Joe Barton is a Texas Congressman. He recently presented a good example for how not to use the Bible.
“I would point out that if you’re a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”
Barton made the comments at the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, which is considering whether to approve the Keystone pipeline.
“I would point out that people like me who support hydrocarbon development don’t deny that climate is changing,” he added. “I think you can have an honest difference of opinion of what’s causing that change without automatically being either all in that’s all because of mankind or it’s all just natural. I think there’s a divergence of evidence.”
While it is true that people can have an honest disagreement on all kinds of topics, the above comments are neither scientifically honest, nor religiously healthy. Science is a method, it is not a body of information, nor a set of theories. To bring the Bible into a philosophic question is one thing, but to present a story from the Bible as data in a scientific inquiry is not honest science. Nor is it healthy religion to claim that if one believes the Bible that he or she will necessarily be a creationist. The Congressman’s infraction was made worse by committing it as a representative of a diverse population, therefore choosing his own religion over all others.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/republican-congressman-cites-biblical-great-flood-to-say-cim