Bible Science & Creationism


Mathematics | Cosmology | Natural History | Bits & Pieces | Ark-aeology & Creationism

Everything that follows is true because the bible is the inerrant Word Of God, and we Know this because it says so.


Mathematics

Fed Up With Fractions? Don't Like Decimals? π Need Not Be Hard

It isn't approximately 3.1415927, or 102928/32763.

As a comparison, the ancient Egyptians used 4×(8/9)2 (approx 3.1605), as shown on the Rhind papyrus (c1650 BCE) in the British Museum; the Babylonians used 25/8 (3.125); and Archimedes determined 3 10/71 < pi < 3 1/7 during the 3rd century BCE, though he was superceded 200 years later by Ptolemy who reached a figure of 3 + 8/60 + 30/3600 (=3.14167). The Romans frequently used 31/8 just because it was convenient, even though they knew 31/7 was more accurate. (Information obtained from The Joy Of π, by David Blatner.)
I did originally cite this but then realised that to do so was just plain silly. As a description it's perfectly adequate, being rounded down as it is, and it actually reads better than saying either nine-and-a-half cubits diameter for a thirty-cubit circumference, or thirty-one cubits circumference for a ten-cubit diameter.


Cosmology

So That's Why There Are So Many Stars

The Earth Is Flat

Although Its Shape Is In Doubt

Or Whether It Moves

Or Rotates ICR's Henry Morris explains this all quite simply by saying "This was surely a unique miracle, but not beyond the capabilities of the Creator of the sun and moon and planets. He started their motions, has maintained them through the ages, and is able to change them at will."

There Are Windows To (Or In) Heaven

The City Of Heaven Is A Finite Cube …

… Populated Only By Unmarried People

There Is A Hole Leading To The Centre Of The Earth

A Rainbow Appears For The First Time

People Can Get Moon-stroke?

How To Sharpen Iron (Which Floats)


Natural History

So which did come first? These contradictions (sorry, opportunities for interpretation) jump from Genesis 1 to 2 and back again, as if they were completely different creation stories just thrown together in the same book of myths. (Now there's an original thought!)

Trees were created before people
Genesis 1:11-27 " … Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. … Let us make man in our image, … "
Er… no, they weren't
Genesis 2:7-9 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, … And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, … "
Animals were created before people
Genesis 1:24-26 "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: … And God said, Let us make man in our image … "
Er… no, they weren't
Genesis 2:7-19 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, … And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, … "
Birds were created before people
Genesis 1:21-26 " … and every winged fowl after his kind: … and let fowl multiply in the earth…. And God said, Let us make man in our image … "
Er… no, they weren't
Genesis 2:7-19 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, … I will make him an help meet for him. .And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; … "
Days are created after days have already passed He's supposedly dividing the day from the night, but this isn't the first actual day, so how did anyone know how many days (which have only just been created / measured) had already passed?
Genesis 1:13-14 "And the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night;"
Jubilees 2:8-9 "And on the fourth day He created the sun and the moon and the stars, and set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon all the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and divide the light from the darkness."
Light existed before there was anything to create it
Genesis 1:3-16 "And God said, Let there be light: … Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; … And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also." The apologist's excuse is that the "he made the stars also" is referring back in time and not to be taken as a sequence of events such that the stars were created after the sun and moon - in other words it's another interpretation of something that others take literally. Funny how they don't do the same to, say, the Egyptian or Mesopotamian creation stories, but then they're "only myths" and not the "word of God".
Plants grew and thrived before sunlight existed
Genesis 1:11-17 " … Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit … And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also."

Things you didn't know about animals

Snakes eat dust
Genesis 3:14 " … and the Lord God said unto the serpent … upon they belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat … " Snakes don't need to eat dirt, unlike some birds and animals who need help with their digestion.
Hares are ruminants
Leviticus 11:6 "And the hare, because he cheweth the cud … " Nope.
Bats are birds
Leviticus 11:13-19 "And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls … and the lapwing, and the bat." They are of course mammals.
Fowl have four legs
Leviticus 11:20 "All fowls that creep, going upon all four, … "
So do insects
Leviticus 11:23 "But all other flying creeping things which have four feet shall be an abomination unto you." Got that one wrong as well - insects have six feet, and whilst you could try to argue that some squirrels (which of course have four legs) can 'fly', they certainly don't creep.
Ants do not live is a structured social hierarchy
Proverbs 6:6-7 "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,"
Snails melt
Psalms 58:8 "As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: … "
Lice can be made from dust
Exodus 8:17 " … all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt."
Snakes can be made from rods (staves)
Exodus 4:2-3 " … What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; … "
Animal characteristics are determined by what they are near when conceived
Genesis 30:37-39 "And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. … And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted."
At least one kind of animal can speak human language
Genesis 3:4 "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:" Unlike God, he spoke the truth.
Revelation 5:14 "And the four beasts said, Amen. … "
An ass speaks (or is being used like a ventroloquist's dummy)
Numbers 22:28 "And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?"
Thomas (Acts Of) 40 " … And the colt answered and said: I am of that stock that served Balaam, and thy lord also and teacher sat upon one that appertained unto me by race. And I also have now been sent to give thee rest by thy sitting upon me: … "
Winged creatures can speak or convey human voices
Ecclesiastes 10:20 " … for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."
There were more camels than people
Judges 7:12 " … and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude."
Here be dragons
Isaish 34:13 " … and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls."
Isaiah 35:7 " … in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes."
Isaiah 43:20 "The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: … "
Isaiah 51:9 " … Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?"
Jeremiah 9:11 "And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant."
Job 40:15-21 "His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is so near to another, that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered. By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth."
Psalms 74:13 " … thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. … "
Other fanciful creatures
1 Clement 25 " … There is a certain bird which is called a phoenix. This is the only one of its kind, and lives five hundred years. And when the time of its dissolution draws near that it must die, it builds itself a nest of frankincense, and myrrh, and other spices, into which, when the time is fulfilled, it enters and dies. But as the flesh decays a certain kind of worm is produced, which, being nourished by the juices of the dead bird, brings forth feathers. Then, when it has acquired strength, it takes up that nest in which are the bones of its parent, and bearing these it passes from the land of Arabia into Egypt, to the city called Heliopolis. And, in open day, flying in the sight of all men, it places them on the altar of the sun, and having done this, hastens back to its former abode. The priests then inspect the registers of the dates, and find that it has returned exactly as the five hundredth year was completed."
2 Esdras 6:49-52 "Then thou didst keep in existence two living creatures; the name of one thou didst call Behemoth and the name of the other Leviathan. … And thou didst give Behemoth one of the parts which had been dried up on the third day, to live in it, where there are a thousand mountains; but to Leviathan thou didst give the seventh part, the watery part; … "
Job 3:8 "Let the cursers of day mark it, Who are ready to wake up Leviathan." (YLT translation.) KJV has it as "Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning."
Job 40:15 "Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox."
Job 41:1 "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? … "
Isaiah 13:21-22 " … and satyrs shall dance there. … "
Isaiah 14:29 " … because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. "
Isaiah 30:6 " … the viper and fiery flying serpent, … "
Isaiah 34:7 "And the unicorns shall come down with them, … " Is this a biblical sighting of Her Holy Pinkness (pbuh)?
Isaiah 37:1 "In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."
Isaiah 39:14 " … and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; … "
Isaiah 59:5 "They hatch cockatrice' eggs, … "
Noah 4:7-8 "And on that day were two monsters parted, a female monster named Leviathan, to dwell in the abysses of the ocean over the fountains of the waters. But the male is named Behemoth, who occupied with his breast a waste wilderness named Duidain, … "
Numbers 21:6 "And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, … "
Psalms 74:14 "Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, … "
Psalms 104:26 "There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein."
Not only fire-breathing serpents, but water from flint rock
Deuteronomy 8:15 " … wherein were fiery serpents, … who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;"
And this is … ?
Ezekiel 1:6-11 "And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass. And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings. Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies."
Sin can be transferred to animals (the Scapegoat)
Barnabas 7 " … Take two goats of goodly aspect, and similar to each other, and offer them. And let the priest take one as a burnt-offering for sins. … "
Leviticus 4:3-24 "If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering. … Or if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, come to his knowledge; he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a male without blemish: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the Lord: it is a sin offering."
Leviticus 16:21-22 "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: … "
The smallest seed?
Matthew 13:31-32 " … grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: … "

Bits & Pieces

How to live for a long time
Deuteronomy 22:6-7 "If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days." If this applied to keeping mating pairs of birds to produce more young, it would make sense, but it doesn't, and it doesn't.
How to recognise and cure leprosy
Leviticus 14:37-53 " … if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall; Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days: … he shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place: … And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and he shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place. Moreover he that goeth into the house all the while that it is shut up shall be unclean until the even. And he that lieth in the house shall wash his clothes; and he that eateth in the house shall wash his clothes. … And he shall take to cleanse the house two birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop: And he shall kill the one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water: And he shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times: … This is the law for all manner of plague of leprosy, and scall, And for the leprosy of a garment, and of a house, And for a rising, and for a scab, and for a bright spot: To teach when it is unclean, and when it is clean: this is the law of leprosy."
Someone tries to emulate James Woods' character in Videodrome
Judges 3:21-22 "And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly: And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out." Dirt? How did it get in there to begin with, or do you mean shit or entrails?
Another lie, really
Deuteronomy 7:15 "And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, … " Didn't say when, though, which is a normal psychic fudge - claim specific events within vague time or vague events at a specific time, and if they have to claim specific events at a specific time and it doesn't happen, say it occurred somewhere else.
Printing existed BCE
Job 19:23 "Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!" To be fair, the YLT says : "Who doth grant now, That my words may be written? Who doth grant that in a book they may be graven?", so this is probably just an example of a translator making a reference to what was then the new technology of printing.
Eye Beams
Luke 6:41-42 "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye." A very old assumption of how people were able to perceive things was that the eyes emitted beams of light which illuminated objects and so made them visible, but this theory was disproved long before the time of Luke by those who argued that if it were true, the more people that looked at something the brighter it would be, and that darkness could never exist. However, the actual text seems to be saying that you can be aware of a speck of dirt in someone else's eye but not your own and so makes perfect sense (and as a parable for not seeing one's own flaws), yet the word 'beam' used in both the KJV and the YLT has no relation to a mote.

Ark-aeology & Creationism

Click here to see the tenets of the Institute for Creation Research.
Scientists would never contemplate signing a similar declaration that anything written by Darwin or Einstein is sacrosanct because the whole point of science is to challenge current theories and improve them when something they do not explain is encountered. It's called progress.

George Jammal's original letter to Duane Gish (vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research) regarding his discovery of Noah's ark, dated 01/11/1985, named his assistants as Mr. Asholian, a friend as Vladimir Sobitchsky, and Asholian's son-in-law, Allis Buls Hitian. No one saw through this hoax at the time, and for further proof that Creationists don't have a sense of humour, a German story in Kolnische Illustrierte Zeitung, dated 01/04/1933, travelling via a couple of refugee publications and appearing in a Russian paper Mech Gedeona (The Sword Of Gideon), was then taken up in the 1970s by various people, including James Irwin (a NASA astronaut who had walked on the moon); in the original German article, the participants' names are Professor Stoneass, Professor Mud, and Mrs. Putrid Lousey.
In all fairness to some critics, Bill Crouse, himself an 'ark hunter' and publisher of the Ararat Report, doubted Jammal from the beginning and logically desputed all of his claims, but his was only one of a very few voices raised in protest.
Derived from various articles on the American Atheists site, including one by Jim Lippard.

Genesis 6:14-16 "Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it." That's about 450ft × 75ft × 45ft with a 'finish above' for the window of 1½ ft. Creationists say this is literally true; they also claim that all the oil / coal / tar deposits were laid down after the global flood. There is a slight problem here - where did the pitch come from?
Penguins must have walked all the way to the antarctic from Mount Ararat, and how did all the marsupials manage to keep together during their journey to Australia? Opps, sorry, at that time there was only the super-continent Pangea which then broke up, producing continental drift at a rate of up to 1 mile/hour, with everyone 'riding' the tectonic plates to their ultimate destination (and presumably watching all the mountains being made as plates crashed under or over one another). The dinosaurs were all drowned in the deluge, of course.

If there is no evolution, and has not been since the flood, then everything that exists now existed then, including bacteria, viruses, and so-on. Noah only had seven others (Genesis 7:13 " … Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons … ") to help him in this mammoth (now extinct) task of saving two (or sometimes seven) of each kind of creature, so between them his entire family must have had ringworm, flukes, lice & scabies, colds, flu, diptheria, hepatitis, rubella, polio, chicken-pox, aids, measles, mumps, tuberculosis, etc. Also, without evolution, every strain of bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics must also have been around at the time, and taken a ride on the ark with someone as a host; there would also have been insects that were resistant to pesticides before the pesticides were invented.

Dinosaurs and Humans did not co-exist, but according to certain interpretations of footprints discovered in the bed of the Paluxy River, they did, and these marking have been pounced upon as further 'proof' of the bible's recording of history. Despite the fact that even some creationists have accepted the supposedly 'human' tracks were actually made by a 3-toed creature, many still tout this as evidence to support their theories. That the two species could live harmoniously was no problem, because in pre fall-from-grace eden, all the creatures were vegetarians (this explains why getting them all in Noah's ark was so easy), but as there were some really strong plants at the time, the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Sabre-toothed Tiger needed rather large teeth.


SUPERSTITION | HOME