Atheists' Invalid Science vs. Religion Argument

Alice C. Linsley

Biblical Anthropology is a relatively new science and one which I have been pioneering for thirty years. It is distinctive in its approach to the biblical text and non-traditional in its findings. As with all scientific approaches it requires rigorous investigation and verification of hypothesis.

Biblical Anthropology puts the lie to the absurd opposition of science and religion. It exposes the bias of popular spokesmen like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Hawking who has said, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”[1] Hawking is correct in asserting this distinction until it comes to Biblical Anthropology, an empirical study of a textual authority.

All religions have textual authorities or, in the case of pre-literate societies, oral tradition. Science is used to verify laws, patterns and substances of the material world. However, it is invalid to argue that science is based on objective observation of the material world and religion is not. Anthropological research into the biblical material reveals that Abraham’s ancestors were acute observers of nature and kept records of their observations. In this sense the oldest religion and the newest science are not so different in their method. Both make assertions based on observation. They simply observe things differently. The scientist works with the material world and the Biblical Anthropologist works with the biblical text, an artifact of the material world.

Analysis of the marriage pattern of Abraham's Hebrew ancestors as described in Genesis reveals that the ruler-priest lines intermarried and spread out across the Ancient World (see map above). According to Lycotte's Y chromosome studies [2] migrated east and north from Africa. The migration explains the spread of R1*-M173, which is found mainly, but not exclusively in Africa. Haplogroup R1*-M173 is the pristine form of haplogroup R. We would expect such a genetic outcome based on the biblical data concerning the Hebrew ruler-priests' marriage and ascendency, a pattern that drove their expansion. 

As a biblical anthropologist, I seek data on the pages of the biblical text that either confirm or disprove my hypothesis. When it comes to analysis of the marriage and ascendency pattern of Abraham's Hebrew caste the results are replicable and would be the same regardless of who, where and when the analysis was done. When something is both replicable and produces identical results, it is authoritative. That is true in biblical anthropology as much as in any experimental science.

The ancient Kushites laid the foundation for many branches of science. They made discoveries in animal husbandry, plant cultivation, the discovery of antibiotics, metal work, astronomy, geometry and algebra. Their binary worldview paved the way for binary math and computers. They were both scientists and deeply religious, observing patterns in the heavens and on earth. St Paul says that this is how God designed things. He wrote that God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived by means of what God created. In other words, the order of creation reveals the invisible qualities of the Godhead (Romans 1:20). Hawking is a very bright man, but he doesn't hold a candle to the Apostle Paul when it comes to understanding the antecedents of the natural world and its metaphysical extension.

Another spokesman who pits science against religion is Jerry Coyne, who has written:

"I’ve always maintained that this piece of the Old Testament [Adam and Eve], which is easily falsified by modern genetics (modern humans descended from a group of no fewer than 10,000 individuals), shows more than anything else the incompatibility between science and faith. For if you reject the Adam and Eve tale as literal truth, you reject two central tenets of Christianity: the Fall of Man and human specialness." 

Coyne is out of his element when speaking about the Bible. Modern genetics has not demonstrated what he claims. If anything, it validates the biblical picture of the oldest known caste originating in Africa. Further, serious scholarship requires distinguishing between the archetypal first parents and the historical Adam and Eve who are identified in Genesis as founders of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste. The Bible states that they were the parents of Cain, a city builder (Gen. 4) Clearly, Cain's parents were not the first humans on earth.

Further, from the beginning humans were humans. There is no drawer in a museum or university archive with bones of something between human and ape. Don't be fooled by the (often inconsistent) nomenclature of evolutionary theory. The oldest fossils found in Africa are easily classified as either ape (simian) or homo (human) and the morphology is quite distinct. Further for specimens under 200,000 years old DNA testing clarifies to which category the fossils belong. 

Additionally, we must consider the great antiquity of human innovation, creativity, and technological development. The reader is encouraged to read this short list of human artifacts of great antiquity.

     1. Hawking made this statement during a 2010 interview to Dianne Sawyer of ABC News. In the same interview he made the statement that human life is "insignificant in the universe.”

     2. Lycotte's Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: a paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages due to the early Kushite migration. Kush was a descendant of Noah, a proto-Saharan ruler.



Related Reading: The Atheist's Fallacious Argument; Getting the Facts About Human Origins; Peter Hitchens Makes Peace as a Christian with his Atheist Brother; The Hebrew were a Caste