Christian math classes

Christian math classes have got to be the easiest thing, right next to the Amish computer-repair courses.
Once you start with the assumption that 3=1, you can prove that telephone = ham sandwich. Actually, as long as you know what the answer is, you can show it in a few easy steps:

1. 3 = 1
2. 2 = 0
3. 1 = 0
4. A = 0
5. A + B = B
6. C = B
7. telephone = ham sandwich

Oh, and we have to assume that A is an act of God, since A = telephone - ham sandwich.

A little while back there was a bit of a debate/movement to sort of integrate the Bible into science. Maybe that's not exactly what they said, but the general message was that you get some "science" out of the Bible and use it with the other science that is already in place. For example, the following topics are (according to some Christian site, I didn't do this research) covered in the Bible: Paleontology, the Bible mentions dinosaurs; Astronomy, the Bible mentions a great number of stars and the suspension of Earth in space; Meteorology, fluid dynamics and the circulation of the atmosphere; Biology, the importance of blood (really?!) and biogenisis; Anthropology, mentioning cave men; Hydrology, the circulation of water, the immense amount of water held in clouds, hydrothermal vents (written about more than 3,000 years before their discovery by science); Geology, Earth's crust and the spherical shape of the Earth; and even Physics, nuclear energy and, ready for this, television!

So, imagine using all of this "science" that is described in the Bible to advance mankind further along, toward whatever goal it is thought we are going toward. Yay. Actually, I do mean that. Yay. Please, "integrate" the Bible into science. So that we can toss it out in the first four minutes! The most important thing about science is that no matter how liked a theory, how much tested a law, how perfect an idea, it can be tossed aside instantly when we find some evidence against it. Galilean mechanics were great for a while, but then that damn German bastard had to come along and turn physics upside down.

Picture this: tomorrow, both the Christian and the scientific community agree to "integrate" the Bible into the body of science. It's done. Then, some researcher somewhere, probably an underpaid graduate student, decides to test a theory he looked up in the Bible. A simple experiment. That ends up destroying half the lab and all the hopes of the Christian world. Seems the Bible messed up a bit. Guess it's time to toss it out the window? No, no. See, the researcher made the classic mistake and read the Bible wrong. He forgot that you need the special decoder ring. So, the next researcher, who's also an underpaid graduate student, goes and asks the wise men who have the decoder ring to translate a particular passage so he can determine exactly what the Bible has to say about his experiment. Hmm, this might prove difficult. Try getting Christians to agree on what the Bible really means. And so this goes on. No one can agree to what the Bible is saying: do tachyon's exist or don't they? Well, this passage says they do, but only if you read it on a full moon when my ass isn't itching from sitting on the carpet too long. And this passage clearly states that tachyons don't exist. But it's about as clear as a West Virgina coal-mine. Oh, sure, you can look up anything in the Bible. Anything that was already discovered and we already know. But how about anything, GASP, new?!

Now, you may be wondering, why exactly is there so much confusion? Doesn't the Bible talk about dinosaurs and nuclear energy and blah blah blah? What's so hard about reading the Bible and figuring out exactly what God says about a given topic? Well, it's hard because the Bible has never been used to accurately predict anything. Yes, you can say that the Bible talks about all those fancy sciency terms I mentioned, but as long as you know what you're looking for, and if you look really hard and are very lenient about interpretation, you can find the full names of all the US presidents hidden in the Bible. Just flip it upside down, hold it to a black light and squint. From 12 miles away. On a stormy night.

Here's the page where I got that science crap - link. Read the passages they give in most of the examples and tell me you could have gotten the same results if you didn't know you had to look for dinosaurs or the spherical shape of the Earth. Actually, the "spherical shape of the Earth" argument rests on a translation. Whoo!

When has the Church ever made a clear statement accurately predicting anything? Actually, when have they ever made a statement predicting anything at all? When have they said "next Tuesday, Maury the cabby in New York will find Giuseppe's wallet that Giuseppe will have lost on Sunday" and have it come true. OK, that was sort of a simple one. How about predicting the Second Coming? Unified field theory? Or, hey, check it out, the attempt on the Pope? Or anything new that we don't already know?! The Church will "accept" the pagan theory once in a while, like with the Big Bang, but they'll never put forward a theory that can be proven one way or another. I mean, the Second Coming is perfect: it hasn't happened yet, but that means that it will happen sometime later. There's no due date, and that's not the Church's fault, it's God's plan. The only time the Church will even acknowledge something that's not in the Bible, like the Big Bang or evolution, is when enough followers agree and there won't be much of a reaction. The Church will welcome homosexuals a few decades after every country in the world has defined marriage as a union of two individuals. Maybe I'm being optimistic? If you really wanna know, look it up in the Bible.

EDIT: Upon further examination of the webpage I linked to, I found the following:

We are not aware of any [their emphasis] scientific evidence that contradicts the Bible.

Jokes of Christian ignorance and "la-la-la, if I don't see it then it doesn't exist" aside, I'd like to address the statement. Science cannot contradict the Bible because there is nothing to contradict. We say that the world is 13.7 billion years old, which contradicts the Bible's 6,000 year timeline and the apologists have to explain to us ignorant swine that (a) the six days of creation don't necessarily mean six 24-hour events or (b) God created a Universe already 13.7 billion years old. Or both, at the same time. How can you argue or attempt to contradict something that changes depending on the angle and the time of day or the scientific evidence is blasted with the one-answer-fits-all response of "it's God"?!