A Scientific Bible?

If the Bible is inspired by an omniscient God, then even in the field of science and mathematics the Bible must be correct. Even the “Sorianista” (the followers of Eliseo Soriano’s sect) believe that God is the inventor of science…whatever that means.

It’s not the atheist’s job to prove whether the Bible is scientifically inaccurate. Hey! It’s the Christians who make the positive claim of infallibility.

But like other ancient literature, the Bible is prone to criticism and like other so-called sacred books; it’s only the adherents’ claim that the Bible is a word of a certain god or is it a product of a supernatural being.

Evangelical Christians claim that the scientific errors of the Bible are not errors because nothing is impossible to God. It may look like an error to a skeptic but since God is beyond natural laws and empirical science, God can bend the rules. Remember, God is the one who created natural law in the first place.

I think this is an absurd explanation, yet I have seen books, websites and Christian pamphlets that suggest this explanation in dealing with scientific inaccuracies of the Bible. You see, these people will be adamant to justify the doctrine of biblical inerrancy to the point of looking foolish. For them God can create a square triangle or a married bachelor – without further explanation, just to save their faith for further scrutiny. Faith is the motivation not knowledge and fanaticism is the outcome.

But not all Christians agree with such reasoning.

Don Stewart responded to those who question the Bible’s scientific qualifications in his book “Answers to Tough Questions”, “The Bible is not a textbook on science. Its purpose is not to explain in technical terms the technical data of the natural world, but to explain God’s purpose and relation to man, to deal with spiritual things. It is definitely not a technical textbook for scientists. The descriptions which the Bible gives concerning nature are neither scientific nor unscientific, but phrased in words that are non-technical and often general, so that even the common reader can follow the thought. This does not at all mean the statements are incorrect.” (P. 104)

In the TIME Magazine interview (January 15, 2007), Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the United State National Genome Research Institute and the author of the book The Language of God – A scientist presents evidence of belief said, “There are sincere believers who interpret Genesis 1 and 2 in a very literal way that is inconsistent, frankly, with our knowledge of the universe’s age or of how living organisms are related to each other. St. Augustine wrote that basically it is not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It is not intended as a science text book. It is intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous.”
But still, most Christians persist of making their faith look ridiculous.

So how scientific is the Bible?

What Christians advocate as “scientific” has two components. The first is to begin with unchallengeable statements which are Bible stories. Then they will try to find, in carefully selected natural phenomena, alleged corroborations of those stories.

The second is to look for any inconsistencies or controversy, no matter how trivial or evanescent, in real science and present it as proof of the validity of the Bible stories.

Real science proceeds in the opposite direction. Scientists use the result of observations to construct theories that support further observation.

Now let see how scientific the Bible really is.

The number one problem in the Genesis narrative is that Christians can’t even agree to themselves if the word “day” means a 24-hour period or a thousand years. Evangelicals agree to a 24-hour “day”. Young Earth Creationists (as they are known) always use misquoted reports, edited information, out dated research and books and will even scoff on carbon dating technique, accusing it of inaccuracies just to squeeze their belief.

I even saw a booklet from The Radio Pulpit, saying that dinosaurs and humans once live together. Talk about the Flintstones!

There also those who believe that the “day” in the creation story mean a thousand years. This is also known as the “The day-age theory” and they are known as Progressive Creationists. They don’t base it on geological finding…Nope; they base their interpretation from Psalms 90:4 and 2Peter 3:8.

That’s the difference between religion and science. Science base it’s knowledge from the evidence that were collected while religion interprets the belief first and will fashion its doctrine to fit the evidence.

Let us see more “Genesis science” and I will just skip the issues about “talking snakes” and trees that bear fruits of “life” and “knowledge”. Such objects are obviously mythological in nature.

Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Is the Bible suggesting that the entire universe is made up of water? This kind of thinking was very common in ancient times. Even the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus thinks that water was the first principle of life and the material world

Genesis 1:3-5 vs. Genesis 1:14-19
It seems the Genesis narrative is implying that planet Earth is older than all the heavenly bodies in the universe. Earth was created in an empty heaven in the first day and the rest of all the planets and stars are created in the 4th day.

Now if we’re going to believe that Earth is older than all the stuffs in the universe, we’re going to have a problem proving this. The distances between stars are measured in light years. Now in one second, a beam of light travels 186,000 miles. So in 8 minutes, light have traveled on a distance from the Sun to the Earth. We can say that the Sun is 8 light minutes away from Earth. In a year, light crosses nearly 10 trillion kilometers of intervening space. That is one light years.

The nearest star from planet Earth next to the Sun (our Sun is a medium size star) is Proxima Centauri which is 4.26 light years away. This means that the light from Proxima Centauri will reach Earth at 4.26 years.

The Andromeda Galaxy is 2 million light years away. The Galactic Center of the Milky Way (our galaxy) is about 28,000 light years away.

Given all that figures, how can be the universe be a mere 8,000 years old? According to Bishop James Ussher and John Lightfoot, God created the universe on October 23, 2004 BC. If light has been traveling at such distance in time and space…for about billions of years, then how is it possible that Earth (which is 6,000 old according to Evangelical Christianity be older than the universe?

Now what if we believe that Earth is about hmmm…a million years old according to Progressive creationists, can we justify that Planet Earth is still older than the universe? Let’s talk about the age of rocks and not the Rock of Ages. The oldest rock sample that was found here on Earth is about 3.5 to 3.8 billion years old. Oldest rock samples returned from the moon are 4.4 to 4.5 billion years old and the oldest meteorites are about 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old.

Knowledge of the Hubble constant and of the matter and vacuum density parameters allows us to estimate the age of the universe. Using a technique where we calculate the age of the stars, we can at least have a good approximation of the age of the universe.

There are two main ways of estimating ages of old stars: Heavy element abundances due to radioactive decay and lower luminosities.

A recent estimate places the age of the Universe at approximately 12.5 to 16 billion years old.

Genesis 1:3“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

There are a lot of speculations regarding Genesis 1:3. Some Christian sects reason out that “light” refers to radiation emitted by the Big Bang, while other says that it is some kind of cosmic radiation. Other suggests that the “light” is a metaphor that means order or law. Evangelical Christians suggest it’s magic.

Notice that the passage in Gen. 1:3 refers to a visible light. (Gen. 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good…) so we can discard the radiation presumption and the metaphor. Christian magical explanation is not scientific so we can discard it as well.

Genesis 1:4-5
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Does this only refer to the terrestrial world or the whole universe? There isn’t any evidence we could find to say that the whole universe has an interval of being dark in a certain period of time and being bright in a certain period of time. In the vastness of space, distribution of lightwave scatters. Visible wavelength becomes shorted. That’s why it’s dark in outer space.

So we come to the problem of “day and night”. A “day” refers to the period of the interval represented by one rotation of the planet around a light source, in our case, the Sun. So if God created the Sun in the forth day, then what causes day and night in planet Earth? How could there be “the evening and the morning” on the first day if there was no Sun to mark them?

When God created light and divided it, in what planetary rotation did he base his “day”? Remember that Earth still have no Sun to rotate in 24 hours. Also, other planets in the Solar System have its own “day”: Mercury = 59 days, Venus = 243 days, Mars = 24 Hour and 37 minutes, Jupiter = 9.8 hours, Saturn = 10.2 hours, Uranus = 17.24 hours and Neptune = 16.05 days.

The Solid Vault (Genesis 1:6-8)
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

The ancient Hebrews believed in a three-story universe filled with water. That is quite common with ancient Canaanite mythology. The word “tehom” (See: Job 26: 5-7, Jer. 4:33 and Is. 40:17.23) means the deep and cognate with the Sumerian/Babylonian “Tiamat” – the salt-water ocean.

This is the reason why in the Genesis myth, the Elohim divided the waters above and the waters below with a solid vault (raqia), which the English translators of the Bible referred as “firmament”. Evidence of this solid vault can also be found in Amos 9:6 as the word “aquddah” was used by its author (see also: Isaiah 40:22 and Psalms 104:2). The common poetic image of this “Hebrew astronomy” is a dome or tent covering a circle coin.

Evidence of such ancient astronomy belief system can also be found in an extra biblical source. In Nachmanides commentary of the torah he quotes from the ancient rabbis, “The heavens were in fluid form on the first day, and on the second day they solidified. Another ancient rabbi said, “Let the firmament become like a plate, just as you say in Exodus 39:3. Jewish Bible scholars agree that raqia suggest a firm vault or dome which held the stars and provided a boundary beyond which the divine dwelt.” (Nachmanides (Raban) Commentary of the Torah Vol. 1 pp 33-36)

The Hebrews taught that the heavenly bodies (stars, the Sun and the moon) are all inside this solid dome (Gen. 1:7). There wasn’t any idea of outer space at that time. This solid dome or “firmament” even has windows, flood gates or trap doors to let rain water or hail inside (Gen. 7:11, 8:2, Job 38:22, Psalm 104:3, 13). Beyond this dome is where the primeval waters are located. Remember…And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Even the writers of the New Testament believe this ancient astronomy. See Matthew 24:29 and Revelation 6:13-14.

Hey, check out these chapters and verses in the Bible to know what I mean: Job 38:22, Psalm 104:3, 13 and Genesis 11:4.

Well…humans have invented the rockets, have flown as far as the moon, Mars and Jupiter. Have already send space stations and a space mission out of our galaxy…never had it hit any solid vault between Earth atmosphere and the exosphere.

Genesis 1:11-12
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

So God created the plants first before he created the Sun (Gen. 1:16).

The booklet “Is the Bible Really the Word of God?’ by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania seems to imply that plants can live without the Sun by lightless photosynthesis (According to the booklet, a report from Science News letter of August 25, 1962, under the headline “Lightless Photosynthesis” Kurio Tagawa and Daniel Arnon succeeded in eliminating the need for light in a key energy-transforming reaction of the photosynthetic process in spinach leaves.)

Remember that the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in “Progressive Creation” so they have to justify that plants have live in planet for more than a thousand years without the Sun. But such justification produces dishonest answers. First, the Bible was quite clear on this, God brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, and these plants all required photosynthesis to live. They got green leaves remember? And second, we don’t have any evidence that somewhere between a million years ago, these plants (grasses, herbs and trees) does not use the Sun’s light to the process of photosynthesis.

I also wonder who created the bacteria, fungi, molds, ferns and certain aquatic plants. They seem to be left out of God’s list.

Genesis 1: 14-17
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

The moon does not have a light of its own; it only reflects light from the Sun. Also it seem to absurd to think that God spends a day making the Sun and the moon (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, after a hard day’s work, and almost as a late addition, he creates trillions of stars. Speaking of stars, why are only a tiny fraction of stars visible from earth? Under the best conditions, no more than five thousand stars are visible from earth with the unaided eye, yet there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion or so galaxies. Yet this verse says that God put the stars in the firmament “to give light” to the earth.

Genesis 1:29-30
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

I will not talk about evolution. There is really no need for that since there are a lot of website in the Internet that deal with the subject. But I can recommend The Panda’s Thumb and Talk Origin . The have good articles regarding Evolution that you can read.

According to one of the articles in this Christian propaganda pamphlet called The Radio Pulpit (Volume 45 September 2000 Number 9), “ Notice that God declared creation “very good” only after he first announced that all moving, breathing, feeling creatures would eat plants not each other.” (p. 42) In the same page it continues, “You may ask, “What about the big, sharp teeth of so many animals? Doesn’t that prove they are always meat eaters?” No, it only proves that they have big, sharp teeth.”

That what happened when a person doesn’t read elementary biology text books.

Evangelical Christians think that there was once a time when there were no carnivores. Well…that was correct on a micro level…on one-celled animals but not with lions, cheetahs, sharks, wasps, crocodiles and piranhas!

Herbivores and carnivores differ not only on “big teeth” as the Christian pamphlet suggests. They also differ in activities. Carnivores run faster in comparison with their body weight and the energy comes from protein which is in meat. Also, meat generates more body heat. That’s why reptiles are meat eaters.

In all mammalian carnivores the jaw articulation is arranged in such a manner that movement is limited to vertical hinge motions and transverse sliding. The temporal muscle dominates the jaw musculature, forming at least one-half of the total mass of the jaw muscles. In all modern carnivores the brain is large and the cerebral hemispheres are highly developed.

Bears (the sample used by The Radio Pulpit) are omnivores – they eat both meat (mostly salmons) berries and herbs. Panda’s teeth are built in cracking bamboos but its form is quite different from a Tasmanian devil or a crocodile. Frankly speaking, there aren’t any scientific evidences that support a theory that modern carnivorous animals were once herbivores. The earliest fossil records are early Paleocene, but the earliest well-represented material comes from the middle Paleocene of North America. During the Paleocene and Eocene the stem carnivorans or miacoids underwent considerable diversification in both the Old and New World. At the end of Eocene and beginning of Oligocene time throughout the Northern Hemisphere, a dramatic change took place within the Carnivora; this was the appearance of primitive representatives of modern carnivore families.

Genesis 6:4 There were giants on the earth at one time.
No evidence exists to supports this assertion.

“Flood Geology”

By a literal interpretation of the Bible, the worldwide deluge occurred in the year 2348 BCE. According to the story, the only humans to survive the flood were members of Noah’s own family, who rode in the Ark with Noah and the animals.

Christians believe that the Ark story is not a myth. Fundamentalist Christians believe there is evidence of a universal flood according to the Bible since Genesis 10:32 declares that the whole world was populated after the flood from the eight who were saved. This would not have been true if those outside the local area had not drowned. Peter refers to the salvation of only eight (1 Peter 3:20).

The story of the flood is a common mythology to many cultures around the world. Norman Giesler in his book, “When Skeptics Asks” assume that this is a proof of the flood really did happened. Other Christian uses the same reason. But two geophysicists, William Ryan and Walter Pitman have discovered evidence of a giant flood of epic proportion that happened 7,600 years ago in the region known as the Black Sea. Base on the findings, when this Mediterranean river overflowed, a catastrophic flood destroyed those living on its ancient shore lines. Naturally, ancient people assume that the flood had indeed covered the whole earth. Those who survived the deluge carried to them the story with their culture as far as Western Europe, Central Asia, China, Egypt and the Persian Gulf region via migration. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Deluge of Ziusudra and Noah’s Ark are all mythical tales passed down from generation to generation commemorating this epic event.

But is the story scientifically accurate? Let see:

Genesis 6:16
A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above;….

How could so many creatures breathe with only one small opening which was closed for at least 190 days–150 days plus an additional 40 days (Gen. 8:3-6)?

Genesis 6:17
“I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die.”

Gen. 7:4 supports this point, “…and every substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” Yet, how would a flood destroy animals living in the waters, especially those living in great depths, such as whales, porpoises, giant squids, tube worms , deep-sea crabs dolphins and all animals entirely underwater?

How did animals that are restricted to certain parts of the earth get to the Ark? If you have knowledge of different animals living on different geographic conditions you will know that it’s really not a feasible idea. Tamaraws, kangaroos, polar bears, koalas, kiwis and many others would have to have crossed vast oceans just to reach the location of Noah and the Ark. Slow animals from other continents–snails, sloths, turtles, and so forth–must have started their journey to the Ark before the earth was created!

How did many of the animals withstand climatic changes? Many of those from Polar Regions could not have withstood the heat of the Middle East.

How were animals prevented from killing their natural prey?

How the Ark was kept sanitary, since there was only one window and one door is beyond any scientific guess.

After being released, how did they return to their respective regions of the world? How did the New World primates or the Australian marsupials find there way back after the flood subsided?

The vegetation which many animals eat only grows in certain parts of the world. How was it brought to the Ark for storage? For example, how did Noah gathered the eucalyptus leaves which are the only food of the Koala bear?

If Christians denounce the theory of evolution , then explain it scientifically how tremendous variety of animals in the world today if only two of every species–two dogs, two cats, two elephants, two snakes, and so forth–entered and leave the Ark?

Genesis 8:11
“And the dove came in to him in the evening; and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off.”

It’s difficult to believe a dove could have found an olive leaf to freshly pluck in a world that had been submerged for nearly a year.

If the waters covered the Earth for a year, was the water salty or fresh? How fresh water fishes (or sea water fishes) survived?

Gen. 8:5 and 8:13 state the Flood covered the earth and its mountains. If so, where did all the water go?

How were the animals preserved after leaving the Ark? There was no grass except such as had been submerged for a year. How were the herbivores taken care of until the earth was again clothed with vegetation? There were no animals to be devoured by the carnivores, except those which were on the Ark. From whence came their food?

If all your answers to the following questions is that “God can do the impossible”, then you are automatically telling me that the Bible is not a scientific book.

Other “scientific” Bible verses

Genesis 9:2
And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

According to this verse, all animals fear humans. Although it is true that many do, it is also true that some do not. Sharks and the Komodo dragon, for example, are generally much less afraid of us than we are of them.

Genesis 9:13
I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

Does that mean that there were no rainbows prior to the flood? Rainbows are caused by the nature of light, the refractive index of water, and the shape of raindrops. There were rainbows billions of years before humans existed or it appears that the laws having to do with refraction of light were null and void prior to this time. You call that “scientific”?

Genesis 30:37-39
And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.
And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.
And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.

Jacob displays his (and God’s) knowledge of genetics by having goats copulate while looking at streaked rods. The result is streaked baby goats. This reminds me of the silly superstitions and old wife’s tale here in the Philippines. They believe that when a pregnant woman always sees a face of an ugly man, her child will be as ugly as the ugly man’s face. Or if a pregnant woman eats a certain food, it will have an effect the look or characteristic of her child…for example, if the mother always eats chocolate, chances are her child will be darker and if she always drinks milk, her child will have a fair complexion. This belief has nothing to do with the science of genetics.

Leviticus 11:5-6
And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

Deuteronomy 14:7
Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you.

The Bible says that hares and coneys are unclean because they “chew the cud” but do not part the hoof. But hares and coneys are not ruminants and they do not “chew the cud.” Physiologically, a ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal’s first stomach, known as the rumen, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again. Leporidae (Rabbits, coneys and hares) are not ruminants.

Leviticus 11:20
All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you

Name me a bird (fowl) that has four legs.

Leviticus 11:23
But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

Name me a “flying creeping thing” with four legs.

The Geocentric Solar System

Joshua 10:12-13
The spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Here’s the perfect verse that picture the idea of the Bible when it come to the Solar System – a geocentric universe. Ancient Hebrew believed that the Earth is in the center of the solar system and all the heavenly bodies (Sun, moon and stars) rotate around it. According to Bible astronomy, planet Earth is stable and it doesn’t move (See: Job 38:4-6, Job 9:6, 1 Chron.16:30, 2 Kings 20:11) and the Sun moves around it (Psalms 19:5-6).

The geocentric model originated in Babylon and it’s connected with astrology. Astrology is a pseudoscience – a claim in the absence of good evidence. It is a faith.

A Polish Catholic cleric named Nicholas Copernicus introduce the heliocentric model but the Roman Catholic Church place his writings on their list of forbidden books from 1616 to 1835.

The Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei concluded through observations that the Sun did not rotate around the Earth but rather the Earth rotate around the Sun. The Roman Catholic Church forced Galileo to recant under threat of torture. Not until December 28, 1991 when Pope John Paul II cautiously admitted officially that Galileo has been right and that the Church, as well as the Bible, had been wrong about the heliocentric model of the Solar System.

Thanks to the Laws of Planetary Motion of Johannes Kepler, we now have a better idea of a heliocentric model in which planet Earth, just like other planets in the Solar System, revolves around the Sun.

The Flat Earth
Another ancient and unscientific belief is that the Earth is flat. The Bible also promotes such archaic idea.

Ezekiel 7:2 Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.

Daniel 4:7-8 “I saw a tree of great height at the center of the world. It was large and strong, with its top touching the heavens, and it could be seen from the ends of the earth.”

The Greek mathematician/philosopher Pythagoras was the first person in the history to deduce that the Earth is a sphere (Not a flat circle that the Bible pictured).

Anaximander (of Miletus) (611–547 BCE) Ionian (Greek) natural philosopher: suggested Earth was a curved body in space. Realizing that the Earth’s surface was curved, he believed it to be cylindrical (with its axis east to west); and he was probably the first Greek to map the whole known world. He visualized the Earth as poised in space.

In the Greek city of Alexandria, around the 3rd century BCE., the Greek astronomer/philosopher Eratosthenes discovered that the surface of planet Earth is curve not flat, just by using sticks, his eyes, feet and brain, plus a taste for experiment. He also become the first person on this planet to measure the size of a planet – a feat not even the biblical “wise” character Solomon and his god has done.

Christopher Columbus, using Eratosthenes’ estimates of the circumference of the Earth proved that the Earth is a sphere. There were no “ends” of the Earth, no pillars and no corners. What Columbus discovered was the New World and an easy route to Asia.

Judges 16:17-22 Samson loses his strength as a result of having his head shaved. So where in the science of physiology says that human hair is the source of a person’s strength. Physical strength is in the muscular system. Human hair consist largely of dead, keratinized cells!

1Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2
This verse implies that the value of π is 3. (The actual value is approximately 3.14159.)
Since the molten sea was round with a diameter of ten cubits and a circumference of thirty cubits, we know that the biblical value of π is 3. (The actual value is approximately 3.14159.)

The Swiss-German physicist Johann Lambert (1728–1777) made the discoveries concerning the mathematical constant π. If you don’t know, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle is what we called Pi, also known as Archimedes’ constant. Its approximate value is 3.1419 but, being an irrational number, it can’t be written as a terminating or recurring decimal. For the record, the first 100 digits of π are: 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679.

Job 26:11
The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.

There aren’t any pillars that support heaven.

Job 39:13-16
Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?
Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust,
And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them.
She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without fear;

Ostriches are not cruel and stupid birds who abandon their eggs to die after laying them, as these verses imply. The verse reflect more of a traditional belief on desert dwellers that a scientific insight about ostriches.

Modern biologists know better than what the “scientifically insightful” author of Job mistakenly thought about the ostrich. Both Encyclopedia Americana and Britannica, describe ostriches as very caring parents. The female lays her eggs on the ground, but so do many other species of birds. The eggs are not abandoned to the heat of the sand, but in the female’s absence, the male incubates the nest. The male scoops out a hollow for the eggs, which are incubated by the female during the day and the male at night. When the young hatch, they are given watchful care by their mother. As a biological creature, the ostrich has survived for thousands of years, so obviously it is a successful procreator. Its labor is not in vain, as the passage above incorrectly declares.

Isaiah 13:10
For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

The Moon doesn’t shine its own light. Just like planets, the Moon only reflects its light from the Sun. By the way, around 450 BCE in Athens, Greece Anaxagoras was the first person to state clearly that the Moon shines by reflective light.

Daniel 8:10
And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.

To Daniel, stars are small objects that can fall from the sky and then be “stamped upon.” (See: Revelation 6:13)

Proverbs 6:6-8
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

Proverbs 6:7-8 described the ant as an industrious creature, “which having no chief, overseer, or ruler provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in harvest.”

Etymologists disagrees with this biblical verse. Unknown to the writer of the Book of Proverbs, ants (Formicidae) leave the nest, forage, and feed the queen (they have a queen); they rapidly expand the nest and care for the next brood. The founding queen continues to lay eggs and remains in the nest. When the colony reaches a certain size the queen lays fertilized (diploid) eggs, which receive a special diet and treatment, and will develop into reproductive females.

The Existence of Dragons
“…it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.”—Isaiah 34:13.
“…the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.”—Psalm 91:13.

One of the most universal monster myths is that of the dragon. The awesome, reptilelike beasts appear in the folklore of nearly every country. The mythical dragon is described as a reality in over a dozen additional Bible verses, including Psalm 74:13; Deuteronomy 32:33 and Micah 1:8.

Mythical Creatures.
“And owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces.”—Isaiah 13:21-22.
“Out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.”—Isaiah 14:29

The Bible contains innumerable other references to fanciful creatures, such as the Cockatrice—a serpent hatched from the egg of a cock whose mere glance could kill its enemies (Isaiah 11:8); Satyrs—creatures that were half man and half goat or horse (Isaiah 13:21); Fiery serpents (Deuteronomy 8:15) and Flying serpents (Isaiah 30:6).

Scientific Absurdities of the New Testament

Matthew 13:31-32
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

Mark 4:31
It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth:

The writers of the Gospels were incorrect when they say that the mustard seed is the smallest seed. Orchids have the smallest seed according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Epiphytic orchids seed weighs in at approximately 0.0000008 grams! Also, there are no trees in the mustard family (Brassicaceae), mustard seeds do not grow into “the greatest of all trees.” This plant is an annual or perennial herb.

Luke 1:44
For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

A fetus cannot understand speech.

Matthew. 24:29
“The moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven.”
Mark 13:24-25
“In those days … the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall.”
Apparently, the writers of the Gospels believed that the moon produces its own light, and that the stars are lights held in place by a firmament only a few miles above our heads. Of course this is gibberish. Trillions of stars will never fall to Earth and the moon does not produce its own light.

I Corinthians 15:36
Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:

Paul (and God) shows their lack of knowledge of botany by saying that only dead seeds will germinate. Actually, a seed must be alive to germinate. Dead seeds will remain “dead”.

Hebrews 1:10
And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:

God set the earth on a foundation; therefore, it must not move. (See: The Geocentric Solar System )

Revelation of John 6:13
“And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth….”

To John, the stars are just little lights a few miles away that can easily fall to the earth.

So how far and big are the stars? Unlike what the prophets, the Apostles and the Messiah believed, stars just doesn’t hang around inside Earth’s “firmament” like dainty little Christmas lights. The nearest star, our Sun (yep! In case you still doesn’t know, our Sun is a star) is already 150,000,000 km away. The nearest star system, Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri are 15 light years away. Beta Adromedae is about seventy-five light years away and the nearest galaxy in the Milky Way (our home galaxy), M31 is 2 million light years away. Oh and before I forget, a light year is equal to 9.46 x 10 to the 12th power kilometers. Very far huh?

Unlike what the Bible seems to imply, stars are massive. Our Sun, a medium size star can fit a thousand Earth in its interior. There are stars that are 10 times more massive that our Sun.

Revelation of John 7:1
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

It seems the New Testament has a different shape of the world. The Old Testament has a circular world …something lake a plate. Well, I guess that settles it: the earth is flat and at least quadrilateral in shape. (See: The Flat Earth)

Revelation of John 8:10
“And there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters.”

In the bible, stars are just little lights that can fall to the ground from the sky. (See: Revelation of John 6:13)

This is really not a very complete lists and maybe, just maybe this list is enough to support my point that the Bible is not a scientific book. So kids…if you use the Bible as a reference to your science test, chances are you’ll going to get a grade of “F”.

Until next time,
John the Atheist