Biblical Anachronism
In addition to the judicious remarks in your twelfth
number, on the absurd story of Noah's Flood, in Genesis vii, I send you
the following:
The second verse makes God to say unto Noah, “Of every
clean beast thou shalt take
to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of every beast that are
not clean, by two, the male
and his female."
Now, there was no such thing as beasts
clean and
unclean in the time of Noah.
Neither were there any such people as Jews or Israelites at that time,
to whom that distinction was a law. The law, called the Law of Moses, by
which a distinction is made, beasts clean and unclean, was not until
several hundred years after the time that Noah is said to have lived.
The story, therefore, detects itself, because the
inventor forgot himself, by making God make use of an expression that
could not be used at the time. The blunder is of the same kind, as if a
man in telling a story about America a hundred years ago, should quote
an expression from Mr. Jefferson's inaugural speech as if spoken by him
at that time.
My opinion of this story is the same as what a man
once said to another, who asked him in a drawling tone of voice, "Do you
believe the account about No-ah?"
The other replied in the same tone of voice,
ah-no.
The survey shows a giant step forward for Deism in the fact that it actually uses the word "Deist" and for the very significant raw numbers it shows as representing the number of people who are Deists. In reality, the number of Deists is actually higher than the survey shows because the survey uses an outdated definition of Deist. For a more accurate definition please see our Deism Defined page.
Click here to read the actual survey. (It's in PDF)
One of the reasons the freethinker Giordano Bruno was tortured and murdered by being burned alive by the Catholic Church during the Inquisition was that he said the Universe is eternal and infinite which violates the superstitions in the Bible found in Genesis. This new study vindicates Bruno.
The Abraham Accord between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and the US seems to be more of a war plan against Iran than any kind of legitimate peace agreement.