So how powerful is this god of the ancients? So powerful he can run two independent streams of causality in the same timeline and universe.
Holy mind blown, Batman!
Yes, there are two separate creation stories, that didn’t really relate to each other.
In the first one, in the beginning, the world is a shapeless void. And God created light, that, i guess, lit up the void. And then God separated the light from the dark. I think that’s rather poetic.
Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk’s flight
On the empty sky.
(From Ursula le Guin)
But even before light, there was a “wind from God sweeping over the waters”, so apparently these waters had been created prior to the beginning of our story.
It all started with God breaking wind.
Apparently not before he leaked “water” first.
This was the subject of a Staff column ages ago, but the short version is that the Torah is believed to have been the work of four distinct authors, who we call J, E, P, and D (although these days E’s contribution is believed to be less significant than previously thought), whose works were compiled into a single volume by a fifth person. J and E are identified by whether they refer to God as Yahweh or Elohin, P is prinarily interested in the priestly history and ritual and genealogy, and D is the principal author of Deuteronomy, which contains little of the other three.
Genesis 1 is by P and Genesis 2 is by J, which is why they tell different versions of the same story.
This isn’t quite what the OP asks for, but there is a section in the Bible where King Asa is condemned and punished by God for having sought out the assistance of human doctors in treating an illness (rather than trusting and seeking God.) With this sort of passage in Scripture, you could challenge Christians today, “Why are you seeking chemotherapy for your cancer instead of seeking God, or getting the MMR vaccine to prevent yourself from getting measles?”
Of course, though, that argument could lead Christians to do exactly that, so maybe it’s not a good idea.
I could just hear the plants talking the day of their creation. “What a perfect universe. Some nice steady light, nothing to eat us.”
Then a few days later after the animals:
“Oh, shit.” Figuratively and literally.
True.
But without something non-planty to sop up all that sweet, sweet photosynthetic oxygen, pretty soon the atmosphere catches fire and incinerates all the plants at one go.
I do believe I’ve heard some YECs say at some point that the atmosphere was much more oxygen-rich before the Great Flood as a way of explaining how dinosaurs and giant insects and other megafauna could have coexisted with humans 5,000 years ago. I’m not sure how they write off the absence of continental megaconflagrations, but I’m gonna assume that “and then a miracle happened” is in there somewhere.
That’s entirely the problem - it’s like “look how all of the evidence exactly matches and PROVES the story, except where it doesn’t, but that doesn’t matter because who needs evidence anyway?”
We all agree all YEC is pure garbage not even amounting to the quality of a CT. But …
The IRL oxygen levels during the megafauna era were higher than today. Significantly higher. But not high enough to burn up the ecosystem.
Yeah, that’s how giant dragonflies were possible. And there probably were more wildfires then, too, but apparently not so many as to make the planet completely inhospitable.
Lotta steamy rainforest & damp swamp. Not too much grassland IIRC. But they probably had wet & dry seasons, so swathes of land drying out enough to burn well would still be a thing just like today.
In one version of the ancient Egyptian creation myth, the god Atum masturbates, and ejaculates the Universe.
I like that one. It tells you your place in the grand scheme of things.
Certainly not. Grass didn’t even evolve at all until shortly before the K-T event.
Holy hell, you were alive then?
I thought about that misreading when I wrote that. 
Decided to leave it there to see who I reeled in. Thank you for playing. 
@Chronos. Yeah, grass was much later.
But I suspect, without current research, but running from old memory of readings decades ago, that there was some sort of low-lying vegetation, perhaps funtionally akin, if not genetically kin, to modern sedge. The key features of grassland-like eco niches being little shade and low genetic diversity. Imagine warm weather tundra and you’re in the ballpark.
Yeah, there probably was some other plant that filled more or less the same niche as grass. Hard to imagine, though, with how thoroughly grass has now taken over that same niche.
Question: Could there have been a compound in the wood/bark that could cause some “genetic effects”? Some compounds are known to have an affect on human genes…a reason why males as well as females that smoke should refrain if family planning as one example. And no…I do not remember where I read this (It was from a valid source.), but it was interesting information that stuck in my brain along with other equally interesting non-essential crap.