Science universally agrees that the biblical story has not a particle of truth in it; and the older it gets the more it suffers, the weaker it gets, and it finally must undergo complete dissipation, in the presence of the strong light of natural truth.
We have a great deal to be thankful for, to have and to enjoy the privilege, the freedom, of exercising and giving expression to opinions concerning matters that have been considered too sacred to be contradicted or criticised.
The time has come, or is coming very fast, that we shall be able to dispense with God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, and the Bible as a sacred text-book, both the Old and New Testament. In order to do this we must examine some portion of its text. We should do this for educational purposes. Every man and woman should acquire a proper amount of knowledge, to enable them to think for themselves. Every person knows, or ought to know, that priest and preacher are especially educated to keep the masses as ignorant as they can possibly keep them. It is their trade. It is their bread and butter, like that of every other trade or profession—it is their business, their function, their profit, to sustain and uphold this tottering fabric, this hollow sham, this aerial nothing, with not a truth, not even a shadow of a truth, to support it.
[Chapter i, verse 1, of Genesis]: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” Verse [2]: “The earth was without form and void.”
(1) God could not have created the earth, as a planet distinct and separate by itself. This terrestrial globe belongs to a system of planets, and they are all not only dependent on one another, but all dependent on the sun for their existence.
(2) How can God create a planet, this earth? Where did he get his material from? And was it possible for God to overcome the laws of gravitation?
(3) Does it not seem strange that God, who seemed to have direct dealings with Moses, did not give him more information about it?
(4) Theologians claim that God is the architect, the designer, the first cause, the creator. Why did it take God to make this terrestrial globe six days? If he was able to make it in six days, he might as well have made it in one day, yes, one hour. If the Word was God, and God was the Word, then the Word ought to have displayed this magical art; he might have simply said, Go!
The term designer, architect, creator, implies skill, human skill, a being that has brain.
(5) As to heaven, that part that is scripturally indicated as heaven is the atmosphere.