Scientific Impossibilities in the bible

[Chris]

The "Contradictions in the bible" thread got me thinking, its just another (albeit noble) attempt to try and persuade non believers, it falls short with the constant back peddling (Lets exclude the KJV -etc etc)

Lets talk about the things in the bible that are just plain absurd and physically impossible and also not to mention ludicrous.

I will start with one, and please, theists, this is not faith bashing, its an honest and open discussion about the book you believe in.

To start, the flood. How can there be water covering everything, including Mt. Everest? How is anyone in the Bronze Age to know of places like Australia and Japan, and the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts for that matter? to conclude that the flood covered EVERYTHING with 15 cubits to spare?

"Gen 7:20 - Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered."

Is it possible for anyone in the Bronze Age to know about Mt. McKinley in Alaska, that stands at 20,320 feet (6194m) a place that is 5700 miles from the middle east? Or how about Aconcagua in Argentina, at 6,962 m (22,841 ft)? at a distance of 8570 miles from the middle east?

Lastly, Where did all the water come from? Do you wonder that even if the entire earth was covered with water, there could be no plant life as we see it today? Or did Noah have plants on the ark too?

Why is there no evidence of a global flood in the geological record?

If the flood story is true, (about 0% chance) then you must also accept this as being true. God kills every living thing, even newborn babies.

"Gen - 7:21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: Gen - 7:22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died."

And if Noah and his family are the only surviving people, you must explain the different races of the earth as we see it today.

from the S.A.B.

When the animals left the ark, 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 their way back after the flood subsided?

If you conclude that the flood story as told in the bible is open to interpretation, then you have hope. You realize that the bible isnt 100% true and expose yourself to "picking and choosing" what parts of the bible you want to believe.


If that is not true about you, and you don't pick and choose, then the only alternative is for you to become an atheist

Please give us more examples (I will as I remember them) and when I have time.

[Jack]

I get a kick out of the age of men in the O.T.

The Bible contains many accounts of long-lived humans, the oldest being Methuselah living to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27). Today some maintain that the unusually high longevity of Biblical patriarchs are the result of an error in translation: lunar cycles were mistaken for the solar ones, and that the actual ages being described would have been 12.4 times less (a lunar cycle being 29.5 days). This makes Methuselah's age only 78. This rationalization, however, seems doubtful too since patriarchs such as Mahalalel (ibid 5:15) and Enoch (ibid 5:21) were said to have become fathers after 65 "years". If the lunar cycle claim were accepted this would translate to an age of about 5 years and 3 months. One Christian apologist claim is that the life span of humans has changed; that originally man was to have everlasting life, but due to man's sin, God progressively shortened man's life in the "four falls of mankind" -- first to less than 1000 years, then to under 500, 200, and eventually 120 years. After those long living people died, God decided that humans would not be permitted to live more than 120 years (Genesis 6:3.) However, since later biblical figures (and actual people) such as Sarah lived for longer than that, 120 years should be considered the "usual" upper limit to man's lifespan. Some individuals can live slightly longer than that. Furthermore, starting with reformers John Calvin and Martin Luther, an alternative explanation has arisen : 120 years would not refer to man's lifespan but to the amount of time left before the flood. A more commonly accepted explanation is that such stories are longevity myths; age exaggeration tends to be greater in "mythical" periods in many cultures; the early emperors of Japan or China often ruled for more than a century, according to tradition. With the advent of modern accountable record-keeping, age claims fell to realistic levels; even later in the Bible King David died at 70 years; other kings in their 30s, 40s, and 50s.

Longevity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Lullaby Chainer]

Didn't God ask Adam to name all the animals?

[Chris]

Yep he sure did:

Gen 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 2:20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

How many several Million species are there on earth?

[Chris]

And I notice that this thread is getting no love from the theists. :(

As I figured.

[Technosoul]

I have also wondered how people beleive the stories are factural historical records rather then just storytelling with a point to make.

The mythological book by Homer is probally more scientifically correct then the Bible.

Which science and math we can try to figure out how much it would have to rain inside of 40 days and 40 nights to cover the earth with all that water. Some have speculated that a cosmic event generated a super giant tidal wave which covered everything, not for a total of 40 days but only for a short time, enough to be distructive. However - even if that could happen the Bible said it rained and that was the cause of the flood.
Making up alternative ways to flood the earth still makes the Bible not factural. And where did all the water go after the flood? If this is just a micircle then it cannot be debated logically, scientifically, or by suggesting alternative interpretations. Although they will claim that the Grand Canyon and other things are proof of a flood. And we have seashells far inland and so something might have happened to motivate the telling of that story...

It would seem possible that many plants can survive underwater for a short time, and even regrow from seeds later. But they would have had the mixing of fresh and salt water. Which would have been a big problem for surviving animals and people. Noah grew grapes right after that flood in the story.

About the life spans of people - when was the first calendars drafted? Before Noah? I do not think so. If so they might have been different then our calendars. If they had a calendar with three months in a year, that would allow people to live longer. Right? We know about sundials, and about the 10 month moon calendar, and the 12 month sun calendars, but we have no records about calendars before the last ice age. With one exception. deep in prehistoric gold mines of South Africa they found wood sticks that people would notch to keep track of time.
Putting notches in sticks is not the best way to do timekeeping.

How did Noah know that the whole earth was covered? He was in a boat and could have thought that he floated around the world and saw everything flooded. But can he do it in only 40 days? Was it a speedboat Ark? Did it just float or did it have sails or other means of motivation?

So lets see, short term age of earth and long term human life. What the heck - might as well.

A sudden melting of the polar ice caps might have produced a lot of water and that would trigger rain. Science shows that we had a few ice ages before our current trend of gaining back more land areas. Some experts believe that gaint ice sheets moved down to carve out the flat lands of middle America. Apparently a lot of shaking and a movin' was happening at the start of human activity on earth. Mountains rose up, islands sank, and who knows what all.

But to assume God did it because people were wicked - well, science or not - I feel that is just nonsense. Good motivatonal speech making - but not factual in my book.

[Chris]

no chance at all.

If god sees these people as wicked, why not just snap his fingers, he's god! Whats with all the death and destruction?

[Technosoul]

Quote by: Chris Yep he sure did: How many several Million species are there on earth?

That cannot be factural. Unless "Adam" is symbolic of 'man' - or 'mankind' - if the story was also a prediction that mankind would name all the animals. Science would get good grades for their part.

But the story was not worded to be in the future context - relative to modern means of saying stuff.

A story about the creation of words for the purposes of communication, a story of a on-going school system for establishing the spoken and written 'word'. That woud make some sense.

[Technosoul]

I am not going to provide web links this time for scientific data I use.

But some people think that the earth had more oxigen in the air then nowaday, due to all the topical growth and because no polution was around. Many germs cannot live in a high oxigen environment and if the blood system had more oxigen then longer life would be possible because of the lower risks to health and so forth. The pure freshness of the air in prehistoric times might of (scientifically) made longer life spans possible back then. As Noahs boat building industry developed and lots of trees were wacked down we had less pure oxigen in our blood system and so life spans decreased. I present this as a "possible" and those of you who are more scientifically minded and judge the correctness of it, I am not sure.

[Chris]

Ahh its not worth trying to grasp at straws. There is no proof for a global flood in the geological record. The date is uncertain, and there are countless artifacts that have survived from the Neolithic Age (pre flood). Which would have been all but erased had there been a flood, with waters deep enough to encompass Mt. Everest by 15 cubits.

[Hylife]

Now I'm not saying that you're going to accept this and will probably just label it "cop out" and call it a day, but you have to remember you're discussing God's Word; a word you don't even believe in. I admit that there are some things that we have to just consider as miracles; there's no other explanation. (Although I'm certain that many of the points raised thus far could be rationally explained using science, if you were truly interested in creationist/Christian views you could find them on google I'm sure..) Anyways, what I'm trying to say here is you're debating it as we consider it, a book of God, trying to prove it's otherwise. So it's logical that we can consider some things just unexplainable as the vastness and incomprehendable aspects of the almighty God are being vaguely summed up in a way lowly humans can understand..

[Chris]

That's just another clear example of "we don't know how the universe started and there are many unknowns so lets just make up this thing we call god, instead of subscribing to the scientific and rational process of developing theories, which is ever-changing and fully editable creating a more accurate view of the world."
thanks for playing though.

[Jack]

you're debating it as we consider it, a book of God, trying to prove it's otherwise. So it's logical that we can consider some things just unexplainable as the vastness and incomprehendable aspects of the almighty God are being vaguely summed up in a way lowly humans can understand..

Actually, we're debating a book. That book describes a god who is both incredibly human and yet pretends to be beyond understanding. Speaking for myself, that book and the god is describes are both well understood considering the context of its origin. The Bible is a fable meant to put to paper what were once verbal myths passed from generation to generation of people living in the middle East. You can still see a Biblical society in much of that part of the world. The Biblical god isn't unknowable, he's just a super-duper father figure from that culture with super powers. The Biblical writer's lack of science and geography lead to most of the most inaccurate parts of the book. You can't blame them for their ignorance. No one at that time knew the things we do today. That's why it's so illogical to try to apply that primitive thinking to today's world. The Bible is an ancient text, and what it says is hopelessly outdated and fantastic.

[Hylife]

Okay then, why discuss this book mainly on the premise that it is just "a book" when we believe otherwise??

If the Bible wasn't God's Word I would probably be the first to admit it's ludicracy.

But the fact remains that I, along with most of Christianity, believe it is indeed the infallible Word of and unknowable, all Holy God, thus we believe it uses human terms to explain spiritual existances. It's miraculous and divine in nature, sometimes unexplainable.

[Chris]

...which is also filled with improbabilities. Its safe to say that with today's scientific knowledge, a good majority of this book could not have been true. Raising people from the dead, walking on water, turning water into wine, and also a global flood.

The meaning of this thread as clearly stated, is to discuss the scientific improbability of these tall tales in the bible. Not to brush all scientific knowledge and logic aside and just say "god did it" and "We lowly humans cant understand it." It is safe to say that during the time of the writing of the bible, humans knew very little about the universe. If this was truly a word of god, it would not have such serious flaws falsehoods and absurdities.

If it, however, was written by Bronze Age humans trying to explain a universe filled with mystery, you would have those flaws and falsehoods - not known at that time. People at the time of the writing of the bible used to think that the universe was earth-centered, and that -according to the bible - the sun went around the earth.

Judges 5:31 So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.

The bible was an attempt at explaining the unexplainable, that -for many things- we have discovered and found the answer to ourselves using science. In the year 2007.

[texasdave]

Chris,
It has been shown that if you leveled out the earth ( ie. no mountains on land or trenches in the oceans) there is enough water to cover the entire globe to over a mile deep. Using your logic against you, how could the ancients have known there WAS enough water to cover the entire earth. Also, seeds for plants could have easily survived the flood so noah did not need plants on board except as food for some of the animals.

[Charlatan]

Texasdave,

then there would be lots of fish 'cross pollenenation' where they would cross over into waters that they did not know as home. SOme fish species live on the coast, so without a coast with access to fresh air they would starve or something like that. You would also find many salt water fish bones fossils in fresh water graves, and whale skeletons maybe on the land, maybe. I would also like to say that with the amount of salt water flooding the streams and lakes all fresh water life would have died off and we would have no fresh water fish. How then could fish go from living in salt water to living in fresh water - like they do now? Evolution my friend, but they have not had enough time to do that...

The answer must be that the flood never happened. I like what Chris said about all the plants dying, sure all the seeds would remain, but then there would be more 'cross pollenation' with the same things happening as the seeds were washed around on ocean currents. Have you heard about the scenario where plants thrive where they are not supposed to grow? They take over, smother all other life and the animals do not eat them, and the area goes extinct. That is science meets the flood if you ask me, chaos.

[Jack]

It has been shown that if you leveled out the earth...

I must have missed the part of the flood fable where that happened. So after the flood all the mountains rose up again?

[Jack]

why discuss this book mainly on the premise that it is just "a book" when we believe otherwise??

Because at Volconvo we do not grant automatic primacy to religious beliefs. Everyone gets to debate and defend their point of view. Some of us do not perceive the Bible as anything more than a historical book of myth and fables. It's up to those who believe otherwise to defend their views or refuse to do so.

[texasdave]

Isherwood,
The mountains did not drop. The sea levels rose. God could have leveled out the trenches of the sea and melted the glaciers and polar ice caps. Global warming.