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Appendix
B - Science and Religion
Ken Ham often states that in science your worldview is predicated on your axioms. Axioms are unsupported statements about the world or the system you are studying. He views the Creationist Christian axioms as the assumption that God exists, the Bible is literally true and therefore that he created the world in six twenty-four hour days around six thousand years ago. By assuming these as axioms it is possible to build a logically consistent, at least consistent as far as the believer is concerned explicative system. However, the further point about axioms is that they are justified by applying them. They become self-evidential as they allow the observer to make sense of the world and thus demonstrate that the axioms are correct not just as an explanation but also as a predictive framework. So for instance the three laws of motion postulated by Newton are axioms. They were put forward as a basis from which a consistent systematisation of mechanics could be formed. They are viewed as a good representation of reality because they work to produce reliable results. So is it possible to develop a self-consistent explanation for the world around me on the basis of the assumption of the truth of the Bible? If not then there is a problem with the Bible’s value as a scientific textbook. This would not mean that the Bible is completely false but just that it is not a basis for scientific interpretation of the world. The Bible may have value as a historical document and its historical veracity should be consistent with historical events that we can date and verify independently. If the Bible is not consistent with verifiable independent sources then we cannot rely on the Bible as a historical document. Nevertheless the Bible may have a statement of truth, which is not about physical origins but about my spiritual origin and state. However, if the Bible is not self consistent then I have a problem even with this in that to make a meaningful statement about anything the Bible, if it is viewed as a whole, as the modern church does, must at least be internally self consistent. What does the Bible say about Science? In terms of physics and chemistry there is absolutely nothing. There are some statements relating to cosmology and origins of at least the Earth. The Bible also has some statements about biology. We have looked in the preceding appendix at what one group believe the Bible says about Science. These like pretty much all the other views of the scientific statements in the Bible are extrapolations into modern science on the basis that the Bible must be consistent with modern scientific thinking. This is perhaps the wrong way round since if one believes the Bible is divinely inspired and is the definitive information even on Science then surely a believing scientist should have discerned at least a peek into a theory of how the world works that was not realised from nature but on investigation proved to be true. Is the idea of creation happening in six days with a succeeding worldwide flood a feasible approach to explaining the observations of the Earth’s geological record? Is it just because pagan scientists have ignored the evidence before them? The following link to the conclusion of Glenn Morton’s article at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/#conclusion gives good reasons why the scientific view of geology is not just some bit of pagan propaganda. I also promised earlier to elucidate on why we can be sure radioactive dating is quite accurate. There are 110 elements that have definitely been observed though only the first 92 are observed in nature. Lead is the end point for the three naturally occurring decay chains starting with Uranium or Thorium. Lighter elements can and do have radioactive isotopes but these do not usually have chains of decay through a series of radioactive elements but decay directly to a stable isotope of another element. Each radioactive isotope has a characteristic decay rate. While individual atoms decay randomly the rate of decay for large numbers is extremely predictable. Carbon 14 is used to estimate the age of organic material that is up to a few hundred thousand years old. Accurate calibration using tree rings has been done using American bristlecone pines and German and Irish oak for the last 10,000 years and cross checked with lakebed deposits which have annual deposition patterns. The original assumption that the concentration of atmospheric Carbon 14 has been constant was found not to be precisely true though it holds to within better than 10% error. Creationist claims that false ages are recorded because less C14 was produced before the Flood due to the vapour canopy shielding the Earth from solar neutron bombardment have to explain the rings. Also the data neatly falls on a straight line when radioactive and chronological ages are graphed together, if one was under or overestimating the other there would be a curve. Other confirmations come from precisely dated relics from Egyptian tombs and these show no problems around the purported time of the flood. Older material that has been subjected to heating and solidification can be dated by radioactive methods using longer half lived elements. A rough age of the earth is estimated from the fact that no naturally occurring radio-nucleotides (except for decay products or like C14 continuously produced from solar or cosmic-ray bombardment) occur with half-lives less than 80 million years. This gives a lower limit on the age of the earth of at least 1.6 billion years. Dating igneous rocks is done through separating different minerals and comparing the ratios of radioactive to stable isotopes. By using different minerals with different ratios of starting elements the dating can be crosschecked. With a single mineral the ratios of the isotopes that are not decay products to the decay products or their sources have to be assumed when two or more are present then a line through the ratio points can be drawn giving an estimate of the initial conditions. Morris and Whitcomb in “The Genesis Flood” said that if there were examples of this multi mineral dating giving consistent results (isochrones) then they would have to reconsider their position, as these would be evidence for an Old Earth. Subsequently they merely declared that they had expected these results as God would be expected to create an Earth with the appearance of age. So if the young earth view is to hold we have to assume not only a world magically created with a false history but also a history that does not fit the creation story. How about an old earth point of view? Does Genesis 1 & 2 correspond to major stages in the observed record of the universe’s development? Unfortunately not, many attempts have been made. One example is Gerald L. Schroeder in his book “The Science of God”. He postulates that the six days are periods on a varying scale starting from the Big Bang with a period of billions of years for day one reducing to the last 6000 years for day seven. The problem is that the creation story just does not fit the data from geology showing the order and periods when species emerged. (That is true even if you want to assume intelligent design.) The two differing accounts in Genesis 1&2 also form their own problems of consistency and certainly one or other would be in conflict with the observed data. How historical is the Bible? The Bible is clearly a historical book in the sense that it was written in the past and it has had an enormous effect on the history of the world. In fact it continues to have enormous effect, as the world seems about to plunge into a war between Muslims and Christians. However, is it accurate when it portrays historical settings and events? Ruth and Esther, which deal with supposedly historical topics, are works of fiction. Ruth may be based on fact but, as far as can be determined, Esther is not related to any known historical events or people and is at odds with Daniel’s depiction of the exile. The lack of early manuscripts for the Old Testament works against it in that it does not allow a check for changes in later editions. This has highlighted amendments to the text in a number of New Testament cases such as Mark and John. One case is in Jeremiah where the Masoritic text, on which the Old Testament is based, is shorter in the Septuagint and the Qumran versions ( Septuagint translated around 300 BCE and the Qumran scroll around 100BCE) indicating that there have been additions to the book of Jeremiah since the first century. Scholars are generally in agreement that the first four books of the Pentateuch were edited together from different sources primarily the Yahwists and the Elohists from their references to God either as YHWH or as Elohim or El for short. Deuteronomy is probably the book given to Josiah in 622 BCE with the following books (Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings) completed during the exile. The Chronicles are reckoned to have been written in postexilic times. While all this is better than average for the reliability and time since the event for writing a history in the ancient world it is not cast iron reliable. The lack of verifiable sources closer to events means that even if one believes they were written at the time it cannot be proven. In fact the use of words and terms from after the time of supposed writing e.g. in the case of Daniel, coupled with errors of detail, mean it is difficult to make any case for parts of the Old Testament to be written at any other time than post exile. How self-consistent is the Bible and how does it stand up as a spiritual guide? One of the most notable problems in the Bible is the accuracy of its prophecy. Moses declared that if a prophet speaks a prophecy and declares it came from the Lord, and it does not come to pass then that prophet was false. This dismisses Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Isaiah and Ezekiel prophesied the fall of Tyre. Their prophecies are mutually incompatible and both wrong. Isaiah said Tyre would fall for 70 years and Ezekiel said it would fall to Nebuchadnezzar and never be rebuilt. In fact it fell to Alexander the Great sometime later and was rebuilt in a few years and is still there today. Ezekiel realised that the prophecy had failed and then went on to prophesise the fall of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar. This prophecy failed too. Jeremiah declared that Zedekiah would die in peace when in fact he saw his sons executed and then was blinded to die in chains. Jeremiah was wrong about Josiah and Jehoiakim predicting the opposites of their ends also. Jeremiah also said David would never lack a man on his throne but the throne was empty from the exile to Jesus and Jesus’ descent from David is questionable. These are just a few of the inconsistencies that have worried me, see the section on Jesus regarding the New Testament problems I find. There are more that others have listed. Given that the Bible declares itself to be divinely protected against error any false prophecy is a major difficulty. Even the prophecies that are very specific and apparently fulfilled are impossible to verify because there is no dateable copy of the prophecy from a time before the fulfilment. In fact there are no copies except the Qumran and the Septuagint dating from B.C.E.. |