I just finished my reading of Unintelligent Design by atheist Mark Perakh. It is for the most part an attack on what he sees as all sorts of fuzzy thinking by folks trying to scientifically prove the truth of Christianity, or even folks who think science and the Bible are compatible. I was unimpressed. And while his book didn’t shake my faith in God or my belief in the general soundness of the intelligent design concept, he did share some excellent refutations of some of the absolutely bizarre thinking that passes for science among our more credulous brethren. In particular, he did an excellent refutation of a lot of the thinking behind the so-called “Bible Codes.” The Bible codes thinkers try to prove from coincidences of spelling in the Bible that the Bible must be inspired by God. But those who make these arguments forget something: coincidences in the Bible, no matter how cool-looking, do not prove divine origin unless it can be demonstrably shown that the sort of coincidences are (1) of a sort not found in books other than the Bible, and (2) of a sort that human cleverness could not invent.
And so while I continue with my belief that the Bible is the perfect word of God, I also continue in my belief that the currently promoted “Bible Codes” don’t have anything to do with proving the Bible’s authenticity. Of course, anyone who disputes this is welcome to try and show me where I’m wrong. It’s always possible that some sort of strong statistical support for the Bible’s divine origin could be found; there’s just no reason to think that’s already happened.
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atheist mark perakh and a valuable lesson on bible codes
I just finished my reading of Unintelligent Design by atheist Mark Perakh. It is for the most part an attack on what he sees as all sorts of fuzzy thinking by folks trying to scientifically prove the truth of Christianity, or even folks who think science and the Bible are compatible. I was unimpressed. And while his book didn’t shake my faith in God or my belief in the general soundness of the intelligent design concept, he did share some excellent refutations of some of the absolutely bizarre thinking that passes for science among our more credulous brethren. In particular, he did an excellent refutation of a lot of the thinking behind the so-called “Bible Codes.” The Bible codes thinkers try to prove from coincidences of spelling in the Bible that the Bible must be inspired by God. But those who make these arguments forget something: coincidences in the Bible, no matter how cool-looking, do not prove divine origin unless it can be demonstrably shown that the sort of coincidences are (1) of a sort not found in books other than the Bible, and (2) of a sort that human cleverness could not invent.
And so while I continue with my belief that the Bible is the perfect word of God, I also continue in my belief that the currently promoted “Bible Codes” don’t have anything to do with proving the Bible’s authenticity. Of course, anyone who disputes this is welcome to try and show me where I’m wrong. It’s always possible that some sort of strong statistical support for the Bible’s divine origin could be found; there’s just no reason to think that’s already happened.
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