Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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McCulloch
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Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

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Post by McCulloch »

Trump wrote: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.
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Re: Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

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Post by rikuoamero »

McCulloch wrote:
Trump wrote: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.

Unfortunately the challenge can never be met (in my opinion), because we can never actually determine intent. We can never show for a fact (or as close to fact as we can do) that Passage XYZ was intended to be metaphorical by Author ABC. The least of our problems here is that for most of the Bible, the authors are anonymous.
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Re: Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

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Post by benchwarmer »

McCulloch wrote:
Trump wrote: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.
The Bible contradicts scientific observation in many places, but the original statement already created an out for those - It's a miracle!

Sometimes a better line of attack is to simply point out where the Bible contradicts itself. No way to win there. Though you will hear a lot of apologies about how it's not an actual contradiction, it's just your misunderstanding.

What is it that preachers love to say? "We cannot know the ways of God" or somesuch? In other words, if you find a problem, YOU must have the problem, it can't possibly be the Bible (or the god described therein). Just push all your worries aside and have faith! - and don't ask too many questions :)

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Re: Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

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“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.� ― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

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Re: Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

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Post by Monta »

H.sapiens wrote: “If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.� ― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality
Pity he succumbed to such a silly idea.

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Re: Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

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Post by BrainSauce »

McCulloch wrote:
Trump wrote: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.
Yes, the Bible does contradict scientific discovery, but this only matters when dealing with Bible literalists, as any externally contradictory issue can be explained away via metaphor or alleged miracle (let's set aside, for a moment, the fact that miracle claims are wholly unsubstantiated). Under the specifics of your question, it is impossible to show a specific passage as contradictory, since you qualify that said event can not be "explainable by miraculous divine intervention", which is basically an appeal to magic, the universal explanation. In this case, the burden of proof is on you to prove that miracles are possible; you can not presuppose miracles as an explanation offhand, because doing so castrates the question.

As an example (and again, external contradictions only matter in arguments against Bible literalism):

The account of creation in Genesis gets many things completely wrong, but in my mind, the quickest snap argument against Biblical creation is the assertion that God created light before he created the sun. Since we know that the sun is the source of all light on Earth, it is impossible for there to be light before the sun, proving the contradiction. Again, to cede your final point, it can be asserted that this is possible through miraculous intervention, or that the Genesis account is metaphorical, but that is simply a bald assertion that allows one to dismiss the contradiction out of hand.

As noted above, showing INTERNAL contradictions in the Bible which show the impossibility of perfection would be a better argument against the truth of the Bible's divine origin, but that wasn't your question, and once more, the arguments only apply when dealing with one who asserts the Bible is wholly true, the word of God, and without error. At this point, we are then dealing, again, with presuppositions, and that gets us nowhere.

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Re: Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

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Post by H.sapiens »

[Replying to post 5 by Monta]

Yes, but science always remains equal to, or one or more steps ahead of, religion.

Science is never behind religion, science is never falsified by religion, science is never corrected by religion.

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Re: Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

Post #8

Post by Justin108 »

[Replying to post 1 by McCulloch]
Does the Bible contradict scientific observation? Yes but whenever one points it out, the excuse will be that it was meant to be a metaphor. No exception.
McCulloch wrote:Show that the passage was not intended metaphorically
The burden of proof would be on those who claim it is a metaphor to prove that it was indeed intended to be understood metaphorically.

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Re: Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

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Post by rikuoamero »

[Replying to post 8 by Justin108]
The burden of proof would be on those who claim it is a metaphor to prove that it was indeed intended to be understood metaphorically.
Which cannot be done. For example, someone might take Genesis and say that the accounts of days are a metaphor for the extreme length of time it "really" took God to create the world...but how can that person prove this?
Sure, today, we have knowledge of the age of the Earth, but the original author(s) of Genesis? They couldn't possibly have known. Even if we were to accept the (absurd) claim that God told the author(s)...why not simply give the true age of the Earth? Why cloak it in a "metaphor"?

Basically, if such a person tries to play the 'metaphor' card, they are taking two things known by two different people
1) the account of days as known by the original author(s)
2) the scientifically verified age of the Earth known to people today
and not being able to show that the first person knew both.
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Re: Does the Bible ever contradict scientific observation?

Post #10

Post by Rufus21 »

McCulloch wrote:Show that the passage was not intended metaphorically and that the event was not explainable by miraculous divine intervention.
I suppose anything could be explained by miraculous divine intervention. It's a type of "get out of jail free" card that can be used whenever someone wants to escape a situation where reason and evidence contradict them. When a belief is impossible and/or illogical, a miracle is the only way to convince people that it is true.

So in that sense, I don't think anyone can do what you ask. On this flip side, I don't think anyone can show evidence or proof of miracles either.

I guess we could discuss the weather...

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