Literal Genesis. Cutting out the parts that you like or believe all of it?

Question

There are people, mostly Southern USA fundimental Christians, who believe that Genesis is a literal account of the events that took place when God created the world and everything in it.

The problem with the Genesis creation story is that alot of it has been disproven as it cannot have happened. Lets have a look at it point for point shall we?

God creates the earth which is apparently an expanse of water. He then creates light prior to the sun and seperates the waters of earth using the expanse of heaven (an apparenty solid object called the 'firmiment') to seperate 'the waters above' from 'the waters below'.

Next, still prior to creating the sun, he creates dry land by moving the seas to particular areas and then creates all plant life on that dry land. God then decided that he'd create a large and small light to stick to this solid mass of heaven so that day and night, seasons and months can be determined by them.

Leaving out the recollection of God's creation of animals and man, let's try to work this out.

Genesis dictates that:

The light of day is independant from the sun.
The moon only comes out at night.
Plants can survive without the sun.
Above the heaven is a large body of water.
Heaven is a solid mass which the sun and moon are stuck to.

Since none of these points illustrated in Genesis are true, why should it be even suggestable that any of the following events are true?

My point is, if the main bulk of the creation story is completely disproven then why believe the remaining dregs that only deal with human creation?

Answer 1

Dear friend, I believe the Bereshyth (Genesis) account of creation to be true and this does not have to interfere with my scientific reasoning. Genesis is a religious/mythological story of human origins and one cannot reasonable demand that ancient authors knew of modern scientific method. Religious story may be true without being factual and I understand that this concept confuses many people. Yet help is at hand, Karen Armstrong recently wrote a lovely little book simply called, 'Myths.' You may find this a useful aid in coming to terms with ancient mythological ideas and their relevence to the modern and post-structural world. Our problem stems from the fact that we have become somewhat removed from the mythos of our fathers and mothers and instead of reflection we tend to trust technology.

Answer 2

Good points... all of them. What surprises me is that so many believe it, yet can't tell you which Creation story they believe to be 100% accurate. There are 2 Creation stories and they vary greatly, especially when it comes to who was created first, man or animals. And then, one shows woman created After man, yet the other shows they were created Together.

How is it that soooo many people read the Bible and do not see these double stories? Do they just naturally rationalize it away? Or ignore it all together in hopes that others will not see it and point it out?