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Edited for size.Meditation 792
This time, the answer really is in Genesis

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While I was driving south through Montana on Interstate 95, I saw a new (to me, anyway) billboard. It consisted of the face of a young man looking down the sights of a rifle aimed at the cars on the road, and the caption read:

If God doesn't matter to him, do you?

The sponsor for this message was answersingenesis.org.

What this billboard is suggesting is no more than the old canard that without God, there is no morality, and that someone who does not believe in God is more likely to kill you than is someone who believes in God.

Consider this. The people who paid for the billboard claim that the answer is in Genesis. Let's put this billboard to their test. In Genesis, who did all the killing?

As we all know, the first killing in the Bible (and as far as Bible literalists such as those behind  answersingenesis.org, the very first murder ever in the entire Universe) was recorded in Genesis 4:8:

"Now Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Let's go out to the field.' And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him."

As God was talking to Cain immediately before this event (Genesis4:6-7,) and had a conversation with him immediately afterward, (Genesis 4: 10-15) we know Cain believed in God.

What about the second killing in the Bible? This is not as well known, but it occurs just a few verses on, still in Genesis 4:

23 Lamech said to his wives,
       "Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
       wives of Lamech, hear my words.
       I have killed a man for wounding me,
       a young man for injuring me.
 24 If Cain is avenged seven times,
       then Lamech seventy-seven times."

It is quite reasonable to state that Lamech, based on his reference to the story of his great great grandfather, Cain, also believed in God.

Now, Genesis records no more specific killings until Genesis 7, when a mass murder occurs. God murders everyone except Noah and his family. It is safe to state that the God of Genesis believed in himself.

If you work your way through Genesis and consider all the killings, we can sum up by saying the killers were, in order from the biggest killer on down -

  1. The God of Genesis
  2. Believers in the God of Genesis
  3. Believers in other Gods
  4. Those who believed in no gods - whose total killings reported in Genesis reach the grand  total of zero.

Let's expand this to the entire Old Testament, and what do we find?

There is no change in the standings, and those who believed in no gods still are in fourth place with zero killings.

Include the New Testament and still we find there is no change in the standings, and those who believed in no gods remain in fourth place with not a single killing attributed to them in the entire Bible.

So to answer the question posed by  answersingenesis.org:

"If God does not matter to him, do you?"

We can reasonably answer based on Genesis, the Old Testament, and the entire Christian Bible, with a resounding:

Yes! - I may matter to him more than I would  if God did matter to him. After all, the answer is in Genesis.

However, the fact is, for most questions, the answer is decidedly not in Genesis. Further, as we've demonstrated in this little exercise, some of the answers that are in Genesis are not the answers that answersingenesis.org would have you believe are there.

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