The Bible is an accurate source of scientific knowledge and information.

First of all, I would like to define the Bible as the Old and New testaments of the King James Bible, one of the most respected Bibles among Christian religious institutions. I would also like to define "an accurate source of scientific knowledge and information" as failing to contradict established scientific truths recognized by the grand majority of scientific institutions (e.g. not "Global warming isn't real," or "The world is actually a giant bowl of soup,"). I bring three arguments: That the Bible cannot be considered reliable because it was created by many different authors over many years; That the Bible cannot be considered reliable because it contradicts itself frequently; And that the Bible cannot be considered reliable because it makes many blatantly unscientific claims. My first argument is that the Bible cannot be considered reliable because it was created by many different authors over many years. According to EveryStudent.com, a resource for Christian Bible students(Ironically located under "Why You Can Believe In The Bible"), the Bible was written over 1500 years and by 40 different authors. Though the article says that the many different authors somehow makes it reliable because they confirm each other, this is ridiculous because they do not confirm each other, they frequently contradict each other, as you will see in my next argument, and over 1500 years the Bible would need to be translated perfectly in order to remain accurate from the first authors, and all 40 authors would need to be accurate and correct in order to make the Bible an accurate source. In addition, there are other time discrepancies, including the fact that the account of Jesus's death was written 400 years after he actually died, and that if the Creation of the Universe by God is to be believed, the world is 6000 years old. From the original witnesses(presumably Adam and Eve), the tale of the mythical Creation would have to be passed down over all 6000 years, during which at least half of which it could not even be written down, totally accurately by everyone who heard it for all of it to find it's way into the King James Bible and still be correct and reliable. It would have to be translated through multiple languages to even get into the current Bible. In addition, all 40 authors would have to all be perfectly right for the Bible to be correct. My second argument is that the Bible cannot be considered reliable because it frequently contradicts itself. The Bible itself points this out. Here is are two examples from the Creation accounts. In the first creation story, humans are created after the other animals. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Genesis 1:25-27 In the second story, humans were created before the other animals. And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. Genesis 2:18-19 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another contradiction. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the first creation story, the first man and woman were created simultaneously. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Genesis 1:25-27 In the second account, the man was created first, then the animals, then the woman from the man's rib. And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.... And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. Genesis 2:18-22 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In science, even one such contradiction would render the Bible an unreliable source. I have shown two, and many more are available if you critically read the Bible. I will elaborate on this in the future. For my third argument, the Bible cannot be considered reliable because it makes many blatantly unscientific claims. Any source that repeatedly contradicts science obviously cannot be an accurate source of scientific knowledge and information, and the Bible does so extensively. I will give many examples over these five rounds, but I'll start with some scientific contradictions in Genesis. 1. In Genesis, the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. The order of events known from science is just the opposite. 1:1-2:3 2. God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them? 1:3-5 3. Plants are made on the third day before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (1:14-19). 1:11 4. God makes two lights: "the greater light [the sun] to rule the day, and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night." But the moon is not a light, but only reflects light from the sun. And why, if God made the moon to "rule the night", does it spend half of its time moving through the daytime sky? 1:16 5. "He made the stars also...To shine light on the earth." God spends a day making light (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes the trillions of stars, planets, and presumably the rest of the entire universe. And "so they can shine light upon the earth"? Over 99% of stars are invisible from anything short of the Hubble Space Telescope on Earth. If they're designed to shine light on Earth, God did a horrible job with them. Besides, to think that the entire universe is here to shine light on us is incredibly arrogant. 1:16 6. All animals were originally herbivores(according to the Bible.). Tapeworms, vampire bats, mosquitoes, and barracudas -- all were strict vegetarians, as they were created by God. 1:30 7. In Genesis 1 the entire creation takes 6 days, but the universe is 13.7 billion years old, with new stars constantly being formed. 1:31 8. Humans were not created instantaneously from dust and breath, but evolved over millions of years from simpler life forms. 2:7 9. Because Adam listened to Eve, God cursed the ground and causes thorns and thistles to grow. Before this, according to the (false) Genesis story, plants had no natural defenses. The rose had no thorn, cacti were spineless, holly leaves were smooth, and the nettle had no sting. Foxgloves, oleander, and milkweeds were all perfectly safe to eat. 3:17-18 10. God curses the serpent. From now on the serpent will crawl on his belly and eat dust. But snakes don't eat dust, do they? 3:14 11. Seth lived 912 years, Enos lived 905 years, Cainan lived 910 years, Mahalaleel lived 895 years, and Jared lived 962 years. Other ridiculously long, definitely impossible lifespans are also recorded in the Bible. 12. To create a flood, God opens the "windows of heaven." He does this every time it rains. However, we know that clouds, not a hole in Heaven, create rain. 7:11 These are just a few scientific contradictions in Genesis. There are many more in both the New and Old Testaments, which I will point out in the upcoming 3 rounds. In short, the belief that the Bible can even remotely be trusted for scientific fact is ridiculous, considering it is a wide collection of scattered manuscripts with dozens of different authors, it actually flat-out contradicts itself multiple times, and it says things typical of desert nomads 2,500 years ago, not actual scientific fact. In reflection of this, please vote for the opposition. Thank you.