If he had known these facts would he have said that Jehovah worked nearly six days to make this world, and only a part of the afternoon of the fourth day to make the sun and moon and all the stars?
Yet millions of people insist that the writer of Genesis was inspired by the Creator of all worlds.
Now, intelligent men, who are not frightened, whose brains have not been paralyzed by fear, know that the sacred story of creation was written by an ignorant savage. The story is inconsistent with all known facts, and every star shining in the heavens testifies that its author was an uninspired barbarian.
I admit that this unknown writer was sincere, that he wrote what he believed to be true—that he did the best he could. He did not claim to be inspired—did not pretend that the story had been told to him by Jehovah. He simply stated the "facts" as he understood them.
After I had learned a little about the stars I concluded that this writer, this "inspired" scribe, had been misled by myth and legend, and that he knew no more about creation than the average theologian of my day. In other words, that he knew absolutely nothing.
And here, allow me to say that the ministers who are answering me are turning their guns in the wrong direction. These reverend gentlemen should attack the astronomers. They should malign and vilify Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Herschel and Laplace. These men were the real destroyers of the sacred story. Then, after having disposed of them, they can wage a war against the stars, and against Jehovah himself for having furnished evidence against the truthfulness of his book.
Then I studied geology—not much, just a little—just enough to find in a general way the principal facts that had been discovered, and some of the conclusions that had been reached. I learned something of the action of fire—of water—of the formation of islands and continents—of the sedimentary and igneous rocks—of the coal measures—of the chalk cliffs, something about coral reefs—about the deposits made by rivers, the effect of volcanoes, of glaciers, and of the all surrounding sea—just enough to know that the Laurentian rocks were millions of ages older than the grass beneath my feet—just enough to feel certain that this world had been pursuing its flight about the sun, wheeling in light and shade, for hundreds of millions of years—just enough to know that the "inspired" writer knew nothing of the history of the earth—nothing of the great forces of nature—of wind and wave and fire—forces that have destroyed and built, wrecked and wrought through all the countless years.
And let me tell the ministers again that they should not waste their time in answering me. They should attack the geologists. They should deny the facts that have been discovered. They should launch their curses at the blaspheming seas, and dash their heads against the infidel rocks.
Then I studied biology—not much—just enough to know something of animal forms, enough to know that life existed when the Laurentian rocks were made—just enough to know that implements of stone, implements that had been formed by human hands, had been found mingled with the bones of extinct animals, bones that had been split with these implements, and that these animals had ceased to exist hundreds of thousands of years before the manufacture of Adam and Eve.
Then I felt sure that the "inspired" record was false—that many millions of people had been deceived and that all I had been taught about the origin of worlds and men was utterly untrue. I felt that I knew that the Old Testament was the work of ignorant men—that it was a mingling of truth and mistake, of wisdom and foolishness, of cruelty and kindness, of philosophy and absurdity—that it contained some elevated thoughts, some poetry,—-a good deal of the solemn and commonplace,—some hysterical, some tender, some wicked prayers, some insane predictions, some delusions, and some chaotic dreams.