I’m not sure. But I have given you two examples that would point me in the direction of specifically Christianity. Because Genesis says humans were created by God in the garden of Eden, near the Euphrates and the Tigris, which is Mesopotamia. So if human fossils appeared suddenly in Mesopotamian earthlayers, without predecessors, then that would give credibility to the Genesis account of human origins, of which the Fall is an important part. And if the Fall of Mankind is real, then Original Sin and redemption become important too. That would set me on the road to Christianity.
You will not get that wish, but if you seriously want to know God, you will know Him. Perhaps more accurate, I would say that if you truly do not wish to know Him, if what you say above are the limits you set in order to stay away from that knowledge, you will get that reward.
It was mentioned above that Genesis is allegorical. It speaks in symbols that are not quantitative, but qualitative. Now I can’t say that Eden was in Mesopotamia or not, but it was a beautiful place in this world, existing at a particular time, when it was that we came into existence. It was a union between heaven and earth, and as such, everything was plentiful, perfect. We were moulded from the same ground from which everything springs on the sixth day, which does not translate well into time as we know it through our creation of clocks. It being the final day of creation has as much to do with material changes as it does with intentions (as the goal and purpose of the creation) and with states of being (the most complex and greatest ultimately in Jesus Christ).
The forming of mankind into something similar to what we know today, which is unlikely imho what science understands as Homo sapiens. could have happened in any number of ways. If science is correct, and that’s a big if, life was created some 3,500,000,000 years ago. Like the baby in the womb, humanity and its “placenta” - nature, grew from that primary flash that saw the birth of a new biological order of being from previously created constituents.
As the Joni Michell song goes, we are formed from stardust. And corny as it may sound, we are golden; a light that shines, incorruptible forms the Ground of our being. We entered into a bargain with the devil to make ourselves gods without God, and here we are. Cut ourselves off, but not totally, from infinite and eternal Being and Goodness, through our clutching at the finiteness that defines our being and destines us to die. We cannot go back in time to undo what has been done, the spinning fiery sword of entropy prevents that. We go forward in Christ.
Think of all the abilities we have, the sciences, music, the visual arts, culinary arts, poetry, engineering, architecture, medicine, philosophy, all these fruits are given us do enjoy and to express the wonder of all this. The garden is our being-in-the-world, the fundamental reality of our existence, the image of the Trinity. At the centre of the garden are two trees, one wood that is found repeatedly in scripture and represents Jesus on the cross, good-and-evil, eternal life. The path we chose, by eating of God’ fruit, to be gods, is and was to take up the cross that gods bear in offering redemption and salvation to a universe that contains beings with free will, and thereby the capacity to love. Love, the act of giving ourselves for the good of the other is the means by which we can enter into the deepest truth of existence. As we picked that fruit, we drove a nail into our hands. In displacing God with ourselves at the core of our will, we turned from Him and brought on this fall from eternity. The only way to re-establish the living connection is to do His will. His will is love.
There’s so much more to the story, but this is too long as it is. Hope it helps at least to open up the possibility that there are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
