Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

[McCulloch]

The Bible will never contradict scientific observation, maybe confuse it with a miracle or two, … .

Is this a true statement? If you disagree, please be specific as to where the writers of the Bible contradict scientific observation. Show that the passage was not intended metaphorically and that the event was not explainable by miraculous divine intervention.

[evilsorcerer1]

How about this: if Jesus rose from the dead and went to heaven, how did he get there? There's nothing out there but stars and planets and moons for a very long distance. That's why I think God is spirit and only spirit and man is flesh (matter) and only flesh.

[Neatras]

[Replying to post 11 by evilsorcerer1]

When the stories were written, the idea of heaven occupying a mystical, non-physical plane separate to our dimension wasn't really the championing view. Back then, it wasn't uncommon to think of the heavens as being literally just in the sky. So when Jesus "rose" to heaven, the writers explicitly believed that after hitting a certain height, he was at the pearly gates.

That's just the culture that existed at the time the stories were first told. Gods, the realm of the dead, all of these weren't just abstract concepts or extraplanar locations, they were interactive and able to be commonly experienced (according to the traditions). You can look at how paganism or native american folk tales were developed, and see that in their worldview, there isn't some deterministic clock called "the universe," and then outside of that is where all the supernatural shenanigans come in. The divinities were interwoven into reality, and so Jesus doing weird stuff like literally floating up above the clouds was, in a literary sense, the obvious thing to do.

It's only after millennia of repackaging the Scriptures to fit with the increased knowledge of humanity and the sciences that we somehow shave away all the poetic elements of divinity and cram them into "otherworldly" or "extradimensional" concepts. Since we didn't find gods on Olympus, we must push them even further beyond observation, and so we're left with an invisible god who is everywhere at once, cannot be empirically tested, and also, a lot of the Bible is allegorical...

It's this modern context that Christians constantly use to reimagine Christianity, but it doesn't square up with either the historical context, or with reality as we observe it. So the contradiction isn't your interpretation of it as compared to reality, the contradiction is that your interpretation is a forced compartmentalization of the Scriptures to force it to fit reality, as opposed to how it was originally intended.

[Kenisaw]

The Bible will never contradict scientific observation, maybe confuse it with a miracle or two, … .

Is this a true statement? If you disagree, please be specific as to where the writers of the Bible contradict scientific observation. Show that the passage was not intended metaphorically and that the event was not explainable by miraculous divine intervention.

Rabbits don't chew cud.

Locusts don't have 4 legs.

Water doesn't turn into wine.

The Bible is full of that stuff

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by McCulloch]

No the bible never contradicts scientific observation. Of course the bible isn't a scientific journal and is written in a way open to interpretation (as indeed is a lot of science which amounts to scientists presenting hypotheses based on observable data), but those that interpret the bible correctly will never find any of its statements contradict proven scientific fact.

JW

[Justin108]

[Replying to post 1 by McCulloch]

No the bible never contradicts scientific observation.

Except of course for the entirety of Genesis 1. Of course, as mentioned in post 8, the excuse will inevitably be "it's just a metaphor".

but those that interpret the bible correctly will never find any of its statements contradict proven scientific fact.

How do you know your interpretation of the Bible is correct? How do you know the correct interpretation of Genesis 1 is not a literal interpretation? How do you know Moses did not literally believe the earth was created in 6 days? How do you know Moses did not literally believe that plant life existed before the creation of the sun?

What objective methods did you use to reach the "correct" interpretation that Genesis 1 was meant to be a metaphor?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by McCulloch]

No the bible never contradicts scientific observation.

Except of course for the entirety of Genesis 1. Of course, as mentioned in post 8, the excuse will inevitably be "it's just a metaphor".

but those that interpret the bible correctly will never find any of its statements contradict proven scientific fact.

How do you know your interpretation of the Bible is correct?

When it comes to science, you know you have the correct biblical interpretation when it doesn't contradict proven scientific truths.

JW

[Justin108]

[Replying to post 1 by McCulloch]

No the bible never contradicts scientific observation.

Except of course for the entirety of Genesis 1. Of course, as mentioned in post 8, the excuse will inevitably be "it's just a metaphor".

but those that interpret the bible correctly will never find any of its statements contradict proven scientific fact.

How do you know your interpretation of the Bible is correct?

When it comes to science, you know you have the correct biblical interpretation when it doesn't contradict proven scientific truths.

JW

This is circular reasoning. You start with the premise that the Bible makes no mistakes, and so when you come across a mistake, you assume that the fault lies in the interpretation. If you remove your assumption that the Bible makes no mistakes, then your reasoning immediately falls flat.

Your reasoning is horribly circular. To demonstrate:

JW: There are no scientific contradictions in the Bible
Me: What about Genesis 1?
JW: You are simply misinterpreting it
Me: How do you know?
JW: Because there are no scientific contradictions in the Bible

This is textbook circular logic

[JehovahsWitness]

How do you know your interpretation of the Bible is correct?

[Replying to post 17 by Justin108]

Truth doesn't contradict truth; scientific truth is simply the correct understanding of the physical world. The bible is a book of truth and so by definition it won't contradict what is true. If therefore the bible touches on science (which it does rarely, but it does on occassion) but if one interpretation contradicts what we know to be true about the physical world and the other doesn't, its not rocket science to know which interpretation is correct.

Logic,

JW

[Justin108]

[Replying to post 17 by Justin108]

Truth doesn't contradict truth

Again, you are starting with the a priori assumption that the Bible is absolute truth. Can you demonstrate that the Bible is true or is an a priori assumption all you have to offer?

The bible is a book of truth and so by definition it won't contradict what is true.

Everything in the Bible is true. How do we know? Because the Bible is a book of truth. How do we know the Bible is a book of truth? Because everything in the Bible is true.



Can you really be so oblivious not to notice the fallacious logic you're using?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 17 by Justin108]

Truth doesn't contradict truth

That is a logical inevitability.

... you are starting with the a priori assumption that the Bible is absolute truth.

Not necessarily; One can just as well say, *if* the bible is true, and the above is a logical inevitability, then when faced with between two possible interpretations, the best one would be that which agrees with what we know to be true scientifically.

The question was how does one decides which of two choices to settle upon, this seems as good a rationale as any.

To illustrate: It is a fact that water normally freezes at 0°. If in the text one reads that the water was frozen by "a wind" but it was left open as to if that wind was hot or cold. It would be reasonable to decide the correct interpretation might be (depending on the context) be cold rather than warm or hot.

JW