Faith and Science don’t Mix

Copied:  It is claimed that Moses was the author of the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch. But a more modern view is that these books were really written about 900 B.C. long after the death of Moses and his followers. As best as can be determined from scripture, Moses died in about 1400 BC

The phrase “to this day” appears occasionally in the Pentateuch indicating that the things referred to were being reported long after the event.

R.E. Friedman wrote: “In the eleventh century, Isaac ibn Yashush, a Jewish court physician of a ruler in Muslim Spain, pointed out that a list of Edomite kings that appears in Genesis 36 named kings who lived long after Moses was dead”

And Gen 36:31 “Before Israel had a king, there were kings who ruled in Edom.”
 
Thus this was written after Israel had it first king, Saul, in about 1000 BC.  How would Moses know that Israel would have a king?


A conservative Christian’s online response to these facts:

“Jesus Christ authenticates Moses’ authorship of the Torah.”

Luke 24:44
And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

“There’s many more examples of Jesus Christ’s authentication of the Old Testament as the Word of God. If you don’t believe in Jesus Christ, it doesn’t matter who wrote the book of Moses.”

Copied from: city-data.com

Gary’s Comment:

Do you see the false assumptions and circular argument that conservative/orthodox Christians use to refute clear evidence that contradicts their belief system:

“Jesus said Moses wrote the Pentateuch, therefore he did!”

But that is not the scientific way to look at evidence.  The scientific way to look at evidence is to…simply look at the evidence…without any preconceived biases.  Any researcher who examines data related to the historical assertions of the Bible must be neutral:  if he or she comes into the investigation with the purpose to prove or disprove the Bible, their research will be biased and unreliable.

Having been a fundamentalist/conservative Christian myself, I know how suspicious these Christians are of science and scientists.  These Christians believe that most if not all secular scientists, archaeologists, etc., are God-hating atheists bent on destroying their cherished Faith.  I’m sorry to have to say this, but this belief is nothing other than paranoid ignorance.  Any scientist who is perceived to be biased in his/her research would lose considerable prestige and funding.  The overwhelming majority of scientists are not anti-religion, anti-Christian, or anti-God!  These scientists look for the truth by analyzing evidence with well-tested scientific techniques.  Anyone who accuses main-stream science of willfully attempting to destroy religion is simply ignorant of the facts.

So when we look at the first five books of the Bible, the evidence is overwhelming that Moses did not write these books.  They were written by someone much later in time.  So why can’t conservative/orthodox Christians accept this evidence?  They can’t accept the evidence, because the evidence contradicts their preconceived beliefs (biases).  And what is the bias that Christians bring to this discussion, as exemplified by the Christian’s comment above:

“If Jesus says Moses wrote the Bible (which Jesus does say in the NT), then Moses had to have written it.”

Do you see the bias?  The bias is the belief that Jesus cannot make a mistake!  But we have evidence that clearly demonstrates that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch, so what does the evidence tells us:  Whoever wrote the New Testament passage attributed a statement to Jesus that Jesus did not really say…or…Jesus made a mistake!  Either way, the evidence proves that the Bible is not inerrant.  The reality is…the Bible is FULL of errors.

The evidence speaks for itself.

Now at this point, many conservative/orthodox Christians will respond:  “I don’t care what the evidence shows, I believe that Jesus and the Bible are inerrant by faith.”

And that’s fine!  We all have faith in certain things or beliefs.  The problem is when people try to use science to justify their faith.  Mixing science and faith is like mixing oil and water.  It doesn’t work!

Science cannot prove or disprove faith, and faith cannot prove or disprove science!

Imagine if you hired a contractor to build a house for you and he told you that he doesn’t use any blueprints/floor plans/architectural drawings.  He simply uses faith in his god “Ra” to guide him in building houses.  What would be your response:  “Don’t bring your religious beliefs (faith) into the science of building my house.  Carpentry/construction follows well-proven/well-tested rules for buildings houses.  I don’t want you to build my house by faith.  I want you to build it by proven, known rules of construction.  Keep your faith out of it!”

And imagine if this contractor then responds with this: “Ok, I will use a blue print, however I cannot make any windows with a 90 degree corner as this is consider evil in my Faith.”

What would be your reaction?  You would fire the guy, wouldn’t you?  Why?  You would fire him because religious superstitions (faith) have no business being intermingled with proven construction practices.

This is how non-Christians view conservative Christians’ attempts to introduce their faith-based beliefs into secular/scientific matters.   If you believe by faith that the Hebrew God Yahweh created the universe in six, twenty-four hour days, that is fine.  But don’t try to force secular society to teach your “faith” in public schools.  Science has proven beyond any doubt that the Biblical Creation story does not agree with the evidence.  Therefore it is not an accurate description of the origin of our universe.

And if you want to believe by faith that Jesus of Nazareth was physically raised from the dead after three days of being truly dead, that’s fine.  You are entitled to your faith-based beliefs.  But don’t tell non-believers that they are going to suffer eternal torment in hell unless they too believe that Jesus rose from the dead; a belief that you insist can be proven by non-faith based methods.  There is zero evidence for the Resurrection.  It is purely hearsay and conjecture.

Faith and science don’t mix.  Period.

Let’s all keep science and Faith separate.

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