How did you decide?

[none the wiser]

Ah...this may have been done before...

but how did you decide what you believe about our origins?

The reason I ask is because my Old Testament professor is presenting creation differently than I was taught before.

Any elaboration would be very welcome...thank you

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Both science and Biblical scholarship lead me to reject creationism.

 

[PaladinValer]

I double fragmentsofdreams

 

[Critias]

Biblical study in the original languages, Early Church Father studies, and Jewish culture study. All lead me to the belief of Genesis being a historical narrative that is historically accurate.

 

[Dracil]

Strictly speaking, I could be considered a Creationist up until elementary school, but it's not as if it was something I thought about.

Science classes from middle school up, including International Baccalaureate Biology in high school pretty much cemented my knowledge of the way the world works. In college, because of a good friend of mine, looked at the Bible more closely, read arguments, thought about it, attended Creationist seminars on campus, even took a class on the Old Testament. Put it together, and still decided that Creationism was out of touch with reality.

 

[Mick116]

I was a committed young-earth creationist until second-year university, mostly because that is the way I was taught the Bible. Many from my church of the time were heavily into "creation science", with one chap producing a reasonably sized website attempting to refute evolution, and another working for "Answers In Genesis", the well-known creationism ministry.

I studied science at uni, and by third year I began to have serious doubts about the Bible and a literal interpretation of Genesis. The "clincher" for me, though, was the difficulty YE creationists had in explaining why we are recieving light from distant stars, millions of light years away. Since then, I have tended to go between complete agnosticism regarding origins, various forms of "old-earth" and "progressive" creationism, and "theistic evolution". I now lean heavily towards the latter.

 

[AngCath]

I did not vote because all 4 options assume I made up my mind and went out to justify my decision. The fact is that Genesis 1 was never designed to be taken as a literal historical account of creation. Genesis 1 is a theological account of the role of God in creation. In vv1-5 we learn that God created everything ex nihilio (out of nothing). by placing the plants on day 3 and the sun on day 4, we learn that God is the source of life, not any part of nature. Over the whole chapter we learn one underlying lesson: that God's creation is good. We must not fall into the trap of assuming that creation took 6 days because that is what our Bibles (translated into English) say. In Hebrew, the word for day is also the word for era it is just a matter of convention that it is always translated into day.
Sorry for ranting... its just that as one who teaches on the Hebrew literary tools employed in Genesis I can't help but unload here and there.

I am a creationist in that I believe God created the universe.
I am an evolutionist in that I believe nature operates in a process observable by science.
Beyond this, I simply can not say what exactly happened in the beginning.

 

[JesusDisciple]

I am a Christian who believes the Bible is the literal, living word of God. When the Bible speaks in parables, it is usually clear that is the case.
Genesis describes in great detail the process of Creation. It does not say that this is just symbolism for how things came about. Nor is it altered or refuted in later portions of Biblical text.
Science is great and useful for the most part. However, many theories are just that...theories. Not only are many of them not able to be reproduced in a lab environment, but they seemed to change with whatever trend is popular at the time.
Science has proven many great things, but in the case of Evolution, it is still lacking. Atheist-Evolutionists have faith, just as Creationists do. They put their faith in a manmade theory that cannot be reproduced.
I have faith in something that cannot be "proven" as well. It's God's creation and the accounts of the Bible. I feel much better knowing that I have a solid rock foundation at the heart of what I hold as truth. If one is to have faith, the Bible is a good place to start.

 

[YellowStar]

I was a committed young-earth creationist until second-year university, mostly because that is the way I was taught the Bible. Many from my church of the time were heavily into "creation science", with one chap producing a reasonably sized website attempting to refute evolution, and another working for "Answers In Genesis", the well-known creationism ministry.

I studied science at uni, and by third year I began to have serious doubts about the Bible and a literal interpretation of Genesis. The "clincher" for me, though, was the difficulty YE creationists had in explaining why we are recieving light from distant stars, millions of light years away. Since then, I have tended to go between complete agnosticism regarding origins, various forms of "old-earth" and "progressive" creationism, and "theistic evolution". I now lean heavily towards the latter.

Hiya hope these links help with your starlight problem-
How can we see light from stars millions of light years away?

• Light-travel time: a problem for the big bang
• How can we see distant stars in a young Universe? (from The Answers Book)
• A new cosmology: solution to the starlight travel time problem (pdf)
• Evolutionist science journal gives exciting support to creationist cosmology!
• Seven years of Starlight and Time (ICR Impact 338)
• Review of Starlight and Time (Semi-Technical)
• Starlight Wars: Dr Russell Humphreys answers the critics of his cosmological model proposed in Starlight and Time (contains links to articles from the Technical Journal, posted on the True Origins site. See also his earlier rebuttal to Hugh Ross)

 

[Mikecpking]

Hiya hope these links help with your starlight problem-
How can we see light from stars millions of light years away?

• Light-travel time: a problem for the big bang
• How can we see distant stars in a young Universe? (from The Answers Book)
• A new cosmology: solution to the starlight travel time problem (pdf)
• Evolutionist science journal gives exciting support to creationist cosmology!
• Seven years of Starlight and Time (ICR Impact 338)
• Review of Starlight and Time (Semi-Technical)
• Starlight Wars: Dr Russell Humphreys answers the critics of his cosmological model proposed in Starlight and Time (contains links to articles from the Technical Journal, posted on the True Origins site. See also his earlier rebuttal to Hugh Ross)

Sorry, but I think the articles in answers in Genesis do not hold up any weight in the general scientific community. I am a christian who happenend to have studied Geology also including field work, and also a theological course which looked into all aspects of the Genesis account.
Therefore, I have no problems with an earth being 4,500 million years old and the Genesis account. Becaus e its an account of 'why' and not 'how' and there is no demand in the bible anywhere to take a literal interpretation. If we take a literal interpretation to Revelation, I think there would not be enough space on earth to even comprehend what 'a third of all the stars falling to the earth' would even be like!

 

[Smidlee]

I'm a creationists who likes science and do not believe in the literal interpretion of Darwinism.

 

[YellowStar]

Sorry, but I think the articles in answers in Genesis do not hold up any weight in the general scientific community.

Have you read every article on Answers in Genesis to make this kind of statement?

 

[Dracil]

Have you read their statement of faith where they basically state that anything they disagree with is wrong by definition?

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Ah...this may have been done before...

but how did you decide what you believe about our origins?



The reason I ask is because my Old Testament professor is presenting creation differently than I was taught before.



Any elaboration would be very welcome...thank you

No poll choice really seems to fit...



When I became a Christian, I quickly adopted the YEC position because it was held by those who I listened to and respected as elders in the faith to me. The radio programs that I listened to, my pastor at the time and others around me placed YECism before me as the only choice I had if I waned to be a Christian. I accepted this and used the YEC materials to witness and bolster my own faith.



Years later, as a person always interested in science, I slowly found out how poor the arguments in favor of creationism were, this was a great blow to my faith and I almost renounced it. The blow was not that I could not see God creating the universe a long time ago or that I was related to the animals. It was that the people I had trusted had filled my head with lies, and caused me to mindlessly repeat those lies for years, turning who knows how many people away from Christianity with those lies. I could not reconcile the lies told me in the name of YECism and Christianity and did not know that one could be a Christian and not be a YEC.



Friends, teachers, prayers and even some atheists helped me to understand that Christianity was not YECism and you could accept science and God without conflict at the same time.



I have come to my current position through years of prayer, study and faith.

 

[Mick116]

Hiya hope these links help with your starlight problem

Thanks Yellowstar

 

[shernren]

Hiya hope these links help with your starlight problem-
How can we see light from stars millions of light years away?

• Light-travel time: a problem for the big bang
• How can we see distant stars in a young Universe? (from The Answers Book)
• A new cosmology: solution to the starlight travel time problem (pdf)
• Evolutionist science journal gives exciting support to creationist cosmology!
• Seven years of Starlight and Time (ICR Impact 338)
• Review of Starlight and Time (Semi-Technical)
• Starlight Wars: Dr Russell Humphreys answers the critics of his cosmological model proposed in Starlight and Time (contains links to articles from the Technical Journal, posted on the True Origins site. See also his earlier rebuttal to Hugh Ross)

I need to get this bookmarked so that I can find it every time somebody mentions white hole theory without having to Google. Site in question: http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=research&action=index&page=researchp_df_r01

This is where ICR publicly abandons Dr. Russell Humphreys' white hole model!


The paragraph in question:

While the Humphreys cosmogony met with little discussion or opposition at first, the level of debate has increased tremendously. Several critical papers have been written [11], [13], and Humphreys has responded [32]. Humphreys' critics have charged that he has either misunderstood or improperly applied general relativity in his model. Byl [11] has argued that while time dilation effects are real, the sense of time corrections are always in the wrong direction and/or are too small to solve the light travel time. Byl, along with Connor and Page [13], concludes that the approach that Humphreys is attempting would more properly describe the time difference between an observer in the universe to one outside of the universe. If this is true, then the Humphreys model certainly does not succeed in addressing the question as framed. This criticism has led the editorial staff of the ICC to conclude that there was a failure in the peer review process of Humphreys' 1994 paper [29] in which he first publicly presented his model. Humphreys is convinced that his model is still viable and is continuing to correct and refine his model. Whether this model survives or not, we should applaud this very serious effort that Humphreys has made.

In other words: nobody besides Humphreys sees any reason to believe his model. Oops.

 

[shernren]

I don't think the choices really fit me. They seem to convey a Christian being hemmed in by evolution and forced to re-read the whole Bible to fit. That's not me. I don't think it's fair to say that I think "the Bible account" is symbolic. The Gospels, for example, are very much historical even though Jesus is also symbolic of Emmanuel, of the Lamb of God, etc.

 

[Adoniram]

none the wiser-

You seem to have left out one option that I believe is viable.

"I am a creationist and I think science will eventually come to fit the Biblical account."

Of course, I realize this may not happen until we are in heaven, and God imparts to us the full knowledge that we are too limited to grasp at this time.

My take on the situation today is that science deals with empirical knowledge. Things that can be observed and measured in today's terms. By definition then, science tends to reject supernatural explanations for anything, origins included. Since science limits itself in this manner, it is forced to come up with interpretations of observations that preclude the Biblical account of creation. Of course, as new observations are made, new interpretations are conceived. And most of the time, for each observation, several interpretations arise. And new interpretations of interpretations. And with each new interpretation, new questions arise. As result, science can only provide a "best guess" based on any given interpretation. Will science ever come up with a definitive answer? Probably not. Science, by it's nature, cannot do so because of the limitations it puts on itself.

However, the "intelligent design" interpretation that is gaining acceptance in some scientific circles gives one reason for hope.

Of course, the definitive answer does appear in the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

 

[Macano]

Like others, I was a staunch YEC until university. I was raised that way. In university, I began to question the literal interpretation of the creation story as told in Genesis. I really didn't reject it altogether until my mid 20's, when I began to hike a lot. I still hike like mad, a couple hundred miles each summer. During those hikes, I've observed the process of erosion, and realized just how slow it is. These enormous mountains are being shaped ever so slowly. Looking at historical pictures from 100 years ago of areas I hike in shows only one change, trees. The rocks are in the same exact position, etc. Also, I find it odd that YEC take it literal that the story of creation is literally 6 days. Days of course are based on sun. The sun was made in the creation process. So the six days are based on a reference that didn't exist until it was created on the first "day". It just doesn't add up to me. Add to that a day is as a thousand years to God, and well I don't take it to mean a LITERAL 6 SOLAR days. I'm not 100% percent convinced that Evolution is correct, although I lean towards that more than others, but I am 100% convinced that YEC is in error. I don't see why YEC are so anti science, as I think it is a gift from God that allows us to improve.

 

[Mikecpking]

Have you read every article on Answers in Genesis to make this kind of statement?

Yes I have, and seeing that material even I have studied in the field distorted! The explanation for chalk deposits, coal measures etc was laughable..

Even though they are my brothers and sisters in Christ, for me its a total waste of resource and energy and only alienates people who would otherwise have no problem embracing the truth of the Gospel and even the true message of the creation story!