How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

[otseng]

From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:

How can you trust something that's written about god that contradictory, contains errors and just plain wrong at times? Is there a logical way to do so, or do you just want it to be god's word so much that you overlook these things like happens so often through the history of christianity?

The Bible can still be God's word, inspired, authoritative, and trustworthy without the need to believe in inerrancy.

For debate:
How can the Bible be considered authoritative and inspired without the need to believe in the doctrine of inerrancy?

While debating, do not simply state verses to say the Bible is inspired or trustworthy.

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Thread Milestones

• Case study of Hezekiah
• Start discussing global flood / Flood Model summary
• Recap arguments of authority of the Bible
• Start discussing Tower of Babel / Tower of Babel summary
• Start discussing archaeology / Philosophy of science / Origin of alphabet / End of discussion on archaeology
• Start discussing cosmology / Concluding cosmology
• Start discussing Shroud of Turin / Summary top TS imaging theories / Created DefendingChristianity.com and TS subforums / Shroud of Turin summary
• Start discussing Bible and resurrection
• Start discussing the Messiahship of Jesus / Messiahship of Jesus wrap up
• Start discussing Old Testament ethics
• Summary argument of atheism and morality / God basis for objective morality
• Start discussing genocide / Genocide summary argument
• Start discussing slavery / Slavery summary argument
• Start discussing homosexuality / Homosexuality summary argument
• Old Testament ethics summary argument

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to otseng in post #1534]

So, going back to my third argument in post 1514, unless the space-time fabric was uniformly expanding at all locations at exactly the same rate, then there would be distortions in viewing distant objects.

No problem here ... I think this is the general consensus as to what is happening. Spacetime is expanding uniformly at all locations at exactly the same rate at any given instant in time. Since observations of distant objects via telescopes happens over such short time intervals (essentially instantaneous in the big picture), acceleration in the expansion over time would not be a factor for any given image.

Likewise, if light bends because of space-time fabric distortions, we would not be able to see a clear image of distant objects. But, as the Hubble and Webb telescopes reveal, we do see clear images of the remotest objects.

Unless there are large objects like galaxies between Hubble/Webb and the object being viewed, in which case the bending of light by spacetime distortions (eg. gravitational lensing) does indeed prevent clear images. When there are no such large objects in the line of sight (eg. for things in our own galaxy like PoC) we do see clear images.

And uniform expansion at exactly the same rate at all locations in the universe would mean information would have to instantaneously travel to each location in the universe, which would be impossible. Therefore space-time fabric is not expanding/stretching.

Why would expansion at exactly the same rate at all locations mean that information has to travel instantaneously? I'm not getting the reasoning behind this one. If spacetime is expanding uniformly, and carrying galaxies and all other mass with it, exactly what "information" is traveling instantaneously? I can see this as the case if some kind of signal was needed to "tell" each point in spacetime to expand (so all points would have to get this signal at exactly the same time everywhere). But is that scheme part of any theoretical models? If the expansion is driven by something like dark energy that pervades the universe, and dark energy acts the same everywhere, I don't see why any information would need to be travel through spacetime as part of the process. But maybe I don't understand what you mean by "information" in this context.

[otseng]

I can see this as the case if some kind of signal was needed to "tell" each point in spacetime to expand (so all points would have to get this signal at exactly the same time everywhere).

Yes, that is what I'm referring to.

If the expansion is driven by something like dark energy that pervades the universe, and dark energy acts the same everywhere, I don't see why any information would need to be travel through spacetime as part of the process.

Even the dark energy would need some mechanism in order to act the same everywhere. And assuming that dark energy would happen to simultaneously affect everything everywhere at exactly the same way seems quite ad hoc also.

Continually adding ad hoc assumptions is a tell-tale sign that a theory is untenable. As I mentioned earlier, if you add sufficient ad hoc explanations, any theory is possible.

To summarize the explanation of the extreme redshift of distant objects, we have the following assumptions:
- space and time are fundamentally a single entity
- space-time fabric is not just a model, but actually exists
- space-time fabric can be stretched/expanded by other means other than gravity
- dark energy is expanding the space-time fabric
- dark energy is causing each point to expand throughout the entire universe at exactly the same rate with zero deviation

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to otseng in post #1536]

Even the dark energy would need some mechanism in order to act the same everywhere.

Why would that be the case? For example, take a ubiquitous chemical reaction like the formation of rust (or oxidation of any metal). There's no need for any external signals to have these reactions take place ... they will naturally occur due to the local behavior of the atoms and molecules involved according to the laws of chemistry. If the properties of dark energy (whatever that actually is if it exists at all ... it is just a hypothesis at this point) were such that it caused spacetime to expand, it should have that same effect anywhere dark energy exists within spacetime.

Continually adding ad hoc assumptions is a tell-tale sign that a theory is untenable. As I mentioned earlier, if you add sufficient ad hoc explanations, any theory is possible.

Sure, no argument there. But dark energy (and dark matter) are just hypotheses at the moment. Neither is understood at a level to elevate them to reliable explanations of anything (and certainly not to the formal theory level). Observations suggest that galaxies should not hold together as structures if the only mass present is in the observable stars they contain, and an expanding universe that is inferred from redshifts needs some explanation, with dark energy as a potential cause being just one hypothesis. The very use of the word "dark" suggests that these are preliminary ideas, not offered as confirned explanations.

To summarize the explanation of the extreme redshift of distant objects, we have the following assumptions:
- space and time are fundamentally a single entity
- space-time fabric is not just a model, but actually exists
- space-time fabric can be stretched/expanded by other means other than gravity
- dark energy is expanding the space-time fabric
- dark energy is causing each point to expand throughout the entire universe at exactly the same rate with zero deviation

I wouldn't argue against these being current hypotheses for explaining redshifts, but what are the alternatives? We can clearly measure redshifts for many thousands of objects and see that they vary, with the general observation that the more distant the object, the higher the redshift. The job of physicists is to try and explain this. General Relativity is the best thing we have going for an explanation of gravity and large scale cosmoology, and has had great success in expaining many directly observable phenomena. So it makes sense to start there as a baseline and make the assumption that spacetime (as decribed by GR) is a valid mathematical framework to work within. From there, the assumptions above arise from the observation of redshifts (and gravity waves ... new to the game since the incredible LIGO instruments came online).

I don't think anyone in the physics world claims that the book is closed on redshifts and the cause. But if GR is correct and the speed of light is a cosmic speed limit for matter (anything with a nonzero rest mass), then redshifts implying that galaxies are receeding at greater than the vacuum speed of light must require some other explanation than that the galaxies are in fact moving at a faster speed. The expansion of spacetime is one explanation that is consistent, and not in violation of GR. So it is the current best hypothesis but is still in that category. If it is shot down at some point, then back to the drawing board.

[otseng]

There's no need for any external signals to have these reactions take place ... they will naturally occur due to the local behavior of the atoms and molecules involved according to the laws of chemistry. If the properties of dark energy (whatever that actually is if it exists at all ... it is just a hypothesis at this point) were such that it caused spacetime to expand, it should have that same effect anywhere dark energy exists within spacetime.

However, your example is a local case, whereas dark energy is everywhere. Even on a local scale, uniformity would be difficult (have we ever seen a car that rusts uniformly?), yet at the most extreme scale, dark energy is able to have absolute uniformity at every point in the universe.

And not only that, the rate of expansion is changing.

"Observations show that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, such that the velocity at which a distant galaxy recedes from the observer is continuously increasing with time."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerat ... e_universe

And so the rate of acceleration would also have to be uniform.

The very use of the word "dark" suggests that these are preliminary ideas, not offered as confirned explanations.

Yes. And as I've argued, cosmologists have now had to resort to extranatural explanations (such as dark energy) to account for our observations. As a matter of fact, the characteristics of dark energy are similar to theological explanations.

Dark energy is:
* Undetectable (there is no empirical evidence to show it exists)
* Unknown how it operates
* Powerful (it is strong enough to move objects that make it seem it is traveling faster than the speed of light)
* Omnipresent (it occupies every point in the universe)
* Inerrant (there is such a high level of precision of expansion that each point in the universe is expanding at exactly the same rate with zero deviation)

So it is the current best hypothesis but is still in that category. If it is shot down at some point, then back to the drawing board.

There is an alternate hypothesis that I'll start presenting in my next post.

[otseng]

There is another way light can be redshifted besides the doppler effect - gravitational redshifting.

In physics and general relativity, gravitational redshift (known as Einstein shift in older literature) is the phenomenon that electromagnetic waves or photons travelling out of a gravitational well (seem to) lose energy. This loss of energy corresponds to a decrease in the wave frequency and increase in the wavelength, known more generally as a redshift.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_redshift

The second cause of redshift is gravity – and this gravitational redshift is the effect detected in the latest results from the international team led by Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.

https://theconversation.com/why-starlig ... way-100864

Due to gravitational redshift, its image reddens over time as the object moves away from the observer.

Equally common is the idea that matter can be observed falling into a black hole. This is not possible. Astronomers can detect only accretion disks around black holes, where material moves with such speed that friction creates high-energy radiation that can be detected (similarly, some matter from these accretion disks is forced out along the axis of spin of the black hole, creating visible jets when these streams interact with matter such as interstellar gas or when they happen to be aimed directly at Earth). Furthermore, a distant observer will never actually see something reach the horizon. Instead, while approaching the hole, the object will seem to go ever more slowly, while any light it emits will be further and further redshifted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_horizon

The amount of gravitational redshift depends on the density of the object. So the compact objects such as white dwarfs and neutron stars show more gravitational redshift than normal stars such as the Sun. Black holes have infinite gravitational redshift.

https://www.secretsofuniverse.in/redshi ... its-types/

Gravitational redshift, an effect predicted by Albert Einstein that is crucial for maintaining the Global Positioning System (GPS) on Earth, has been observed in a star system in our galaxy.

Within Einstein's general theory of relativity there is an effect known as "gravitational redshift," in which light becomes redder because of the influence of gravity; the wavelength of a photon, or light particle, gets longer and appears redder as the wavelength climbs farther away from a gravitational well.

https://www.space.com/einstein-gravitat ... ystem.html

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to otseng in post #1538]

... yet at the most extreme scale, dark energy is able to have absolute uniformity at every point in the universe.

I'm still not getting what this has to do with clarity of images, which are recorded in an instant of time relative to expansion rates, etc. The clarity of any specific image would not require absolute uniformity in the expansion rate, or in dark energy, etc. Even 37 years between the first Hubble images of PoC, and the latest Webb images, there is no discernable change in the features apart from the resolution improvements of Webb.

And so the rate of acceleration would also have to be uniform.

It may well be uniform, but how does this relate to the clarity of a telescope image recorded over minutes or even hours? An image of river rapids taken on a fast enough time interval would appear as a static image if the time interval is short compared to the movement of the liquid water.

Yes. And as I've argued, cosmologists have now had to resort to extranatural explanations (such as dark energy) to account for our observations. As a matter of fact, the characteristics of dark energy are similar to theological explanations.

Dark energy is:
* Undetectable (there is no empirical evidence to show it exists)
* Unknown how it operates
* Powerful (it is strong enough to move objects that make it seem it is traveling faster than the speed of light)
* Omnipresent (it occupies every point in the universe)
* Inerrant (there is such a high level of precision of expansion that each point in the universe is expanding at exactly the same rate with zero deviation)

Dark energy (and dark matter) are still just hypotheses developed to try and explain observations that require more than current physics. I don't know of anyone who claims to know what they are or even if the concepts will turn out to have any validity. Dark matter was proposed as an explanation of why galaxies hold together as the total mass of stars doesn't provide enough gravity to explain it. The idea was that there must me some other source of mass (gravity) that we can't see, hence the name, but no one claims it is a correct explanation. Dark energy was similarly developed as an idea to explain what is driving expansion of the universe, and its acceleration. Who knows if that idea is correct, but it appears to have risen to (or near) the top of what physicists think is worth pursuing. Whether it turns out to be correct in the future remains to be seen. This is all very preliminary stuff in physics.

Gravitational redshift is predicted by Relativity, just like gravitational waves were. But much like the bending of light by curved spacetime it requires a large mass. If there is a clear line of sight between a telescope and the object being imaged, without large masses in between like black holes and galaxies, a telescope should get a clear image during the snapshot in time that it records the light.

But I still don't get why spacetime expansion would have to be "perfectly" uniform down to the smallest scales, or dark energy would need to be so perfectly distributed and uniform, to get clear images from a telescope over times scales of minutes to hours. Can you explain why this would be the case (for clear images, specifically)?

[JoeyKnothead]

As I've mentioned, we can toss out everything we know regarding the topics you list, and still have no reason to conclude some sentient entity of unimaginable power is at the root of things.

We don't need to latch onto one failed explanation because other explanations fail.

If it's the only explanation left standing, it's entirely reasonable to accept it.

Birds can fly because...

A. They're composed entirely of helium.
B. They can invoke powerful anti-magnetic generators that allow them to adjust to earth's magnetic field.

Let's toss one of those out. Now, why is the remaining explanation reasonable to consider to be true or factual?

I've provided evidence that leads to the reasonable conclusion that we're at the center of the universe. Whereas there is no evidence to show we're not at the center of the universe.

You attempted to reduce an error of billions of miles down to a percentage that you found more comforting.

I propose that if we're to declare ourselves the center of the universe, we must then wonder why we're not the center of our solar system, or our galaxy, or any other space based criteria we may use.

We might as well just declare it a flat earth and be done with it.

Uh how are the extranatural explanations for cosmology any different?

As I don't propose explanations for such, I'm under no obligation to support em.

Then you have no justification on excluding any extranatural explanation.

I have every right, and sound reasons, to reject claims that can't be shown to be true and factual.

Especially when such claims have been proven errant, as has your center of the universe claim.

Modern science is not really that old, so can't really appeal to the "history of humankind".

Says the bible promoter.

My point stands - where science fails, if only today, that doesn't magically make your claims true / reasonable / rational.

But, as for modern science to find explanations for our current topic, cosmology, even it has given up in proposing naturalistic explanations and have to rely on extranatural explanations. So, the train has already left the station on relying on naturalistic explanations in cosmology.

You keep fussing about real or perceived failures of science, and I keep telling you I don't promote any scientific theories in this regard. In fact, I've repeatedly said we can disregard all of scientific discovery, but that won't show your claims are true or insert other pertinent term.

"In the beginning God created..."
With not one bit of confirmatory data.

I've already posted quite a bit of data confirming it with the sheer number of posts on the origin of the universe and fine-tuning. Really, the best way to counter it is showing the universe is infinite in age. And as I've already argued, that is impossible.

I'm sure proud of how certain you are of the validity of your claims.
As certain as I am about the errancy of em.

As you're one of our brightest lights, I'm compelled to give your comments serious consideration, even if my seriousness doesn't come across in my posts.*

So tell us all again, how we can confirm this god you're so proud of created anythingI.

We'll assume this god exists, as we attempt to confirm the following...

1. This god has the ability to create
2. He created him something

I remind us all, assuming the mere existence of something doesn't automatically prove claimed / proposed abilities or actions.

[otseng]

But I still don't get why spacetime expansion would have to be "perfectly" uniform down to the smallest scales, or dark energy would need to be so perfectly distributed and uniform, to get clear images from a telescope over times scales of minutes to hours. Can you explain why this would be the case (for clear images, specifically)?

Let's go back to the fundamental assumptions:

To summarize the explanation of the extreme redshift of distant objects, we have the following assumptions:
- space and time are fundamentally a single entity
- space-time fabric is not just a model, but actually exists
- space-time fabric can be stretched/expanded by other means other than gravity
- dark energy is expanding the space-time fabric
- dark energy is causing each point to expand throughout the entire universe at exactly the same rate with zero deviation

Let's think about it without the expansion by dark energy first. If there were no objects (no gravity), the space-time fabric would be perfectly flat with no distortions. Light traveling would just go in a straight line on the flat fabric. If there were objects on the fabric, it would distort the fabric. These distortions would cause light to bend.

Now let's introduce dark energy. If the expansion of the fabric at each point due to dark energy was not uniform, would the fabric still be flat and distortionless?

[otseng]

Birds can fly because...

A. They're composed entirely of helium.
B. They can invoke powerful anti-magnetic generators that allow them to adjust to earth's magnetic field.

Let's toss one of those out. Now, why is the remaining explanation reasonable to consider to be true or factual?

You have to consider all the possible explanations... and I'll propose they can fly because they have wings.

You attempted to reduce an error of billions of miles down to a percentage that you found more comforting.

Not sure what error you are referring to. But your argument is like, "Hey your dart is off by .1% from the exact center of the board, so you can't claim you hit the center."

Note that cosmologists recognize this problem as well (but will not directly admit it). They will not accept that we're at the middle of the universe, so they need to propose ad hoc explanations to try to explain it away.

We might as well just declare it a flat earth and be done with it.

I've never made that claim. All the claims I've made I've backed up with evidence. Please show any claim I've made that I did not back up with evidence and I will retract it.

Uh how are the extranatural explanations for cosmology any different?

As I don't propose explanations for such, I'm under no obligation to support em.

Then you have no justification on excluding any extranatural explanation.

I have every right, and sound reasons, to reject claims that can't be shown to be true and factual.

In our discussions so far, tell me which explanation you accept or reject that has been proposed by cosmologists.

Modern science is not really that old, so can't really appeal to the "history of humankind".

Says the bible promoter.

It's not necessary to get personal here.

My point stands - where science fails, if only today, that doesn't magically make your claims true / reasonable / rational.

It's actually simple logic, not some magical incantation that I'm making. To refute my claims, all you need is provide evidence, not simply making the claim that I'm wrong.

You keep fussing about real or perceived failures of science, and I keep telling you I don't promote any scientific theories in this regard.

I'm willing to attack anything (whether it is science or theology) based on logical argumentation and evidence. Are you willing to do the same? Or are you only willing to attack anything religious?

I'm sure proud of how certain you are of the validity of your claims.

I'm not "proud" of anything and never asserted such. I'm simply having a logical debate.

As you're one of our brightest lights, I'm compelled to give your comments serious consideration, even if my seriousness doesn't come across in my posts.*

Actually, I'm glad I can debate with you. There are not too many threads that we have engaged directly with each other.

So tell us all again, how we can confirm this god you're so proud of created anythingI.

The idea that God created the universe is not a novel idea. This idea has existed for quite a long time across many civilizations. So, the argument of God creating the universe does not in itself lead to the Christian God, it only leads to a generic God.

Again, we're considering all the possible explanations for what we observe. And a position is reasonable to hold if all the other explanations are implausible or inadequate.

I remind us all, assuming the mere existence of something doesn't automatically prove claimed / proposed abilities or actions.

Of course.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to otseng in post #1542]

Let's think about it without the expansion by dark energy first. If there were no objects (no gravity), the space-time fabric would be perfectly flat with no distortions. Light traveling would just go in a straight line on the flat fabric. If there were objects on the fabric, it would distort the fabric. These distortions would cause light to bend.

Agree completely. This is exactly what GR predicts and what has been observed many times since the famous 1919 eclipse measurements.

Now let's introduce dark energy. If the expansion of the fabric at each point due to dark energy was not uniform, would the fabric still be flat and distortionless?

Given that dark energy is only inferred, and we don't know exactly what it is or its properties, I think it is premature to make any claims on whether it would cause a perfectly uniform expansion, or a perfectly uniform acceleration in the expansion (or even whether it is the cause of both phenomena), or cause nonuniform effects.

But ignoring the acceleration in the expansion, and considering only the expansion itself, I would think that if the expansion were not uniform that it would impact redshifts but may not alter the path of the light. As the photons travel through different regions, expanding at different rates. their wavelength would be "stretched" more, or less, depending on the region being traversed. So the redshift measured on Earth would be some composite, but without any massive objects to distort spacetime in the line of sight, I'd think only the wavelength as measured here would vary.

But I don't know of any observations that suggest the expansion in spacetime is not uniform in all directions, or that dark energy could act differently at one point in the universe compared to another. GR's description of gravity implies that it works the same everywhere in the universe. I'd think dark energy (if it exists) would be similar ... a consistent "thing" throughout the universe.