Cold Case Christianity: Some parts of the bible are anti-science

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

 I got this in my email March 6, 2019:

Are Christians "science-deniers"?

Many Christians are anti-science, and they don't have a lot of difficulty justifying their position from the bible. Apparently God's motive for causing people to misunderstand each others' languages at the Tower of Babel was because God feared that their joint efforts were enabling them to make scientific achievements that, for whatever reason, this god feared:

 1 Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.

 2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

 3 They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.

 4 They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."

 5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

 6 The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.

 7 "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."

 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.

 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

 (Gen. 11:1-9 NAU)

  If this story were restricted to pagan sources, you'd be very quick to say the last part of v. 6 shows the god to be fearful that humanity is growing beyond his control.  But no...the story is in the "bible".  It is thus the inerrant word of an allegedly all-powerful god, therefore, when this god says "please stop beating on me, it hurts too much!", surely this cannot be taken literally, because other parts of the bible says god is all-powerful, and the bible can never contradict itself, end of discussion. 

Well fuck you, I consider bible inerrancy to be false doctrine, I do not immediately cry foul when an otherwise grammatically and contextually justified interpretation of a verse causes it to contradict what the bible says elsewhere. 

And you certainly aren't putting any intellectual obligation on the skeptic to think the last part of v. 6 is surely non-literal.  There is no grammatical or contextual justification for pretending the last part of v. 6 in this long passage is the only part that conveniently isn't literal.  Mormons can always think of some damn theory to reconcile their Book of Mormon with it's infamous lack of archaeological support...but do such self-serving theories place YOU under any intellectual compulsion?  Hardly.

The same with Jews and their non-Christian interpretation of the OT "messianic prophecies".  They aren't placing YOU under any intellectual compulsion merely because speech is non-absolute and any fool with 5 minutes education in sophistry can always think of some damn excuse or other to make his false theory seem something less embarrassing than willful stupidity.

Then fundies also provide biblical justification to be anti-science by noting that the bible never expresses or implies that illiterate people should learn to read and write.

Well gee, if the Christianity of the NT can be lived out while the convert is unable to read and write, how much emphasis do you suppose Jesus and the apostles would place on Christians performing scientific tests?
Gee, maybe God wants people who cannot read or write to engage in the scientific enterprise? 

What would YOU, the INERRANTIST, think today about the "scientist" who wants to be regarded as legitimate, but who cannot read or write?

The bible's utter apathy toward illiteracy is a powerful indirect argument that its authors thought their originally intended addressees should not be wasting their time doing "science", when actually the problem of "sin" is sufficiently severe as to justify devoting one's attention entirely to rooting it out.  Modern day Christians who bother to obtain scientific credentials could do far better to simply preach the gospel and rebuke heretics.  The example of Jesus and the apostles needs to be followed, not trifled with.  If that leads to disaster, that's your problem, Jesus should have known better than to give you partial instructions that cause the church to by plagued by in-house bickering for 2,000 years.

According to many skeptics, "Anti-science attacks come from conservative Christians who believe it is their moral duty to fight perceived evils that often include science researching areas that fundamentalist faith already has 'answers' for." Is this true?

 Yes, lots of fundamentalist Christians feel that way about "science", and they have biblical justification to condemn "worldly" pursuits.  YOU have ZERO biblical justification for even starting to give a shit about anything the non-Christian world might have to offer.  If you can fulfill your duty to God well enough by focusing solely on bible study and evangelism (Matthew 6:31-34, God will provide your daily needs when you make preaching the gospel your top priority...why would Matthew provide these particular words for posterity? Probably because he thought such words applied with equal force to later generations of Christians, and weren't restricted to just the 1st century).

Are Christian believers afraid of scientific study?

That's an unfairly loaded question, some are, some aren't.

Are Christians "anti-science"? How would you respond to this common objection?

By informing the "apologist" that it sure is funny how anti-science the church was when Galileo came along.  The Catholics forbade him teaching anything he thought "scientific" if it contradicted their geocentric bible.

Lest you think you can escape this condemnation merely because you aren't Catholic, John Calvin agreed that Michael Servetus should be put to death for teaching against the trinity doctrine (as documented by attorney and former Calvinist Standford Rives, see here, which shows Calvin's anti-scientific bigotry and unwillingness to allow for opposing but equally justified views), Calvin thought that the bible's teaching of geocentricism was clear and compelling enough to justify labeling any gainsayers as fools (see here) and Martin Luther's geocentrism is well documented (see here and here).

The issue is not whether you promised to promote Luther and Calvin as god's infallible teachers.  You probably didn't.

The issue is whether Christians throughout history have found what they felt was clear biblical justification to deny scientific truths or otherwise act in a way that hinders rather than helps science advance.  They did.  You don't shake off these cobwebs by simply carping that they were wrong. These men weren't dolts, they were practiced in the art of hermeneutics and would hardly have said what they said if they felt the bible supported their giving the other side a fair hearing.

A "quick shot" response:

 Probably because you are more interested in hooking people with quick one-liners than in asking them to use their brains to properly analyze in-depth argument. 

Here is just one suggestion (of three) from the Quick Shot section of our phone app:

Gee how did the Holy Spirit manage to do his job effectively before humans discovered electricity?  Gee, maybe your next book will be "The Holy Spirit didn't know how to effectively promote the gospel until I invented Cold Case Christianity" ?

“Christianity isn’t anti-science, but it is anti-scientism. ‘Scientism’ is the belief that science is the only way to know anything.

Then you are horrifically stupid, because you cannot show that anybody ever discovered new truth by means other than their five physical senses.  I say this being perfectly well aware of Daniel 9 and Acts 9.  I also say this being aware that some people believe in the tooth fairy. 

But there are many things we know without the benefit of science at all,

 Ok, so you are a rationalist, I'm an empiricist.  Sure is funny that you cannot even BEGIN to demnonstrate the truth of rationalism, without appealing to at least one of my 5 physical senses.  Rationalism is laughable nonsense.

like logical and mathematical truths (that precede scientific investigations),

No, you wouldn't know mathematical truth if you never had any physical sensations, as inferred by the fact that even most people with functioning senses have difficulty with math.

The same with logical truths: If you had no physical sensory experience whatsoever, you wouldn't know the difference between logic and lollipops, since you wouldn't learn language and thus you'd only think at the level of the lower mammals.    Humans learn by analogy and illustration, you don't get that if you are completely deprived of all physical sensation for your entire life.

metaphysical truths (that determine if the external world is real),

If you think metaphysical truth, like "god" can be known without science, then go head, and demonstrate god's existence without using any type of scientific method to make the case.  Thus you are not allowed to observe data, formulate hypotheses, test the hypotheses, and repeat.  Good luck.

moral and ethical truths (that set boundaries for our behavior),

No, the Christian apologetic argument that some morals are "truth" is utterly misguided and just plain wrong, and you fallaciously always assume, but never explain, why you think human consensus is a marker of divine input.  You just automatically assume it must be god's law in our heart if most of us condemn child rape, while in fact you refuse to blame god for the human consensus that it is immoral to burn children to death, despite your bible-god thinking such punishment to be morally good (Leviticus 21:9, Joshua 7:15).

aesthetic truths (like determining beauty)

Sorry, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that's why although somebody can think some woman to be beautiful, you think she's a warthog.  See here.

and historical truths.

No, historical truths might not be as solid as scientific truths due to non-repeatability, but the scientific process of drawing data, testing hypotheses and peer-review are all the same.

Feel free to believe you can communicate telepathically with people living in the sky, but such flight of fancy doesn't remotely place the skeptic under the least bit of intellectual obligation.  All it does is provide you with a 60-second answer that is tapered to the likes of today's attention-deficit people.  It promotes book sales, and little more.

Christians believe that science can tell us many important things, but not all important things.

The trouble being that you cannot demonstrate that anybody has ever discovered truth in ways other than their physical senses.  Yet you act like this rationalist perspective is "clear".  Dream on.

How could science possibly tell us anything meaningful about the historicity of Jesus or the historical reliability of the Bible?”

 Easy: "science" doesn't necessarily imply "test tubes" or "chemicals".

"Science" is simply a method of analysis that involves drawing data, making observations, inferring hypotheses and submitting one's tentative theory to peer-review.  Repeat.

If you keep these distinctions in mind, then it is accurate to characterize historiography as 'science'.  It's just not "hard" science.

Sorry Wallace, you have failed in your quest to pretend we can know any "truth" without employing the scientific method to some degree.  The day you start demonstrating that you came to discovery previously unknown truths by means not involving use of any of your 5 physical senses, is the day I reconsider my position on this matter.