SCIENCE vs BIBLE
By
Here's a list of scientific errors in the Bible from
@Bob the Unbeliever back when he was Quantum Bob on a now defunct site. Perhaps we can add the mathematical error of making pi = 3.
[1] Bible says: "Lightning is from God"
Science says: "Lightning is static atmospheric effect."
[2] Bible says: "The world is flat".
Science says: "the world is an oblate spheroid."
[3] Bible says: "mental disease is caused by demons"
Science says: "mental disease is caused by brain damage of some sort or a chemical imbalance"
[4] Bible says: "sickness is caused by evil spirits"
Science says: "sickness is caused by microbes or genetic damage"
[5] Bible says: "the sky is a clear dome made of crystal"
Science says: "the sky is made of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide and other trace gasses"
[6] Bible says: "the flat disc of the earth is held up by 4 pillars"
Science says: "the earth is roughly a sphere, and is held in orbit by gravity"
[7] Bible says: "people have souls"
Science says: "can this 'soul' be measured? If not, likely does not exist"
[8] Bible says: "the sun revolves around the earth"
Science says: "the earth revolves around the sun"
[9] Bible says: "the moon is a light in the sky"
Science says: "the moon reflects the sun's radiation, and is not a light in an of itself"
[10] Bible says: "the earth was flooded by water, all at once"
Science says: "impossible-- insufficient water, and such an event would have destroyed all life in the oceans"
[11] Bible says: "the sun stopped in the sky for a bit"
Science says: "such an event would have destroyed the earth, and everyone on it"
[12] Bible says: "from a high mountain, you can see the whole earth"
Science says: "Impossible on a spherical earth. Only possible if the earth was a flat disc"
[13] Bible says: "Snakes and donkeys can talk"
Science says: "snakes do not have vocal cords, cannot talk. Donkeys do not have proper vocal cords, cannot talk"
[14] Bible says: "you can make a woman from just a man's rib"
Science says: "you maybe could make another man-- but not a woman-- the DNA is wrong"
[15] Bible says: "bats are birds"
Science says: "bats are mammals, with fir and mammary glands--birds have neither of these"
[16] Bible says: "insects have 4 legs"
Science says: "all insects have 6 legs of varying degree"
The Bible attempts to do what science does, but with wrong guesses. The creation story is an attempt at explaining what modern science explains better.
Every scripture is removed from surrounding context - the verses preceding and following it. When you claim that a scripture is taken out of context, you are implying that excising relevant language has changed the apparent meaning of the words, as when I reduce "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."" to, the Bible says "There is no God."
So, when you make the claim that something was taken out of context, you have actually said nothing until you restore relevant context that shows us that the scripture should be understood to mean something that contradicts the apparent meaning of the scripture. If you can't do that, you've done nothing.
I have the opposite experience when I see people like you trying to sanitize the errors in the Bible. It confirms my belief that that book was written only by fallible men that made a lot of errors, something the believer is not allowed to admit. And so, we see what we have seen on this thread - apologists trying to create just-so stories to try to rectify biblical errors. If I were to show you a picture of a boy throwing a ball upward in the noonday sun, and the Bible said that he would throw it downward at midnight, some apologist would explain that from the other side of the world, where it is midnight, the boy's upward is downward, hence the Bible got it right again. Next.
If proof is that which convinces, who have you proven anything to? Who did you convince that you are correct? Not me.
If no minds were changed, you've proven nothing to anybody. It's up to them to tell you whether you proved something to them. It's analogous to a comedian telling us that he was hilarious at last night's stand-up show, when nobody laughed and the audience walked out thinking he was unfunny. That's the audience's call.
Nope. The Bible is replete with internal contradictions, failed prophecies, unkept promises, moral and intellectual errors committed by an allegedly perfect god, and errors of history and science. You can't make them go away with apologetics, however contorted they may be.
- "When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense・- Edward Abbey
This subject - ancient errors - would be irrelevant if there weren't those claiming that this book is different from all other books by virtue of being divinely authored (some say inspired, but that's a weasel word in this context). If the Bible isn't the thoughts of a deity, then it's just another book like the Iliad or Odyssey.
You can see from their reactions how hard at work the believers are refuting the claims of the OP., so I don't think that they consider these objections trifling. They also toggle back and forth from the words being transcendent and prescient when that suits, to them being ordinary people who didn't have the benefit of the modern perspective when that suits.
(Digression - although one can tell its meaning from the way it's used, can anybody tell me what the abbreviation OP stands for? - opening paragraph, original post, something else?)
Agreed, but isn't that exactly what is being done by these apologists?
No. We assume that if these scriptures were authored by a god, they would be correct. If you're going to treat them as the mundane and incorrect ideas or ancient people, then I have no argument with you. Of course these people didn't know what we know today and could not be expected to avoid multiple errors.
Who is to say what the message is when the language is poetry? Poetry is deliberately vague language that the reader is expected to project personal meaning into. When we want to avoid that, as when writing a will, giving directions to find something, or writing out a recipe, we want to be crystal clear, which is what a god that wishes to be understood ought to do as well.
Here's some poetry from Bob Dylan's Desolation Row. Can you tell me what it means? No, you can't. You can only tell me what images it conjures up for you, which are likely to be different from mine and everybody else's. This is no way to communicate important information:
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They’re trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She’s in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
“Have Mercy on His Soul”
They all play on the pennywhistle
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row
