To the True Believer -- in the same sense as the True Scotsman -- since there can be no errors in their holy book, if something comes up in science that seems to disagree with it, he has these options:
- Science is wrong. If not now, it will be proven wrong sometime in the future, or
- Either science or the holy book has been misinterpreted or mistranslated, and another interpretation or translation will set things right.
If all else fails, then a miracle happens, and you can't prove it didn't happen. The one option he will not consider is that the holy book is written by ancient mortals and can be wrong.
There was a Christian apologist who wrote in the 1930-1950's era, based at the Moody Bible Institute, a fundamentalist think-tank and propaganda mill, Dr. Harry Rimmer. Some of his books are still in print. He is a very engaging writer, using the style of a preacher. Some of his arguments
almost make sense; to the religious, they make
total sense. But they tend to use quite twisted logic sometimes.
Heydarian's logic reminds me a little of Dr. Rimmer, although they are defending a different god and a different holy book.
Some of Rimmer's book titles:
The Theory of Evolution and the Facts of Science, Science and the Genesis Record, Science and Jonah's Whale. In ToE he uses any scientific fact that supports biblical creation as proof of both. Any fact that does not support it is either faulty (see #1 above) or can be twisted to fit (#2).
So biblical "days" might be eras, not 24 hours; forming man from mud and spit might be a non-scientific description of evolution, and Jonah either had God's help and/or SCUBA gear and a very accommodating sea monster. Never considered: these are myths, fairy tales, or express the very limited knowledge of ignorant savages.
I'll give you one of my favorite examples from Rimmer. In the book of Job, God asks Job, (paraphrasing): "Where were you when I created the heaven and earth, when the morning stars sang together and the angels shouted for joy?" (Job 38:7)
Sure, you can chalk this up to poetic metaphor (stars don't sing and who knows what angels can do?), but Rimmer goes further. He points out the characteristics of the magnetic spectrum, where sound and light can be described as differing values of vibrations. Using that interpretation, stars "sing" using light and maybe angels do, too. Of course God knew that, but mortal biblical authors did not, which proves both the scientific value of Job and the supernatural source. Clever!
I'd like to give another example of this thinking method. I was once acquainted with a noted Hebrew scholar, Rabbi Dr. Israel Scharfman. He often said to me, excitedly, "I love science!"
At his invitation, one day he eagerly accepted my challenge. I reminded Dr. Scharfman of the end of Noah's 40 day journey, when he was leaving the Ark. The good Rabbi pulled out his huge Torah, which was printed with English on one page, and the Hebrew version on the facing page so we could both follow along with either language.
We turned to the passage where God gave his promise, sealed by the rainbow, to never flood the Earth again. I asked, "Did rainbows exist before the flood?"
"No, they came into existence only after the flood and His promise."
And you know how white light can be split into a rainbow with a prism?
"Of course. That's science!"
Then how do you explain how all the light from distant stars that we can see with our modern telescopes, arriving to us after thousands or millions of years, still can be split into the rainbow? Did it change in mid-flight? Or did it start out as a rainbow, and the Torah is wrong?
Dr. Scharfman thought about it for a minute. Then he told me,
"God cannot be wrong, but I don't doubt science, either. Therefore, all light must have changed its structure on the way to Earth, at the time of Noah."
Everything is so simple as long as you have faith.
