Five Events That Took Place in Genesis That Still Have Consequences To This Very Day

[anoymous51]

As a disclaimer, I just want to say that I am an African-American and I don't want to be accused of racism when I get to my third point.


h 1. The Fall of Man and Original Sin. Gen 3: 1-24. Before Adam and Eve were tempted and fell into sin, there was no pain, misery, sickness, and suffering. The earth was essentially a paradise. After the fall, clothing(since Adam and Eve were both naked), toil, and death were brought into the picture. The first death that took place was a murder. Cain killed his brother Abel.

2. The Great Flood from Geneses 6:9-9:17. During pre-Antediluvian times, it had never rained. There were probably streams maybe lakes, but most of the water was underground. The world was predominately a green, gently rolling plain with no deserts or arid prairies. One day, God told Noah the build a large boat or ship known as an ark. This was designed to only protect Noah's direct family and two types(male and female) of certain animals. Dinosaurs were obviously not included on the ark. The reason for the ship was that the world was going to be destroyed by water. When the flood finally took place, not only did water come from the sky but also from the subterranean depths underground. For 40 straight days this continued. After this first apocalypse was over, the flood water receded into huge basins creating the 70 percent ocean mass that covers the world today. Much of what was left of the 30 percent dry land was split apart into what we know today as continents. They topography of the land varied. In some areas, there was still greenery. In other places there were deserts.

It has been archeologically proven that most of todays deserts were once green whether its the Saharan Desert, the Arabian Desert, or the Sonora and Mojave deserts in America. What happened is that the water eroded the original landscape down to a barren desolate plain where nothing will hardly grow. The greatest testament to the power of erosion is The Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the world. In fact, marine fossils have been found in deserts and landlocked regions that are not close to an ocean or sea. Many of today's tall mountain were formed by uplifted rock strata that occurred during the flood.


Going back to the issue of fossils, every living creature that was not found on Noah's Ark was destroyed. This not only included every person outside of Noah's family, but most other forms of life including dinosaurs. These billions upon billions of fossils would decompose under layer after layer of strata to form liquids, solids, and gases. Beginning in the late 19th century, this would form the basis for one of the most powerful industries ever. One that is coming under much fire today, the fossil fuel industry(oil, gas, and coal). The gasoline and diesel that we use to power our cars and trucks are nothing more than the refined liquified remains of creatures that lived before the Flood!


3. White Supremacy/colonialism. Gen 9. This one is controversial and the reason for my disclaimer. After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard. After getting drunk from the wine, Noah was caught possibly in sexual orgy by his son Ham. Noah placed a curse upon Ham by having him serve his brother Japhet. Those who are familiar with biblical genealogy know that everybody currently alive is descended from Noah's sons Japhet, Shem, and Ham. Japhet is the father of the white race, Ham is the father of the black race, and Shem is the father of the Asiatic or Mongoloid race. Ham had four sons Canaan, Put, Mizraim, and Cush. I know biblical scholars will swear up and down that the curse applied to Noah's grandson Canaan or the Canaanites instead of Cush's descendent(black people). But, I don't recall the Canaanites ever serving the descendants of Japhet. And even if it did only apply to Canaan, Cush's future lineage would end up serving Japhet's anyway. This curse or prophecy would take place during the age of exploration or discovery and especially during the colonization of the New World when several European powers would participate in the slave trade. The English sent African slaves to America. The Portuguese shipped African slaves to Brazil. The Spaniards sent slaves to the various Spanish speaking countries in Latin America, including Mexico. Even in the American South, after slavery was abolished, it was substituted for almost another century by Jim Crow laws and sharecropping designed to instill a sense of inferiority and servitude in black people.

4. The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9 and the Separation of People and Languages. Nimrod, the son of Cush, decided that he was going to build a tower to reach heaven. Really, it was the first skyscraper. So, he gathered as many people as he could to construct it. When God saw this, he confused their languages. The term babel means confusion. Before this, human beings spoke one language. After this, people spoke countless languages according to their tribe and ethnicity. Today, there are more than 7,100 languages spoken in the world. It was also during this time of mankind's dispersion that the different races began to evolve. The descendants of Ham would inhabit the hotter climates in Africa where dark skin or melanin was needed to absorb the sun. Meanwhile, Japhet's people would settle the cooler climates of Europe where light skin was required. Shem's future lineage would migrate to the far East.
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5. The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Genesis 15-22. This started when God promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child. Year after year would go by and still Sarah was not getting pregnant. And they were both advancing in age. So, they both got impatient and agreed to use their servant Hagar as surrogate mother to bear a child. The child she bore by Abraham was named Ismael. He would become the father of the modern day Palestinians and Arabs. Later on, Sarah would eventually become pregnant with Isaac. The name Isaac literally means laughter because Sarah thought it was a joke when God told her she would become pregnant way past the age of child conception. When they were children, Ishmael started taunting his half-brother Isaac. Sarah saw this and became infuriated. She kicked both Hagar and Ishmael out of her household. The Lord saw after Hagar in her time of distress. He promised her a great nations would be built from Ishmael because he is Abraham's son. But, God also told her that he will be a wild donkey of a man and his hand will be against everyone. And this describes the Arab world perfectly today whether it be leaders such as Sadat, Kaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, terrorist groups such as Isis, Al qaeda, or just random terrorist/suicide bombers. Isaac gave birth to a son named Jacob. His name was later changed to Israel. The very same conflict between Ishmael and Isaac in ancient times is almost identical to the conflict between Israel and the Arabs today.

 

[ecumeni]

Very knowledgeable post, sir/maam.

 

[Diamond72]

Those who are familiar with biblical genealogy know that everybody currently alive is descended from Noah's sons Japhet, Shem, and Ham. Japhet is the father of the white race, Ham is the father of the black race, and Shem is the father of the Asiatic or Mongoloid race. Ham had four sons Canaan, Put, Mizraim, and Cush.

That is impossible. Black people go back as much as 7 million years and Ham lived around 4,000 years ago. Man did not come out of Africa until around 40,000 years ago. That is when we find fishing hooks and sowing needles made out of bone. So they were able to dress to stay warm in the colder climate north of Africa.

 

[ViaCrucis]

White people don't descend from Japheth.
Black people don't descend from Ham.
"Asiatic" people don't descend from Shem.

That's nonsense that emerged in modern times and was manufactured in order to serve the interests of people in power, namely those who wanted to try and justify race-based slavery using religion to do so. It's not a biblical idea, it's not a scientific idea, and it's not an historical idea. It is an early modern idea that was invented solely to justify keeping people enslaved.

Biblicall, scientifically, and historically there is no such thing as "races". There is no such thing as a "white race", for example. "Race", originally simply referred to a group of people, akin to speaking of a "nation" of people. The idea of dividing humanity into discrete "races" on the basis of skin color and certain arbitrary physical features was, again, something made up and manufactured in the early modern period in order to justify European colonialism and conquest. It has no basis in Scripture, no basis in science. The way we use "race" today is largely a hold-over from then, and largely only exists today as a social construct. But there's no such thing as a "white race" or a "black race" or a "brown race".

That I'm "white" is primarily a social construct, in objective scientific fact I'm simply a person with northern European ancestry with light-colored, pinkish person because my skin produces less melanin. The reason for that is simply a matter of gene expression, I've inherited the genes of my parents and grandparents, etc, from human populations that historically lived in areas with relatively less UV exposure.

In fact, look at traditional human populations all over the globe, start at the equator and you'll see that the darkest people live on or near the equator, and in areas with the highest levels of overall UV exposure. As you move away from the equator toward the poles, the earth receives generally less overall UV exposure and people become less dark. Other genetic expressions can also be attributed to simple shared traits based on populations. Mutations that affect things like hair and eye color, texture, certain other facial features, or even whether one can produce lactase into adulthood and digest lactose in milk. Those are just genetic expressions that have evolved in different populations.

They no more make a significant difference than whether a person can wiggle their ears, or the length of their fingers and toes.

Saying that "black people" descended from Ham would be like saying people who have a longer middle toe than their big toe are all descended from Ham.

Yes, the table of nations is the way Genesis describes human settlement after the flood, but it has zero to do with "race".

I'm not going to accuse someone of being racist simply because they've been taught this idea and they believe it; but we really should squish this error, because it does have racist origins and it is both biblically and scientifically nonsense.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Diamond72]

There is no such thing as a "white race",

Black people want their own culture and their own identity. Many big cities now are more than 50% black. Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, and New Orleans to name a few. So they can elect who they want and run those cities any way they want. They are in control now. America is rapidly becoming Latino, black & white.

Blacks continue to go by the pre-war one drop rule. If you are one eight black, then you are black. One third of Black women have a college degree. They work hard, raise their children and go to school to get a good job.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Black people want their own culture and their own identity. Many big cities now are more than 50% black. Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, and New Orleans to name a few. So they can elect who they want and run those cities any way they want. They are in control now. America is rapidly becoming Latino, black & white.

Blacks continue to go by the pre-war one drop rule. If you are one eight black, then you are black. One third of Black women have a college degree. They work hard, raise their children and go to school to get a good job.

I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make, actually.

What's important is that there is no such thing as some innate quality called "race"; and more, the sons of Noah explanation for "races" is again just simply false. Race is made up. There is no such thing as an innate quality of (e.g.) "white" or "black", these are purely external social constructs.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Diamond72]

there is no such thing as some innate quality called "race"

There is culture and people like to have their identity and their culture.

 

[ViaCrucis]

There is culture and people like to have their identity and their culture.

But that has nothing to do with what I've mentioned.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Diamond72]

But that has nothing to do with what I've mentioned.

Then buy a parrot if you are looking for something to repeat what you said.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Then buy a parrot if you are looking for something to repeat what you said.

Why would I be looking for someone to repeat what I said?

I'm just saying that I'm not talking about culture and identity, I'm talking about race--because that's what the OP brought up with the point I was addressing.

Of course people have culture and identity. Nothing I said denies that.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Diamond72]

Why would I be looking for someone to repeat what I said?

Do you want people to disagree with you?

 

[ViaCrucis]

Do you want people to disagree with you?

I'm not sure this has anything to do with what I want or don't want.

You quoted and responded to me, so I figured you were trying to engage with what I said. I'm merely trying to understand that engagement.

It occurs to me that perhaps my inquiries have come across as critical or dismissive--that wasn't my intent, and so if that's how it's come across I want to apologize. I'm merely trying to understand the relationship between what I said and what you said.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Diamond72]

I'm merely trying to understand the relationship between what I said and what you said.

My opinion is you can not have a discussion about race without talking about culture. My wife says: "You can take the Filipino out of the Philippines but you can not take the Philippines out of the Filipino". Is she talking about race? No, she is talking about culture.

Culture refers to a person's shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that are shaped by their social, historical, and environmental context. Culture can be a powerful force that shapes a person's identity and can provide a sense of belonging and community. People can identify with different cultures based on factors such as their language, religion, traditions, and social practices.

You say we do not talk about race anymore. Correct, we now talk about culture and the identity people have. In America, we have white, black and Latino. They all hold on tight to their identity. This has to do with culture not race. People think he is black or Latino because he is clearly not white. Except at the University, there are not enough Asians here for people to be able to identify what he is.

If you go by the one drop rule a person can be 1/8 black and 7/8 white. But still consider themselves to be black because that is the culture they identify with. Look at all the problems Megan had in England. The queen dies, we have a new king, but all people want to do is talk about Megan.

You can be 1/1000 of something. But at that point there will no longer be any DNA maker to determine that.

Blacks are now a majority in

1. Detroit, Michigan
2. Jackson, Mississippi
3. Birmingham, Alabama
4. Baltimore, Maryland
5. Memphis, Tennessee
6. New Orleans, Louisiana
7. Cleveland, Ohio
8. Atlanta, Georgia

This is not based on race, it is based on identity and the culture they want to identify with. In a literal way because the census is based on what they say they are. I remember the census worker asking my son: who do you say you are? What do you identify with? Even "Jewish" people do not require a DNA test to prove they are "Jewish".