Evidence for and against the Bible

Originally posted by marg6043

Now, if you were the Catholic church, and knew that there were people like seapeople and marg6043 who loath the religion and will do anything they can do desecrate it though they know nothing or very little about it, wouldn't you send your own researchers out to check it out instead of assuming these people who hate you just proved your religion wrong?

I beg your pardon, now you don't have anything else to said that you have to insult me, can you prove that I am desecrating the world of "God" and by the way how do you know that the world of God is in the bible.

Can you prove it? I am very upset with your post and I think you are insulting me.

Tonight you will have nightmares, I promised.

Do you think I should trust places like this,

Institute for Creation Research
A Christ-Focused Creation Ministry

Yes perhaps you do but in my case I am less gullible than you.

[edit on 23-2-2005 by marg6043]

Marg, I apologize if I misinterpret your actions. I get the impression that you have it out for Christianity and will do anything you can to discredit it. No, I can't prove it, because I can't read your mind. This is just the impression I get from reading your posts over time on this board. I apologize if this interpretation is wrong.

As for the rest of the comments after hers, I shall address that tomorrow, if I can. I just wanted to let marg know that that is the impression I have gotten from her over time here at ATS. Again, if I'm wrong, I apologize.

Originally posted by junglejake
As for the rest of the comments after hers, I shall address that tomorrow, if I can. I just wanted to let marg know that that is the impression I have gotten from her over time here at ATS. Again, if I'm wrong, I apologize.

Well Gee I had the same impression, I do not see her speaking such ill and disgust with any other religion..........at least she is consistent.

Originally posted by Amuk
So it is MORE reasonable to believe it happened in 6 days?

Alas, I've gone and turned this into another evolution/age of earth debate. My purpose was to simply throw a wrench in the holes I see with our current models of evolution and geologic age. The church (meaning Christians, not the Catholic church as a governing body) is torn on this issue of Genesis and the 6 days vs. ages debate. I was simply addressing your comment about geology not backing up the Bible.

We as humans still have a lot to learn scientifically, and I was just trying to point out that today's theories are not the end all be all of scientific fact. How was the sun explained before nuclear reactions were understood? It wasn't just assumed to be an unknown, there were some "solid" theories as to how it worked (For more info on this, do a search for posts only made by me since the beginning with the keywords iron, sun, and 1927). The theories were very elaborate and had a lot of explanations using that which was known at the time to explain things. The theories, in theory (), worked, they were just wrong.

So getting back to the original focus of this thread, I'm going to gather a wee bit of info on probibility when I take lunch here at work, and hopefully be able to post about it this afternoon.

Rock, rock on!

Ummmm, everyone know I'm not Christian, but why do they think the world was created in six days? This always confuses the hell outa me. Doesn't it state somewhere in the bible, something like, "a thousands years is but a day unto god" something to that effect.....so, wouldn't that mean it took him six thousand years to create it all?




EDIT: I just noticed how long this thread is. If this had been mentioned before....sorry, I have not read it all. I'm trying to wean myself a bit from the religious threads, "trying" being the operative word here LOL


[edit on 2/24/2005 by LadyV]

Jake thanks for you post, and not harm done.

Originally posted by LadyV
Ummmm, everyone know I'm not Christian, but why do they think the world was created in six days? This always confuses the hell outa me. Doesn't it state somewhere in the bible, something like, "a thousands years is but a day unto god" something to that effect.....so, wouldn't that mean it took him six thousand years to create it all?

Actually is more of a Christian way of trying to come to terms about time that is another problem with the bible, the time lines, the ancients civilizations had a different time keeping, it was called Saroi if you go back a page you can read on it.

The Saroi, was dismissed by the bible redactors because the time span was to long to fit what the bible was telling about time, so they used years instead of Saroi, and I find that to be one of the mistakes in the bible, but it was a mistake made by man not God.

Originally posted by Amuk
So how long should it have took for an All powerful, all knowing, creature that was capibile of doing ANYTHING and incapible of making a mistake but looks just like a human being to appear from NOTHING?

Good lord, I can't believe I have to keep bumping this for you to atleast acknowledge the possibility that God always existed. God was never created. God did not create himself. God simply is. He is eternal. Atleast give me a, "That is simply retarded and doesn't make any sense."

You are lord of lords
You are king of kings
You are mighty God
Lord of everything

You're Emmanuel
You're the great I am
Noble prince of peace
Who is the lamb

You're the saving god
You're my saving grace
You will reign forever
You are ancient of days

You're the alpha, omega, beginning and end
You're my savior, messiah, redeemer, and friend

He is, was, and always will be. Can't defend that with secular information, though.

SomethingInBetween, completely forgot to address your comments and will probably not be able to today, but I will do so tomorrow (night, worst case scenario)

As to the Saroi arguement, I'll go into more detail on that tomorrow, too.

Rock, rock on!

Originally posted by purecanadiantrash

Originally posted by Amuk
So how long should it have took for an All powerful, all knowing, creature that was capibile of doing ANYTHING and incapible of making a mistake but looks just like a human being to appear from NOTHING?

Good lord, I can't believe I have to keep bumping this for you to atleast acknowledge the possibility that God always existed. God was never created. God did not create himself. God simply is. He is eternal. Atleast give me a, "That is simply retarded and doesn't make any sense."

The problem is we arent debating the existance of God, but the history of the Bible and trying to prove it with science. How many times do I have to repeat that?

Can you not acknowledge that if its possible for a "God" to exist that its also possible for a much less complex thing, say a rock, to just exist? How much greater are the odds of the All powerful etc etc being just existing having come from nothing, just there, than the rock? It doesnt make sense.

As for believing in God I have noted several times in this thread and probably a hundred times on this board that I DO BELIEVE IN GOD.

Even giving you your "God" as a creator how does that prove the Christian Bible any more than the Norse or Greek creation myths?

Originally posted by edsinger
Ah but a royal flush 50000 times in a row? Come on, you know the numbers are staggering, even if you don't believe in God you have to at least acknowledge the universe is beyond chance don't you?

Let me put it a little different.

What are the odds of the one sperm out of billions making THAT person? Mutiply that but 6 billion now what are the odds of THESE SIX BILLION people existing and no others? Much higher the drawing 50000 royal flushes.

And as Nygdan has mentioned I can go to the beach and pick up a grain of sand. What are the odds of THAT grain of sand laying exactly where it was and not somewhere else in the universe? Much higher than drawing 50000 royal flushes.

What are the odds of a specific rock coming through the vastness of space to land in someones front porch and not somewhere else? Much higher than drawing 50000 royal flushes.

With the countless stars and planets out there what are the odds that life DIDNT evolve on one of them?

It just happened to be this one.

PS if the life on Mars thing is ever proved it would make you think that life might be MUCH more common than just Earth.

With the countless stars and planets out there what are the odds that life DIDNT evolve on one of them?

The odds ? The odds say that every baby being born has a better chance of coming out , holding a royal flush in its hands, then of evolution ever actually happening.
When I see the former, I will take another look at the latter

Originally posted by jake1997
The odds ? The odds say that every baby being born has a better chance of coming out , holding a royal flush in its hands, then of evolution ever actually happening.

the odds on the babies are HIGHER the the odds I mentioned in my posts. Can you deny any of them happened? The 6 billion on the planet are here, the grain of sand is in THAT EXACT PLACE, the rock hit the porch out of the trillions of light years of space it could have hit.

ALL have a lower chance than every baby being born with a royal flush in its hand.

But everyone has happened

Originally posted by Amuk
The problem is we arent debating the existance of God, but the history of the Bible and trying to prove it with science. How many times do I have to repeat that?

Can you not acknowledge that if its possible for a "God" to exist that its also possible for a much less complex thing, say a rock, to just exist? How much greater are the odds of the All powerful etc etc being just existing having come from nothing, just there, than the rock? It doesnt make sense.

As for believing in God I have noted several times in this thread and probably a hundred times on this board that I DO BELIEVE IN GOD.

Even giving you your "God" as a creator how does that prove the Christian Bible any more than the Norse or Greek creation myths?

Ok, good enough. I've already said all I had to say about God not being constrained by the same physical laws that constrain a rock - those which only exist under the condition that there are three dimensions of space and one of time - such conditions which came into existence when the universe began with the big bang.

I cannot prove the bible to be completely legit. Nobody can and nobody will, especially in this thread. It seems to me all you're interested in is cold, hard, tangible evidence, such as a piece of noah's ark or the rotten corpse of Jesus or something along those lines. You're not gonna get that. So I ask, what is it that you're looking for? I can give you a modern, accurate translation of creation according to genesis that holds stead given what we know today about science, ancient hebrew language, whatever.

Also, I'd recommend you look into bible propecy, which is kind of like god's way of putting his signature on his word to make it seem genuine. You could make the case that a few interesting things have happened in the last couple thousand years that the bible seems to have predicted without a shadow of a doubt, most recently the homecoming of the jews to their sovereign nation of Israel back in '45 or whatever the date was. From what I remember, that date is right there in the bible - with a little bit of translation and conversion, for good measure.

Originally posted by purecanadiantrash
Ok, good enough. I've already said all I had to say about God not being constrained by the same physical laws that constrain a rock - those which only exist under the condition that there are three dimensions of space and one of time - such conditions which came into existence when the universe began with the big bang.

EXACTLY.

Before the big bang the rock wasn't subjected to time and space either, since pre-big bang neither of these existed.

So I ask, what is it that you're looking for?

I don't know, maybe what I asked for in the first post? For everyone to post their favorite evidence for and against?

I can give you a modern, accurate translation of creation according to genesis that holds stead given what we know today about science, ancient hebrew language, whatever.

Please do so.

You could make the case that a few interesting things have happened in the last couple thousand years that the bible seems to have predicted without a shadow of a doubt, most recently the homecoming of the jews to their sovereign nation of Israel back in '45 or whatever the date was. From what I remember, that date is right there in the bible - with a little bit of translation and conversion, for good measure.

where did it predict the date?

Nostradamus and Sylvia Brown also have made some predictions that have come true but I don't worship them either. There has been some predictions from the Bible that have seemed to have been wrong, Jesus telling the people that "these things shall come to pass in your lifetime" for instance

I am just trying to have a reasonable debate on the scientific accuracy of the Bible, nothing more or nothing less

Originally posted by Amuk
Before the big bang the rock wasn't subjected to time and space either, since pre-big bang neither of these existed.

What I'm trying to say is that there was no rock before the big bang. There was nothing. But anways, this is over with.

As far as genesis is concerned, read over this if you aren't sure of its validity as in it holding up to modern understanding. I already gave you a little tidbit but you were unresponsive then and probably will be now.

I’ll simply read to you some extracts of a paper by William Lee Stokes that appeared in the November 1981 issue of The Investigator, which highlights the absurdities of taking scripture literally brought to mind by renowned 20th century philosophers J.H. Randall and Paul Tillich.

‘Maybe an inspired Moses told the story of the creation in the simple language that his generation could grasp, yet presented it also as an allegory that would conform to the knowledge that future generations would acquire. If his intention was to teach that God is the Creator, then the simple story may have been sufficient until the allegory could be understood.

‘What an impressive lesson it would be if the ancient scriptures should turn out to contain information that only now is being discovered. Indeed, this astonishing foreknowledge can be simply detected in the allegory of the creation. It is a dramatic message from the past that was not concealed in hidden scrolls or secret caves, mind you, but was available all along in the Bible for anyone to ponder.

‘The allegory, though cryptic and obscure, is not too deep to fathom. Let’s examine it line by line:’

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.--Genesis 1:1.

‘This [scientific] idea of creation is called the big-bang theory. As many scientists perceive it, the cosmic boom expelled from the center of the universe unorganized matter, which eventually began to form into galaxies. One of the original billions of galaxies contained the stuff of which our planet eventually was made. But these floating ingredients might well have been described by Moses as earth, with a small “e”. Not until later in the Genesis account--after the planet had taken shape--was the “E” capitalized. By this time, Moses was no longer writing about formless “earth” but a specific “Earth.”

‘Similarly, the word “heaven” did not acquire a capital “H” until seven verses later when it referred to a specific firmament. But in the first few verses, the earth still consisted of formless particles, and heaven apparently was the space in which the particles drifted.’


And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.--Genesis 1:2

‘Moses must have addressed this statement less to the simplistic Israelites than to the sophisticated scientists who someday would discover the secrets of the universe. The earth was “without form” only when it was a shapeless mass. Thus Moses must have been describing the earth in its unorganized, galactic state.’

‘As a gigantic space cloud, the galaxy also had a face which distinguished it from the other formations in space. So Moses was quite correct in reporting that “darkness was upon the face of the deep” during the first creative phase.’


And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.--Gene­sis 1:2

‘The earth may have begun as formless dust adrift in space, all right, but where were the waters that Moses spoke of?

‘This has become less mystifying since 1969 when water was actually discovered in space. More than 50 interstellar molecules have not [sic] been identified beyond the solar system, not the least of which is H2O.
‘There is indirect evidence that the dust in some space clouds consists heavily of ice particles. Water is known to be abundant, for example, in early star formations. It is more than likely, therefore, that water was one of the necessary ingredients before our planet could be created and that it was present in our galaxy when the earth was “without form.”


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

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.--Genesis 1:4-5

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.--Genesis 1:6-8

‘In the creative chronology, we are now dealing with events between the production of light on the first day and the appearance of the earth on the third day. Since the earth had not been formed, the reference to “waters” could not have been the waters of earth but must have been the waters of space.’

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered to­gether unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land earth; and the gathering to­gether of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.--Genesis 1:9-10

‘According to Genesis, God called the planet “Earth,” with a capital “E.” Later in the second chapter, Moses emphasized again that the earth began its existence as “dry land.” Even after the creation was completed and called good, Moses wrote “the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,” (Genesis 2:5)’

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.--Genesis 1:11

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. -Genesis 1:16

‘That the sun did not appear until after the earth was created seemingly contradicts the basic fact of astronomy. But the emphasis in Genesis is not upon the creation of the sun and moon; the scriptures merely cite their appearance as lights to illuminate the earth’s skies.

‘In this context, the sequence is probably correct. Most scientific theories about the origin of the solar system start with a cloud of dust and gas. The gradual clumping to­gether of this material formed the sun, planets and satellites. A late stage in the process was the clearing away of the left-over dust and gas so that light could penetrate throughout the system.

‘The sun, then much hotter and brighter than it is now, burned away the nebular cloud. The burning pro­cess literally cleaned up the solar system. This would have made the sun, moon and stars visible from earth for the first time as a lighting system for the emerg­ing planet. The timing, as Genesis establishes it, is entirely appropriate to the fourth creative period.’

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.--Genesis 1:20

‘Today, each space mission brings back new evidence of the unique qualities of our planet. The conditions had to be exactly right before the earth could bring forth and support the life that abounds here. Who is to say that God was not behind these elaborate preparations?

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.--Genesis 1:26-27

‘... Yet no living thing in the experience of man has ever come forth without parents or forebears from which it has derived the genetic material that makes it what it is.

‘Then what about the biblical statement that Eve was created from Adam’s rib? Far-fetched? Centuries after Moses made this assertion, the process of cloning has just recently been discovered in modern labora­tories. Every single cell of a carrot root, say, can be isolated and will develop into a full plant.

‘These experiments show that the entire hereditary information needed for a new organism is contained in a single body cell. This has opened up vast areas of specula­tion; many science-fiction plots have been based on the possibility that human beings can be cloned. Is it possible Eve was cloned? Or was Moses using figurative language? Who can say?’

[edit on 24-2-2005 by purecanadiantrash]

Seems we are almost back on track after being dislodged by the 'God is and always was even though I can't prove that either' theory.' argument.

Now I want to throw another two into the midst;

1) It rained for 40 days; Water prevailed upon the earth for 150 (I will assume includes the 40) After a total of 283 days from the first day of rain had passed, Noah sent out a Dove which returned to him because it could not lite on anything. 7 days later he sent it out again and it returned with a plucked olive leaf in its mouth.

This is not possible, either in science or from the Biblical text itself. With waters towering thousands of feet above the olive trees, they would have drowned and the dirt soaked. The current as evidenced by Noah landing on the mountain top, would have killed all trees and removed all leaves. It would take longer than 7 days for leaves to grow.

Biblically, The dove 7 days previous had no place to lite obviously as it retuned to the ark, therefore the branches were not yet visible. More importantly, the Bible attests that the tree itself would have been destroyed 6:17:

"...and everything that is in the earth shall die."

and 7:23:

"And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground..."

Once more The Bible proves itself wrong and backed by science.


2) Ignoring the contentious 2 or 7 of every animal. I will be generous and go with the 2 of each unclean and 14 of each clean. The clean beasts are those that he is allowed to sacrifice and eat.

Now we have something called the food chain, where for example a snake would consume a rat, a mongoose a snake, a hyena a mongoose, a big cat a hyena and so forth.

Those carnivores were in that boat for 323 days minimum. The only way that Noah could have walked off of same with 2 of each in tact is for every single one of the females to have given birth to multiple fold of both sexes before Godzilla the raptor broke through his wodden hold and started chewing on human flesh. Noah could not have satisfied all of those animals for 323 days with clean meat.

Once again, the Bible proves itself wrong and backed by science.

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween

Those carnivores were in that boat for 323 days minimum. The only way that Noah could have walked off of same with 2 of each in tact is for every single one of the females to have given birth to multiple fold of both sexes before Godzilla the raptor broke through his wodden hold and started chewing on human flesh. Noah could not have satisfied all of those animals for 323 days with clean meat.

Once again, the Bible proves itself wrong and backed by science.

You know I asked something like that when I was a child in my Sunday school class, and the lady told us that "God provided the animals with food and Noah with the needs"

Occurs every time we had questions like that the "God made possible and God did ever thing" was the answer.

Good point SomewhereinBetween

(1) The Isrealites ate manna for 40 years...you dont think that God could provide food?


(2) In 7 days how far can a ship of that size travel? 1500+ Miles?

10knts/24hous/7days = 1600+

Lets see......gee thats a big area.......For all we know the ark could have been in the middle of the location now known as the Med and that in 7 days they neared the newly emerged hilltops?


Bible not proven in error - supported by science

It is my opinion that quoting the very literary source which has been called into question is pointless. The validity of these quotes and the subsequent theory regarding them is moot until it is established whether or not the source is pure and free of error.

We do know that the source is, indeed, neither pure, nor free from error.

The only valid copy of this work, IMO, are the modern interpretations made without animosity towards any one group of people, from the original Greek texts.

Just my PoV on the subject at hand.

the Fiend :.

Originally posted by edsinger
(1) The Isrealites ate manna for 40 years...you dont think that God could provide food?

What, was he watching his expenses that he couldn't afford to litter the desert with all 'manna' of food? he had to toss in only some honey flavoured type of bread and itty bitty birds? The Israelites were busy offering sacrifices and they had no meat? The Israelites were in the desert barely fighting off malnutrition by eating manna, yet they managed to find tent making materials, wood, gold, silver, fine linen, ram and badger skins dyed yet, for the tabernacle, breastplates, robes, girdles and even holy garments for the elect so that they may live comfortably and look marvellous while the rest ate manna for 40 years?

How gullible are you really?

(2) In 7 days how far can a ship of that size travel? 1500+ Miles?

Did someone ask this question?

This post has so many tangents spinning off it that it is rather overwhelming in trying to answer the original question.
Rather than get stuck into evolutionary and mythological debates, I think the moderators initial question was about the historical/archaeological evidence currently known-that is in favour of/ or against the validity of the Bible and its message.

Even though I can only scratch the surface today,
firstly, the Bible mentions the Hittites over 40 times but many scholars had believed the Hittite Empire to be just fable. In 1876 there was the discovery of temples, enormous stone sculptures and inscribed clay tablets (over 10,000) at a Turkish site which upon deciphering, revealed that the site was in fact the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire. (R. Price, 1997, The Stones Cry Out. ) sorry don't know the publisher.

Also in 1993 a team of archaeologists digging in northern Galilee "found a remarkable inscription from the 9th century BC that refers to the 'House of David' and to the 'King of Israel'" ("David Found at Dan," Biblical Archaeology Review, March-April, 1994, p.26 ).

There is other evidence that reveals that battles between the Israelites and the Assyrians actually took place when the Bible said it did (see- Erika Bleibtreu's "Grissly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death," Biblical Archaeological Review Jan-Feb, 1991) and there's evidence to support that Jericho's walls did fall outwards etc. (sorry, don't have a link to that )

I could really keep going and going and going.......

However, the fact that I got this 'evidence' from the Biblical Arch. Review could discount it all in the eyes of some people.
In fact, I reckon that I, or anyone, however qualified could keep providing proofs for the validity of the Bible but I don't think that that would ever be enough for some.

At the end of the day, I think that it really does boil down to one's 'faith' in whatever they personally believe in. Nothing really can be proved without a doubt; why else the proliferation of conspiracy theories?
We can't all have Masters in Archaeology and be skilled in understanding Aramaic or have Geological fieldwork experience which means that all our information and 'proofs' will come from sources that may have a particular slant. One can really keep turning in circles in trying to understand The Truth.

Personally, I believe the Bible is real and very valid. How could such a motley bunch of individuals (Moses would have been highly educated whilst living in Egypt, Peter was a fisherman, Daniel became on par with a modern Prime Minister etc) contribute to a book that is overwhelmingly uniform in prose, thought and direction? To me, there seems to just have been one Author.

And that's my two cents!