Bible and Science – a Plea for Understanding

Andy Carloff [1] quotes an inspirational paragraph from Paine, which closes with the conclusion that the Bible "is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel." He also extracts from Ingersoll: "I regard the Bible, especially the Old Testament, the same as I do most other ancient books, in which there is some truth, a great deal of error, considerable barbarism and a most plentiful lack of good sense." It is easy to see that Andy puts "errors" "barbarism" and the "lack of good sense" on the tab of God.

At a deeper consideration, the Bible believers must declare themselves very satisfied. Indeed, we must conclude that Andy Carloff's paper, and the like, show that the Bible has finally reached its goal, even if partially. Indeed, the Bible is all about abominations of the Man as he evolved as a species. And it occurred to us that the Bible is a record of these abominations as archetypes, especially in order to be avoided by Man in evolution. And if bright minds like Paine, Ingersoll or Andy Carloff have been outraged by the Bible then this is a sure sign that we are on the right track and that the Bible has actually reached its purpose. Too bad then that not all of us are outraged by those abominations, in order to become what we were intended to be by our Creator!

In making his point of showing "that not only is the Bible a tremendously foolish document, but it is outrightly dogmatic, contradicting, and corrupt of any moral value" Andy Carloff appeals to Science in order to debunk the assertions of the Book of Genesis. And sure enough, like so many other before him, he focuses upon the contradiction between the first and the fourth days of the Creation:

"God made "light" on the first day (Genesis 1:3), but then made the Sun and stars later (Genesis 1:16). The light, as we know it, comes from the chemical and atomic reactions of Hydrogen and Helium in the Sun. These chemical and atomic reactions cause energy to come out of the Sun in the form of light. God cannot create light and then create the Sun a day later. They are intrinsically one and the same thing."

Up to this point we have only positive Science. But then Andy becomes a little more subtle: he enters the realm of philosophical argument, in anticipating that some of us may try to avoid the direct physical interpretation of the words of Genesis and get into the slippery argument of logic, as it has already been done so many times thus far:

"One may argue that God created the concept of light (sic!), but then God should have taken a day to invent the concept of sky and ground before physically bringing them into existence, as well as the concepts of vegetation, the birds and the fish, and the land creatures. However, light should not need to be created if God will eventually create the Sun days later. And if light exists without the Sun, then the creation of the moon, the Sun, and the stars is completely unnecessary. Even if God did create the concept of light on the first day, would it not seem logical to then build the concept of light - the Sun and the stars - the day after, instead of then creating the sky and the ground, the vegetation, and then the concept of light? Assumingly, why would God even need to create the concept of light? After all, according to Isaiah 46:10, God knows all. If this is true, then God would already have the knowledge of the concept of light, and therefore the invention of the idea or concept of light, would be completely unnecessary."

As a parenthesis, just out of curiosity we wanted to know how "God knows it all" and went to the verse 46:10 from the Book of Isaiah. It reads: "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" Well, declaring the end from the beginning can, indeed, be taken as "knowing all" if, in the good spirit of following Andy's argument we have defined correctly what "all" means. We might have a momentary idea of "all", but that is far from being sufficient for the purpose of asserting on its basis that "God knows it all". It is easy to make an argument by picking up phrases from context! Why shouldn't we read, for instance, the whole context, which seems to have a different message:

"Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors. Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executes my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness: I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory." (Isaiah, 46:8-13)

It seems that the message has changed a little, especially if we pay due attention to the italicized phrases. Well, we are not here for a church sermon, but to make a point about the scientific argument, intended, in Carloff's article as well as in countless others along centuries to blemishing the whole message of the Bible. This is a way of debunking whose idea is very simple: if the Bible is a joke from scientific point of view, then even more so, it is not credible from any other point of view! The abominations presented by the Bible are then just plain abominations, they cannot trigger but abominations, as indeed the history plainly shows. And if this is true, then we must free ourselves from the tyranny of the Bible, we must be free spirits!

We are not quite so sure what the free spirit, for which Andy Carloff explicitly militates, might mean. As a matter of fact he is the living example that the things described in the Bible have reached their true goal! Why should we free ourselves from the Bible, for instance, and not from… ourselves for a change? Then, again, this is not our business here. As we just said, our business here is only to make a point about the scientific argument in debunking the Bible, and for this it is first necessary to make some other points more precise.

Andy's contention, like that of many before him, ever since the Newtonian Natural Philosophy came to light, is that God cannot create light first and the Sun a day later. Well, to be exact the Sun was created four days later, if the "two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night" of Genesis 1:16 is taken as representing the Sun and the Moon, respectively. Also, Andy makes precise his subject of discussion, which is "the light, as we know it". It seems, however that this "concept" is not what he had exactly in mind, because in the excerpts above he declares straightforwardly that "God cannot create light and then create the Sun a day later. They are intrinsically one and the same thing." That's right: the Sun and the light are one and the same thing!

Well, let's get into a little sophistic argument, just for the sake of … the argument! If the Sun and the light are the same thing, then the "light as we know it" is no better known that the Sun. Everybody, not just the scientists, agrees that the Sun is a "great unknown" therefore the light is a great unknown. So, what we know about the light is that actually we don't know it at all! Se non e vero e ben trovato. Here we might indeed say that Andy Carloff is right: we don't know too much about the light!

But let's not leave the taste of unfinished that every sophistic argument has, and get down to the facts. The light as we know it is the light as we perceive it through our eyes. At least this is what it seems to be meant in the Bible by light. Science proposed "atomic reactions that cause energy to come out of the Sun", unfortunately not exclusively "in the form of light". As a matter of fact, the light is a minor fraction of that energy. One hypothetic process responsible for the releasing of energy in the stars like Sun is the so called Bethe cycle. This is a cyclic process, supposed to work in the thermodynamical conditions inside stars. But those conditions are pretty much speculations and, as we said before science only proposes. Take, for instance, the excerpt [2]:

"In 1938 Hans Bethe proposed that the Sun obtained its energy by fusing hydrogen nuclei to form helium. He also showed how fusion could proceed by means of a cyclical process, involving nuclei of carbon and nitrogen; the carbon and nitrogen nuclei are recovered and the only change is that 4 hydrogen atoms combine into helium. Today Bethe's cycle is believed to operate mainly in stars somewhat hotter than the Sun."

When a scientist presents a theory in order to explain a certain phenomenon, then he/she analyzes the degree of reality of that theory. We never see a scientist declaring that his explanation is true with apodictic certainty. As a matter of fact, every scientific explanation of a phenomenon has at least one counterpart, having a priori just the same right in addressing the problem raised by that phenomenon. This is a well known fact among the scientists, this is why not too many jump into partaking in the Bible-Science controversy. It is only when a scientific result breaks into media that it appears as one hundred percent true, and this only for commercial reasons.

Such one hundred percent true scientific results are taken by Andy Carloff and many others in proving that the Bible is wrong. No scientist will come out in saying otherwise, because a scientist knows that the argument cannot be made decisively, and his/her reputation may be at stake. So, whenever such "decisive debunking" comes out in the open and the scientists do not react, this is taken as a triumph of the debunkers. Well, we are just asking two questions to which these debunkers must answer, before they can be taken seriously into consideration: (1) Are we aware of the fact that, if the Earth would not be here, the Sun could not shine there? (2) Are we aware of the fact that, if the Moon would not be there, the life could not exist on Earth?

If the answer is yes, then the case is closed. If the answer is frankly no, then we can talk. Until then let's leave the things as they are. Again, we can declare ourselves very satisfied of our species if there are individuals among us who are revolted by the abominations described in the Bible. There is a hope for us!

What a childish and ignorant god is our God! He didn't even know what the light is! He didn't even know that everyone of us will have a "concept of light" and the right to deny Him in the name of this concept, in order to free our spirit. What is the freedom of spirit?

References
[1] Andy Carloff, Mistakes in Genesis, this site
[2] David Stern, http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Ls7adisc.htm