In response to the few delusional pilots we endure who rely upon proper science for their lift, propulsion, fuel, navigation, radios and eye glasses to earn their living, yet dismiss proper science that opposes the virus of faith that has infected their brains, this is just a basic list on the subject for those who still think their favourite Bronze Age book of fairy tales is accurate/error-free/a source of knowledge/respectable/valuable/etc.. The list was copied from
Evil Bible. Lots of other outrageous bible content issues are summarized on this site.
This post is for the education/information/entertainment of the open-minded, truth-seeking, fact-based critical thinkers. This is for those that respect rational science and dismiss the imaginary supernatural god/gods when it comes to explaining, admiring, enjoying and gladly participating in the real world we have for our short lives. The value and pleasure of being alive, to appreciate the awesomeness of our world and universe, is always under attack by those who prefer to be impressed by lies and delusions. defaulting to the foolish nonsense of, "Wow, I don't understand, that's so complicated, so hard, so amazing, god must have done that!" Rational thinkers don't have to invent gods, because we are curious, reasonable and able to think critically, without fear of the ancient mythology of the imaginary god/hell/end of the world/rapture/etc.
Web sites/books/lists/people that oppose this list rely upon invalid junk science, ignorance, gullibility, logical fallacies and fear of the wrath of the supernatural power the bible itself invented (punishment/damnation/suffering/etc), rather than actual, real, proper science.
This is not intended to be a debate about science with creationists/intelligent design believers: It is not possible to have a debate about science with those who rely upon a superstitious, supernatural, invisible, imaginary friend with superpowers to explain what intelligent, educated, knowledgeable, expert, evidence-based scientists explain with science. As I have said before, debating science is not possible with god/designer believers for the same reasons you could not debate geology with someone who believes the Earth is flat or try to explain the theory of lift to a 2-year-old.
Science means actual, real, proper science. Science does not mean twisted junk science, nor does it include the incorrect and/or invalid writings, discussions or points of discredited scientists usually relied upon by creation/design believers, or have anything to do with any other invalid, incorrect and/or ignorant misinterpretations or misrepresentations of actual, real, proper science.
It is also not possible to debate science with those who pick and choose which parts of science they like (MRI/light bulbs/flu vaccinations/GPS/penicillin/organ transplants/jet engines/iPads/etc.) and which parts they don't like (scientific method/evolution/radiometric dating/astronomy/genetics/geology/plate tectonics/fossils/etc.) although all science works and develops the same way, under the same principles, with the same objective of explaining the world around us with rational, critical thinking using logic, reason and facts that can be verified, demonstrated and repeated by anyone.
Today's list of some scientific errors and obvious silliness in the bible:
1) The Genesis 1 creation account conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. Genesis 1:1 The earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. From science, we know that the true order of events was just the opposite.
2)
“And God said, Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3) and
“. . .And the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1 :5), versus
“And God said, ‘Let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night....’ “And God made two lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also… And the evening and morning were the fourth day” (Genesis 1 :14-19). These violates two major facts. Light cannot exist without a sun, and secondly, how can morning be distinguished from evening unless there is a sun and moon? Christians try to claim that god is the light he is referring to yet, considering the context it is quite obvious that the light god is speaking of is the light emitted by the sun. But this is just another feeble attempt at trying to rationalize such a major blunder.
3) God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament (Genesis 1:6-8). This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters. This firmament, if it existed, would have been quite an obstacle to our space program.
4) Plants are made on the third day (Genesis 1:11) before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (Genesis 1:14-19).
5)
“And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind… ‘And the evening and the morning were the third day” (Genesis 1:11-13), versus
“And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life… And God created - great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly… And the evening and the morning were the fifth day” (Genesis 1:20-23). Genesis says that life existed first on the land as plants and later the seas teemed with living creatures. Geological science can prove that the sea teemed with animals and vegetable life long before vegetation and life appeared on land.
6)
“And God said, ‘Let the water bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven” (Genesis 1:20). Birds did not emerge from water.
7)
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, the beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made…every thing that creepth upon the earth after his kind…" (Genesis 1:24-25). Science contends that reptiles were created long before mammals, not simultaneously. While reptiles existed in the Carboniferous Age, mammals did not appear until the close of the Reptilian Age.
8)
“So God created man in his own image,...male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27), and
“the evening and the morning were the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31). If Adam was created on the 6th day, approximately 6,000 years ago (Bishop Usher’s calculations), then nobody lived before 4,000 B.C. Prehistoric men would be fictitious. By tracing the genealogy of Jesus back 77 generations to Adam, the third chapter of Luke also supports belief in a very young earth. If each man had lived approximately 100 years, then the world would be no more than 9,684 (7,700 + 1984) years old. If each of Jesus’ ancestors had lived to be 1,000 years old (an age not even reached by Methuselah), the earth would still be only 78,984 (77,000 + 1984) years old, according to creationists.
9)
“And to every beast of the earth, and 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” (Genesis 1:30). Carnivorous beasts and fowl do not eat green herbs, nor were all animals originally herbivores. Simply consider tapeworms, vampire bats, mosquitoes, barracudas, tigers, etc.
10) In Genesis 1, the entire creation takes 6 days (Genesis 1:31), at the end of which the earth and its living things are pretty much as they are today. But we know from modern science that the universe (including the earth and life on earth) evolved slowly over billions of years.
11) In Genesis 2:7 humans are created instantaneously from dust and breath, whereas they actually evolved over millions of years from simpler life forms. Science can in fact trace back human evolution conclusively over 3.2 million years.
12) God makes the animals (Genesis 2:18) and parades them before Adam to see if any would strike his fancy. But none seem to have what it takes to please him. After making the animals, God has Adam name them all. The naming of several million species must have kept Adam busy for a while. Adam would still have to be living for we haven’t even discovered nor named all the species yet. Also consider the idea of every living creature being brought to the Middle East, that would have killed many animals due to climatic changes.
13) God curses the serpent, making him crawl on his belly and eat dust (Genesis 3:14). One wonders how he got around before -- by hopping on his tail, perhaps? But snakes don’t eat dust, do they?
14)
“There were giants in the earth in those days.” Genesis 6:4 But there is no archaeological evidence for the existence of these giants. Also there is a reference to the “Nephilim” being on the earth, which is a term used for half angel, half human. There no archaeological evidence for the existence of the Nephilim either.
15) Noah is told to make an ark that is 450 feet long (Genesis 6:14-15). The largest wooden ships ever built were just over 300 feet, and they required diagonal iron strapping for support. Even so, they leaked so badly that they had to be pumped constantly. Are we to believe that Noah, with no shipbuilding knowledge and no shipbuilding tradition to rely upon, was able to construct a wooden ship that was longer than any that has been built since?
16) Whether by twos or by sevens, Noah takes male and female representatives from each species of
“every thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Genesis 7). Now this must have taken some time, along with expert knowledge of taxonomy, genetics, biogeography, and anatomy. How did Noah manage to collect the endemic species from the New World, Australia, Polynesia, and other remote regions entirely unknown to him? How, once he found them, did he transport them back to his Near Eastern home? How could he tell the male and female beetles (there are more than 500,000 species) apart? How did he know how to care for these new and unfamiliar animals? How did he find the space on the ark? How did he manage to find and care for the hundreds of thousands of parasitic species or the hundreds of thousands of plant species? (Plants are ignored in the Genesis account, but the animals wouldn’t last long if the plants died in the flood.) No, wait, don’t tell me, a miracle happened, millions of them.
17) All of the animals boarded the ark
“in the selfsame day” (Genesis 7:13-14). Since there were several million species involved, they must have boarded at a rate of at least 100 per second. How did poor Noah and his family make sure that the correct number of each species entered through the door and then get them all settled into their proper living quarters so efficiently? I wish the airline companies could do as well!
18) The flood covered the highest mountain tops (Mount Everest?) with fifteen cubits to spare (Genesis 7:20). Where did all the water come from? Where did it all go? Why is there no evidence of such a massive flood in the geological record?
19) When the animals left the ark (Genesis 8:19), what would they have eaten? There would have been no plants after the ground had been submerged for nearly a year. What would the carnivores have eaten? Whatever prey they ate would have gone extinct. And how did the New World primates or the Australian marsupials find there way back after the flood subsided?
20) Noah kills the
“clean beasts” and burns their dead bodies for God (Genesis 8:20). According to Genesis 7 this would have caused the extinction of all “clean” animals since only two of each were taken onto the ark. So why is it that we still have “clean” animals?
21) God is filled with remorse for having drowned his creatures in the flood. He even puts the rainbow in the sky so that whenever the animals see it they will remember God’s promise not to do it again (Genesis 9:13). But 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.
22)
“The whole earth was of one language” (Genesis 11:1). But this could not be true, since by this time (around 2400 BCE) there were already many languages, each unintelligible to the others.
23) (Genesis. 11:4) According to the Tower of Babel story, the many human languages were created instantaneously by God (Genesis 11:9) But actually the various languages evolved gradually over long periods of time.
24) (Genesis 14:14) Abram goes into pursuit looking for his captive relative in the city of Dan. The problem here is that the city of Dan did not exist until over 300 years after Moses died. How is it that Abram could enter the city of Dan, when the city did not even exist?
25) Jacob displays his (and God’s) knowledge of biology by having goats copulate while looking at streaked rods. The result is streaked baby goats (Genesis 30:37). The author of Genesis (God?) believed that genetic characteristics of the offspring are determined by what the parents see at the moment of conception. This is a laughable belief. Ask any animal husbandrist.
26) Camels don’t divide the hoof (Leviticus 11:4). This statement is completely moronic for every teenager knows what a “camel toe” is and how it used to describe a specific split.
27) The bible says that hares and conies are unclean because they
“chew the cud” but do not part the hoof (Leviticus 11:5-6). But hares and coneys are not ruminants and they do not “chew the cud.”
28) Bats are birds to the biblical God (Leviticus 11:13-19 & Deuteronomy 14:11-18).
29) Some birds have four feet (Leviticus 11:20-21).
30) If there is a God, there is one thing we know for sure about him: He really likes insects (particularly beetles). There are more species of insects, by far, than all other species of life on earth. As JBS Haldane said,
“he has an inordinate fondness for beetles.” Yet insects are said to have four legs in Leviticus 11:22-23.
31) Unicorns have never existed, yet they are said to in Deuteronomy 33:17.
32) Fiery serpents have never existed yet Numbers 21:6 claims they do.
REPEAT:
This is not intended to be a debate about science with creationists/intelligent design believers: It is not possible to debate science with them, just as you could not debate geology with someone who believes the Earth is flat or try to explain the theory of lift to a 2-year-old.
Since bible inaccuracy is the topic, at the same site (or google any other if you prefer) are lists of:
Biblical contradictions
Contradictions of the gospels
Have a nice day!