@Jo Re: " You can't take 21st century understanding of science,overlay on an ancient text that was not a scientific treatise. Then ignore the original audience, ignore the type of literature, and ignore the purpose of the text."

Oooooooh.... Okay! I get it now! An ALL-powerful and ALL-knowing god that created THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE was absolutely CLUELESS as to how it might pass along vital knowledge to the very beings it created because it obviously made them too STUPID to understand. Therefore, it thought it would be better to totally mislead them in regards to many important scientific facts that could have helped them tremendously, and instead allowed them to discover these scientific facts for themselves over a period of thousands of years. All the while, however, having to fight and struggle the entire way (often at the threat of torturous death) against those "truly faithful" individuals/groups who determined their scientific research to be blasphemous and "demonic" because it was against that god's will. Excellent! Got it! Makes perfect sense now. Thanks.

Oh, wait... There IS one more possibility....

Maybe basic mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and cosmology were all TOTALLY DIFFERENT way back then than they are now. And your god somehow forgot to update his "perfect book", OR maybe it simply didn't think it would be very important for future generations to know such things. Yep, I can just see the ol' fart sitting way upon high looking down upon us puny creatures and thinking to itself, "Aw, crap... I KNEW I should have been a little more specific and accurate with that science stuff. Damn... I have GOT TO LEARN to trust my instincts. Honestly, though, I never imagined they would end up being smart enough to figure out all that shit."

(A couple of small edits for clarity.)

Jo "Because there is nothing analogous to God."

Of course there are, mermaids, unicorns, leprechauns, dragons, garden fairies, any unevidenced fiction basically.

Explain how the deity you believe in is any different than Zeus or Thor? Beyond still being in vogue with the superstitious obviously.

And it's time for the editorial piece again ...

Because there is nothing analogous to God. And because I am not that great of a writer.

Oddly enough, this is one of the points I've been making repeatedly in various places, namely, that the moment any genuine evidence for a god type entity arrives for our perusal, said evidence will point to something so radically different from all past human experience, that the people best placed to understand it will be particle physicists, because they deal with counter--intuitive concepts on a routine basis in their research. Indeed, I expressed that very view in an earlier post in this thread, namely this one. Apparently you failed to read that before posting your above comment, and failed to notice in addition that I had, via said comment, already addressed this issue.

This still does not, however, absolve supernaturalists from drawing bad analogies, because I've been able to demonstrate a proper analytical understanding of relevant concepts repeatedly here. As a corollary, it's not for me to lower my standards to accept whatever fabrications supernaturalists think will prop up their assertions, but for supernaturalists to learn to develop some rigour.

Moving on ...

You are creating a straw man argument.

No I'm not. Once again, let's break this down into the relevant elementary steps, shall we?

Step 1: The magic man from the requisite mythology, is asserted to possess the ability to acquire perfect foreknowledge of the future.

Step 2: As a corollary of [1] above, said magic man must necessarily know in advance, that any errors attributed thereto will be discovered.

Step 3: The magic man from the requisite mythology, is also asserted to possess the fantastic powers required to instantiate an entire universe.

Step 4: As a corollary of [3] above,. said magic man must possess a level of understanding of physics at the very least, that if anything far surpasses the understanding of 21st century physicists.

Step 5: As a corollary of [2] and [4] above, any genuine entity that exists, to which assertions [1] and [3] apply, must also be able to know that any errors attributed thereto, will be detected by persons with far less understanding of physics.

Step 6: As a corollary of [5], any errors present in the requisite mythology, attributed thereto, either [6A] are not errors arising from said entity, but errors arising from humans lacking even elementary understanding of basic physics, which can be discarded on that basis, or [6B] point to incompetence on the part of said entity. Both [6A] and [6B], whichever one happens to be true, lead to the requisite assertions being discardable as demonstrable errors, and the provenance of the mythology as a purported source of reliable factual information to he cast in serious doubt.

This isn't a "strawman argument", it's a proper deductive analysis, based upon taking supernaturalist assertions to their logical conclusions.

You can't take 21st century understanding of science,overlay on an ancient text that was not a scientific treatise.

Except that there are numerous supernaturalists who do regard this mythology as a scientific treatise. See: creationists.

Furthermore, pointing out that a mythology contains demonstrable errors is a perfectly proper exercise, especially when said mythology is presented by adherents thereof as purportedly constituting a special, privileged brand of "wisdom". Doing so refutes that epistemological assertion.

Then ignore the original audience, ignore the type of literature, and ignore the purpose of the text.

Except that YOU are ignoring the manner in which this text is regarded by present day adherents thereof, which is the point I am making here. The original authors and their contemporary audience can be forgiven for treating this mythology as fact, because they simply didn't know any better. But present day adherents who take the same stance, have a vast body of subsequent knowledge to call upon, against which to test the assertions of this mythology. Their failure to do so points to a woeful level of indolence on their part.

Then try to use your straw man as evidence against the reliability of the text.

It isn't a "straw mam" argument, it's demonstrable fact. The mythology in question contains errors that would NOT have been the product of any genuine fantastically gifted entity, of the sort asserted therein to exist. This is inescapable.

You are creating another straw man argument. The text does not say what you are implying it does.

Yes it does, and anyone reading that text without the requisite ideological blinkers can see this.

The striped branches in the water is not what God told him to do and the Bible is not saying that is how you breed multi colored animals.

So why does it assert that these organisms arose, simply as a result of arranging for the parents to shag alongside coloured sticks? This is precisely what that passage asserts. And this assertion is utterly fatuous in the light of even 19th century genetics, let alone anything more advanced.

It may have been some superstition on Jacobs part, but not on God's. He only bred the strong animals and it is not clear what the purpose of the multi colored branches was.

Ahem, if this is so, why is the connection I have just described asserted to be in place in that passage?

Look, drop the attempt to prop up this drivel with apologetics, and address the concepts that are clearly present within that passage.

God told Jacob he would help him prosper through many highly valued sheep, even though his father in law was working against him.

So what? This is an irrelevance from the standpoint of the assertion that is clearly contained within that text. Your pathetic attempt to hand-wave this away with a change of subject isn't going to work with people who paid attention in class.

This is just what happens in the next chapter and it had nothing to do with the "biological absurdity" you imply the text is prescribing.

Excuse me? That biological absurdity is clearly asserted to be the mechanism that produced the requisite organisms. You cannot escape from that embarrassing fact.

Using your line of reasoning I would say that the Bible is divinely inspired because it knew the universe had a beginning thousands of years before science discovered this fact.

Do NOT treat science as a branch of apologetics. This will only work out badly for you.

First of all, the authors thereof knew nothing of the sort, this was merely asserted to be the case. Furthermore, this mythology isn't the only mythology containing a "beginning" assertion. Greek mythology has one. Mayan mythology has one. Egyptian mythology has one. Daoism has one. There's a nice compartmentalised list of the creation myths humans have fabricated over time you can gaze at here. Your mythology isn't unique in this respect, and isn't even unique with respect to a creation ex nihilo myth - the Sumerians had one, which was plundered and plagiarised to a readily detectable extent by the authors of your mythology. The "global flood" myth is a wholesale borrowing from the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The data here is witheringly lethal to your apologetics.

Second, cosmological physicists are, as I've covered at length here and elsewhere, devising hypotheses for the instantiation of the observable universe, in terms of entities and interactions that are postulated to have existed eternally. In short, their view consists of "what we see had a beginning, but what it came from didn't".

The Bible says there was light in the universe before there was the sun or stars. Until about 60 years ago science did not know this.

Correction: what physicists postulate is that the universe in its earliest moments contained photons. Not all photons correspond to visible light. Furthermore, photons and other particles are a necessary consequence of the universe possessing various symmetries. If you want to try and peddle some apologetic fabrication to the effect that people 3,000 years ago knew about gauge symmetries, then every physicist on the planet will point and laugh.

In the past atheists could use the Bible claims of the universe having a beginning and light before the sun as evidence against its reliability. Now we know that it was right all along.

No it wasn't. Because, wait for it, during the early epoch in which photons first appeared, the intrinsic temperature of the universe was too hot for stable neutral atoms to form. Without stable neutral atoms, a solid body such as the Earth could not exist. Except that, oops, the Earth is asserted in Genesis 1 to have been "created" before the appearance of light. There goes your apologetics in a puff of factual smoke.

Previously you said there was no light in the early universe

No I didn't. I hereby challenge you to back up this assertion with a citation, knowing that you will fail.

but I have it on many good sources that there was.

Once again, what part of "not all photons equate to visible light" do you not understand?

Science has shown us that it is not Zeus in his anger causing lightning. But science has not, and cannot disprove God. All the questions about God still remain, and science has not answered them, or made them irrelevant.

No they don't. Assertions that your magic man micro-manages the universe to move toward a predestined end, have been roundly flushed down the toilet, not least by quantum indeterminacy.

Plus, you've missed the point by several light years yet again. What science has succeeded in doing, is destroying supernaturalist assertions, particularly when those assertions have observational consequences that manifestly never occurred. This is subtly but rigorously different from destroying the 'god concept'. I've openly and explicitly stated that science hasn't destroyed the latter, not least because I've made reference to that concept in order to present specific, well-defined ideas of my own, such as the notion I presented in that past post, that any genuine god type entity found to exist will be best understood by particle physicists. What I'm saying isn't that science has "disproven" any god type entity in the most generic sense, but that it has rendered asserted mythological candidates for the role absurd.

Do learn to pay attention to what I actually state here, as opposed to your own fabricated version thereof.

Jo - Has it not withstood scrutiny for thousands of years?

Has your fine tuning arguments withstood scrutiny for thousands of years? I'm going to guess they haven't. Now, I'm pretty sure you didn't want to ask that question. Can you clarify your question?