If you want to know how to disprove creationism, just look up at the moon
The book of Genesis is the main book in the Bible creationists use to support their belief that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. Creationists take the book of Genesis literally, as we all learned Tuesday evening, during the debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye. Numerous times during the debate, Nye would raise a question, and Ham would respond “Well, there’s this book.” That book, of course, is the Bible.
Creationists believe that a catastrophic flood wiped out all of civilization and most other creatures on the planet, except for Noah, his family, and two of every animal on Earth. This flood is written about in the book of Genesis, and creationists like Ken Ham take it very literally. There are many other things covered in the book of Genesis: The garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, the first patriarchs, and of course, the creation of Earth.
During the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, I had four windows open on my computer, my teenage, Atheist son sitting next to me, and my Jerusalem Bible on my lap. While my son muttered under his breath, I was bouncing back and forth between scientific websites while reading the book of Genesis. And when Ken Ham began trotting out his astronomer friends as proof that a person can believe in creationism and study spacial bodies, I almost fell out of my chair.
From my copy of The Jerusalem Bible, Genesis chapter 1, verses 14-17:
God said “Let their be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night, and let them indicate festivals, days and years. Let them be lights in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth.” And so it was. God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day, the smaller light to govern the night, and the stars.
On the bottom of this page, there is a footnote that reads:
Their names are omitted deliberately: the sun and the moon were worshiped by neighboring peoples, and here they are treated as no more than lamps to light the earth and regulate the calendar.
According to the book of Genesis, the book creationists point to as proof the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, on the fourth day of creation, God made two lights, the sun and the moon. Except the moon isn’t a light.
The moon is a rock, covered with dead volcanoes, impact craters, and lava flows. Creationists believe the moon is a light, placed in the heavens by God. What creationists see as a “nightlight” is actually a mirror, reflecting the light of the sun. We have walked on the moon, we have a flag planted firmly on its’ surface, we can see the moon from Earth with a telescope. It is not a light.
If creationists believe the book of Genesis tells the true story of the creation of Earth, how do they account for the moon? Again, according to their own book, God created two lights. Science has proven the moon is not a light, or a star. Does this mean creationists do not believe we landed on the moon? The sun is a star, giving off immense heat and light. The sun is not a solid mass, therefore, we cannot land on it, or walk on it, or put a flag on the “surface.” The book of Genesis states the sun and the moon are both lights, while science proves they are not.
Bill Nye tried to point this out a few years ago in Texas. He joined a panel of pastors and Christian scientists in Waco for a symposium, and while speaking about the fact that the moon reflects light from the sun, he was booed. According to The Waco Tribune, a mother in the audience jumped to her feet, grabbed her kids, and ran out, yelling “We believe in God!”
Creationists in Texas aren’t the only ones who have a hard time understanding what the moon is, or what it does. In 2011, Bill O’Reilly had David Silverman, president of the American Atheist Group, on “The Factor.” Mr. Silverman’s group had put billboards up, declaring religion a “scam,” and Mr. O’Reilly disagreed. He told Silverman:
Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that.
When Silverman pointed out that we can, in fact, explain it, O’Reilly maintained his line of thought, his belief. After the program aired, O’Reilly responded to a question from a viewer about his statement. He told his audience that he understood about the moon, but how did it get there? How did the sun get there? Why don’t Venus or Mars “have that?” Well, Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, while Venus has none. As for the sun, all the planets in our solar system orbit around the “greater light.” So while Venus and Mercury do not have moons now (scientists hypothesize this may not have always been the case), all planets have the sun.
I asked my husband, an agnostic bordering on Atheism, to weigh in on this. He really didn’t want to, until I gave him an analogy. What if he were reading a book about the oceans, and at one point, the author claimed that thousands of years ago, all the Earth’s seas were made of Jello? Would this statement cause doubt in my husband’s mind as to the other facts presented in the book? He thought for a few moments, then said yes, it would. If a book written by a man, or in the case of the Bible, many men, could be wrong about something that important, it would taint the rest of the information contained in that book.
The book of Genesis, with the statement that the moon is a light, disproves creationism. Creationism is at the core a belief, based on faith. But when creationists try to market their faith as fact, and try to teach it in our public schools, it becomes dangerous. The moon is not a light, the book of Genesis is not fact, and creationism is not science.
God said “Let their be lights….”
FAIL
I always come across this and I wish people would take the time to understand what these terms mean. Your husband is not an “agnostic bordering on atheism”, agnosticism is not a middle ground or a third option to a binary position. Agnosticism/gnosticism deals with knowledge and theism/atheism deal with belief. If your husband does not hold a belief in god then he is an atheist, plain and simple. Atheism says nothing about the person other than whether or not the believe in a god. Agnosticism is usually used by people who do not understand this fact and think, because of a stigma placed on atheism, that they are picking a middle ground or a undecided position but if you are undecided than you do not have a belief. To be completely honest everyone is agnostic toward the question of god because no one has actual knowledge of a gods existence. In actual practise the two do not stand on their own. You can be an agnostic atheist/theist or a gnostic atheist/theist. People who simply say, oh I’m an agnostic, tend to not understand the issue or the terms, have a misconception of what atheism is, or are complete cowards.
please. agnosic atheists are merely fence sitters;
nobody walks around saying “i’m agnostic about gravity” dispite the fact that we have no absolute evidence that gravity exists everywhere in the entire universe – why then, don’t -so called- agnostic atheists, who care about the “honesty of their stance” would have to say that they are agnostic to everything, since absaolute knowledge is not possible. This makes the addition of the “agnostic” title to ANY knowledge completely useless since absolute knowledge of ANYTHING is not possible.
put another way, nobody can be 100% gnostic about anything.
the agnostic-atheist title is merely there for people too stupid to understand epistemology.
If you’ve ever walked in the country at night, there’s a big difference between no moon and a full moon — the difference is light. The moon provides light; the fact that it is a reflected light doesn’t negate that…
As much as I like this blog, I think the author of this article is making the same mistake as creationists. No where in the Genesis creation story does the equate light to the moon. It simply states that there was night and day, divided. A light to rule the day, a light to rule the night. This not meant to say that the light of the night is the moon or that the moon is a light source within itself. IMHO!
You ignore the footnote quoted that states specifically that the names “sun” and “moon” were omitted deliberately because neighboring tribes worshiped them. Ignoring facts is the basis of all religions and those that believe their nonsense.
Where every discussion about the bible goes wrong is when either side considers it a book about how and when. It’s not a science, nor a history book. The bible is a book about why. Why are we here? Why are we the way we are? Wat is our purpose?
Where you are wrong is that christians specifically state that the bible is a book about history and science. They believe it and demand that others believe it too.
That’s the problem. They are entitled to their own beliefs. They are not entitled to their own facts nor to impose those beliefs upon others be making them the law.
if the bible is wrong about “how” then how can it be trustworthy about “why?”
The book of Genesis begins with a set of instructions on how to read and understand the Bible. First there are two different versions of the story of the creation. Then it moves to the Garden of Eden and the whole thing about the fruit of knowledge and having to be held responsible for the choices we make. How ANYONE can miss that basic lesson and attempt to treat the Bible as a single set of direct instructions has always mystified me.
Two different creation accounts and two different names for one God. Go figure!
The bible is a book of stories, that’s it.
My personal favorite thing to do to weaken the argument of a creationist is to simply point out the similarities of the parables on the bible to those told in religions that predate it. Jesus was far from the first deity born of immaculate conception.
Sorry but this article is asinine. Just because God was efficient and only made one source of light doesn’t mean that reflected light is not light.
Then explain the passage referenced in the article. If creationists (like you, I’m guessing) believe the book of Genesis is 100% factual, then why is it written that God created 2 lights, when the moon is a rock? Explain the woman in Texas who dragged her kids out of a building because Bill Nye factually state the moon is a rock. Genesis doesn’t say anything about a rock; it says God made 2 lights, one for the day and one for the night. You take the Bible literally; therefore, the moon, in your world, cannot be a rock.
To show how fictional the bible is, you would go with me to Gen 1:9-10. The bible opined that water was formed before the earth. That is worst aberration i am yet to read.
As usual you bible thumping morons take what you want and throw away the rest… It says ‘Created’ two seperate creations being light. The article is explaining why you can’t take it literally and you Screwed up your way of thinking to the point of disbelief in science Again! Go back to your cave cave man we can go about society without you… Moron… You made yourself out as the ass on the asinine…
It also depends on the version of the bible you are reading how it’s interpreted from the origional writings, it was not written in english first and has been done the telephone affect your a long time. But again to bash one another is neither the true scientists or the real god fearing people it’s the ones who’s faith in either is being tested by the views of others and not their own
You really have no concept of science. Its not “bashing” anyone to point out, quite correctly, that fundamentalists have no real evidence to stand on for their position and they continually corrupt and misunderstand (usually on purpose) the evidence presented by the scientific community. In the real adult world, every body on every opposing issue is not half right and half wrong. Sometimes some people are simply all wrong. Fundamentalists are simple wrong to anyone who who examines evidence in an mature way. Sorry. This is reality. Everyone doesn’t get a trophy for mere participation and concluding that 2 + 2 = 5! Deal with it.
And your bias and ignorance is darkness. Please show me a fundamentalist biological text chock full of creationist non-science that has passed peer review with the real scientific community. (Not the Bob Jones “science” department or the fundamentalist that have usurped Texas). I’ll be waiting here. As to the rest of your usual canned CR defense, its nonsense. Try reading actual science for once. Your defense continues to be childish. Enjoy your self light lesser light and you Adam riding dinosaurs and vegetarian lions and other such crap. Here’s a hint: you make your God look, weak, stupid and ignorant: the kind of deity Twitter can easily replace.
Then why did those nice people boo Nye in Texas when he called it reflected light? Its sad but in the most educated and free country in the world, we can still grow our own ignorant Taliban!
If you read clearly, that’s not the argument the author is making.
I realize that many religious types like to think that “all things are possible with God” but do you seriously think that Noah was able to fit 2 (or even 1) of every single type of life on earth in that ark? Every tree, flower, insect, bird, mammal? Have you seen any projections on exactly how large the ark would had to have been in order to do that? One estimate says about 15 Houston Astrodome stadiums. The “flood myth” was derived from no less than 3 other cultures which pre-date the writing of the bible by thousands of years, the most prominent one being The Epic of Gilgamesh (look it up) written by the Sumerians long before the bible was even a thought or a set of scrolls.
If you think about the bible as a series of stories written for a tribe of peoples who had zero technology or even a grasp of simple science, it makes a lot more sense. It’s the difference between trying to tell a 3-year-old or an adult how conception works. At some point, you just have to simplify things and make giant leaps of creative faith. That’s what the bible does.
Have all the faith you want in your religion, but don’t conflate what the bible says and what science actually can prove. Apples meet oranges.
In the words of a good friend if you cannot be open no def abd allow others their beliefs then you should not be in the debate. If you believe in Christ and as the bible tells you live it as close to him as you can the words you just posted disprove you are following your own beliefs and guide book. I was raised a. Wet religious person and I have faith in god but I also do believe that he would never have allowed us the technology and sciences to be able to make up our own minds if he wasn’t really there. Science is science and even tho some call it truth or fact it can be manipulated from the start but so can the reading of any book. A man’s , or woman’s faith is at their very heart. You have to have something to believe in or pull ur faith from/to. Even atheists have faith, only their faith is there is no god or being above that created us . And I believe that is their right to believe even tho I don’t believe the sane way. If you cannot read someone else thoughts and just say ok I read but my faith is strong. Then you need to reevaluate your own beliefs. Cuz this article shook you just from what they believed to the point of making a statement that embarrasses those who’s faith is strong and firm in whatever they believe.
I have no idea what a “Wet religious person” is or what “def abd” can possibly mean. I am not shaken by the article as a Christian who has no problem with evolution. Just the stupidity and hubris of Ham and his cult like followers. 27 million dollars was wasted on a fundamentalist flop. That could have drilled 1800 deep wells in Africa and brought health and hope to millions. Bad doctrine always has a cost.
You seem not to know what atheism is, may be for a guide atheism is lack of belief in the existence of god or gods. There is art of believe in atheism.
Your argument is so flawed, having Stumbled upon this 10 months after that fact I still felt compelled to reply. This will no doubt be entirely for my own benefit, but nonetheless I will continue.
“In the words of a good friend if you cannot be open no def abd allow others their beliefs then you should not be in the debate. If you believe in Christ and as the bible tells you live it as close to him as you can the words you just posted disprove you are following your own beliefs and guide book.”
[This was the first, and unfortunately the last, point you made that seemed entirely rational.]
“I was raised a. Wet religious person and I have faith in god but I also do believe that he would never have allowed us the technology and sciences to be able to make up our own minds if he wasn’t really there.”
[I don’t know if you realize what you just stated there. He wouldn’t have allowed something if he didn’t exist? If he didn’t exist, he wouldn’t really have much say in the matter, would he?]
“Science is science and even tho some call it truth or fact it can be manipulated from the start but so can the reading of any book.”
[If your science (or any education, for that matter) is limited to reading books, then yes, you can be manipulated. However, this is why science is based on experimentation and peer review. The difference between being manipulated by scientists versus by theologians is: at least with science, accuracy can be verified.]
” A man’s , or woman’s faith is at their very heart.”
[I’m going to go ahead and play semantics here. Faith is held in the mind, not the heart. But perhaps you meant to say that it is emotional rather than rational? If that’s the case, then you’ve said something else I can agree with. It isn’t rational.]
“You have to have something to believe in or pull ur faith from/to.”
[No, I don’t. Faith is believing something without evidence. Why in the world would I (or anyone else) need that? At this point it sounds as if perhaps your’e stumbling through the idea that life must have a meaning. I would *generally* agree, but I assure you any meaning I derive is based on what I would like to accomplish in the short time I have, and not sandbagging for the “next” life.]
“Even atheists have faith, only their faith is there is no god or being above that created us .”
[On this one you completely miss the mark- twice.
First, atheists don’t have faith that a god doesn’t exist; theists have simply failed to provide evidence that he *does*. Much in the same way grainy photographs don’t actually prove the existence of a Loch Ness monster, bronze age creation myths don’t prove the existence of a supernatural being. This isn’t an issue of faith, but simply being unconvinced because of lack of evidence. To put it another way, atheism isn’t saying “Your god doesn’t exist,” but rather “You haven’t shown me he does.”
Second, it seems you attempt to level the playing field by suggesting that because they are both based on faith (even though atheism is not), that they must therefore have equal merit. That’s equivalent to saying that because we don’t know how many dice fit into a small glass jar, guessing 150,000 is just as good as guessing 21. While both may be incorrect, one is definitely not right (my thanks to Tracie Harris.) Ignorance doesn’t allow you to insert any fanciful answer you happen to feel good about & then claim it’s just as good as science.]
“And I believe that is their right to believe even tho I don’t believe the sane way. If you cannot read someone else thoughts and just say ok I read but my faith is strong. Then you need to reevaluate your own beliefs. Cuz this article shook you just from what they believed to the point of making a statement that embarrasses those who’s faith is strong and firm in whatever they believe.”
[As far as a person’s right to believe, I would almost agree with that, if not for the fact we do not live in a vacuum, and people’s beliefs influence their actions. Perhaps I wouldn’t worry what a group of fundamentalists in Texas chooses to believe if they weren’t trying to force my children to read “textbooks” that promote the idea that 6000 yeas ago men saddled up on vegetarian dinosaurs. I don’t propose thought control (unlike the Christian god, who according to the book, does punish thought crime), I simply feel that we shouldn’t pretend like thoughts don’t influence actions.
As for strong and firm faith, actually you SHOULD reevaluate your beliefs if new information contradicts them. Not that you need to blindly accept every idea flung your way, but if it causes you to pause, then there is probably reason to at least stop and consider why that is. Sticking to antiquated ideas is not a virtue, it is being stubborn.]
And let’s not forget, it was creationists that insisted the earth was flat and the sun rotated around it. It’s hard to dispel that much ignorance and apparently it hasn’t all disappeared from the creationist landscape.
The church survived Galileo. It will adapt and survive the truth of evolution. Well the non-fundamentalist part. Is it possible to evolve BACK into being a dinosaur?
I think some have moved past dinosaur and gone straight to primordial ooze.
The fundamentalist Catholic church was wrong then and you silly fundamentalists are quite wrong now. A close reading of the Bible shows that is is myth and religion and ancient tales. Not science. It was never meant to be science. God is a little bit more sophisticated than primitive bronze age silliness. Not that I expect that you have the capacity to see the truth. But I’ll pray for you. God can even enlightened the most stubborn and dull witted fundamentalist!
I pray to Christ. The “god” you erect is a card board cut out invented by the ignorant. Maybe you should pray to know the truth. You’re the one as deceived as the Catholics in Galileo’s time and the rest of the bunch that decided that torturing 300,000 innocent women for the imaginary crime of witch craft and then burning 75,000 of them was a good idea. I’m just not a non-thinking fanatic. You are destroying the next generation of the church by your foolishness and crass stupidity. My faith is not built on bronze age fairy tales. I’ll leave you the words of St Augustine on Genesis to consider: though I doubt you will as they do not spring form the pages of King James Bible:
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. ”
And that’s what you, Ham and the Creation Museum fanatics are doing right now. Do you want to be a fool for Christ or a fool for fundamentalism, a recent movement that spring up only in 1911? You decide. I made decision a long time ago. A literal interpretation of the Bible, especially the stories in Genesis, has a long trail of blood behind it, shed mostly by Christians. Why? Because Jews do not treat their scripture with same low standards and childish (not child-like) games fundamentalist do!
“If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?”
The pot should not call the kettle black!
Prove anything about the christian religion is true. It is 100% myths and outright lies. For example, your christ never exited. Here’s a couple of proofs of that.
A Few Noticeable Events in the Life of Jesus
Herod’s slaughter of all the baby boys in Bethlehem.
Jesus’ triumphant entry in Jerusalem, where the entire town welcomes him as their king.
Jesus casting out the greedy moneychangers. (in an area about the size of 34 football fields)
Two earthquakes hit Jerusalem.
Supernatural darkness covers “all the land” for hours.
The Sacred Temple curtain tears from top to bottom.
All the dead holy men in the cemetery come out of their graves and wander Jerusalem, “appearing to many.”
And yet, contemporary historians in the time of Jesus didn’t write about any of this.
As stated by Dr. Bart Ehrman, Professor of religious studies at the University of North Caroline, Chapel Hill, NC said, “In the entire first Christian century, Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman scholar, politician, philosopher, or poet. His name never appears in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!”
Being a christian and there for a fact denier, you may need to look up the meaning of “contemporary.” Be aware that I have made this challenge hundreds of times and not one person has ever been able to do it.
I can also furnish you lots of failed prophecies, contradictions, and absurdly impossible claims in the babble.
Yes, there are some verifiable historical places and events described. Does that mean any of the rest of it is true. Not a bit. Here’s how that worl and I provide a contemporary (that word again) verifiable example.
On the 11th of September, 2001, two commercial aircraft flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing thousands.
Some people believe that this was an act of terrorism by an Islamic fundamentalist organization.
It was really the power of my god (he who must not be named) directing those planes to warn the people of the USA and the world to abandon their wicked ways and praise the only true god.
The first sentence is unquestionable historic fact. The last sentence is a delusional lie but is impossible to prove to be false. The “truth” of all “holy books” is based upon this same technique.