Magus55

http://www.biblestudyplanet.com/s129.htm

How do you explain the huge amount of scientific discoveries thousands of years before modern science ever discovered it. Yet other religions still had no clue, like Egyptians who thought the Earth hatched from a cosmic egg and had wings.

Also that site shows the innacurracy of science in eastern culture like Hinduism.

Mageth

I'll select one of these fantascial supposed "discoveries" just to illustrate the quality of thinking going on here. I'll leave the others for other posters:

So the writer observes clouds floating above the ground and poetically refers to them as being "balanced" in the sky. So what? The bible does not refer to gravity pulling them down and warm air pushing them up. God did not, apparently, mention gravity and thermal effects. The web site is reading a lot more into the word "balanced" than is actually there. And that's true of the rest of the nonsense on the web page.

Now, if the writer of Job would have included information such as this article on why clouds float, you might be on to something.

The main reason clouds float: the water droplets and/or ice crystals in a cloud are too small to have an appreciable fall velocity. When they coalesce to form larger droplets/crystals, eventually they gain enough fall velocity to precipitate.

Magus55

Ok, so you picked out one that could be taken in a different way, Job still knew the clouds had forces being exerted on them which is why they were being "balanced" in mid air.

What about Orion's band loosening, or Pleiades Constellation thousands of years before astronomy and the telescope was invented. Or the electromagnetic spectrum of visible light, or the sun being the cause of the winds currents or the Water system of evaporation and condensation etc etc. For you to dismiss those facts on that page would truly show that you have absolutely no desire to find out if the Bible and God are true, only to be closed minded and not let anyone prove you wrong.

Wyz_sub10

In general, the statements provided here do not speak to science or any particular knowledge. Many are contradicted elsewhere (i.e. the earth suspended in space).

Just to look at a few of them...

This is a dubious example because other versions read: "Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who is perfect in knowledge?" Which is a different question entirely.

It basically states that god knows how the clouds "hang", but men do not. It certainly is not providing knowledge, only affirming ignorance.

Besides, there is no context around this statement. "Balancing" generally refers to two weights separated by a midpoint. That is not what's happening with clouds.

This interpretation is way off the mark. The biblical statement says nothing to the effect of communication through the lightning.

Here's the NIV of that same passage: "Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, 'Here we are'?"

It is clear the author is again saying that god controls lightning, having a power that man does not have (and, thus, making him beyond human accountability). It cannot possibly be interpreted to mean telephones. It doesn't even make sense in that context.

I think it was pretty clear to everyone on the planet that there were a great many stars in the sky.

Where does he get that absurd number of what "scientists estimate"? His number is 1,022,122.

NASA estimates the number at around 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. So the author's off by just a touch.

To list this as an example of "scientific knowledge" is absurd, and undermines the author's argument at the same time.

Firstly, there is no distance assigned here. It was common knowledge that the stars were "far".

Secondly, they are not "high". The word "high" implies orientation and relativity. Neither applies to stars. They are not 'high' because there is no 'ceiling'; nor are they 'high' because as a sphere in the universe, there is no "up" or "down". It would be truly remarkable if something was said to demonstrate this knowledge. Alas, what is provided is common and incorrect.

It was painfully obvious to every culture on earth that blood was important to life. Blood letting had to do with "balance" (this theory was applied to all of the bodily fluids, not just blood).

Ummmm....because people got sick when they ate it? Geez, how did people know the dangers of stabbing themselves in the eye with a knife??


Let me just lump this comment in with quotes on lepers and waste - almost all cultures acknowledged this (some slower than others). Things like contagious diseases weren't understood, but cause-and-effect relationships could be determined.

Last on for the time being:

First of all, I want some rationale as to why (given the use of the term 'law' in the bible) anyone would think this meant a scientific law rather than a law such as a commandment or required observance.

Even if it meant "natural law", is the author really asking how people knew about cause and effect relationships?

Seriously, this is all nonsense. There is no significant knowledge in anything posted on that site.

A few very simple, yet then unknown things that would be more convincing - stars are made of gas, and some of the objects in the sky are planets; the sun is a star; diseases are born by living microscopic creatures; the earth has a molten core; the earth has a magnetic field, etc.

The examples on that site are products of wishful thinking and manipulation, nothing more.

hezekiah jones

"God revealed the telephone to Job in 1520BC, 3400 years before AG Bell invented it."



Why is it okay for idiot fundies to take buybull verses out of context but no one else can?

Mageth

From the web site:

The Bible not only includes that which is scientifically correct, ...

What we have here is a case of someone taking poetic comments such as "balanced" and extrapolating that into the "fact" that the writer knew the scientific explanation for the phenomenon, which is faulty logic at its worst.

...but also totally avoids that which is scientific nonsense as found in the books of many other religions. For example, the ancient Egyptians believed that the world was hatched from a great cosmic egg which had wings.

And the bible includes accounts such as a man being made from dust, a woman being formed from the man's rib, eating a fruit granting knowledge, a talking snake, 900-year-old men, a global flood during which two of all the animals of the earth were fitted into a wooden boat, a Herculean man whose strength was in his hair, and dead men walking, among much other scientific nonsense. I fail to see the distinction.

Because the Bible avoids scientific nonsense, and because the Bible contains scientific information that was not known until recently,

Right, until recently, no one knew clouds floated in the air, that there were a lot of stars, and that the stars were "high". Sheesh.

we conclude that the all-knowing Creator God authored the Bible.

Actually, that's where he started from; he then interprets the "science" of the bible to fit his preconceptions and back his position.

1 - God wrote the bible, so what the bible says is scientifically accurate.
2 - Examine the science of the bible. Is this statement scientifically accurate? Of course it is; God wrote the bible, after all.
3 - Repeat (2) until you have 25 or so statements with which you can illustrate to the credulous that the bible is scientifically accurate.
4 - Conclusion: The bible is scientifically accurate, therefore god wrote the bible!

This is a powerful argument to warrant our complete confidence in the Bible's truth and reliability on every other issue of life.

More faulty logic. It's a very poor argument. Even if the bible was truly accurate in some or all of its "scientific" statements, this would not lead automatically to the conclusion that the bible is "true and reliable" on every other issue of life. Each argument, each statement stands on its own to be evaluated for its truthfulness and reliability.

Mageth

Where does he get that absurd number of what "scientists estimate"? His number is 1,022,122.

NASA estimates the number at around 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. So the author's off by just a touch.

I think what the guy meant was 10^11 x 10^11 = 10^22.

hyzer

I’ll sum it up this way:

Even a blind squirrel is going to find an acorn occasionally.

Defenders of the Koran have made a list of exactly the same type of specious connections between today’s scientific knowledge and their holy book. I’m too lazy to look, but it’s on the net.

So Egyptians thought the Earth hatched from a cosmic egg and had wings.

The bible tells us about 6 days of creation and a worldwide flood.

Pot – kettle – black.

Seriously, if the bible has so many precious insights you’d think that scientists would consult it more often.

Mad Kally

god created the heavens and the earth and the earth was round.
oops, he didn't say that did he?

mike_decock

More good science in the Bible:

Bats are birds:

Leviticus 11:13-19
And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; Every raven after his kind; And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

And refers to four-footed, creeping, flying things:

Leviticus 11:23
But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

-Mike...