Tuesday 30 September 2014

Charles M. Schultz, " Peanuts " cartoon

Snoopy is writing a book on theology titled, " Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong "

Peanuts: therefore the Old World Gods were figments of the witchdoctors’ imaginations.

Pumpkin: therefore there is no God. None of the superstitions claiming supernatural assistance predicted the Americas
Pumpkin : The Jesus myth is squashed.

Thanksgiving Day could be viewed as a celebration of the Columbian Exchange which I think should put an end to the claim of religion to divine revelation.

Turkey : Jesus is stuffed.

If religion claims a magical Noahs’s flood at 2300 BCE ( see Ussher chronology ) then how come so many important food crops were unique to America? Why would a God have magically put them out of reach of his chosen children of Israel ? Out of reach of Jesus ? Why did Adam & Eve never mention missing chocolate & popcorn or pumpkin pie & maple syrup after being excluded from the garden of Eden ? Our diverse choice of diet now is more a ” garden of Eden ” experience than any Babylonian located one could ever have been. [ in the unlikely event of one existing ]
However if these food crops were evolving due to selective actions by humans, what effect would a large influx of Europeans have had if they arrived in the Americas 2000 or 3000 years earlier? Would some of the crops have been lost, would their breeding have been disrupted ? Would the native American Indians have given up on sweet-corn in favour of wheat ? Or were they already well enough developed by that stage ? I wonder how big tomatoes, potatoes etc grew at 1000 BCE ?
I think I read that Cassava from S. America has been a boon to Africa. Any angel worthy of the name could have transported some American food crop plants over to the Old World tropics without necessarily informing anyone of their origins but no such thing occurred.

The argument from peanuts (Arachis hypogaea)is slightly undermined by the Bambara groundnut ( Vigna subterranea ) & Hausa groundnut (Macrotyloma geocarpum) both native to West Africa. Apologists are going to say the Old World had plenty of nuts. Seems these three groundnuts belong to the family Fabaceae. Does this mean that they have a common ancestor which dates back to before S.America split from Africa 150 Ma ago ? How come peanuts are mentioned in Bolivia, Paraguay & Peru but not so much in Brazil ? Did they die out in Brazil ? How does the eating quality of Peanuts compare to Bambara & Hausa ?

Snoopy : Has it ever occurred to you to ask how come the scriptures never told of this New World and its bounty ? Thomas Paine considered this question

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