Rosa Rubicondior: How To Tell The Bible Is Wrong - Simply Compare it To Observable Reality

Friday, 30 October 2026

How To Tell The Bible Is Wrong - Simply Compare it To Observable Reality

Stars brewing in a nebulous cauldron | ESA/Webb

Webb’s NIRCam is the observatory’s primary camera, and can simultaneously image the cosmos in two different infrared ranges. Taking advantage of Webb’s exquisite image quality and large primary mirror, the instrument has acquired some of the deepest (i.e. farthest away) near-infrared images ever obtained, detecting light from the first stars and galaxies.

Curiously, although creationists are notoriously reluctant to fact-check anything their cult tells them, most of them would have little difficulty understanding that the best way to check a claim made by another person is to look at the tangible evidence. For example, told that Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC is really only three feet tall, even a creationist could understand that simply by looking at it, it is easy to see that the claim is wrong.

However, asked to apply the same test to claims in the Bible, most creationists will flatly refuse, or will assert that the evidence must be wrong - the equivalent of asserting that the Lincoln Memorial might look taller than three feet, but that appearance is deceiving.

For example, the following comparison between the Bible's claim and the observable reality, should tell any rational person that the Bible is wrong. Not so a creationists who will simply assert that the evidence is wrong and refuse to look at it, or even claim that the creator of the evidence just made it look that way to test them, so the evidence itself become part of an imaginary conspiracy to make them change their minds.

Here's then is a quick reminder that the Bible was written by simple people who tried to fill the gaps in their knowledge and understanding with imaginative stories. The problem was, the stories they made up were based on ignorance and tradition, not on a scientific analysis of the evidence. Not surprisingly, their stories were little better than the stories you would get if you asked a five year old to describe the universe and explain why it's like it is. This much should be readily apparent to any person honest enough to base opinions on evidence, not on unevidenced claims, simply to conform to popular dogma.

This is illustrated most simply by comparing the description of the Universe in the Bible with the real universe being revealed in every greater detail by science. In the Bible, the universe is described as consisting of a small flat planet with a dome over it at the centre, and the moon and stars and all other celestial bodies from planets to galaxies described as lights stuck to the dome, all created by magic just a few thousand years earlier. The entire construction was imagined to be surrounded by water, which the dome, in addition to being something to stick the celestial bodies too, was there to keep out.

So, compare that description with a tiny fragment of the real, dynamic and expanding universe - a star-forming region named LHA 120-N 159, or simply N159, located 161,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way galaxy.

This image spans about 230 light years across.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.(Gen 1: 6-10)

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. (Gen 1: 16-17)

A nebula made of clouds of gas and dust with stars forming within. In the centre and out to the left it is filled with thin, wispy blue gas that forms delicate layers. Around this are thicker orange clouds with dark ridges. Thin red filaments of gas cross the centre of the nebula. Glowing bubbles in the gas contain dense, very bright clusters of stars. In the edges, distant stars are visible as bright points on a dark background.

In this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope, we visit a turbulent cauldron of star formation to see what is brewing inside dense clumps of gas. This is a star-forming region named LHA 120-N 159, or simply N159, located 161 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. This image spans about 230 light years across.

N159 is what astronomers call a H II region: an area of space filled with ionised hydrogen gas. In stellar nurseries such as this one, giant molecular clouds of cold hydrogen gas collapse under gravity, forming new stars. Many of these stars are extremely massive and hot, and their powerful ultraviolet radiation ionises the gas around them. This makes H II regions markers of active star formation, and as the ionised gas radiates light this turns them into the kind of brilliant emission nebula that we see in this image. The fierce stellar winds from these stars sculpt dense ridges and carve open cavities in the gas, which Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) captures here in great detail.

The roiling brew of star formation in N159 is closed in by thick, smoky orange clouds that also billow across the centre of the image. The light orange colour signifies light emitted by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, an important carbon-based molecule. The pools of pale blue gas are clouds of H II gas, ionised by the intense ultraviolet light from massive stars. Dark red filaments cross the centre of the image, particularly visible above the blue region on the right side; these are made of cool molecular hydrogen. These filaments are the densest part of the nebula and currently shield new stars from harsh radiation and stellar winds — by zooming in, you can see stars as points of light embedded in these filaments and in the small pillars of orange gas that reach out into the blue bubbles. Eventually, these structures will melt away, leaving their completed stars behind.

The LMC is full of H II regions like N159 conveniently located for us to study, including the larger N79 region and the spectacular Tarantula Nebula. They are not exactly like the star-forming regions within our own galaxy: the LMC’s metallicity — its proportion of the elements, which astronomers call “metals”, that are heavier than hydrogen and helium — is significantly lower than in the Milky Way galaxy. This gives researchers an opportunity to study H II regions in conditions that are more similar to those found in the early Universe, helping us to learn about star formation in that time.

At less than three million years old, N159 is one of the youngest star-forming regions of the LMC, containing thousands of stars at their earliest stages of formation. Since the advent of space telescopes astronomers have closely examined the stellar populations in N159. The brightly glowing spot on the left side of the image is the Papillon Nebula, an exceptionally compact blob of ionised hydrogen that is thought to be linked to the formation of massive stars: it was resolved for the first time by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in 1999. Sections of the sweeping clouds of gas were featured in a pair of images from Hubble in 2025, covering east and west sides of the cloud.

The data used in this new Webb image come from an observing programme (#5114) aiming to study and compare stars throughout their different stages of evolution in this giant nebula. In the resulting paper, astronomers delved into N159 with greater detail thanks to these new and comprehensive Webb data. They were able to detect extremely dim stars less than a tenth as massive as the Sun, and distinguish larger, hotter, fully evolved stars from the young stellar objects still wrapped up in the thick clouds where they are born. Their results showed that the western region of N159 has more of these young stellar objects in a more concentrated area, showing that it is at an earlier stage of collapsing to form stars. With the whole sequence of star formation taking place at once, N159 is a unique place to see the evolution of a collapsing molecular cloud up close.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, E. Sabbi, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

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