Scientist Tests the Holy Books of Major Religions
Read philosopher Michael Horner’s blog
I was born in Montreal and raised in Vancouver, Canada. My parents were morally upright but non-religious. Our neighbors could also be described as non-religious. I did not know any Christians or serious followers of any other religion while I was growing up.
Though my neighborhood was poor, its public schools were outstanding and its libraries well equipped. By age seven I was reading physics books as fast as I could check them out. By eight I had decided to make astronomy my career. In the next several years my study of the big bang convinced me that the universe had a beginning, and thus a Beginner. But, like the astronomers whose books I read, I imagined that the Beginner must be distant and non-communicative.
My high school history studies disturbed me, for it was obvious that the peoples of the world tended to take their religions very seriously. Knowing that the European philosophers of the Enlightenment largely discounted religion, my initial response was to study their works. What I discovered, however, were inconsistencies, contradictions, evasions, and circular reasoning.
Life Lesson: Biblical perspective on the end times
Experience It: Walk in the power of the Holy Spirit
The obvious next step was to turn to the “holy” books themselves. If God the Creator had spoken through any of these books (and I thought He probably had not) his authorship would be obvious: the communication would be perfectly true. I reasoned that if men invent a religion, their teachings will reflect human error. But, if the Creator communicates, His message will be error free and just as consistent as the facts of nature. So, I used the facts of history and science to test each of the “holy” books.
Initially my task was easy. After only a few hours (in some cases less) of reading, I could find one or more statements clearly at odds with the facts of history and science. I also noted a writing style best described as esoteric and mysterious; it seemed inconsistent with the character of the Creator as implied by the facts of nature. My task was easy until I dusted off the Bible that the Gideons had given me several years earlier as part of their distribution program in the public schools.
I found the Bible noticeably different. It was simple, direct, and specific. I was amazed at the quantity of historical and scientific (i.e., testable) material it included and at the detail of this material. The first page of the Bible caught my attention. Not only did its author correctly describe the major events in the creation of life on earth, but he placed those events in the scientifically correct order and properly identified the earth’s initial conditions.
For the next year and a half I spent about an hour a day searching the Bible for scientific and historical inaccuracies. I finally had to admit that it was error free and that this perfect accuracy could only come from the Creator Himself. I also recognized that the Bible stood alone in describing God and His dealings with man from a perspective that demanded more than just the dimensions we humans experience (length, width, height, and time). Further, I had proven to myself, on the basis of predicted history and science, that the Bible was more reliable than many of the laws of physics. My only rational option was to trust the Bible’s authority to the same degree as I trusted the laws of physics.
By this time I clearly understood that Jesus Christ was the Creator of the universe, that He paid the price that only a sinless person could pay for all of my offenses against God, and that eternal life would be mine if I would receive His pardon and give Him His rightful place of authority over my life. I had understood enough Scripture to know, however, that this commitment could not be a secret one. It had to be public, and that meant letting my peers and professors and family know about it I feared the contempt and ridicule that surely would come. So, for several months I hesitated.
During those months I experienced a strange sense of confusion. For the first time in my life, my grades dropped and I had difficulty solving problems. I was discovering the meaning of Romans 1:21, which says that when a man rejects what he knows and understands to be true about God, his thinking becomes futile and his mind darkened. The eventual consequences spelled out in the succeeding verses chilled me.
I knew what I had to do, but my pride seemed too great. One evening I prayed, asking God to take away my resistance and make me a Christian. I prayed this way for six hours with no apparent answer. Finally, I realized that Jesus Christ will not force Himself upon anyone, even if asked. It was up to me to humble myself and invite Him in. And this is what I did at 1:06 in the morning. I then signed my name to the “decision statement” at the back of my Gideon Bible, acknowledging Jesus Christ as my lord and Savior.
Right away I sensed an assurance that God would never let me go, that I was His forever. My fears of ridicule from unbelievers subsided gradually, and day by day I began learning how to share my discoveries of spiritual truth with fellow students and faculty. However, without the benefits of fellowship with other Christians, I found that my growth in Christlikeness was stunted.
Every once in awhile I would visit a church, only to discover a cult or a group who called themselves Christians but did not take the Bible seriously. On arriving at Caltech for post-doctoral studies, I met a serious Christian at last, Dave Rogstad. Dave invited me to attend a seminar with him on applying Biblical principles to daily living. There I sat with 16,000 committed Christians all in one building. I was overwhelmed to find that so many Christians existed, and I was helped and humbled by the things I was taught.
Within weeks of that seminar I found myself not only attending home Bible studies but helping to lead them. Dave challenged me to begin sharing my faith with non-Christian non-scientists. I was surprised to observe that unlike scientists, who tend to struggle more with their will than with their mind in coming to Christ, the non-scientists I met tended to struggle more with their mind. If only they could see convincing evidence that God exists, that Jesus is God, and that the Bible is true, they would readily give their lives to Christ. What a joy!
I began spending more and more time sharing the evidence with others. Within a year I was serving full-time as the minister of evangelism for Sierra Madre Congregational Church. Ten years later, when breakthrough discoveries in the sciences virtually sealed the scientific case for the God of the Bible, a group of friends urged me to form an organization, Reasons To Believe, to communicate this new evidence as widely as possible. It is my delight to report that for each year that I have known Jesus as my lord and Savior, my joy in Him and, in sharing His truth with others grows greater. There is nothing in this world for which I would trade my relationship with Him.
>> Start giving the Bible a chance and read this summary of the main points of the Bible.
Hi Red, what have you found in common with the different religious writings? Has there been any surprises for you?
hi i’m a hindu by religion
we respect all religions
our holy book is the ‘shrimad bhaghwad gita’
i was searching for all the common teachings in all the holy books of all religions
to lead a life worthwhile :)
I would be curious to hear from you Gryphon on what you have found unreliable about the Bible?
“Further, I had proven to myself, on the basis of predicted history and science, that the Bible was more reliable than many of the laws of physics. My only rational option was to trust the Bible’s authority to the same degree as I trusted the laws of physics.”
If this does not immediately fill you with a sense of abject horror as to the reasoning ability of the author, then you definitely have no place claiming understanding of science or physics.
You are right Michellerose, that being able to read the Bible in the original languages can be very helpful. However, I do not think a full understanding of God and His communication to us is inaccessible to those who do not read in Hebrew or Greek (there are a few sections in the Bible that were written in Aramaic as well). The Bible itself indirectly commends the use of translations. We see that most (if not all) of the quotes in the New Testament used the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible). Jesus Himself quoted from the Septuagint. You will notice that some of His quotes don’t exactly line up with what we have in the Old Testament. That is because He was quoting from the Septuagint which was slightly different due to the translation. An example is Matthew 21:16. Here Jesus is quoting from Psalm 8:2. In the original Hebrew the statement is “From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength”, but the Septuagint translates this “From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established praise.” That is what Jesus quotes when he defends the praise from the children in the Temple.
I also see the way that the authors of the New Testament produced their writings in Greek as a strong defence for those who read the Bible in a language they understand. Greek was the marketplace language of the Roman Empire. It was easier for people to keep that language than trying to force everyone to learn Latin. When the authors of the New Testament wrote their letters and Gospels they wanted the most amount of people to be able to access their writings as possible so rather than using Hebrew or Aramaic (the common language of the Jewish people) or Latin they decided to use the Koine (or common) Greek. I am confident that if they were here today they would encourage the translation of the Bible into people’s mother tongues so that they can grasp the wonderful truths that are contained there.
I think far more important for our understanding of the Bible is our relationship of dependence on the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will teach us all things and bring to our remembrance all that Jesus has said to us (John 14:26) so our best resource for understanding what God is saying to us is His Holy Spirit. Whenever we come to the Bible we need to pray and ask for His help to understand and apply what we read there. I know of many people who are skilled in the original languages of the Bible but have totally missed the truth of relationship with God because they have not depended on the leading of the Holy Spirit. Without Him and His help there are only words and no life.
I encourage you to keep on studying and always look to the Holy Spirit for His help.
How well do you know your Palio-Hebrew? (I don’t know if I have spelled that right) If you want to know your bible you need to understand it in in its original context, culture, and language. I have been testing and studying it for a few years now and have found that the English Bible ( really any translation other then the Hebrew ) can not express the explicit details that the original text has. I have yet to read a original myself but use Strong’s extensively and am trying to learn more Hebrew every day. I feel the Language used is as complex as Elohime himself. If you are a translate and know your history the word God IS actually another name for the worshipers of Gott, who is a pagan ‘GOD’ and if you fallow the Torah (law) it says: to to worship, think, speak or write another El save for YHVH’s is a sin and abomination. Unless used for educational purpass, as in to correct them. This is well documented in Proverbs, Psalms, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. I could go on and on. My argument is that unless you understand the language and can read it from the original, you cannot have a “proper” debate about this subject even the science of it .
Argument and back up
Have you ever taken the time to read the preface or end pages of your Bible? The non scriptural part, sometimes its on every page “explaining the scriptures” and how you should, and they do interpret them. They tell you most times the doctrine of those who wrote that translation and that Bible will reflect their view/ argument” No Bible accurate save for the original. And finding someone who can can speak/read Palio-Hebrew is like finding a church that dose not impose its human doctrine on its latest recruit or the Bible itself. You want to know something funny, most prefaces of Bibles tell you for the sake of “modern language” they use the word Lord instead of YHVH. In numbers it commands the believer to say HIS name and it will be a blessing over them and over all Israel, to not profess Him as the El over all is a sin. So they confess this in the preface then print it over and over and over again sining each time, and they say that their translation is inspired by El? Really!? Another fun fact you can find in about 90% of all Bibles is, that is if you believe in the trilogy- ( not imposing this doctrine but just using it as a example) -look in the Tehnoch (old testament) and the new testament Yeshouea ( Greek Jesus) Side note—- by the way Greek Jesus has a total different way of thinking to the Hebrew Yeshouea, Check out the Hebrew version of Mathew. The Hebrew version lines better with Torah then Greek translations.—— and YHVH Elohime using the word lord, they spell it different! YHVH is spelled LORD and Yeshouea is Lord. If you believe this doctrine that Yeshouea is El then why denote Yeshouea as the lesser? —Personal note I used to believe in the trinity blindly and am currently testing this theory and the impaction of it. If you have hard facts on the basis of original scripture and not personal vendetta then let me know what you come up with.
Back to the translation issue and other resoreses
Have you ever read the book of the Upright? Sometimes called the book of Jasher, its mentioned in the bible fore times. I know there is a bit of mistrust because its not literally in the Bible and some scholars discredit it on the basis that the only copy was or may have been recopied in the early 1600. However I feel that if the bible mentions something that many times I should check it out. Even if its for more educational purpass. I mention this because it has a lot of information about the tower of Babel and where afterwords ( if you take it to be true) everyone was dispersed to.This book also mentions how Abraham was sheltered in Noah and Shem’s house, so that the king would not kill him as a baby. Sound familiar? It gets more weird… there was a profacy and a star in the sky brighter then any other and wise men went to see him. It also goes in to more detail about the almost sacrifice of Iscach, and gives more insight in to who Yeshuoea really was. It is even graphic about why and what Happened at Sodom and Gomorrah. And lets not forget the current debate creation, I do not discount nor claim that the book of Jasher is holy but as a means to understand the time and maybe get better insight as to what may have happened. I cant remember the verse nor can I seem to find the book of the Bible its in but there a part where El is Judging all and says something to the effect of : there is not enough room in this book to hold all of Elohimes truths. That he would hide some of the keys/information and I know for a fact in Amos it says that El would put a famine on the land not of food or water but of His word. So with this in mind is the Book of the Upright one of the hidden keys? I don’t know but I am willing to test it against what El has said. —- personal note—– its adding up good so far. I have not read the whole thing yet. Nor have I bisected it in the Hebrew. I feel that it would be cool if it was and I had one of those many hidden keys :) I’d kinda feel like I found a gold nugget the size of a fist after panning through the crummy muck and fake gold all my life then after finding the nugget going to town swqare telling everyone while I dance the conga. (note I’d have to learn how to dance the conga, I’ll put it on the long list that starts with the words: maybe one day…)
Another thing to look at in this fashion is the Oral Torah practiced by some Jews. This was “supposed to be” the oral laws that where not written down tought by Moses and then passed down to all the Levite priests generation to generation to teach the Jewish people. If you want to get to know Yeshouea and why he was so angry with the Jewish priests. Know the oral and written Torah better then the new —testament will give you a deeper understanding of Yeshuoea’s teachings.—–Personal note I believe if you don’t know your torah then you don’t know Yeshouea, why he came and really in my view all the new testament is, is a backup deference that Torah is Holy and with out Torah there is no new testament. I personally believe if Torah is the sword then the new testament is the shield. PS oral torah was finally written down some time in the early 1950′s. So visit a Jewish group or read their customs, they are really ours now as Christan not shun our brothers but rather let them come to Christ by testing, and your moral Silent influence, unless YHVH tells you different.
Something to think about
Have you ever looked at the origins of language? Think about the Shakespearean language and modern day English. They are completely different. Same goes for Palio and modern day Hebrew. Try this one summer I dare you Go to England or Spain then to the US and Mexico. You will find they sound different, they use different words for different things and yet English is English as Spanish is Spanish. Right? Or is this wrong too? English are actually from Germanic and French decent. They lived on that island, and where concord so many times it made their own language . Even the way they spell things is different. Take the word color and colour. The first is US and the latter is British and Australian way to spell the same word
May YHVH’S Blessings be with you and on all the work of your hands. It is the Insight of YHVH Elohime to hide a matter and the Glory of Kings/the studious to seek the matter out. Proverbs
I think you are selling yourself short Xephon; you are a philosopher! You think beyond just the things you can see and observe and look to understand “Why?” I admire your willingness to engage in the discussion on these issues because they are crucial. A life lived thoughtlessly and by accident is empty, but living with your eyes wide open reveals meaning to our existence.
You say you have no evil in your heart because you have rejected it. I am not exactly sure what you are saying. Have you rejected the thoughts of evil in your heart so that they no longer tempt you or have you rejected that those thoughts are evil and embrace them as part of who you are and therefore they are moral?
You say we have different definitions of what good and evil are. Would you say that telling a lie was evil, or cheating on your taxes, or taking advantage of someone who is weaker than you, or hatred of another human? What about cheating on your partner? What about losing your temper with your children? How about taking something that does not belong to you? How do you determine what is moral for you?
Jamie,
I did not “neglect” to answer you. Your answer was hypothetical, so I treated it as such. I am a scientist, not a philosopher, so I don’t deal in hypotheticals unless they can be tested. Yours could not. I acknowledge the existence of good and evil, but I doubt my definition of them would match yours. For example, I think it is wrong, if not outright evil, to raise children with a belief system that requires them to deny that which is demonstrably true. Every religion on earth does this to some degree, including yours. Your response to Epicurus’ conundrum is one that I have heard a hundred times before: that evil is a creation of man (or Satan) and that God allows it because he has given us “free will” and to eliminate evil would be to eliminate free will. That’s baloney. Heroic people fight evil not to punish evil people (although that is part of the equation), but to protect the innocent, something that is not addressed in your apologetics. If I had the ability to cure cancer with no more than a thought, then no one within the range of my perception would ever suffer or die from cancer. I would do this of my own free will, not out of any obligation. I would do this without any expectation of reward. I would not require the people whom I cure to obey or worship me. I would not establish any criteria for who gets cured and who doesn’t. That makes me morally superior to your god on every conceivable level because, according to your dogma, he CAN do that, but chooses not to. There is no evil in “my heart”, because I have rejected it as surely as I have rejected belief in gods. This may comes as a surprise to you, but many people in this world require neither the promise of eternal reward nor the threat of eternal punishment to live moral lives. Some of us believe that doing the right thing is its own justification. It’s too bad you have been led to believe that your awareness of the magical invisible man in the sky is the only thing that’s keeping you from becoming a serial killer, but not everyone is so afflicted.
Hi Xephon, it is nice to see you back on this discussion page. I wonder if you have given any more thought to an explanation of evil in our world. Earlier you had wisely included Epicurus’ question about evil and God into our discussion here:
“If God is willing to battle evil, but unable, then He is not omnipotent.
If He is able, but not willing, then He is malevolent.
If He is both willing and able, then why is there evil?
If He is neither willing nor able, then why call him God?”
I think I responded to that but you have neglected to answer my question. I am curious to know how your worldview helps you to understand the presence of evil in the world. When you say that there is evil you must assume that the opposite–good–must also exist. If you assert that there is such a thing as good then you have to assume that there is a moral code by which you can distinguish between the two. That moral code does not come from the evolution of matter and chemistry, thus there must be one who has established that moral code. I don’t know how else you could explain the existence of evil. Perhaps you could explain for us how that works in your worldview. Your raising of Epicurus’ argument obviously shows that you have concern with evil in the world so it would be great to hear how you have made sense of its existence.
The second part of my question is much more personal. I explained how the existence of God and His efforts to save me from the evil in my own heart helps me deal with the dark things inside of me. My question to you is: how do you deal with the parts of your personality that you try to keep hidden? How does your worldview help you handle the evil that is in your heart?
I guess I would have a similar question for Habib: how do the teachings of Islam help you to deal with the evil in your heart? I am in the same boat as Xephon in that I have never been a Muslim and so I have not had much personal experience or study in the Quran. How does Islam help people to deal with the evil (minor and major) in their own lives? Jesus said that because of our natural inclination to rebellion against God we are unable to deal with that evil ourselves. It would be like trying to wash clean a white wall with a muddy rag–it doesn’t matter how much you scrub, the dirt just continues to spread. God’s plan from the very beginning was to deal with the problem of evil in the hearts of humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The sacrifices that Abraham made were a symbol of what Jesus would do. The ritual worship that God instituted during the time of Moses was a further development of the symbols that pointed people to the hope of the Messiah, Jesus. Jesus died on the cross to take on Himself the penalty for our sin and deal once and for all with the evil in our hearts. As Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, “God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2Corinthians 5:21) Jesus is our only hope for dealing with the evil in our hearts. He not only took the punishment that should have been ours but He also rose back to life to live within us and guide us towards good and away from evil. This was something that could only be done by God; His perfection is the only way that our wall can be cleaned.
I think this distinguishes Christianity from all other worldviews including Islam–only Christianity declares that our hope for salvation from the evil within us is God acting on our behalf. We cannot earn that by following any ritual, making any pilgrimage, attaining any higher level of enlightenment, being martyred, or even living as good as possible. All of those things depend on us reaching out to God; only Christianity depends on God reaching down to humanity and saving us from our evil.
I don’t know what you mean by “embrology”. If you mean embryology, then the Quran was late to the party. The Greeks knew about developing embryos 2000 years ago. And if the Quran’s reference to embryology is anything like its reference to the Big Bang – including the earth NINE BILLION YEARS before it was formed – I wouldn’t expect anything groundbreaking, or even marginally correct.
xephone you still did not tell me about embrology. How did the quran know about that fourteen hundred years ago. ???
“the haven and the earth were togathere”
The evidence says otherwise.
“About gender no one knows if bactaria has gender”
Yes, we do. And no, they don’t.
“Did we became humans from monkey’s i dont think so.”
The facts don’t care what you think. And they’re not going to change to suit your beliefs. The problem with you “believers” is that you never seem to understand that some people just know more about this stuff than you do. Belief is nothing in the face of testable, verifiable, documented facts.
“Not logical.”
Oh, the irony.
the haven and the earth were togathere . Meaning the earth is allready in the making. all the component is allready in there. About gender no one knows if bactaria has gender but the are known to interacte with each othere and pass on genetic information. And the quran after talking about samthing allways say.s ‘and the thing’s which you don’t know’. Why wouldent i belive in god who created me. And to him we will return. Did we became humans from monkey’s i dont think so. People would be walking with wing’s or some with four leg’s. We souldent talk about evolution thing’s like somthing becoming to life from nothing. Not logical.
Habib,
I have never been a Muslim, so my familiarity with the Quran is much less than my familiarity with the Bible. However, I am aware that many so-called Muslim “scholars” have attempted to claim that the Quran is “scientifically accurate”, just as Dr. Ross has done with the Bible. Unfortunately, their arguments consist mostly of the same kind of wishful thinking and willful blindness as Dr. Ross.
Regarding the Quran’s alleged reference to the Big Bang, I suppose you are referring to Surah Anbiya,21:30, “The heaven and the earth were joined together. And We clove them.” The problem with this verse is that the earth was not present at the Big Bang. The earth is approximately 4.7 billion years old. The universe is at least 13.7 billion years old and the Big Bang presumably occurred some time before that. That means that the universe was around for at least 9 billion years AFTER the Big Bang before the earth even formed. During the Big Bang, the earth was completely non-existent. Describing the expansion of spacetime from a point singularity into what we now call the universe as the “cleaving” of two things, one of which did not even exist at the time, takes a lot of semantic tap-dancing.
Regarding the Quran’s claims that “every living thing in the planet is in pairs”: if by “pairs” the Quran means genders then, sorry, but the Quran is flat-out wrong. Many organisms, such as bacteria, algae, fungi, and protozoans, have no gender at all. And some others, like many Annelids, are hermaphroditic, with both male and female reproductive organs in the same individual.
If I did a more in-depth study of the Quran, I’m sure I could find many more examples like these, but what would be the point. It took me no more than five minutes to refute the first claim and no time at all for the second.
did you ever try the quran for scientific facts fourteen hundred year old not been changed since.anyway one of the miricle is that if any one tryed to change it they will fail it happend many times it dosent work.did you know it talks about the big bang and the expanson of the universe and it even talks about embrolegy, botny how every living thing in the planet is in pairs even plants.geology,the weather syestem.life of the bee. and ants how ants could talk to eachothere.and the moon and the sun. And many more in perfect detail and not one proven wrong. So please read it and judge for your self and dont listen to the media.samething(quran) that was writen fourten hundred years ago by a ilitrate man (mohamed) peace be upon him who couldent even write. How could he have possibly have knowen all this that weve recently discovered. You know when we think what are we doing here whats the pourpouse of existence. Well when you open up the quran by saying in the name of god the most merceyfull.you will find that answer. Dont let the devol stop you by whispering in your ear. Good luck and god bless you.
I am sorry Xephon. I did not intend to offend you. I just wanted to respond to your quote of Epicurus. And also, yes, I would love to see you come to a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, but I did not anticipate that my response would create such an adverse reaction from you. If I were to speculate, I’d say that while your primary reason for losing your faith was the insistence on the inerrancy of the Bible there were probably some other more visceral reasons as well. But you are likely not interested in talking about those so I won’t push you.
I understand that my apologetics seem convoluted to you (although I wouldn’t mind having you expand on which part I lost you) but I have found that a primarily cerebral debate does not progress anywhere. You have your beliefs and I have mine and very little gets accomplished. However, in order to truly understand the essence of Christianity you must look beyond just the provable cerebral information of the Bible, to the relational component. The Bible, while being a source of lots of useful information, is essentially a revelation of who God is and an invitation for humans to discover relationship with Him. If someone is unwilling to address that aspect of what the Bible says there is very little point of discussing its informational aspects.
If the intended purpose of the Bible was a mathematical textbook, it would read entirely different than it does. If it were a guide to observations of natural science it would contain completely different structure and information. If it were purely an historical account or an anthology of poetry and prose it would look completely different. But because it is an introduction into the nature of God it includes the record of His work in Creation so that His authority is unquestioned. It also includes an historical record of the way that He has interacted with humanity to reveal His love, mercy and patience. It contains poetry to help humans comprehend the incomprehensible aspects of His infinite love, beauty, and power in order to guide us into appropriate worship of Him. There is no other piece of literature quite like it and when it is used as it was intended, it becomes a literary pathway into the presence of God.
Yes there are many different Christian groups that emphasize different aspects and even disagree about how to interpret what has been written. That is partly due to the vast complexity of God and the limited nature of humanity. Things that may seem contradictory to us can only be understood through the infinite wisdom of God Himself. The disagreements also are due in part to the continuing rebellion within the hearts of humanity who choose to read their own agenda into the pages of scripture rather than surrendering to the revealed truth of God. Many terrible things have been perpetrated on the minorities, the weak, and the defenceless in the name of Christianity. But that has happened not because of God’s direction but because of humans’ misdirection. But to write off God because of the evil choices of those who claimed to follow Him is foolhardy. And to write off God because of the diversity within the ones who follow Him is (I am sorry) arrogant. What right do you have to demand that God fit your expectations? If He is the Creator of all things would He not also have the right to reveal Himself to and through His followers as He sees fit? Do you want to follow a God that is explainable and completely understandable? Is it not far better to worship a God who is so infinitely more than we can comprehend that it will take all of eternity to plumb the depths of the beauty of His character?
I guess you will say I am getting convoluted again Xephon. I know I get kind of worked up when I talk about the One who is my very life. I tried to live life in my own terms and carried off a pretty good scam for those who knew me. For all anybody knew, I was always the ‘good boy’. But for all of my external ‘goodness’ I could never get away from the fact of my own rebellion against God in my own way. I discovered that even as I tried to be good it was so I could say to God, “See! I don’t need You!” But as time went on it became harder and harder to resist His constant loving voice calling me to surrender to His plan. And finally, when I had come to the end of what I could accomplish, I realized that I was only fooling myself. I gave myself fully into His authority, into His grace and forgiveness, and into His love and my life has never been the same. I still face troubles and difficulties in my life but I know that He is with me and He directs my choices and passions so that I end up closer to Him and living a life of adventure that I would have never experienced on my own. And I want to let everyone know what He did for me and that He will do it for them as well.
Don’t worry Xephon. I am not trying to force you to become a follower of God. I just wanted to let you know and those others who may read our discussion here that God is real. His love is real. His life changing power is real and nobody has to remain trapped in their rebellion against Him any longer. He will set you free.
Now if you want to go back to the cerebral discussion I am certainly open to that. You have made some pretty strong claims of what the Bible is mistaken on. You seem to think that the Bible argues for a flat earth. I know that there are historically those that claimed that the Bible states that but I think you will have a hard time pointing out where the Bible makes that claim directly. There is a good article at http://www.tektonics.org/af/earthshape.html where the author addresses the parts of the Bible that some have used to argue for a flat Earth and helps those of us who don’t know ancient Hebrew to understand what is being said. Some of the complications are that ancient Hebrew did not have a separate word for ‘sphere’. The two words for ‘circle’ could be interpreted ‘sphere’, ‘circle’ or ‘surround’ depending on the context. Many of the other pieces that have been interpreted as a description of a flat Earth are poetic and prophetic writings that are not trying to describe the shape of the Earth but describe the awesome creative power of God. The descriptions are full of metaphor and imagery and poetic language that is trying to use human speech to describe an indescribable God. To try and then use that to prove the Earth is flat is like using Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to map out the geography of Great Britain. So I do not agree with your assertion that the Bible claims that the Earth is flat.
You also say that the Bible calls the bat a bird. It is true that in Leviticus 11:13-19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18 there are lists given of birds that should not be eaten which include ‘bat’. As I had stated before, just because the Hebrews used a different classification of biological life then our current system does not mean that they were wrong. There are some libraries that use a Dewey Decimal system to organize its books. Others use The Library of Congress Classification for the very same books. To say one is right and the other wrong is short-sighted.
You also contested the Bible’s description of Creation that all the creatures of the world were able to be created in one day. I would challenge you to conclusively prove that Creation did not happen that way. Or even prove conclusively instead that all of the creatures of the world are the product of evolution and the spontaneous self-creation of the universe. Those remain theories that lack any concrete evidence. If there were any verifiable proof there would no longer be a debate between evolution and intelligent design.
So like I said, our cerebral discussion accomplishes very little because we can go back and forth making claims and discounting the other’s ad infinitum. Your quotation of Epicurus’ question on God’s ability and willingness to deal with evil was much more to the point. I applaud your inclusion of that into our discussion. I have given my response but you still have yet to address your answer of where evil came from and how you deal with the evil in your own heart. Have you ever thought through that?
Jamie,
Please do not proselytize to me. I have already made it clear to you (or tried to) that I do not begrudge you your beliefs and have no intention of getting into a preach-off with you. My original position stands uncontested by facts: that the Bible, allegedly a document inspired and guided by an all-knowing creator, contains countless falsehoods and misconceptions consistent with the beliefs of a primitive culture but refuted even by the limited knowledge of other cultures of the day.
I was a Roman Catholic for the first 25 years of my life. I know a lot of fundamentalists do not consider Catholics to be “real” Christians, but there are about 500,000,000 Catholics in the world who would say otherwise, so I’m taking their word for it. The primary reason I lost my beliefs is because of people like Dr. Ross, who insisted that there was nothing questionable about the Bible, no matter how many contradictions you pointed out to them, so stop asking questions, and people like yourself, who defend your dogma with convoluted apologetics that seem to aimed more at obscuring the questions than answering them.
There are about 2000 sects of Christianity in the world. The Law of Averages alone says that at least 1999 of them must be wrong about SOMETHING. I’ll go back to believing in God when He starts exercising a little more quality control over His message and the people who claim to speak on his behalf. Until then, I’ll place my “faith” (such as it is) on that which is factually supported and demonstrably true. The Bible does not meet those qualifications.
Epicurus’ question about the nature of God is certainly a valid one and one that the Bible responds to clearly. The answer is that God is both willing and able to deal with evil. So why is there still evil? It is because Humanity, the object of God’s love, continues to rebel against God’s love and authority in our lives. God has relented from the complete destruction of evil because it would mean the end of those He loves who have chosen to persist in their rebellion against Him. Out of His love and mercy He has chosen to give each of us the opportunity of turning away from that rebellion and surrender ourselves to His love and forgiveness and follow His perfect plan and purpose for our lives.
Now Xephon, I am going to have to ask you to put aside your biases at this point and join me in imagining if what the Bible claims is true (don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.) What if God did make the entire universe as a place to put a unique creature whom He had made to have a special connection with, different from all other creatures? This creature reflected God’s ability to build and create, to exercise authority and care for all the rest of Creation, to have love relationships with others and most importantly to have a love relationship with Himself. Now love is something that can never be forced because by its very nature it is a choice. So these creatures were given the choice of either loving God or not. What if those creatures chose not to love God? What if this choice not to love and follow God was passed down generation after generation? What if, instead of reflecting the nature of God, they began to use those God-given abilities in ways that God never intended? What if, because they had chosen to reject God’s love, they had separated themselves from the One who could help them use those abilities for good? So building and creating turned into a passion for building and creating self-serving empires. Authority and caring for creation turned into abusing stripping the natural world around them. Love relationships turned into selfish attempts at meeting their own interests at the expense of others.
If all that were true, how would you try to turn things around? How would you deal with the problem of the ones you loved who were determinedly rebelling against you, destroying themselves and all of creation along with it?
God’s answer was His own Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus became human so that He could represent God to a world who had been so locked into rebellion against Him that they had a very poor understanding of who He is. He came so that He could show all of humanity how much He loved us all and so that He could make a way for us to have our relationship with God restored. That way was made by Jesus dying in our place. His death paid the penalty for our rebellion against God so that we no longer had to pay the consequence for that. He then came back to life to guide us on how to live as God intended rather than in rebellion. The Bible is a way for us to know who God is and to discover for ourselves the lengths that His love went for us. In the Bible we find out how to respond to that love in turning away from our rebellion and following Jesus. We are invited to once again, walk in love with God!
But that didn’t change the nature of love. Love is not forced and so each person makes their own choice if they will accept that love and forgiveness from God or if they will continue to rebel against Him. The time between Jesus dying on the cross and today has been the mercy of God allowing more and more people to discover freedom from our rebellion against God. God tells us in the Bible that one day that opportunity will no longer exist and evil will be dealt with completely. But until then, the followers of Jesus continue to tell people far and near of how much God loves everyone and wants them to be freed from their rebellion.
I know you think I am a snake-oil salesman Xephon but the truth of it is, I am former rebel who has found the love and forgiveness of God. It has changed my life completely and I know that it can completely change your life as well. I don’t want you to be bound by the generations of rebellion against God. I want you to experience what life is like living the way that God has intended for you rather than being trapped into going your own way.
Now let me ask you: how you would explain the existence of evil in this world? If this universe is the result of natural selection where species, elements, and ideas are born out of the process of what is best for the progression of life, where did evil come from? What defines what is evil and what is good? And how do you deal with the evil you find in your own heart?
Jamie,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my commentary. I don’t begrudge you your faith, and I will make no claim to certainty on any mystery of the universe for which there is no factually-supported and verifiable answer. I do not personally believe in any deities, but I freely admit that it is an opinion based on a lack of evidence and not a conclusion drawn from evidence.
You have taken me to task for analyzing the Bible from a modern viewpoint. I would like to remind that Dr. Ross has done the same and failed to find any of the contradictions and inaccuracies that I have listed. I am merely picking up the gauntlet that he has thrown down.
Both you and Dr. Ross overlook your own belief that the Bible is allegedly a divinely-inspired document and while the Israelite authors can be forgiven for a failure to recognize their inaccuracies, one would think that the omnipotent God who was presumably guiding their hands would know better. The historical fact is that while several cultures that were not co-mingled with Judeo-Christian dogma (the Greeks, the Chinese, and the Hindus) all figured out the earth was a sphere several hundred years before the birth of Christ, the flat-earth cosmology persisted in Christendom well into the Second Millenium A.D. entirely because the Bible says the world is flat.
It is also historical fact that the pre-Christian Israelites were considered to be backward and primative even in the times in which they lived. In the last five centuries B.C., the Greeks, who made no claim to divine inspiration, even though they had enough gods to form their own football league, discoved the shape of the earth, the curvature of the earth, the motion of the earth around the sun, the link between the motion of the moon and the tides, the fact that the phases of the moon were caused by the shadow of the earth cast on the moon’s surface, and they measured the circumference of the earth with 97% accuracy. During the same time, the presumably God-guided scholars of the Israelites were claiming the world was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, and that the earth did not move through space. If you look at Biblical claims from the viewpoint of the time in which it was written, most of it is still wrong.
I also think it is disingenuous of you to take me to task for using science to respond to Dr. Ross’s claim that the Bible contains no inaccuracies. He took a scientific position and I responded in kind. I feel that my response is perfectly legitimate given the nature of the claim. If anyone who reads my words has independently verifiable facts to refute my assertions, I welcome them. No one has done so, and the only response I have gotten is for you to cry foul for challenging Dr. Ross on his own terms.
The presence of known historical figures in the Bible does not make the Bible historically accurate. The DaVinci Code also mentions several well-known historical figures, including Jesus, but it is undeniably a work of fiction.
I also reject your premise that each of us has a “darkness” within us from which we need God’s protection. It is a common tactic of snake-oil salesmen to invent some ailment or dysfunction which can only be cured by purchasing and using their products. Many religions operate on this same principle.
Now how would YOU respond to the words of the Greek philosopher Epicurus:
“If God is willing to battle evil, but unable, then He is not omnipotent.
If He is able, but not willing, then He is malevolent.
If He is both willing and able, then why is there evil?
If He is neither willing nor able, then why call him God?
Melinda,
With all due respect, I do not get my science (or my “truth”) from YouTube videos, and neither should you. I get my science from my fellow scientists and my own methodologies.
Xephon, It seems as if you are one searching for truth. That is more than many can say. I challenge you to watch the film “The Privileged Planet”(you can pull it up on You Tube in chapters) and “God of Wonders.” God of Wonders is on Netflix. Some people begin looking into the Bible as to prove it wrong. I challenge you to do the opposite, look for the reasons it could be true. I will be praying for you.
Thank you for this article Dr. Ross. I was touched by your revelation of God prior to accepting Him as your Savior. Although God wanted you to accept Him, He waited those 6 hours that you were praying for you to realize who He was and how He wanted to meet you.
Revelation 3:20
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
Your journey and personal testimony is a great challenge to us as we consider our own beliefs.
Xephon, you have done a lot of research into what the Bible states. I understand your reservations about the accuracy of the Bible but I think you have put some parameters on the tests of the accuracy of scripture that reflect a modern view point rather than the time in which the documents were written. Your points about the how the Bible refers to creatures in the wrong taxonomic classification ignore that fact that those forms of biological classification originated with Aristotle around 330 bce. That was long after the documents of the Hebrews scriptures were written.
In your accusation that the Bible says pi=3 I am assuming that you are referring to the measurements given of the cast metal Sea described in 2Chronicles 4:2. While there could be a number of explanation why the measurements of the circumference (30 cubits) and the diameter (10 cubits) do not work for a perfect circle, ultimately the purpose of the description is not to be an exact blueprint but a generalized description of the vast size of the large basin in which the priests cleansed themselves in preparation for worship.
Time and again, when there have been questions about the historical accuracy of people and places mentioned in the Bible, new archeological finds consistently support rather than dispute the Bible’s accounts. Even in those situations where some evidence seemed to suggest the biblical description was wrong, further evidence has been discovered which reverses that accusation (e.g. Pilate the Roman governor of Palestine, the Hittites, Sargon king of Assyria were all at one time thought to be biblical myths but recent discoveries have conclusively corroborated the biblical account). Just because there is no historical data currently that supports or denies the issues you have raised, does not automatically mean the Bible is inaccurate.
Along those lines, just because the Bible makes incredible claims of feats of construction, or supernatural action through the process of Creation does not mean that the reports are inaccurate. With the absence of any other witness to those events there is no reason to say those things were impossible to accomplish. Based on the testimony of the Bible, God is able to accomplish anything and is not bound by the same limitations that we as finite creatures are bound to.
I understand your reluctance to accept the accuracy of the Bible because not only does it describe the physical world around us but it also, very accurately describes the reality of the darkness of the heart of humanity. It calls us to acknowledge the authority and sovereignty of God in the universe and the authority He has in my life. Everything within the human heart cries out to the importance self, where the Bible challenges us that our highest priority is to follow the plans and purposes that God lays out for us. So it is natural to want to find any excuse to reject the truth of the Bible.
How do you respond to the claim of the Bible that each of us has a darkness within us that only God can set us free from?
The Bible says that bats are birds, that some insects only have four legs, that pi = 3, that every species of animal on earth emerged on the same day (or “yom” or whatever), that the earth was created before the sun, that plants grew on the earth a day (or “yom” or whatever) before sunlight first reached the earth, that the moon produces its own light, that the earth does not move in space, that a 600-year-old man and his three sons could build a boat the length of a football field (The keel alone must have weighed about a hundred tons. How did four men cut, transport, balance and attach it?).
There is no verifiable evidence that the Exodus ever happened, or that the Egyptians ever kept the Israelites as slaves. If the Tower of Babel is a true story, and all of the world’s languages originated in the same location, there should be a place somewhere in the world where we’d find evidence of Chinese, Swahili, Navajo, Japanese and English thousands of years ago. Why has no such place ever been found? Why is there no evidence of any ancient place where any of these languages overlap?
If you read the Bible for a year and half, and failed to find a single scientific or historical inaccuracies, then all I can say is you must be one lousy scientist.
“For the next year and a half I spent about an hour a day searching the Bible for scientific and historical inaccuracies. I finally had to admit that it was error free and that this perfect accuracy could only come from the Creator Himself” ….After reading the preceding statement you made, my question to is this, How EXACTLY did you investigate the Bible to search for scientific and historical inaccuracies? How about a little detail….You can’t really expect anyone over the age of 10 to accept this statement at face value, can you?
gsk, Dr Hugh Ross (PhD Astrophysics, University of Toronto) was intending to tell his own personal story of how he came to faith in this article. He was not intending to provide a full defense of his scientific views.
Many Christians do believe in literal 6 day creation, but Dr Ross in fact does not; he believes the “days” referred to in the biblical account (Hebrew “yom”) reflect long periods of indeterminate time. He presents his views on his website Reasons.org, for example in his resource “Astronomical Evidences for the God of the Bible“
” I was amazed at the quantity of historical and scientific (i.e., testable) material it included and at the detail of this material. The first page of the Bible caught my attention. Not only did its author correctly describe the major events in the creation of life on earth, but he placed those events in the scientifically correct order and properly identified the earth’s initial conditions.”
what a joke! 6 day creation = big bang? wow… dude do you even know science at all? what a biased article!!!!