Unfortunately, however, it does. Which necessarily calls the whole body of text - including every variation and translation, for as I understand it noone actually has a first-generation copy of anything - and everything that’s built upon it into question.

My point of view is this: whether you’re going to base your life on it, start a religion around it or give people degrees based on it, any text which claims to contain any wisdom or knowledge or just plain information has to be consistent the whole way through, whichever way you read it, whatever language it’s in, whatever version you’re holding in your hand.

The Bible is no such document. My evidence? Two thousand years later, people are still freaking arguing about which bits are to be taken literally and which are “just metaphor”. The big three still argue about which of God’s prophets is the most awesome - often fatally - and there’s no actual way to tell who’s right. Muslims disagree amongst themselves, as do Jews and Christians. If there is indeed one book that contains everything we’re meant to need, it’d be nice for its author to show up and set everyone straight. I won’t hold my breath though.

On the subject of science and creationism, although the bible is not meant to be a scientific text, I wanted to point out that modern science confirms that Genesis 1 presents the proper sequence of events. The first mentioned is that light was created, the last that man was created. The creation of plants, animals etc. are mentioned in between in the exact order that scientists now believe they evolved. The belief that light probably came first and man was last are recent theories. I found this online awhile back and saved it…
Moses or whoever else you believe composed the text of Genesis 1, 3300 years ago, somehow found the ONE true sequence of the 14 events mentioned there out of over 87,178,291,200 possible sequences! A human author of Genesis 1 would have had to beat odds of around 87 billion to one (14 factorial) to have magically selected (guessed) the sequence presented in Genesis back then. It seems pretty impossible. If I was faking a religious document, I would write that man was created first as a witness to it all, as we are pretty self-important creatures. So, science and Genesis are in agreement here, except if you read the KJV, where birds are created before the creeping creatures. This version is translated from Greek, Aramaic and then Latin translations and is a watered down source… But, the Hebrews have their own translation of the original text, which is called Bereshit. The Bereshit text for Genesis 1, Specifically, Verse 21 reads:
21. God created the great sea monsters, and all the living creatures of every kind that creep, which the waters brought forth in swarms; and all the winged birds of every kind. And God saw that this was good.
The Jewish text therefore indicates a sequence where sea creatures were first, THEN creeping creatures, and THEN the birds. So, that is pretty much in a nutshell the order of it, as science believes.

Look . . . we don’t have Christian meteorology, Christian chemistry, Christian metallurgy, Christian linguistics, Christian physics, Christian mathematics or Christian anatomy. For the same reason, we don’t need Christian biology. The scientific method used by biology is the same scientific method used by all the other sciences, and you would presumably study those other sciences on their own, (without any “need” to consider them in concert with Biblical teachings).

As stated by every first-rate scientist or philosopher of science, “science” is not a collection of facts. Rather, it is a method by which we make observations, test them, look for correlations among them and theorize about them based only on other observable and testable facts. I’ll admit that there are some theoretical sciences that freely admit that they are more speculative than some other branches, such as metaphysical cosmology (to the extent it deals with the creation of the universe). When we study evolution, though, we are not engaged in theoretical biology. Rather, evolutionary biology precisely accounts for a wide variety of publicly observable phenomena. The Bible doesn’t hold a candle to evolutionary biology when it comes to describing and accounting for all of the plants and critters one finds on earth. When you compare the Bible to the principles of evolutionary biology, side by side, it becomes all the more apparent that there is no comparison.

The motivation at this site is to better understand the natural world, not to make capricious attacks on religious writings. The “attacks” only come when Believers (many of them well-meaning) get in the way of good science, only when Believers argue that we shouldn’t follow the evidence where it leads.

Just get over Genesis already. It’s wrong. It’s as wrong as the Rainbow Serpent “theory” of the Australian Aborigines or the Vikings’ Ragnarok “insight”. It’s always been wrong, no matter how much you think you can twist it to fit the facts.

Isaac. Your points boil down to “close enough = good enough.” Sorry to burst your enormous, flimsy bubble but “close enough” is not scientific.

Now, you sort of got something right in there: science does take temporary results and assumptions and try to improve them. In the past 2500 years, science has done precisely that with the “results” of Genesis and … wait for it … disproved every last one of them. Totally & without question. The theories that exist today which explain the laws by which the universe operates, the development of this planet and the species that live on it are many orders of magnitude removed from Genesis’ accounts. In other words, they are the best explanation we have today and Genesis is flat wrong.

If somebody wants to offer a Master’s or a goddam PhD in Creationism, by all means let them offer it as part of a philosophy or comparitive religion or theology course - but Creationism IS NOT SCIENCE and therefore should not ever form part of a science curriculum.

My final comment on your final comment: scientists afford as much respect to other peoples’ insights as those insights deserve. If somebody advances a “theory” that a Great Galactic Squid ejaculated the universe from his inc sac in response to a Super-Galactic Sperm Whale attack, he either gets to work and damn well shows the evidence for his insight or he gets ignored. If his insights all end with “the Squid moves in mysterious waters and cannot be perceived by we bony ones” then noone takes him seriously and rightly so. On the same tack, Biblical Creationism and its attendant parthenon of deities & devils are no more deserving of a place in science education than any other creation myth. There’s a place for holy scripture and it’s not on the non-fiction shelf.

Niklaus, thank you for understanding. Thanks to Erich as well - as a Missouran he had as much right as anyone to be offended and chose not to be.

Is this insight due to God suddenly revealing it? I think not. If you do look into it you will find that what is read in Genesis 1 was rather the scientific opinions of the more technology advanced Babylonians reformulated in a religion perspective. You say the Bible is flat wrong, I say well, well I think not.

I am Christian as Darwin was and just as Darwin I can also see the logic of evolution, though I have my doubts about certain theories. You would be surprised about how many Christians have no trouble at all to accept the results about the development of the universe and living creatures on earth. But that is not to say that you or the creationists can bring the Bible in discredit by presenting it as a scientific handbook which is either flat wrong or proof of the only explanation of how the world was created.

You criticize the Bible without knowledge of its background or how it became the handbook of Christianity. It don’t have one author and also not even 66 but a lot more. It wasn’t written in at a certain stage but develop over a very, very long time. The Bible does not present itself to be science, but is misused by believers and nonbelievers in their effort to proof or disproof the existence of God. I have seen the importance to study the relationship between science and religion. As can seen in your articles and I suppose in the so called Master of Creationism it was and is a relationship of mistrust and doubt.

The problem I have with your line of argument is that you don’t even try to hide the fact your results are supposed to discredit the Bible. Red flag or not any scientist should know that he is supposed to let his research determine the result and not his desired outcome. This was exactly what certain Christian leaders did in the past. Your understanding of science is ofcourse correct but you should practise what you preach. Don’t critisize the creationists for their stubbornness in the assumption that only they know the truth while you do exactly the same.

In my studies I have experience how my mind was opened to a better understanding of religion and science. I don’t look at it as opposites but a whole lot that still need further study and explanation. As certain as people were in ancient times that the earth is flat and in later times that the earth is in the centre of everything and now with all our theories of Big Bang, evolution and quantum physics,am I now certain that our views will change a lot and even our understanding of religion will also change.

Isaac, I think you may be mistaken on evolution. The idea of evolution was around long before Darwin. The original concept was even embraced by the church long ago as an explanation of how so great a variety of animals could be descended from the pairs on Noah’s ark. It was a monk that worked out the basic foundations of genetics. Evolution is about how populations of living organisms adapt over several generations, to be compatible with their environment and competitive with other species.
Darwin did not originate the idea that species evolve. He figured out how and why they evolve.

Primarily, science is NOT a list of ideas. It is a methodology for determining the most likely idea to explain all observations, and to predict future observations. It is not a collection of conclusions, but an open ended technique for arriving at and verifying them.

Science never claims to have final answers. Things that are considered absolutely proven are called “theories”. They are subject to change if conflicting information emerges.

The Bible is a list of conclusions based on folk tales. No amount of studying the Bible has ever led to any scientifically useful “theory”.

That’s why science (formerly known as “natural philosophy”) only emerged once the idea that studying the universe itself was better than revisiting ancient conclusions for understanding how things really are.

Trust your elders, but check their sources.