An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Genesis 1

Regular paragraphs are the verses as written in the Bible.
Indented italicized paragraphs feature my comments on the previous paragraph.
Note that I might appear especially nitpicky and I know that some of these verses are not taken literally by everybody; I'm just having some fun basically.
Why the New International Version or NIV? Why not? The Bible has already been translated countless times before and I can't read or speak the original languages in which it was written, which is why it is stupid in the first place to assume that a divine being would communicate with us through a book.

New International Version

Genesis 1

The Beginning

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And somehow we don't even know where this "God" character came from. Did he also create the other planets and everything that is in the universe or just "the heavens and the earth"? Also somehow you're expected to believe these words and give your life to them.

² Now the earth was ^[a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The earth was apparently "formless and empty", yet as soon as something physically exists, like the earth does, no matter what form it is and how little it contains the statement "formless and empty" can't be true. Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter since they make sure to contradict themselves with the next part when it says that "the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters", meaning there is water and so the earth is definitely not empty.

³ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

"God saw that the light was good": if he's the all-knowing being that people talk about, he didn't even need to see it to know that it was good, but that's extreme nitpicking for now. "He separated the light from the darkness": you can actually do that? And here I thought darkness and light were not actual "things". Darkness occurs when there's no light around, but I guess you'll say that's because he already separated them and I never saw what the non-separated state was like. I can't really argue with that, except to say that it doesn't make much sense.

⁶ And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." ⁷ So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

...???...!!!...??? This passage seems to be asserting that the blue sky is actually water. I can see why people would write that 2000 years ago or more, with no science to help them understand the world they lived in, which makes me doubt even more that these are God's wise words if he was to exist.

⁹ And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

"And God saw that it was good" only to flood it later on, but I'm getting ahead of myself... Anyway, is God done congratulating himself? What an ego!

¹¹ Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. ¹² The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

Then God said, "Let's smoke some weed!" The next day he created platypuses.

¹⁴ And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. ¹⁶ God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

Wait a minute, not only is God apparently creating light sources after light itself, but also after plants (which require sunlight as part of their photosynthesis process, which you already know if you know anything about plants. Of course, people didn't know that 2000 years ago.) Hey wait, am I reading correctly, 2 light sources and stars? Stars are light sources too, the sun itself is not something else than a star, not even close to being the biggest one in our galaxy. And hey, the moon is not a weaker light source, it doesn't produce any light at all, it's only reflecting the light from the sun back to the earth. Again, something which you might expect from a book written 2000 years ago, but I doubt "the creator" would be so dumb. Oh right, platypuses!

²⁰ And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." ²³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

"God blessed them": Hope that helps in any measurable way! Also, apparently God is Dr. Dolittle since he can speak to animals, but I guess that would go with his character of being able to do anything like people say he can (after all, you don't want your god to do any less than that, he is a mega superhuman).

²⁴ And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

I hope that's a figure of speech since the land doesn't produce animals or even plants for that matter (although plants get some of their energy from a fertile land and animals eat plants, among other things).

²⁶ Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, ^[b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Why is God speaking in plural about himself (or is that the trinity, which nobody seems to be able to clearly explain)? Also, if man is to rule over pretty much everything, why is it that so many animals can kill him or outclass him in many domains, except for brains of course? I'm just saying, God should've made us better, with more capacities, especially if we're to be like him or they (after all, there's a plural there even if he's supposed to be the only god).

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

So I'm guessing God is a transsexual then, is that it?

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

One thing I'm noticing now for some reason is how hard it's going to be to rule over birds since we can't fly and fishes since we can't breathe underwater like they do. God is kind of an ironic bastard that way. Thank God we (as in ourselves, human beings) invented ways to compensate for our weaknesses and make the "creation" better in all those years since the Bible was written.

²⁹ Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

Basically, every living creature up to an ant (well he didn't talk about insects, but you know, animals), except for plants, have the same rights as humans except that man has the additional task saying that he is supposed to "rule over them". Why are we supposed to rule over them? I'm no vegetarian by any means (anyway he didn't say to eat other animals in this passage), but I don't think I have the right to do whatever I please with all creatures just because I'm a human and they're not. What kind of sense does that make?

³¹ God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

You know, God's time management up to this point has been pretty strange. Creating the heavens and the earth on the first day, then the stars on the fourth day (I'm going to assume all celestial bodies in the universe too even if they don't say, another indication that they didn't know what they were talking about), that would seem to take much longer than creating animals (there's a lot more energy in the vast universe than only on this earth, even if we're talking about non-life vs. life), yet he created fishes and birds on the fifth day and other animals including humans on the sixth day, so 2 days too. It even took him a day to create plants, you know, not the most complex life form around. I mean, if you're saying he's all-powerful, he doesn't even need time; he can all create instantly and already know that it will be good without bothering us about it. If he's all-knowing like most people also agree on, he was even already aware from the very beginning that a being called Bobby Roy, born in 1987, would write this exact piece of text sometime in 2010. If not believing in him is reason enough to send me to the Hell he created, I was already doomed from the beginning and had no free will, but I see I'm getting sidetracked here since this has nothing to do with the last paragraph. See you all in the next part!

Footnotes:

a. Genesis 1:2 Or possibly became
b. Genesis 1:26 Hebrew; Syriac all the wild animals