"An" the male sky god and "Ki" the female earth were separated by Enlil, their son and later the chief god of the pantheon. Enlil thus carries off his mother the earth, taking his father's place in a manner somewhat similar to the way Kronos, in a much later story, usurped his father's (Ouranos') power. But where did heaven (An) and earth (Ki) come from, you may ask? According to another text, it was Nammu, the sea, "the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth" (Kramer, Sumerian Mythology 39). In a dry climate, water is the ultimate source of life --Diane Wolkstein points out that the word for "water also means 'semen' in Sumerian" (139).

Finally, the similarity between the Sumerian creation myth and the Quran's version of creation is too great to be coincidental. Given that this myth was believed by many Arabs at the time, it follows that Mohamed was referring to it when he wrote this verse. The fact that Allah shares the beliefs of seventh century Arabs, demonstrates clearly that he is an invention of the time, whether by one or more people is not known.

In addition, the Big Bang happened 13 billion years ago while the earth only came into existence around 4 billion years ago. They did not happen even close in time. Furthermore, the earth was born out of a Supernova and had nothing to do with the start of the universe. They are unrelated other than in the most tenuous manner.

The verse only talks about the earth and the heavens. Overlooking the fact that there is no explanation of what is meant by 'the heavens', this cannot be the Big Bang which was the beginning of the known universe.

One myth that was commonly accepted was that of creation, in which the sky and earth, each resembling a god, were joined together before their separation by gods. The Sumerians and the Egyptians, each had their own version of the story with their own gods as the players.

Seventh century Arabia was not isolated from the outside world, but quite the opposite. Arabs communicated and traded widely with nearby communities and passing caravans, and learned about the traditions and beliefs of other cultures, embracing and adapting some as their own.

To be clear, I do not advocate banning any other form of Islamic dress, just the Burka and the Niqab. I have issues with the Hijab, Chador, and Dupatta because of what they say about gender equality, but nonetheless, I believe they should remain a matter of personal choice.

As an active atheist, I am strongly opposed to religion, but I am just as firm in my support of human rights. I will thus criticise religion as vociferously as I will defend a person's right to choose and practise their religion, with one and only one caveat - the practise of the religion must not infringe others' rights.

Every fibre of my body rebels against legislating to limit people's right to choose how to live their lives. However, despite that, when it comes to the Burka and the Niqab, I think there are good reasons why it makes sense to ban both of them.

"And back then, a Christian would have demanded of the atheist, How do you explain comets? The atheist would have said, I can't explain it, but I know it isn't magic. It doesn't matter what you want me to explain, because you Christians have thought like ignorance-loving children throughout history. We are the ones who embrace knowledge, while you cling to unjustifiable belief in magic. What about earthquakes, hurricanes and solar eclipses? You Christians lied for centuries about knowing what caused these things, all while we atheists chose honesty instead, saying, 'We don't know what caused it, so don't pretend you religious people do either.' And, we were right, of course. So whatever it is you want me to explain, I got one thing to say: It ain't magic."

"But not long ago, you Christians claimed they were messages from God. At that time, we atheists insisted that, while we didn't know what they were, we had no reason to think they were messages from anyone."

Lastly, I am a parent, a husband, a teacher, a mentor, a friend, and a Bridge enthusiast (although not very good at it). I enjoy sharing my thoughts and ideas, and this site is one of my outlets to this end.

I sometimes describe myself as a secular humanist because humanism matches my beliefs most closely. As a humanist, I am totally committed to human rights as defined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. I am proud to have been a member of the British Humanist Society for many years now.

I describe myself as a secular atheist hence the name of the site. As an atheist, I am active in my opposition to religious privilege and intolerance especially when it comes to religion trying to enforce its values on all society such as the denial of equal rights for the LGBQT community and placing limits on women's reproductive rights.

Many books that challenge religious belief from a skeptical point of view take a combative tone that is almost guaranteed to alienate believers, or they present complex philosophical or scientific arguments that fail to reach the average reader. Guy P. Harrison argues that this is an ineffective way of trying to encourage people to develop critical thinking about religion. In this unique approach, Harrison concisely presents fifty commonly heard reasons that people often give for believing in a god. Then he raises legitimate questions regarding these reasons, showing in each case that there is much room for doubt.

Islamic creation myth

Islam shares the creation myth of Judaism and Christianity, spaced out over six periods. The Islamic creation account, like the Hebrew one, involves Adam and Eve as the first parents, living in paradise. As in the Hebrew story, God warns Adam and Eve not to eat fruit from a certain tree, but they do anyway, earning expulsion from Paradise.

This narrative is further developed in many verses in the Qur'an. According to the Qur'an, the skies and the earth were joined together as one "unit of creation", after which they were "cloven asunder". After the parting of both, they simultaneously came into their present shape after going through a phase when they were smoke-like.

Some parts of the Qur'an state that the process of creation took 6 days. While other parts claim that the process took 8 days: 2 days to create the Earth, 4 days to create the mountains, to bless the Earth and to measure its sustenance, and then 2 more days to create the heavens and the stars.

However, the consensus among Muslim scholars is that the process of creation took 6 days, not 8; They claim that the 4 days for creating the mountains, blessing the Earth and measuring its sustenance implicitly include the 2 days for creating the Earth. In light of modern scientific knowledge about the origins of the earth and the universe, many modern interpretations particularly by apologists, prefer to view the word "day" (Arabic: ???) as used in the Qur'an to mean an arbitrary period of time or epoch; They justify this view by explaining that the usage of the word "day" to mean an arbitrary period of time is not uncommon.

The Qur'an states that God created the world and the cosmos, made all the creatures that walk, swim, crawl, and fly on the face of the earth from water. He made the angels, and the sun, moon and the stars to dwell in the universe. He poured down the rain in torrents, and broke up the soil to bring forth the corn, the grapes and other vegetation; the olive and the palm, the fruit trees and the grass.

God molded clay, earth, sand and water into a model of a man. He breathed life and power into it, and it immediately sprang to life. And this first man was called Adam. God took Adam to live in Paradise. God taught Adam the names of all the creatures, and then commanded all the angels to bow down before Adam. All of them bowed but Iblis (Lucifer) refused to obey.

God placed the couple in a beautiful garden in Paradise, telling them that they could eat whatever they wanted except the fruit of a forbidden tree. But Iblis (the Serpent) tempted them to disobey God, and eat the fruit. When God knew that Adam and Eve had disobeyed him, he cast them out of Paradise and sent them to the earth.

Islam breaks somewhat with Judaism and Christianity in explaining why Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. In the actual Hebrew account in Genesis, a snake tempts them to eat the fruit. Extra-biblical Christian mythology identifies the snake with Satan, but the actual text of the Biblical story does not explicitly make this identification. In contrast, the Quran states explicitly that Shaitan (Satan) tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit. In contrast with Judeo-Christian traditions, which sees Satan as a rebelling angel, Islamic tradition identifies Shaitan with a being called Iblis, who is a jinni, a spirit of fire. In Islamic tradition, angels consist of light and never disobey God since they do not have free will. Thus, it is said that angels are incapable of sin. In contrast, God created jinn with free will and they may choose to obey Him or not, similar to the case of the human being. He told them to bow before Adam, but Iblis refused, claiming that his fiery nature was superior to Adam's flesh, which consisted of clay. God cast Iblis out of his paradise, and Iblis vowed to tempt Adam and Eve's generations to corruption and to disobey God.

Is there sufficient evidence for God's existence?

What would a court record of Jesus's execution prove, beyond that someone called Jesus, believed by his followers to be the son of God, was executed? We already know that his followers believed him to be the son of God. A court record of the execution would confirm that he existed, but not the existence of a god for him to be the son of. So no, that wouldn't do it.

Again, a new contemporary source referring to Jesus would only support his existence, not his identity nor the existence of a god. So that wouldn't do it either.

Same goes for a document written by Jesus himself, EVEN IF it could ever be shown to be genuinely by him, which it almost certainly couldn't.

As for your other examples. Proof that we were created, for instance. Well, for starters, what might such proof possibly look like? It is certainly conceivable that we would find something that would challenge our current understanding, but how would that prove a creator rather than simply flag up another question to which we don't currently have an answer? The lack of an answer for something doesn't have to mean that Goddidit!

In any case, even if there WERE something that pointed incontrovertibly towards a creator, why should that mean it was a god who did the creating? Why couldn't it be a super-intelligent alien civilisation that did it? For the record, I am not for one moment suggesting the existence of a super-intelligent alien civilisation, merely pointing out that God is not the default explanation!

God speaking to me personally? Well, we already know that the brain is very suggestible and that it can create very powerful illusions, even when not under the influence of drugs. So no, that wouldn't be reliable evidence either. Besides, who's to say that, if there WERE a real voice, it would have to be a god and not that super-intelligent alien again?

What might be evidence? Well, if prayer were consistently shown to work, that would get me thinking. Especially if, say, Christian prayers were always answered but Islamic/Hindu/Jain prayers were not. (Though even so, it could still just be a super-intelligent alien civilisation having some fun at our expense.) In reality, every properly conducted study has shown that prayer does NOT work - there is no correlation between prayer and outcomes.

Perhaps if this supposed God were to tell us something that we did not already know and which we could then test for ourselves and see that it was true: a cure for some currently totally incurable disease, for instance. (Carl Sagan wrote amusingly of the way alleged messages from God or aliens are invariably of the banal variety: "Be kind to one another", "War is bad"; and never anything IMPRESSIVE, such as how to cure cancer or a comprehensible explanation of quantum mechanics or proof of Goedels Theorem.) But this, too, would only be evidence of a superior intelligence, and it could just as easily be those super-intelligent aliens again.

Actually, that isn't true. It would be FAR MORE LIKELY to be super-intelligent aliens than God. Why? Because we know of natural processes by which intelligence forms on Earth (i.e. as a result of evolution by natural selection), and it therefore wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that something either identical or very similar to evolution by natural selection had been at work on another planet in this vast universe, and had been so for longer than here on Earth and had therefore resulted in super-intelligence that might appear truly god-like to us inferior beings. It would still have been an entirely natural process.

But there is NO mechanism we know of which could possibly give rise to a god. The Christian claim that God was simply always there just won't wash: there's no reason to believe it, it's simply special pleading, dreamed up, invented, imagined, as a way of trying to prevent the rest of the story simply falling apart. It has nothing whatsoever to support it beyond the wishful thinking of those who want to believe the rest of the story.

So I find it impossible to imagine what proof there might be for God, because it would always be possible to imagine a far more plausible naturalistic explanation (and, for the reason given above, even the most outlandish naturalistic explanation will always be more plausible than an uncreated god).

I can't prove that there isn't a god either, of course; but there is absolutely no good reason to believe in one, and that's why I don't. I don't believe in a super-intelligent alien civilisation either, by the way: it's just a less preposterous hypothesis than an uncreated god.