Genesis Was Right

By Stephen M. Barr

After man evolved in Africa, he decided to separate from living as one with nature. The allegory of Adam and Eve being kicked out of Eden is this act, which means mankind turned against nature, thinking he could create a better reality-civilization. Even today, humanity still tries to improve and create an ideal existence that always seems to be beyond his grasp. This was, and still is, his Temptation.

In Genesis Was Right, amateur historian Stephen Barr examines the characteristics of civilization and demonstrates how they have become so integral to civilization that any change - especially one that may prevent a downfall - has become nearly impossible. In Barr's critical glimpse into the history of our civilization, in thirteen chapters he scrutinizes the life processes of the universe, the life stages within our galaxy, and those of mankinds very civilization. The earths slow stages that we barely perceive are paralleled by our civilizations slow stages. We react to this in various ways that are the changing characteristics of our societies.

With the onset of global warming and the shortage of petroleum, raw materials, and fresh water, Barr's comprehensive look at the history of our civilization will encourage others to learn from the mistakes of those who came before us and reexamine our current lifestyle, ultimately building a better future for our world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 18, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426940910

Stephen M. Barr

Stephen M. Barr is a theoretical particle physicist on the faculty of the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware, where he holds the rank of professor. He has published over 125 papers in research journals in the fields of particle physics and cosmology and has also written numerous articles and book reviews on science and religion for such magazines as First Things (on whose editorial advisory board he sits), National Review, the Public Interest, and Academic Questions. His book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith was published in 2003.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

Ia The BEGINNING

Ib The Earth

Ic LIFE - GENERAL

Id LIFE – ANIMATE

II RELIGION

III ENVIRONMENT

IV ANIMALS

V CHILDREN

VI SEX, RACE, and SOCIETY

VII GOVERNMENT and POLITICS

VIII PROPAGANDA,

PHILOSOPHY, DEPENDENCE and INDOLENCE

IX CRIME and JUSTICE

X HEALTH and MEDICINE

XI ECONOMICS, INDUSTRIALIZATION,

SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY

XII EDUCATION

XIII POPULATION

EPILOGUE

ENDNOTES

PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

When I began to organize my writing of this book, I quickly realized that there aren’t any sources that directly address its subject. I found only Conrad Lorenz (Civilized Man’s Eight Deadly Sins) came closest. So I was in largely uncharted territory which involves that patina of life on Earth’s surface, the biosphere. There are very few cultures on earth today that live with, or live as part of, the biosphere. There isn’t an economy or culture that grants our biosphere its rightful position. That is the problem I wanted to address with this book because the consequences for living this way are dire and rapidly becoming disastrously irreversible.

Bringing this to light was an interesting trip that began many years ago when I read the Bible. This sparked an interest in history that soon became a preoccupation. It didn’t take long to realize mankind repeats his history and today that repetition has become fearful. Realization of this began in the 60s and 70s when articles began to sporadically appear in newspapers and magazines. These articles warned of a looming shortage of raw materials. Warned about dangerous overfishing the oceans. Warned of the harmfulness of razing rain forests. Oil man King Hubbert warned of peak oil and for sure, the United States experienced domestic peak oil in the early 70s. There was considerable disruption from the resultant shortage. It was relieved only when importation of foreign oil was increased. Books and articles written by Paul Ehrilch and others warned about the dangers posed by our mushrooming population.

My work as a civil engineer and a surveyor carried me through a couple of milestones that began to change my conception of man’s relationship with his environment. I began to realize how significantly human attitudes regarding the biosphere changed as history progressed. First milestone was in 1976 when I spent a year laid off. I was working as a handyman and one of my jobs was doing some small jobs for a doctor in Healdsburg. He was a Seventh Day Adventest whom I would have written off as a member of another screwball religion until I learned he was a vegetarian. He readily talked about it with me and gave me several pamphlets. This piqued my interest in another subject that was stirring in my mind, animal cruelty. Not only did I become a vegetarian – for both ethical and health/nutritional reasons – but also a staunch animal rightist. Books by Peter Singer (Animal Liberation) and Hans Ruesch (Slaughter of the Innocent) became my Bibles. These books brought up a question about what kind of people could treat animals this way? What circumstances enabled them to find nothing wrong with doing so?

In 1985 I transferred into surveys, an outdoor job. In design, which I’d left, it was easy to draw lines on land plats and engineer development that was to occur. Now in surveys I saw firsthand what happens on land that is to be developed. I am laying out those lines and setting control for construction. Another milestone came when the construction we were laying out meant a length of chain link fence had to be removed. This fence was completely overgrown with ivy and, since it was spring, I noticed blackbirds flying in and out of the ivy. I wondered if perhaps there were nests in the ivy and these birds were parents feeding their young. I walked over and parted a few leaves and there they were, nests with several little heads looking at me! I walked over to the job foreman and asked if the fence removal could wait awhile, for there are nests with hatchlings in the ivy. His response was immediate with words something like hell no, we’re not holding up our job for some [expletive] birds! so as the fence was being torn out and the ivy ripped to shreds, the blackbirds sat on an overhead wire, looking down. Once in awhile one or two would flutter down about half way to try to find its nest, hover for a few seconds, then return to the wire. Then as fence and ivy were being balled up to be taken away, the parent birds sat on their wire for a short time. You could see the sadness in their body language. Their sadness was my anger. What type of person could do this with equanimity? What kind of a society do we have that can discount lives of other species so that achieving its aims aren’t interfered with?

My life thereafter was accompanied by a sadness that was not all that clear as to its cause. More and more experiences were being viewed as assaults on the environment. I bagan to think of that environment more in terms of the biosphere. One act of construction – one job was pioneering a new road through virgin forest: It’s amazing how quickly land can be changed by modern giant machinery – was really many world wide that were going on at the same time. The magnitude of this assault boggled my mind.

I retired a few years before the new millennium and already articles about growing problems effecting our biosphere were appearing with increasing frequency in the news. Before Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth came out, many problems foreseen in the 70s were becoming noticeable. Before King Hubbert died, he predicted the world’s supply of oil would peak around year 2000. Evidence was accumulating that we were both overfishing and polluting the oceans. The prices of minerals, most notably copper, were rising rapidly. Limitations of freshwater supplies were appearing with falling aquifers and political contests over allocation. Vast portions of rainforest were being clearcut both for lumber and to become farmland.

When Mr. Gore’s movie came out, the world’s attention was suddenly focused upon global warming. There was a flurry of activity about this: Scientists issued reports demonstrating how it is progressing. Inventors and entrepreneurs who saw profits to be gained touted new forms of green power that reduced the amount of heat trapping gasses produced. There were, of course, that minority faction that professed global warming to be a hoax. Global warming, however, became the world’s prime focus. All the other issues that were equally important – water and mineral shortages, ocean overfishing, razing of rainforests, etc. – weren’t paid much attention. Not to minimize global warming, though, because it was a commentary on mankind’s profligate use of coal for the last 200 years and oil for 100. The very foundations of 200 years of industrial production was being threatened. I realized the inadequacy of green solutions and that to survive, the fundamentals of our civilization must be changed. Putting together what information I’ve collected over the years, I wrote an essay and placed it on my website as Essay #5.

Meanwhile, the sadness I’d been unable to put my finger on began to develop a focus. Realization that civilization’s depredations upon earth’s biosphere, especially driven by a vast, rapidly growing population, began to make me wonder about man the animal. What basic differences exist between humans and other animal species? Oddly enough, first to pop up was the use of toilet paper! No other animal has need of it, so I wondered why. It was as if a great light came on! It was obvious that animals don’t need toilet paper because their diet is tailored to their needs. To test this I tried modifying my diet to see if I could eliminate my need for toilet paper. With a balance of fiber, fruits, vegetables and nuts, it worked! That’s when I realized that all species consume that diet that is exactly suited for their survival. This led to the realization that all species are equipped - evolved – with proper equipment with which to acquire the food they need. The amoeba have pseudopods. Herbivores have cutting and grinding teeth necessary for tough, fibrous material, eyes set for a wide sweep of vision and ability for flight to escape predators, and a digestive system (long and complex) capable of breaking down plant matter. Carnivores have ripping teeth, eyes close together for range-finding and stalking, speed for the chase and claws to help bring down prey, and a digestive system (short and simple) built for breaking down meat.

Where does man fit in all this? He doesn’t have the teeth of either an herbivore or carnivore: He has small molars not fit for the heavy chewing necessary for grasses, leaves and other fibrous material. His incisors are only for cutting soft substances. Man’s intestines are fairly long which would lean toward a diet of vegetation. There are serious shortcomings among man’s other characteristics: He cannot run as fast as necessary to escape predators or take prey. He cannot smell as well as other species and his eyesight is nowhere near that of either herbivores or carnivores. His hearing is inadequate for the offense or defense capabilities enjoyed by other species. As far as his on board equipment all he has a soft, clawless hands. This would limit what he can acquire for food by what those hands can grasp. So in that distant past when humans came on the scene, he was to live in east central Africa with other hominoids. He was to eat what he could acquire with his hands; fruits, berries, nuts, bulbs, worms and insect grubs and the like. He may catch a fish with his hands. He may tear some meat off of an already dead animal. His was to be a halcyon existence along with his relatives, the gorillas. But for some reason, this new species, the human animal, wasn’t satisfied.

So what happened? At some time in his past mankind separated himself from nature. This isn’t a rash thought for almost every religion has a story of the Temptation and the Fall: The eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (Temptation) and being expelled from Eden (the Fall). These stories are allegories about that very time when the human species began moving away from nature. Eventually civilization grew from this act. I wanted to write about its ramifications. This was that idea that nagged at me for so many years and I never was able to put my finger on it until now. As civilization evolves farther and farther away from nature, those ramifications become more difficult, if not impossible, to change. Mankind’s assault on the biosphere is such an inherent part of civilization that by now it could not exist if it was to let nature be nature.

PROLOGUE

Prometheus gives fire and arts to mankind. Zeus punishes him for this….

Greek myth

And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Genesis 2:8

And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 2:9

And the lord God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Genesis 2:15

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Genesis 2:16-17

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Genesis 2:25

She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked…

Genesis 3:7-8

[The Lord God] said, Because thou hast…eaten of the tree…cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Genesis 3:17-19

Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground…

Genesis 3:24

The first couple lived in purity and innocence. Perpetual happiness was promised by the Creator if they persevered in their virtue. But an evil demon came to them….sent by Ahriman, the prince of devils, and gave them fruit of a wonderful tree, which imparted immortality. Evil inclinations then entered their hearts, and all their moral excellence was destroyed. Consequently they fell, and forfeited the eternal happiness for which they were destined. They killed beasts, and clothed themselves in their skins. The evil demon obtained still more perfect power over their minds, and called forth envy, hatred, discord, and rebellion, which raged in the bosom of the families.

Persian legend

Ia The BEGINNING

There never was a CREATION. There is merely continuation.

When an egg is fertilized, life is not created, does not begin. Life merely assures itself that it is going to continue. Likewise, the life of the universe is carried out in many cycles that occur throughout its extent, cycles that are the models for the existence of all of its lesser parts. Beyond this, however, we really do not know much about the universe, which is so vast that our comprehension of it is an exercise in creative imagination. As far as we know, or can guess, the universe has always been here, for its beginnings lie so far back in the span of time that it is wholly incomprehensible to us. No matter how far back we even try to imagine the universe’s beginning, however, there’s still the problem of what was before.

Consequently, for all intents and purpose, it is easier to accept a universe that is infinite in both time and extent than to determine a first cause. Indeed, throughout the farthest reaches imaginable, time and extent become the same because no matter how fast we may travel at the farthest imaginable edge of the universe, we keep traveling. The time in which we travel is absorbed by the very nature of infiniteness itself, and so that time becomes the distance traveled. And the infinite goes on.

We are victims of our own world-bound conception if we think that the whole universe began with our Big Bang. Such a belief imparts a finite size to the physical universe, which presents a problem. How can the physical universe be present within a universe that is infinite in time and extent? Not only is the universe infinite in time and distance, but also in its physical aspect. The Big Bang is only the product of an act of fertilization if you will, an assurance that the physical universe is going to continue to exist. For the physical universe is not unlike the infinite number of finite parts of which it is comprised. To maintain its health — its uniformity of matter — there must be continuous mixing and rebirth. Galaxies spreading out from a big-bang event move among others that are spreading from other big bangs, some still traveling from a long ago big-bang event but slowed because of intergalactic gravitational forces. This intermingling of galaxies from various big bangs constitutes an act of fertilization. Soon a gravitational anomaly, or centroid, will develop and a coalescence of galaxies and other unstructured matter will begin: A collapse is in progress as this gravitational force grows by its own collection of matter — absorbing galaxies, black holes, gas and dust clouds, etc. — until a limit is reached. That limit is determined by the vast pressures built up by the tremendous gravitational forces in the center of this shrinking ball of matter. The coalesced whole then explodes and another big bang has occurred.

This universe can best be understood if we imagine it in the form of a model. Picture a cubic foot of space cut from the air of a foggy day. Each water droplet represents a galaxy, and this space would be a section of the universe viewed from an immense distance, its many galaxies looking as thick as a fog. The dynamics of the universe can be seen within this fog, for all the droplets are in motion. Now imagine flashes of light where big-bang events occur and the thin areas of fog as where a coalescence has occurred. The dynamics of this universe is the antecedent model that permeates all of its parts down to the very atomic particles of which it is made.

Two things must be taken into account within this scenario: time and extent. The material of the universe, like the universe itself, is infinite. Because a big-bang event concerns a finite amount of that material, it cannot encompass the whole of the infinite universe. Therefore, big-bang events are limited to a maximum amount of material, but because of this mixing and reconstitution of material, a fairly uniform consistency of matter is maintained throughout the infinite universe. This may seem fairly simple, and it is, but it must be placed in the context of the universe’s rhythm, which is so vast that its cycles are not apparent to us. The rhythm is measured in units of time beyond our knowledge, and indeed, by applying our Earth-bound standard of time as measurement, the rhythm is lost in the huge numbers of our units required to estimate its length. Indeed, it is difficult to conceptualize the universe almost like a living thing with its fantastically long rhythms of coalescences, collapses, big-bang events, expansions, etc. — all going on at the same time in different places.

So what we deem our creation — the formation of the Earth with the solar system — was in fact merely part of the ongoing life process of the universe, which is quite rapid when viewed from the infinite perspective of the universe. Remember, however, that all things in the universe — galaxies, systems, stars, planets — have a lifespan. Those life spans are part of the rhythm of the universe’s life process, a process that is not evident to us at all, an ignorance that allows us to have a sense of permanence and solidity.

Only the universe is everlasting, however. It is when a coalescence begins that a finite part is defined. This definition is necessary in order to maintain the life spark of the universe. Without that spark, the material of the universe would lose its universal similarity and degenerate into a vast collection of incompatible parts. So when the amalgamation explodes as a big bang, it is an act of rebirth of a part of the universe. Since the universe is infinite, then there are an infinite number of coalescences and big-bang events. Thus the universe lives and its continuance is defined by those life spans that are in turn defined by coalescences and big bangs: aging, death, and rebirth.

In fact, coalescence begins just after a big bang occurs. The force of gravity that created a big-bang event begins immediately. For as soon as there is matter, there is gravity. As this matter goes spinning off in all directions, the act of creation continues. Most of these spinning masses become galaxies, and not only are there stars in galaxies but all manner of material, constituting a kind of infinite detritus. There are clouds of gas, black holes, dust and other larger particles (themselves a product of coalescence),