God created. . . .when?

"Lord God, Creator of All, caught thousands of Sumerian farmers and mathematicians somewhat off guard."

Today in our EFM class, a member read this hilarious piece from The Onion's "The Top 10 Stories of the Last 4.5 Billion Years." It is a take on the fundamentalist idea that God created the world approximately 6000 years ago, which is when the Sumerians were at the height of their culture:

"Members of the earth's earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

"According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government—were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.

"'I do not understand,' reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. 'A booming voice is saying, "Let there be light," but there is already light. It is saying, "Let the earth bring forth grass," but I am already standing on grass.'"

Go here to read the rest of this funny essay.