L
lemonbeam
Guest
An atheist sent this to me, can you please help in responding:
''Why don’t we still think the earth was created in six days, is 6 or 7,000 years old and that woman was made from man’s rib? Because we now know about mutating cells and evolution.
Earthquakes and volcanoes have been around since the beginning of time. The planet always sought to cool itself and lower its pressure and internal heat through these natural events. To primitive man witnessing the earth crack open and swallow up his screaming family and acquaintances, seeing a mountain belch liquid fire and ash and killing a village, what conclusion would he reach in his trauma without the benefit of a scientific explanation? That there were raging fires beneath the earth, and that’s where he would go when upon death, if he succeeded in angering the invisible gods. Beneath the earth was the place of punishment and the idea of hell was born.
To him, the sky gave its bounty and made his crops grow. It gave him water to drink and the sun gave him warmth. What better reason to think heaven was above and hellfire beneath? After all, when the disasters came, they caused bloodshed. Isn’t that what the gods wanted to appease themselves? Blood?
So he started to give the gods blood so they would stay his execution, so he could live instead of die, so the gods could avert the volcanic eruptions and the earthquakes. He started throwing babies and virgins in the volcano as sacrifice to the gods. The whole need to worship the invisible being was based on this fear of death.
Sacrificial offerings were conceived as a means of keeping the disaster away. And since these events may have taken place once in his short lifetime, man believed his sacrifices were the solution to keeping them at bay. It made perfect sense to beings who were ignorant of the natural processes around them, who had no idea of microbes, who died by drinking dirty water, died of decaying teeth and saw death during the night when the wild animals came and there was no light. In some civilizations because some days were cloudy and he couldn’t see the sun, man thought it prudent to give blood to the gods to make the sun rise each day, and so arranged sacrifices to the god or goddess of the dawn. Animal blood was also used because the natural disasters claimed the lives of animals too.
All this made perfect sense to primitive man. Tales told in the dark from generation to generation gave way to superstition, and when writing was invented the superstition became written codes of conduct, and formalized religion emerged. But we are no longer in the Stone, Iron or Bronze Age. We now have explanations for natural phenomena. We know why there is lightning and we don’t think it is God speaking in the thunder. We know the earth needs to cool itself and we understand why the winds get violent and storms and floods arise.
By 2025 the US military will control the weather. Man is moving towards the day when he can harness the power of the sun. Technology is moving so fast, GPS is 40 years old and the civilian population only learned of it less than 15 years ago. Now there is technology that permits the military to listen to conversations from afar and “see” through concrete walls. Years ago these would have been miracles. Man is now going to store energy from the sun in satellites and use lasers to create earthquakes AWAY from heavily populated areas, so the earth can still cool itself and shift its tectonic plates without taking a toll on human life.
Mankind will drift away from religion when he is no longer dependent on a God to answer life’s mysteries. It will take a long time, yes, but we will eventually lose our fear of death, and our need for adrenalin will diminish. So will our need to comfort ourselves at the hour of death by lying to each other about living forever and seeing each other again.’’
''Why don’t we still think the earth was created in six days, is 6 or 7,000 years old and that woman was made from man’s rib? Because we now know about mutating cells and evolution.
Earthquakes and volcanoes have been around since the beginning of time. The planet always sought to cool itself and lower its pressure and internal heat through these natural events. To primitive man witnessing the earth crack open and swallow up his screaming family and acquaintances, seeing a mountain belch liquid fire and ash and killing a village, what conclusion would he reach in his trauma without the benefit of a scientific explanation? That there were raging fires beneath the earth, and that’s where he would go when upon death, if he succeeded in angering the invisible gods. Beneath the earth was the place of punishment and the idea of hell was born.
To him, the sky gave its bounty and made his crops grow. It gave him water to drink and the sun gave him warmth. What better reason to think heaven was above and hellfire beneath? After all, when the disasters came, they caused bloodshed. Isn’t that what the gods wanted to appease themselves? Blood?
So he started to give the gods blood so they would stay his execution, so he could live instead of die, so the gods could avert the volcanic eruptions and the earthquakes. He started throwing babies and virgins in the volcano as sacrifice to the gods. The whole need to worship the invisible being was based on this fear of death.
Sacrificial offerings were conceived as a means of keeping the disaster away. And since these events may have taken place once in his short lifetime, man believed his sacrifices were the solution to keeping them at bay. It made perfect sense to beings who were ignorant of the natural processes around them, who had no idea of microbes, who died by drinking dirty water, died of decaying teeth and saw death during the night when the wild animals came and there was no light. In some civilizations because some days were cloudy and he couldn’t see the sun, man thought it prudent to give blood to the gods to make the sun rise each day, and so arranged sacrifices to the god or goddess of the dawn. Animal blood was also used because the natural disasters claimed the lives of animals too.
All this made perfect sense to primitive man. Tales told in the dark from generation to generation gave way to superstition, and when writing was invented the superstition became written codes of conduct, and formalized religion emerged. But we are no longer in the Stone, Iron or Bronze Age. We now have explanations for natural phenomena. We know why there is lightning and we don’t think it is God speaking in the thunder. We know the earth needs to cool itself and we understand why the winds get violent and storms and floods arise.
By 2025 the US military will control the weather. Man is moving towards the day when he can harness the power of the sun. Technology is moving so fast, GPS is 40 years old and the civilian population only learned of it less than 15 years ago. Now there is technology that permits the military to listen to conversations from afar and “see” through concrete walls. Years ago these would have been miracles. Man is now going to store energy from the sun in satellites and use lasers to create earthquakes AWAY from heavily populated areas, so the earth can still cool itself and shift its tectonic plates without taking a toll on human life.
Mankind will drift away from religion when he is no longer dependent on a God to answer life’s mysteries. It will take a long time, yes, but we will eventually lose our fear of death, and our need for adrenalin will diminish. So will our need to comfort ourselves at the hour of death by lying to each other about living forever and seeing each other again.’’
