This morning, Creationist Ken Ham celebrated the fact that the Bible will never become more accurate over time:
He thinks infallibility is a feature of the Bible, not a bug. But that doesn’t give the Bible the strength he imagines. It only makes it easier for people to dismiss the book in its entirety. As we learn more about our own species, and how we came to be, it becomes apparent that the Bible contains nothing but lies about the subject. No one knew about DNA or genes or natural selection when the book was written, so that’s to be expected, but it’s appalling that so many Christians (42%, according to a 2014 Gallup poll) accept the Bible as literally true.
What’s powerful about the scientific method is that it’s self-correcting. Any mistakes we make now can be overturned and fixed with better information. The theories that stick are the ones that account for all the evidence. And if new evidence comes to light, we’ll need a stronger theory to account for it.
The Bible, on the other hand, can’t explain any of the information we’ve come to learn over the past few centuries, outside of a stretched rationalization. The choice Christians have to make is whether they should admit that large sections of the Bible are nothing but myths passed down by generations, not based in any sort of reality, or accept the book as infallible, providing plenty of ammunition for critics.
Ham takes the latter approach, and it makes him and his followers look more foolish over time. All the more reason we should never teach Christian mythology in public school science classes.
Oh. One more thing. For a Bible that’s supposedly infallible, it sure changes a lot over time.