THE UNGODLY BOOKS OF,:-

GENESIS Book 1

In the beginning there was nothing. Just a blackness in an infinite expanse of blackness. A whole blackness making a black hole in the blackness.
... and then, in the infinity of its existence, the black hole spewed out energetically, violently and hotly.
... and as the vomit began to glow with heat, at first a faintly discernible violet and then, as the vomit spread wider, a multiple of cooler hues,
there was good light spreading into the blackness.
... and the light was a plasma of particles that swirled, dependent upon each other for their nature.
... and the plasma cooled, coalescing into identical, individual, self sufficient particle groups, some of which formed pairs for stability.
.... and many of these groups had mass attraction to each other, and began to coalesce into ever denser groups, until the pressure forced them into a larger condensation, with a fresh release of light and energy, and these were the first stars.
.... and these stars spread ever more widely across the firmanent, and as they burned, collapsed and exploded they created more complex, heavier elements.
.... and it was good.
.... and many of these heavier elements coagulated into rocks, and the rocks coagulated into planets.
... and two of the new elements formed icy rocks of water, which coagulated with other rocks and also with the new planets, to form seas.
... and one of these planets was called "earth".
.... and it was good.
.... and the earth's seas created powerful weather, with dramatic storms and huge bolts of lightning.
... and in these seas, over many thousands of years, complex compounds of some elements came into being, spurred on by those great storms upon the planet.
.... and some of these new compounds could form organically into compounds that recreated themselves, and these in turn became more complex and eventually became the first green plants and the first creatures in the sea.
.... and it was good.
.... and these in turn, over many more thousands of years, evolved into the fish in the sea, the animals on the land and the birds in the sky.
.... and it was good.
.... and into this earthly goodness evolved a new creature, neither as fast nor as strong as his fellow creatures, but well adapted for dexterity and with Reason greater than any.
.... and, thanks to his reason and dexterity, this creature was able to fashion tools and weapons, and thus to have dominion over all the creatures of the earth.
.... and his name was "man".

GENESIS Book 2

.... and Reason caused man to question all that he experienced, and to try to reason the reason for it.
.... and when anything was beyond man's reason, it was attributed to the actions of powerful, unfathomable beings.
... and these beings he called "gods", and attributed tales to their lives, locations and livelihoods that would explain the inexplicable phenomena he experienced.
.... and amongst men there arose a new class of men, adept at such attributions, who saw great advantage could be gained by claiming direct authority from, and communion with, the gods.
... and their successors came to believe, and to have faith in, their predecessors lies.
... and this faith was called "religion'.
.... and thusly they did rise to hold power over other men. And these men were called kings and priests, and they saw that life was good.
.... and whenever man, through scientific reasoning, learned to explain the previously inexplicable, the priests would often persecute them as they sought to control all knowledge and deny any that contradicted their faith.
... and such contradictions were called "blasphemy', for which terrible punishments were ordained by men of faith.
.... and accordingly, man's knowledge grew only slowly, restricted by unrestricted authority and by the slow dissemination of even permitted knowledge by the laborious process of hand copying all knowledge.
..... and eventually, man rebelled against dogmatic authority, and forbidden knowledge and forbidden ideas were more widely disseminated, thanks largely to a newly invented printing device.
... and as knowledge spread more widely and more rapidly, it spawned much new knowledge.
... and this new knowledge began to erode early man's accorded attributions to supernatural gods.
... and entrenched religious faith in gods, and thus the firm tenure of those priests and of those kings that did not adapt to the new knowledge.
... and the new knowledge enabled man to ascend beyond the confines of earth.
... and to send machines to beyond the planets.
... and to create devices to peer towards the far reaches of the firmament.
... and to look back through time to the first stars of the original firmament.
... and to dispel man's earlier myths of "divine creation" for all men of Free Reason.

Epilogue.

For the fruit of Reason is knowledge, and knowledge thrives upon Reason. But half-ripened Knowledge, that has no understanding of implications and consequences, leads to disaster and exile, for half-ripe Knowledge is the forbidden fruit of man's earliest morality tales.

Thus, as man feasted upon the forbidden fruit, he damaged his very home, until it became an uninhabitable, inhospitable wilderness, and he was forced to leave his idyllic garden and forever wander afield in the wilderness in sorrow and shame.

So as we gaze upon the lost paradise of that distant planet, from the wilderness of Mars, let us forever remember to exercise restraint in our application of knowledge.

S.D.P. FINNE.
August 18th, 2021