100 Science Facts in the Bible

I'm convinced. Are you?

Note that it has both an atom and Einstein on the cover, to show that it is indeed a real science book.

I had to spend some time in the Portland airport this week, and while browsing about, noted that all the little shops had the same rotating shelf of religious books (mostly focusing on one particular religion). For shiggles I grabbed a little pamphlet titled Scientific Facts in the Bible, figuring it would be good for a chortle or two and would then find its way to the round file.

Once I found a comfortable seat at a bar to sample some Portland, OR beer (which is not as good as Bend, OR beer) I was disappointed to note that the book was by Ray Comfort, because he’s such a doofus — best known for his Playskool® argument that the banana is “an atheist’s nightmare” because its ease of eating can only be absolute proof of the existence of deities (but only one particular deity, for some reason). And then I read the complete title: Scientific Facts in the Bible: 100 Reasons to Believe the Bible is Supernatural in Origin.

Wait a minute. Unpack that.

If the supernatural is defined as that which exists outside of science, how could “science facts” be a reason to believe in the “supernatural”? All that science has ever taught us, so far, is that the supernatural is unnecessary.

Yeah, seriously, that title makes no sense at all. Ray put less work into that title than he did into his banana argument.

Since I bought the book so you don’t have to, it is incumbent upon me to provide some examples. The very first science fact in the Bible is the following:

The Bible and Earth’s Free-float in Space

At a time when some believed that the Earth sat on a large animal or a giant (1500 BC), the Bible spoke of the Earth’s free float in space: “He hangs the Earth on nothing” (Job 26:7). Science didn’t discover that the Earth hangs on nothing until 1650.

Jesus H. Christ, where did this clown go to school???? Well, shit, I guess I don’t need to ask; he probably had a Christian homeschooling, so we shouldn’t expect him to know dick about shit. Hey Ray:

1. There has never been a time in any region of the Earth when the educated class of people believed the Earth sat on a large animal or giant. You probably heard this from an allegory made by Bertrand Russell in his 1927 book Why I Am Not a Christian which satirizes some of the silly ideas people have had about our origin (it’s an old joke authors have been making since the 1800s). Where you get “1500 BC” is known only to yourself.

2. I have no idea where you get 1650 either; you must be wildly behind the times. By 1650, many people all around the world were observing the Galilean Moons by telescope. Kepler's laws of planetary motion were widely accepted among astronomers. Descartes had published an alternative theory (ultimately disproven) to model the orbits of the planets. Huygens was close to nailing down the structure of Saturn’s rings. Tycho Brahe and other astronomers were creating star catalogs. Much of the work developing the laws of motion and universal gravitation had been done that Newton would publish in Principia in 1687.

3. You don’t know dick about shit. If this is literally the way you open your “science” book, dude, please find a different career. Or at least give Wikipedia a try.

#3 really made me sweary — and this was only #3 out of 100!!!!! Shit. It was going to be a long-ass day at that airport bar.

The Bible Reveals that the Earth is Round

The scriptures tell us that the Earth is round… This is at least 300 years before Aristotle suggested, in his book On the Heavens, that the Earth might be a sphere. It was another 2,000 years later (at a time when science believed the Earth was flat) that the Scriptures inspired Christopher Columbus to sail around the world.

OK let’s fact check this one (might take a while):

1. Profits inspired Columbus to sail around the world, to reach the East by sailing west, to obtain valuable spices from India. He proposed this because Europeans had always known the Earth is a sphere.

2. No, no civilization ever thought the Earth was flat. That was the invention of 17th century Biblical literalists (like yourself, evidently).

3. Aristotle’s book merely reported the work done by Pythagoras, Euclid, and others who even had damn good estimates of the Earth’s circumference as early as the 6th century BCE.

4. Tell us you don’t know dick about shit without telling us.

But really, we could go on like this with every single item in Ray’s Chapter 1 “Science and the Bible.” Our brains would liquefy and spill out. Let’s skip on down a bit.

Chapter 7 is called “The Bible’s 100% Accurate Prophecies”. My favorite is The Bible’s Messianic Prophecies, which is purely a circular reference: the Bible said all these things would happen, and there they are, right there in the Bible, as proof that they happened as the Bible said they would.

1. The Bible said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and sure enough, the Messiah was born in Bethlehem, as we know from the Bible.

2. The Bible said the Messiah would be born to a virgin, and sure enough, the Messiah was born to a virgin, as we know from the Bible.

3. The Bible said the Messiah would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, and sure enough, the Messiah was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, as we know from the Bible.

4. The Bible said the Messiah would be crucified, and sure enough, the Messiah was crucified, as we know from the Bible.

5. The Bible said the Messiah would be buried in a rich man’s tomb, and sure enough, the Messiah was buried in a rich man’s tomb, as we know from the Bible.

I shit you not. This is actually Ray’s logic. Read the book if you think I exaggerate in any way. Ray goes on to say that the chances of all these predictions coming true are 1 in 10^17 — shockingly he does not show his work in arriving at that computation. I would say the chances of the words in a book being the words in that book are even better: more like 1 in 1.

There are a bunch of these, and they’re an embarrassment; it would be a waste of my life to even mention more of them.

Chapter 9, “Historical Figures and the Bible”, is a list of quotes made by American Presidents and other famous people who were notoriously religious, and who noted that the Bible had cultural importance or that it was important to them personally. However a number of them — apparently lost on Ray — cannot remotely be described as Christians, including Thomas Jefferson and Winston Churchill. Does Ray think that assembling a list of 20 or 25 religious men (with an accuracy rate of about 85%) proves the supernatural is true?

Curious that Ray did not list any scientists (other than Isaac Newton) in his book based upon the notion that science and the Bible are equivalent. He listed almost exclusively politicians; why that should prove anything about either science or religion is known only to himself.

I was intrigued by Chapter 10, “Archaeology and the Bible”. Christians have long sought to prove the literal historical truth of the Bible through archaeology, seeking things like proof of Noah’s Flood and the resting place of the Ark, the location of the Temple of Solomon, and so forth. All such efforts have failed, except in cases where the place was well known to history and not just found in the Bible.

Ray brought in a “big gun” to write this chapter, the well-named Richard Fales, whom Ray titles as “Ph.D” but it’s far from clear he had one. His only known background is as a pastor. But whatever, Ph.Ds in divinity are available online, both accredited and unaccredited. Get yours here for free!

Fales fails fast, starting off with a list of ancient historians whom he claims confirmed the existence of Jesus Christ. He is in error. Not one that he lists ever mentioned Jesus! Two of the historians he mentioned, Josephus and Tacitus, mentioned Pontius Pilate (who was unambiguously a real historical person); none mentioned Jesus. If Jesus was a real historical person, it’s unlikely that he would have been noteworthy enough during his lifetime for any historians to be aware of him. I have a complete Skeptoid episode on this, which I think is about as even-handed and unbiased as possible; it’s certainly the only unbiased article on the topic I’m aware of.

The ancient historians Fales listed did, however — along with many other historians — tell us virtually everything we know about the ancient Holy Land outside of what we know from archaeology; they just never happened to mention Jesus.

The Dead Sea Scrolls Bear Out the Bible

No shit, Fales. They’re another copy of it, plus some additional books that were not included. I have two copies of Lord of the Rings, does that prove orcs are real?

He also goes on that carbon dating of the Scrolls proves they’re authentic. Well, sure, nobody has ever expressed any doubt over that. Lots of things were written 2000 years ago, and even long before that. There is nothing supernatural about books being written long ago. I’m really not sure if I’m missing Ray and Fales’ point — remember the subtitle is “100 Reasons to Believe the Bible is Supernatural in Origin”. How does old equate to supernatural?

I guess Fales also fails to know dick about shit.

Ray’s final chapter is titled (of course) “Science and Evolution” and begins, to the surprise of no one, with the hoary old tripe:

Evolution is actually a religion… The founding father of that religion is Charles Darwin. The god of the religion of evolution is “nature,” often referred to by the faithful as “Mother Nature.”

And that little sample is really the best indicator of the quality of this book. It contains not a single original thought, or one that has not been thoroughly debunked for decades. Virtually all of its factual claims are wrong. It’s written for one audience only: the thoroughly religious who see everything as inexplicable outside of supernatural influence. It is not a book upon which to waste any of your brain cells. I shall close by paraphrasing my favorite quote from the German composer Max Reger (1873-1916), in his response to a negative review:

Dear Mr. Comfort —

I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your book before me. In a moment it will be behind me.

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