Originally Posted by ravery

Nate, excellent post. The writers of our Bible were in many cases learned people of their day. Many of the Psalms were written by David and Solomon, both well educated including in the sciences. But, as you point out, in what was known scientifically at that time.

A few posts ago Pizzaguy really made a critical point though. The Bible was not written to be a science text. I don't think any of us are claiming that it was intended to be a scientific tome, but what we seem to be claiming is that science and the Bible are not mutually exclusive. At times, it has appeared science refutes biblical claims, but then new scientific discoveries or theories come along that will align with the Bible. Science, through archeology, has made discoveries supporting the biblical narrative.

But, we all must remember, churchmen have made mistakes. We are all human and subject to error and failure. At times church leaders have gotten it wrong and made incorrect decrees based in inaccurate interpretation.

A few posts ago, I was trying to show that regardless of which belief we subscribed to with origins, it was based on faith, or assumptions. Well, one's position relative to the historicity of the Bible is also based on assumption. So often I hear people say elements of our Bible was stolen or borrowed from other religious texts. Well, which came first. Who stole from whom? In quickly looking up Sumerian creation belief it appears to have been formulated around the same time as the earliest writings in our current Bible used by Christians and partly by Jews. And yes, the configuration of our Bible was set many years after Jesus, but the individual books were written long before that over many centuries.

Much like Nate said, I do find value in these discussions, but only when they are kept at a civil level, and all too often that does not happen. Kurts, I really appreciated your respectful replies to John. I'm not a frequent poster here, but I am a faithful reader of this forum so feel I know many of you to a certain degree. So, I know how rancorous the political/religious debates can get. If our intent is to convince unbelievers of the errors of their ways, then yes, it is a no-win situation. I doubt John had that intent with his original post anyway, though I really shouldn't speak for him.

Ray