God Takes a Mulligan

The story thus far: In the first chapter of Genesis we read that God said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness….So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” The chapter ends with God seeing every thing he made as very good.

But things did not go well with his creations and the book of Genesis tells the stories of the failures of his creature, man. In less than 3000 years God is so fed up with man that he plans on getting rid of all humans and life on Earth. Genesis continues: “And the Lord said I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” God wanted to start over; in the game of golf that is called taking a mulligan*. This story of Noah takes place around 2349 BC, according to Bishop Ussher’s counting of the generations, both forward from the story of Adam and Eve, and backward from the birth of Christ.

What this portends, of course, is all history begins here at 2349 BC. According to the story of Noah all humans except for Noah's kin died in the flood. which means all of the people in the world are related to Noah and his kin, who then spread out over all the world just since 2349 BC.This is too absurd to believe (TATB). But people do believe it: just go to this link to read what fundamentalist Christians profess. Answers in Genesis.

Noah was saved from drowning in order to give God a second chance. So how did that turn out? Not very well, as it turns out, because a theology of blood sacrifice had to be developed, which included God impregnating the virgin Mary; the birth and death of her’s and God's son and humans still behaving so badly that unless they believed the TATB story about God’s son they were going to die by the billions in a lake of fire (Hell) forever and forever. Not a resounding success story by a long shot, which begs the question, Why do people believe in this god? He makes mistakes and then blames the creatures he made in the first place.

*(The term mulligan was named after a locker room attendant at the club named John A. 'Buddy' Mulligan, who worked at the club during the 1930s and was known for replaying shots, particularly on the first tee.)

To be continued....