Thursday, September 4, 2014

What would have been truly "amazing" in the bible...




Here is what would have impressed me in the bible: a formula for cement. The Romans invented it, Christian Europe unlearned it for a millennium. The arch (ditto). Mention in even metaphorical form of DNA, inheritance, evolution, the relationship between mass and speed and time (far more mind blowing than burning bushes), mitochondrial DNA inherited from those nameless biblical females (and only the females), a spherical earth, a heliocentric solar system, an approximation of the speed of light (out at least an understanding that the sun is necessary to generate light, something the genesis authors apparently did not know), the emptiness and vastness of space (and therefore the special place of our life supporting planet). Insects with the correct number of legs, animals not known to biblical authors, pi, zero, decimal points, algebra, logarithms, the normal and power distributions, plate tectonics, carbon and uranium dating, radioactivity.
Repeatedly we are told in the bible that various audiences were amazed usually by some momentary suspension of the laws of physics, but don't you think even a single vaccine, antibiotic, or lightbulb would have been infinitely more amazing (and useful, the sort of thing a compassionate, all knowing father would show his children)?

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