I've wondered, how do people who believe in God explain the scientific facts that conflict with the Bible?

Answer 1

There are various tactics:
1. They just deny that they are facts (as Sarah C does, without even knowing what facts you are talking about).
2. They keep saying repeating "it's just a theory" or "it's just a hypothesis" as a mantra ... having *no clue* what these terms mean to a scientist. I.e. they apparently think it just means "wild guess." Or essentially, that since science does not claim to *prove* anything, we can therefore assume they are false ... especially when they are inconvenient.
3. They invent new "facts", that no scientist worth his salt would agree to. ("There are footprints showing that man walked with the dinosaurs.")
4. They use really bad logic or science to misinterpret the facts.

For examples of all of these, you can look at your posting on Religion & Spirituality section ... and notice that you got 40 answers, most of them impressively bad science.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvKPXSdRs4LMHeHll105Sn3sy6IX?qid=20061203195232AA4g3js

As an example, there's that long post by "David" with logical error after logical error. I don't blame "David" completely because he copy-pasted his entire post from "returntogod.com" ... perhaps without understanding a word of it (certainly not enough to correct the errors introduced, such as "10^158" becoming "10158")... but then as he gives absolutely no indication of this, no credit, no link, no source, just as if it was his own ... he gets to own the blame for his bad post. (I would respond there, but with 40 people responding, who would see it?)

It's for this reason that I don't bother in the Religion & Spirituality section anymore. I find the desperate clinging to ignorance just saddening and exhausting. I love science too much to watch it done so badly.

--- {edit for Tech Dude and chas_chas} ---
By "facts that disagree with the Bible" that depends on how literally you take the Bible. For example, all the scientific facts that point to an age of the earth of 4.4 to 4.6 billion years old contradict the Bible only if you insist on a literal interpretation of certain obscure passages giving the geneology from Adam to Noah to Moses and setting the age of creation at a *literal* 6,000 years ago (and the only reason they don't come up with a much shorter age is that these passages have humans living longer than 800 or 900 years old! It's to those *literalists* that there is an irreconcilable conflict between scientific facts and the Bible ... and these are the ones who will apply tactic #1, and simply deny that the scientific *fact* of an age of the earth (ridiculously older than 10,000 years old) is a fact at all. And to do so they have to deny not only evolutionary biology, but physics, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, chemistry, paleontology, anthropology, archaeology, etc. etc. Those are the facts we're talking about.

Answer 2

1. Belief in God does not require scientific evidence, just faith.
2. Not everyone that believes in God believes that the Bible should be taken literally.
3. There are more truths in the Bible than there are facts.
4. The Bible was not designed to be a science book, but a book that deals with the spirit.
5. The spirit is another abstract concept that also can't be substainciated by scientific method.

Answer 3

You must first differentiate between what is scientific fact and what is scientific theory. For example, the laws of gravity and magnetism are two phenomena that we can perform experiments and establish with a high degree of certainty that they are factual. Other things like the Big Bang theory can't be validated and will forever remain as a theory.

There are no scientific facts that conflict with the Bible.

The Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, serves two primary purposes: it is an instruction book for life, and it tells us how we may achieve salvation through the grace of God. The proof of the Bible is primarily through prophecy, some of which has already been fulfilled and some which is being fulfilled in these days.

A lot of prophecy that has been fulfilled concerns the first coming of Jesus. Look at Daniel 9 and Isaiah 53 to name only two references. There is also an amazing prophecy in Ezekiel 36 regarding the restoration of the nation of Israel. Who would have thought that after nearly 2000 years (since 70 A.D.), with their peoples scattered throughout the world, that Israel would once again come together as a country. No other ethnic group in history has survived for that length of time. Ezekiel 37 and 38 goes on to prophesy events that are taking place today. Totally amazing!

2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God...". Given that, all scripture must be true since God does not lie. Yet there are those who chose not to believe. 2 Chronicles 4:4 says, "In whom the god of this world {Satan} hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

One of the areas in which many scientists have a view different from the Bible is the origin of the universe. Genesis gives an account whereby Creation was accomplished in six days. But how long was a day before the fourth day, when, in Genesis 1:14, "...God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years"? The Bible does not give a complete explanation for Creation, but that is not the purpose of the Bible.

Yet even scientists cannot explain where the material of the universe came from, Big Bang theory or not. Why is there a universe? Why not nothing at all? It must have been created. Besides, who wrote the laws of physics? Yes, we have gravity and magnetism, as I mentioned, but why do they behave as they do?

I assert that a God powerful enough to have created the universe could have created it in any condition He chose. It could have been created in an older state, much as He created Adam as an adult. These are things we don't have an answer for, but will learn someday in heaven.

By the way, not all scientists disagree with the Bible. More and more, scientists are coming to the realization that the probability of our existence is so remote that it could not have happened in any other way. For myself, I am an engineer, taught to look at problems objectively. I can't see any other solution.

Answer 4

The Bible is largely silent on matters of science. Things like gravity, electricity, and geometric optics clearly exist and are not mentioned in the Bible.

Of course, folks bring up things like the Big Bang Theory and Evolution as things that contradict the Bible. But, these only contradict the Bible if one believes in a literal interpretation of Genesis. Most Christians do not accept a literal interpretation and thus have no conflict.

Answer 5

Umm not an issue for a lot of people , Anglican for example are taught that the entire bible cannot possibly be Gods word and accept that there are glaring errors and omissions due to the way it was altered by the Roman Catholic Church, Only those who accept Jesus as the son of God would have an issue with sceientific contradiction , as I follow a thelmic we use scientific method to examine the nature of higher energies , Maybe you should rephrase your question : How do Christains explain...... as there are many groups who aknowledge God without having anything to dowith the bible

Answer 6

There are plenty of unexplained things in science that leave room for people to believe.

How did the Big Bang start?

Why are certain constants in physics precisely what they need to be to allow for life?

And the words of the Bible are subject to many interpretations. For example, many believe the seven days of creation need not be 24 hours long. Here's a website for a devout Christian who is also a scientist and believes in everything science accepts, such as the Big Bang, an old earth, and evolution. He finds plenty of room for both science and religion to coexist.

www.reasons.org

There are religious fundamentalists and scientific fundamentalists who want to fight. There's no need for most of us to join them. Nothing in science disproves the idea that a higher power created us and watches over us today. Some religious people argue about the details. Some scientists deny even the possibility of the existence of a higher power, but they have no evidence to back them up. It's just their particular faith, no better than anyone elses.

Answer 7

no, we don't have self assurance that God is genuine, and we've self assurance that asserts made by the bible could be examined in the past being prevalent as clinical data, no longer purely prevalent on faith. right this moment, Christians assert that maximum "clinical" claims made by the bible are meant metaphorically, to that end installation an unfair time-honored of scrutiny. To empirically degree the clinical accuracy of the bible, you may could set activity 38:sixteen on an equivalent footing with psalms ninety 3:a million which blatantly states: "easily the worldwide is known so as that it can't be moved." moreover, this passage from activity 38:sixteen does allude to "the springs of the sea," yet it quite is basically approximately definitely meant metaphorically, as a results of fact it quite is pronounced in a itemizing with different issues that are unarguably metaphors such as a results of fact the "gates of demise," the "doorways of the shadow of demise," and the "breadth of the earth." by any empirical time-honored, the bible is extra company in keeping that the earth is unmoving than that there are springs in the sea. nonbelievers do know that there are another data in the bible that have shown to be real, yet they represent a pitiful minority between the hordes of "data" that are actually claimed to be "metaphors." inspite of the undeniable fact that, had technological understanding shown that there are no sea springs, yet that the earth did stay nevertheless, human beings might continuously declare that Psalms ninety 3:a million replaced into divinely inspired fact on an identical time as activity 38:sixteen replaced right into a clever metaphor.

Answer 8

Believing in God is done by faith alone. It is something that is felt in your heart and soul. Faith is believing in something that is not seen and cannot be proven. If scientific fact supported Christianity, then there would be no need for faith. God doesn't need to PROVE Himself as some people believe. He just is.
We still have things that occur and cannot be explained by modern science.

Answer 9

Which facts do you think conflict with the Bible?

Answer 10

Mostly I think they do not. However, as scientists, we *must* admit the chance that our findings are not correct. Afterall it is very difficult to actually *prove* something to be true, and even when we can, through infallible mathematics and logic, we can only prove them to agree with certain assumed axioms and observed phenomena, and therefore, fundamentally, are not actually *proven*. I must point out that I do believe science and not the bible, but I do realise that it is only a belief.