Customer Reviews

Did Adam Have a Bellybutton: And Other Tough Questions About the Bible

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Be aware that it is nothing more than a creationist arguing with the evolutionists. There was very little actual quotations and passages of the bible listed in the answers that he gave, and most of the time he managed to say something negative about today's educated people and those who believe in evolution.

I really tried to read this book with an open mind and ignore the creationist vs. evolutionist thing. I was looking for an interesting viewpoint or some concrete answers with quotations to back them up. I felt duped by this man and felt that he had fallen into the same rigid, closed-off frame of mind that he was accusing the evolutionists of.

Let's imagine for a moment that the special creation hallucination peddled by this book is absolutely correct, and that the author's credulous logic is equally impeccable:

Adam and Eve didn't have belly buttons - after all they were created as fully formed thirty-somethings. They weren't nourished in utero via a placenta and umbilical cord. Since Adam was never an embryo or fetus he didn't have nipples either. During development all mammalian embryos follow a female template until about six weeks, when the male sex chromosome kicks in for male embryos. The embryo then begins to develop its various male characteristics. Consequently men are left with nipples and some breast tissue. God wouldn't mark Adam with any feature that would imply that he had ever been an embryo - hence no nipples.

Note to Ham: Please update the exhibits at your yabba-dabba science homage to "The Flintstones" (aka the Creation Museum) accordingly. And while you're at it loose the silly St. George slays the dragon sculpture. It's right next to the dinosaur with a saddle!

Adam also named all the animals on the sixth day of creation, and he remembered all of their names. How did he accomplish this mnemonic feat? Simple really - Adam had a perfect brain uncorrupted by sin and the curse. He was smarter than Witten, Hawking, Sagan, Feynman, Einstein, Darwin, Newton, or Galileo. Over a lifetime of 930 years a super intellect like this should have realized astonishing philosophic, scientific, and technological advances - but according to Genesis Adam wasted nearly a millennium and left behind a course and brutish Earth where unabated superstition clouded minds, religious gibberish and priestly oppression reigned supreme, slavery flourished, shamans cast out demons, parents stoned sons or daughters, and astronomical phenomena like solar eclipses and changing seasons remained awesome mysteries.

Time to switch back to reality mode - Ham can't even ask the right questions or separate sense from nonsense. Absurdities abound when erroneous presuppositions based on the bipolar conceits of biblical literalism and inerrancy are used to look for scientific or historical answers in Genesis. Mythical symbolism and allegory encode a different worldview. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and Ham utterly fails to persuade.

Books like "Did Adam Have a Belly Button? And Other Tough Questions About the Bible" pop up whenever Ken Ham has access to crayons and paper. Also avoid "Did Eve Really Have an Extra Rib? And Other Tough Questions About the Bible" (reviewed separately). If you like the tough questions genre try Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris.

The book is interesting for sure. It just doesn't take you too far. But,it's probably worth purchasing as an extra book

He has many insightful arguments as to why evolution is wrong. He often repeats himself. Overall many Christians need to know the information that is discussed in the book.

This book allows one question to be answered per page. It is a charming book about facts in the Bible.

Ken Ham keeps amazing me with his ability to take his extensive knowledge of scripture and science, and show how they coexist.

Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. The answer's in Genesis!

Q. What colour underwear does God wear?
A. Oh, lets look in Genesis, we'll find the answer there!

I wanted to read this book to get a balanced perspective from both sides of the Evolution/Creationism argument. A lot of the questions that the author presents in this book deserve intelligent and thoughtful responses. Unfortunately this is not what you get.

Pretty much the answer to any question you can think of can be found in Genesis...apparently. And what isn't, it seems he just makes up.

I will give just one example (though one could be given for every question he poses). Question 49 - Could a Man Who Built a Vessel The Size Of The Ark Be a Primitive?

He rightly states that we don't really know what kind of technology Noah had, and in the next sentence says "In fact, it is very possible he had better technology than we have today".

Now as we all know from the story, Old Noah had a bit of a time frame to work toward, with the imminent destruction of pretty much all life on earth just around the corner. Apparently the author wants the reader to believe that a 500 years old desert dwelling nomad with no apparent written language had at his disposal ship building technology superior to that which we have today, enabling him to construct a huge ocean going vessel. What evidence is there to support this notion, or is it just pure conjecture.

Bare in mind that about the same time as the flood story was suppose to happen, Egypt, the most powerful and advanced nation in the world was happily doing what it did. Now if the flood really happened, then why do we still have Egyptians, and why are there no Egyptian records of the flood.

In 1853 clay tablets were discovered containing a flood story much older than the one in the bible. Subsequent investigations have shown the Genesis version of the "Great Flood" and its hero, Noah, to be pure fiction. Much of the biblical story was plagiarized from older cultures such as Sumaria and Babylonia, therefore to accept this story as fact flies in the face of all of the archaeological, historical, literary, meteorological, and geological research ever conducted to say nothing of common sense. But I am digressing, my apologies.

The beauty of living in a free democratic secular society is that we have freedom of speech for good or bad, which unfortunately means that clowns like this guy can have their say and have their drivel published. That's the price we pay.

And remember it was not all that long ago, that to talk of ideas contrary to what the church wanted you to believe, meant pain, usually quite a bit of pain, and even death.

Make no mistake; this author has nothing intelligent to say on any of the questions he poses. If I could give a rating of zero I would.

Great book! We had hours of fun going through this book. So many great answers. The author is a wealth of trust worthy information and is fastly becoming one of my favorites! If like this book you need to get the sequel - Did Eve Realy have an Extra Rib? Both books are a Good sourse of information for that home bible study for the person who always seems to ask those hard questions.