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March 8, 2008
The Fall of Adam and Eve and Ethiopian Tourism!
I find attempts to synchronize religious beliefs and modern science abnormally interesting. In fact, most attempts like this one are just plain abnormal.
The Holy Books of the two foremost religions – Islam and Christianity – scrupulously explain that the first human creatures, Adam and Eve, used to live in Heavens and were meant to live there forever. The Books further tell us that Adam and Eve finally were sent out of heaven and why.According to the Books the first two human creatures were dropped to a certain speck on our planet from where they started to reproduce until their descendants peopled almost the entire world. But where was that location Adam and Eve landed on first directly from Heaven? Where is that starting point of human life on our planet- EARTH?
[snip]
The earlier archaeological findings in these decades suggested that human beings first originated from somewhere in the African Continent. Some years later further findings enabled reduce the scope of probable specific starting point for live on earth from some where in Africa in to the Horn of Africa which initiated unprecedentedly greater interests by archaeologists from across the world, particularly by those from renowned universities in America and Europe to study the region further. With the immense archaeological findings that followed this growing interest the scope has been reduced even further and the archaeologists started to be highly focused in one particular country in the region. That country, my friends, is Ethiopia. [Omer Redi writing for American Chronicle]
Well, first of all the Hebrew Bible, one of the referenced holy books, says no such thing. The Quran may imply that Adam and Eve first lived somewhere other than earth. See Quran 2.35-36. At least some of Islamic traditions claim that after the fall, Adam and Eve landed on two separate mountain peaks outside Mecca. Well, Omer Redi now says the landing spot was somewhere in Ethiopia. And he bases this idea on scientific discoveries! What we have in Redi's words is yet another attempt to synchronize modern scientific theory and discovery with religious traditions. These attempts always fail. And they fail both the religious traditions and modern science. The problem starts with genre confusion between material taken from "The Holy Books" and science. It then usually calls on natural theology (not directly implied in this article) and serious misunderstandings of science along the way. For, example, what is Redi's view of evolution? It's far from clear. But if he does see evolution with natural selection as operative, then the whole Adam and Eve existing first in heaven thing is nonsense. I'm mean nonsense within the internal structure of his article. Of course, I see it as nonsense more generally. If he is truly looking to "irrefutable sources like the Holy Books," where does millions of years of human existence on Earth fit into the picture?
Also, goals also often become confused.
This particular article appears to have as its main goal the promotion of Ethiopian tourism.
Ethiopia, as it celebrates its new MILLENNIUM, calls upon all its children to gather at home. The custom is that there is always some moment in a family life for all (or at least most of) the family members to come together for a while. In Ethiopia, it is actually that moment now: HOME COMING TIME. The millennium is an absolutely ideal moment to children of the world to see their mother. Isn´t it so nice that every human being visits his/her mother at such a remarkable moment so special for the mother- Ethiopia? Thou all children of Adam and Eve thy time have arrived now for thou to visit home of thy farthest away grand parents- Ethiopia.
The funny thing is that main burden of this point could have been made without dragging Adam and Eve or religion into it. But, and I suppose this is the only slightly redeeming thing about the article, Redi does make a case, a wrong minded case to be sure, for the public acknowledgement of the great paleoanthropological fossil remains from Ethiopia. But the price of this case seems high indeed.
If you're interested in a very good discussion of Adam and Eve, you might want to check out the discussion on Biblicalist (while travel is not required, registration is)
Via Archaeology News
Posted by Duane Smith at March 8, 2008 2:17 PM | Read more on Religion |
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Comments
You do realize that the more we talk about their crazy ideas, the longer it will take for them to go away, don't you? :) I grew up in (and later escaped from) a fundamentalist religion that sucked up pseudoscientific "research" like this to somehow validate their wonky beliefs. There was a fear that by attending university, I would be corrupted by the dark side... and God, were they right. Now all my close friends are buddhists and atheists. I've never felt better. :P
Posted by: Glen Gordon at March 9, 2008 9:44 PM
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