The Birth of our Universe

Which Answers in Genesis?

Jan 16, 2024

Why does any of this even matter?

Of all the fair questions which an atheist might ask about scripture, why are you even spending time thinking about this? is probably the trickiest, even for me. The most coherent answer that I can offer, is that a sizable plurality of humanity is predisposed to mystical experiences. If you’re susceptible to them, the most rational course is to investigate the historical ways in which other people have understood them, and use those to contextualize their own experiences. In this model, “religion” can be understood as the expression of our relationship to those experiences. The scriptures and traditions of the past should be understood as our influences, the same way that musicians are inspired by the ones who came before them.

Sometimes those influences are those whose work, to us, represent the absolute nadir of truth, beauty, craft, and taste. There is no wrong way to make art, is commendable encouragement, if somewhat innacurate. There are countless ways to make art, is a better way to put it, I think. Healthy avenues of conflict bring out the best in us, and when we attempt to suppress conflict entirely, the only avenue available to us is to continuously burrow deeper into delusion.

This would be less of a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that many of these people, committed to the suppression of their own critical thinking faculties, wield unimaginable influence while occupying high seats of power. Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson secured tax incentive’s for Ken Ham’s theme park1, which functions as propaganda for the surest test of authoritarian susceptibility. That is, the acceptance of his Biblical Creation “Theory.”2

Discrimination on a broad basis by one’s acceptance of Christian belief, as is alleged of Mike Johnson, is the first line of defense for Antichrist Nationalist hegemony. Those behind that line are kept in order through specific thought-terminating doctrines, including the literal 7-day creation espoused by Ken Ham.

This view requires that any potential acceptance of faith is contingent on the view that the Bible is a literal historical document, whose every written detail is incrontravertibly accurate. While there are countless skillful approaches to religious expression, this approached could only be considered skillful if your aim is to suppress authentic religious expression.

Therefore, the most important answer to the question, What is the point? is that one of the best ways to resist the authoritarian takeover which Antichrist Nationalism represents, is to undo the shaky foundations by which it claims its lying “authority.” I don’t want a faith which waves these issues away without providing an alternative. While we can easily dismiss young earth creationists, the story of creation isn’t without value to us.

The Hebrew word, Tov is translated by the Bible into the English word, Good. The story of creation illustrates the nature of The Good, as manifest in creation’s purest moment, according to the the story’s narrative, before it was plunged into crisis.

So, according to my Unverified Personal Witness, this is my interpretation of the world’s creation, as told in Genesis.

…And He Saw That It Was Good

The text of Genesis shows that, when God made his preparations to initiate creation, his spirit moving over the water,3 the previous word which is translated to Water -the Hebrew term, Tehom- is changed to Maeem. The fearful, mysterious waters of the endless ocean, who swallow up the incautious, are now the life-giving of the ponds, lakes, rivers, and streams.4 This first flourish of God’s creative and transformative powers, taking something inimical to life and imbuing it with fertility, illustrates the primary theme of the creation story in Genesis.

Using the sound of his voice, God commands light into existence and separates it from the darkness. He does not destroy the darkness, but puts it in contrast to the light. In doing this, he creates a periodicity -the first day and night- which becomes a primary condition of life. The darkness is no longer a sterile, unchanging waste and void. It’s the countervailing influence to light and heat, which would itself make the earth a wasteland, if left unchecked.5

On the second day, he relieves the intolerable pressure of the ubiquitous ocean by separating them by a barrier of open air. A wall which ironically creates the conditions of liberty of movement for all endowed with life.6 On the third day, he separates the water from dry land, giving a solid foundation for plant life, which is then called into being as well.7

The fourth day involves the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. It also contains an important point, which I must now emphasize. They are described as functioning like a clock, indicating cycles of nature and lengths of time. This particular description is followed by a more general description of the fourth day, leaving out the specific purpose of the sun, moon, and stars.8 This might be an indication of further anti-Babylonian editorial gloss, as mentioned in my previous essay. The luminaries aren’t controlling fate, but only help us derive cyclical patterns relative to their motion.

Here, I must disgress on the satanic panic, the witch hunts, and sensationalistic notions of “the occult” and “witchcraft.” The currentdefinition of these terms are based highly in conspiracist notions which targeted women, Jews, and “heretics” during the advent of modernity, for the purposes coercing populations into economic consessions, durings the early, rapid developments of the incipient Industrial Revolution. In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici illustrates the statges in which this occurred.9

How are these terms defined then? On his youtube channel, Esoterica, Dr. Justin Sledge demonstrates that their broad definition is more complicated than warrants the kind of priority given by institutional Christianity. For example, a form of divination called Ummin and Thummim, involving the casting of lots, is explicitly condoned and endorsed, while those forbidden involve unknown practices, foreign to the Hebrews, and forms of evocation which disturbed the dead.10

The term which is translated to “sorcery” in the New Testament, particularly in Revelation 18:2311 is the Greek, Pharmakea. Sharing a root with the english, Pharmacy, involves the research and use of chemistry in relation to their effects on the mind and body. Only the biggest cranks should interpret this as a broad inictment of curative medicines. Your local pharmacist is not an apostate. The problem comes from the fact that knowledge of something’s capacity for healing also entails knowedge of something’s capacity as poison.

Adrenaline, in the proper context, adds strength to the body, and is good medecine against cowardice in critical moments. The grifters and demogogues of the satanic panic, in addition to the modern conspiracy movement, use adrenaline to poison the limbic systems of their audiences for sake of power and profit, and should be considered as practicing Pharmakea. Like a seedy Roman apothecary, deriving fresh abominations from their psyches and labratories, conspiring with those who rule by cloak and dagger, they turn our bodies and minds against us, and against our will.

An obsession with controlling the experiences and practices of others underlies the practical, tactical methods of institutional Christianity’s authoritarianism. In particular, the contemporary popular adoption of Astrology as divination. After all there, there is an interpretation which lines up with God’s intention for the heavenly luminaries, as expressed in Genesis. Just like women’s 28-day hormonal cycle corresponds to lunar cycles, which can’t be said to be directly caused by the moon, people have also found cycles in human life and civilization which correspond to the regular motion of other heavenly bodies. Here are someome ideas regarding those which constitute the other classical planets, visible to the naked eye:

The 24-hour cycle of the Sun correspond to men’s hormonal cycles, which take place in periods of 24-hours.12
The approximately 3-month orbital cycle of Mercury13 can be used to measure changes in the way we communicate, and identify cycles in the details of our discourse.
The approximately seven month orbital cycle of Venus14 can be used to identify the ways in which our relationships change, and the ways in which our emotional perpectives manifest within them.
The nearly two-year orbital cycle of Mars15 can be used to measure the changes which exist on the countless scales of interpersonal conflict within humanity.
The 12-year orbital cycle of Jupiter16 can measure the changing fortunes of ideas and institutions. These are visible in rise and fall of different generational fashions and trends.
The orbital cycle of Saturn is nearly 30 years long17, and the Saturn Return marks the major transitions, from full maturity to the final processes of aging, in the human life cycle.

On the fifth day, both the skies and seas were populated by swarms of living animals, and the animals of the land are created on the sixth, along with humanity.18 The division of sex is portrayed here, only in terms of its relation to the production offspring. No inherent qualities are invested, and no roles assigned. He makes us in his image. This fact is the basis of his love for us, but also that of the ruin to follow. He gives the earth to the humans, and he rests on the seventh day.19

This ends the first Creation narrative in which God is called Elohim. Next week, I’ll pick up the next creation narrative, and also the one in which God is called by His Other Name.

-TTCW

Robert Tait, House speaker once won taxpayer funds for Noah’s Ark park accused of bias, The Guardian, Oct 26, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/26/mike-johnson-noah-arc-amusement-park-tax-money

Ken Ham, Answers in Genesis: Creation, https://answersingenesis.org/creation/, accessed Jan 14, 2024

NET Bible, Genesis 1:2

NET Bible, Genesis 1:2, footnote C, p.2

NET Bible, Genesis 1:3-5

NET Bible, Genesis 1:6-8

NET Bible, Genesis 9:1-13

NET Bible, Genesis 1:14-19

Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, Autonomedia, 2004

Justin Sledge, Magic in Ancient Israel & The Hebrew Bible: Divination, Necromancy, Amulets, & The Witch of Endor, Esoterica, posted Aug 14, 2020,