We are then told that on the next day "God the moving creatures that hath
life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of
heaven. And God created great whales and every living creature which the
waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged
fowl after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them,
saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and
let fowl multiply in the earth."
Is it true that while the dry land was covered with grass, and herbs,
and trees bearing fruit, the ocean was absolutely devoid of life, and so
remained for millions of years?
If Moses meant twenty-four hours by the word day, then it would make but
little difference on which of the six days animals were made; but if the
word said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly day was used to express
millions of ages, during which life was slowly evolved from monad up to
man, then the account becomes infinitely absurd, puerile and foolish.
There is not a scientist of high standing who will say that in his
judgment the earth was covered with fruit-bearing trees before the
moners, the ancestors it may be of the human race, felt in Laurentian
seas the first faint throb of life. Nor is there one who will declare
that there was a single spire of grass before the sun had poured upon
the world his flood of gold.
Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the
contradictions that exist between Nature and a book? Why should
philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what they know
than upon what they have been told? If there is a God, it is reasonably
certain that he made the world, but it is by no means certain that he is
the author of the Bible. Why then should we not place greater confidence
in Nature than in a book? And even if this God made not only the world
but the book besides, it does not follow that the book is the best part
of creation, and the only part that we will be eternally punished for
denying. It seems to me that it is quite as important to know something
of the solar system, something of the physical history of this globe,
as it is to know the adventures of Jonah or the diet of Ezekiel. For my
part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific
investigation, than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing the Bible to
be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for Freethinkers to deny
it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic
theory of heat? Why should we be damned for laughing at Samson and his
foxes, while others, holding the Nebular Hypothesis in utter contempt,
go straight to heaven? It seems to me that a belief in the great truths
of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any
church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to God
even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the Copernican system, the
three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the attraction
of gravitation. And we are also taught that a man may be right upon
all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe in the "scheme of
salvation," be eternally lost.