Science and the Bible

If you go to the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society’s official website today, you’ll see a link to an article about a scientist that was “raised as an atheist” but apparently saw the light later in life and became a Jehovah’s Witness (or in the very least, believes in god).

Related articles include the story of a nuclear scientist who is also a Jehovah’s Witness, and another article called “Does Science Contradict the Genesis Account?” The point of all these articles, it seems, is to point out that science and the bible do not contradict each other. In fact, our nuclear scientist, Alton Williams says, “I have never encountered a conflict between a proved scientific fact and a teaching of the Bible.” The writers of the article emphasize this point by giving it it’s own block-quote section on the page.

I don’t know what bible he read, but it definitely can’t be the same one we all use. Nothing in the bible is scientifically inaccurate? That just isn’t the case, unless the Earth is flat, had a ‘firmament’ and winged insects only have four legs and you deploy the “Oh, that was symbolic” argument whenever you have no real rebuttal.

But that isn’t the bit I want to focus on here – we’ll go over some of the science in later articles. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society use these examples of top scientists – well educated men – who believe in God because they feel it gives their opinion more weight. As Carl Sagan once said, ”Intellectual prowess is no guarantee against being dead wrong.”

Yes, it’s true that some scientists believe in god. Out of the thousands upon thousands of scientists worldwide, some are bound to, right? Just like I am sure some of them have said that Vishnu is real. Religious people like using this argument a lot – how many times have we heard them saying, “Well, Einstein believed in god!” which isn’t true, and wouldn’t add any strength to their argument even if he did?

Also, you can’t be “raised an atheist.” Everyone is an atheist until taught otherwise. You are an atheist when it comes to millions of gods such as Thor and Ra, and even believers were an atheist about the god they now believe in until they were told about him.

Yet more examples of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society using devious tactics in order to convince the people that god is real, despite no evidence. To prove that their argument has no weight, I challenge you to find a single Jehovah’s Witness who will renounce their beliefs and leave the cult simply because some scientists believe in the Islamic Allah instead.