XPost: alt.religion.christian
From: sam@spade.invalid
James wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 21:10:07 -0800, Samuel Spade
> wrote:
>
> >James wrote:
> >
> >(snip for focus)
James! You're just reposting your last post.
I was trying to get you to say why you think there's no life beyond
earth?
(snip repeat)
> >Do you accept the bible as an authoratative textbook of settled science?
>
> Yes. for example the earth is round:
Now finally here's some new content...
> -- New King James
> Isaiah 40:22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its
> inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like
> a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
>
> The word "circle" there comes from the Hebrew word "hhug". Which
> according to Davidson's Concordance means also "sphere".
Then why is it translated "circle" instead of "sphere"? Some
translations call it the horizon, which is probably what the author
meant. But not "sphere".
Someone in aa has posted a long list of OT and NT references to a flat
earth, geocentric cosmology. Seeing the whole earth from a mountain,
earth is fixed and immovable, & so on, not to mention the mysterious
"firmament" dome.
But really, a spherical earth is not very advanced science. Pythagorus
proposed a spherical earth theory in the 5th or 6th century BCE, near
the time most of the OT was written down. Aristotle proved it in the
4th century BCE. Eratosthenes accurately calculated the earth's size in
240 BCE. The NT authors, at the least, should have known the earth was
round, but apparently they didn't get the memo.
> Also, the Bible says this:
>
>
> Back then concerning the earth:
>
> The Egyptians said it was supported by pillars.
> The Greeks by Atlas.
> In India by elephants.
Early mythology. The greeks knew better, see comment above.
> The Bible:
> -- New King James
> Job 26:7 He stretches out the north over empty space; he hangs the
> earth on nothing.
>
> So to combine them: We have a spherical earth floating in a void in
> space. Sound familiar?
Getting warmer, but what does the north (or northern skies) have to do
with anything?
And what does "over empty space" mean? There's no "over" in space. Not
convincing as scientific insight. And what about that firmament?
>
> The Bible says the universe had a beginning. Genesis 1:1.
> Scientists agree it had a beginning with the Big Bang.
The BB is incompatible with Genesis, like all of modern cosmology.
> - New King James
> 1 Corinthians 15:41 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of
> the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from
> another star in glory.
>
> Scientists now know that there are blue stars, yellow ones, white
> dwarfs, neutron stars, and others.-
Simple observation you can see at night. No science there. But we do
know now that the sun is also a star, and planets are not.
> Centuries before naturalists were aware of migration, Jeremiah wrote
> (seventh century B.C.E.) "The stork in the sky knows the time to
> migrate, the dove and the swift and the wryneck know the season of
> return."-Jeremiah 8:7, The New English Bible.
Ditto. That's just the author waxing poetic.
> A thousand years before Christ, Solomon wrote in figurative language
> about the circulation of the blood. (Ecclesiastes 12:6) Medical
> science did not understand it until the 15th century C.E.
Nothing about blood there.
> The Mosaic Law (16th century B.C.E.) reflected awareness of disease
> germs thousands of years before Pasteur.-Leviticus, chapters 13, 14.
No it didn't. It only prescribed hygiene. Like women being outcast
when they had their period. A lot of the mosaic law was misdirected in
similar ways, through ignorance. God didn't teach them much medicine.
You don't have to know about parasites to see that shellfish can
(rarely) be toxic.
>
> The creation account of Genesis is accurate biology-testified to by
> the fossil record and by modern genetics-when it says that each family
> kind was to reproduce "according to its kind."-Genesis 1:12, 21, 25.
Genesis had the order of creation wrong, eg land animals created before
sea life, days before sun. "Kinds" is vague. We obviously disagree on
common ancestry. Not to mention the flood.
> The genetic blueprint in the fertilized human egg cell contains
> programs for all the bodily parts before any hint of their presence.
> Compare Psalm 139:16: "Your eyes [Jehovah's] saw even the embryo of
> me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing, as regards
> the days when they were formed and there was not yet one among them."
Not very useful or actionable information, but ok.
> Likewise, about 800 B.C.E. the prophet Amos, a humble shepherd and
> farmworker, wrote that Jehovah is “the One calling for the waters of
> the sea, that he may pour them out upon the surface of the earth.”
> (Amos 5:8) Without using complex, technical language, both Solomon and
> Amos accurately described the water cycle, each from a slightly
> different perspective...." (2005 Watchtower, 4/1)
Not a big revelation that water evaporates from the sea and falls as
rain, but ok, i'll give you that one too.
Mohammed revealed that the sun and stars were made from "smoke". That
can work, allegorically, since 2nd & 3rd generation stars are made from
residues of supernovas. Again, nothing useful or actionable there. Does
that make the koran scientific?
Why didn't God tell them about heliocentrism, or to cook pork
thoroughly, or not to practice bloodletting, or how to make steel? Does
the bible have any scientific insight about things we don't already know
yet?
Thanks again for your reply.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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