Talk:Biblical scientific foreknowledge

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This

This was pretty much the huge topic which got kdbuffalo/Conservative booted from wp.--PalMD^{-yada yada} 04:41, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

I hope nobody minds that I am going to start my mining of my xtian science text in this article. It has a table of things the bible claimed that took "scientists" from 1600 to 3600 years to figure out in their godless, stumbling way. I'm building the table off-site cause it's easier, it will be up soon though. human^{be in} 13:29, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

Might want to do a side-by-side of...

...http://creationwiki.org/Bible_scientific_foreknowledge.- 74.73.167.218 00:22, 17 October 2007 (EDT) - αmεσ (orator)

It's not 1500 or 300BC.

The Greeks knew that Earth was a sphere since at least 200 BC, and possibly before. Eratosthenes used a few observations, an assumption of geometric regularity, and simple math to calculate its circumference. He was rather off by modern standards, but given what he had to work with it was as precise as anyone was prepared to get. He is credited as the first person to do this, but that's only because we cannot name an older account.

Earth's sphericity would make intuitive sense to any culture that had villages on a body of water more than 12 miles wide, since you can see its curvature under circumstances like that. Then there's Earth's shadow on the moon, which at least proves that Earth is a discus if not a full sphere.

It is a widespread modern myth that the ancient consensus of Earth's shape was anything but an orb. There are some major exceptions (ancient China), but the geometry of our planet is largely self-evident. I'm not sure where this myth came from, but it sure is a popular notion today that Columbus sailed west to prove Earth was a sphere. In reality, Columbus had a very unrealistic idea of Earth's circumference compared to other people of his day, and believed he could reach Asia before he and his crew starved to death. And if the Americas hadn't intervened, he would have done just that. But Columbus was more myth than man, and any story told about him today is most likely not true. We don't even know his real name or genealogy. --76.217.94.92 15:15, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

True - didn't you see the footote [5] These numbers should be 300 BCE, 400 - AKjeldsen says this is the "second most common myth in history!"   ^Contribs_Talk 16:08, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

Does this count?

2 Peter 3:8
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Suggesting time dilation is somehow possible, without specifying how to or how much (apparently God is travelling at Godspeed to experience such phenomenon as time dilation) [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 21:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Only if the Xtians claim it. ħuman 05:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems like they actually did, as someone pointed out. Ouch. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 13:36, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Further bullshitting exposed. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 13:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Cut from article for better placement

"Time dilation is possible

2 Peters 3:8

1905 CE(speed) or 1916 CE(gravitational), 1745-1856

The whole thing is pretty much quoted out of context. The guy being debunked here made the video private, after intense challenges raised from the community. May have laid the foundation of the phrase Godspeed."

This was added to a section that is rebutting a book that it has nothing to do with. Please find better home. Also, before adding, please try to turn it into sentences. ħuman 02:35, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Citation needed

AFAIK, the Bible had a very low success rate when predicting events that had already happened. Ignoring semantics, such as predicting the past, used as a tool for "prediction" of the past the Bible is a blunt tool indeed, since no such "prediction" is very accurately described. I think only the predictor can actually predict the past, and then only such events that are recorded in detail. Sorry to say "predicting" the past is as hard as predicting the future. Rursus dixit (yada³!) 09:22, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I put a sorta "summary" in

But it think it would be better as part of the document itself. I didn't really understand the section on "equivocality and the bible", but i think that section could be more blunt - then we could remove the tripe I added. En attendant Godot 16:00, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Real Biblical scientific foreknowledge - the morton's fork

From the global flood and all the creationism pieces we can tell the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for male within human is Noah, while the Female counterpart would go pretty much back to Eve. Ergo, Bible predicts that the MRCA for male in mankind is more recent than the MRCA of female. (This is probably verified through wp as wp:Mitochondrial Eve come before wp:Y-chromosomal Adam). However since evolution has to be assumed, this is probably moot. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 00:32, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Wut? 01:18, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Gaps between science and the Bible

Is this wiki based on biased people who try and 'scratch any bit of meat off the bone' as it were? I mean, the sarcasm in this page is truly obnoxious and unnecessary, neither does it make any of the pages look professional and serious. There is a fine line between a jokey sentence and sarcastic aggression. Most notably though this is on every page on this site.

It's also interesting to note that you take a stance on a very one-sided view. The biggest example is the choice to interpret a scripture and to understand its many interpretations that it could mean. The ones that do not make sense AND the ones that could make sense should be discussed in depth. But even the one single view you take to look at a verse, you do not even mention the possibility of other meanings? The reason I relate this to the one section is because of the comments, 'Also note that the Bible says the Earth has corners, which requires a flat square or cube.' This is a great example, feels like it's written by a 8 year old who is only stating the obvious. Do you think this is meant literally, after it had first said it was a sphere in shape? Take my phrase above also, do I literally mean you are trying to scratch meat off a bone? Of course not.

This wiki is not very rational is it?

"But I thought this was supposed to be RATIONALWiki!" Drink!

That said, your criticism of that stautement is pretty valid; however, if the Bible is supposed to be scientific, it shouldn't have errors/misinterpretable statements like that. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 03:15, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

What? You are saying that our possible misinterpretations, or to put it more clearly, one certain view on a selected point, then solely proves the Bible as unscientific? If we do not know the real meanings, or correct way of interpreting a scripture, how can you say anything you refer to from the Bible as valid, for it would just be a collective groups' opinion on the matter.

It would be like taking quotes from one of Obama's speech to show that he is racist etc. Cherry picking the statements which would be out-of-context to provide as 'evidence'. This is clear with the failed prophecies in the Bible page.^{— Unsigned, by: 92.2.39.164 / talk / contribs 19:54, 4 September 2014}

I'm not sure if this is what FuzzyCatPotato was getting at, but from my point of view, if a piece of writing is vague and/or ambiguous enough to be up to interpretation, then it (more or less by definition) doesn't offer any real scientific predictive power. The moment you say, "Well, I can interpret the Bible in a way that makes this foreknowledge accurate," you're now colouring your view through hindsight bias. The fact that this article can find easily plausible interpretations that don't show scientific foreknowledge is enough to show that the Bible doesn't have any predictive power in any kind of scientific regard. - Grant (talk) 20:41, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

The bible states the Earth is a circle, though even if it did state the earth is a sphere (which it technically ISN"T a perfect sphere), common sense (anyone with a boat) could figure this out.--TemplarJLS (talk) 21:05, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying that "1 possible error = Bible unscientific". I'm saying that errors like this and vague statements like this should not be in scientific texts, which undermines the Bible as a scientific text. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 22:46, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Gaps between science and the Bible

Since this section is just a badly done version of Science Confirms the Bible, could anything useful be merged into that article? αδελφός ΓυζζγςατΡοτατο (talk/stalk) 23:55, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

BSF waiting to happen

Paleontologists use multiple methods to reconstruct the anatomy and behavior of extinct animals, including direct observations from well-preserved fossils and inferences from the phylogeny of modern and extinct relatives. We illustrate these techniques by reference to the biblical definitions of kosher and non-kosher animals; that is, how can we apply these approaches to the hypothetical question of whether an extinct form would have been kosher. The biblical categories do not readily map to modern understandings of systematics, but are heavily based on life mode. When given, distinguishing characteristics, such as the presence of fins and scales in aquatic animals, can be readily seen directly in fossils. In other cases, such as cud chewing, they need to be inferred from the phylogenetic relationships of the fossil forms. Dinosaurs (other than birds), unfortunately, are not kosher. A kosher “paleo diet” would be increasingly difficult further in the past. The use of biblical content as a way of introducing concepts from paleontology and evolutionary biology, such as crown groups and stem groups, should be of broad interest.

Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler Eat? Cømяade FυzzчCαтPøтαтø (talk/stalk) 00:13, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Bible predicts void in space

I'm an atheist, but someone I know sent me this link: https://bibleevidences.com/scientific-evidence/

I'm having a hard time answering their claim that Job 26:7 predicted the discovery of the giant void in space,and what the say but genetics, other than that it's pretty easy to debunk. ^{— Unsigned, by: Reg123 / talk / contribs}

There's something called the "preponderance of evidence", i.e. "What the majority of total evidence points to". I'll get back to that in a second.

Now, notice how almost every single claim on the page you link to is long-debunked bullshit (and there are many single claims being made on it). It even starts by claiming that the Bible has no contradictions First and foremost: two mutually exclusive accounts of Genesis, anyone?

Anyways... What "the preponderance of evidence" means is, it's not enough to get some random anomaly right here and there. You gotta get all of it right, and more so than the rival scientific consensus does, or you've just admitted that you couldn't even replace the mainstream account if you wanted to, because your "alternative" theory literally explains less than the already accepted one does. Not forgetting that the explanatory power of "goddidit" is literally zero.

Never mind the fact that precisely every single so-called "hit" in terms of Biblical scientific foreknowledge is entirely a product of shoehorning, the hindsight bias and the Barnum effect.

As for a "gigant void" in space, you could count the space between galaxies as a hit for that claim. Or you could count a supermassive black hole as the hit. Or you could count the missing dark energy as the hit.

The point is; all these people do is sit around and make things fit. And life well spent. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 12:47, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

So you're saying the void may not be the one recently discovered (said to be the largest object in the universe) but could be anything? ^{— Unsigned, by: Reg123 / talk / contribs}

What I'm saying is that these people are on the lookout a priori for anything that could be stretched to fit the vague description: "a gigant void in space". We've known of many things that could reasonably fit that description for quite some time. Hell, the Universe itself is space, gigant and a void. Hubble discovering other galaxies should've been enough. "Foreknowledge" confirmed! Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:01, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

What about it being in the general direction of the northern hemisphere? I don't believe it, but I think that without help they could convert me ^{— Unsigned, by: Reg123 / talk / contribs}

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you.

Now...When discussing the contents of the night sky (from our vantage point here on Earth), notice how literally everything visible in the sky would HAVE to fall either on the Northern- or Southern sky (since the Earth is round).

If [some predicted object] is visible to us at all, then that means it's visible from either one of the two hemispheres (assuming telescopes located at each pole).

This means that even if you just make up a prophecy where you simply guess the specific hemisphere in which [whatever you're predicting] will appear, you have a whopping 50% chance of getting it right just on your first try!

And notice that the Bible makes tons of guesses (though we ignore the ones that miss) — of course some of them are bound to get things sufficiently right to be able to be shoehornable as "confirmed"? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:27, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

"He stretches out the north over empty space; he hangs the earth on nothing (Job 26:7)”. It should be noted that just last century scientists believed space consisted of a hypothetical substance called Ether (not the chemical), which was the medium between the celestial bodies. Also, the pagans of that time believed in such things as a mythical Atlas character who supported the pillars that held heaven and earth apart, and later carried the earth around on his shoulders. Another interesting tidbit that illuminates the divine nature of Job 26:7 is the recent discovery of a huge hole in space in the direction of the northern hemisphere3." This is the claim in full made on the website. To make it easier for me, can you just debunk this argument for me, because I don't think you understood what I was saying" Reg321 (User talk: Reg321|talk]]) 13.27, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Never mind. Michael Shermer is right, even if the bibles says one (and I mean one) thing that turns out to be coincidentally true, the preponderance of evidence suggests that it's full of errors. Reg321 (User talk: Reg321|talk]]) 13.27, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Case and point

Please allow Dr. Shermer 14 minutes in total to explain what I'm driving at above. One of his points is specifically on the preponderance of evidence. Give this brief presentation of some basic tools for thinking a chance — I guarantee that you'll be glad you did. It's as important for Christians as Atheists to know these methods. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:12, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Science and the Bible

Some of the claims will be back -projection (as with Nostradamus etc), and some of the material of the Bible will have changed with the 'multiple rewritings that took place (language change and all the other reasons). However those who contributed to the text of the Bible will have observed the world around them and have made use of then-science - there is land everywhere, rain falls at times, and then plants appear, which are followed by animals, and so that is the order of things being created, with humans coming last: and #all the other religions# have a god or gods creating humas, so collective wisdom means that is what happened' etc. Anna Livia (talk) 13:57, 5 June 2022 (UTC)