The Science of the Bible ~ John Jaeger

[Peter]

The Science of the Bible
(Collected by Pete a couple of years ago from author, via forum.)

(in progress) by John Jaeger

Because I graduated with a degree in chemistry, a science by any definition of the term, I understand, and subscribe to the tenets of the scientific method. If anything has given me an appreciation for the Profound Fortuitous Interdependencies* which make life possible, it is the objectivity engendered by my scientific background, coupled with common sense so often lacking in even highly educated people. It is completely anti-intellectual of others to denigrate us, often maliciously so, because we believe in God. Calling thoughtful Christians "fundies" and believers in a "flat earth" seems to give many people the perverse notion that such name-calling makes them more erudite, while consigning us, their targets, to the tidepools of ignorance. Just as Jesus overturned the tables of the money-changers in His Temple, so too is it my intention to overturn some atheists' tables with these personally written observations correlating science with its Maker.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The Holy Bible was written more than 2000 years ago. It was only in 1927 that George LeMaitre proposed the "Big Bang" - in other words, the creation of the universe. Prior to LeMaitre's radical proposal, scientists believed that the universe was eternal, that it had always been as we see it today. In 1929, Fred Hubble discovered the Red Shift. This phenomenon shows that some galaxies are moving away from us at greater speeds than others, and that such velocities are proportional to their distance. This gave strong corroboration to the Big Bang theory of creation. It was later confirmed by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson who in 1965 discovered the background radiation which originated in the Big Bang.
So we see Twentieth Century confirmation of the profoundly deep science originally expressed in the first sentence of the first paragraph of the first book of the Bible.

Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Modern chemistry could not have begun before 1802, when John Dalton formally stated that everything is composed of atoms based on experimental evidence. Everything before this was mere speculation - guesswork. Nevertheless, it is clearly stated in Genesis that man is "formed of the dust of the ground", which is to say, the same elements of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, iron, nitrogen, etc, that we find in . . . dust of the ground, as well as rocks.

Genesis 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every foul of the air;

The same elements which form humans also form animals everywhere. However, there is no Biblical reference to "a living soul" with respect to animals. Nor do animals have the capacity to worship and appreciate the spirituality and hope that is one of the premier hallmarks of mankind, and our supreme bequest.

Genesis 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

One would think that as a result of the disciplines and analyses and benefits the manmade invention of science has helped us to discover, mankind should have been able to eliminate corruption and violence so prevalent thousands of years ago. Today, we have tools of production and health and social enlightenment unimaginable when the book of Genesis was written. But the earth today is STILL full of corruption and violence. Cornucopias of goods and services have not satisfied mankind's lust for more, nor have psychologists and sociologists resolved the complex issues that lead people into destructive behavior. With burgeoning prison populations, and monstrous acts of evil on the increase worldwide, there seems little hope that corruption and violence will ever be eradicated by secular science.

Genesis 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

Although the North American Continent was unknown when the Bible was written, paleontologists confirm that the interior of North America was once covered by shallow seas. Fossil evidence from distant parts of the globe that were unknown to inhabitants of ancient Israel lends scientific confirmation to the Noachian Flood described in the most ancient book of science known to man, the Holy Bible. . I do not pretend to know the length of the six "days" of creation. However it is abundantly clear to me that the Elegance of Everything and the insuperable statistics of abiogenesis and the Anthropic Principle are eternally inexplicable by any exclusively naturalistic method. To those with eyes, God's Hand is clearly visible everywhere one looks.

Exodus 3:14 I am hath sent me unto you.....
John 9:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

The naturalistic, if you will, "scientific" approach to explaining how man and energy and matter and space originated is to hypothesize and theorize and examine what is observable. It is a futile exercise to look ever further back from whence everything came because the origin of the universe is unknowable. It is inconceivable that matter formed and organized itself. There is no scientific explanation for the origin of matter at the Moment of Creation, the Singularity, and obviously no experiment can examine, much less confirm any hypothesis of what first happened to lead to us.
In contrast, God defies scientific explanation because He is outside its purview. If miracles were scientifically explicable, they would not be miracles. After all, God created the physical realm that is the subject of scientific inquiry and we are still desperately trying to understand that aspect of his handiwork. Had mere mortals written where God came from, they surely could not have presented such an elegant explanation as "I am" - an explanation that suffices even two thousand years later. Where did God come from? "I am." The universe is obviously not eternal, but God is.
I have only a vague notion of how my computer works as I type this on it. Although I don't know how it works, I do know that it is real and that it operates in a marvelous way. I don't need to understand things to believe in and use them. And how much more marvelous is my brain and yours than these primitive computers, not one of which designed, much less built itself.

Job 26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

Has anyone the slightest doubt as to how "empty" the North Pole is? Anyone?
Nobody living in the Middle East could possibly have visited "the north" so as to confirm what was then being written. These immutable scientific truths - two here in a single sentence - were far too coincidental to be attributable to luck. No, they were divinely inspired, as were so many things in the Bible. The earth truly hangs "upon nothing", as confirmed by countless photographs from satellites and space stations, not to mention men on the moon, and the north is indeed an "empty place" by any measure.

Job 26:14 Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?

With all our wisdom, and all our science, and all our research, "who can understand" anything today. Ultimate scientific answers continue to elude us everywhere one looks ! The pretense is that all this magnificent science that we see and study arose from nothing, based solely on megatime and megauniverses. Insuperable statistical impossibilities are explained away with clever wordplay and nebulous theories - anything at all to deny the Hand of the Creator so evident to casual observers, of all educational backgrounds, and all nationalities, and all times. That is, except for those who will not see.

Job 28:5 As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.

The molten iron core of the earth was inconceivable because it was not discoverable when this passage was written. "Under (earth) it is turned up as it were fire."
Ah, some may say, "But there were volcanoes even then." True enough. But are not volcanoes both isolated and rare, and not so much "under" the earth as above it? The molten core of the earth accords far better with this passage. Their scientific agreement is not coincidental, but rather Divinely inspired and guided.
Psalms 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
NASA maintains a website which is updated daily. Its purpose, however unintended, is to "declare the glory of God" and to "show his handiwork."
How remarkable that so repetitive and well known a phenomenon as sunset can delight people of all ages, and all times, and all civilizations. How much more delightful are the glories and handiworks seen in national parks and sightseeing attractions worldwide, so many of which could scarcely have been known by the Bible's authors. Nor had the first telescope been invented 2000 years ago. How is it that the more deeply we have seen, the more handiwork we have seen? How is it?

Psalms 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Mankind is indeed "fearfully and wonderfully made." The sophistication of our construction begins at the atomic level with atoms that are one part in 10^17 nucleus and the rest empty space. Then consider our DNA, which is 45 trillion times more compact and efficient at data storage than today's sophisticated computer microchips.
Our brains have the memory capacity of 100 billion megabytes, which far exceeds anything conceivably necessary from a "selection" point of view.
Our optic nerves transmit information at 4 gigabaud, which is 71,000 times faster than a dial up modem, and 1,000 times faster than an ultra-high speed T-1 line for a computer.
The human eye sees in exquisite detail, over about 13 orders of magnitude of light intensity. Although the eye is often said to be flawed in its design by Darwinists and atheists, I would very much like to see them replace a human eye with something better which they have designed and built from lab reagents.
Our ears hear over 13 orders of magnitude in sound intensity. Even more amazing, the ears perform a Fourier Analysis. In other words, our eardrums receive a single wave function at the eardrum. Then they break down this single wave function into its constituent sounds. For example, at a concert, your ears hear drums, brass, violins, solo arias, and the person behind you coughing, only because this blended noise is separated inside your ear. If your eyes performed a similar function, they would break down white just as a prism does, into disparate pure colors.
Finally, our two eyes enable us to discern distance (and relative size) by triangulation. Our brains automatically compute the angle of the object seen, and compute its approximate distance. Similarly, our two ears enable us to discern the direction from which noises emanate not only because we have two ears, but also because of the relatively slow speed of sound. A difference in the arrival time from one ear to another of one thousandth to one ten-thousandth of a second is sufficient to discern, so that we can tell generally where a sound originated. If sound were substantially faster, both our ears would hear the sound at about the same time, and we could not enjoy stereophonic music, nor tell where sounds came from.
In His wisdom, God made these velocities profoundly useful to us (as well, of course, as many, many other physical constants besides). They did not "evolve" to such values. And should they have been substantially different, say reversed, no evolutionary "modification" could possibly compensate to give us what we now have.
Biochemistry is so profoundly complex that we are only beginning to appreciate how "wonderfully" we are made. Human blood defies LeChatlier's Principle, in that when one molecule of oxygen is adsorbed by a hemoglobin molecule, its affinity for oxygen grows, instead of diminishing. The second molecule increases the affinity for the third, and the third for the fourth. This is precisely the reverse of normal chemistry principles and experimental observations. Our bodies' powers of endurance and healing are absolutely astounding.
The list of features of our wonderful construction begin with conception, continue through growth, and conclude with our spiritual transformations evidenced time and again by the scientific observations of such people as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Dr. Kubler-Ross documented hundreds of instances of scientific evidence of a spiritual nature. She convincingly testified that she could not be persuaded of any naturalistic (scientific) explanation for it.

Continued

[Peter]

Continuation

Ecclesiastes 1:7 All rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence rivers come, thither they return again.

The cyclical nature of nature encompasses us. The water cycle is described only with utmost brevity in Ecclesiastes. Today we understand (considerably better than did Biblical authors) the evaporation of water and its importance in most chemical processes. Beyond this, we can see and describe cycles of carbon, and nitrogen, and oxygen, and hydrogen. We are able to comprehend the nature of energy, and the conservation of not only energy, but also of matter itself. More complex by far is the transformation of matter into energy, which gives us sunlight continuously. Why should all these things be? And why so reliably? Why are chemical reactions so wonderfully and perfectly reversible? Why? For the same reason that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made". For that reason. These Profound Fortuitous Interdependencies did not just fall into place with Megaluck over Megatime, as some scientists posit, their fingers crossed.

Ecclesiastes 2:13 Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.

Again and again there are Biblical references to wisdom, prudence, diligence, and other virtues. The essence of science is the pursuit of truth, knowledge, and facts. However, wisdom requires more than mere knowledge. Wisdom requires the integration of scientific truths with far more virtuous conduct than the mere accretion of naturalism.
Hitler and Stalin appreciated the science of Darwinism for its atheistic implications.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

Who can name one aspect of our universe that is known "from the beginning to the end"? Research continues with absolutely no end remotely in sight, on the molecular level, on the cellular level, on the human level, on the planetary level, and on the galactic level. How is it that we don't know everything about absolutely anything, if all that we see came about from nothingness, as naturalists contend? How is that possible? Infinite complexity from infinite nothingness? Profound organization and information and consistency and physical laws, originating". HOW ! This "something from nothing" makes no scientific sense. An infinite God makes spiritual sense, and He is utterly beyond the purview of science - which is merely another of God's brilliant creations.
Two things are incomprehensible. First, the origin of everything absent God, and second, God Himself. Everyone must choose his own incomprehensible option. The first is random meaningless, literally and figuratively. The second option is elegant, beautiful, hopeful, and wonderful beyond comprehension. This second option matches the creative genius that surrounds us.

Matthew 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

Wisdom excelleth folly as far as light excelleth darkness. The Creator of mankind does not want anyone to be fooled; He does not wish that we be gullible, or duped by clever sounding words, whether they be from scientists wearing white robes, or priests wearing white robes. It is the essence of science to search for truth, and ask questions, and seek to answer them. Toward this end, we must acknowledge the extremely transitional nature of scientific "fact", and the pretexts of contemporary scientific infallibility. Nowhere is the attempt to deceive us more malicious and destructive than when it seeks to deny the very existence of our Creator, and separate us from Him - permanently.
Forty percent of those listed in Who's Who In Science acknowledge a personal belief in God. You must ask yourself why. Surely these people are not the fools that some scientific atheists accuse you and me of being.

John 3:11, 12 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.

If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
The timeless veracity and wisdom of this statement is prophetic. After over two thousand years, what is often called the "myth" that is the Holy Bible, cannot remotely be discredited. To the contrary, the obvious and manifest benefits to mankind of Christianity have been repeatedly addressed by professionals in psychology, sociology, criminology, and other modern disciplines. The deep and abiding science, beginning with the first sentence in the first Book, is compelling testimony. For these reasons and more, Christianity is today the most popular human organization there has ever been. Yet many still "receive not our witness." How can this be? Why will mankind not learn?

I Thessalonians 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

Is there a more concise explanation of the scientific method? "Prove all things"?
Scientists always attempt to prove their theories. I would suggest that far too often scientists hold fast to that which is no good, including pride, and condescension, and hatred and bias, in particular of the atheist liberal variety. There have been countless vile references to Christians as "fundies" and "Bible thumpers", the most vicious of which comes from left wing atheists, for example Richard Dawkins, a "scholar" at Oxford University. Another scientist, Victor Stenger stated that "We will become God."
Who needs God when you're already imbued with that level of importance.

Hebrews 3:4 For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.

This is confirmation of Genesis 1:1. Natural Theology, written in 1809 by William Paley, makes a similar argument from design. Just as a Boeing 747 can never be the product of an explosion in a junkyard, neither can the far more intricate construction of a human being be the ultimate product of random mutations, selectively but blindly "chosen." See also www.2001Principle.net

Mark 14:7 For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

Although not strictly "scientific", the foregoing verse demonstrates a profound economic truth notwithstanding the astonishing achievements of modern science. Had one the vision to see forward more than 2000 years to witness the abundance of food and material goods we now produce, surely one would have surmised that "the poor" would be no more than a relic of the ancient past. Not so. In fact, nowhere are "the poor" more common and more destitute than in socialist countries led by atheist despots.

Acts 17:26 (God) hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.

Notwithstanding the vast differences in outward appearance of the peoples of the earth, from fair skinned Norwegians, to African pygmies, "all nations of men" are Homo sapiens. All humans can, within the constraints of blood typing, be transfused by the blood from men of "all nations." This close biological relationship of mankind was cited before blood types and biological classifications were ever imagined.

John 18:37 Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?
Eighty-two percent of Americans believe that Jesus Christ was God, according to a survey taken by Princeton Survey Research Associates on Dec 2 and 3, 2004 for Newsweek Magazine. Jesus Christ said that people of the truth hear his voice. Today one especially hears atheists and their close allies, liberals, reply just as Pontius Pilate did two thousand years ago with a mockingly dishonest question: "What is truth?" when even a ten year old has the capacity to know what truth is. If there is any search for enlightenment in today's scientific community, it should be the search for truth.

Luke 21:33; Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.

Just as Genesis 1:1 foretold the scientific truth of the Big Bang, or as it is almost universally called today, "The Moment of Creation", so too does the Gospel of Luke describe the passing away of matter. Stars like our own sun are consuming their own hydrogen, fusing it into helium, losing vast amounts of weight, and radiating that energy into the heavens. All starlight will eventually pass away, and the universe will ultimately become dark and absolutely cold, devoid of life as we know it. Numerous massive black holes have been indirectly observed. They attract all matter and light into their domain, never to be seen again. Or so scientists thought before they once again changed their mind. It is now posited that Black Holes can radiate away energy, which is to say, mass. Even Black Holes seem to pass away.
The duration of elements of matter such as protons have a lifetime estimated to be 10^33 years. The heaven and the earth shall pass into cold, dark oblivion, just as stated in the Holy Bible, a book ceaselessly mocked and ridiculed by anti-Christians. The origin of our universe as well as its demise were both described in an ancient book with astonishing precision. The universe has not always existed, as previously thought by scientists, nor was it assembled piecemeal. It was "created" with a Big Bang. The universe will not continue on forever, it positively must pass away. These were not lucky guesses. They were inspirations from our Creator who wrote The Book on life, on science, and on happiness.

* Profound Fortuitous Interdependencies, a term I invented, refers to the interrelated factors surrounding us that are utterly essential to life.
First example: Oxygen happens to be one of the more reactive elements, and it exists in the most reactive phase, viz. gas. This dynamic equilibrium producing our essential breath of life is possible only because: 1. Reactions are reversible (how profoundly fortuitous!) and; 2. The reversibility of such reactions is, so far as we can tell, 100% and; 3. Natural laws are consistent and harmonious and discoverable, and; 4. Plants recycle oxygen from carbon dioxide, and: .....
Second example: The sophisticated engineering of matter, constructed primarily out of three simple building blocks, electrons, protons, and neutrons, is evidenced by the fact that only one part in 10exp17 is matter, and the rest is empty space. Moreover these three foundational components can be combined with only slight variations to give us unique characteristics as found in metals, including high shear strength, malleability, ductility, high heat and electrical conductivity, profound availability, high melting points, and other features without which there could be no airplanes, cars, or even internal combustion engines. As essential as metals are (in contrast to water, plastic, glass, and fused quartz, which transmit light with near perfection, unlike metals) to internal combustion engines, they would be virtually worthless without hydrocarbons to burn in them, which hydrocarbons just happen to be available in wondrous, underground storage tanks, to be refined and used worldwide.
But without the oxygen, there could be no cars, no plane rides to far away places, and no fires, even inside engines. Fire. Now isn't that speed and type of chemical reaction a PFI....

- John Jaeger