The following is a guest post by OpenDiary blogger Atheist Under Ur Bed. This is part of an ongoing series that will be posted each Monday. You can read the introduction to this series by clicking here.

Gee, sometimes a lesson is just so fascinating, Monday School ends up lasting right through Wednesday! Hope no one minds too much….

Here are 5 more ways that science and logic invalidate the Bible:

14) Talking Animals 

Genesis 3:1-5 says that a serpent spoke to Eve. Numbers 22:28-30 says that Balaam’s ass spoke to him. The Song of Solomon 2:12 says that turtles have voices. Science tells us that animals can’t and don’t speak. The Bible’s accounts of the serpent and the ass are further undermined by the fact that neither Eve nor Balaam react with surprise when these animals speak. These accounts simply lack psychological credibility – but do closely resemble fables (like Aesop’s) which no one believes to be literally true.

15) Mythical Animals 

The Bible repeatedly refers to mythical animals as if they actually exist. Jeremiah 8:17 and Isaiah 11:8 refer to cockatrices (snakes with a deadly glance which allegedly hatch from a cock’s egg). Deuteronomy 33:17, Psalms 22:21 and 29:6, and Job 39:9-10 refer to unicorns. Numbers 21:6 refers to fiery serpents. Isaiah 30:6 refers to flying serpents. Isaiah 13:21 and 34:14 refer to satyrs. Science dismisses all these creatures as wild imaginings on a par with those of other ancient religions and mythologies.

16) Those Amazing Fetuses 

Genesis 25:22 says that the twins Jacob and Esau fought with each other while still in the womb. Luke 1:44 claims that a fetus can hear, understand, and react intelligently to human speech. Science tells us that fetuses lack the ability to do these things.

17) Impossible Solar Activity 

Joshua 10:13 says that the sun stood still for hours. 2 Kings 20:11 says that the sun actually went backwards 10 degrees on the sundial one day. Sciences says “No way!” for multiple reasons. Historians agree, since somehow these incredible performances of the sun utterly escaped the notice of virtually everyone on Earth. The Chinese, for instance, were recording eclipses thousands of years ago, yet the Bible would have us believe that they weren’t paying attention when the sun stood still or went backwards.

18) Inexplicable Darkness 

Mark 15:33 says that “And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole of the land until the ninth hour.” Science can provide no logical explanation for such darkness. Nobody seems to have noted this darkness except for the writer of Mark 15:33.

19) Samson 

Judges 16 tells us that a man can derive great strength from the hair on his head. Science tells us that a man’s strength is determined by his genes, his health, his diet, and his willingness to exercise and/or take steroids.

20) Jonah 

The Bible’s Book of Jonah says that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish and that he lived in the belly of the fish for three days. Science knows of no fish that can swallow a man whole. Jesus says that it was a whale in Matthew 12:40, but marine biologists say that the throat of such creatures would have trouble accommodating a grapefruit. How a man might actually live within the oxygen-deprived belly of a fish for three whole days staggers the imagination.

21) Matters Of The Flesh 

1 Corinthians 15:39 says, “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.” Modern biologists would disagree since the physical similarities between humans and animals far outweigh the differences. Evolutionists say that humans, animals, fish, and birds share common ancestors and are related to each other. Humans and chimps share about 99% of their genetic material. If the Bible was right, we couldn’t transplant a baboon’s liver into a human; we couldn’t transplant the heart valves of pigs into humans; it would be pointless to test drugs on lab animals; and there wouldn’t be so many diseases common to both animals and people.

22) Cosmic Divisions 

1 Corinthians 15:40-41 says that heavenly bodies are different than the Earth, that the sun differs significantly from other stars, and that the stars differ significantly from each other. One of the landmark achievements of science was the discovery that heavenly bodies are in fact made of the same elements as are found on Earth, and that they obey the same laws of physics. Modern astronomers assure us that our sun is nothing special in the vast scheme of things. The stars can be grouped into a relatively few types. Quasars, pulsars, and black holes seem to be much more special – but the Bible is utterly silent about them.

23) Dead Men Walking 

The Bible, of course, claims that Jesus rose from the dead. It also says that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Matthew 27:52-53 says that when Jesus died, “graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” Science says that dead is dead. A brain deprived of oxygen for more than 7 minutes suffers irreparable damage. Corpses decay. If anybody has ever seen the corpses of the saints walking around Jerusalem, the only person who thought to write it down was the author of Matthew 27 – years after the fact.

24) A Highly Suggestive Silence 

Besides all the things the Bible says which science disagrees with, there are all the things science has taught us that the Bible oddly has nothing to say about at all. It doesn’t mention bacteria, viruses, extinction, the dinosaurs, Neanderthal man, the ice ages, fossils, continental drift, genetics, atoms, the solar system, galaxies, Earth’s bombardment by space debris (some of which has produced far more disastrous effects than any flood), the New World, the Orient, India, mathematics, the purpose of body organs, the basic facts of human reproduction, the biochemical causes of madness, electricity, radio waves, or the hundreds of other things scientific investigation has revealed to us over the course of the last 2000 years. Many if not all of these things are impossible to reconcile with the Bible’s Creation story and/or the worldview of its authors. If the Bible was really inspired by God, how could it be so silent about so many important and fundamental things? If the Bible wasn’t in fact written by uninspired humans who lived in ignorance in one small part of the ancient world, why does it so thoroughly reflect the severe limitations and flaws of such humans?