Scientific Facts in the Bible

Originally posted by tim88
1. Only in recent years has science discovered that everything we see is composed of invisible atoms. Here, Scripture tells us that the "things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

2. Medical science has only recently discovered that blood-clotting in a newborn reaches its peak on the eighth day, then drops. The Bible consistently says faith based on established evidence." (11:3 continued

square pegs and round holes, keep hitting them until they fit tim.

reminds me of ra-ra-rasputin russia's greats talking s*t machine. people used to try and fit his visions to anything. the vaguer the text the easier it is to find something to fit it to.............and its only taken 3000yrs to figure out what the hell the babbelling fool was banging on about. if only he'd gone to the greeks instead of the jews and given them a few equations, we'd of figured it all out hundreds of years ago, and saved a lot of hassle.

btw. if some of the light we see is measured at millions of years old, how did it get so old in a universe that is 6000yrs old? your the science man tim, blow me away.

Originally posted by googlefudge
No humy is right on point...

I don't think you understand what a 'logical fallacy' is.

Because there were none in humy's post.

Actually, when I read humy's post, I wondered about this.

I didn't give tim88's post more than a casual glance (for obvious reasons), but humy's post seemed to be saying that the Bible did not predict lots of other scientific facts. This, of itself, does not invalidate the premise behind the post.

Maybe humy meant that there were scientific facts that were contradicted by the Bible, but that wasn't how it seemed to come across to me.

What does invalidate it is that the words quoted from the Bible are so vague that you could pretty much twist them to mean almost anything. Which is what has happened.

I suspect that tim88 doesn't believe all the interpretations he has posted, and I am pretty sure Robbie doesn't.

However, the good news is that God says he can fit me in next Tuesday, Thursday at the latest. Honest.

Originally posted by twhitehead
All you have managed to do is look stupid and show how desperate you are to find scientific facts in the Bible.

You must be feeling frustrated with all the thumbs down your giving

i should've called this thread (what atheist don't want you to see😠

you will really enjoy watching this

YouTube

In which case, for clarification, the logical fallacy would be:

1 tim88 says the Bible predicts scientific facts

2 Here is a scientific fact that the Bible does not predict

3 Therefore the Bible does not predict scientific facts


Whereas 2 should read:

2 It doesn't in any meaningful or useful sense. 3 is redundant.

Originally posted by humy
Science tells us that we and life evolved via Darwinian natural selection and the Earth and the universe is billions of years old -is this contradicted by the literal interpretation of the Bible?

Also: thunder and lighting isn't caused by a god being angry but is cause by electricity and atoms are made of electrons, protons and neutrons and gravity curves sp ...[text shortened]... mc2 and …. need I go on?
How well did religious scripture explain all these significant facts?

the age of the universe is only if the big bang happened - and everything had to start from scratch ?

Originally posted by tim88
You must be feeling frustrated with all the thumbs down your giving

i should've called this thread (what atheist don't want you to see😠

i think number 13 is clearly talking about getting those tough semen stains out of your clothes. i see now i should have been numbering my self even days for washing and cleaning.

Originally posted by tim88
the age of the universe is only if the big bang happened - and everything had to start from scratch ?

doesnt tell me why the light is so old.

come on tim, you wrote that amzing op, hit me with some christian science, im rooting for you tim.

Thunderfoot, hefty YouTube Atheist, challenged VenomFangX, YouTube Christian apologist, to produce a scientific advancement inspired by anything written in the bible.

According to Rational Round Table host Michael J. Crawford, VenomFangX answered the challenged with a verse from the book of Psalms.

Interested in Crawford's critique on the debate between VenomFangX and Thunderfoot ? 8:10 specifically on the video


YouTube

Originally posted by tim88
i should've called this thread (what atheist don't want you to see😠

Actually, I think a lot of atheists might welcome you spouting this load of cobblers.

If someone was wavering about his/her belief in God, then this is more likely to put them off than attract them.

If you want to promote a religion, you have much better ways of doing it than this selective and dubious interpretative process. This just undermines your cause.

You can interpret lots of religious texts as having support for later scientific theories:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_foreknowledge_in_sacred_texts

Unfortunately, the passages are generally so vague that with confirmation and hindsight bias (http://www.investopedia.com/university/behavioral_finance/behavioral6.asp#axzz1t3qZtEU0) you could find support for almost anything. You need something specific and unambiguous before you can say that the Bible predicted scientific knowledge not known at the time. Something like:

And verily I say unto you, that the energy of a thing is as equal to the substance of the thing multiplied unto the fastest speed multiplied unto itself with apologies for the crap attempt at bible-style language.

--- Penguin.

VenomFangX talks about Science and Scientism:

YouTube&feature=relmfu

Originally posted by tim88
1. Only in recent years has science discovered that everything we see is composed of invisible atoms. Here, Scripture tells us that the "things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

2. Medical science has only recently discovered that blood-clotting in a newborn reaches its peak on the eighth day, then drops. The Bible consistently says faith based on established evidence." (11:3 continued

Given the length of the post I am responding to this may land up being a multi post. And might require some post posting editing.
Please bear with me while I do this.

First up lets look at the premise of this post...

Well there is none explicitly made, the title simply states "scientific facts in the bible" and then the post simply lists a series of
supposed scientific facts that were allegedly first stated in the bible and were then only 'discovered by science' later.

However given the number of times that this theme has come up we can deduce the intended or likely interpretation.
[If a different meaning was intended then it would seem like it would have been a good idea to state that meaning explicitly]

That the bible is divinely inspired and that this supposed scientific knowledge proves this.

Presumably the contention being that the people of the time couldn't possibly have come up with these ideas without divine
inspiration and thus the bible must be divinely inspired.

Possibly with a side order of religion is better than science and/or the bible is more reliable/advanced than science.


This is both wrong and idiotic.

IF [and I do stress the IF here] the bible did contain scientific information that couldn't possibly have been worked out by the people
of the time then this does not prove that the bible was divinely inspired. There are other inherently more plausible alternatives to
god and as such this isn't and can't be evidence for god.

Also the point [often missed] about science is that it doesn't just gather a set of observations [facts] and then call it a day.
Science [using maths] then goes on to explain those observations and facts in a mathematical theoretical framework that not only
explains why the observations happen but can be used to predict future observations and experimental results.
To be science you can't just observe that apples appear to be attracted to the earth and fall down.
You need to come up with an explanation for why and more importantly mathematically model that attraction so that you can predict
when it will occur and how strongly.

Which brings me to the points being made and the big IF... None of these points actually constitute science and many are just plain
factually wrong. So while even if they are science they wouldn't constitute evidence of god or divine inspiration they don't actually
qualify as science or even quite often fact.

However I don't expect you to take my word for it so here we go with a point by point explanation...

1. Only in recent years has science discovered that everything we see is composed of invisible atoms. Here, Scripture tells us that the "things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

Ok first off... "things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Is so vague and open to interpretation that it
could mean almost anything. Scientific explanations are, and must be, clear and unambiguous. Which this is clearly not.
There is no way you can convincingly argue that this could only mean that matter is made from atoms that are too small to see.
You can only conclude that it means this by retrospectively applying the scientifically gained knowledge and assuming that the bible
was right which you can't do if that is what you are actually trying to prove.

And worse than that the idea that matter is made of atoms is not new, although the evidence and science that backs it up is.
Both the ancient Greeks and Indians had had the idea that matter was made of atoms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism .

So point one, is too vague to conclusively be said to mean anything and the claim that the bible is the origin of this idea is just manifestly false.
And again, even if it were, doesn't prove anything.

2. Medical science has only recently discovered that blood-clotting in a newborn reaches its peak on the eighth day, then drops. The Bible consistently says that a baby must be circumcised on the eighth day.

Ok, well again there is no explanation here so this does not really qualify as science. But it's easy to see how they could have observed this.
If there is a benefit (in improved survivability) to circumcising on the eighth day after birth then it's easy to see how they might have observed
that those who were circumcised before this day were more likely to bleed to death and die. No divine wisdom needed.

3. At a time when it was believed that the earth sat on a large animal or a giant (1500 B.C.), the Bible spoke of the earth’s free float in space: "He...hangs the earth upon nothing" (Job 26:7).

4. The prophet Isaiah also tells us that the earth is round: "It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:22). This is not a reference to a flat disk, as some skeptic maintain, but to a sphere. Secular man discovered this 2,400 years later. At a time when science believed that the earth was flat, is was the Scriptures that inspired Christopher Columbus to sail around the world (see Proverbs 3:6 footnote).

Sigh, The bible talks about a flat earth http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/1flat90.html however even if it didn't, they were beaten to
this observation by the Greeks (among others) and even if that were not true it is still not hard to work out that the earth is a sphere.
Again no divine revelation needed.
Also it either floats in empty space or rests/floats on something, Which gives a 50/50 chance of getting it right by simply guessing.

5. God told Job in 1500 B.C.: "Can you send lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?" (Job 38:35). The Bible here is making what appears to be a scientifically ludicrous statement—that light can be sent, and then manifest itself in speech. But did you know that radio waves travel at the speed of light? This is why you can have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth. Science didn’t discover this until 1864 when "British scientist James Clerk Maxwell suggested that electricity and light waves were two forms of the same thing" (Modern Century Illustrated Encyclopaedia).

Again very vague and open to interpretation. And light and lightning are not the same thing.
Lightning is an electrical current through the air that among other things emits light.
You can't use this bible passage to tell you anything about lightning or radio communication.
And given that people of the time believed in magic and could well have had the idea that it would be cool to send instant messages to
people a long way off this in no way hints of divine intervention or inspiration.

6. Job 38:19 asks, "Where is the way where light dwells?" Modern man has only recently discovered that light (electromagnetic radiation) has a "way," travelling at 186,000 miles per second.

Wow are you reaching here. It sounds to me like he is asking where light lives. Which is nonsense.
It doesn't tell you anything about light at all other than they didn't know much about it back then.
This is a frankly pathetic attempt at claiming scientific revelation.

7. Science has discovered that stars emit radio waves, which are received on earth as a high pitch. God mentioned this in Job 38:7: "When the morning stars sang together..."

They emit radio waves, and we do now 'listen' to acoustic waves inside stars to try to learn more about the inside workings of the stars.
But they don't sing in any meaningful way. Also if you couple this with the other bible passages that talk about stars coming down to earth
battling with man and talking to one another and you have to conclude that the people who wrote the bible had no clue what stars were.

8. "Most cosmologists (scientists who study the structures and evolution of the universe) agree that the Genesis account of creation, in imagining an initial void, may be uncannily close to the truth" (Time, Dec. 1976).

No idea who was making this quote but even if most cosmologists did think that, if you believe that the universe has a beginning
(which it either does or it doesn't, 50:50 again) then before that beginning there was either nothing or something. Which again is a
50:50 chance of simply guessing right.

9. Solomon described a "cycle" of air currents two thousand years before scientists "discovered" them. "The wind goes toward the south, and turns about unto the north; it whirls about continually, and the wind returns again according to his circuits" (Ecclesiastes 1:6).

People have known about regular air currents for millennia... you know why, because they are regular and can be mapped and they
were important for the people of the time for many things including travelling by sail boats.

What this totally lacks is any explanation of WHY these air currents exist and HOW they are formed. Which is what science has provided.

10. Science expresses the universe in five terms: time, space, matter, power, and motion. Genesis 1:1,2 revealed such truths to the Hebrews in 1450 B.C.: "In the beginning [time] God created [power] the heaven [space] and the earth [matter] . . . And the Spirit of God moved [motion] upon the face of the waters." The first thing God tells man is that He controls of all aspects of the universe.

Wow, um no, that's bunk. And again you are trying to superimpose meanings onto vague open to interpretation verses that you can't
get without already knowing the result you are trying to achieve.

Continued next post.

11. The great biological truth concerning the importance of blood in our body’s mechanism has been fully comprehended only in recent years. Up until 120 years ago, sick people were "bled," and many died because of the practice. If you lose your blood, you lose your life. Yet Leviticus 17:11, written 3,000 years ago, declared that blood is the source of life: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood."

Wow they noticed that people die if they bleed to much... really hard thing to work out that...

12. All things were made by Him (see John 1:3), including dinosaurs. Why then did the dinosaur disappear? The answer may be in Job 40:15–24. In this passage, God speaks about a great creature called "behemoth." Some commentators think this was a hippopotamus. However, the hippo’s tail isn’t like a large tree, but a small twig. Following are the characteristics of this huge animal: It was the largest of all the creatures God made; was plant-eating (herbivorous); had its strength in its hips and a tail like a large tree. It had very strong bones, lived among the trees, drank massive amounts of water, and was not disturbed by a raging river. He appears impervious to attack because his nose could pierce through snares, but Scripture says, "He that made him can make his sword to approach unto him." In other words, God caused this, the largest of all the creatures He had made, to become extinct.

And the bible says that the world is only a few thousand years old and that every species that has ever lived was created all at once
at that beginning a few thousand years ago. Science teaches something rather different as you may have noticed.
Ancient people dug up fossil bones just like we do, and this is the likely source of many myths of dragons and giants and behemoth's.
Again no divine explanation needed and again doesn't match up with actual science.

13. Encyclopaedia Britannica documents that in 1845, a young doctor in Vienna named Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was horrified at the terrible death rate of women who gave birth in hospitals. As many as 30 percent died after giving birth. Semmelweis noted that doctors would examine the bodies of patients who died, then, without washing their hands, go straight to the next ward and examine expectant mothers. This was their normal practice, because the presence of microscopic diseases was unknown. Semmelweis insisted that doctors wash their hands before examinations, and the death rate immediately dropped to 2 percent. Look at the specific instructions God gave His people for when they encounter disease: "And when he that has an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall number to himself even days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean" (Leviticus 15:13). Until recent years, doctors washed their hands in a bowl of water, leaving invisible germs on their hands. However, the Bible says specifically to wash hands under "running water."

Again it would be perfectly possible for someone of any period to come up with the idea that the dead were 'unclean' and that washing
after touching them and before touching anyone else might be a good idea and do the experiment to prove it.

And it should be noted that the bible was evidently not clear enough on the subject that people actually understood what it meant
and followed it's advice as evinced by the fact that people didn't bother with or see the need for washing despite reading the bible.

And yet again there is no explanation or reason given for any of this.

14. Luke 17:34–36 says the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur while some are asleep at night and others are working at daytime activities in the field. This is a clear indication of a revolving earth, with day and night at the same time.

Again, the bible is muddled and contradictory but generally talks about a flat earth, but even if they did think the earth was round, that's not
a hard observation to make.

15. "During the devastating Black Death of the fourteenth century, patients who were sick or dead were kept in the same rooms as the rest of the family. People often wondered why the disease was affecting so many people at one time. They attributed these epidemics to ‘bad air’ or ‘evil spirits.’ However, careful attention to the medical commands of God as revealed in Leviticus would have saved untold millions of lives. Arturo Castiglione wrote about the overwhelming importance of this biblical medical law: ‘The laws against leprosyin Leviticus 13 may be regarded as the first model of sanitary legislation’ (A History of Medicine)." Grant R. Jeffery, The Signature of God With all these truths revealed in Scripture,how could a thinking person deny that the Bible is supernatural in origin? There is no other book in any of the world’s religions (Vedas, Bhagavad-Gita, Koran, Book of Mormon, etc.) that contains scientific truth. In fact, they contain statements that are clearly unscientific. Hank Hanegraaff said, "Faith in Christ is not some blind leap into a dark chasm, but a faith based on established evidence." (11:3 continued)

See my above response to point 13.



And then we get to humy's point.

Science has given us SO MUCH MORE than this.

The advent of proper science in the last 250 (ish) years has produced vast and growing sorts of knowledge and technological benefits
that dwarf anything you erroneously claim that the bible contains.

The bible flatly contradicts and disagrees with huge tranches of scientific knowledge and belief based on faith is the absolute
opposite and antithesis of the scientific method and philosophy.

The bible is not a source of scientific knowledge.
Science is.


And none of this is even remotely close to being evidence of god or divine inspiration.
In fact it is the opposite, it is evidence against your god and of divine inspiration for the bible.

Because if we were writing the bible today with knowledge that must still be less than that of your proposed god we would produce
a vastly more accurate and useful book that that which was actually produced.

Which is evidence that whoever wrote or inspired the bible knew less than we do and not more.

It's evidence that the bible was not divinely inspired.