Can science and Bible co-exist?

[sin_is_fun]

Bible and science cannot both be correct.Only one of them can be true.Biology,geology,physical sciences everything is unneccesary of we accept bible says asimov.Old testament is nothing but oral traditions of sumerian kings he says.

Doesnt taking bible as true-literally-word to word-stretching our faith too much?Bible was not given by god.The authors of it were humans.Humans have a tendency to exaggerate says asimov.He sees bible with a scientific eye and says it is exaggerated.

He is not just a scientist but also a writer.

so if Bible and science both cannot be correct then we have to look at the evidence we have for both.

what evidence does Bible have?Statments of 12 apostles and their disciples.

what is the evidence science has?billions of experiments,statments of highly trustworthy and knowledgable scientists like Einstein,stephen hawking,Galileo and so on.Their statements are backed up by billions of experiments,observations and verifications.

It is obvious that science has overwhelming evidence.But why do people still reject it?Is it based on statements of 40 people which were passed on as oral traditions for so many years.The existence of many of those disciples themselves is doubtful.

Who is correct?12 apostles versus millions of scientists and billions of experiments.coming to a conclusion must be easy,right?

------------------from asimov's interview-----------------------


Kurtz: Do you take the Bible primarily as a human document or do you think it was divinely inspired?

Asimov: The Bible is a human document. Much of it is great poetry, and much of it consists of the earliest reasonable history that survives. Samuel I and 2 antedate Herodotus by several centuries. A great deal of the Bible may contain successful ethical teachings, but the rest is at best allegory and at worst myth and legend. Frankly, I don't think that anything is divinely inspired. I think everything that human beings possess of intelligent origin is humanly inspired, with no exceptions.

Kurtz: Earlier you said that the Bible contained fallible writings. What would some of these be?

Asimov: In my opinion, the biblical account of the creation of the universe and of the earth and humanity is wrong in almost every respect. I believe that those cases where it can be argued that the Bible is not wrong are, if not trivial, then coincidental. And I think that the account of a worldwide flood, as opposed, say, to a flood limited to the Tigris-Euphrates region, is certainly wrong.

Kurtz: The creationists think there is evidence for the Noachian flood.

Asimov: The creationists think there is evidence for every word in the Bible. I think all of the accounts of human beings living before the flood, such as Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, are at best very dim memories of ancient Sumerian rulers; and even the stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob I rather think are vague legends.

Kurtz: Based on oral tradition?

Asimov: Yes, and with all the distortions that oral traditions sometimes undergo.

Kurtz: In your book In the Beginning, you say that creation is a myth. Why do you think it is scientifically false? What are some of the main points?

Asimov: Well, all of the scientific evidence we have seems to indicate that the universe is billions of years old. But there is no indication whatsoever of that in the Bible if it is interpreted literally rather than allegorically. Creationists insist on interpreting it literary. According to the information we have, the earth is billions of years younger than the universe.

Kurtz: It is four and a half billion years old.

Asimov: The earth is, and the universe is possibly fifteen billion years old. The universe may have existed ten billion years before the earth, but according to the biblical description of creation the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars were all created at the same time. As a matter of fact, according to the Bible, the earth itself existed from the beginning, whereas the stars, sun, and moon were created on the fourth day.

Kurtz: Yes, so they have it backward.

Asimov: They have that backward, and they have plant life being created before the sun. All the evidence we have indicates that this is not so. The Bible says that every plant, and every animal, was created after its own kind, which would indicate that species have been as they are now from the very beginning and have never changed. Despite what the creationists say, the fossil record, as well as very subtle biochemical evidence, geological evidence, and all sorts of other evidence, indicates that species have changed, that there has been a long evolutionary process that has lasted over three billion years.

Kurtz: It's not simply biology that they are questioning, but geology, astronomy, and the whole basis of the physical sciences.

Asimov: If we insist on the Bible's being literary true, then we must abandon the scientific method totally and completely. There's no way that we can at the same time try to discover the truth by means of observation and reason and also accept the Bible as true.

source:http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/asi ... #SCI_BIBLE

[otseng]

Per the rules, all debate topics must have some clear question for debate. Please provide a question for us to debate on, otherwise this thread will be moved into the appropriate subforum.

[Arch]

Per the rules, all debate topics must have some clear question for debate. Please provide a question for us to debate on, otherwise this thread will be moved into the appropriate subforum.

He forgot to put the question from the title into his post

The question in the title is Can Science and the bible co-exist?

My answer is as soon as you can go to the highest mountain on the earth and see all the kingdoms on the planet then Science and the bible can co-exist until then NOT

[sin_is_fun]

He forgot to put the question from the title into his post

The question in the title is Can Science and the bible co-exist?

My answer is as soon as you can go to the highest mountain on the earth and see all the kingdoms on the planet then Science and the bible can co-exist until then NOT

People have gone above the highest of mountains in the earth.They have gone even above the earth and seen all kingdoms,democracies of earth.

what now?

[AlAyeti]

Icarus: Mr. Asimov, great thinkers like you, in fact some of the greatest philosophers in recorded history, disagree with you. Are they idiots?

Asimov: Yes. Socrates never wrote a best seller. Actually, using the same method that we denegrate the Bible, we don't really know that any Greek philosophers ever really existed. They could have been a hullucination of Egyptian Pharoahs passed on from one base-head to another.

Icarus: It's amazing. You have every answer to every thing rapped up so neatly. How did the universe start and when?

Asimov: You are obviously a right-wing fundamentalist nutcase. Every one of us science fiction writers no exactly when the universe started and how. It was on a Wednesday when Salmnoturia bumped into Corof.

Icarus: Mr. Azimov are you insane?

Asimov: Not on Tuesdays.

[QED]

Can Science and the bible co-exist

I'd like to establish some mutual territory for the sake of this argument: Namely that we take the best observational data that we have for cosmic evolution. This requires us to see the universe as having existed for something of the order of three times the age of our own solar system. Can any of us actually claim to appreciate the significance of such a fantastic cosmic landscape?

Starting out from this perspective, I personally find the bible to fail miserably in capturing the majesty of all that is now known of our environment and I thank science for showing me many of the subtle ways and means through which I have come to be here. This knowledge has also helped me in many practical ways, for example the development of medicines, technology, agriculture and most of all it has provided an unending source of interest and intrigue while studying its output.

It is undeniable that the intellectual content of the bible is firmly stuck in the late iron-age and yet is still held by many to provide an alternative account of our existence and our supposed special place in the cosmos. I find this special place afforded to mankind nothing short of repulsive as it breeds a kind of arrogance that can serve no good purpose.

So keeping the bible alongside science can only give rise to confusion (much like retaining both metric and imperial systems) as it frequently clashes with knowledge gained in the light of technological advances. The dangers arise when such clashes serve to mask important information such as theories concerning genetics, evolution, animal welfare, the global environment etc. Here public opinion feeds into political decision making and consequently impinges upon the lives of large populations in highly significant ways. Thus I would prefer to see the bible down-graded to being yet another great literary work of fiction.

[LillSnopp]

People have gone above the highest of mountains in the earth.They have gone even above the earth and seen all kingdoms,democracies of earth.

Democracies? How come you pointed specifically at the Democratic ideology? (curious)


Well, no, we have been to Space, and you still cant see all the Kingdoms at once. But i guess thats been re-interpreted?

The USSR was the first ones putting a man in space (1961 i think), So this would be around 1 900 years later. I thought the Bible spoke about the contemporary (their) world, and not the future (excluding the obvious parts of armageddon). Or am i wrong?

[unprofitable servant]

Why not? The bible does not try to disprove science it is always men using science to try and disprove the bible.

It is scientist, not science, that make the claims against the word spokken in the scriptures.

For instance: Scientist say that man appeared from a goo or some substance and evolved in what we are today.

The bible gives a clear cut version of where man came from.

In the 'billions and billions of experiments' that scientist have done they are not able to re-create this mysterious life bringing goo.

But what do scientist know? They know that the periodic table has 26? elements that are the base elements for life. In these base elements they know, scientifically, that many of them can not be part of the 'pool of life' theory. Yet they are willing to maintain that life came from this pool of goo.

The bible gives us a simple, direct plausible way that life came into being.

What is so plausible about the scientific method of life?

[LillSnopp]

For instance: Scientist say that man appeared from a goo or some substance and evolved in what we are today.

Eh, yeah, and then give us an explanation how this works. Piles and Piles of papers to read on it if you wish.

The bible gives a clear cut version of where man came from.

Eh, yeah, and shows nothing that strengthen this account.

The bible gives us a simple, direct plausible way that life came into being.

I dont really understand you here, what is so plausible about ´God did it´. Its not an answer at all, wheres the explanation?

[QED]

Scientist say that man appeared from a goo or some substance and evolved in what we are today.

The bible gives a clear cut version of where man came from.

I wonder if you have you ever taken a step back from this position to consider other information available to you? Without even looking at anything written by scientists; have you not noticed how your own arrangement of five fingers/toes is repeated over and over again in many widely different species? Isn't it obvious how our pairs of eyes, ears, nostrils, arms, testicles, legs etc. all crop-up in everything from Bears to Penguins?

These are not coincidences. Neither is it a coincidence that mice are used to prove drugs before they are used in the human population. The reason of course is that we share ninety-eight percent of our DNA with mice. OK, so we're getting a bit science now -- but this is where we go when we want to find out where all the other coincidences came from.

The bible gives us a simple, direct plausible way that life came into being.

What is so plausible about the scientific method of life?

The only thing that gives the Bible its plausibility is that it has such a huge following. Can a Billion people be wrong? Heck, yes they can. This number of people once thought the Earth was flat. It's a fashion thing. If you had a true understanding of the scientific peer review system you would not be so dismissive.

I don't know about you but I'm more than willing to place my faith in science when I'm in need of medical care. If I had left everything to prayers alone in the past I would not be able to have this debate with you now.