# Science that contradicts Biblical claims, that's tacitly or directly a part of everyday technology? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 15, 2025, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073 "2025-04-15T16:08:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/41 "2025-04-16T16:54:58Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > **Genesis 1:3-25** KJV And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. This reminds me of one of my favourite SCTV sketches, Dave Martin is dressed up as a priest and reading from Genesis, “In the Beginning there was nothing. Then God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there still was nothing, but at least now you could see it.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/42 "2025-04-16T17:36:10Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > As I understand it, the word yom literally means “day”, but it can also mean almost any length of time, because Biblical Hebrew doesn’t have many words to describe periods of time, and various passages in the OT use it to mean anything from a literal day to an entire lifetime (e.g. for the rest of his days) or even longer. > > What exactly it means in Genesis 1 is probably one of those matters rabbis have been arguing over for centuries. An important part of Genesis was the establishment of the Sabbath, the day that God rested, which had the implication that we are also supposed to rest for a day, not for ages. Plus the delineation of days is “the evening and the morning, the Nth day” which again implies traditional days. Yeah, hard to get days before the sun was created. No doubt there are arguments. As we say, two Jews, three opinions. > [@Jasmine](#): > > I found it funny in the light of the right wing mandate to “teach creationism” because there is literally no content to teach. One would have to be pretty far gone to think there is. You may be unaware that there are several “journals” filled with creationist “science.” (Scare quotes because they are crap.) So while there is no science, there is plenty of content. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/43 "2025-04-16T18:05:11Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Yeah, hard to get days before the sun was created. Been a long time since I saw the movie, probably since they showed it to us in grade school, but if I recall that was the ‘gotcha’ part of the argument used in the movie ‘Inherit the Wind’, the fictionalized account of the Scopes ‘Monkey’ trial. One of the arguments for the impossibility of evolution was that according to the bible it only took God 6 days, not billions of years, to create the world as it is. The fictional version of Clarence Darrow asks fictional William Jennings Bryant if, before the sun was created, could a ‘day’ have lasted longer than a solar day? When fictional WJB allows that it might, fictional CD says, "could it have been a year? Or a hundred years? Or…_billions_ of years? Mike drop. It’s sad that, as a kid watching that, I thought wow-- what primitive and backwards times that schools once refused to teach evolution back then. Now, 50-ish years later… 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/44 "2025-04-16T18:58:50Z")
Oh, there is so much. The plants coming before the sun, for instance. But it all makes a lot more sense than the flood story. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/45 "2025-04-16T20:12:06Z")
> [@solost](#): > > He said that Christ crated a new covenant between God and Christians that superseded or invalidated the old covenant between God and the Jewish people. So I guess that’s how Christian fundamentalists can justify ignoring the crazier parts of the OT while cherry-picking the parts of it they still like. Several of the Christian fundamentalists I’ve dealt with look at it from a _slightly_ different POV. Christ extended the franchise as it were, and preached the new way to both Jews and Gentiles, which was the “better” path. But they still acknowledged that the Jews were still a chosen people and if they were true to the Covenant they had their place in God’s plans. So that way God still gets to be infallible, but the Jews were very much “separate but equal” in the sense of segregationist era thinking. So, no, not equal, but… 🤷‍♂️ ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/46 "2025-04-17T02:54:55Z")
> [@solost](#): > > One of the arguments for the impossibility of evolution was that according to the bible it only took God 6 days, not billions of years, to create the world as it is. The fictional version of Clarence Darrow asks fictional William Jennings Bryant if, before the sun was created, could a ‘day’ have lasted longer than a solar day? When fictional WJB allows that it might, fictional CD says, "could it have been a year? Or a hundred years? Or…_billions_ of years? Mike drop. I’m reminded of how in the Silmarillion, a “year” in elven reckoning is about 144 solar years, because they developed their own way of tracking the passage of time in the tens of thousands of years that passed between their awakening in Arda and when the sun rose for the first time at the beginning of the First Age of Man. Considering how Tolkien always meant his legendarium to exist in an explicitly Christian cosmology, I wonder if that was his way of hinting at the idea that the “days” of Creation might not have been literal days in the sense that we now track them by the rising and falling of the sun. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/47 "2025-04-17T05:05:04Z")
> [@solost](#): > > He said that Christ crated a new covenant between God and Christians that superseded or invalidated the old covenant between God and the Jewish people. So I guess that’s how Christian fundamentalists can justify ignoring the crazier parts of the OT while cherry-picking the parts of it they still like. AIUI this all goes back to Paul’s problem with getting converts when the Jews weren’t interested. Turns out that circumcision is a deal breaker. Romans 2:25-29 ~ Revised Standard Version _Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God._ ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/48 "2025-04-17T16:17:00Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > As for the six-day earth creation story? The original Greek word actually means “age” more than it does “day”, so it could have happened over any length of time. It doesn’t really matter if the days are longer than days; the events of each day are not in the right order. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/49 "2025-04-17T16:23:14Z")
And God said “Let There Be Light!”, and the light brightly lit up… nothing. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/50 "2025-04-17T17:22:44Z")
So how could you tell if the Light was on? I wrote a piece about this famous Biblical pronouncement. Most creation myths don’t start with the creation of light itself. Some people think that “Light” here is a metaphor for Intelligence or Consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/51 "2025-04-17T17:36:26Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The plants coming before the sun, for instance. Well, we’ve established that there was some sort of light from Day One, so plants could have grown in that. That seems like a _What If?_ question. If the Earth was created first, presumably just suspended motionless in space, and then the Sun suddenly appeared at some later point, how would life on Earth be affected by the planet falling into orbit? Would it be catastrophic, or would we not even notice? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/52 "2025-04-17T17:40:42Z")
If the two bodies are initially created motionless relative to each other, then (absent perturbing additional bodies) they’ll simply be pulled straight towards one another by gravity. Resulting in a head-on incineration and collision as the Earth hurtles directly into the Sun, aimed smack-dab at the Sun’s center. Decent bet the effect of any plausible other bodies in the vicinity (Jupiter?) would amount to a rounding error on the time and place of collision. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/53 "2025-04-17T17:47:14Z")
So you’re saying God must have miraculously given the Earth a shove in just the right direction just as the Sun was formed? Truly, He is mighty! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/54 "2025-04-17T18:01:46Z")
Another technique would be to create the Earth moving along in a straight line through empty space at just the speed he intends to have it orbit at. Then poof a stationary Sun into existence at the appropriate distance off to the side and at exactly a 90 degree angle to the Earth’s position. Now as the new Sun’s gravity takes hold, the Earth majestically switches from going straight on the mainline onto the curved siding of the desired orbit. Just like a passing train on a track. If you think about it, that’s the same idea as the Earth orbiting as it really does now, then the Sun suddenly poofing out of existence and the Earth then going straight. We’re just playing the same movie in reverse. I’m sure we’ve debated that scenario here before. I’m not succeeding at searching right now, but IIRC it does not go well for Earth and her passengers. Even setting aside the minor problem of no more light or heat. Forever. IIRC, the sudden change in tidal stresses pretty well shatters the planet right then and there. Can you say “Death Star beam?” I thought so. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/55 "2025-04-17T18:10:42Z")
Well, to start with, any “what if” that involves masses poofing into and out of existence is already thoroughly nonphysical. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/56 "2025-04-17T18:22:39Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Once sexbots actually exist… These “sexbots”… do they do housework as well, or just… you know? And how deep is _that_ library? Asking for a Friend. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/57 "2025-04-17T18:32:17Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > … so plants could have grown in that. The problem is that the creation of the entire, complete plant kingdom is described as happening before any animals. There’s no way to stretch the creation days to any span of time where that makes sense of the fossil record. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/58 "2025-04-17T18:35:17Z")
And of course, Genesis has both animals being created before humans, and humans before animals. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/59 "2025-04-17T18:53:58Z")
Well, that’s so that they cover all bases. With God, all things are possible. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073/60 "2025-04-17T19:36:53Z")
Yeah, if you read Genesis chapters 1 and 2, it’s clear that 2 doesn’t come chronologically after 1, but is a different version of the same story. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-that-contradicts-biblical-claims-thats-tacitly-or-directly-a-part-of-everyday-technology/1017073.md?page=4)