Ask Lemmy

I am a Christian.

First and foremost, the Bible isn't a science textbook. The main focus of the Bible is essentially how we need a saviour and that the saviour is coming (the old testament). And then the Gospels of the New Testament is when the saviour comes, and the Epistles are how we should respond.

The Old Testament contains the prophecy of Isaiah, which states that a saviour will come:

Isaiah 9:6-7

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Isaiah 53:3-12 KJV

[3] He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. [4] Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. [5] But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. [7] He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. [8] He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. [9] And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. [10] Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. [11] He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. [12] Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Generally, the viewpoint I will give is that this prophecy was definitely written before Jesus came (we even have a physical copy of it that predates Christ's birth) and that it prophesied Jesus perfectly. I'd point to the New Testament and how the eyewitness accounts are written as eyewitness accounts, and those eyewitnesses are reliable and even died for what they saw. Essentially, Christianity hinges on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, NOT scientific claims which are irrelevant.

however

For a period in history, scientists believed the universe had eternally existed. The idea of a "beginning" was seen as religious dogma and hubris. Until the big bang was discovered. Now it's normal that people believe there was a beginning. Some would point out that the patterns in the genesis creation narrative do add up, albeit not literal 24 hour days (such as light coming first, dry land, plants, animals, then humans. I even heard a theory that the plants could have cleared a mist causing the cosmos to become visible. But there is a symmetrical pattern there.) although I believe that the whole point of that is just "God is the creator. And He saw it was good." It would be very off if it started going into molecular biology or atomic physics. Especially since this narrative was likely captured via oral tradition.

Some would claim that Job describes a water cycle and other observations before it would have been known about. Although I wouldn't hinge my faith on this as people back then may have been more observant than we give them credit for.

Job 36:26-28

Behold, God is great, and we know him not; the number of his years is unsearchable. [27] For he draws up the drops of water; they distill his mist in rain, [28] which the skies pour down and drop on mankind abundantly.

Earth being suspended in space:

Job 26:7

He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing.

Also a creature is mentioned, some may say it was a dinosaur being described.

Job 40:15-20

[15] “Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. [16] Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. [17] He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. [18] His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. [19] “He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! [20] For the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play.

However, again, I think people trying to view religious texts as a scientific textbook are looking at it wrong. We don't need God to explain the natural world to us. We can observe it for ourselves. What we cannot observe are things like what happens after death, right and wrong, etc. The idea that, at least from a Christian perspective, that Christianity and natural science are two completely different things is wrong. Christianity isn't about science. It's about Christ and His salvation plan for us. It would be really out of place for the Bible to just become a scientific textbook. God is concerned with greater things- notably, how to save our soul.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning: early scientists were motivated to study science as they believed it was God's creation and they wanted to understand it. If there was a lawgiver, then there must be laws (of science), they thought.

I'll give two answers to this question, from the perspective of a Christian reading the Old Testament/Torah.

Wouldn't it be effective to convince followers of a religion if a religion could accurately predict a scientific phenomenon before its followers have the means of discovering it?

This is interpretative, but if there is a God, he seems big on free will. Why give humanity the option to sin in the garden at all? Why not just reveal himself in the sky each morning? Why even bother creating a universe that can be explained without him? There's an abundance of easy ways God could make himself irrefutable, and yet in the Bible he makes us "in His image", and offers us choices like that tree in the garden.

Furthermore, why even create us to sin in the first place? My interpretation of the Torah is that God is big on relationship, and that free will is a key part of that. Just like a human relationship based on a love potion is kinda creepy, and a pale imitation of something real, it seems like God doesn't want to be irrefutable.

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I think that's the more relevant answer to your question, but I'll also give the only example that comes to mind of the Bible seemingly imparting "scientific knowledge", which is to look at the laws around "cleanliness". Someone else already mentioned some "unclean" animals, but if you read more, they pretty consistently seem like good advice around bacteria. Some examples of times you need to "purify" (essentially take a bath) that seem like common sense now:

• being around dead bodies
• touching blood that's not yours
• having your period
• etc.

Reading this as a modern person aware of germs, many of these "laws" seem like they would have kept the death rate of faithful Jews a lot lower than their neighbours in that day.

Occam's razor:

Humans created religion. These things aren't found in any religious texts because people, with their superstitions and limited knowledge, made these religious texts.

Just look at more "modern" religions, like scientology, drawing on elements of science-fiction for its mythos.

Not religious texts specifically, but books in general - human imagination often creates something that is later discovered or invented. So I don't know why it would not be true of older books.

After reading a bit of the Torah, it got me thinking, why aren’t there any references to people who could not have been known to its followers at the time? No mention of East Asians or Native Americans. Did God just forget about them when he talked through Moses? Or he thought they weren’t important enough to mention?

It's difficult to answer if your premise is that the Torah is truthfully the word of god.

If you take a neutral, or opposite viewpoint, it's very simple and obvious to answer. If people created the Tora, and they either had no knowledge or no interest during the creation process, it's obvious why they are not mentioned.

Wouldn’t it be effective to convince followers of legitimacy if a religion could accurately predict a scientific phenomenon before its followers have the means of discovering it?

This makes me think of shamans using powdered materials to create colorful sparks when thrown into a fire. It's entirely based on existing material and physical phenomenon, but through knowledge and ignorance, can be used as a tool of misguidance and misinterpretation.

Why wouldn’t he give them information that could expand the possibilities of what they were capable of?

You're asking so many questions that throughout so many religions and gods can not be answered. You get more and more confused.

If you shift the perspective, and don't assume a god as a premise, I think it's fairly obvious to answer. If instead of asking "why did god do it this way" you ask "if this exists now, how did it reach this today through history, why is it presented the way it is, and who originally created it an why", will you reach a conclusion of "god did it because x", or something else?

It is good that you are asking these questions. What does it mean if there are such uncertainties about these religious documents? What value do they hold? Who gives them their value? And why? How was it in the past, and how is it today?

What are alternative explanations? What is more fundamentally true vs arbitrary or artificial meaning? What views are more likely, what claims are more likely truthful, what is complete or incomplete, what is selective or encompassing, what served personal, community, political purposes vs what are fundamental truths?

Let’s say you’re arguing in good faith. What if I offered you a different conception of God?

You’re reading the Torah. Have you read the Gnostic gospels? They are early Christian texts & beliefs, some that run roughshod over the beliefs in Judaism. Some Gnostics believed YHWH was a false God, because why would God say, “You must believe in me?” Or why would he genocide the earth with a flood?

Other people have said it, but religion is made by humans. However, what if God was more like the Dao/Tao? Maybe it’s not a person (that’s a human notion), but more like a spring or fountain? Like a source of goodness? Or it’s a foundational substrate for metaphysical realities?

You say, “Why has no holy text predicted what science has revealed?” To me, it sounds like, “Why hasn’t a pig flown?” I think the critique misaligns religion with a goal.

Science reveals the physical world to us. We know there’s an inherent gap between what we observe and some sort of capital T Truth. We could be brains in a vat, a demon could have us hostage, etc. Religion lives in the gap, and I’d say it can reveal things. What it reveals isn’t about the physical world, though.

When I read a Bible verse, a Buddhist Sutra, or hear an Islamic Surah, it connects me to our species. I go to church for the people, the community. The values resonate with me, and I think my family & kids are better off because of that environment. I have science to explain the physical world.

I’m a Unitarian Universalist, so I look at religion in my own way (was an atheist for 20 years prior). Have you tried reframing God as not “old man in the clouds?” If you have, does that framing change how you read the Torah?

P.S. Check out some of the discussion of quantum science and consciousness. Some are arguing that consciousness is the metaphysical reality. Everything may be conscious, but certain conditions may need to be met for the emergence of it in physical reality. Some people have also theorized that all electrons are the same. Some fun theories out there.

I know many will not like what I am going to say but still ...

The Bible mentioned scientific facts long before they were discovered. For example, around 3,000 years ago, Job 26:7 said that God “hangs the earth on nothing,” describing the earth suspended in space—centuries before scientists understood this. Over 2,700 years ago, Isaiah 40:22 said that God “sits above the circle of the earth,” indicating its round shape, long before it was widely accepted.

Later, in the mid-19th century (around 1851–1852), the physicist Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) helped formulate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As part of his theological reflections, he cited Psalm 111:2—“Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them”—to affirm that scientific inquiry only deepens reverence for a Creator.

There are few other similar examples like these in the Bible.

No.

Yes, but it's not what you're thinking, and they could be known at the time, just not through scientific method, but we had to rediscover them.

In Abrahamic religions the eating of pork is prohibited because pork is an "unclean" animal, and indeed pork is one of the most dangerous meats to consume when not cooked properly. This could be divine knowledge, or people simply realizing that those who ate pork got more sick than those who didn't.

Another example is about meditation and other mental health from oriental religions. The science to back up that is very recent but they have been doing it for thousands of years and have been claiming all of the benefits that we're now discovering. But also this could have slowly evolved by observing yourself which is a lot of what meditation is about, so who could have thought that self inspection would allow you to understand yourself better?

So at the end of the day I don't think there's any example of what you're looking for, because anything we know now they could have guessed back then and would not necessarily be divine knowledge. Accurate precognition would be an example of something we would have no explanation for, but that has never happened, most prophecies are abstract and open to interpretation.

Religion is made up by people. Stop trying to support religious psychosis.

Well, the Bible says, the sun was created after Earth. So fuck that.

In the same way as Nostradamus predicted events? Probably. In the same way as what we define as science? No.

The reason for this is simply that the people who wrote those books were ignorant.

No. There's far more examples of scientific advancement discovery being shot in the knees by theocratic groups than the alternative. Religion is a social tool used for shaping human interpretations of their role within human society, not a legitimate way to enhance our understanding of the world.

I would go as far as to say that having a strong association with a religious organization is an incredible detriment to any technological or scientific advancement.

I suspect you might get examples of things that sort of resemble a later discovery that someone believing the religion in question might interpret as divine revelation of that thing. Some of the christians in my family like to take the "let there be light" thing and claim that it's talking about the big bang, anecdotally.

I think I remember some religion out there having a concept that resembles microorganisms, before such organisms were discovered, I think Jainism but I'm not confident about that.

I know some Muslims claim the Qur'an gave scientific foreknowledge: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Qur%27anic_scientific_foreknowledge

Science is effort following the scientific method. Hypothesis, observation, analysis, reproducibility, etc. So no.

The problem with "prophecy" is that its impossible to check before it's useless information. Unless the holy book used specific descriptions, you'd be left with Nostradamus type language that can't be identified until after it comes "true".

I knew a guy who thought some of the mythical beasts in revelation were a prediction of helicopters. So suppose he's right, there would be no way to understand or predict helicopter technology using scripture, you have to wait until after helicopters are known to make the connection.

Can't say I'm aware of any examples of our modern scientific understanding being present in a religious text. I did a painfully in depth bible study class in highschool and we sometimes discussed that a lot of old testament (and thus the Torah) is very very old and likely comes from people doing their best to understand their world and merging it with myth over the ages. That's probably the closest you'll get, depending on what you consider "science."

One other possibility is that stories like the flood could essentially be "recordings" of historical events. Someone correct me, it's been yonks since I read into it, but as I recall there are a number of different flood stories that come from the same region (ancient Mesopotamia? if we're talking Judaism), so it's entirely possible that it's based on a real one, perhaps even multiple.

Wouldn't it be effective to convince followers of legitimacy if a religion could accurately predict a scientific phenomenon before its followers have the means of discovering it?

No, those were called witches and they burned them out of fear.

That was also just never the purpose of religion. Religion fills gaps in our knowledge and addresses the existential crisis by promising us some form of afterlife because humans really struggle to accept that they're random and meaningless and that their consciousness just dies with the body.

There's theories that the talking burning tree was probably a weed tree and they were just tripping balls, and that wouldn't be the first religion spawned from accidental or intentional use of psychedelics.

It's also very likely the origin stories are just that, stories. Most likely because storytelling was just how language worked: like the Darmok episode of StarTrek TNG. Or just kids: we don't infodump on kids, we tell them stories because stories bring context and narrative.

My belief is that at least all the judaic religions are just a metaphor so far detached its true meaning is lost to time, and interpreting any of those further is a complete waste of time. Any scientific prediction is equally likely to just be a coincidence than evidence of divine knowledge.

House of Wisdom in Baghdad brought about some of the foundational texts of Islamic and European medicine till the 19th century.

Mystical experiences concern themselves with the relationship of the finite to the infinite. Tolstoy wrote about this in Confession:

I had asked: what meaning has life beyond time, beyond space and beyond cause? And I was answering the question: ‘What is the meaning of my life within time, space and cause?’ The result was that after long and laboured thought I could only answer: none.

In my deliberations I was continually drawing comparisons between the finite and the finite, and the infinite and the infinite, and I could not have done otherwise. Thus I reached the only conclusion I could reach: force is force, matter is matter, will is will, the infinite is the infinite, nothing is nothing; and I could go no further than that.

It was somewhat similar to what happens in mathematics when, trying to resolve an equation, we get an identity. The method of deduction is correct, but the only answer obtained is that a equals a, and x equals x, or o equals o. Precisely the same thing was happening with my reasoning concerning the meaning of life. The only answers the sciences give to this question are identities.

And really, strictly rational knowledge, such as that of Descartes, begins with complete doubt in everything and throws aside any knowledge founded on faith, reconstructing everything along laws of reason and experiment. And it can provide no answer other than the one I reached: an indefinite one. It was only at first that I thought knowledge had given an affirmative answer, Schopenhauer’s answer that life has no meaning and is evil. But when I went into the matter I realized that this answer is not affirmative and that it was only my senses that had taken it to be so. Strictly expressed, as it is by the Brahmins, Solomon, and Schopenhauer, the answer is but a vague one, an identity: o equals o, life presented to me as nothing is nothing. Thus, philosophical knowledge denies nothing but simply replies that it cannot solve the question, and that as far as it is concerned any resolution remains indefinite.

Having understood this, I realized that it was impossible to search for an answer to my questions in rational knowledge; that the answer given by rational knowledge simply suggests that the answer can only be obtained by stating the question in another way, by introducing the question of the relation of the finite to the infinite. I realized that no matter how irrational and distorted the answers given by faith might be, they had the advantage of introducing to every answer a relationship between the finite and the infinite, without which there can be no solution. Whichever way I put the question: how am I to live? the answer is always: according to God’s law. Or to the question: is there anything real that will come of my life? the answer is: eternal torment or eternal bliss. Or, to the question: what meaning is there that is not destroyed by death? the answer is: unity with the infinite, God, heaven.

there has been jesuit scientists, like descarte, and other jesuit scientists that produce astrophysics/astronomy works, and some catholics. Just not the crazy fundamentalists, where everything can be explained by "god" or because of god is moral, never heard any good things come out of evangelicals or some protestants.

Not sure if I'm following you correctly but the two main problems, for lack of a better word, getting in the way of religion adopting science is that it requires 1) change the already "proven to work" model they already had for ages and 2) some critical thinking and openness to new ideas. As for point 2, it not be much required, but it's population averages we're talking about, so that makes it more difficult.

Buddhists probably had figured out a lot of things about the workings of the human mind way before science did.

If God is talking to bronze age goat herders, what kind of knowledge is going to be useful to them? What will they manage to pass down to future generations without mangling it horribly? If they were to be given information about scientific concepts so advanced that only God (or aliens or time travelers) could have given it to them, they wouldn't have the foundation of knowledge to grasp it, the vocabulary to explain it, or the technical means to exploit it. Anything they can actually understand and act on is necessarily going to be something that is not beyond their means, and therefore we are right back where we started with stuff they could have figured out on their own.

Suppose God did explain something far beyond human understanding, and they wrote it down as best they could. Even if it wasn't completely incomprehensible to the guy writing it down, it's still going to be totally lost on future generations if it isn't anchored in a more comprehensive understanding of how things work. Without context, it will lose all meaning and will be reinterpreted by later scholars who will try and find a meaning that they can understand. It would become a part of mythology and folklore, and would be unrecognizable by the time science catches up to the original ideas. You might have people point out similarities, but they'd probably be taken as seriously as the ancient aliens guys.

No. By definition of what you're asking, some person practicing the religion would have to know it already.

I've heard it speculated that certain religious dietary restriction such as Kosher and Halal prohibit many of the foods that would have been most difficult to render safe with the available technology. Without anything resembling modern germ theory, they couldn't articulate any scientific justification, so it was just "God says these lobsters aren't food." And yet, the people who believed that probably got less food poisoning than the people who didn't.