The Bible has never been contradicted by science.
Agreed!
The Bible has though, in the hands of fundamentalists, Creationists and followers, been rendered nonsensical, superstitious dogma and contradicts reason, logic and common sense.
False.
The Bible is concerned with the spiritual landscape of humanity,
More accurately, it tells men how to have a relationship with God.
it is not a definitive history book,
It IS a definitive history book concerning the nation of Israel, God's chosen nation.
yet it contains some general historical references,
It also contains some pretty specific ones, too.
or an account of literal Creation,
More accurately, a literal account of God creating the universe, the earth, the seas, and everything in them.
though it makes clear that God is the Creator,
Indeed.
but the nature of Creation is beyond human understanding.
What's so hard to understand?
God made the heavens and the earth on day one, He made the crust of the earth on day two and three, and on day three He made plants. On day four, He made the sun, moon, and stars, He made birds and sea creatures on day five, He made land animals and finally, man, on day six, and then on day seven, He rested.
Generally speaking, most people who think openly have been inoculated from ever considering organised religion as a path to knowledge or enlightenment
Most people who think "openly" think so openly that their brains ooze out of their heads, which is WHY they have been inoculated.
Understanding the Bible doesn't require the ability to think openly. It requires the ability to think logically.
because of those who are incapable of understanding the difference between symbolic, allegoric, poetic language used in the Bible
Rather, those people have been inoculated because of people who insist that something that is literal in the Bible is instead using symbolic language, and vice versa, and they, perhaps unintentionally, try to mash the Bible into something that it isn't, instead of rightly dividing what it says.
and their own literal translations that render the Bible nonsensical.
The Bible is a literal book that contains normal uses of figurative language. When one overemphasizes the literal-ness or the figurative language of a passage, it causes confusion.
The basic rule of thumb is to just read the book as if you were reading an account of history.
E=mc2 was not invented by a scientist. It is a mathematical reality that was discovered.
@Stripe I believe you might have something to say about this...
It is one of the small foundations of the perfection of Creation.
Creation isn't perfect anymore, but I do agree that E=mc
2 is a close approximation of one of the fundamental laws of nature.
All the wonders revealed by science are only discoveries of realities that exist as part of the fabric of Creation.
Agreed.
Science enables us to glimpse fragments of the majesty of Creation, its mathematical precision upon which we have built this scientific world.
Agreed.
Science and religion cannot be in conflict,
Agreed.
if they are then one of them is suffering a misunderstanding
Agreed.
and generally this misunderstanding lies with rusted on religious beliefs passed down from the end of the Bronze Age.
Wrong. Remember, God wrote the Bible. He wasn't wrong with what He wrote.
Rather, if there is a conflict, it's men who are in error. "Let God be true and every man a liar."
As for Dinosaurs, evolution, etc. This planet went through various stages to terraform an environment made habitable for humans to advance in both science and religious understanding.
No, it didn't go through "various stages," at least not like what you're implying.
God created it initially with a rocky core and watery surface. Then on day two He made the crust of the earth in the midst of the waters, dividing the waters above from the waters below, creating a shell that surrounded the earth, and by the end of the third day the crust had settled to form seas and a supercontinent that surrounded the globe (no oceans), and that's it. It was the flood of Noah's day that resulted in the earth we see today with salty oceans and divided continents.
Science so we could experience the wonders Created by God.
Agreed.
Religion so that our spirits might be guided into a richer state of being.
Religion is largely a man-made construct, aside from the various rituals given to Israel by God.
God wants a relationship more than He wants people to participate in a religion dedicated to Him.
The various ages over billions of years produced our soils, hydrocarbons, limestone, etc and the age of dinosaurs was simply a necessary part of this building of planetary capacity for when humans evolved the capacity to augment nature for their own ends.
Billions of years and evolution never happened. The earth is only about 7500±100 years old.
To deny dinosaurs existed just because you have some warped concept of religion has nothing to do with the Bible or God,
Agreed.
Dinosaurs did, in fact, exist, and were created on days 5 and 6.
Agreed.
It is more about how some beliefs are impervious to evidence, logic and common sense.
Agreed.
There is no tougher nut to crack than the absolute certainty that comes via ignorance.
Rather, the tougher nut to crack is the absolute certainty that comes from
willful ignorance.