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MProvenza's avatar

I personally like the passage from Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman.

"Archbishop James Usher (1581-1656) published Annales Veteris et Novi Testamenti in 1654, which suggested that the Heaven and the Earth were created in 4004 BC. One of his aides took the calculation further, and was able to announce triumphantly that the Earth was created on Sunday 21st of October, 4004 BC, at exactly 9.00 a.m., because God liked to get work done early in the morning while he was feeling fresh.

This too was incorrect. By almost a quarter of an hour.

The whole business with the fossilised dinosaur skeletons was a joke the palaeontologists haven't seen yet.

This proves two things:

Firstly, that God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the Universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players (i.e., everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

Secondly, the Earth's a Libra."

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Eric73's avatar

Sounds like something Douglas Adams would have written. 😂

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knowltok's avatar

Nah, here's Adams:

“Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like, guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting "Gotcha". It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it.'

'Why not?'

'Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end.”

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SoCal's avatar

Is the date based on Julian calendar or Georgian calendar system? It says BC, so it is calculated by Georgian Calendar, which went into effect on 1582. So, God has been using the Georgian calendar system from the beginning?

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Ryan Groff's avatar

God can use whatever calendar it wants. Am I right?

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Timothy M Dwyer's avatar

Sure....it’s gods calendar. Also gods watch- hence, gods always on time. Which is nice.

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MProvenza's avatar

AD/BC have been in use since the 500s so it could be either, but presumably Julian.

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Kate Fall's avatar

Exactly. Take the logic in believing God planted fake dinosaur zones and this is the implication, that God enjoys playing tricks on us that make us worse off. Its all very confusing.

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Alexis Appleton's avatar

Grew up with lots of hard core creationism, but hearing about the "planting fake dinosaur bones" thing a few years ago just absolutely blew my mind.

However, I guess if you think any deeper into the idea of a literal Genesis 1, that's about the only explanation for dinosaur bones.

But then again.... What does that say about believing in a God that would trick people like that? Yikes.

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Alexis Appleton's avatar

Wait ... Actually the flood thing reminds me ....

I've heard some creationists claim that the flood messed with the age things *appear* to be.

And I think that's an alternate explanation for things "appearing" to be so old.

But still..... Dinosaurs and humans living at the same time? Still hard to believe that serious people believe that. Creationists or not. 😬

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rlritt's avatar

Especially since there are ancient cave paintings of animals, and not a dinosaur among them. You'd think someone back then would have made an image of something so amazing.

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Travis's avatar

That's before you talk about him doing collective punishment and killing off the whole human race with a flood (allegedly)--to include all the babies on the earth at the time. Seems like a real cool guy. Makes Hamas and ISIS look like humanists by comparison.

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Alondra's avatar

As bad, abusive fathers do.

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