From their courses they fought against Sisera.” (Judges 5:20, NASB) “The One who leads forth their host by number…Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power not one [star] is missing.” (Isaiah 40:26, NASB)

Even whole constellations of stars are “led forth” in their season: “Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, And guide the Bear with her satellites? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens, Or fix their rule over the earth?” (Job 38:31-33, NASB)

Modern astronomy teaches the reverse all of the verses above, namely that the earth “hastens to” spin and run its “course” each day; it is the earth that God would have to “command” not to move, and that Joshua should have commanded to “stand still,” and, the earth that God would have to “lead forth,” and “guide” in “its season;” and, the earthʼs “ordinances” not those of the constellations above it, that must be “fixed” in order for the constellations to appear to move as they do across the earthʼs sky.

But some Christians still side with the Bible over modern astronomy, like Dr. Gerardus Bouw, who rejects that the earth goes round the sun. He believes the reverse is true, based first and foremost on the Bible verses mentioned above. In fact, he is the president of the “Society of Biblical Astronomy” and he wonders how any Christians who say they believe the Bible “cover to cover” can ignore the Bibleʼs view of the earthʼs immobility and the daily (and seasonal) movement of the sun, stars and constellations, especially when the Bible adds that God is doing the moving (and commanding the halting) of the sun and stars. Is God a liar? Does the Bible depict God “commanding” and “leading forth” things that donʼt really move? Dr. Bouw believes the Bible means what it says. Besides, when God is depicted as moving the sun and stars (daily and seasonally), or stopping the sun (miraculously), or shaking an immovable earth (creating an earthquake), such actions are demonstrations of Godʼs “might.” They are either that, or “mighty deceptive” language for God to have “inspired.” Like telling people who start their cars and step on the gas that, “God leads forth the trees which speed by on the roadside… Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power not one is missing!” (cf. Isaiah 40:26). Therefore Bouw remains a geocentrist, just as the Good Book says he should.

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Quotations Related to a Holy Heaven Lying Directly Above the Earth

We know that anyone who wants to go to God and the precincts of the Blessed is taking a needless detour if he thinks this means he has to soar into the upper levels of the air. Surely Jesus would not have taken such a superfluous journey, nor would God have made him take it. Thus, one would have to assume something like a divine accommodation to the world-picture people had back then, and say: In order to convince the disciples of Jesusʼs return to the higher world, even though in fact that world was by no means to be sought in the upper atmosphere, God nevertheless staged the spectacle of Jesusʼs elevation. But this would be turning God into a sleight-of-hand artist.

David Friedrich Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, 1837

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The ascension story, as Luke tells it in the Book of Acts, assumes that Jesus rises in order to enter heavenʼs door in the sky to be enthroned at the right hand of God. But in a space age, rising from this earth into the sky does not result in achieving heaven. It might only result in achieving orbit. Luke did not comprehend the vastness of space. No one in his day did. He could not have imagined space travel. If Jesus ascended physically into the sky and rose as rapidly as the speed of light, he would not yet have reached the edges of our own galaxy. [And our galaxy is merely one of over 100 billion.—]

John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism

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It was the common belief among the Jews that the Messiah would transcend the greatest of the patriarchs and prophets; and if Enoch was translated, and Elijah went up in a fiery chariot, it was only natural that the Messiah should ascend to heaven.

G. W. Foote, Bible Romances, No. 14, The Resurrection, 1880

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The ascension of Jesus into cloudy concealment seems to have been modeled directly upon Josephusʼ [first century] telling of the story of the ascension of Moses before the forlorn eyes of his disciples.

Robert M. Price, “Of Myth and Men: A Closer Look At the Originators of the Major Religions—What Did They Really Say and Do?” Free Inquiry, Winter 1999/2000

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There were ascents into heaven made long before and quite apart from Jesus. The Roman historian Livy, described the ascension of Romulus, the founder of the city of Rome, who came to be venerated as a god: One day Romulus held an assembly of the people before the city walls to review the army. Suddenly a thunderstorm broke out, wrapping the king in a thick cloud. When the cloud lifted, Romulus was no longer on earth. He had gone up into heaven.

Stories of ascensions were told in antiquity about other famous men, for example, Heracles, Empedocles, Alexander the Great, and Apollonius of Tyana. Characteristically the scene is set with spectators and witnesses, before whose eyes the person in question disappears. Often he is borne aloft by a cloud or shrouded in darkness that takes him from the eyes of the people. Not infrequently the whole business takes place on a mountain or hill. (Gerhard Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu)

From this standpoint, Jesusʼs Ascension was nothing out of the ordinary. Jesus too, disembarked from a mountain, the Mount of Olives, for heaven. The point is that from a mountain itʼs not quite as far to heaven.

Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Putting Away Childish Things

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Millions of Muslims believe Mohammed “ascended into the sky” riding a horse. Makes me wonder whether Mohammed caught up to Jesus and galloped past? Or, being the gracious prophet that he was, gave Jesus a lift?

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According to the Christian Bible, Jesusʼ ultimate moment of triumph, his big exit, his grand finale, when he rose “into the clouds” to be seated at the right hand of God, was witnessed by only a handful of people, all of them, “disciples.”

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See also some posts on the ancient view of hellʼs location, such as this entry.