Scientific errors in the Bible

JJBoyYou have posted a couple of claims from what is often called the PRATT list on these debate boards. It stands for Points Refuted A Thousand Times.
The sun is not shrinking
http://www.tim-thompson.com/young-earth.htmlI find the population claims particularly amusing. This is just plan silly. The population of the world was stable or even declined many times even during recorded history. During the 14th century the population of Europe declined because in many places the plague killed well over half the population and there were wars and famines as well. One of the apologetic sites that Blitz pointed to explains a discrepancy in the number of "men who drew the sword" in ancient Israel by saying that there were actually one million one hundred thousand swordsmen. At even a 1/2 precent growth rate there should be about 3 trillion Israeli swordsmen around now. Where are they?I think there are forums here where you can get long ago refuted young earth arguments shot down yet again. This forum has a different purpose. Discussion of the errors and inconsistencies in the Bible.
Randy

You find the Population thing funny, eh? The numbers I figured out obviously were based on the fact that everyone would have children, live a normal life, and not be killed prematurely. But even if they had, (Which obviously happens. Who lives an average life?) we still have a one million year history to account for. We would most certainly see a much larger population than we see today. Even if the numbers I cited are incorrect, (Which, they are, as I do not want factor in all those factors.) we still would see a much larger population than what we see today.As for the sun, what is it powered by? It is obviously burning something. What? Last I heard, Space is not flammable. Even if the sun shrinks at a rate of five feet a year, it would still have been past the 'Comfort Zone' of Earth's orbit. Think about it! Ever heard of Entropy? things get smaller and colder. A Brand new sun would have been bigger and hotter. A 4.6 Billion year old sun would have been Even bigger!

[QUOTE][B]As for the sun, what is it powered by? It is obviously burning something. What?[/QUOTE][B]It's fusing hydrogen into heavier elements. References to the Sun "burning" are colloquial terms for the process of nuclear fusion. [QUOTE] [/B]You're missing the point. The Sun does not shrink at five feet a year. It does not shrink at one millimeter a year. It has an average diameter that it sticks to.That's because the phenomena that occur in the sun are a dynamic, feedback-controlled process at equilibrium. The contraction caused by gravity causes the fusion and the pressure from fusion keeps the Sun from collapsing further. Thus the Sun's diameter, varying slightly over different parts of its 11 year cycle, does not change appreciably over time. There is no net shrinking. Our models of the Sun show no signs of appreciable change of diameter any time in the last couple billion years. We do think it went through a T Tauri phase a very long time ago but now it is main sequence, diameter has no net change, and will not change appreciably until it leaves the main sequence about 5 BY in the future.

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Originally posted by JJboy:
You find the Population thing funny, eh?

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You are right. The population figures you propose aren't funny. Ridiculous, yes. Funny, no.You've created a straw man, and killed it. Congrats!Populations do not grow at a constant rate and sometimes they decrease. Ever heard of extinction? In the case of homo sapiens, mDNA studies show a bottleneck around 100k ago for one. Our species nearly went extinct. We were down to a few thousand. You've ignored pretty much all of the factors that control population-- food supply and disease. You've made something of nothing.

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As for the sun, what is it powered by? It is obviously burning something. What? Last I heard, Space is not flammable.

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You have got to be kidding me. You haven't even bothered to research basic solar physics?

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Even if the sun shrinks at a rate of five feet a year, it would still have been past the 'Comfort Zone' of Earth's orbit. Think about it! Ever heard of Entropy? things get smaller and colder. A Brand new sun would have been bigger and hotter. A 4.6 Billion year old sun would have been Even bigger!

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The sun does not expand, or contract, at a constant rate. Try learning about the stellar life cycle.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

How odd that you would use the population argument trying to make a case against evolution when using similar population growth figures casts serious doubts about the bibles accuracy.Follow this link and you will see what I mean. http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie019.htmlMost proponents of creationism and the biblical flood that I have seen place the flood story at around 2500 BC. Also many bible historians place the exodus out of Egypt at somewhere between 1300 BC and 1500 BC.The book of Numbers chapter one counts 603,550 men over the age of 20 that are able to go to war in Israel. This number doesn’t include women and children.If you look at the link I provided you will see the creationist population figures don’t even allow a world population of 10,000 persons at 1,000 BC.So is the bible in error? Or is your constant rate of population growth in error?

Just a quick response, JJboy!I cannot imagine that there is a single human being on this planet, past or present, who has not seen an insect! And everyone who has seen an insect must surely know that they do not have the same body plan as more "commonly seen" animals!The hare is a coprophage, not a ruiminant. Big diference, biologically speaking.Layman's terms you say, perhaps so. And if Creationists didn't press so hard on the issue of the scientific significance of the Bible, I wouldn't mind such minor inaccuracies. But it shows that, scientifically, the Bible is wrong on occation and not inerrrant.The Arachnophile

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Originally posted by JJboy:
The hare does, in layman's term, eat it's cud. It has, as I am sure you know, two pellets. One is hard, and is waste. The other is soft, and the Rabbit eats them again, like cud.

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I am quite fed up with having to read this argument again. In "layman's terms" the coney does not chew its cud. It requires a highly specialised use of the term to twist it to fit this interpretation: the very opposite of what "layman's terms" implies.The interpretation of alah as referring to coprophagy only makes sense if you start from the initial position that the text must be right.The word used for chewing in the context of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 is alah. This word has a range of meanings around a root sense of raising up or bringing up and its use in this context shows that the ancient Hebrew's understood pretty well what was involved in chewing the cud. The word for cud is gerah and is cognate with the modern Arabic jirrah, used in exactly the same sense.I have seen it argued that alah could be translated as "bringing forth" in this case, but the root sense is certainly one of bringing up. In fact, rather than translating this as chewing the cud, a better translation is that the animals in question "bring up the cud."It is certainly clear from the context of the passages that the writer regards hares and coneys as digesting in the same manner as ruminants - there is no distinction made in the passages which indicates any knowledge of any difference. There are descriptions of ruminants and the coneys and hares are included, undifferentiated from the ruminants in that list. Any interpretation that the writer did not intend it to be so understood so requires a a considerable amount of information external to the text: there is no 'self-sufficient' interpretation that fits our knowledge of the biology of these animals, or of the hyrax or some of the other animals which have been identified as potential candidates.Given the nature of the documents in questions - extremely detailed regulations for physical and spiritual hygiene - it seems to me, frankly, unbelievable, that they would include coprophagy without comment within the scope of chewing cud. The uncleanness of dung is emphasised in Isaiah 36:12, Ezekiel 4: 12, Malachi 2:3. The idea that the Hebrew hygienists would regard the digestive habits of the rabbit as being essentially the same as those of ruminants seems to me the worst kind of clutching at straws.This whole argument is only necessary if one requires the Bible to be true in the most rigid sense. I cannot see what the problem is if the writer of Leviticus made a simple mistake. The alternative is far more damaging, for it implies that the bible uses words in ways quite different to their common usage - not only that, but these special usages may require highly specialised knowledge to make sense. Why is this more damaging? Because it leaves the Bible open to any intepretation - anyone can simply say "my interpretation is the real interpretation". If any should ask for evidence of their intepretation they need only say "but look at the rabbits and cud chewing: for centuries that must have looked like a mistake until the digestive system of the rabbit was understood. By the same token, my interpretation may look like a mistake just now - but just wait, eventually my interpretation will be shown to be correct in the light of new knowledge."In other words, if you are going to mangle linguistics to ensure the Bible appears perfectly true - you open the door to linguistic mangling which can legitimately wring out of it any intepretation at all.

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Originally posted by JJboy:
Who lives an average life?

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Everyone [b][i]on average.[/b][/i] That's kinda the point of the whole statistics thing, isn't it?You gotta wonder about these guys sometimes ....[This message has been edited by Mister Pamboli, 10-24-2002]

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Originally posted by wesmac:
Tell me how old testament scripture says that God "hangeth the world upon nothing"? This was not the accepted (or even suggested)scientific or religious view of the world at that time.

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I don't recognize the translation you are quoting. You are quoting aren't you?
I recall the King James as, "hangeth the earth upon nothing". Job 26:7Actually, there was such a theory, proposed by Anaximander, circa 600 BC. (About the time Genesis was written) He believed that the earth stood without support in the center of a perfectly spherical sky, and was shaped like a squat cylinder, three times as wide as it is tall.Three hundred years later, Anaximander's view would get partial credit when Aristotle accepted the idea that Earth hangs unsupported. Aristotle did not, of course, believe Anaximander's idea about its shape!Some theories take thousands of years from inception to fruition. Germ Theory, and Heliocentric Theory are two examples which come immediately to mind. The idea of earth in space was probably first proposed long before 600 BC, and if the passage in Job is being translated correctly, then we might consider the possibility that it reflects that theory.On the other hand, there is every evidence that the writers of Genesis did not buy into it. Or, at least, it was not accepted during the time when the tradition of Genesis was originally generated.The first chapter of Genesis reflects a Geocentric view which is supported by subsequent texts throughout the rest of the Bible. There is no evidence that these people thought of earth as mobile. They certainly never imagined that it was a planet, comparable to those wandering lights in "the heaven".BTW, What is your take on the first part of Job 26:7?"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, . . ."db

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Originally posted by JJboy:
... there is no evidence that clearly contradicts the Genesis account.

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Of course there is!
It is the evidence which led to acceptance of heliocentric theory.
That evidence was rejected by all Bible writers.
It was rejected by the Inquisition which condemned Galileo and anyone else who dared to espouse that Godless Theory.Have you not accepted heliocentric theory?If so, then you harbor a belief which is, to quote the Inquisition . . ."contrary to holy scripture."db

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Originally posted by doctrbill:
Of course there is!
It is the evidence which led to acceptance of heliocentric theory.
That evidence was rejected by all Bible writers.
It was rejected by the Inquisition which condemned Galileo and anyone else who dared to espouse that Godless Theory.

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Have you not accepted heliocentric theory?

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If so, then you harbor a belief which is, to quote the Inquisition . . .

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"contrary to holy scripture."

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You appear to be proposing that the falsity of the geocentric theory is proof of the errancy of the Bible. However, I have not as yet discovered conclusive proof of such falsity. Could you please provide such proof as necessary to explain how the geocentric view held by the Bible is wrong?

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Originally posted by w_fortenberry:

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Originally posted by doctrbill:
Of course there is!
It is the evidence which led to acceptance of heliocentric theory.
That evidence was rejected by all Bible writers.
It was rejected by the Inquisition which condemned Galileo and anyone else who dared to espouse that Godless Theory.

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Have you not accepted heliocentric theory?

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If so, then you harbor a belief which is, to quote the Inquisition . . .

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"contrary to holy scripture."

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You appear to be proposing that the falsity of the geocentric theory is proof of the errancy of the Bible. However, I have not as yet discovered conclusive proof of such falsity. Could you please provide such proof as necessary to explain how the geocentric view held by the Bible is wrong?

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**Being a relatively new member to this forum I have yet to get to know the personalities of the members here. However, I hope that w.fortenberry's tongue was firmly in his cheek when he posted this.------------------
Remembering events that never happened is a dangerous thing!

I fear he may be serious. See Message 80 in the There you Go,YECs...biblical "evidence" of "flat earth beliefs" thread.--Percy

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Originally posted by w_fortenberry:
. . . the geocentric view held by the Bible is wrong?

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Glad to see this concession.However, if you are a geocentist I will not attempt to persuade you otherwise. Galileo was a better man than I in that game and look what happened to him. Seems to me that espousing antiquated theory for the sole purpose of validating scripture is about as regressive as regressive gets. Yet you employ the computer to argue Bronze Age cosmology.Amazing!!db

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Originally posted by doctrbill:
However, if you are a geocentist I will not attempt to persuade you otherwise. Galileo was a better man than I in that game and look what happened to him. Seems to me that espousing antiquated theory for the sole purpose of validating scripture is about as regressive as regressive gets. Yet you employ the computer to argue Bronze Age cosmology.

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First of all, I have not requested persuasion of any kind. I have simply asked that you provide proof for the validity of the position which you appear to be advocating.Secondly, if the geocentric view has been so well refuted as you seem to be implying, then there is no reason for you to fear Galileo's fate. Thus, it appears that you refrain from providing proof simply because you have no proof. Please correct this possible misconception of your character and present proof of the errors in the geocentric view found in the Bible.