Check out www.lawofone.info. The first few sessions (they’re short) say what happened in ancient Egyptian and South American cultures when aliens came and tried to share the simple thought that “we are all one.” Shit devolved into human sacrifice. Apparently we can’t handle anything even approximating religion.

Not religious texts specifically, but books in general - human imagination often creates something that is later discovered or invented. So I don’t know why it would not be true of older books.

Occam’s razor:

Humans created religion. These things aren’t found in any religious texts because people, with their superstitions and limited knowledge, made these religious texts.

Just look at more “modern” religions, like scientology, drawing on elements of science-fiction for its mythos.

After reading a bit of the Torah, it got me thinking, why aren’t there any references to people who could not have been known to its followers at the time? No mention of East Asians or Native Americans. Did God just forget about them when he talked through Moses? Or he thought they weren’t important enough to mention?

It’s difficult to answer if your premise is that the Torah is truthfully the word of god.

If you take a neutral, or opposite viewpoint, it’s very simple and obvious to answer. If people created the Tora, and they either had no knowledge or no interest during the creation process, it’s obvious why they are not mentioned.

Wouldn’t it be effective to convince followers of legitimacy if a religion could accurately predict a scientific phenomenon before its followers have the means of discovering it?

This makes me think of shamans using powdered materials to create colorful sparks when thrown into a fire. It’s entirely based on existing material and physical phenomenon, but through knowledge and ignorance, can be used as a tool of misguidance and misinterpretation.

Why wouldn’t he give them information that could expand the possibilities of what they were capable of?

You’re asking so many questions that throughout so many religions and gods can not be answered. You get more and more confused.

If you shift the perspective, and don’t assume a god as a premise, I think it’s fairly obvious to answer. If instead of asking “why did god do it this way” you ask “if this exists now, how did it reach this today through history, why is it presented the way it is, and who originally created it an why”, will you reach a conclusion of “god did it because x”, or something else?

It is good that you are asking these questions. What does it mean if there are such uncertainties about these religious documents? What value do they hold? Who gives them their value? And why? How was it in the past, and how is it today?

What are alternative explanations? What is more fundamentally true vs arbitrary or artificial meaning? What views are more likely, what claims are more likely truthful, what is complete or incomplete, what is selective or encompassing, what served personal, community, political purposes vs what are fundamental truths?

I know many will not like what I am going to say but still …

The Bible mentioned scientific facts long before they were discovered. For example, around 3,000 years ago, Job 26:7 said that God “hangs the earth on nothing,” describing the earth suspended in space—centuries before scientists understood this. Over 2,700 years ago, Isaiah 40:22 said that God “sits above the circle of the earth,” indicating its round shape, long before it was widely accepted.

Later, in the mid-19th century (around 1851–1852), the physicist Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) helped formulate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As part of his theological reflections, he cited Psalm 111:2—“Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them”—to affirm that scientific inquiry only deepens reverence for a Creator.

There are few other similar examples like these in the Bible.

Let’s say you’re arguing in good faith. What if I offered you a different conception of God?

You’re reading the Torah. Have you read the Gnostic gospels? They are early Christian texts & beliefs, some that run roughshod over the beliefs in Judaism. Some Gnostics believed YHWH was a false God, because why would God say, “You must believe in me?” Or why would he genocide the earth with a flood?

Other people have said it, but religion is made by humans. However, what if God was more like the Dao/Tao? Maybe it’s not a person (that’s a human notion), but more like a spring or fountain? Like a source of goodness? Or it’s a foundational substrate for metaphysical realities?

You say, “Why has no holy text predicted what science has revealed?” To me, it sounds like, “Why hasn’t a pig flown?” I think the critique misaligns religion with a goal.

Science reveals the physical world to us. We know there’s an inherent gap between what we observe and some sort of capital T Truth. We could be brains in a vat, a demon could have us hostage, etc. Religion lives in the gap, and I’d say it can reveal things. What it reveals isn’t about the physical world, though.

When I read a Bible verse, a Buddhist Sutra, or hear an Islamic Surah, it connects me to our species. I go to church for the people, the community. The values resonate with me, and I think my family & kids are better off because of that environment. I have science to explain the physical world.

I’m a Unitarian Universalist, so I look at religion in my own way (was an atheist for 20 years prior). Have you tried reframing God as not “old man in the clouds?” If you have, does that framing change how you read the Torah?

P.S. Check out some of the discussion of quantum science and consciousness. Some are arguing that consciousness is the metaphysical reality. Everything may be conscious, but certain conditions may need to be met for the emergence of it in physical reality. Some people have also theorized that all electrons are the same. Some fun theories out there.

No.

Religion is made up by people. Stop trying to support religious psychosis.

Yes, but it’s not what you’re thinking, and they could be known at the time, just not through scientific method, but we had to rediscover them.

In Abrahamic religions the eating of pork is prohibited because pork is an “unclean” animal, and indeed pork is one of the most dangerous meats to consume when not cooked properly. This could be divine knowledge, or people simply realizing that those who ate pork got more sick than those who didn’t.

Another example is about meditation and other mental health from oriental religions. The science to back up that is very recent but they have been doing it for thousands of years and have been claiming all of the benefits that we’re now discovering. But also this could have slowly evolved by observing yourself which is a lot of what meditation is about, so who could have thought that self inspection would allow you to understand yourself better?

So at the end of the day I don’t think there’s any example of what you’re looking for, because anything we know now they could have guessed back then and would not necessarily be divine knowledge. Accurate precognition would be an example of something we would have no explanation for, but that has never happened, most prophecies are abstract and open to interpretation.

Well, the Bible says, the sun was created after Earth. So fuck that.

The reason for this is simply that the people who wrote those books were ignorant.

In the same way as Nostradamus predicted events? Probably. In the same way as what we define as science? No.

No. There’s far more examples of scientific advancement discovery being shot in the knees by theocratic groups than the alternative. Religion is a social tool used for shaping human interpretations of their role within human society, not a legitimate way to enhance our understanding of the world.

I would go as far as to say that having a strong association with a religious organization is an incredible detriment to any technological or scientific advancement.

Science is effort following the scientific method. Hypothesis, observation, analysis, reproducibility, etc. So no.