Don’t be alarmed by the title. I just wrote it to provoke atheists, who like to mention that psychologists have shown that people who believe in God have a lower average IQ than atheists. I objected to that saying that it is shown only of average IQ people, not of those with very high IQ, so one atheist answered that he guarantees to me that there are no intelligent and educated people who believe in the Bible literally.
That sounds rather convincing, there are the fossils and all, but I guarantee that any top intelligent person who educates himself by reading this post will believe in the Bible literally. You want to bet? No, I will not bet for money, but I will present my most convincing argument.
Let us take the fossils. There are fossils in the ground and scientists can show that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. People, who believe in the Bible literally say that the world is 6,000 years old. Do you see any contradiction with these?
If you see, you do not belong to the most intelligent and educated people because while you understand what it means that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, you do not correctly understand what it means that the world is 6,000 years old. This 6,000 years is to be taken literally, it is not symbolic. It is the word world that has a different meaning than the Earth or the Universe.
In order to understand anything literally you first have to understand what is meant by it and not to try to derive contradictions form your own misunderstandings. Old creation myths, as in the Bible, are to be understood literally, not misunderstood literally.
To give an analogy, there are atoms and the etymology of an atom is that it is indivisible. Yet, it would be very stupid to say that there is a contradiction in science since an atom is indivisible and yet consists of quarks, and that’s why you cannot believe in science – too many obvious contradictions. It would also be very stupid to literally understand that a quark is a quart of beer because the word comes from the Finnegans Wake sentence “Three quarks for Muster Mark” which may be “Three quarts for Mister Mark” uttered after the three quarts are consumed. Clearly, first we have to understand a myth correctly, as it originally was meant, and only then we can understand it literally. Literally implies that the myth is understood as it is meant, and the statement that the world is 6,000 years old is to be understood literally.
The correct understanding of this myth is that we are now living in the third world. A very old myth (from 16,000 BC) places the origin of the sky and earth to the time when Deneb in the constellation of the Swan was the closest bright star to the heavenly North Pole, it was understood as the nail that fixed the world pillar to the sky. The Milky Way splits into two branches at Deneb. In the Finnish mythology the Milky Way is the sky woman and the branches designate the sky woman’s legs. The Bible understands the same star constellation as Adam and Eve standing around the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is the world pole. The two branches of the Milky Way are Adam and Eve and Deneb is between them.
This was the understanding by ancient astrologers. Thus, the correct understanding of the Finnish creation myth is not to imagine a huge woman swimming in the sea and a bird landing on her hip. That is a childish literal misunderstanding. The literal understanding of the Finnish myth is that it describes a scene in the night sky and literally there was the Milky Way and the Swan. It is a similar kind of scientific concept as talking of atoms and quarks. The fact that there is no physical world pillar is a later scientific finding. A fact is that 16,000 BC there was this scene close to the heavenly North Pole and that was the earliest time remembered by the people who created our culture. The time when they emerged.
The Paradise was lost 9,500 BC when the Persian Gulf flooded. I consider this theory as a fact. The star constellations show the fall of the man myth: Eve gives the apple (Vega) to the man (Hercules) and the snake (Draco) watches the man taking it. This myth has the literal understanding that such a scene was seen in the sky when the Gulf flooded. People had to start agriculture, as is told in the Bible. The time from 16,000 BC to 9,500 BC is about 6000 years.
The myth of the Deluge is based on the Sumerian myth of the flood. There were several floods. The flood in the story of Noah/Ziusudra is dated to 2,900 BC. The time from the fall to the flood is about 6,000 years: 9,500-2,900. The small differences that 16,000-9,500 and 9,500-2,900 are not exactly 6,000 are irrelevant as ancient people could not determine the times very precisely.
At the time of Jesus Essenes mixed it up and calculated into the 6,000 years a time of 2000 years before the Deluge. It was understandable as they believed they lived in the end of the world. But it is not the original way. The world lasts for 6,000 years and the beginning is the Deluge. (Do not misunderstand this as saying that the Earth and the Universe will disappear in 3,000 AD. Creating of the new earth, sky and heaven as is promised in the Revelation when Jesus comes again, does not mean the destruction of the Earth, as no such thing happened when the Ice Age ended, yet it was a new world.)
Thus, there were literally two worlds before our world and both ended into a catastrophe: the first to the fall of man and the flooding of the Gulf, the second to the Deluge. We are living in the third world. By the normal common sense logic, if the two words each lasted 6,000 years, this world lasts 6,000 years. It does not mean that before 16,000 BC there were no other worlds and the Earth did not exist. It only means that according to the science of that time creation happened in 16,000 BC. An intelligent and educated person of today can understand that the Earth is much older than 18,000 years and it can be shown by fossils, but he also should understand that the corresponding Biblical myths are also literally correct: that is what was seen in the night sky.
The sub-species Homo sapiens sapiens existed long before 16,000 BC and modern scientists have for anthropological reasons decided to call Homo sapiens a human and Homo sapiens sapiens a modern human. People, who created our culture, derive from a small group which survived the last glacial maximum and gazed at the stars and noticed that Deneb was the Pole Star. If they were aware of other humans, they did not count them as humans, as maybe the other ones spoke an unintelligible language, or they did not meet any as all had died in the Big Freeze. The survivors did not preserve any myths of yet older times, thus 16,000 BC become the time of the creation of man. Ice disappeared, so it was also the time of the creation of their earth, sea and sky.
Where can one see a contradiction? The Earth can be 4.5 billion years old and the world can last for 6,000 years, both are correct scientific theories to be taken literally.
Oh, gosh. I exceeded one A4. As we all know intelligent and educated people, especially atheists, have very demanding and important jobs, and naturally extremely little time for nonsense. They never read anything longer than one A4. So, I have to stop right here, but did I make an atheist a literal believer in the Bible? I certainly hope so, and I added the world most to exclude the intelligent and educated atheists whom I did not convince.
I case you still have not got it, the brightest people (with the highest IQ) at that time believed the bullshit of a world pillar, so there is no whatsoever connection between IQ and religious beliefs, whatever nonsense psychologists are making, they are lightyears from hard science.