Science seems a bit behind on things...

it seems... these are all opinion pieces... I guess but...


5 As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. Ecclesiastes 11:5


can anyone prove due to the need to combine with the flesh as it grows to become one with it... that there is no being there from the moment of conception on... ?



and you have the food laws...

Bible's dietary laws convinced doc that 'God is a cardiologist' | God Reports



anyways...






and this one...

 

Don't claim to know where it came from, but Moses said God told him the rules. Still make a lot of sense and I have no idea where they decided that pork had worms, mold, reset to restore economy instead of recessions. ETC. Read Leviticus and ignore at your own risk, not politically correct today and some people in the Jewish faith take it a little to far today. Still some of the best doomer porn I have read is Lamentations, the country is gone, the few left free have hid in the wilderness, their allies deserted them and left them holding the bag, there is no one to blame but themselves as they ignored God and lost his protection as things were going so well that the old religion was no longer respected. Haven't quite figured out yet if the date was about 586 BC or 2020's AD. Time will tell.

 

Religion is a risky thing to discuss, except when everyone in the conversation is a member of the same congregation.

That being said, I just have to point out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics has been thoroughly disproved. There aon't no such animal.

I n addition, I have personally disproved Newton's Third Law of Motion. That's the one about equal and opposite reactions. Nope. 'Tain't necessarily so.

In another hundred years we probably won't have any of our beloved "Natural Laws" left.

Just the "Unnatural" ones...

 

It's not so much that "science seems a bit behind things". but that some theists are making unwarranted claims as to the "Bible" demonstrating scientific fore-knowledge. The two You tube video clips featured in the thread's opening post try to fly a number of Christian apologetic canards, but they are unconvincing, except to some of the theist choir, who merely accept them without critical thought or evaluation; Some theists also find them unconvincing, and wish that their fundie brethren would cut it out.

If by opinion pieces, you are referring to the posted You Tube clips, then, yes...but they are poor opinions without much merit.

The author of this text from Ecclesiastes / Qohelet (Tanakh) is making an appeal to mystery Appeal to mystery - RationalWiki in explaining away questions about "the way of the spirit", and how a fetus develops in utero. What the author is essentially saying is...'don't trouble yourself about these questions; god works in mysterious ways...how can you, an insignificant mortal, expect to understand these things???' So much for ancient obstetric scientific knowledge.

Depends what you mean by 'being'. A human zygote is formed at the moment of conception, and, potentially it may develop further during the gestation process. Your question is a theological / philosophical question, not a scientific / medical question; in which case the answer will be a matter of YMMV, depending upon one's theological / philosophical stance and commitments..

Which laws most Christians totally ignore....if indeed they are even aware of them at all....I mean to say, that's just for kashrut kommandos.

 

everyone is entitled to their own opinion... you have stated yours... they have stated theirs... all good.

 

Not all opinions are of equal value, and the YouTube Christian apologetic video clips spruiking biblical scientific fore knowledge, claimed as factual truth, are at best, unintentionally misleading, and at worst dishonestly deceptive. God(s) if he/she /it /they exist, don't need theistic carny barkers doing what they ought, unequivocally, be able to do themselves, without 3rd party intermediaries doin' the godsplainin'.

Muslims, do the same kind of theistic legerdemain with their deity / prophet, using the same style / method of 'scientific' fore knowledge truth claims, but derived from references to the Qur'an. Why ought anyone accept the 'scientific' fore knowledge claims of either faiths, as convincing evidence of divine existence / truth?

There are a number of problems associated with claims of theistic scientific foreknowledge....

"...

• Scientific knowledge necessarily must detail every process as accurately and precisely as possible, propose an explanationfor the results that makes falsifiable predictions and reproducible tests, refine the explanation, and make all information public to allow others to repeat the cycle. It is not scientific merely to make vague assertions, such as, "the body is made of the same things as the earth," or "rain falls and waters our crops".
• Very few religious texts actually aim to provide detailed, scientific knowledge about the world. The vast majority of statements from the Bible, and most other religious texts, are religious messages to followers, moral rules, or statements aimed at converting heathens.
• Even if some of the claimed "scientific foreknowledge" is true, there are a vastly greater number of statements in the Bible with no basis whatsoever in scientific fact. Even if every one of the claims below were correct (which they manifestly are not), they would still be vastly outnumbered by the scientific absurdities.
• It's also interesting that scientific discoveries are very rarely "predicted" by the Bible until after science has made the discovery. One would imagine that a book so full of scientific foreknowledge would be used to predict future scientific discoveries, while it appears that the Bible can only vaguely predict currently existing science....." Biblical scientific foreknowledge - RationalWiki

How does one evaluate claimed 'scientific' foreknowledge, against actual scientific foreknowledge? A set of criteria may be helpful from separating scientific fact from theological chaff:

"...In order for a statement to be Biblical scientific foreknowledge, it must satisfy five criteria:

1. It must be correct. A statement cannot be scientific foreknowledge if it is incorrect, because the scientific method necessarily eschews incorrect data.
2. It must be in the Bible. A statement cannot be Biblical scientific foreknowledge if it isn't in the Bible, because the only possible source of Biblical scientific foreknowledge is the Bible.[note 1]
3. It must be unambiguous. A statement cannot be scientific foreknowledge if it is ambiguous, both because science is necessarily precise and because ambiguity allows modern science to be shoehorned into ancient religion when none is present.
4. It must have been outside of contemporary knowledge. A statement cannot be scientific foreknowledge if it was already known, because this makes the "foreknowledge" into merely "knowledge" and makes divine intervention unnecessary.[note 2]
5. It must have been outside of contemporary technology. A statement cannot be considered scientific foreknowledge if it was knowable with the technology of the time, because this makes divine intervention unnecessary..."Biblical scientific foreknowledge - RationalWiki

 

interesting... but wiki is not IMHO dependable... as in wikianything...

has been shown to be tickled with bios by some folks that have a agenda it seems...

 

You are quite right: those concerns apply just as well to those ancient stone, papyrus, vellum and paper wikis, otherwise known as the Vedas, the Tanakh, the Holy Bible and the Qur'an.

However, you have not commented on the criteria suggested for evaluating whether claimed scientific fore-knowledge is actual scientific fore-knowledge; or are we just supposed to accept the claims made in the Ray Comfort and the 'Freedom in God' You Tube clips at face value, and 'on faith'?

I will spend some time evaluating each of the claims made in the Ray Comfort and 'Freedom In God' (F.I.G.)You Tube clips to see how they stack up as actual scientific fore knowledge.

Before starting with my analysis, it would pay to understand what science is, and how it is done; something that theistic apologists tend not to understand / and or do:

"...Essentially, the following five steps make up the scientific method:

1. Observe - Look at the world and find a result that seems curious. As Isaac Asimov put it, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'Hmm... that's funny...'"
2. Hypothesize - Come up with a possible explanation.
3. Predict - The most important part of a hypothesis or theory is its ability to make predictions that have yet to be observed. A theory that makes no new predictions is scientifically worthless. Predictions must be falsifiable (theoretically, new evidence can show the prediction to be false) and specific (what is predicted must not be open to interpretation after the experiment begins, or else the only thing you're testing is your ability to reinterpret your incorrect theory).
4. Test Predictions (in physical sciences this is called Experiment) - Compare the predictions with new[11] empirical evidence (usually experimental evidence, often supported by mathematics). This step is the reason why a hypothesis or theory has to be falsifiable — if there's nothing to falsify, then the experiment is pointless because it's guaranteed to tell you nothing new. Information from the experiment can disprove the original hypothesis, which might be refined into a better one.
5. Reproduce - ensure the result is a true reflection of reality by verifying it with others. "

Do the biblical references in the F.I.G. / Comfort video clips make observations about the natural world? Do they make hypotheses based on those observations? Do they make predictions based on those hypotheses? Do they test those predictions? Do they replicate their prediction testing to discover whether their predictions are a true reflection of reality? I think that in many instances, the texts do not follow that regime, and therefore could not be considered as scientific fore knowledge, but merely religious dogma.

 

I understand science and how it works or applies...

thing about science that many ignore is it is a METHOD and not a lot else...

a method for study and discovery laid out with a pattern of things to do...

theory... = POSSIBLE explanation of the facts found... because they... if honest... don't KNOW what some things mean...

also noticed far too often the community of said people have this disturbing tendency...

they try their best to make any new facts fit the old theories... and far too often deny other possibilities...

thing about theories is they are just that... theories...

means they are NOT true science but an interpretation of what SEEMS to be at the time... scientific facts...

as such I have learned to not be overly trusting of what scientist say... they reverse themselves far too often...

example... how long have we known about nuclear radiation? what maybe 200 years?

yet they have made claims about measuring time by using half life decay...

IMHO this has some very serious fallacies...

and one of the main ones is... time... and the believe that things are the same now as they were in the past...

and will be the same in the future...

recently carbon dating has had some disturbing... dating errors?

so while some can worship at the alter of science... I do not and can not...

men and women are the problem here... in that they are human and very often create some major errors in reasoning...

that said... I find I disagree with many of your statements... link all you want... I will look...

but what you consider proof may not be so to me... I realize vice versa from you to be normal...

 

15 Facts the Bible (allegedly) knew before science did, debunked:

Right from the get go, Faith In God (F.I.G.) Ministries gets it wrong, by claiming that "there is one book that has has anticipated many of these scientific facts; and that book is the (Christian) Bible." The fact is that there are a number of faith traditions (Hindu, Judaic, Islamic, et al, which claim that their sacred texts anticipate scientific discoveries made many centuries later; there are many 'sacred' books which make similar spurious scientific fore-knowledge truth claims, The 'Holy Bible' being but one among many.

Scientific Foreknowledge Claim # 15

Leviticus 17:11 (Video 0:00:53)

Leviticus 17:11 New International Version (NIV) "... 11For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make an atonement for your souls upon the altar, since it is the lifeblood that makes atonement.

Critique:
A reasoned reading of this verse (#11) in the context of Chapter 17 of Leviticus, indicates that it is clearly referring to ritual atonement (for sin): It is not an exposition on animal biology, let alone human biology. Leviticus 17:11 provides a theological explanation for the 'why' of the ritual slaughter of animals, and the 'what' of religious prohibitions on eating 'blood' by ancient Israelites. In the context of modern science, Leviticus 17:11 says nothing that was outside of contemporary knowledge, i.e. that when animals and humans bleed out...they die.

Additionally, The verse fragment, "The life of every creature is in the blood", is so ambiguous, that a variety of scientific discoveries can be retrofitted (aka shoehorning) to make a vague Nostradamus style scientific fore-knowledge prognostication.

Interestingly the F.I.G. video-clip fails to recognise that in some specific cases, there is a sound scientific / medical basis for blood letting...
Bloodletting - Wikipedia

@OldDude49

Conclusion: Leviticus 17:11 fails as credible evidence of Israelite scientific fore-knowledge.

 

Scientific Foreknowledge Claim # 14

Genesis 2:7 " 7 Then the Lord God formed a man c from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Genesis 2 NIV

Claim: Genesis 2:7 is scientific foreknowledge of the fact that science had discovered that the human body is constituted of "some 28 base and trace chemical elements"

**************************************************************************************************
Critique: Another biblical quote that is ambiguous: Two separate and somewhat contradictory accounts of 'the creation', (Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis Chapter 2), neither of which say anything specific about human bio chemistry, let alone animal or even plant biochemistry. Humans had to do the heavy lifting in working out what humans are made of...god had zip to say about it in his divinely inspired book.

Chemical Makeup Of The Human Body Fullmetal Alchemist - Beauty Fzl99

The F.I.G. video fails to mention that species of the plant kingdom also contain base and trace chemical elements, the chemical components of which not being isolated and identified until much later in human history than when the earliest biblical scriptures were recorded....putting humans on a par with...um...vegetables, when it comes to isolating chemical base and trace element constituents.

The Genesis accounts of mankind's creation (Chapters 1 and 2) are what they are: 'Just so' stories ( Just-so story - Wikipedia ), (aka 'origin myths' ( Origin myth - Wikipedia ) offering unscientific explanations for the existence of the universe and mankind's place in it. It's not as if earth man, made of earth stories are unique to Judeo-Christian cosmology....Creation stories have been recorded in other religious traditions, and attributed to other gods, well before the book of Genesis ( Origin myth - Wikipedia ) was ever recorded (between 600 and 500 BCE). Other contenders for the 'creator' ,in the man made from earth / clay myth (Creation of man from clay - Wikipedia) include:

It would seem that all those gods and demigods of other religious traditions would have a claim to 'scientific foreknowledge', not just Yahweh; The gods of religions and cults that preceded Yahweh would seem to have a stronger claim, than the Genesis accounts of creation, which seem merely derivative.

@OldDude49

Conclusion: Genesis 2:7 fails as Israelite scientific fore knowledge

 

You just can't let go of it can you?

IMHO you Sir have faith in something... perhaps it is a very strong faith...

and that something is there is no God...

you can not prove that there is no God... therefore... as the courts here in the U.S. have ruled...

because you do so without proof... you take it on FAITH... therefore atheism is a... religion?

perhaps it is an anti-religion but... because it is made on something that can not be proven...

it is believed by FAITH alone...

as to your post doing all you can to disprove...

hmmm... perhaps again you are relying on FAITH?

I also noticed... no links to where you are getting your... disproving... info?

 

@OldDude

Far be it for me to deviate the thread by discussing whether atheists have as much faith as theists, and whether or not atheism is a religion,,,it will have to wait for a separate thread created especially for the purpose of discussing those knotty questions.

 

Scientific Foreknowledge Claim # 13

@OldDude49

" Genesis 1:1-3 1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." Genesis 1 NIV

Claims:
1. That Genesis 1:1-3 demonstrates biblical scientific foreknowledge of the scientific concepts of time, space, matter and energy.
2. "No other creation account agrees with the observable evidence.
3. "When the Bible was written, most people believed that the universe is eternal; science has proven them wrong but the Bible correct".
4. Universe = Uni (single) Verse (Spoken Sentence) Shown at the bottom of the biblical scientific foreknowledge slide show for 'Fact(oid) # 13'
***************************************************************************************
Critique:
1. Again, this is an example of scientific concepts being shoehorned into ancient religious fan literature, well after modern scientific concepts of time, space, matter, and energy were known. Claims to biblical foreknowledge may be more convincing if the book of Genesis had explained that light is not the totality of what energy is...and that light has the characteristics of both matter (particles) and energy (waves)....that might possibly have been a stronger argument for scientific foreknowledge than merely "..let there be light..."

2. There are creation myths other than Genesis, which can also be interpreted to fit the observable evidence, as seems to have been done in the case of Genesis.

If Genesis 1:1-3 is the standard for creation accounts that agree with the observable evidence, then Tablet 1 of The Epic of Gilgamesh could just as well meet that claim also....

...Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all. (omniscience)
He saw the Secret (space), discovered the Hidden (matter / atomic and sub atomic particles)
he brought information of (the time) before the Flood.(time)
He went on a distant journey, pushing himself to exhaustion(energy)....

See...it's all in how one interprets the text: Just like the I Ching. I Ching - Wikipedia

3. Science hypothesising that the universe may not be eternal, does not prove the Bible correct. There are far too many unscientific howlers, inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible for science to validate many of the mundane truth claims of the Bible, let alone the supernatural ones.

4. Just a brief semantic quibble about the F.I.G. usage of universe = single spoken sentence. F.I.G. is being mischievous, or (more charitably) simply ignorant about the etymology and meaning of the word universe.


universe | Origin and meaning of universe by Online Etymology Dictionary

Again, Christian apologists beggaring language to give their sacred text a sciency association that it doesn't merit.


Conclusion: Genesis 1:1-3 fails as Israelite scientific foreknowledge. These verses simply reflect what was understood at the time of their writing; that time elapses with the observation of the movements of the sun, moon and stars; that seasonal changes occur over time, and that the changes in living things as they begin, grow to maturity, age, and die over a period of time were observable facts.

 

and again no links to your post... thing is... you could have made it all up...

or you're relying on wiki again...

wiki can be changed by anyone at anytime to say what they want it to say... so...

as to atheism being a religion... court here in the U.S. says it is... so...

 

You may need to check the prescription for your spectacles: A have used links to cite direct quotations from other sources, or to provide directions for further information on things that may be too arcane or obscure for some of the readership visiting the SM site.
As to making things up...it sounds much like you're attacking me, rather than responding directly to the observations that I have expressed in my post.

Yes, I understand the limitations of Wikipedia, however the citations to Wikipedia are just a starting point for those who wish to explore references further....using their references and citations to explore further elsewhere on the internet. Are you seriously suggesting that the Genesis story in the Tanakh / Christian Bible is the only ancient creation myth incorporating a god / gods creating humanity from clay / earth???

I guess I could start quoting Conservapedia for balance, Conservapedia - RationalWiki

As I have suggested before....The Bible is the original religious wiki of the Judaeo and Christian faiths, written by anonymous authors (though particular individuals have been attributed by tradition to authorship), stitched together, largely by anonymous editors (in the earlier epochs of Christian history), and compiled into different versions and translations over the centuries.

You do seem to like flinging red herrings into the discussion. Whether or not atheism is a religion is irrelevant to the thread topic you created. If you want to make a tu quoque argument, asserting that atheism is just another religion Atheism is a religion - Conservapedia (like Christianity) , then perhaps start a separate thread....you just know that I'll be more than happy to provide an alternative viewpoint.

 

Scientific Foreknowledge Claim # 12

@OldDude49

Job 38:24

Claim: Isaac Newton's work on the light theory of refraction Newton's theory of Light was anticipated in...(you guessed it)... the Bible! However the claim ought not be considered a slam dunk win (or indeed, any kind of win for that matter) for Christian apologists who use this bit of pseudo scientific sophistry.

Critique: Again, Christian apologists have conscripted some real science (light refraction) to validate that the discussion between Job and god in Job 38 is an example of the Bible demonstrating Israelite scientific fore knowledge.

A reasonable reading of Job 38:24 would indicate that this verse is making a theological point, not an exposition on natural science. Read in its context, (The whole of Job 38)

Job 38:24 is posing but one rhetorical question (of many in the rest of Job 38) asked of Job by Yahweh, to demonstrate to readers (and to Job in the story) that Job is an ignorant dumb@ss, and that Job (and readers of the Job saga) oughtn't to presume that they know anything about god or god's mysterious ways. The verse is also written in the literary genre of sacred lore, not scientific publication.

A casual reading of different versions of the Bible, and different commentaries on the Bible, would indicate that there is no correlation in Job 38:24 between "light parted", and the science of light refraction....plenty of references to lightning, diffusion of light from the sun, and similar phenomena already known to the ancients of the time, but no indication that white light when refracted comprises a number of colours in the visible light spectrum.

Job 38:24 Commentaries: "Where is the way that the light is divided, Or the east wind scattered on the earth?
Job 38:24 Commentary - John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
Job 38:24 - What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?.

Conclusion: An obscure Bible reference, quote mined out of its literary context, doth not a shining example of ancient scientific fore-knowledge maketh. Job 38:24 fails as a valid example of Israelite scientific foreknowledge.

 

Biblical Scientific Foreknowledge Claim # 11

@OldDude49

Psalm 8:8

Claim: 3,000 years ago the Bible described the paths of the sea, and Mathew Maury Matthew Fontaine Maury - Wikipedia "after reading Psalm 8:8, researched ocean currents and found that they followed specific paths through the seas" (therefore demonstrating biblical scientific fore knowledge).

Critique:

This claim is no more compelling than the 4 scientific fore knowledge claims dealt with earlier in this thread.

This verse is a song of praise to the Israelite's god Yahweh, in poetic form. Considered in the context of the chapter,

The verse fragment says nothing that was not already known to the people of their time:

1. That sea currents circulate water in predictable patterns,

Mediterranean Sailing, Cruising. Mediterranean currents.

2. The effects that diurnal and semi diurnal tidal currents have on coastal maritime navigation. Tidal Current - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

3. That some bird and fish species are migratory and their movements follow predictable patterns.

In that sense, the psalm is not revealing new information previously unknown to the people of that era (and even earlier). The psalmist is just saying that god is great, and that humans can thank god for the huntin', fishin', trappin' and animal farmin' that they had been able to do on their own turf (and 'surf').

Mathew Maury's 'biblical inspiration', is no more to the point of validating the scientific foreknowledge of the ancients, than is attributing falling apples to inspiring Newton's laws of gravity. At the centre of scientific research is the curiosity of individuals who ask themselves "why is it so?", and then to go on to hypothesize why it might be so, making predictions, and then methodically seeking data to test the hypotheses and predictions initially provisionally arrived at. As valuable as some of Maury's work is to science, other aspects of his scientific work quite rightly attracted the criticism of his scientist contemporaries. Maury's appeal to Christian hagiographers is understandable however, given his propensity to express his work

https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/science-and-technology/geology-and-oceanography-biographies/matthew-fontaine-maury

Conclusion: Psalm 8:8 fails as scientific foreknowledge as it is:

1. Quote mined by F.I.G out of its original context as a devotional song; it does not make any kind of scientific predictions,

2. Not outside of the contemporary knowledge of the peoples of that time.

Now, had psalm 8:8 predicted the existence of the Humboldt Current Humboldt Current - Wikipedia, or the Gulf Stream Gulf Stream - Wikipedia , before any explorers had discovered any facts about them, then that might be pretty compelling; but no, Psalm 8:8 mostly deals with some theological belief claims, and some mundane knowledge of the natural world known at the time.

 

God is not bound to the estimations of what man thinks the rules are nor what they have been for that matter .
Those of us familiar with God's intervention know this to be true.
Those unfamiliar with God's intervention remain stuck in the folly of their own imaginations .
The earth as we know it has an end .
It wont be the first time God recreated the earth and it's inhabitance .

 

Yes, I understand that many Muslims hold that belief of Allah, and many Hindus hold that belief relative to their pantheon of gods etc. Merely asserting that it is so, doesn't necessarily mean that it is true of the different gods that humans are prone to believe exist.

You will note that this thread does not actually address god's existence, or god's rules as such; but it does address the claims made by some Christian apologists (Notably the Freedom in God YouTube channel, and Ray Comfort's You Tube channel) concerning the natural world referenced in the Bible. They assert that natural phenomena cited in Bible passages in the Christian Bible's Old and New Testaments demonstrate scientific fore knowledge, validated by scientific discovery much later in human history. Thus far in this thread, they are not faring very well.

As do Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, etc, also. They can't all be right, given their conflicting and incompatible doctrines, beliefs, customs and sacred lore and theologies: but they can all be wrong, as also the many versions of Christianity can be.

As are Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Zoroastrians and Christians relative to gods other than their own.

On that we can agree, however, regarding the manner of its ending, there may not even be a great deal of agreement....even among Christians.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Your evidence is?