Some Christians have claimed that there is a meaningful parallel between science and their faith, as long as they’re understood as thematic and symbolic rather than literal scientific descriptions. When read that way, they claim that the Bible’s creation narrative aligns with the broad order of cosmic and earthly development. Some would even say it predicted science.
1. “In the beginning… darkness.”
Genesis 1:1–2
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… and darkness was over the surface of the deep.”
Science parallel:
The early universe began in an extremely hot, dense state.
After expansion and cooling, there was a prolonged “dark age” before stars formed.
No visible light sources yet, only energy and matter.
Parallel idea:
A formless, dark beginning before structure and light.
2. “Let there be light.”
Genesis 1:3 Science parallel:
Approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang, light decoupled from matter.
The universe became transparent, producing the Cosmic Microwave Background.
Light could propagate freely.
Parallel idea:
Light appears once the universe becomes ordered enough.
3. Separation of waters
Genesis 1:6–7
“God separated the waters above from the waters below.”
Science parallel:
As Earth cooled, water differentiated into:
Atmosphere (water vapor, clouds)
Surface oceans
Planetary differentiation produced a layered structure from earlier chaos.
Parallel idea:
Natural separation and structuring of matter.
4. Dry land emerges
Genesis 1:9–10 Science parallel:
Early Earth was dominated by magma oceans.
Cooling led to:
Solidification of the crust
Formation of continents
Pooling of oceans
Parallel idea:
Stability emerging from a chaotic early Earth.
5. Plants before animals
Genesis 1:11–13 Science parallel:
Early photosynthetic organisms (e.g., cyanobacteria) appeared first.
They:
Produced oxygen
Transformed Earth’s atmosphere
Complex animals emerged much later.
Parallel idea:
Life that prepares the environment comes before complex life.
6. Sun, Moon, and stars “for signs and seasons.”
Genesis 1:14–18 Clarifying note:
This passage is often misunderstood as describing the initial creation of celestial bodies. Science-parallel interpretation:
The Sun and stars already existed.
Earth’s atmosphere became transparent later.
Celestial bodies then became clearly visible from Earth’s surface and useful for timekeeping.
Parallel idea:
Functional visibility and role, not initial existence.
7. Sea life, then land animals, then humans
Genesis 1:20–27 Science parallel:
Life begins in oceans.
Life transitions onto land.
Humans appear very late in Earth’s history.
Parallel idea:
The broad biological sequence aligns.
8. “Rest” — stability, not inactivity
Genesis 2:2 Science parallel:
After major formation phases, systems reach dynamic equilibrium.
Earth becomes relatively stable, allowing complex ecosystems and civilization.
Parallel idea:
Completion of foundational processes.
How they attempt to reconcile science and faith
Genesis is not a science textbook.
It reflects ancient cosmology expressed through theological and poetic language.
These parallels hold only when Genesis is read for meaning, not literal physics.
Treating Genesis as a lab report undermines both science and scripture.
My answer to this claim of "“reconciling” science and faith.
Saying that Genesis 1 is theological poetry that lines up with modern science when you read it for meaning instead of literal physics and then treating that as evidence of scientific foreknowledge in scripture comes across as an attempt at dubious ad hoc arguments.
This is an ad hoc argument because it comes after the fact. Modern believers look at the text and then match it to concepts like the Big Bang or evolution after scientists discovered them. If the scripture really had predicted these things, people would have seen it before science figured them out. Since the parallels only show up when you twist the text to fit what we already know, the claims don’t hold much weight.
Saying that this “reconciles” science and faith is basically assuming the scripture is true first and then using any similarities with science as proof. That’s circular thinking. If you don’t already accept the text’s authority, the parallels don’t really show anything. They just reflect a belief being read into the evidence.
When someone draws parallels between Genesis and the Big Bang to argue for the scripture’s claimed divine truth, the reasoning often ends up circular. They start by assuming the text has special authority, then reinterpret it just enough to line up with modern science, and finally point to that alignment as proof that the text is divinely meaningful.
In effect, the logic becomes:
"It’s true because it matches reality, and it matches reality because it’s true.
At that point, it’s not much different from saying, “I believe this is true, therefore it’s true.”
Edit: Special Thanks to the user Mordant.
This is a dubious ad hoc argument, but most specifically, a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy, assuming that because one event follows another, the first event must have caused the second, ignoring other potential causes or coincidence.
I think more properly, post hoc, and therefore the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy.
Exactly.
In fairness to liberal / non-literalist / non-inerrantist Christians, it is perfectly natural to give primacy to scientific evidence and then interpret the Bible in a way that’s at least basically harmonious with that. But in the end, regardless of whether you bend scripture to reality or, as fundamentalists do, try to bend reality to scripture, it is just a fool’s errand.
My first question is why would you have to make this claim if you are an alleged believer of the bible? Who are they pandering to with this observation? Is the argument for atheists, or Christians with serious doubts?
I have to call bullshit.
I liked it better when they called us pagans and crossed the street to avoid us…
Then in what way is there any meaningful parallel between them? Basically they can “interpret” archaic superstition about magic, so even when scientific facts roundly contradict the literal claims in the text, they can delude themselves there is no contradiction. Noah’s flood - NEVER HAPPENED, this is unequivocally demonstrated by the geological record. How is that a meaningful parallel?
They are deluding themselves.
Now they’re just flat out lying.
Science does not evidence that anything was created. That creation myth also claims humans were created in their current form, utterly contradicted by the scientific fact of species evolution, it claims the earth existed with vegetation before the sun, again contradicted by cosmological and biological facts. I shan’t bother with the rest, as anyone who thinks archaic superstitious claims about inexplicable supernatural magic, reflect science’s current understanding of anything is either barking mad, delusional or lying, or a combinations of those.
Any Christian who claims that anything in the Bible is backed up by / supported by / proved by evidence outside of the Bible clearly doesn’t know their scripture very well.
They clearly don’t know on what terms they are supposed to believe that the Bible is true.
John 20 : 30 & 31
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Christians receive new life, not by paying attention to extra-Biblical evidence but by believing BY FAITH what the Bible says. It’s there in b&w. Why can’t they read it and understand it?
And if you wanted further confirmation that Christians are not supposed to pay attention to extra-Biblical evidence, look here.
Hebrews 11 : 1 - 3
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
So there’s no need for Christians to look for parallels between cosmology and scripture. Faith is belief WITHOUT SEEING EVIDENCE. Christians are called to believe in what they do not see, not what has been seen, or observed through telescopes.
That is why Christianity is a faith. If it were supported by evidence then faith would not be needed. If Christians need to have the Bible supported by evidence then their faith is very weak indeed. Their need for evidence will NOT be rewarded in heaven.
Whereas, the faithful, who believed without evidence, will be rewarded for putting their trust in God’s Word.
This nonsense is, of course, usually peddled by creationists, who are desperate to have their particular brand of infantile heresy validated, because they want their hatreds and bigotries validated by a divine cosmic version of Donald Trump. At bottom, the specimens in question are the sort who want their narrow, parochial and white vision of the future to be realised (it’s almost exclusively white conservative evangelicals who peddle this garbage online, and the subset thereof who are also wannabee Klansmen).
So, let’s take a look at where REALITY says that Genesis 1 is bullshit, shall we?
[1] The idea that Planet Earth was purportedly “created” before the Sun, clashes hilariously with all the findings of modern astronomy, with respect to star and planet formation. EVERY space based telescope photograph of planet formation, involves accretion from a disc of matter left over AFTER the formation of a parent star.
[2] There’s the little problem of how one can have a “day” and “night” before the Sun was “created”, given that the very terms “day” and “night” are DEFINED in terms of whether or not one’s particular part of the Earth’s surface is being illuminated by the Sun. I’ll leave aside the fact that the polar regions are a special case, due to the axial tilt of the Earth, because complications such as this will simply confuse the average mythology fanboy.
[3] We have the fatuous assertion that plants were purportedly “created” by the cartoon magic man of this mythology before the Sun existed to power photosynthesis. Not too much of a problem if the requisite steps occurred only 24 hours apart. But anyone who wants to argue that “day” means “time period of several million years” in their apologetics is in deep shit with this one.
Even so, this is known, once again, to be farcically wrong by anyone who paid attention in basic science classes. See [1] above.
[4] The order in which various living organisms are asserted to appear in the mythology in question, is roundly flushed down the toilet by the fossil record. The assertion that birds appeared before land animals is roundly destroyed by the fact that fossil land animals date back to the late Devonian Era, around 360 million years before present, while recognisable bird fossils don’t put in an appearance until the late Jurassic, around 150 million years before present.
Furthermore, the evidence tracing bird ancestry to theropod dinosaurs is robust, both from palaeontology and from molecular phylogeny - this latter discipline wouldn’t even exist if creationist assertions were something other than the products of their rectal passages.
Likewise, whales didn’t put in an appearance until the Eocene, and thanks to molecular phylogeny, we have learned that whales were derived from a branch of the Artiodactyl land mammals. Indeed, the first clues to this were provided by the British biologist George Henry Faulkner Nuttall, way back in 1904. This was the year in which he published the results of using the serum antibody reaction test, otherwise known as the precipitin test, as a means of determining phylogeny. I cover that litte gem in more detail in this post in another thread, and allude more briefly thereto in this earlier post.
On the other hand, fish date back all the way to the middle Cambrian, if you include such clades as the Agnatha, whilst the earliest recognisable members of the Osteichthyes (bony fishes) date to the Silurian. The idea that these diverse clades were magically poofed into existence simultaneously is a non-starter among those who paid attention in science classes.
[5] The goat herder mythology in question, neglects to mention entire phyla of living organisms, concentrating instead on whatever happened to be noticed by some goat herders in the Middle East. This is of particular relevance to me, as an invertebrate zoologist, who finds it amusing that the 1.2 million insect species known to science don’t even have a footnote devoted to them.
No mention either of Chelicerates, Myriapods, Molluscs, Crustaceans, the Cnidaria or Echinoderms, and that’s just the phyla containing organisms that are naked eye visible. I haven’t even touched upon the numerous phyla containing microscopic organisms, such as Diatoms and Desmids.
Nor have I mentioned yet such phyla such as the Tardigrada, members of which boast the impressive ability to survive in the vacuum of space in relevant scientific experiments. Nor the plethora of organisms with wacky body plans from the Ediacaran and early Cambrian fossil biota, such as Halucigenia, Anomalocaris and Wiwaxia.
[6] we have both rich data from palaeontology and molecular phylogeny, informing us that humans appeared over a 5 million year period, after a common ancestor with chimpanzees underwent a population split, followed by divergence of the split populations resulting ultimately in a series of allopatric speciation events. That whole business involving a woman allegedly being cloned from a man’s rib can be dismissed by all serious commentators.
Quite simply, the creationist specimens who peddle the “Genesis is real science” garbage, are in the fatuous position of claiming that if reality disagrees with their goat herder mythology, then reality is wrong and their goat herder mythology is right. This is the level of absurdity that is involved here.
Then of course, we have the fact that the piss-stained Bronze Age nomads who scribbled this cretinous mythology, were incapable of counting correctly the number of legs that an insect possesses. If they couldn’t even exhibit some basic connection to reality, with respect to an issue as mundane as this, why should we trust them, when they assert that all manner of fantastic magic entities exist, and all sorts of fantastic magic events happened?
But perhaps best of all, is the assertion I refer to routinely in my posts, that is perhaps the most absurdly farcical of all, that appears in this turgid collection of bad Middle Eastern fairy tales. Namely, the assertion that genetics is controlled by coloured sticks, an assertion that is so ludicrous, that one cannot help but wet one’s pants laughing, the moment that the existence thereof is realised.
This assertion was, of course, utterly destroyed by a 19th century monk, when he launched modern genetics as a properly constituted scientific discipline. The foetid and excremental apologetics that are peddled, by the few creationists who dare to tackle this embarrassment head on, usually serve to demonstrate solely that said specimens do not understand how basic genetics works. Much amusement can be had by rubbing their noses in this on a public forum such as this, though the specimens in question tend to be completely bereft of any capacity for shame, let alone any tendency to correct their fatuous errors.
Instead, being exposed in this manner, usually makes the creationists in question double down on their infantile lies, no matter how much they’re digging themselves into an inescapable pit of their own foolish construction, all the way down to the magma. While doing so, they are, of course, totally devoid of any sense of self-awareness, or of any capacity for realising even the most basic, elementary facts.
Central among those facts being, and I offer emphatically no apologies for what follows, that the specimens in question are roundly deserving of every last atom of scorn, derision and ridicule propelled toward them, which I regard as being best propelled in their direction by a relativistic railgun. They are, to borrow terms from P. J. O’Rourke, goo-goo clusters and moon pies. To borrow from the comedian Lewis Black, what we have here is a clinical psychotic delusion - these people are stone, cold, fuck, nuts.
Upon first learning of the existence of creationists, my astonishment very quickly morphed into fulminating contempt, because they deserve it. Not only are they utterly duplicitous deniers of reality, their effect upon society being retrogressively venomous, but they allow the same unibrow, bolt through the neck mentality to permeate into every part of the human sphere, and pollute said human sphere with their lumpen, choleric species of pathogen.
As one observer wrote, when covering the topic of the Orange Scrotum, the reason we British regard the swamp dwellers in question with barely concealed disgust, is because they don’t even possess the most elementary sense of humour. This makes them utterly alien to us, in the true revulsion at the xenomorph sense. Of course, there is a colossal overlap between the creationists and the delusional MAGA cultists - I can’t think of a creationist immediately that doesn’t also want to be part of the Tangerine Harkkonen’s human centipede.
The specimens in question think that ‘humour’ consists of spiteful and mean-spirited comments about the vulnerable, of the sort that was exemplified by Cheetolini’s hideously obscene mocking of a disabled individual. This, of course, they carry over to pretty much every arena of discourse, which is why the creationists are so fond of crass, infantile and mendacious caricatures of scientific postulates - anything they don’t understand becomes something to throw rocks at - or, more frequently, excrement. Shit flinging is the one talent they possess.
It is, indeed, a searing indictment of the mindset in question, that Aristophanes, writing comic plays nearly 26 centuries ago, exhibited a more refined and sophisticated understanding of comedy than the modern day creationist and MAGA cultist. Yes, Aristophanes frequently visited the territory of ribaldry and sexual innuendo, but the important difference to notice here, is that he was punching up, not down. He was aiming his barbs at the abusively powerful, the vainglorious rich and the pretentious poseur. Lysistrata is perhaps his best known work, and I would rate it as one of his most subversive of conservatism and conformity for its own sake, as well as being a damning indictment of war, particularly when prosecuted for ignoble ends. His reading of sexual politics was also astute in that work, but the lessons arising therefrom are properly for another thread.
But once again, I digress. While it is tempting to speculate what Aristophanes would, were he alive today, make of the combination of creationists and MAGA cultists, and how some such as myself would love to see such a satire, the fact remains that the degeneracy inherent in both, is at once frightening and repulsive to observe.
It’s interesting to note, however, that one of the most vituperative critics of these specimens, again was of ancient historical vintage. Presciently, Augustine of Hippo not only anticipated the emergence of such reprobates back around 400 CE, but penned possibly one of the most scaldingly caustic repudiations thereof. Not least, because his attack centred upon the fact that they brought scorn and ridicule onto the very Christian religion, that these specimens claim to adhere to - an object lesson in the futility of blind assertions, of course.
It is instructive, since upon checking, I haven’t quoted that excoriation of Augustine’s in full here, to remedy that deficit, for the sake of completeness, as it is also apposite to the supposed “scientific validity” of Genesis, viz:
When a Dark Age theologian is exhibiting more sagacity with respect to the subject than you are, you must surely know that you’re not merely in error, but absurdly so.
If the reasons for my contempt are not by now obvious, then it’s possibly because you are one of the wilfully ignorant and pathologically duplicitous creationist specimens, that I’ve been describing. The genuinely intelligent readers here will understand in an instant.
I think your orginal post is both interesting and thought-provoking.
I do believe that it is possible to see similarities between the Bible and modern cosmology . . . but with a “catch.”
First, if one does enough data mining, then we can see coincidences in almost any pair of events.
As an excellent example, please consider the coincidence that exist between Lincoln’s assassination and Kennedy’s assassination. There are so many coincidences that they are too numerous to list, so please check out the link below if you want to follow up on this point:
Houston Home Journal
The Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences – Houston …
My purpose in bringing up the comparisons between the Lincoln assassination and the Kennedy assassination is to show that strange coincidences can crop up almost anywhere if one looks hard enough. There are a lot of people who believe that Stephen King’s 1978 novel The Dead Zone predicted the Trump presidency, and that another famous author named Dean Koontz seems to have predicted the COVID 19 epidemic in one of his earlier novels from the 1980s.
Or if we want to look at this in another way, how much of that data mining process was applied to other holy books like the Quran, or the Baghavid Gita?
In Hindu religious cosmology, they have measurements of time that are roughly of the right magnitude (approximately 8.67 billion years) between now and when Brahma created the Universe by dreaming the great cosmic lotus dream, so–in my mind–the Hindu religion has more claim to scientific predictions, because these people at least got the right magnitude for the time scales between now and the beginning of the Universe.
And so on.
I’ll be impressed by Biblical predictions of science when I can see that this same process was applied to other holy writings, and that there were no oddball coincidences from these other books.
One last point: The Bible seems like a Rorscharch test to everyone who reads it, so different people see different things.
For myself, the Bible says that Pi is exactly equal to 3 when it isn’t (1 Kings 7:23), so how is the Bible a valid source of cosmological understanding when it doesn’t even give a reasonably correct value for Pi?
Or more explicitly: It is agenda-driven. Biblical literalists emphasise the biblical inerrancy and use biblical texts to interpret reality, no matter what the actual observed and measured reality is. On the other hand, those who subscribe to the historical-critical interpretation of the bible story tend to glance at physical evidence, and adjust the interpretation of the bible to better conform to objectively measued reality, while adopting literal interpretations when it suits them better. And so hilarity ensues.
You’re not wrong, though I tend to regard the Bible as a template that is, by design, something anyone can project upon for the purpose (or agenda, if you will) at hand. Sometimes the projections are harmless, and sometimes they are not. I’m not aware of a holy book that is written with much specificity. Biblical prophesy is a great example. For example, early Christians, including the NT authors, appropriated OT texts that weren’t even meant to be prophetic, so as to retcon Jesus as their fulfillment. This had the very practical effect of making Christianity not a new religion, but a fulfillment and full realization of a much older one. It helped to sell it in the ancient world.
This kind of cheating goes on in the Muslim faith too.
But they’re not so clever about it. For instance, take a look at the second ‘Peg’ diagram on the left side of this page. The one that shows a cross section through the Earth’s crust, running from the British Isles to the Caucasus Mountains that run between the Black and the Caspian Seas.
A vertical scale of 70 miles is given. But no horizontal scale is given. So it looks like there are two huge ‘Pegs’ under the Alps and the Caucasus, just like the Quran says. But wait! What is the horizontal distance between the British Isles and the Caucasus?
The answer is just over 3,000 miles.
So what we’re being shown is a highly compressed cross-section of the Earth’s crust. Compressed in the horizontal to exaggerate the vertical relief and to make those mountain roots look like pegs.
What happens when we show the diagram properly, with the horizontal distance value of 3,000 miles in place? Well, I can’t actuallyshow the result. Micro Soft Paint won’t allow me to stretch the image by a factor of 42. That’s the ratio, btw. 3,000 miles divided by 70 comes out around 42.
Here’s what the diagram look like when horizontally stretched tenfold.
The bible quote didn’t mention anything about it being hot or dense.The early universe was awash in photons. That period of the universe’s history is typically described as the “radiation dominated era” and by radiation they mean light. Describing this phase as dark is rather silly. This is when the average temperature of the universe was higher than the surface of stars today, so every point in the universe glowed like a star. Kind of the opposite of a dark age.
However, the point is that under plasma conditions, the mobility of photons under macroscopic distances was severely limited. Typical path lengths would max out at a few tens of metres before scattering or reabsorption took place.
Only once the universe cooled to the point where neutral atoms could form, was it possible for photons to travel cosmic distances. That’s why the CMB is also referred to as the surface of last scattering.
