Curious

[RickG]

I'm a regular Church attendee, once or twice a week. Unless I missed one, there has never been a service which even mentioned evolution or the age of the earth. For that matter, I've never heard anyone there even talk about it.

With that in mind, I'm curious as to what others have experienced. Is that a usual topic at your church, occasional topic, rare topic, or never discussed.

 

[AV1611VET]

I'm a regular Church attendee, once or twice a week. Unless I missed one, there has never been a service which even mentioned evolution or the age of the earth. For that matter, I've never heard anyone there even talk about it.

With that in mind, I'm curious as to what others have experienced. Is that a usual topic at your church, occasional topic, rare topic, or never discussed.

Very rarely discussed at all.

Our pastor says the earth is 6000 years old.

 

[Blue Wren]

A church I attended, whilst in the U.S. this past year, had Evolution Sunday festivities. I don't know how often the subject comes up, in ordinary sermons.

When I'm at home I often attend a Catholic church with my boyfriend. They have talked more, about the Vatican's position, on evolution & Big Bang, and such.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

I'm a regular Church attendee, once or twice a week. Unless I missed one, there has never been a service which even mentioned evolution or the age of the earth. For that matter, I've never heard anyone there even talk about it.

With that in mind, I'm curious as to what others have experienced. Is that a usual topic at your church, occasional topic, rare topic, or never discussed.

Why would they discuss something clearly not scriptural in a setting designed to discuss scripture?

Romans 1:20-23. Man has become futile in his speculations.... abandoning God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.…

 

[Soyeong]

2 Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

My rabbi holds to this verse literally and believes that the Sabbath week is a shadow of God's 7000-year plan, with the Messianic Age being the last 1000 years. I think that the verse is emphasizing God's timelessness, but I also don't think it is important to have a firm view about the age of the earth. Here's a article that explains his view in more detail:

http://www.shofarministries.net/7000yr1of3.html

 

[Justatruthseeker]

2 Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

My rabbi holds to this verse literally and believes that the Sabbath week is a shadow of God's 7000-year plan, with the Messianic Age being the last 1000 years. I think that the verse is emphasizing God's timelessness, but I also don't think it is important to have a firm view about the age of the earth. Here's a article that explains his view in more detail:

http://www.shofarministries.net/7000yr1of3.html

Agree somewhat. We know it can't be literal, because there could be no evening and morning to denote days, if the sun had not yet been created until the 4th day. I'll attach something.

 

[Soyeong]

Agree somewhat. We know it can't be literal, because there could be no evening and morning to denote days, if the sun had not yet been created until the 4th day. I'll attach something.

Genesis 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Genesis 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Which in Hebrew brings "heat". At least last I checked it was the heat from the light that caused evaporation and mud to become dry land.

So in your belief God shut off His light every night so there could be an evening for three days? This is to what I am to take from that?

 

[Ada Lovelace]

The way YEC was first presented to me, as a fifteen-year-old blissfully oblivious about creationism still being a modern-day commonly held doctrine, was that it's a "very grave sin" to not take Genesis literally (from the English translation version of the NIV) and there are no other viable options to it. You either believed in a young earth, in baby dinosaurs on the ark, in the talking snake, in Adam and Eve as literal people who caused "the fall" and death, in God causing a genocidal flood, or you didn't truly believe in Jesus. If you couldn't just believe Genesis literally, despite the overwhelming evidence from the narrative of the universe that the YEC interpretation of it isn't the correct one, the literary issues with that hermeneutic, and the ethical dilemmas it presented, then it was due to your lack of faith. And it was because you made evolution into your religion and worshipped it as your God, that you were indoctrinated by something nefarious. All scientists who believed in an old world, no global flood, and supported evolution were just proud in their own eyes. All theological scholars who disagreed with that hermeneutic were false prophets. It was never that anyone who believed in YEC needed to humble themselves and consider that their beliefs might not actually be fully correct; it was you who had to be woefully mistaken about everything.
I'd actually been very enthusiastically willing to learn about YEC at first because I had thought it was merely one belief that could coexist with other Christian beliefs, but then found out that it's not at all compatible. It definitely felt to me that it was either YEC or atheism, and anything else was merely an inferior waste of time.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

I was mystified by YEC after learning about it in 2013 and audited this course last September as part of my quest to better understand it and examine my own beliefs. Geographical location, socioeconomics, and age are all significant factors in beliefs about YEC. It was interesting to trace the evolution of beliefs about YEC. I think creationists tend to be more vocal, especially on sites such as this one, and this projects the illusion that there's more of them than there truly are, similar to how some think there are just as many opponents as there are proponents of vaccination when in actuality there aren't; the anti-vaxxers just make much more noise which makes it seem like they are in larger numbers. With the help of friends I created a series of informal questions about creationism, the age of the earth, whether man and dinosaur coexisted, and support for evolution, and had them posted on Yik Yak in 7 cities / college campuses around the U.S. (UCLA, Stanford, NYU, AU in DC, MIT, Akron, and Charleston) last November. Yik Yak is a popular app that is based on your location. Your "herd" consists of those within a radius of where you are located, so friends posted where they lived on my behalf. It's most popular for high school and college students, though anyone can use it. I was just curious and making a very basic and informal social experiment. Besides a handful of people in Akron and Charleston everyone accepted evolution - with no strife. Many had never heard of YEC.

 

[FreeinChrist]

MOD HAT

This thread is closed for review, possible move.

 

[James Is Back]

Mod Hat On

Thread reopened,cleaned of any non Christian posts/quoted posts and moved from Creation & Evolution to Origins Theology. I will remind everyone coming from C&E that this is a Christian only forum and only Christians are allowed to post here. No non Christians are allowed otherwise you might get actioned.

Mod Hat Off​

 

[miamited]

I'm a regular Church attendee, once or twice a week. Unless I missed one, there has never been a service which even mentioned evolution or the age of the earth. For that matter, I've never heard anyone there even talk about it.

With that in mind, I'm curious as to what others have experienced. Is that a usual topic at your church, occasional topic, rare topic, or never discussed.

Hi rick,

I imagine that it's not discussed in most fellowships because it brings with it a lot of controversy. God's word says one thing and man's science says another. However, I'm not YEC based on any particular teaching or sermon that I've heard, but rather just by merely reading the Scriptures. In my 25 years of fellowship attendance I probably haven't had it covered in a sermon more than once or twice. I did, however, take the course that was going around a few years back titled 'The Truth Project' which did touch on the creation event and when it occurred.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[RickG]

Hi rick,

I imagine that it's not discussed in most fellowships because it brings with it a lot of controversy. God's word says one thing and man's science says another. However, I'm not YEC based on any particular teaching or sermon that I've heard, but rather just by merely reading the Scriptures. In my 25 years of fellowship attendance I probably haven't had it covered in a sermon more than once or twice. I did, however, take the course that was going around a few years back titled 'The Truth Project' which did touch on the creation event and when it occurred.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Thanks for the input miamited. My original post for this thread of course was in the Evolution vs. Creationism where it is, to say the least, vigorously debated. With all that vigor, I thought to ask, if so vigorously debated here, why don't we see sermons about it as much. Of course, as so many did reply, and I agree, church service is not the pace for it. And you are right, it does bring a lot of controversy, which would tend to divide the church family rather than unify it.

Blessings.

 

[AV1611VET]

why don't we see sermons about it as much.

I don't think it's high on the list of homiletics.

 

[Willtor]

The Church I attended as an undergrad mentioned evolution (as a bad thing) basically every week.

Today, my wife is the pastor of my Church, and she doesn't really talk about such things in her sermons -- she uses the lectionary and typically interprets and applies one or more of the passages of the week. Science doesn't really come into it except as an illustration.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

Which in Hebrew brings "heat". At least last I checked it was the heat from the light that caused evaporation and mud to become dry land.

So in your belief God shut off His light every night so there could be an evening for three days? This is to what I am to take from that?

The sun is not the light source, but a "menorrah", which takes that which the stars send to it in this electric universe, and governs it by day. The sun was never the light source, and God asked Job "do you know where the light dwells"?
You, also, cannot answer that question.
When God called Light out of the darkness, He divided the light from the darkness. The light He called "Day", and the darkness He called "Night", and the evening and the morning make "one/Echad" Day.
The sun was not created and set in the revolving heavens until day four.

The sun in its path of revolving the earth in the revolving heavens, is not the light source. The light precedes the sun, as the light revolves around the earth. we call that "dawn", when the light comes around in the revolving around the earth, heavens.

The creation is "Electric", and the sun receives the electric charges from the stars that the stars receive in the light and then the sun refracts that light out, to the entre creation, in its daily running of its course in the heavens.
Look up Thunderbolts and the Electric universe if you want to grasp a bit of how the electric universe works.

Also, FYI: The sun is where God set His created temple in His created heavens in which His creatd throne is set.
That is what the Word of God clearly states, in the original language, and modern, fallen, unbelieving Adam/man has changed His word to fit their own unbelief system, since Galileo; but the Hebrew, Greek Septuagint, and Latin Vulgate state that "He hath set His temple in the sun", in what is now a garbled account in the English, making no sense whatsoever.
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...-god-which-is-in-the-created-heavens.7259341/

 

[Justatruthseeker]

The sun is not the light source, but a "menorrah", which takes that which the stars send to it in this electric universe, and governs it by day. The sun was never the light source, and God asked Job "do you know where the light dwells"?
You, also, cannot answer that question.

But I can - it dwells everywhere, which is why all of science still relies on that aether they deny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_permeability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_permittivity

When God called Light out of the darkness, He divided the light from the darkness. The light He called "Day", and the darkness He called "Night", and the evening and the morning make "one/Echad" Day.
The sun was not created and set in the revolving heavens until day four.

The sun, earth and entire universe were created in verse one. The verb is in the past tense - leaving no other interpretation. The verb meaning complete - done - finished.

The mark of a pause comes next - you are to pause - and marvel at His works.

Then as tohu wa bohu will tell you in the only two other verses it is used in {Isa 34:11; Jer 4:23}, the earth fell into a state of desolation and ruin. It became darkened - Hayah which meaning you are still trying to deny. It can not fall out of a state of darkness into darkness.

Nor could there be an evening and a morning - one day, day two, day three - if the sun was not created until the 4th day. Unless you want me to believe God took away His light every night for some reason? The stars were "appointed" on the 4th day to serve as markers for seasons, planting, sowing and religious ceremonies. Because at this point in time - the clouds had cleared enough for the stars to become visible. It is that last state of darkness which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs - and after an unknown period of time - man and the animals with him were created. If you choose to believe no fossils of man or the animals created with him are found with dinosaurs because they were magically separated in Noah's flood - that is your delusional right to freedom of religion. Just don't ask me to ignore the past 5 destruction's the earth has undergone, and the six creations. Of which mankind is the sixth - soon to be followed by a 6th destruction and a final and 7th creation. In which again some will survive (be brought?) into the new creation - and some will be created all anew. It's recorded right there in stone and in the Bible for those that stop translating "hayah" the second word in verse two wrong.

 

[LaSorcia]

It's never discussed. Pretty much nothing at my Sunday church is discussed except for a vague social justice theme telling us to donate some money or something to church/social organizations. Top that off with a mission trip to some far away place and you're good to go I guess lol.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

If one's interpretation of the Works and the Words do not agree - then one is interpreting one or the other incorrectly. The same Author penned them both and so personally I see no choice but to take hayah to mean what it means - became - referring to the extinction of the dinosaurs and that darkness that caused it. Comet, meteor, one as good as the other I guess. I just can't accept a young earth - but see no problem with a recent creation of man and the animals created with him.