"So am I, as a logical person, supposed to believe that god is shooting various amounts of photons from his/her fingers creating these beautiful periods of morn

"So am I, as a logical person, supposed to believe that god is shooting various amounts of photons from his/her fingers creating these beautiful periods of morning, day, evening, and night for three days or so for no apparent reason?" Just because you don't know what the reason is, doesn't mean that there isn't one. "God hasn't created humans yet. God hasn't created plants yet. It serves no function." Again, just because you see no function, doesn't mean there isn't one. But there are logical explanations that scholars have suggested which do make sense. One thing you might take into consideration is that the Bible says that in Heaven there is no sun and moon, but that it is illuminated by God Himself. There is no reason that in the midst of His creating the Earth, the same could not be true. Some scholars have proposed that the reason God set the pattern of the days and nights before creating the sun and moon was because He knew some men would tend to worship the sun and moon themselves, and He wanted to make it clear that it is He who sustains the Earth, not the sun and moon. I don't know if that was the reason, though it seems quite logical to me. I am content to believe God had a good reason, and He doesn't have to tell me what it was. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make when reading the Bible, is that if something isn't explainable by natural phenomenon, they discount it entirely. But that doesn't make any sense. If you do not believe in the supernatural, then God doesn't make any sense. The whole point is that the creation is something He created, and that all of the "natural" norms we see from day to day are something that He put in place, and that He sometimes suspends for His own purposes (for instance, when Moses parted the Red Sea, or when God made the sun and moon stand still for Joshua). Even in that last example, I can hear people protesting about all the side-effects that would happen if "the sun and moon stood still". But again, the point is that everything is under God's control, and all of the interactions of matter in our universe operate as He has decided they will -- and He's under no obligation to make them always work one way. He can make it work however He wants, and that includes suspending the normal interaction of matter (normal side-effects and all) for however long and for whatever purpose He decides. BTW, I'm not saying you are necessarily discounting anything because it requires the existence of the supernatural. I merely bring it up because I think it is relevant to the discussion. (edited for formatting -- I keep forgetting to not indent the first lines of paragraphs :-D )