A Concern for Applying the Bible to the Natural Sciences

[RV_Wizard]

8 hours ago, Scott Free said:

I think the Old Testament has many layers of meaning that can only be learned with time and experience, requiring a mixed approach of both literal and allegorical interpretation. 

That which is written literally should be taken literally, and that which is a metaphor should be treated as a metaphor.  There are plenty of each.  When God said the Israelites were carried out of Egypt on the wings of eagles we know it is intended as a metaphor.  When the word says, "the evening and the morning were the first day," we know it means a day.  When it says "in the days of Noah," we know it's talking about a time span.  Noah lived many days in hos 950 year lifespan.  Even proponents of long ages know what the Bible says and what the intended meaning is.  They simply choose not to believe it.

[teddyv]

47 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

That which is written literally should be taken literally, and that which is a metaphor should be treated as a metaphor.  There are plenty of each.  When God said the Israelites were carried out of Egypt on the wings of eagles we know it is intended as a metaphor.  When the word says, "the evening and the morning were the first day," we know it means a day.  When it says "in the days of Noah," we know it's talking about a time span.  Noah lived many days in hos 950 year lifespan.  Even proponents of long ages know what the Bible says and what the intended meaning is.  They simply choose not to believe it.

Is pi exactly three?

[Scott Free]

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

That which is written literally should be taken literally, and that which is a metaphor should be treated as a metaphor.

So all those scholars and rabbis spent generations pondering the meaning of the Torah where wasting their time? It is really just that easy? All we needed was a quick causal read? Boy, to think I was doing it wrong all this time.

Edited February 15, 2024 by Scott Free

[The Barbarian]

Actually, every educated person in the Mediterranean world had known the world was round, long before Christ was born.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Like most of what you say, this also is wrong.

Galileo Galilei is often credited as the man who finally proved that the Earth is round. But, like Pythagoras and Eratosthenes before him, Galileo didn’t actually “discover” that the Earth was a globe.

Actually, your guys got it wrong.   Galileo is often credited as  the man who finally proved that the Earth goes around the Sun.   No educated person in Galileo's time thought the Earth was flat.

In fact, your source unwittingly admits this, farther in. From your source:

Most people think that the idea that the Earth is round didn’t gain much traction until after Aristotle proposed it around 350 BCE.

But that’s not the case. In fact, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras was the first to come up with the concept of a spherical Earth back in the 6th century BCE.

Pythagoras’s idea was based on his observations of the moon during a lunar eclipse.

He noticed that the shadow cast by the Earth on the moon was always round, no matter what part of the planet was facing the moon.

This was one of the first pieces of evidence that people had that the Earth might be a sphere.

But it wasn’t until about 200 years later that another Greek scholar, Eratosthenes, came up with a way to actually measure the circumference of the Earth.

BTW, sailors had this figured out, long before Pythagoras.    They noticed that when approaching a coast, the tops of mountains appeared first and then as they got close, lower and lower levels became visible.    The Farnese statue of Atlas shows him holding up the globe.   The statue dates from about 150 AD.

Once I started looking for globes, they became easy to find. I have a Providentia/Globe denarius from Marcus Aurelius and another from Trajan, both for about $50 at the ANA Denver. The denarius of Trajan commemorates his victory over the Parthians. The globe at the foot of Providentia even has a chain around it: the world wrapped and ribboned for Rome.

Also in my collection are two quandrantes from the time of Vespasian. One is a contemporary counterfeit of the other. One side has a caduceus, the other a globe and rudder. At the ANA Cleveland, I found a pitted and cleaned example of the Uraniopolis issue. For me, this little dog is one of my pride- and-joy coins. It proves that in ancient times, everyone knew that the Earth is a ball.

https://www.1worldglobes.com/globes-on-ancient-coins/

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

So, was Christ born after 1609?

You merely got taken in by people who knew no more than you do.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

By the way, Columbus thought the earth was pear shaped.

As you learned, he also thought it was much smaller than it actually is.   He wasn't much of a scientist.

As you know, it was genetics that showed all life on Earth to have had a common ancestor, not evolutionary theory.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Hogwash. 

Sorry, you've got that wrong, too.  As I showed you, Darwin suggested that God might have created any number of original organisms.    Once we realized how DNA worked we found common descent to be a fact.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

All evolution proponents point toward observed speciation as evidence of common descent, yourself included on many occasions.

Wrong again.   Darwin didn't.   Because he didn't know about genetics.   Turns out plants and animals are eukaryotes that do indeed show common ancestry.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Turns out that's a lie.

It's just a fact.  And we can check that idea by comparing organisms of known descent.   Always works.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Turns out that the son of God, who was present at the beginning of time, taught that the Scriptures were the inspired word of God. 

But your revisions are not the inspired word of God.   He created the laws of physics at the beginning.   He made the Earth so that it would bring forth life, as He says it did.   

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

It is not possible to debate someone with no regard whatever for the truth. 

Well, let's take a look...

Genesis 1:24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds.

I'll go with God's opinion on this, rather than yours.   Sorry.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

The truth is not within you. 

But it is with God.   And that's your difficulty here.   

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

This is concluded.

Pretty much so.  

[The Barbarian]

31 minutes ago, teddyv said:

Is pi exactly three?

Well, the Indiana State Legislature almost voted to make it 3.2:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill

Lots of creationists therein.

[Scott Free]

8 minutes ago, The Barbarian said:

Actually, every educated person in the Mediterranean world had known the world was round, long before Christ was born.

You are so right, even the Romans knew the Earth was round and roughly how big it was.

[RdJ]

8 hours ago, Scott Free said:

So all those scholars and rabbis spent generations pondering the meaning of the Torah where wasting their time? It is really just that easy? All we needed was a quick causal read? Boy, to think I was doing it wrong all this time.

It could be that the simplest reading is true because

At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.
Matthew 11:25 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/mat.11.25.NKJV

 

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
I Corinthians 3:18‭-‬20 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/1co.3.18-20.NKJV

 

 

Edited February 15, 2024 by Renskedejonge

[RV_Wizard]

8 hours ago, teddyv said:

Is pi exactly three?

Did you know that fractions as we use them today didn't exist in Europe until the 17th century? In fact, at first, fractions weren't even thought of as numbers in their own right at all, just a way of comparing whole numbers with each other.  source

Can you tell me to the thousandth of an inch the length of a cubit? No?  Is it because you're an ignorant bronze aged shepherd, or because a cubit is not a precise instrument of measurement by today's standards?

The ancient Babylonians calculated the area of a circle by taking 3 times the square of its radius, which gave a value of pi = 3. One Babylonian tablet (ca. 1900–1680 BC) indicates a value of 3.125 for π, which is a closer approximation.  source

You have to do better than to use mathematics that were not invented until centuries later.  I've seen this same argument from atheists dozens of times.

[RV_Wizard]

8 hours ago, Scott Free said:

So all those scholars and rabbis spent generations pondering the meaning of the Torah where wasting their time? It is really just that easy? All we needed was a quick causal read? Boy, to think I was doing it wrong all this time.

What does ponder mean?  Does it mean to fish?  To run uphill?  To chase butterflies?

Words have meanings.  Some words can mean different things depending on the context, but when the context is clearly defined, if the meaning of the word isn't also clearly defined, then there is no such thing as language, is there?  When God wrote on stone tablets, “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day," He wasn't talking about billions of years.  God is perfectly capable of telling us the difference between 7 days and 13.5 billion years. 

God revealed to us that the trees and grasses were created in a day.  Later the birds and fishes were created in a day.  Then the land animals were created in day, and man was formed in God's image that same day.  This is the word of God.  Anything else is a lie.  There is only the truth or a lie.  If you try to mix the two, the result is a lie. 

Meditate on the words of God to learn the deeper meaning, but have the comprehension to understand that when Jesus was nailed to the cross it doesn't mean He was having a pizza party at the beach.  Words have meaning.  They are written for a purpose. 

[The Barbarian]

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

You have to do better than to use mathematics that were not invented until centuries later.  I've seen this same argument from atheists dozens of times.

You were badly misled here:

http://physicsinsights.org/pi_from_pythagoras-1.html