This song was originally “God Wrote the Rocks”, contrasting with “Humans wrote the bible”. It was changed because the goal of the rationalist project is not to find flaws in religious fundamentalists and laugh at them, but to find flaws in ourselves and fix them. Thinking of irrationality as “that thing biblical literalists do” will make it harder to recognize in ourselves.
The Galileo lines has been edited several times, in an effort to reconcile literal truth with artistic value. The most recent edit was in 2023, changing “when isolation broke his weary will” to “when threats and trials broke his weary will”.
This song is available for sale via bandcamp in the 2015 album, or a live NYC2019 recording in the files section.
From desert cliff and mountaintop we trace the wide design,
Strikeslip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline. . .
We gaze upon cre - ation where e - rosion makes it known,
And count the countless aeons in the banding of the stone.
Odd long vanished creatures & their tracks & shells are found
Where truth has left its sketches on the slate below the ground.
The patient stone can speak, if we but listen when it talks.
Humans wrote the book of earth... ... time wrote the
Rocks
There are those who name the stars, who watch the sky by night,
Seeking out the darkest place, to better see the light.
Long ago, when threats and trials broke his weary will,
Galileo recanted, but the Earth is moving still.
High above the mountaintops, where only distance bars,
The truth has left its footprints in the dust between the stars
We may watch and study or may shudder and de-ny
Humans wrote the book of night… ... fire wrote the
sky...
By stem and root and branch we trace, by feather, fang and fur,
How the living things that are descend from things that were
The moss, the kelp, the zebrafish, the very mice and flies,
Tiny, humble, wordless things how shall they tell us lies?
We are kin to beasts, no other answer can we bring.
The truth has left its fingerprints on every living thing.
Winnowed by an aimless game of birth and blood and strife.
Humans wrote the book of names... ... death wrote
life
And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade,
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells or living things, seek truth with open hand
The pro foundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.
Humans write the book of truth... ... truth writes the
