I've wanted for some time to take up French again in turn but... Know Thyself, and I know I will probably never take time for it :P

Really want to learn mandarin-chinese however so might take effort to learn that ;D

<The Chess Express> Good evening. I thought for a little about the first one you find compelling; <"... It is He that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in.">

The full verse is " 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. " which for me is too poetical to take it as anything other than that.

I can not really argue with the Hydrologic circle however; I think Vitruvius was the first to describe it in the first century BC, scientifically seen so to speak - but I do not really know when the book is Job is assumed to have been written.

<The chemical make up of the human body. > As with the Ahom creation story, I think there are a lot of creation stories which have similar man-creating stories. There are different versions of Allah creating mankind from earth for instance.

For the spherical Earth I think it depends once again on when the book was written. Aristotle tried proving the Earth was round and I think the idea goes back to around Pythagoras.

The Ocean currents, well, I simply could not even make an educated reaponse - really behind on the oceanography-knowledge ;) I suppose it partly depends on the extensiveness of current-knowledge. I mean, I suppose the old sea-faring nations had at least a rudimentary knowledge of currents, maybe equal to that as implied by the Bible-text but largely inferior to Maury's knowledge. Maybe they were oblivious to it all, I could not tell.

<"Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?> Which does not imply [hehe interpretation] the springs should be at the ocean floor. Could for instance be argued that since rivers end up in the ocean they are the springs of the sea.

<In general, I think scientists are relatively open-minded for the idea they might be wrong, but do not count out personal pride and stubbornness..>

Again, that's exactly what I think.

That's why I've always used qualifiers like "generally" or "in the main", when referring to the positive attributes of scientists. There are always exceptions.

For the purposes of this topic, however, I need to refer to science and scientists in a broad sense. The charge has been made that when it comes to origins, the large majority of scientists (especially in cosmology and biology) are participants in a sort of conspiracy to conceal or discredit evidence that truly supports a literal interpretation of creation according to Genesis.

Against that charge, I think scientists (again, broadly speaking) are innocent. The mainline conclusions of science are based on honest evaluations of all available observed data.

- I proposed that you believed the following: <because [scientists] *are* aware of the Biblical account AND because they specifically do not want to agree with the Bible, the majority of scientists deliberately suppress these theories and propose other theories (e.g. big bang, evolution) that they know to be false.".>

- You agreed that this was your belief.

- I subsequently made this claim: <if a scientist were to put forth a hypothesis that depended on a young universe (only a few thousand years old to agree with a literal interpretation of Genesis), then it would quickly fall in the face of observed evidence that the universe is billions of years old.>

- Your response: <And on that point, we greatly disagree.>. I took this to mean that you feel strongly that scientists do not have grounds to reject the young universe hypotheses.

- I mentioned the issue seeing stars that are millions of light-years away, and how they would give a scientist justifiable cause for rejecting a young universe hypotheses.

- To that, you seemed to think my argument was reasonable, but that yours was too. I took this to mean that you still feel (maybe not as strongly?) that the young universe hypothesis should not be rejected by scientists.

- So, I made the point about how supernovas also work against the the young universe hypotheses because it implies that scientists are witnessing events that never happened.

- You countered that this isn't a problem because it compares with Adam being created as an adult who never had a childhood.

While I understand your point, it doesn't do anything to help convince scientists to accept the young earth hypotheses, does it? The scientist will simply say that you are using circular reasoning: Using one literal interpretation of Genesis to defend another literal interpretation of Genesis.

which for me is too poetical to take it as anything other than that.>

Interpretation is key ;)

<<<<<dakgootje>>>> I cannot really argue with the Hydrologic circle however; I think Vitruvius was the first to describe it in the first century BC, scientifically seen so to speak - but I do not really know when the book is Job is assumed to have been written.>

Job was probably written in a pre-Mosaic time. Probably somewhere around 2,000 B.C.

<<<<<dakgootje>>>> 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 being.

As with the Adam creation story, I think there are a lot of creation stories which have similar man-creating stories. There are different versions of Allah creating mankind from earth for instance.>

It would not surprise me if the Koran had similar examples.

<<<<<dakgootje>>>> For the spherical Earth I think it depends once again on when the book was written. Aristotle tried proving the Earth was round and I think the idea goes back to around Pythagoras.>

The concept of a spherical Earth dates back to ancient Greek philosophy from around the 6th century B.C., but was not proven until Hellenistic astronomy did so in the 3rd century B.C. Most believe that the book of Isaiah was written between 701 and 681 B.C., so the idea came about at about the same time that Isaiah was written. It makes one wonder if it was the author of Isaiah who started the idea.

<<<<<dakgootje>>>> Job 38:16 "Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Which does not imply [hehe interpretation] the springs should be at the ocean floor. Could for instance be argued that since rivers end up in the ocean they are the springs of the sea.>

Actually, a spring comes up from the ground. Rivers are called rivers. Here is the definition.

Spring: water emerging from underground: a source of water that flows out of the ground as a small stream or pool

Okay, I took a look at the first one: http://www.inplainsite.org/html/sci... ...

You might want to compare it with this one: http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/...

The one I gave you (and there are several others like it) is very similar to yours, except it demonstrates that its really the <Quran>, the holy book of Islam had all this amazing scientific knowledge long before it was discovered by science.

Surprised? Don't be. Both sites use the same fallacious method:

(1) Take a scientific theory developed by scientists.

(2) Hunt around in the holy book (Bible or Quran) looking for a passage that by coincidence can be contrived (with the help of specious interpretation and commentary) to *appear* supportive of that scientific theory.

(3) Write about how amazing it is that holy book 'predicted' the scientific theory.

The almost funny part is that they will argue that it couldn't be a coincidence, even though it was exactly a coincidence that they were seeking.

In all cases, the supposed "scientific knowledge" in the holy book has one or more of the following faults:

- It is taken out of context. That is, there exists another interpretation of the passage that is much more defensible, and much less remarkable scientifically.

- The scientific knowledge itself is not that remarkable. It's possible that the writer might have known about it.

- The scientific knowledge, as presented, is wrong.

Here are a couple examples from your site:

<The Orbit of The Sun:
Scientists have long believed that the earth revolved around the sun, which was stationary. This caused them to scoff at the following verses which, they said, taught the opposite…

"In them has He set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race. His [the sun's] going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." [Psalm 19:4-6]

However it was later discovered that the sun is in fact moving through space at approximately 600,000 miles per hour. It is traveling through the heavens and has a "circuit" just as the Bible says. It is estimated that its circuit is so large, it would take 200 million years to complete one orbit.>

First of all, its incredibly dishonest to present scientists as the ones who "scoffed" at the Bible, when it was the church that argued that the sun orbited the earth, and opposed scientists who argued otherwise.

Mostly though, this verse is much more sensibly understood to be referring to the sun's daily rise and fall as seen from earth, which agrees with other contexts, e.g. Ps 50:1 "The Mighty One, God, Jehovah, hath spoken, And called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.".

Here's another:

<Pangaea and Peleg:
The Pangaea theory is the hypothesis that the continents once formed a single landmass (called Pangaea which means 'all lands' in Greek) before breaking apart and drifting to their present locations. Although the idea caused sharp disagreement among geologists, evidence in favour of continental drift is now extensive. Geological similarities on matching continental edges suggest that they were once joined. Also, the continents resemble pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle that fit together perfectly. For example the coastline of the West Coast of Africa fits perfectly with the coastline of East Coast of South America

And what does the Bible say..

Genesis 10:25 speaks of a man, whose name Peleg means division. The text then explains that he was so named because in his days the earth was divided. >

This one is kinda funny because it purports to be referring to the scientific theory of continental drift, and yet it says that the continental drift occurred during the days of a fellow named Peleg. Geneis 11 says that Peleg lived 30 years, which wasn't long enough to agree with the scientific theory, which calls for millions of years. :-)

Anyway, I didn't find any credible examples of where "the Bible has been right about that science was either oblivious to at the time or had openly rejected".

That is the advice found in the Papyrus Ebers, an Egyptian medical book circa 1550 BC.

Another splendid medical suggestion is:
<When it falls out, one remedy is to apply a mixture of six fats, namely those of the horse, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the cat, the snake, and the ibex. To strengthen it, anoint with the tooth of a donkey crushed in honey.>

Or leave it up to each branch to determine their slowest days?