Editor of the Tribune: I was very much interested in Mr. Bryan's letter to The Tribune and in your editorial reply. I have likewise followed Mr. Bryan's efforts to shut out the teachings of science from the public schools and his questionnaires to various college professors who believe in evolution and still profess Christianity. No doubt his questions to the professors, if answered, would tend to help clear the issue, and likewise a few questions to Mr. Bryan and the fundamentalists, if fairly answered, might serve the interests of reaching the truth--all of this assumes that truth is desirable.
E-mail me.
© 2000 currivan@uchicago.edu
For this reason I think it would be helpful if Mr. Bryan would answer the following questions:
Do you believe in the literal interpretation of the whole Bible?
Is the account of the creation of the earth and all life in Genesis literally true, or is it an allegory?
Was the earth made in six literal days, measured by the revolution of the earth on its axis?
Was the sun made on the fourth day to give light to the earth by day and the moon made on the same day to give light by night, and were the stars made for the benefit of the earth?
Did God create man on the sixth day?
Did God rest on the seventh day?
Did God place man in the Garden of Eden and tell him he could eat of every tree except the tree of knowledge?
Was Eve literally made from the rib of Adam?
Did the serpent induce Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge?
Did the eating of this fruit cause Adam and Eve to know that they were naked?
Did God curse the serpent for tempting Eve and decree that thereafter he should go on his belly?
How did he travel before that time?
Did God tell Eve that thereafter he would multiply the sorrows of all women and that their husbands should rule over them?
Did God send a flood covering the whole earth, even the tops of the highest mountains and destroy "all flesh that has the breath of life," excepting the inmates of the ark?
Did God command Noah to build and ark for him and his family and to take on board a male and female of every living species on earth?
Did he build the ark and gather the pairs of all animals on the earth and the food and water necessary to preserve them?
As there were no ships in those days, except the ark, how did Noah gather them from all the continents and lands of the earth?
Did he then cause it to rain forty days and forty nights and destroy every living thing on the earth?
Did all these living things enter the ark on the second month and 17th day of the month?
Were all the high mountains on all the earth covered?
Did the waters prevail on the earth for 150 days?
Did the ark rest on Mount Ararat in the seventh month and the tenth day of the month?
Did God set a rainbow in the heavens for a token that the world would not again be destroyed by flood?
Was this the first rainbow that ever appeared?
According to the old testament, was this not about 1,750 years B.C.?
Is not history full of proof that all colors and kinds of people lived over large and remote parts of the earth within fifty years after this time?
Were the pairs of animals sent to every quarter of the earth after the flood?
How could many species that are found nowhere but in Australia or other far off places get there and why did they not stop on the way?
Was there any more water on the earth in Noah's day than any other time before or since?
Is not all the water that falls drawn from the reservoirs of water on the earth?
Is it possible to increase the amount of water in any part of the earth without drawing it from another part?
Does not water seek its level?
Shortly after the flood was the whole earth of one language?
Did the inhabitants begin to build the Tower of Babel so that they might reach the heavens?
Did God confound their language so they could not complete the tower?
How high would the tower have had to be to reach the heavens?
Was the confounding of tongues at the Tower of Babel the cause of the many languages spoken by the people of the earth?
Did the Lord prepare a big fish to swallow Jonah and did he lie for three days and three nights in the whale's belly when he was spewed out on dry land?
Was Lot's wife turned into a literal pillar of salt for turning back and looking at Sodom and Gomorrah when she was fleeing from their destruction?
Did Balaam's ass speak to him in human language?
Did the walls of Jericho fall down flat from the soldiers and priests marching around it and blowing on the ram's horn?
Did the sun stand still to give Joshua time to fight a battle?
If the sun had stood still, would that have lengthened the day?
If instead of the sun standing still, the earth had stopped revolving on its axis, what would have happened to the earth and all life thereon?
Under the biblical chronology, Was not the earth created less than 6,000 years ago?
Are there not evidences in writing and hieroglyphics and the evidence of man's handiwork which show that man has been on the earth more than 50,000 years?
Are there no human remains that carry their age on the earth back to at least 100,000 years?
Has not man probably been on earth for 500,000 years?
Does not geology show by fossil remains, by the cutting away of rock for river beds, by deposit of all sorts, that the earth is much more than a million years and probably many million years old?
Did Christ drive devils out of two sick men and did the devils request that they should be driven into a large herd of swine and were the devils driven into the swine and did the swine run off a high bank, and were they drowned in the sea?
Was this literally true, or does it simply show the attitude of the age toward the cause of sickness and affliction.
Can one not be a Christian without believing in the literal truth of the narrations of the Bible here mentioned?
Would you forbid the public schools from teaching anything in conflict with the literal statement referred to?
Questions might be extended indefinitely, but a specific answer to these might make it clear what one must believe to be a "fundamentalist."
Very truly yours,
Clarence Darrow
