Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Sorry, I'm not Abel to believe this, Cain you?

A little while ago on Facebook, I posted a YouTube video of a Fox News show that had a young priest as a guest who was answering questions about random topics. It was an epic fail on his part when a viewer posed the question of how Adam and Eve's sons Cain and Abel populated the earth since they were two boys.

Here's the clip:

 

It's a simple question, and one that is poignant to the short-sightedness of Genesis. Adam and Eve, according to this fairy tale, were the first two humans on Earth (though you should look into the full story of Lilith for fun). They were charged with populating the planet, so they had sex and the result was Cain and Abel.

Since Eve was the only woman on Earth, and she didn't give rise to a girl, it would stand to reason Adam would have to keep trying to make a girl with her, or Cain and/or Abel would have to sleep with their mother, right? Incest was going to have to be overlooked at some point, since even if Eve gave birth to a daughter, the brothers (or Adam) would have to impregnate her, too.

But let's explore the story a bit further. They had a farm and the sons had their chores: Abel tended to the sheep while Cain raised crops. Then these guys felt the need to give god a gift. God loved Abel's sheep offering, but was less than enthused with Cain's food. Go figure, god is immature and fussy, just a child not wanting to eat broccoli.

Anyway, this rejection ticked off Cain to no end, so much so that his jealous rage led him to kill Abel, which resulted in Cain's famous saying, "Am I my brother's keeper?" when god returned asking where Abel was. Funny, isn't god omniscient? Does he really not know what happened? Let me guess, he's treating Cain like an infant who spilled a glass of milk on the new couch. He knows he did it, despite the choruses of "Not me." This led to a fight with god, some insults were tossed around and then Cain split.

Now here's where the story takes another twist (as if there weren't enough bizarre plot lines already). As Cain wanders through the Land of Nod (East of Eden), he finds a wife! Where did she come from? Adam and Eve didn't have her (though they would give birth to yet another son, Seth, and he would sleep with Eve to populate Earth), and god never says he put her there for him, plus why would god reward Cain for his murderous actions by giving him a wife? Incest runs rampant and Abel has a huge family. The end.

If you're a believer, how can you read this tripe and not question it? I know Genesis is made-up poetry written by science-deprived Middle Eastern troglodytes, but there are literalists out there who believe this stuff. And when you have a priest on national television who can't explain it, isn't it time to discard the effluvium and call it what it is, a fairy tale?

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