The Beginning - Part Three

The diminishment of lifepans between the personages of Adam's generation and those of Shem's descendancy, plus the possibility of the Earth being closer to the Sun than at present and experiencing shorter years according to Kepler's Laws, called for a blind test. It was at this point that I sat up that entire first night, with a new energy and focus, and leafed through the entire Bible looking for longevity data on people who came later. The list that resulted from this search may be found in Chapter One of the book, The Time of the End, located on the website http://timeoftheend-faithandreason.net. It shows a consistent downturn in length of life for all the personages named, right down to David, who was old and infirm at seventy years of age. This called for a re-examination of Genesis 1.
The first verse of Genesis is one of the most misunderstood, misqouted, and misleading, collection of wrods ever put on paper. "In the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth, the world was without form and void, and the Spirit of God moved across the abyss." Before we can understand what this verse actually says, we must first recognize what it doesn't say.
What this verse doen't say is that the Universe and the world did not already exist.
The Universe is not even mentioned, and as for the world we are told that it was without form and void. Can something be without form, yet exist? Gravity exists, but without form: We can't see gravity, only its effects. Air is without form. A thought has no form except the vision in the mind of the beholder.
Form is a physical perception; it's how we distinguish things, by what they look like. So we may reasonably conclude that while the world did exist, it could not be seen. Neither could the third satellite of Jupiter on that cold night in November, 1974: it was too far away! And even when in sight, it wasn't the satellite itself that was seen, only the light reflected from its surface. Suddenly things started making sense and I regarded the first three "days" of Genesis.
During the Scopes Trial of the 1920's Clarence Darrow asked William Jennings Bryan: "If the Sun wasn't created until the fourth day, where did the light in the first day come from?" This question is never asked by Fundamentalist " believers " because there's no answer to it from their point of view. But the answer seems to come naturally from the new perspective that I was discovering: it was already there!
I was taken back to that night in November of the previous year when I was watching Jupiter through my little telescope and the satellite appeared. "Let there be light!"
A simple interpretation of the first three days resolves itself into an interesting combination of factors: the very things an intelligence travelling through space would require of a newly discovered star system;
1. Is there a planet the right distance from the star?
2. Does it have an atmosphere?
3. Is there dry land on its surface?
Imagination is such a wonderful faculty; it allows us to derive sense out of nonsense, order out of chaos, and is the foundation of every great achievemnt of mankind. Was I onto something? Could it be that an approaching intelligence aboard a celectial ark, a "City of Heaven", observed the Sun as I had observed Jupiter, looking for a planet the right distance off? It makes sense.
The whole idea of visitors from the stars seems absurd to many, yet the Chariots of the Gods captured and held the imaginations of millions for a while. Then it went the way of all novelties, into obscurity. The reason must be prejudice, that set of pre-conceived ideas that disallow any but the beliefs that have been drummed into people's heads from childhood. According to the " literal interpretation " of the Bible, [God] is a person eerily similar to Zeus, who rules from on high like an Oriental potentate, and who one day decided to " create " everything from nothing.
There are some serious things wrong with this idea.
First, characterizing God as a person diminishes the Spirit of the Universe. Truly spiritual people regard God as the Spirit of the Universe ( of Universes ), All Things Everywhere, and in All Things Everywhere: the only Singularity that exists.
All things are a part of the Whole as Dualities, their states or conditions being described as Binaries: basically there or not there. Relegating God to the status of a person reduces [Him] to a Duality, something less than the All in All. An individual, if he exists, must be somewhere. If he is somewhere then there must be places where his isn't present. Old Time Religion tells us that [God] is somewhere, though none can say exactly where except it's a place called Heaven. And you have to die to get there! That's the " literal interpretation " of the Bible. And exactly what is a Literal Intepretation?
Nonsense. Something is either literal or it's an interpretation. Can't be both. If great volumes of water are falling from the sky, it's raining - literally. There is no interpretation necessary. Of course we could be stanting under a dirigible that is dumping balast, or in the midst of a forest fire with an aircraft overhead dropping water onto the blaze, but these would be facts as well. Now, let's consider an interpretation.
You lend a man twenty dollars. Is it a loan? Though you may interpret the transaction as such, it truly isn't a loan unless it's repaid. If it is never repaid it's a gift, regardless how you choose to think about it. As far as the Fundamentalist interpretation goes, there are serious flaws with the idea.
If [God] created everything from nothing, then [He] violated [His] own Natural Laws. The basic law of Physics is that Energy cannot be [created] and cannot be destroyed.
Also, if [God] staged this whole event as a prelude to creating man, then [He] really went overboard! In Medieval times when the Earth was flat and covered by a clelstial dome ( like a cake dish ) studded with precious jewels, the idea of "creation" was easier to swallow. But it fails in light of modern knowledge, the Universe as we now know it to be: billions and billions of galaxies, each containing billions and billions of stars. Whew!
Is it reasonable to suggest that our system was discovered by an intelligence travelling through space? If not, then why is mankind so fixated on the heavens? Are we seeking our roots? Space travel is a fact; we are doing it. Today we zoom to faraway places aboard aircraft capable of speeds in excess of 500 MPH. Didn't we begin as naked savages poling around on rafts? We've come a long way. By the same token, are not our present ventures into space alagous to primitives paddling around in dugout canoes? What great Cruise Ships will we build in space, the " final frontier " in years to come? Celestial Arks outfitted for journeys of a thousand years or more - Cities of Heaven?
To be continued.