The Bible is a reliable science text

[Dr.Who]

Where plc1 is concerned, that is very kind.

I think you are trying to say that he is dumb but I have not seen that. Very few posters, in fact I can only think of two, consistently post really dumb stuff.

 

[numinus]

I think you are trying to say that he is dumb but I have not seen that. Very few posters, in fact I can only think of two, consistently post really dumb stuff.

Which is precisely why you are very kind.

 

[PLC1]

You're joking right? Cause I don't expect you are that dumb.

Of course I'm joking. Did you think I was dumb enough to take the Bible literally? That was my point: You can't.

 

[Dr.Who]

Of course I'm joking. Did you think I was dumb enough to take the Bible literally? That was my point: You can't.

I would disagree - but only in part. One should read it literally when it is literal and read it poetically when it is a poem and metaphorically when it uses a metaphor, just like we do when we read anything else.

 

[invest07]

Abraham and the Hubble Space Telescope

One of the most interesting discoveries from the Hubble Space Telescope is the vast number of galaxies and stars that exist in our universe. Hubble has the ability to survey much deeper space than was ever possible before. Lately Hubble has been attempting an inventory of galaxies. Just how many are there and just how big is our universe, anyway?

Genesis 22:17
Blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.

This verse is from Genesis which was written by Moses circa 1450 BC. The events described occurred during the lifetime of Abraham, about 2,000 BC. This verse and other’s explain God’s promise to Abraham that there will be a whole bunch of his offspring (the Jews and Arabs) at some point in the future.

The prophet Jeremiah reiterates this promise circa 600 BC and adds some new information:

Jeremiah 33:22
“As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the descendants of David My servant and the Levites who minister to Me.”

According to the European Space Agency
“It has been said that counting the stars in the Universe is like trying to count the number of sand grains on a beach on Earth. We might do that by measuring the surface area of the beach, and determining the average depth of the sand layer.

If we count the number of grains in a small representative volume of sand, by multiplication we can estimate the number of grains on the whole beach.
For the Universe, the galaxies are our small representative volumes, and there are something like 10 to the 11th or 12th power stars in our galaxy, and there are perhaps something like 10 to the 11th or 12th power galaxies.

With this simple calculation you get something like 10 to the 22cd to 24th power stars in the Universe. This is only a rough number, as obviously not all galaxies are the same, just like on a beach the depth of sand will not be the same in different places.”

Source: http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM75BS1VED_index_0.html

The number of stars visible to the naked eye in the Northern Hemisphere is around 3,000. Hans Lipperhey filed a patent in the Netherlands in 1608 for the world’s first documented telescope. So until the 1600’s, no one knew there were more than 3,000 stars. A lot more than 3,000.

By the time Jeremiah wrote his verse, the estimated population of Jews had topped 3 million. So how exactly did Jeremiah and Moses know that the number of stars was greater than the 3,000 they could see? Notice that the European Space Agency chose the same analogy as Jeremiah and Moses did, by comparing the number of stars with grains of sand on the beach.

And there’s more. Sand is formed when the shells of oysters and other similar shelled fish is ground up by wave action. So the amount of sand on this planet is increasing, just as new stars are being formed somewhere in the universe, as I write this.

And it gets even better. There has always been speculation about how many grains of sand there are in all the world’s beaches. One estimate is 10 to the 22 power. This estimate is within the ESA range of possible number of stars.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_grains_of_sand_are_there_in_the_world

Just a big coincidence, right? Moses and Jeremiah just got lucky and guessed

1. that the number of visible stars was a small fraction of the total star inventory.
2. that new stars and sand on the beach was being formed as they wrote.
3. that the total inventory of stars was in the same ballpark as the number of grains of sand.
4. that there were so many stars and so much sand that an exact count is impossible. Both numbers can only be estimated

Just a big coincidence. Really big coincidence, right? Nothing divine here, just bum luck. If you can suspend your reasoning enough to dismiss this as just a lucky guess, you can probably believe in UFO’s and ghosts and Bigfoot and Nessie.

 

[Dr.Who]

One possibility is that while they knew there were lots and lots of stars and sand. And while they predicted that there would be lots and lots of descendents that they still meant it as an imprecise analogy.

Either there are still lots and lots of people to be born so the universe will be around for a while longer or it will end somewhat quicker and it was just an analogy.

 

[invest07]

Dr.Who
You are correct in that the scenarios you named are all possible. So the Bible was correct.

Human population has tended to increase over time in a geometric manner. The attached chart is a real eye opener and kind of scary, projecting the current line forward for the next few decades.

The Bible predicts a 1,000 year time of peace and prosperity, after 7 years of tribulation. If space travel is possible by then, maybe the descendants of Abraham could reach trillions and trillions and trillions, spread over thousands of type "M" planets.

 

[invest07]

The Bible and the Earth in Space

The Earth and Space

Job 26:10 He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters
Proverbs 8:27 When he drew a circle on the face of the deep
Isaiah 40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants (people) are like grasshoppers.
Job 26:7 He stretches out the north over empty space. He hangs the earth on nothing.

Isaiah was written circa 850 BC. Job is believed to have been written circa 2,000 BC. Proverbs was written by Solomon circa 950 BC.

These verses, and others in the Bible, reveal important scientific facts about our planet and it‘s relation to space. These facts were not verified by western science until after 1500 AD. These verses also totally explode the persistent human myth that the earth was shaped like a tabletop and held up by a mythical Atlas.

Some of the accurate scientific facts revealed are:

1. The earth is round (circular in profile)
2. The earth is located in space (nothingness) and is not suspended with any physical support
3. The size of the earth is great and people are relatively small
4. Space is relatively empty
5. Gravity can be inferred by a spherical earth shape.

Columbus read these verses. Then he stood on the docks and observed that ship’s sails were the last thing to disappear over the horizon. He observed sails as the final visible part of the ship when the ship’s direction was north, south or west. The only answer that made sense was that the earth was sperical in shape. The accepted scientific belief, since the time of the ancient Greeks, was that the earth was flat. Columbus read the Bible, used his eyes and brain and knew the “scientists” were wrong. The rest is history. What had been accepted as science for 2,000 years was now verified as mythology.

It would be the 1800's before western science began to acknowledge the reality of gravity. And it would be the early 1900's before the precise location of the earth could be calculated.

The Earth's position in space, at any point in time, is the result of several vectors of force. Those vectors are gravitational attraction from the Sun, moon and other planets and other forces such as centripetal force. None of these forces are visible and none are concrete but they are very real.

The Bible beat science to the truth by a few thousand years. This is another example of the Bible as a reliable book of science and also an example of Biblical Prophecy which has been verified by western science.

So, how exactly did Isaiah, Solomon and a sheepherder from 4,000 years ago manage to get the science right? Lucky guess? Coincidence? Or maybe, just maybe, divine inspiration?

 

[Gabriel_Bell]

The Bible clearly regarded the Earth as the center of the universe, and the Moon and Sun as celestial objects. The stars were created for ornamental purposes.

 

[Boris Norris]

One of the facts that many people do not understand is that the Bible contains many surprisingly accurate statements of scientific facts. These scientific statements were written hundreds and thousands of years before being verified as true by secular science.

I’m certain that you atheistas and God deniers out there see the Bible as an interesting piece of literature, perhaps dangerous, and full of myths and legends which can’t be verified. I’m also certain you deny there is anything divinely inspired in the Bible. You are wrong and this forum will present the facts concerning scientific facts revealed in the pages of the Bible.

The Bible contains 66 books and scholars have firmly identified the authorship and date of writing of 65 of those books. The Bible was written over a period of around 2,000 years by several different authors. The Bible includes books devoted to history, law, poetry and prophecy.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, which is one of the most ancient of humankind’s languages. The New Testament was written in a common dialect of Greek. The earliest book is Job, written about 4,000 years ago. The most recent is Revelation, authored about 95 AD, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian.

Because most of you atheistas and God deniers have never studied the Bible and probably don’t own a Bible, I have included a link to a Bible translation web site. All the verses I will quote are from the New King James translation which was done in 1975. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/

God and the Periodic Table​

Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

The Bible clearly says that the human body is composed of the same elements as the earth. And, upon death, our bodies will return to an elemental state. If you want to see firsthand the composition of the human body, read the contents label of any multivitamin. You will see elements such as iron, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iodine, zinc, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, chloride, sodium, nickel, boron, silicon, tin. These compounds and elements are in each multivitamin tablet because tissue analysis has revealed your body contains all of these.

These verses were authored by Moses circa 1450 BC. These verses was laughed at by the secular scientific community, including the Greeks, until the 1800’s. By 1869, 63 elements had been identified. As the number of elements grew, scientists began to recognize certain patterns in properties and began to develop classification schemes. The result of this was the Periodic Table. The development of the Periodic Table was significant in that it defined all known elements and demonstrated the idea that all matter, organic or inorganic, was composed of these elements.

The bible revealed the truth about the composition of the human body over 3000 years before science was able to verify this.

What a load of rubbish.
He makes a man out of earth, which is silly enough, them you suggest it invented the periodic table. Are you mad?

 

[Boris Norris]

The Bible clearly regarded the Earth as the center of the universe, and the Moon and Sun as celestial objects. The stars were created for ornamental purposes.

The godbotherers continue to link science to the Bible. It's bullshyt. Religion is dying and science appears their lifeline. Science won't be cuddling up to those nutters.

 

[Gabriel_Bell]

The Bible beat science to the truth by a few thousand years. This is another example of the Bible as a reliable book of science and also an example of Biblical Prophecy which has been verified by western science.

So there is some sort of competition here between science and the Bible?
From the Bible, people extrapolated that (1) the Sun spun around the Earth, rather than vice versa, and that (2) the entire purpose of everything that constitutes the Universe is humans- and a specific, rather small tribe of them at that- are merely supporting details.

God felt obliged to create stars so that the sky would not look so boring, supposedly.

 

[Gabriel_Bell]

What the Bible says about the hydrologic cycle

Job 36:27-29
For He draws up drops of water,
Which distill as rain from the mist,
Which the clouds drop down
And pour abundantly on man.

These 2 verses are from the Book of Job, which was written around 4,000 years ago. Western science would not completely identify and understand the hydrologic cycle until 300 years ago.

Notice the remarkable scientific insight in this description. Water is drawn upward from the surface of the earth, in the form of a mist (steam). Before it can rain it must distill into water droplets from the mist (clouds). The distillation process requires cooling of the hot gas before it can be distilled into a liquid.

Ecclesiastes 1:7
All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full;
To the place from which the rivers come,
There they return again.

This verse was written by Solomon around 950 BC. The sea receives water from all the rivers but the sea is never full. This is because of evaporation, which empties the seas. Runoff from rivers is balanced by evaporation so the relative level of the seas remains about the same. Solomon clearly understands this evaporation as he explains that the river water returns to it’s place of origin, which is rainfall and snow in mountainous areas or underground springs. The last line explains that this is a cycle that repeats itself.

When you combine this verse with the 2 verses from Job, you have an accurate description in language that is readily understandable of the entire earthly hydrological cycle.

The Bible correctly and accurately described the cycle of water on the Earth thousands of years before science was able to.

Evaporation is quite easy to understand. You can see steam rising into the sky whenever you make soup.
It does not take a genius to comprehend that human bodies are composed of elements found in nature.

 

[Gabriel_Bell]

One thing that coastal people always do is fish. They build boats and sail or row out to sea. From time to time, these boats get caught in a storm and get blown to another island, perhaps an uninhabited one.

Over a period of thousands of years, that is likely how aborigines came to Australia. Or perhaps they were trying to find better places to fish.

 

[the annoying thing]

There is a lot of evidence of things in the bible actually happing.And explanations by science to back it up.