Thursday 3 July 2008

Religious nescience strikes again!

Here's another aneurism-inducing quotation from a creationist:

The bible does not contradict anything in reality. And most scholars believe the bible to be the most accurate history book ever written. It also talks about many things that took up until less then 100 years ago for science to discovery such as "the life is in the blood" which turns out that life comes from the DNA in our blood.

-CodeforSyn



Where do I begin with this one?

1) "The bible does not contradict anything in reality." This is blatently false. The Bible is filled to the brim with passages that contradict reality. How about the Bible giving impossible dimensions for Solomon's temple1 (resulting in the wrong number for Pi)? How about claiming that birds crawl around four legs2? How about claiming that rabbits chew cud3? There are many examples of things that are completely errorneous in the Bible.

2) "And most scholars believe the bible to be the most accurate history book ever written." Except that most scholars dont believe that at all. Perhaps most theologians, but definately not most scholars. There is actually very little in the Bible that has been supported with historical evidence. And even those few occurances that it mentions which did occur, the Bible does a very inaccurate job of describing them. Take, for example, the fact that the New Testament makes the claim that King Herrod wanted all young boys killed after Jesus was born. Its pretty certain that Herrod did exist; unfortunatley for those that claim the Bible is "historically accurate", though, Herrod is thought to have died five to ten years before Jesus was supposedly born. Another good example is the Exodus. When Moses attempted to liberate his people from the Egyptian, it was a pretty major event. Even if the leaving of so many slaves went unnoticed, it would be silly to think that no one would notice the repeated plagues - the frogs falling from the sky, the crop-devouring locusts, or the bloody water. At the very least, someone would have noticed the "angel of death", killing the first born sons. Yet, despite all of the devestating happenings, absolutely none of them were recorded by the Egyptians. Odd, for something that claims to be historically accurate. If you claim that the Bible is historically accurate, then you need to have evidence from other historical records that corroborate those claims. For most (if not all) the major 'events' in the Bible, this evidence is lacking.

3)"It also talks about many things that took up until less then 100 years ago for science to discovery such as "the life is in the blood" which turns out that life comes from the DNA in our blood" Except not. Ignoring his pittiful example, there has really been no "scientific discoveries" that have been made in the last 100 years which were explicitly stated in the Bible. Any examples to the contrary are examples of confirmation bias: creationists read a passage in the Bible, and equate it to a new discovery since they went in assuming that such discoveries were already in the Bible. The example that is provided is pretty poor, too. The idea that "life is in the blood" extends back at least as far as the ancient Greeks. And besides, DNA isnt just in our blood. Its in ALL our cells4.

Once again, a creationist speaks his mind on a topic which he is absolutely ignorant about. Such is the norm it seems.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. 1 Kings 7:23 "He made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about."

2. Lev 11:20-21: "All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you."

3. Lev 11:6: "And the hare, because he cheweth the cud..."

4. Except red blood cells, which have no nucleus (or any other organelles).

No comments: