Science validates the Bible, which is God's word

Religion and Secularism
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What can we deduce logically with regards to how life in general, and man in particular have gotten here? Remember that man has free will and that entails certain ramifications necessary to prevent undue influence of that free will.

If the six days of restoration were literal, then evidence of man would suddenly appear in the fossil record starting in 4004 B.C. Any supernatural creation per se would leave unmistakable evidence of its occurrence, thus interfering with free will. We should expect that God used a “natural,” progressive means of forming man.

If the Bible is the Word of God, then science cannot help but sub­stantiate its validity- there should be no actual conflict between the two.

Now, in the inspired description or what took place in the beginning, the heaven and earth are <u>not </u>said to have been molded, fashioned, or made out of material, but to have been created (bara). For, whatever may have been the original meaning of the word <u>bara</u>, it seems certain that in this and similar passages it is used for <u>calling into being without</u> <u>the aid of preexisting material</u>. <sup>142</sup>

As we have seen, the Scriptural account that God created the heavens out of nothing‑ that at a certain point time and space began whereas they had previously not existed- has been substantiated by the “big bang” theory, which has been verified by concrete, scientific evidence.

 

Lastly, the Hebrew verb used in the account of the six days of restoration means <u>to fashion or prepare out of already existing matter</u>. Such a means implies a process, unlike that of Genesis 1:1. Is this process, illustrated in the account of the six days, an evolutionary one?

 

Perhaps the tale of the Garden of Eden is not mythological in origin; perhaps it is an allegorical rendition of an actual occurrence, a natural, evolutionary phenomenon.<sup>145</sup>

The biblical authors had of course no formalized notion of evolution. Unmistakably, however, their description is, in its way, an essentially evolutionary development. <sup>146</sup>

 

And Jehovah God formed man of the dust (Hebrew: clay) of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath (spirit) of life; and man became a living soul. (Gen. 2:7)

 

Firstly, God formed the physical body of man from the dust (specifically <u>clay</u>) of the ground. Throughout the Scriptures, the physical body of man is likened to clay, not just the vague dust of the ground, so that we should expect clay to have played an important part in the evolutionary process that culminated in man.

What does the scientific record say?

 

The evolution of life presents a similar problem, and may have followed the same kind of sequence, beginning with the existence of a suitable crystal, probably a very small one, relatively insoluble in water. A colloidal mineral would be ideal, and none is in fact more common, or better suited to the needs of a primitive gene, or more appropriate in a biblical sense, than clay.<sup>149</sup>

 

And the name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. (Gen. 2:14 NASB)

 

Probably some lines of … man died out, but it seems likely that a line in the Middle East went on directly to us, Homo sapiens. <sup>162</sup>

 

Again, scientific evidence and Scripture concur!

 

What is the significance of God breathing into a single man the breath (Hebrew‑spirit) of life and the consequent result of that man then becoming a <u>living</u> soul?

 

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:24 NASB)

 

In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath (spirit) of mankind? (Job 12:10)

 

But there is a spirit in man, And the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding. (Job 32:8)

 

  1. According to the scriptures, all living things have a soul, but only man has a spirit.
  2. The Hebrew word translated 'breath' may equally be (and is in some other verses) translated as spirit.
 

What I am leading up to is this: man the physical creature evolved, and at a certain point in his evolution he was given a spirit directly by and from God with which he could express God and have the likeness of God. Adam was the first man as we his descendants are, being the first creature to reach the stage of evolution at which God gave him a spirit. This also seems confirmed by the thought of other Scripture (l Cor. 15:45, 47): … “The first man Adam became a living soul… The first man is of the earth, earthy:”…

What evolved characteristic was reached in man that differentiated him from the other creatures? Both man and all other creatures have souls‑ what difference is there between man’s soul and the souls of animals? <u>Only man</u> has a free will. Animals must choose either according to rational thought processes (mind) or according to instinct (emotions).

Free will is inevitably associated with intelligence. To do something willful, after all, you ‑have to understand the existence of alternatives and choices among them, and these are attributes of intelligence. <sup>153</sup>

 

The attainment of free will is dependent on the attainment of a certain level of intelligence. Intelligence requires not only a minimum gross brain size but also a low brain‑to‑body ratio <u>and</u> a high level of “adaptive capacity” neurons. Only Homo sapiens (modern man) meets all <u>three</u> of these <u>requirements</u>.

 

It is, therefore, highly probable that with mankind the intellectual faculties have been mainly and gradually perfected through natural selection.<sup>167</sup>

The evolution of intelligence was a consequence of the process of natural selection. Can we thus bring this process under the scrutiny of the physical sciences?

It was by the process of natural selection, acting on the trait of increasing cranial capacity (and complexity) produced by genetic mutation, that man evolved with an increasing mental ability leading to intelligence sufficient to have a free will. Eventually, a mutation occurred that would, when expressed, reach the point at which man’s intellectual powers gave him a free will.

This recessive mutation was spreading itself through the pre-Adamic population as a heterozygote, that is, it was paired with a dominant gene of the pre-­mutation variety. The selective advantage of the mutation ensured such a spreading. Inevitably, two individuals with such heterozygous genes mated and produced the first offspring with both genes being of the recessive mutant variety. When this offspring reached maturity, he was the first one of his species whose intelligence was of a degree sufficient for him to have a free will. This offspring was Adam; and he then received a spirit with which, by the exercise of his free will, he could choose to receive God Himself into this new part of him and thus express God. It was at this point in his evolution that man became a conscious being. But this incurs a problem: Adam was unique. If Adam mated with others of the pre‑Adamic population, there would be a fifty percent chance that his offspring would be heterozygous and consequently would not have free will, while having a spirit. Thus all of Adam’s immediate offspring must be homozygous for this trait, for him to truly be the “first man” of the Adamic race of man. Therefore, Adam must have a mate who is also homozygous for the same genetic trait. But Adam alone was homozygous for this trait.

How did God solve this problem?

 

The sex chromosomes are named, by convention, the X‑chromosome and the Y­-chromosome. Normal human males have 1 X‑chromosome and 1 Y‑chromosome; normal females have 2 X‑chromosomes. <sup>178</sup>

And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him… And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which Jehovah God had taken from the man, builded he into a woman and brought her unto the man. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. (Gen. 2:18, 21‑23)

 

It is possible to clone a woman from a man. However, it is not possible to clone a man from a woman. God cloned Eve from Adam so that the required trait would be retained by Adam’s offspring.

The sixty‑four dollar question: <u>Who was Cain’s wife</u>?

It is clear from the order of these verses that Cain’s wife was not a member of his immediate family (which would be a direct violation of the Mosaic laws against incest) ‑ something that would necessarily be the case if Adam and Eve were the literal, abracadabra style of first man and woman. Who, then, was she?

Cain’s wife was one of the offspring of Adam’s heterozygous contemporaries!

 

If Adam and Eve were in a literal sense the instant (bara) solitary couple who were the progenitors of the human race, then why didn’t God save only Noah and his wife (especially since Noah was the only one of his generation whom God stated that He had found righteous) and start again with just one couple? The answer is that this would provide too small a genetic pool, just as Adam and Eve were not the first man and woman per se but the first man and woman as we their descendants today are: with free will and a human spirit.

 

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This entire post reminds me of the way some people will take a random factoid about quantum physics and claim that therefore “science proves” that the paranormal is possible. It’s nonsense. It looks to me like you’re desperately hunting for something, anything that the Bible may have managed to get right by accident.

For example, take the theory that colloidial clays may have formed the backbone for primitive DNA molecules. This is a nice theory but not yet proven. Even if it were, why doesn’t the Bible say that ALL living things were formed of the dust of the earth? It doesn’t. It only says that Adam was formed that way, and the breath of life breathed into his body. Obviously that passage in the Bible is only meant to emphasize the way Adam was deliberately created in the image of God, the way a man might sculpt a clay figurine. It has nothing to do with the origin of life and the Bible is making no such claim.

And again you mention the way sex chromosomes work, XX and XY. But you overlook the fact that you can’t clone a human being at all without an ovum, a female egg cell – and that is only made by a female body. The female HAS to come first, not the male the way the Bible describes it, so the Bible is wrong again. And if you could clone humans, what would you need males for anyway? :slight_smile:

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Science validates the Bible. Nonsense but two words usually known as BS would be better.

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Free will? What the hell is free about it? Nothing, regardless of the definition.

Every choice involves risks and possible benefits and definitely costs. No choice is without cost. No choice is free!

Like the free market, markets are not free. They are both full of risk and reward. Yes, the choice is yours and so is the cost and the potential benefit, which by the way, will require work. God is a great blasphemer of humanity and free will is just one of the stupid statements god religionists use to try to squash humans.

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Imagine I were to run the following argument.

step 1: I have a (hypothetical) mathematical function F(a,b) which computes the difference between two numbers;

step 2: I use this function to compare a number (for example, 1213), to itself;

step 3: calculating F(1213,1213) yields the (suprising) result there is a positive difference between 1213 and 1213.

Therefore, I conclude that my math shows that 1213 does not equal 1213. Furthermore, my functions shows that any number compared to itself yields an inequality.

This is absurd, of course. I cannot use math to disprove math. This is circular reasoning.

In the same way, science can never validate an unscientific hypothesis.

 

 

 

 

 

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Actually we were created in the image of our ancestors (artists renderings).

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Gotta love really really really really long posts that have no information or even entertainment value.

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Therefore, I conclude that my math shows that 1213 does not equal 1213.
How did you do that? It looks like your result was misinterpreted.

 

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pgardner2358: “Remember that man has free will and that entails certain ramifications necessary to prevent undue influence of that free will.”

If St Peter is standing at the gates to heaven he is bound to question what we have done with the gifts God endowed to us. Surely we will not be judged culpable if we have worshiped God by applying our God given intellect to the best of our ability and actually used his gift to us all of free-will.

“God’s pious sheep, his bounteousness refused / let will and reason atrophy unused…”

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God needs to fire St Peter. The doors are not opened by free-will. They are opened by good morals and following the Laws of God. Reason and free-will will only cause one to question Gods laws.

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Let’s clarify that. If you believe that God made man (and women) and endowed us all with intelligence and free-will, how would He feel if these faculties were ignored and discarded in favour of blind faith? If St Peter holds the key to the pearly gates he is more likely to let in an atheist than a Christian, don’t you think? After all I would be pretty p…sed off if I gave someone a priceless gift and they threw it away without even opening it.

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Oh Michael, you’re so confused!!! Don’t you know that their god’s will is written on your heart!! It takes way more faith to be an atheist!!! Why, just look at trees and sunsets and other pretty things… how could pretty things just happen??? It’s you who is rejecting whatever god the theists are duped justified in believing in!!!

Meanwhile, back in reality…

Like House said, “If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people.” It is only fun to have conversations with thoughtful and interesting theists, so don’t get excited that you’re entering into one of them right now. Your valid questions are possibly sailing far over the head of the intended target as I type this.

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What’s is the estimated population of heaven now?

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Since the invention of the printing press, it has become harder to discard the old myths, there are too many dang copies of them lying around. But more and more, I’m hearing an answer to the “what if you’re wrong” question, “what if you meet St Peter at the gate?” That answer is that hopefully God is like us and uses reason and logic to determine what’s true and therefore judges us not so much on our conclusions but on our attempts at figuring out the questions of the universe. Hopefully he judges us for our compassion and forgiveness, not for our beliefs or how we enforced arbitrary laws. Eventually, I believe, this will become canon.

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There is a knock on St. Peter’s door. He looks out and a man is standing there. St. Peter is about to begin his interview when the man disappears.

A short time later there’s another knock. St. Peter gets the door, sees the man, opens his mouth to speak, and the man disappears once again.

“Hey, are you playing games with me?” St. Peter calls after him.

“No,” the man’s distant voice replies anxiously. “They’re trying to resuscitate me.”

On their way to get married, a young couple are involved in a fatal car accident. The couple finds themselves sitting outside the Pearly Gates waiting for St. Peter to process them into Heaven. While waiting, they begin to wonder: Could they possibly get married in Heaven? When St. Peter shows up, they asked him. St. Peter says, “I don’t know. This is the first time anyone has asked. Let me go find out,” and he leaves.

The couple sat and waited for an answer. . … . for a couple of months. While they waited, they discussed that IF they were allowed to get married in Heaven, SHOULD they get married, what with the eternal aspect of it all. “What if it doesn’t work?” they wondered, “Are we stuck together FOREVER?”

After yet another month, St. Peter finally returns, looking somewhat bedraggled. “Yes,” he informs the couple, “you CAN get married in Heaven.”

“Great!” said the couple, “But we were just wondering, what if things don’t work out? Could we also get a divorce in Heaven?”

St. Peter, red-faced with anger, slams his clipboard onto the ground.

“What’s wrong?” asked the frightened couple.

“OH, COME ON!!” St. Peter shouts, "It took me three months to find a priest up here! Do you have ANY idea how long it’ll take me to find a lawyer?

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“Actually we were created in the image of our ancestors.” (love it!)

But it was a long and winding road. :wink:

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Yep, good ol’ granpappy Ukha. He sure loved him some bugs. Them was the good ol’ days, 64.6 Million yrs ago. No fancy shmancy MacDonald’s, Burger King’s, fast food. Yer fast food was the ones you had to snap out of the air. And more often you had to root around for what you et, or have deadly combat with a cockroach twice the size of your head.

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First post, and I’ll jump in with my two cents. Please don’t bite my head off.:

My position is that of agnostic atheist; that means I don’t believe in god(s), but do not claim to know… Reason for lack of belief; No proof.

Before making a claim about the bible as the word of God, the claimant needs first to prove the existence of god. Slight problem there; as metaphysical questions tend to be, the existence of god is an unfalsifiable claim. IE God cannot be argued into or out of existence.

The Bible as word of god has a different, pragmatic issue. The New Testament accepted today (each sect with its favourite translation) bears little resemblance to what was first written down between one and two human generations after the putative death of Jesus. The problem; the printing press was not invented until the fifteenth century. Before that, all books had to be copied by hand. A great many errors snuck in.

I do not claim to be an erudite biblical scholar. I depend on experts. In this case, it’s the highly respected former Christian Biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman. The Book is called “Misquoting Jesus”,and I recommend it to anyone with an open mind. In my experience that precludes Christian apologists. I have alway found such people to have one agenda; confirmation of existing beliefs. They will reject anything which contradicts doctrine. Prof Ehrman’s book falls into that category.

Below are two passages from Wikipedia, which seem about right. Imo the full article is worth reading for a broad idea of the book’s contents:

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Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (published as Whose Word Is It? in United Kingdom) is a book by Bart D. Ehrman, a New Testament scholar at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[1] The book introduces lay readers to the field of textual criticism of the Bible. Ehrman discusses a number of textual variants that resulted from intentional or accidental manuscript changes during the scriptorium era. The book made it to The New York Times Best Seller List.[2]

Summary
Ehrman recounts his personal experience with the study of the Bible and textual criticism. He summarizes the history of textual criticism, from the works of Desiderius Erasmus to the present. The book describes an early Christian environment in which the books that would later compose the New Testament were copied by hand, mostly by Christian amateurs. Ehrman concludes that various early scribes altered the New Testament texts in order to de-emphasize the role of women in the early church, to unify and harmonize the different portrayals of Jesus in the four gospels, and to oppose certain heresies (such as Adoptionism).

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I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church. I recall one sermon that was all about a verse in the Bible that said not a “jot or tittle” could be changed from God’s Word. In retrospect that was complete and total BS. The Bible was hacked together over the centuries, with certain powers deciding what could be part of it and what couldn’t. Also many many translations have no doubt changed meanings in all sorts of ways. Of course the faithful might just say that all of those edits were directed by God, so that not one jot or tittle of meaning varies from His Word. Bullcrap.

But then, all of the stories were pretty much fiction to begin with, tho some may have had some factual bases. e.g., A person named Jesus who carried on with a group of men and had religious followers may have existed. But the supernatural stuff is for sure fiction, and who knows about all the other details? Probably also heavily fictionalized. And then as the centuries passed from the first century, the stories were no doubt edited more and more. And those who wanted some stories told, and others to be considered heresies, effectively changed what would come down to us today.

The history of the Koran is pristine in comparison to that of the Bible. Science would have a better shot at validating that load of dogma.

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