Promises Pt. 01

"It is the word of God and without error."

"I suppose that I'll just have to provide more proof. Now where should I start I wonder? Here we are, Genesis Chapter 1, I guess we can't get any earlier than that. Mister Mayotte, the Creation Narrative that appears in Genesis Chapter 1 is the truth, is this correct?"

"Yes." The feeling of doom was about to be realized.

"Even though it is contradicted by the Creation Narrative of Genesis Chapter 2?"

"Chapter 2 does not contradict Chapter 1 it merely expands on Chapter 1."

"Really? Let me see now," Henderson picked up one of the Bibles, "Chapter 1 tells us that when God created man he created male and female alike, is that not so?"

"Yes."

"Yet in Chapter 2 He created Adam and after some time, and only after Adam had looked over other animals to find a suitable partner, he was apparently contemplating bestiality, He, God that is, created Eve. Is that correct?"

"Yes"

"But that is an inconsistency! First there was both, created at one and the same time, and then there was only one created on his own with the other appearing later! Which one is correct? And don't say both because that is just not possible."

"I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible!"

"We'll leave that for the time being. Now Genesis purports to explain the creation of the Universe and the lump of rock that we live on, Earth, is this correct?"

"Yes."

"Even though modern science has proven this not to be the case?"

"If science does not agree with the Bible then science is wrong! Many books have been written on this subject and they all say the same thing."

"And probably more have said the opposite. Those that you so willingly believe in have one thing in common; the only proof offered in support of the veracity of the Bible is found in the Bible. That's the same as me telling you that you have to believe something I told you because I told you it was true. So God created Earth around six thousand years ago?"

"Yes."

"Over six twenty-four hour days?"

"Yes, that is true, the Bible says so."

"Where did you park your brain? You know that lump of matter between your ears that allows you to function, to breathe, to see, to speak, to listen, to reason and to learn. Honestly if you bogged your ears out your head would collapse! Where did you leave it?"

"Objection!" Johansson was on his feet. "Counsel is badgering the witness."

"Sustained. Mister Henderson I would appreciate it if you would not let your views get the better of you."

"I apologize to the witness your Honour, I allowed my frustration to get the better of me, it won't happen again."

"Very well, you may proceed."

"Mister Mayotte, you would have us believe that it took just six days for God to create the world?"

"That is correct."

"What was a day? How did they tell the time? Man was not there yet, was he? Who was there to tell the time? Did God punch a time clock at the beginning and end of each day?"

"Objection!"

"On what grounds?" Foley asked.

"Relevance Your Honour. Is it relevant to this trial how long a day is?"

"Mr Henderson?"

"Your Honour, what we are trying to establish here is whether or not the Defendant is basing his knowledge of Creation of faith or science. The difference between these is fundamental to our case. Science is a belief that is based on proven fact, while faith is a belief in the intangible, regardless of truth."

"I'll allow it, objection over-ruled."

"A day was the time that it took for the sun to rise, to set, and to rise again."

"Okay let us look at what the Bible has to say about all of this, shall we?" Henderson opened a Bible and began to read.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God's Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. There was evening and there was morning, one day.' Now Pastor Mayotte, what was the source of that light?"

"The sun."

"Oh, you mean the sun that wasn't placed in the sky until day four?"

Mayotte remained silent.

"And where did the water come from?"

"It was there in the beginning."

"No it wasn't. We now know that the earth started life as a ball of gas, and as the surface cooled, some of these gases solidified to form rock. Now in among those gases two hydrogen atoms began a ménage-a-trois with an oxygen atom. As their ardour cooled they formed a water molecule. And that is where water came from Pastor Mayotte, it wasn't there in the beginning. Just another God lie if we are to believe you."

Silence.

"Okay, let us consider this for an instant; the heavens consist of the sun and all of the other stars, these are light sources, without them there would be total darkness, the moon and the planets would not be lit up, these are passive light sources, they merely reflect the light generated by the stars. Even the church has accepted this is scientifically correct. I would like you to read out the verses that I have marked in that Bible."

Pastor Mayotte found the marked verses and read: 'God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth;" and it was so. God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth,and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.'"

"But the Bible tells us that on the first day there was not only the heavens and the Earth, but that there was light, there was evening and morning which made up the first day. How could that be if, as the passage that you just read out tells us, there was no sun and moon and the stars on the days one through three?"

"The Bible tells us that there was light on the first day."

"Where did that light come from? Did God set up a work light like you see in workshops to light up His work in progress only to take it away when He had finished? The Bible clearly states that on day one God created the heavens and the Earth, yet it also tells us that he didn't create the very elements that make up the heavens, the sun, moon, planets and stars, until day four. Is that not a contradiction?"

"I don't know and I'm not that interested. God can do things whatever way He wants and it's not for me to challenge how He does things."

"But if God did it differently to how the Bible tells us, you wouldn't know because you believe what this book tells you?"

"The Bible is the truth and I believe it."

"This is what I don't understand, you have one part of the Bible telling you one thing, and another part tells us something totally different, yet you want us to believe that they are both correct, how can that be?"

Silence.

"So you are closing your mind to anything that disagrees with what you believe to be true no matter if the same book tells you that it isn't true, no matter how compelling the evidence?"

"If the Bible tells me that's what happened, then that's what happened."

"I presume, actually I know because I have heard you expound on this, that you ascribe to the writings of Charles Hadden Spurgeon who in 1877, in his book 'the Sword and the Trowel' wrote the following gem of wisdom; 'We are invited brethren, most earnestly to go away from the old-fashioned belief of our forefathers because of the supposed discoveries of science. What is science? The method by which man tries to conceal his ignorance. It should not be so, but it is so. You are not to be dogmatical in theology, my brethren, it is wicked; but for scientific men it is the correct thing. You are never to assert anything very strongly; but scientists may boldly assert what they cannot prove, and may demand a faith far more credulous than any we possess. Foresooth, you and I are to take our Bibles and shape and mould our belief according to the ever-shifting teachings of the so-called scientific men. What folly is this! Why, the march of science, falsely so called, through the world can be traced by exploded fallacies and abandoned theories. Former explorers once adored are now ridiculed; the continued wreckings of false hypotheses is a matter of universal notoriety. You may tell where the learned have encamped by the debris left behind of suppositions and theories as plentiful as broken bottles.'"

"That's scary stuff Mister Mayotte, here is a man looked on by your church with almost God-like reverence, who tells you that you are not to be 'dogmatical' yet that is exactly what you are, if science disagrees with the Bible you dig in your heels and dismiss science as heresy. 'Science is bad,' he says, 'Science is evil,' he says, 'and should be avoided at all cost' he says, and you blindly follow this awesome man of God. The ever-shifting teachings of the so-called scientific men is what we call progress, and without progress do you know where we would be?"

"I'm sure you're about to tell me."

"If we were to follow his advice Mister Mayotte we would be living as Adam and Eve did, living on fruits and seeds, nothing else, because we wouldn't have sat down to work out how we could catch an animal or how we could cook it if we managed to catch it. We would see the fish swimming about in the water but, because you would have us not think about it, we would not work out a method for catching them. You would have no Bible to read because there would be no printing press, no ink, no paper. And when we went to the toilet there would be no paper there either, how hygienic is that?"

"Mister Mayotte, your stance on this is a betrayal of God. It is denying the existence of God. The very God that gave us the intelligence needed to advance our knowledge of science, of medicine, so that we can grow. You and those like you sit there and say 'Isn't God awesome, look at His creation.' But God gave us the power of reason for a very good reason; He wants us to learn more about His creation, more about ourselves, so that we can look at the world with new knowledge, new awareness of the world around us and say to ourselves, 'Now this is truly awesome, and to think that I once took it for granted.' Don't you think that is what you should be doing Mister Mayotte?"

Mayotte was about to answer, but paused before the words emerged and decided that he would be best served by not answering.

"Now that we have established that you aren't interested in learning anything new we should move on. So, in the beginning the lump of rock we now live on was a blob of water, that part is consistent with the very beginning where we are told that the Earth was formless and that darkness was over the deep suggesting that there was no land visible, then it became two blobs of water with the sky in between, but how is that possible if the sun and the moon and the stars were already there? What did God do, take the top blob and cast it to the ends of the Universe? Then the water on the bottom blob was pushed to one side so that the land could appear?"

"Where did you get that from?"

Henderson picked up the Bible again. "Right here in this book that tells me exactly how the Universe and Earth were formed. If you don't believe me have a look for yourself. In fact why don't you read it out for the court so that the people here can judge for themselves." He handed the Bible to Mayotte. "If you would like to begin at Genesis Chapter 1 verse 6."

Mayotte took the Bible and began to read. 'God said, 'Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.God called the expanse sky. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.'"

"Doesn't that say that there was water below the sky and water above the sky? How high is the sky? How far away from us is the water above? We haven't found the edge of the Universe yet and it must be between the water below and the water above, so if we haven't found the edge of the universe how do we know that there is water there? No mention of land, that part comes later. Another minor point; The expanse between the two blobs of water that didn't happen until day two is the very same expanse of sky we had on day one, the heavens that we have today that includes the sun and the moon and the stars, but that can't be right because God created the Universe on day one, you know, the heavens and the Earth and the sky, but now we have the sky created on day two, but the sun and the moon have to wait until day four. Which one is it?"

"I don't profess to know how God did things, all I know is what the Bible tells me and the Bible is the truth."

"Really, it beggars belief that anyone with more than one cognitive cell rattling around in the void called a skull could believe that it could have happened that way. Let us move on shall we. Mister Mayotte,"

"Objection! Counsel insists on addressing my client as Mister Mayotte instead of his proper title, Pastor Mayotte."

"A small point but sustained. Mister Henderson?"

"Very well Your Honour. Pastor Mayotte, would you continue to read from verse 9?"

Mayotte looked at the Bible in front of him, he was feeling less like reading it than before. "And God said, 'Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.' And it was so. God called the dry ground 'land', and the gathered waters He called 'seas'. And God saw that it was good."

"Would you stop there for a minute? So God shoved the water aside to reveal land, is that right?"

Mayotte knew that this was a trap but he didn't know what else to say. "That is what the Bible tells us and we know it to be true."

"We also know that under the laws of Physics and Fluid Dynamics this could not have happened as the Bible tells us. But we aren't to use science of Physics and Fluid Dynamics, are we? Will you allow me to use my eyes? Your Honour if I may, I'd like to conduct a small experiment to illustrate this point. I promise not to take up too much of this court's time."

"Very well."

Henderson took a clear plastic tray from the floor under the desk and into it he poured some blue coloured liquid, then taking a flat piece of plastic he pushed the water to one side, exposing the dry bottom. "Now, Pastor Mayotte, what happens when I release this water?"

"It flows back."

"That's right! You have used your eyes to prove the Bible wrong, not science, just the evidence of your very own eyes. Water finds its own level, a fundamental law of nature, so if God shoved it aside as the Bible tells us He did, the water would be above the land, not below it, and when he released it the water would return to its previous level and cover the land again, is that not true?"

"I don't know."

"And you have never bothered to seek clarification. You have just accepted that it happened as the Bible told you it did. Trusting soul aren't you?"

Johansson jumped to his feet but before he could speak Judge Foley held up his hand. "Mister Henderson, I would appreciate it if you would keep your thoughts to yourself."

"Pastor Mayotte, I can understand how it was that the writers of Genesis arrived at the conclusion that this happened as they described it. They must have gone to the beach, or to a river, and seen the water which was tactile, they could touch and feel it and it was matched in colour by the sky, so they assumed, even though they could neither, touch the sky nor feel the sky, that it was made of the same substance as the water. They also assumed, reasonably enough, that if the land that they were standing on was higher than the water, then it was possible that there was water under the land, and that the land that they were standing on was a huge raft floating on water." This is an assumption not a fact, and what the scientific community will tell you is that assumptions do not become fact until there is provable empirical evidence to support the assumption as fact. But you will have us believe that we have to accept assumptions as fact despite there being proven scientific evidence that tells us that this is not so."

"You will no doubt tell me that there are many, many books that 'prove'," Henderson used two fingers on each hand to indicate the term 'quote - unquote', "that the Bible version of Creation is the truth, and you are right there are many, and my personal favourites are those written by that awesome man of God, Ken Ham who has gathered around him a group of scientist who, he claims, are sufficient to prove him right. The common factor with all of these people is that they all approach this topic from the hypothesis of 'could it have appened as the Bible tells us?' By taking a quantum leap of credibility that there is the slightest possibility that it just might have happened that way, they decide that this is enough for them to assert that there is no possible way that there could be any other answer. And they simply dismiss any contrary and compelling evidence that suggests that they could be wrong. Charles H would be spinning in his grave at the aggressively dogmatic way that these guys defend their incredible hypothesis. Let's face it Pastor Mayotte, these men are using Grade 1 knowledge to write a Doctoral Thesis in Astrophysics."

"We'll skip the rest of day three and move to day four. Would you be so kind?"

Mayotte began, "And God said 'let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate day from night."

"Stop there. Now didn't we have the heavens and the Earth along with light on day one, evening and morning on day one, and then the emergence of sky on day two? But here we are in day four and God is only now placing lights in the sky to separate day from night, yet on day one we had night and day, which one is the truth?"

"They both could be."

"Let me put it to you this way Pastor Mayotte, while science may never be able to tell us definitively how the Earth and the Universe were formed, what science can tell us, definitively, is that it could not have happened the way the Bible tells us. The Bible is merely an attempt by man, who lacked the scientific knowledge to comprehend the complex forces of nature, to explain something that was way beyond his comprehension. As his knowledge grew, his understanding grew, and as his understanding grew he came to realize that his forebears got it wrong, just as God would have him do. That Pastor Mayotte is the very thing that Charles H Spurgeon warned us about, the progress of scientific knowledge. Science today would have us believe certain things about the formation of the universe that, in a hundred years' time, could well be proven to be untrue, and we would have to accept that, that's the nature of learning, just as we have to accept that the science of today has proven that the science of yesterday is not necessarily true."

"Science is wrong! If it doesn't agree with the Bible, with the 'Word of God', it is wrong!"

"So you keep telling me, but you have offered not one shred of credible evidence, because there is no shred of evidence other than that you say that the Bible is right, is 'God breathed', in support of your assertion. If you use the Bible to validate the inerrancy of the Bible you have created a circular argument, and that is one where there can be no outcome. But you don't really believe that the Bible is the truth because you don't believe that the Earth is the centre of the Universe as described in the Bible, because science has proven that wrong. You don't believe that the sun revolves around the Earth as described in the Bible, because science has proven that to be wrong, and yet you would still have us believe that the Bible is the truth. Now Pastor Mayotte, let us do a quick flip over to verse 26. Could you read that please."