The Bible

[BaseballGenius]

What things in the Bible have been disproven by science?

[DarkWaters]

What things in the Bible have been disproven by science?

The burden of proof is on the believers in the holy book if they wish to establish the veracity of any of the contents.

Some examples of outrageous claims include the existence of an all powerful supernatural entity, the implication that the Earth is just a few thousand years old, the implication that all animals are originally from the holy land, humans living for over 900 years, a man being raised from the dead, the Earth being covered in a great flood, megafauna being created and not evolving from lower forms of life and rabbits chewing cud.

Edited June 15, 2007 by DarkWaters

[MisterSwig]

What things in the Bible have been disproven by science?

Pretty much the entire Creation myth. And that's merely the beginning.

For more biblical absurdities, you can read my lists of Bible stories in the Literature section.

[kufa]

I noticed you catagorized it under fiction; yesterday, by brother and I were at barnes and noble, we put Al Gores An Inconvinient Truth in the fiction section.

[Tenure]

You damn crazy kids. What next, egging the old Johnson place? You rebels.

[softwareNerd]

What things in the Bible have been disproven by science?

Raising people from the dead; wine from water; virgin birth; resurrection; city-walls falling just by marching around them playing trumpets; parting waters. In short: every miracle; that's why Christians call it a miracle: because they concede that it cannot be explained by natural causes.

[D'kian]

Also, the Earth is not flat and the Sun doesn't revolve around it.

[softwareNerd]

What things in the Bible have been disproven by science?

Isn't this exactly equivalent of asking: "does the Bible mention any miracles?"

[Robert J. Kolker]

What things in the Bible have been disproven by science?

No world-wide flood. There is not enough water to cover the entire earth to the height of the highest mountain plus fifteen cubits.

Also the appearance of plants on the earth prior to the creation of the sun is a non-starter.

Likewise the female of our species being the result of excising part of Adam's body won't fly.

There are several dawgs in the Bible that won't hunt.

Bob Kolker

[Mammon]

Man can't walk on water, only insects and only amazing lizard.

If so, Jesus must of being fast... or a reptile.

[Robert J. Kolker]

Man can't walk on water, only insects and only amazing lizard.

One can walk on water with pontoons.

Bob Kolker

[John McVey]

... the holy book...

I hope by that you mean you've been using a copy for target practice?

Man can't walk on water

*scientific pedanticator turned ON

Tosh! Anyone can walk on water, so long as it is made cold enough.

*scientific pedanticator turned OFF

Some examples of outrageous claims include ... the Earth being covered in a great flood...

HEY! Don't give the Halo 3 plotline away!!

Ooops, wrong work of fiction...

Anyhew...

If you want proof of real things described in the bible, the genuine scientific story is that a great flood did in fact occur. IIRC, the biblical flood story is stolen from a fictionalised account of the massive increase in the extent of the Black Sea. Apparently, at the end of the last ice age the glaciers retreated and had gouged out the depression that would be the Black Sea, which was then just an overgrown icewater puddle. The Mediterranean is open to the Atlantic, so its level rose as the global sea level rose. Not so the depression that was to become the Black Sea. Initially the Bosphorus did not exist, and there was a natural dam wall between the Aegean and Black seas. The wall became compromised, began to leak, then suddenly burst under the pressure differential. In short order the torrents of water eroded a channel that was to become the Bosphorus. All the villages on the shore of the Black Sea at the time got totally covered in flood water over the period of just weeks, and in the perspective that was meaningful for them their whole world was indeed covered by a great flood. But the flood waters did not recede, the survivors just set up on the new shoreline. The flood waters remain there to this day.

People in the US northwest may be familiar with a similar event. Many thousands of years ago, at about the same time and for the same underlying reason of the end of an ice-age, an absolutely HUMUNGOUS ice-dam in the Minnesota area (I think) broke in a similar sudden manner, sending bazillions of tons of water flooding westward and leaving patterns of low hill-lines and seemingly out-of-place boulders that look like a colossal river bed magnified a thousand times real scale. There are strange holes dotted all over the place, several yards across and deep, which it turns out were created by high-power vortices generated by the water flowing over obstructions in the ground at speed. I *think* that may be the origin of many native American flood tales.

Next time someone utters "scientific proof of The Flood," now you really can tell them the actual truth and what science has shown.

JJM

Edited June 16, 2007 by John McVey

[DavidV]

Next time someone utters "scientific proof of The Flood," now you really can tell them the actual truth and what science has shown.

I can think of at least three other "scientific" explanations for the flood story in Egypt, Babylon and ancient Mesopotamia. A simpler explanation is that only flood plains provided sufficient nourishment for agricultural civilizations prior to the domestication of crops, so every ancient civilization has a flood myth.

Edited June 16, 2007 by GreedyCapitalist

[The Wrath]

It's really rather easy to disprove the Biblical flood, considering that we know the dimensions of the Ark. Anyone know a good way of finding out the number of land-requiring animal species?

[Robert J. Kolker]

It's really rather easy to disprove the Biblical flood, considering that we know the dimensions of the Ark. Anyone know a good way of finding out the number of land-requiring animal species?

The Ark could not have contained two of each insect, let alone the larger species of plants and animals. The Ark story is a myth. There is no way of taking it seriously.

The bugs and bacteria on this planet outweigh the mammalian species a million to one.

Bob Kolker

[The Wrath]

I'm well aware that it couldn't contain them all. I'd just like to know how many land animal species there are, so that we could see exactly how much of an error it is.

[K-Mac]

Although I am not a Christian, as a child, I was taken to church until I was probably a freshman in high school. (My poor mother took it upon herself to drag my brother and I kicking and screaming each Sunday, until we were too old and she finally gave up. Dad never went...typical "Everybody Loves Raymond" scenario, except we were Baptists.) Anyway, I guess I don't have as much animosity towards the Bible as some. (Perhaps I should?) Although I certainly do not believe that those events actually occurred, I do find some of the stories interesting, but I look at them like fables. And for me, the Bible and the church that was teaching it to me had their motives backfire. From a very young age, I questioned just about everything about it, and receiving no viable answers, turned into a non-believer. [Ominous music in the background.] And if you're into horror stories, Revelations is a good story. Thank goodness I believe that's all it is...a story.

[D'kian]

Although I certainly do not believe that those events actually occurred, I do find some of the stories interesting, but I look at them like fables.

Nothing wrong with that. It's like reading Greek mythology for the entertainment value.

[K-Mac]

Nothing wrong with that. It's like reading Greek mythology for the entertainment value.

Exactly! It's so nice to be somewhere were people don't look at me like the devil for saying that!

[DavidOdden]

I'm well aware that it couldn't contain them all. I'd just like to know how many land animal species there are, so that we could see exactly how much of an error it is.

Well, you'd need to know the mean volume of the animals too. The ark could have contained a million insects easily, but even a thousand ruminants would require serious modern shipping tech.

[MisterSwig]

The Ark could not have contained two of each insect ...

Personally, I see no point in arguing whether a 450 x 75 x 45 foot ark could contain all the animals, when the Bible can't even agree on how many animals there were. Were there two of every animal? (Genesis 6:19) Or were there seven of every clean animal, and two of every unclean animal? (Genesis 7:2)

[The Wrath]

Well, you'd need to know the mean volume of the animals too. The ark could have contained a million insects easily, but even a thousand ruminants would require serious modern shipping tech.

For sheer effect, I was thinking it would be cool to assume that each pair of animals took up no more than one cubic foot...because I've got a feeling, it would still not be nearly enough room.

[John McVey]

I can think of at least three other "scientific" explanations for the flood story in Egypt, Babylon and ancient Mesopotamia. A simpler explanation is that only flood plains provided sufficient nourishment for agricultural civilizations prior to the domestication of crops, so every ancient civilization has a flood myth.

Not every major population grouping was comprised of agriculturalists. Many were nomads, and still have tales and myths of major floods. This includes in areas were floods were unheard of. Besides, I was intially referring to the origin of the specific bible story.

Nor, I think, would mere ordinary flooding be sufficient to give flood tales their real power and legs. The myths would likely have to be based on something enormous, worth considering as a truly special event on a grand scale and not just an instance of common floods held as lesser punishments meted out by slightly miffed deities. Where's the drama in telling of mere floodplain filling?? The flood myths are about THE WHOLE WORLD being flooded, not just of river systems and flood plains that people would know very well were entirely local events because of stories and ordinary chitchat about how others were doing all exchanged along trading routes. Doesn't the phrase "biblical proportions" ring any bells? The formation of the Black Sea fits that bill nicely.

As to how to respond to it, fight fire with fire!! As a pedagogical point it would be more fun and effective to show how science can explain perfectly well what happened in a big and fascinating way without having to resort to mysticism to do so. Being rational and atheistic does not mean being dispassionate and boring! Atheism needs both substance AND STYLE, man! Where's your sense of spirit!? Where's your enthusiasm!? We need to say, simultaneously, "Look at what we can figure out!" and "Check out what actually happened!"

"Biblical floods? People live on flood plains. Meh, it happens." Sheesh.

JJM

[Robert J. Kolker]

Nor, I think, would mere ordinary flooding be sufficient to give flood tales their real power and legs. The myths would likely have to be based on something enormous, worth considering as a truly special event on a grand scale and not just an instance of common floods held as lesser punishments meted out by slightly miffed deities. Where's the drama in telling of mere floodplain filling?? The flood myths are about THE WHOLE WORLD being flooded, not just of river systems and flood plains that people would know very well were entirely local events because of stories and ordinary chitchat about how others were doing all exchanged along trading routes. Doesn't the phrase "biblical proportions" ring any bells? The formation of the Black Sea fits that bill nicely.

To the unsophisticated the "WHOLE WORLD" consists of that portion of the actual world that happens to be seen or known at a given time or era. Until voyages to North and South America happened, the "WHOLE WORLD" consisted of Europe, Asia and Africa. The phrase "WHOLE WORLD" has to be taken in the context of current knowledge.

Until the big telescopes went on-line the "WHOLE UNIVERSE" was the Milky Way. Other galaxies were merely clouds in the heavens because the available telescopes could not see them clearly.

The limitation of knowledge is a good reason (among other good reasons) for not taking the various scriptures of the various religions literally. It should also be noted that at the time collections of stories such as are in the Bible or the Babylonian or Egyptian cosmologies were the (then) best explanations available. It was a case of people trying to figure out what was with the best means at their disposal.

Given the expansion of knowledge and what is more important, the advance in the means of getting new knowledge, there is little excuse for taking the "holy books" literally. If God is anywhere, He is in the gaps and chinks of our knowledge about the world. Every year the gaps and chinks become smaller and smaller. Eventually (if not sooner) God will be Nowhere.

Bob Kolker

Bob Kolker

[MisterSwig]

For sheer effect, I was thinking it would be cool to assume that each pair of animals took up no more than one cubic foot...because I've got a feeling, it would still not be nearly enough room.

The ark would have had about 1.5 million cubic feet of space. One popular view, put forth by author John Woodmorappe, is that Noah needed room for only 16,000 animals--all of whom would have otherwise perished in the flood. The ark, he says, could easily have supported this number of animals, plus the food required to feed them for the 375 days they were at sea. How he arrives at his theory is unremarkably stupid, judging by what I have read in this review.

If you want a deeper sense of just how silly the whole Noah's ark idea really is, consider what it would have taken to rescue a mere two kinds of animals from the flood: elephants and big cats.

There are three species of elephants: African Bush, African Forest, and Asian. An elephant eats about 450 pounds of food and drinks 50 gallons of water per day. Thus, to support six elephants aboard the ark for 375 days, Noah needed to store 1 million pounds of grass and fruits, and 112,500 gallons of fresh water. If you do the math, that amounts to roughly 1,000 tons of food and water for the elephants alone. We know that the ark was built out of wood, not metal. So those 1,000 tons probably represented 20-30% of the ark's total tonnage capacity. All for a mere six elephants.

Moving to the big cats, there are lions, jaguars, leopards, and tigers. I know there are other species of big cats, but these four are enough to serve my purpose. Two of each kind makes eight big cats. One big cat eats about 13 pounds of meat per day. So I conclude that to provide fresh meat for these eight carnivores for 375 days, Noah must have had on hand the equivalent of an additional 750 gazelles weighing approximately 100 pounds each.

It doesn't take a genius to see where this line of reasoning is going. I haven't even considered how much fresh water these big cats need to drink. Nor have I explored the nutritional requirements of the gazelles needed to feed the cats. Nor have I discussed the fate of all this food and water once it has passed through the animals' digestive systems back onto the floor of the ark. If you think Haitian boat people have it bad, can you imagine what life was like on the bottom deck of the ark, which had but one 18-inch window? I have barely begun a serious study of this matter, and already the ark idea is beyond absurd. I'll let you imagine for yourself the amounts of food and water needed to keep alive two brown bears, two giraffes, two rhinos, two camels, two cows, two buffalos, two horses, two hyenas, two zebras, two apes, two cheetahs, two goats, two moose, two sheep, two boars, two kangaroos, two pandas, two koalas, two porcupines, two wolves, two tapirs, two donkeys, etc., etc. Hell, I didn't even list any birds, such as the condor, the owl, the eagle, the parrot, the pelican, the stork, the flamingo, the ostrich, the hawk, the chicken, etc., etc. Try to imagine the food and water requirements of 16,000 animals for 375 days!

Attempting to make sense of this nonsense, some Christians defend the story by claiming that Noah brought a bunch of trained, baby animals aboard the ark, and that these animals hibernated most of the time. The idea here is that these superdomesticated animals were all taught to poop and pee into a bucket, making waste disposal a breeze for Noah and his family. And since these animals were also hibernating younglings, they didn't require impossible amounts of food and water. This is certainly an interesting fantasy. And it would probably make a nice cartoon one day. My only hope is that they don't leave out the part where Noah decides, after the flood is all over, to sacrifice half of his animals to God. Yes, that's right: After rescuing them from the flood, Noah killed one of each clean animal right after he left the ark. (Genesis 8:20) Pretty smart, eh?