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Scientific Facts In The Bible: [Updated Edition]
An elderly lady once left 20,000 dollar and 'my Bible and all it contains' to her nephew. The young man knew what the Bible contained so he didn't bother to open it. He merely picked it up and put it on a high shelf in his house, and headed for Las Vegas. It wasn't long until all his money was gone. He lived the next 60 years as a pauper, scraping for every meal and barely having the clothes on his back. As he was moving to a convalescent home he reached up to grab that old Bible and accidentally dropped it from his trembling hands. It fell to the floor and opened, revealing a 100 dollar bill between every page. That man lived his life as a pauper when he could have lived in luxury, simply because of his prejudice. He thought he knew what the Bible contained. Most people don't know that the Bible contains a wealth of incredible scientific, medical and prophetic facts. The implications are mind boggling�?�
120 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2001
240 people are currently reading
606 people want to read
About the author
Ray Comfort
256 books402 followersRay is the Founder and CEO of Living Waters and the best–selling author of more than 80 books, including, Hell's Best Kept Secret, Scientific Facts in the Bible, and The Evidence Bible. He co–hosts (with actor Kirk Cameron) the award–winning television program "The Way of the Master," seen in 200 countries. He is also the Executive Producer on the movies "Audacity," "180," "Evolution vs. God," and others, which have been seen by millions. He and his wife, Sue, live in Bellflower, California, where they have three grown children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
April 25, 2012
Enjoyed the facts given that relates the Bible with science. In fact, the facts of science was already present in the Bible before mankind discovered them. This should make unbelievers reconsider their unbelief in the Bible or God.
July 2, 2020
I am sure Ray Comfort is a great father, husband, and gardener, but this book is a disgrace to the Bible (the very thing he is trying to convince people is true). Because of the way he goes about it, he gives readers more reasons to dismiss the Bible than to embrace it. For some reason he starts with the assumption that the biblical authors had a prescient knowledge of science and thus goes through all manner of contortion to "prove" that the Bible "knew" about helio-centrism, the speed of light, and the function of blood in the human body, among many others. Seemingly, Ray Comfort fails to realize that the Bible is an ancient book and was written using ancient literary techniques and an ancient understanding of the universe, which doesn't make its authors and compilers stupid, it only means they were operating from a different worldview.
Yes, the Bible is inspired but not in the way Comfort imagines. And I'm thankful for that because that would be a very reductionist view of inspiration. Also, he seems to think that those who believe in evolution are always atheists. I'm trying to figure out if he was being disingenuous or if he is really that ignorant. Sorry, I know this might have sounded vitriolic, but I really do feel quite deeply and passionately that it is books like this that bring great darkness to both believers and nonbelievers. It ought to be withdrawn from the market immediately. If you are thinking of reading it, I strongly recommend you at least balance it out by reading another perspective, such as The Language of God, by Francis Collins, or the Lost World Series, by John Walton. I'm not saying God couldn't work in someone's life by them reading this book but I have to think it would be in spite of the book, not because of it.
Yes, the Bible is inspired but not in the way Comfort imagines. And I'm thankful for that because that would be a very reductionist view of inspiration. Also, he seems to think that those who believe in evolution are always atheists. I'm trying to figure out if he was being disingenuous or if he is really that ignorant. Sorry, I know this might have sounded vitriolic, but I really do feel quite deeply and passionately that it is books like this that bring great darkness to both believers and nonbelievers. It ought to be withdrawn from the market immediately. If you are thinking of reading it, I strongly recommend you at least balance it out by reading another perspective, such as The Language of God, by Francis Collins, or the Lost World Series, by John Walton. I'm not saying God couldn't work in someone's life by them reading this book but I have to think it would be in spite of the book, not because of it.
February 21, 2012
Awesome Book and great tool for juvie center. I really think some were listening to tonight and left this book for them to borrow. Praying God will open hearts and eyes to His true.
June 10, 2013
Wow! I had to also look up the verse references to see the context & see if it really stated some of those facts (as well as how those facts were phrased). Some of the time I wish the book could've gone into more detail. I had also heard that nuclear war was mentioned in the Bible, but wasn't sure how people saw that information in how the Bible phrased it. I bought it as reading material for a plane trip from Houston to Managua (Nicaragua), & I finished it. I think it's wonderful when I see God's handiwork in the sciences.
May 14, 2014
Ray Comfort opens by declaring his hope that the reader is skeptical. A skeptic might might take note of the book’s very title: “Scientific Facts In The Bible”, and ask what constitutes a “scientific fact”, and whether it can be easily distinguished from other kinds of fact. Is the fact that water exhibits surface tension a scientific one? Is the fact that gravity accelerates object at the rate of 9.8 meters per second per second a scientific one?
This may seem like a fastidious quibble, but I posit that it in fact highlights one of the fundamental problems underlying the book. More on this in a bit.
The cover, beneath the title, goes on to declare that the book contains “100 reasons to believe the Bible is supernatural in origin”. (Two pages in, that becomes “1000 reasons to believe the Bible is supernatural in origin”, but being off by an order of magnitude quickly becomes the least of the book’s inaccuracies.)
It’s that sub-title, along with the introduction, that lays out the book’s premise: the Bible contains facts that are not merely true, but so stunningly clear, counterintuitive, and ahead of their time as to suggest that the ultimate source was no mere human being.
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the facts. You would think that Comfort would begin with the most compelling facts he could find, to make the most powerful opening argument possible. Let’s see:
Fact 1: The Bible and Earth’s Free-Float in Space
“He… hangs the Earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7) is offered as proof that the Bible was prescient in its understanding of the Earth’s existence in free space. However, the statement is arguably wrong: rather than hanging from nothing, the Earth is, gravitationally speaking, hanging from the sun. In any case, that’s some fairly vague language to base an opening argument on.
Fact 3: The Bible Reveals that the Earth is Round
Isaiah 40:22’s “it is he that sits upon the circle of the earth” presented as proof that the Bible recognizes the Earth to be a sphere. Comfort notes that the Hebrew word used for “circle” can also be translated to “circuit” or “compass”, but that does little to support his claim that the Bible was declaring it to be spherical.
Comfort doesn’t really begin digging himself into a hole until he declares that science, in the age of Columbus, believed the Earth to be flat. This is a persistent myth that Comfort does poorly in perpetuating. It was in fact generally known at the time that the Earth was spherical. Columbus differed with others not in his idea of the shape, but of the size: he thought the Earth was smaller than it actually was. Had they not stumbled across a new continent on his way to China, he and his crew would have starved to death.
Fact 5: The Bible and Radio Waves
Comfort doesn’t merely dig a hole so much as flail about wildly in the mud here. It takes a bit of slow-motion instant replay to accurately catalog all the mistakes he’s making in the space of a paragraph.
He begins with Job 38:35, “Can you send lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, here we are?”, and proceeds to interpret it as a prediction of voice-over-radio transmission. In so doing, he seems to be confusing lightning and light. The words sound similar, and the first produces the second, but they’re two completely separate things. The first is an electrical discharge involving fermions, particles that have mass, and travels at a (relatively) low speed. Light is composed of bosons, massless particles, and is the fastest thing in the universe.
Comfort’s confusion of the two does not speak well of his understanding. Nor does his referring to light as the reason one can “have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth.” (His italics.) Electronic communication, whether involving radio or fiber optics, is very, very fast, but it is not instantaneous.
Fact 6: The Bible and Entropy
Here Comfort offers up Isaiah 51:6; Psalm 102:25,26; and Hebrews 1:11 as foretellings of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, except that he badly botches his summary of said Second Law: “in all physical processes, every ordered system over time tends to become disordered.”
He omits a crucial term: closed. The Second Law applies only to closed ordered systems. This happens to be the reason that Creationists’ assertion of the Second Law as proof of the impossibility of evolution is invalid: the Earth, receiving energy from the sun, is not in fact a closed system.
And so forth and so on. In trying to make his argument, Comfort makes some basic mistakes in the course of presenting his “scientific” facts.
Beneath those mistakes lie deeper problems. His case—that the Bible unambiguously contains the “facts” he claims it to—is far from convincing. Moreover, even if the Bible does contain the “facts” claimed, they constitute something that falls far, far short of compelling evidence of the supernatural. If this is the best argument he can make, it’s weak indeed.
In the end, his work looks exactly like what it is: an effort to take established facts and dig through the Bible to find statements that sorta kinda almost say the same thing, if you twist your head and squint just the right way. The result comes across a little bit like that kid in grade school who sat at the back of the class and never raised his hand, but declared “Oh, yeah, I knew that” whenever someone else answered a question.
This brings us to the deepest problem: not that Comfort’s understandings of history and physics are equally muddled, or that the evidence he presents is underwhelming, but that his very understanding of science’s nature is confused.
This brings us back, as I promised, to the very title, and its allusion to “scientific facts”. I think that the choice of words betrays Comfort’s mental model: science is just a collection of facts, and if you can prove that you have the same facts, then you’ve demonstrated that you are just as valid as science.
Therein lies the rub. Because science isn’t just a collection of data in the form of facts. Facts are the by-product. Science is ultimately a process, a system for identifying answerable questions, coming up with plausible answers, and devising tests that will weed out the plausible-but-false.
Comfort clearly fails to grasp this; the resulting work, attempting to mimic the form without understanding the functional mechanism of science, is a case study in cargo-cult thinking.
This may seem like a fastidious quibble, but I posit that it in fact highlights one of the fundamental problems underlying the book. More on this in a bit.
The cover, beneath the title, goes on to declare that the book contains “100 reasons to believe the Bible is supernatural in origin”. (Two pages in, that becomes “1000 reasons to believe the Bible is supernatural in origin”, but being off by an order of magnitude quickly becomes the least of the book’s inaccuracies.)
It’s that sub-title, along with the introduction, that lays out the book’s premise: the Bible contains facts that are not merely true, but so stunningly clear, counterintuitive, and ahead of their time as to suggest that the ultimate source was no mere human being.
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the facts. You would think that Comfort would begin with the most compelling facts he could find, to make the most powerful opening argument possible. Let’s see:
Fact 1: The Bible and Earth’s Free-Float in Space
“He… hangs the Earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7) is offered as proof that the Bible was prescient in its understanding of the Earth’s existence in free space. However, the statement is arguably wrong: rather than hanging from nothing, the Earth is, gravitationally speaking, hanging from the sun. In any case, that’s some fairly vague language to base an opening argument on.
Fact 3: The Bible Reveals that the Earth is Round
Isaiah 40:22’s “it is he that sits upon the circle of the earth” presented as proof that the Bible recognizes the Earth to be a sphere. Comfort notes that the Hebrew word used for “circle” can also be translated to “circuit” or “compass”, but that does little to support his claim that the Bible was declaring it to be spherical.
Comfort doesn’t really begin digging himself into a hole until he declares that science, in the age of Columbus, believed the Earth to be flat. This is a persistent myth that Comfort does poorly in perpetuating. It was in fact generally known at the time that the Earth was spherical. Columbus differed with others not in his idea of the shape, but of the size: he thought the Earth was smaller than it actually was. Had they not stumbled across a new continent on his way to China, he and his crew would have starved to death.
Fact 5: The Bible and Radio Waves
Comfort doesn’t merely dig a hole so much as flail about wildly in the mud here. It takes a bit of slow-motion instant replay to accurately catalog all the mistakes he’s making in the space of a paragraph.
He begins with Job 38:35, “Can you send lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, here we are?”, and proceeds to interpret it as a prediction of voice-over-radio transmission. In so doing, he seems to be confusing lightning and light. The words sound similar, and the first produces the second, but they’re two completely separate things. The first is an electrical discharge involving fermions, particles that have mass, and travels at a (relatively) low speed. Light is composed of bosons, massless particles, and is the fastest thing in the universe.
Comfort’s confusion of the two does not speak well of his understanding. Nor does his referring to light as the reason one can “have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth.” (His italics.) Electronic communication, whether involving radio or fiber optics, is very, very fast, but it is not instantaneous.
Fact 6: The Bible and Entropy
Here Comfort offers up Isaiah 51:6; Psalm 102:25,26; and Hebrews 1:11 as foretellings of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, except that he badly botches his summary of said Second Law: “in all physical processes, every ordered system over time tends to become disordered.”
He omits a crucial term: closed. The Second Law applies only to closed ordered systems. This happens to be the reason that Creationists’ assertion of the Second Law as proof of the impossibility of evolution is invalid: the Earth, receiving energy from the sun, is not in fact a closed system.
And so forth and so on. In trying to make his argument, Comfort makes some basic mistakes in the course of presenting his “scientific” facts.
Beneath those mistakes lie deeper problems. His case—that the Bible unambiguously contains the “facts” he claims it to—is far from convincing. Moreover, even if the Bible does contain the “facts” claimed, they constitute something that falls far, far short of compelling evidence of the supernatural. If this is the best argument he can make, it’s weak indeed.
In the end, his work looks exactly like what it is: an effort to take established facts and dig through the Bible to find statements that sorta kinda almost say the same thing, if you twist your head and squint just the right way. The result comes across a little bit like that kid in grade school who sat at the back of the class and never raised his hand, but declared “Oh, yeah, I knew that” whenever someone else answered a question.
This brings us to the deepest problem: not that Comfort’s understandings of history and physics are equally muddled, or that the evidence he presents is underwhelming, but that his very understanding of science’s nature is confused.
This brings us back, as I promised, to the very title, and its allusion to “scientific facts”. I think that the choice of words betrays Comfort’s mental model: science is just a collection of facts, and if you can prove that you have the same facts, then you’ve demonstrated that you are just as valid as science.
Therein lies the rub. Because science isn’t just a collection of data in the form of facts. Facts are the by-product. Science is ultimately a process, a system for identifying answerable questions, coming up with plausible answers, and devising tests that will weed out the plausible-but-false.
Comfort clearly fails to grasp this; the resulting work, attempting to mimic the form without understanding the functional mechanism of science, is a case study in cargo-cult thinking.
October 10, 2024
Nice little book you can give out as an evangelistic tool to your more science oriented friends. Alot I wished it included but overall a pretty compelling list to atleast consider that the Bible is more than just another religious book!
March 31, 2017
For those looking for scientific proof that God exists and that the Bible is true, then this is the book for you. Highly interesting and fact filled.
July 10, 2023
A really short book with some snippets here and there of scientific facts in the Bible. This book summarizes the facts, so you'd have to actually do your research and read more on it. But it's perfect to help Christians defend their faith and know why they believe in the Bible.
December 31, 2012
This is more a booklet than a book, and consequently I got through this in one sitting very quickly. It's 101 small pages, and large font make it an easy read. It is interesting but like many "proof" books covering a lot of topics it only skims and might be suited to someone without a scientific background.
There are some really amazing paragraphs where the author cites Bible verses that highlight principals that were not accepted scientific thought for, in some cases, over 2,000 years since writing. Of course hindsight is 20:20 but some of the below are compelling. For example, paragraph one: Job 26:7 (written c1500BC when contempories believed the world was on the back of an animal/giant and carried through space) says that God "hangs the earth upon nothing." That Earth is free-floating in space was not "discovered" until 1650... and more of the same:
The earth is round not flat
Matter is built up of atoms
The Water cycle
Radiowaves
Entropy and the second Law of Thermodynamics
The Earth's rotation on it's axis causing day and night
Hygiene Laws and bacteria
Nuclear winter/weaponry
The stars are too numerous to count
The universe is expanding
The sun isn't stationary
etc ...
Of course there is a large portion of the book given to Creation vs Evolution and here his arguments are not as clear cut, a little sweeping, although still thought provoking if you have an open mind although he's clutching at straws and I'm no expert but can see some of his statements are misleading at best. Much ink is given to the inacuracies of carbon dating (old news) and he mentions an experiment where a living seashell was dated as 27,000 years old, worrying to be sure, and of course the good old Piltdown man was dredged up again, and the other well-known and documented fakes/hoax skeletons in Darwin's closet! I've just finished reading The Origin of the Species and Darwin often states - when you can get him off the topic of his blasted pigeons - how his theory could be disproved or how it is just a theory, and an unlikely one; he never claimed it to be 100% fact. He was rather reasonable about it, in fact. Comfort's book states that there are categorically NO "intermediate" species on the planet (lungfish - good candidate surely?) and like many Creationists has got a skewed vision of what Darwin proposed. There are quite a few progressive eyes, for example, from rudimentary light sensors all the way through to the masterpiece that is the human eye. Argumemts in this book are those given by people who have a Noah's Ark Toy view of the rich fauna of the world; cat, dog, giraffe, cow, pig, monkey, fish, lizard, bird etc. There are some really weird creatures out there which could easily be fitted into a branching progression of creatures showing evolution of species - macro-evolution. I half expected him to say "and why aren't some babies born with tails as throwback if we evolved from monkeys?" They ARE sometimes born with vestigial tails, dear, but the surgeons remove them before they get seen by the rset of the family, and in the past they would have been killed a birth!
There are few sciemtific references in this book and that always annoys me. And no index. One citation from a dictionary definition used as proof that creation was true and evolution was a theory was a little laughable.
A middle portion of the book is given to famous people (mainly Americans) quoted as saying things that show they believe in God. If so and so believes, it must be true sort of thing. Lots of very unreliable people believe in God and the Bible too... it's not proof in an of itself, but the portion on the great scientific minds who believe is significant: Newton, Kepler, Farraday, Galileo, Pasteur, Kelvin, Da Vinci, Bacon, Joule, Compton, Einstein, Pascal and even our great Hawking is quoted in there (not as someone who believes the Bible per se but someone who doesn't see disproof of the Bible/God).
Overall, a good little book to have around to refer to at more length and look into the arguments further, a conversation starter or debate opener. Taken on it's own, written in an easy evangelical style, it is too limited to be entirely convincing but opened my eyes to a few things I didn't know in scientific principals in the Bible ahead of their "discovery" and whilst I don't see eye to eye to him on Evolution/Creation there was much that was new to my understanding.
There are some really amazing paragraphs where the author cites Bible verses that highlight principals that were not accepted scientific thought for, in some cases, over 2,000 years since writing. Of course hindsight is 20:20 but some of the below are compelling. For example, paragraph one: Job 26:7 (written c1500BC when contempories believed the world was on the back of an animal/giant and carried through space) says that God "hangs the earth upon nothing." That Earth is free-floating in space was not "discovered" until 1650... and more of the same:
The earth is round not flat
Matter is built up of atoms
The Water cycle
Radiowaves
Entropy and the second Law of Thermodynamics
The Earth's rotation on it's axis causing day and night
Hygiene Laws and bacteria
Nuclear winter/weaponry
The stars are too numerous to count
The universe is expanding
The sun isn't stationary
etc ...
Of course there is a large portion of the book given to Creation vs Evolution and here his arguments are not as clear cut, a little sweeping, although still thought provoking if you have an open mind although he's clutching at straws and I'm no expert but can see some of his statements are misleading at best. Much ink is given to the inacuracies of carbon dating (old news) and he mentions an experiment where a living seashell was dated as 27,000 years old, worrying to be sure, and of course the good old Piltdown man was dredged up again, and the other well-known and documented fakes/hoax skeletons in Darwin's closet! I've just finished reading The Origin of the Species and Darwin often states - when you can get him off the topic of his blasted pigeons - how his theory could be disproved or how it is just a theory, and an unlikely one; he never claimed it to be 100% fact. He was rather reasonable about it, in fact. Comfort's book states that there are categorically NO "intermediate" species on the planet (lungfish - good candidate surely?) and like many Creationists has got a skewed vision of what Darwin proposed. There are quite a few progressive eyes, for example, from rudimentary light sensors all the way through to the masterpiece that is the human eye. Argumemts in this book are those given by people who have a Noah's Ark Toy view of the rich fauna of the world; cat, dog, giraffe, cow, pig, monkey, fish, lizard, bird etc. There are some really weird creatures out there which could easily be fitted into a branching progression of creatures showing evolution of species - macro-evolution. I half expected him to say "and why aren't some babies born with tails as throwback if we evolved from monkeys?" They ARE sometimes born with vestigial tails, dear, but the surgeons remove them before they get seen by the rset of the family, and in the past they would have been killed a birth!
There are few sciemtific references in this book and that always annoys me. And no index. One citation from a dictionary definition used as proof that creation was true and evolution was a theory was a little laughable.
A middle portion of the book is given to famous people (mainly Americans) quoted as saying things that show they believe in God. If so and so believes, it must be true sort of thing. Lots of very unreliable people believe in God and the Bible too... it's not proof in an of itself, but the portion on the great scientific minds who believe is significant: Newton, Kepler, Farraday, Galileo, Pasteur, Kelvin, Da Vinci, Bacon, Joule, Compton, Einstein, Pascal and even our great Hawking is quoted in there (not as someone who believes the Bible per se but someone who doesn't see disproof of the Bible/God).
Overall, a good little book to have around to refer to at more length and look into the arguments further, a conversation starter or debate opener. Taken on it's own, written in an easy evangelical style, it is too limited to be entirely convincing but opened my eyes to a few things I didn't know in scientific principals in the Bible ahead of their "discovery" and whilst I don't see eye to eye to him on Evolution/Creation there was much that was new to my understanding.
May 4, 2014
This is a wonderful book to remind oneself of the God we serve. I enjoy looking up the scriptures that are referenced with each scientific fact that is not understood by man until centuries after they were recorded. The book is an excellent reference for Facebook posts or teaching grandchildren. I keep it nearby for easy access.
February 19, 2021
Great little book of scientific facts in the Bible. It lives up to it's name!! I love Ray Comfort and plan to read more of his books. This one is just a little tip of the iceberg. :) I loved all the scientific and biblical proof of supernatural origin. It's a MUST READ. It's little but it's dynamite :).
December 10, 2012
This was a very good book that went through various books of the Bible and showed how science and the Bible are connected. It shows that the Bible had inside it the answers that even many of the greatest scientist recognized as being true in the Bible before science discovered them.
November 28, 2017
What a dangerous load of old claptrap.
I saw this on sale in a whole shelf of similar balderdash in an airport in Florida and just could not resist it. After it, it’s a small book, and only 100 pages, and pretty simple-minded, so it wasn’t going to be too taxing to read.
Its capacity to annoy, however, is vastly out of proportion to its size.
Full of gibberish and muddle-headed quasi-thoughts couched in proud confident phrasing, this is a good expose of the clouded mind of the Bible believer.
“If the Bible proves itself to be the Word of the One who created all things, it would make sense to search its pages,” goes one convincing argument, “After all, time will take each of us to the grave, and if there was one chance in a million that the Bible’s promise of immortality and threat of damnation is true, we owe it to our good sense just to look into it.” I’ve heard that argument before - “but what if it’s true?” Yeh but it’s not. “Yeh, but, like, what if actually it was? Then you’d be screwed, so maybe, hey what have you got to lose?” Yeh, but there isn’t a magic man in the sky telling us what to wear, what to think, how we’re allowed to cut our hair etc. That’s nonsense. “Yeh, but, like, what *if*, eh?”
There follows a slew of horribly inept ‘examples’ of where the Bible contained facts long before the monolithic faceless ’science’ was aware of them. “Can you send lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?” God asks Job. He’s talking about radio waves, of course. You can tell that, right? I mean, there’s no other way to interpret that English translation of the extant manuscripts of the Book of Job in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.
Just as “there is no better way to describe the function of the blood in relation to the human body than to say [what the Book of Leviticus says], ‘The life of the flesh is in the blood.’” Except that in fact there are many much better ways to describe that function than this rather vague sentence that can be interpreted to mean many different things, and which Comfort is certain he has unlocked. He has also unlocked the phrase “according to its kind” as a sort of precursor to the science of biogenesis or the discovery of the genetic code at work in the DNA strands.
And this takes us to a key point here - these are the thoughts of men (mostly men, few women have been ‘allowed’ to dictate what we’re all supposed to believe, apparently) written down in languages, some of which are extinct, and then translated into various other languages over the years. Each translation is an interpretation, so what we have in the Bible, as in many other modern day renditions of ancient texts, is somebody’s viewpoint on what someone else meant about some idea they had. It’s not a magic skyman talking.
There’s plenty of good historical evidence pointing to the idea that many ancient sacred texts contained esoteric wisdom that has since been lost, not least because of how the text has been translated and interpreted, and not least thanks to the endless army of imbeciles like Ray Comfort who are comfortingly on hand to tell you just what each line means until the whole thing is warped and distorted beyond all reason.
Moses knew about the rotation of the planets and how this explained the duration of months and days - Comfort knows this because Moses wrote in Genesis about the “lights” of the sun and moon in relation to days and years. “How could Moses have known [this] 3,500 years ago unless his words were inspired by God?” Probably because vastly ancient civilizations, which have come and gone up on the face of the earth, were far more technologically advanced that most are comfortable admitting, and vestiges of that forgotten knowledge percolated down through the civilizations of recorded history, often not understood, often recited as myth and legend and parable. People knew this stuff before. They didn’t need an old white bearded guy in the sky to tell them.
Comfort rehashes a rake of old chestnuts, such as the claim that it’s more likely for a Boeing 747 to self-assemble in a junkyard than for life to emerge through evolution. Richard Dawkins does a far better job carving that nonsense up like a rotten pumpkin meeting a samurai sword, so I’ll forgo the exercise here. But it is truly infuriating to read such a load of cobblers as “If a male came into being before a female, how did the male of each species reproduce without females?” or “How could a Big Bang produce a rose, apple trees, fish, sunsets, the seasons, hummingbirds, polar bears - thousands of birds and animals, each with its own eyes, nose and mouth?” By way of evolution, that’s how. It is the hallmark of the creationist to fail to understand the concepts they disbelieve, and that their attempts to characterize evolutionary theory habitually malfunction by their insistence that evolutionary science is making statements that it is not, in fact, making. Evolutionary science does not state that modern homo sapiens sapien sprang forth in one step. Evolutionary science does not proclaim that a bird leaped into existence with a fully formed lung, or that a lung evolved overnight, and yet we are offered an array of stupid questions along these lines: “Did [the first bird] breathe before it evolved lungs? How did it do this? Why did it evolve lungs if it was happily surviving without them? How did it know what needed to be evolved if its brain hadn’t yet evolved?” Does Comfort really believe that evolutionary science puts forth a theory that animals will or think or imagine their own evolution, in some sort of conscious act of problem solving?
One of the recurring hobbyhorses of the creationist is the insistence than “the missing link” has never been found. Where do they get this notion of a missing link? As minute aberrations and mutations in the cells of life on earth result from the constant bombardment of cosmic radiation, some mutations prove inconsequential while others give slight and randomly occurring advantages to an organism, which over incredibly long stretches of time allow those with advantages a better survival chance than those without, securing the next generation as a carrier for that DNA. This process is incremental, gradual, and practically unmeasurable in its glacial progress. There is no single “link” from one major classification to another - there are as many links as could be seen fit to create by infinitely smaller gradations in the continuous stream of the organism’s descendants. The number of links is limited only by the human mind's or human tools' ability to divide. Yet again and again we hear the gleeful creationist idiotically crowing on about “the missing link that has not been found!”
In a further chapter we are treated to a roll call of various geniuses, statesmen, thinkers, scientists, mildly idiotic Republic ex-actors turned presidents, slave-owners, genocidal conquistadors, tyrants, despots, and other assorted folk, all of who, we are told, “believed the Bible.” If they believed it, we should too, is the implied conclusion. Even Galileo, we are told, believed the Bible. Never mind that whole spat with the Church about the earth going round the sun or the sun going round the earth - Comfort helpfully reminds us that was the “Roman Catholic Church,” and not “The Christian Church.” Ah yes, important to get your brand of sky-wizardry correct.
Among the thinkers, we hear the words of Blaise Pascal, repeating the infantile twaddle that we can’t lose by being Christian because, hey, what if it’s true after all, eh? What’ve you got to lose?
Comfort’s world view, shared by many Bible believers, is a human-centric view, a belief that the earth and all creatures and plants and minerals upon it are here to serve man. Large parts of Australia and Africa are “desolate” because the deserts are not useful to man. They may not seem desolate to the life that exists there, but we don’t care about that because only humans matter. “We have the God-given ability to appreciate the value of creation. We unearth the hidden treasures of gold, silver, diamonds, and oil and make use of them for our benefit.” Precisely. Comfort and his ilk see the earth’s value in materialistic terms, insisting that the precious metals are there for the taking, insisting that it is somehow God’s will that humankind rip the natural resources out of the ground and burn them up for their own gain and use. Never mind that the process is destroying the earth, the animals, and placing humankind in grave danger. This is all God’s will, apparently.
And it’s not just human-centric, it’s also largely Judeo-Christian centric too. Comfort cites a Time magazine assertion that Ishmael was the progenitor of the Arab race, and then reminds us that God predicted Ishmael would be a “wild man… and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” Which can only mean the Middle East conflict is the fault of the Arabs, right? God is telling you this! Listen to Comfort! He knows! “Who could deny that this prophecy is being fulfilled in the Arab race?” Comfort asks us. I could deny it, for one, because it’s a ludicrous and frankly racist claim. “The whole Middle East conflict is caused by their dwelling together.” Nice insight.
Not content to stop at seeing animals as beneath humans in a human-centric world, not content at racial stereotyping or holding an entire people accountable for thousands of years of convoluted warfare and hatred (much of which was inspired and justified by various other ancient texts attributed to this sky-wizard or that magic-godman), Comfort also laments that “Homosexuality will increase” as a further sign of the times in a long list of similarly evil things such as famines, disease, earthquakes, floods etc. etc. Must remember to get those homosexuals into the list there when we’re reciting the evils of the world.
This book contains great illustrations of the dangerous self-absorbed self-serving justified self-righteous mind of the rabid Bible believer, and how a text held up as a beacon of enlightenment is regularly used to justify Dark Ages thinking, racism, homophobia, cruelty to life on earth, anti-intellectualism, and foggy-minded rejection of the progress of reason.
This review also posted here: https://ronanconroy.wordpress.com/201...
I saw this on sale in a whole shelf of similar balderdash in an airport in Florida and just could not resist it. After it, it’s a small book, and only 100 pages, and pretty simple-minded, so it wasn’t going to be too taxing to read.
Its capacity to annoy, however, is vastly out of proportion to its size.
Full of gibberish and muddle-headed quasi-thoughts couched in proud confident phrasing, this is a good expose of the clouded mind of the Bible believer.
“If the Bible proves itself to be the Word of the One who created all things, it would make sense to search its pages,” goes one convincing argument, “After all, time will take each of us to the grave, and if there was one chance in a million that the Bible’s promise of immortality and threat of damnation is true, we owe it to our good sense just to look into it.” I’ve heard that argument before - “but what if it’s true?” Yeh but it’s not. “Yeh, but, like, what if actually it was? Then you’d be screwed, so maybe, hey what have you got to lose?” Yeh, but there isn’t a magic man in the sky telling us what to wear, what to think, how we’re allowed to cut our hair etc. That’s nonsense. “Yeh, but, like, what *if*, eh?”
There follows a slew of horribly inept ‘examples’ of where the Bible contained facts long before the monolithic faceless ’science’ was aware of them. “Can you send lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?” God asks Job. He’s talking about radio waves, of course. You can tell that, right? I mean, there’s no other way to interpret that English translation of the extant manuscripts of the Book of Job in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.
Just as “there is no better way to describe the function of the blood in relation to the human body than to say [what the Book of Leviticus says], ‘The life of the flesh is in the blood.’” Except that in fact there are many much better ways to describe that function than this rather vague sentence that can be interpreted to mean many different things, and which Comfort is certain he has unlocked. He has also unlocked the phrase “according to its kind” as a sort of precursor to the science of biogenesis or the discovery of the genetic code at work in the DNA strands.
And this takes us to a key point here - these are the thoughts of men (mostly men, few women have been ‘allowed’ to dictate what we’re all supposed to believe, apparently) written down in languages, some of which are extinct, and then translated into various other languages over the years. Each translation is an interpretation, so what we have in the Bible, as in many other modern day renditions of ancient texts, is somebody’s viewpoint on what someone else meant about some idea they had. It’s not a magic skyman talking.
There’s plenty of good historical evidence pointing to the idea that many ancient sacred texts contained esoteric wisdom that has since been lost, not least because of how the text has been translated and interpreted, and not least thanks to the endless army of imbeciles like Ray Comfort who are comfortingly on hand to tell you just what each line means until the whole thing is warped and distorted beyond all reason.
Moses knew about the rotation of the planets and how this explained the duration of months and days - Comfort knows this because Moses wrote in Genesis about the “lights” of the sun and moon in relation to days and years. “How could Moses have known [this] 3,500 years ago unless his words were inspired by God?” Probably because vastly ancient civilizations, which have come and gone up on the face of the earth, were far more technologically advanced that most are comfortable admitting, and vestiges of that forgotten knowledge percolated down through the civilizations of recorded history, often not understood, often recited as myth and legend and parable. People knew this stuff before. They didn’t need an old white bearded guy in the sky to tell them.
Comfort rehashes a rake of old chestnuts, such as the claim that it’s more likely for a Boeing 747 to self-assemble in a junkyard than for life to emerge through evolution. Richard Dawkins does a far better job carving that nonsense up like a rotten pumpkin meeting a samurai sword, so I’ll forgo the exercise here. But it is truly infuriating to read such a load of cobblers as “If a male came into being before a female, how did the male of each species reproduce without females?” or “How could a Big Bang produce a rose, apple trees, fish, sunsets, the seasons, hummingbirds, polar bears - thousands of birds and animals, each with its own eyes, nose and mouth?” By way of evolution, that’s how. It is the hallmark of the creationist to fail to understand the concepts they disbelieve, and that their attempts to characterize evolutionary theory habitually malfunction by their insistence that evolutionary science is making statements that it is not, in fact, making. Evolutionary science does not state that modern homo sapiens sapien sprang forth in one step. Evolutionary science does not proclaim that a bird leaped into existence with a fully formed lung, or that a lung evolved overnight, and yet we are offered an array of stupid questions along these lines: “Did [the first bird] breathe before it evolved lungs? How did it do this? Why did it evolve lungs if it was happily surviving without them? How did it know what needed to be evolved if its brain hadn’t yet evolved?” Does Comfort really believe that evolutionary science puts forth a theory that animals will or think or imagine their own evolution, in some sort of conscious act of problem solving?
One of the recurring hobbyhorses of the creationist is the insistence than “the missing link” has never been found. Where do they get this notion of a missing link? As minute aberrations and mutations in the cells of life on earth result from the constant bombardment of cosmic radiation, some mutations prove inconsequential while others give slight and randomly occurring advantages to an organism, which over incredibly long stretches of time allow those with advantages a better survival chance than those without, securing the next generation as a carrier for that DNA. This process is incremental, gradual, and practically unmeasurable in its glacial progress. There is no single “link” from one major classification to another - there are as many links as could be seen fit to create by infinitely smaller gradations in the continuous stream of the organism’s descendants. The number of links is limited only by the human mind's or human tools' ability to divide. Yet again and again we hear the gleeful creationist idiotically crowing on about “the missing link that has not been found!”
In a further chapter we are treated to a roll call of various geniuses, statesmen, thinkers, scientists, mildly idiotic Republic ex-actors turned presidents, slave-owners, genocidal conquistadors, tyrants, despots, and other assorted folk, all of who, we are told, “believed the Bible.” If they believed it, we should too, is the implied conclusion. Even Galileo, we are told, believed the Bible. Never mind that whole spat with the Church about the earth going round the sun or the sun going round the earth - Comfort helpfully reminds us that was the “Roman Catholic Church,” and not “The Christian Church.” Ah yes, important to get your brand of sky-wizardry correct.
Among the thinkers, we hear the words of Blaise Pascal, repeating the infantile twaddle that we can’t lose by being Christian because, hey, what if it’s true after all, eh? What’ve you got to lose?
Comfort’s world view, shared by many Bible believers, is a human-centric view, a belief that the earth and all creatures and plants and minerals upon it are here to serve man. Large parts of Australia and Africa are “desolate” because the deserts are not useful to man. They may not seem desolate to the life that exists there, but we don’t care about that because only humans matter. “We have the God-given ability to appreciate the value of creation. We unearth the hidden treasures of gold, silver, diamonds, and oil and make use of them for our benefit.” Precisely. Comfort and his ilk see the earth’s value in materialistic terms, insisting that the precious metals are there for the taking, insisting that it is somehow God’s will that humankind rip the natural resources out of the ground and burn them up for their own gain and use. Never mind that the process is destroying the earth, the animals, and placing humankind in grave danger. This is all God’s will, apparently.
And it’s not just human-centric, it’s also largely Judeo-Christian centric too. Comfort cites a Time magazine assertion that Ishmael was the progenitor of the Arab race, and then reminds us that God predicted Ishmael would be a “wild man… and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” Which can only mean the Middle East conflict is the fault of the Arabs, right? God is telling you this! Listen to Comfort! He knows! “Who could deny that this prophecy is being fulfilled in the Arab race?” Comfort asks us. I could deny it, for one, because it’s a ludicrous and frankly racist claim. “The whole Middle East conflict is caused by their dwelling together.” Nice insight.
Not content to stop at seeing animals as beneath humans in a human-centric world, not content at racial stereotyping or holding an entire people accountable for thousands of years of convoluted warfare and hatred (much of which was inspired and justified by various other ancient texts attributed to this sky-wizard or that magic-godman), Comfort also laments that “Homosexuality will increase” as a further sign of the times in a long list of similarly evil things such as famines, disease, earthquakes, floods etc. etc. Must remember to get those homosexuals into the list there when we’re reciting the evils of the world.
This book contains great illustrations of the dangerous self-absorbed self-serving justified self-righteous mind of the rabid Bible believer, and how a text held up as a beacon of enlightenment is regularly used to justify Dark Ages thinking, racism, homophobia, cruelty to life on earth, anti-intellectualism, and foggy-minded rejection of the progress of reason.
This review also posted here: https://ronanconroy.wordpress.com/201...
May 3, 2022
Picked this up at the airport because it was cheaper than a pack of Kleenex. The self-published paper was rough on my nose and unsuitable for any personal hygiene, making this book (pamphlet, really) completely useless for any known reason save kindling or paper mâché crafting. If God exists, I imagine he will throw Ray into an eternal lake of fire out of principle for his circular logic and because a heaven where God-fearing people are forced to interact with imbeciles like Ray Comfort contradicts the idea of eternal paradise.
March 24, 2025
Pretty concise and very interesting.
May 22, 2017
An amazing compilation of facts that describe scientific discoveries that won't be confirmed by modern scientists until centuries have passed. If anybody needed proof that the bible is the inspired word of God, this book should provide a good starting point.
July 23, 2012
I was so excited when I saw this book on the shelf. As a Christian and a science teacher who teaches at a very conservative rural public school, I was fully ready for some back-up that I could reference when those questions came firing. There is a lot of good information in the first and middle portion of this book that helps to point out a lot of science that we understand to be true today in the Bible.
Unfortunately, the part that I was most excited about, the evolution, was exactly the OPPOSITE of what I was hoping for. Not only does this book fail to explain how evolution fits into God's divine plan for us, it actually attempts to debunk evolution in favor of creationism! The facts in the last two chapters, the ones about evolution, are straight up false and misleading. There are points in this book where the author explicitly states that "science has admitted it has to evidence to support the evolutionary theory." If we didn't, then it wouldn't be considered a theory, it would be considered a hypothesis! Even my high school Freshmen know that. The author further goes on to explain that evolution has developed into a religion of sorts in which people worship the devil and their own intelligence. I don't know what it is like in other parts of the world, but I believe in evolution and I'm no devil-worshiper. Nor do I think my own intelligence is higher than anyone else.
All in all, this seems to be a pick-and-choose sort of Bible map. Read it with an open mind.
Unfortunately, the part that I was most excited about, the evolution, was exactly the OPPOSITE of what I was hoping for. Not only does this book fail to explain how evolution fits into God's divine plan for us, it actually attempts to debunk evolution in favor of creationism! The facts in the last two chapters, the ones about evolution, are straight up false and misleading. There are points in this book where the author explicitly states that "science has admitted it has to evidence to support the evolutionary theory." If we didn't, then it wouldn't be considered a theory, it would be considered a hypothesis! Even my high school Freshmen know that. The author further goes on to explain that evolution has developed into a religion of sorts in which people worship the devil and their own intelligence. I don't know what it is like in other parts of the world, but I believe in evolution and I'm no devil-worshiper. Nor do I think my own intelligence is higher than anyone else.
All in all, this seems to be a pick-and-choose sort of Bible map. Read it with an open mind.
August 11, 2009
While there were some interesting facts in this book at times it seemed as though the author was grasping at straws. Perhaps those topics just needed to be delved into a bit more deeply to make the fact more sound and less coincidence. I particulary enjoyed the third chapter about medical science. It was very interesting to see how much information people gathered of the medical field without actually knowing how everything worked. However, I was still disappointed in the obvious religious bias and how the author attempted to sway the audience with "facts" that weren't proven.
November 30, 2015
I did enjoy this book. being a christian and liking science , this book was satisfying... i read a prior review on the fact that ray comfort manipulated the bible to fit scientific facts.... however i think God purposely mystifies his words so that we decipher them ourselves. we also have to think about the dialect and diction the authors of the bible spoke in, their words can definitly mean the same as our modern slang.. so i feel as if his points proved accurate. Being that ray comfort is not a scientist.... i do wish there were more facts and articles because it interested me.
July 5, 2016
Wow! This was an amazing booklet! I will be using this in my youth group lessons. All scientific discoveries are in the Bible, but that is ok! It is great we are proving the Bible to be full of facts! Every Christian student and teacher should read this book!!!
July 24, 2009
Very good. Why not share this one with a scientist, or those that love Science and may be unaware of the science in the Bible.
November 3, 2013
Easy read that shows God's Word is fact
October 25, 2015
Black Holes fortold in the BIBLE! Book of Enoch is a very good example (Proof of Pre Space Travel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-cea...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-cea...
December 24, 2021
So, fair disclosure, I did not purchase this. I read it quickly as I was sitting at a CVS waiting to get my covid 19 booster shot and this book was on the stand near the pharmacy. I expected this to be a silly book and it sure was. I got plenty of amusement when the book talked about the biblical connection to, no joke, nuclear weapons. A page was spent on this. The book turned puzzlingly dark when it spends probably about 15-20 percent of the book poorly arguing against evolution. I'm unsure who the audience of this book is for it certainly appears to be geared towards children. By the end of the 15-20 minute read, I felt sorry for families or kids who read this book. It felt like the author was willfully ignorant or writing in bad faith. I finished this quick read just before having my name called. Do not recommend.
November 25, 2023
This is nice little book. I do not think an atheist will renounce their faith and convert from the information contained within its pages, but it will affirm a believers faith. Where I disagree with the book is its layout and format. I enjoyed the end of the book and felt it made the strongest arguments and statements of fact. Starting with the portion of the book dedicated to refuting Darwinian Evolution to the end. This portion should be first and placed up front as it is the most culturally relevant part of the book and most usable. I liked the sections on famous and well known scientists and all the parts in the front where items were selected from Scripture to show how the Bible described things well before the science caught up and affirmed it. This is great material, but it would be better placed at the back end of the book. In my opinion.
December 24, 2020
Begins with silly straw-man arguments and great stretches to make connections from bible quotes to known scientific understanding. Afterwards it has two whole chapters that just list historical figures and scientists as either believing in a god or specifically the god of the bible. Ultimately, following a long series of quote mines it gets to the end where it is clear that the first half is just fluff so Ray can show how little he understands the science behind evolution and deliver an alter call. The science facts you find in this book you could just grab from a basic high school textbook. It's a good thing this book is short because it didn't waste much of my time.
February 27, 2024
Although I am in agreement with much of what the author expresses, he does so in a way that is disrespectful to any who disagree, calling their views "embarrassing" and stating that he is correct because he has "eyes that see and a brain that works". Know this: the Bible is indeed an inspired book that is true in both historical and theological perspectives and of supernatural origins. However, as someone who agrees with the majority of what is written in Mr. Comfort's proof of truth, I find him to be deeply discredited by his disrespect to those who believe contrary to him and by the condescending manner in which this work was authored.
January 16, 2021
If you believe God is supernatural and cannot be "proven" by science, this book may change your mind. The concise and compact volume speaks volumes to the many ways a supernatural God is "proven" through archeology, principles of physical science, and even arguments from figures like Darwin. It is not heavy on details, but for me, provided a great beginning point for research in a number of areas. I now have a long list of authors I want to read (including Josephus, who has been in my TBR pile for a long, long time!).
There are many nuggets of wisdom here. Enjoy!
There are many nuggets of wisdom here. Enjoy!
April 23, 2018
Good book for my kids to help us discuss their questions between science and what they’re learning in church. I think it would be best read as a study book, where you read it in conjunction with the scriptures referenced (which are not always quoted and not alway given context) as well as some simple google researching of some of the people and historical references discussed as some of this assumes the reader already knows some of them, and I doubt my children are aware.
September 28, 2017
For anyone who mistakenly believes that the Bible has no scientific Creedence. THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU. The author does a great job of finding biblical verses that back up the scientific evidence of today. Proving once and for all that the Bible and science do not fight, but are actually in agreement with each other.
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