The First Fairy Tale by
Dale K. Brown
CHAPTER 20
"THE THEORY OF CREATION"
Hell was in no hurry though; it wasn't gobbling up sinners at an ungodly rate (there always seemed to be enough to go around). Christians weren't checking in at the Pearly Gates in record numbers, either (there was always too many of them). So in the absence of a feast and a dearth of famine, the world was swiftly becoming a thoroughly boring place, as worlds go.
Fundamentalist religions, especially those based on fire and brimstone, were rapidly losing their spark. They had asked all the questions they dared to over the years, invented answers prejudiced by their superstitions, and were now stuck with the results. Meanwhile, science had begun probing the mysteries of time, space, and matter; realms once regarded as the province of God and, therefore, off limits to humans; and the answers they were finding were incompatible with theology.
Willard F. Libby developed Carbon 14 Dating in 1952. Carbon 14, a radioactive isotope with an atomic mass of 14, is produced naturally in the atmosphere as a result of nuclear reactions between Nitrogen 14 and cosmic radiation. It is incorporated into all living organisms through respiration, photosynthesis, and ingestion. When the organism stops eating and breathing, the intake of 14C ceases. Since no more is being added and Carbon 14 decays at a known rate, it is possible to fix the approximate date of death by measuring the residual.
Half of a static quantity of 14C will decay in 5,730 years, half of what's left in another 5,730 years, half of that half, ditto, and so on. Compared to some radio isotopes, this is entirely unremarkable, nevertheless, it permits objects to be dated out to 30,000 years. Potassium-Argon Dating was used to determine the age of the earliest humanoid remains at 1,750,000 years, while Rubidium-87, half life 48.8 billion years, revealed terrestrial and lunar rocks to be 4.5 billion years old. In the face of this and other empirical evidence, fundamentalists, who continued to maintain that the creation was only 6,000 years old had a problem. Their response was unique.
Six thousand years ago, 9:00 a.m. Middle Eastern Time, on or about October 26, 4004 B.C., God created the universe with the earth in the middle of it, flat. In an attempt to test the faith of the faithful and frustrate future archaeologists, he antiqued the entire creation making it appear as if it was billions of years older than it actually was! He salted the earth with fake fossils and, practical joker that he is, arranged those bogus bones in such a way as to look like lizards and animals that never existed.
After resetting the radioactive clocks in all the geologic strata, he then arranged that strata to bear mute witness to grim catastrophes that never occurred. Vast pools of oil had no time to congeal naturally and so were materialized by hand under Texas, Venezuela, and the Middle East. Dinosaur bones had to be stuffed into the La Brea Tar Pits, while mastodons were being flash frozen in Arctic glaciers. On the fourth day, he created a middle aged sun, put pock marks on the moon, and reversed the magnetic polarity of the earth a dozen times over. On day five, he created every species and breed of land animal which had ever existed, including Toy Poodles and St. Bernards. In his spare time he filled the sky with birds and the oceans with fish.
November 1, 4004 B.C., prototype humanoids, homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, and Cro-Magnon man were hastily assembled then cleverly buried in the fossil record in such a way as to give the appearance of extreme age. Homo Sapiens were created last so no eye witnesses to the mechanics of creation would be present.
Saturday, November 2, 4004 B.C., the Lord rested from all the antiquing he had done and perhaps reflected that the next time around, it might be easier to create universes billions of years earlier and let them age naturally.
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty One
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