The problem with YEC science

[hithesh]

If you ever hear of scientists being paid to give a particular result, "Red flags should be going up". If you're reading the reports by scientists paid for by the tobacco companies stating that Smoking does not cause lung cancer", you should be quite suspicious. I don't mean anything by this comparison, but in a way YECs who fund these scientist, are not much different than the tobacco companies, because they pay for a "result" and not for testing, etc..

These scientist are not paid to see if the evidence in favor of evolution, and a really old earth, is true, they are paid to say it's "false". That is the only acceptable outcome. What do you think a creationist scientist would do, if he finds out YEC assumptions are false? Do you think he will admit this, and risk being fired? Or would he continue with the deception in order to keep his steady pay check?

I have no problem with the a 10,000 year old earth, so my observation of the evidence is not skewed, I do not cross my fingers for a particular outcome, all I want is honesty, and sound reason.

When I visit YEC sites, such AiG, when one reads many of the articles, it becomes quite apparent that some one is trying to pull my strings, and that grates me. You read articles that support micro/macro evolution, and yet these same articles spend more time finding a way to avoid using those terms, because if they used those terms then they are saying evolution can walk a mile, but not 2.

What these sites do, is that they inform "no one", before I am attacked allow me to explain. If I witness a debate between an evolutionist and YEC, one thing will become quite apparent. The YEC uses a list of regurgitated questions, from such sites, many times verbatim such as "how does evolution increase the information in the genome", which sounds like a reasonable question, so YECs continuing repeating it, but the problem is that they typically only understand how to repeat the question. If you ask them what they mean by information, they become quite puzzled. Perhaps they use the response: "Hey, you can't answer a question with a question." to avoid having to respond.

I noticed on this forum, that we do find some better informed YECs, but this is rare. The majority of YECs that I have encountered still use claims that have long been debunked even by AiG, such as the "Moon Dust" thing, etc..

I was on youtube the other day and there is a YEC that goes by the name "Venomfang", he posts various videos supporting the YEC standpoint. He makes numerous erroneous claims, he probably uses over half the arguments, that AiG warns YECs against using.

But what he does beyond this is what I find disturbing. He does not allow individuals who point to errors in his assumption to post comments on his videos. He only allows comments that praise his assumptions, from YECs, who have now been indoctrinated by error, who are soon to spread like a plague.

I find in disheartening that the majority of YECs understand little or nothing, about what they are opposing, most don't even seem to understand the basic mechanics of evolution. I assume the YEC leaders who support this way of thinking, are not doing so because they desire their parishioners to be better informed, or think critically, they support this "science" for the exact opposite, so that their parishioners can gather in herds, and be weary of venturing out, and asking questions.

This is disheartening, because when they do decide to venture out of their comfort zones, they just fall on their face. They assume that this is because people are persecuting them for being christian, but this is not so, but because a better aware public, sees them as snake oil sales men.

If "critical thinking" is something we value regardless if we are YECs or TEs, why does the overwhelming YEC science, and leaders, attempt to teach the opposite?

 

[Deamiter]

As a hard-core scientist who accepts evolution, I think your argument would be quite a lot more persuasive if you could point to even a dozen (or one?) scientist who was funded by NSF or another general funding source. And I don't mean a creationist being funded to do unrelated research into brainwaves or something. If NSF rejects any grant proposals that deal with creationism, just because a group DOES fund people who try to show creationism doesn't really show inherent bias.

Of course, you're quite right that a creationist will lose all funding from creationist sources if they question the 6000 year established timeline. I'm just not sure that the source of their funding indicates bias by itself when such research has no other source of funding.

In comparison, if there was NO source of funding related to tobacco use other than from the tobacco companies, I wouldn't immediately question the results of those doing the research. It's always best to be aware of funding sources, but in this case, I don't see it as indicative of extreme bias.

That said, if ICR was truly interested in scientific results, they probably would be using their multi-million dollars used for a public museum a bit differently, but it's been well established for decades that creationists are more interested in playing political and public propaganda games than focusing on basic research.

About YECs being ignorant of evolution... it's true, but again I think it's more a product of their attempts to target the uneducated masses rather than to focus on showing the details that could verify (or disprove) their claims.

 

[Jadis40]

As a hard-core scientist who accepts evolution, I think your argument would be quite a lot more persuasive if you could point to even a dozen (or one?) scientist who was funded by NSF or another general funding source. And I don't mean a creationist being funded to do unrelated research into brainwaves or something. If NSF rejects any grant proposals that deal with creationism, just because a group DOES fund people who try to show creationism doesn't really show inherent bias.

Of course, you're quite right that a creationist will lose all funding from creationist sources if they question the 6000 year established timeline. I'm just not sure that the source of their funding indicates bias by itself when such research has no other source of funding.

In comparison, if there was NO source of funding related to tobacco use other than from the tobacco companies, I wouldn't immediately question the results of those doing the research. It's always best to be aware of funding sources, but in this case, I don't see it as indicative of extreme bias.

That said, if ICR was truly interested in scientific results, they probably would be using their multi-million dollars used for a public museum a bit differently, but it's been well established for decades that creationists are more interested in playing political and public propaganda games than focusing on basic research.

About YECs being ignorant of evolution... it's true, but again I think it's more a product of their attempts to target the uneducated masses rather than to focus on showing the details that could verify (or disprove) their claims.

I think part of the problem is the erosion of the teaching of science in schools. The US has fallen behind much of the western world in math and science. That's scary on so many levels, especially if the US wants to remain relevant in scientific research. If you can't teach the younger generation about evolution (for one example) in schools due to political pressure from some within the YEC camp who raise their children to question or even dismiss science based on nothing more than religious beliefs, then where will that leave us in a century? I am thankful that Kansas woke up and decided to teach actual science once more.

A lot of scientific research is based on the fundamental fact that evolution is real. I was overwhelmed on how much it actually ties in to research that is currently being done.

Just a search here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ with evolution as the search topic makes that abundantly clear.

 

[ysatnafasidog]

thank god there are rational christians out there. perhaps there is hope for north america.

 

[jeffweeder]

let God be true and every man a LIAR...

 

[Dannager]

let God be true and every man a LIAR...

Care to expand on this?

 

[jeffweeder]

Where could you go for God to be true?
Has he communicated something to us?

Didnt Jesus say something like "it is written" when he was talking to the liar?

 

[Dannager]

Where could you go for God to be true?

Everywhere. Every inch of the earth and beyond it. Every rock, every creature, every plant, every star.

Has he communicated something to us?

His son, yes.

Didnt Jesus say something like "it is written" when he was talking to the liar?

Please explain what you mean by this.

 

[Xaero]

Didnt Jesus say something like "it is written"

yea, it is written that one day is like a thousands before god (Psa90, 2. Pe 3), so why do YECs always dismiss this parts of scripture?

 

[jeffweeder]

Its like that to him, but not to us.

Approaching 1000 posts, will I make it tonight?

 

[Iosias]

yea, it is written that one day is like a thousands before god (Psa90, 2. Pe 3), so why do YECs always dismiss this parts of scripture?

Because Genesis is written for man and so is written in his language. 2 Peter 3 has nothing to do with creation.

Furthermore, recall that the sabbath day is the seventh day because it was on the seventh day of creation that God rested. Now if that day was 1000 years then that destroys the parallel.

Scripture and Creation
Any attempt to deny a process of creation involving a series of successive divine fiats stretching out over a period of only six literal days is manifestly contrary to the plain, historical sense of Scripture. The Hebrew word yom ("day") in the Genesis 1 account of creation should be understood in a normal sense of a 24-hour period, for the following reasons:

(1) Argument from primary meaning. The preponderant usage of the word yom ("day") in the Old Testament is of a normal day as experienced regularly by man (though it may be limited to the hours of light, as per common understanding). The word occurs 1704 times in the Old Testament, the overwhelming majority of which have to do with the normal cycle of daily earth time. Preponderant usage of a term should be maintained in exegetical analysis unless contextual forces compel otherwise. This is particularly so in historical narrative. R. L. Dabney points out:

The narrative seems historical, and not symbolical; and hence the strong initial presumption is, that all its parts are to be taken in their obvious sense.... It is freely admitted that the word day is often used in the Greek Scriptures as well as the Hebrew (as in our common speech) for an epoch, a season, a time. But yet, this use is confessedly derivative. The natural day is its literal and primary meaning. Now, it is apprehended that in construing any document, while we are ready to adopt, at the demand of the context, the derived or tropical meaning, we revert to the primary one, when no such demand exists in the context.5
​

(2) Argument from explicit qualification. Moses carefully qualifies each of the six creative days with the phraseology: "evening and morning." The qualification is a deliberate defining of the concept of day. Outside of Genesis 1 the words "evening" and "morning" occur together in thirty-seven verses. In each instance it speaks of a normal day. Examples from Moses include:

• Exodus 18:13: "And so it was, on the next day, that Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening."
  Exodus 27:21: "In the tabernacle of meeting, outside the veil which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening until morning before the LORD." R. L. Dabney argues that this evidence alone should compel adoption of a literal-day view:

The sacred writer seems to shut us up to the literal interpretation, by describing the day as composed of its natural parts, ’morning and evening.’... It is hard to see what a writer can mean, by naming evening and morning as making a first, or a second ’day’; except that he meant us to understand that time which includes just one of each of these successive epochs: — one beginning of night, and one beginning of day. These gentlemen cannot construe the expression at all. The plain reader has no trouble with it. When we have had one evening and one morning, we know we have just one civic day; for the intervening hours have made just that time.6
​

(3) Argument from ordinal prefix. In the 119 cases in Moses’ writings where the Hebrew word yom stands in conjunction with a numerical adjective (first, second, third, etc.), it never means anything other than a literal day. The same is true of the 357 instances outside the Pentateuch, where numerical adjectives occur.

Examples include:

• Leviticus 12:3: "And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised."
  Exodus 12:15: "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel."
  Exodus 24:16: "Now the glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud."

The Genesis 1 account of creation consistently applies the ordinal prefix to the day descriptions, along with "evening and morning" qualifiers (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31).

(4) Argument from coherent usage. The word yom is used of the creative days of four, five, and six, which occur after the creation of the sun, which was expressly designated to "rule" the day/night pattern (Gen. 1:14). The identical word (yom) and phraseology ("evening and morning," numerical adjectives) associated with days four through six are employed of days one through three, which compel us to understand those days as normal earth days.

(5) Argument from divine exemplar. In Exodus 20:9-11 (the Fourth Commandment) God specifically patterns man’s work week after his own original creational work week. Man’s work week is expressly tied to God’s: "for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth" (Ex. 20:11). On two occasions in Moses’ writings this rationale is used:

Exodus 20:11: "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
Exodus 31:15-17: "Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. . . . It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed."
​

Dabney’s comments are helpful: "In Gen. ii:2, 3; Ex. xx:11, God’s creating the world and its creatures in six days, and resting the seventh, is given as the ground of His sanctifying the Sabbath day. The latter is the natural day; why not the former? The evasions from this seem peculiarly weak."7

(6) Argument from plural expression. In Exodus 20:11 God’s creation week is spoken of as involving "six days" (yammim), plural. In the 608 instances of the plural "days" in the Old Testament, we never find any other meaning than normal days. Ages are never expressed as yammim.

(7) Argument from alternative idiom. Had Moses intended to express the notion that the creation covered eras, he could have employed the term olam. Even the resting of God on the "seventh day" does not express his eternal rest, for it would also imply not only his continual rest but also his continual blessing of creation, as if sin never intervened: Genesis 2:3 — "Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made."

http://www.the-highway.com/creation_Gentry.html

 

[Iosias]

From here:

Question: Doesn’t 2 Peter 3:8 indicate that the days of creation might not be literal, but thousands of years long?

Answer: 2 Peter 3:8–9 reads:
‘But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.’ The first thing to note that the context has nothing to do with the days of creation. Also, it is not defining a day because it doesn’t say ‘a day is a thousand years’. The correct understanding is derived from the context — the Apostle Peter’s readers should not lose heart because God seems slow at fulfilling His promises because He is patient, and also because He is not bound by time as we are.

The text says ‘one day is like [or as] a thousand years’ — the word ‘like’ (or ‘as’) shows that it is a figure of speech, called a simile, to teach that God is outside of time (because He is the Creator of time itself). In fact, the figure of speech is so effective in its intended aim precisely because the day is literal and contrasts so vividly with 1000 years — to the eternal Creator of time, a short period of time and a long period of time may as well be the same.

The fact that the passage is actually contrasting a short and long period can be shown by the fact that Peter is quoting Psalm 90:4 (Peter’s statement ‘do not forget’ implies that his readers were expected to recall something, and this passage has this very teaching). This reads:

‘For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.’
This is synonymous parallelism, where a long period of a thousand years is contrasted with two short periods: a day, and a night watch. But those who try to use this verse to teach that the days of Genesis might be 1000 years long forget the additional part in bold. For if they were consistent, they would have to say that a watch in the night here also means 1000 years. It’s difficult to imagine that the same Psalmist (Psalm 63:6) is thinking on his bed for thousands of years or that his eyes stay open for thousands of years (Psalm 119:148).
The immediate context of the Psalm is the frailty of mere mortal man in comparison to God. This verse amplifies the teaching, saying that no matter how long a time interval is from man’s time-bound perspective, it’s like a twinkling of an eye from God’s eternal perspective.

In any case, the meaning of ‘day’ in Genesis 1 is defined by the context there — the Hebrew word for day, yôm, is used with the words ‘evening’ and ‘morning’, and the days are numbered (first day, second day, etc.). Whenever yôm is used in such a context, it is always an ordinary day, never a long period of time. The meaning of the days of creation as ordinary days is also affirmed by Exodus 20:8–11, where God told the Israelites to work for six days and rest on the seventh because God had made all things in six days and rested on the seventh.

 

[jeffweeder]

so simple a child could understand it bravo and reps

 

[Xaero]

This is synonymous parallelism...

so simple a child could understand it

this is irony isn't it ?!

AV1611 is doing huge hermeneutical gymastics to get rid of these verses showing that god's days are not like our days, and you say even a child can understand this ? (oh i see it's just a copy&paste from AiG)

Furthermore, recall that the sabbath day is the seventh day because it was on the seventh day of creation that God rested. Now if that day was 1000 years then that destroys the parallel.

i don't say the day is exactly 1000 days, it is a parallel showing that god's days ain't like our days. Furthermore: the seventh day, the day of his rest is still going on (Heb 4:4)

Outside of Genesis 1 the words "evening" and "morning" occur together in thirty-seven verses.

but nowhere is the exact phrase "and there was evening.. and there was morning" to define the passing by of one day. "from evening until morning" isn't used in Gen1.

The text says ‘one day is like [or as] a thousand years’ — the word ‘like’ (or ‘as’) shows that it is a figure of speech, called a simile, to teach that God is outside of time (because He is the Creator of time itself).

so where is the problem to draw the final conclusion, that the days of genesis are not confined to our days, they are divine days in order to teach the humans that they also should work 6 times and rest on the seventh..

 

[Dannager]

this is irony isn't it ?!

No, it's creationist back-patting. I don't think they really pay attention to what each other are saying. As long as it's clear that the post attacks evolution in some way it gets praise, no matter how ridiculous or undeserved.

 

[juvenissun]

As a hard-core scientist who accepts evolution, I think your argument would be quite a lot more persuasive if you could point to even a dozen (or one?) scientist who was funded by NSF or another general funding source. And I don't mean a creationist being funded to do unrelated research into brainwaves or something. If NSF rejects any grant proposals that deal with creationism, just because a group DOES fund people who try to show creationism doesn't really show inherent bias..

Also as a hard-core creation scientist, I am pretty tired on this type of argument.

What kind of research is a research work of creation? Does someone have to propose to create something like God does in order to be in that category? Or does one need to explicitly say: I am creation scientist and I propose a study which only God knows the truth?

Scientists are doing "science", that is it. Whether that particular piece of science is on the camp of revolution or creation is just some rediculous statement for politicians or other science-ignorant people. NSF gave me a grant to study the origin of cave and I concluded that a particular cave is very young in age. Is this a creation science or an evolution science? Does the fact that I received a grant from NSF makes me disqualified to be a creationist and abandon the ship of creationism?

Rediculous.

 

[Tildyd]

Also as a hard-core creation scientist, I am pretty tired on this type of argument.

Well erm .. What about this ?

 

[Assyrian]

Because Genesis is written for man and so is written in his language. 2 Peter 3 has nothing to do with creation.

2Pet 3:4 They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."
5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,
6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
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.

Furthermore, recall that the sabbath day is the seventh day because it was on the seventh day of creation that God rested. Now if that day was 1000 years then that destroys the parallel.

The writer of Hebrew didn't take God's rest as a literal day. Paul says the Sabbath is shadow of what is to come in Christ. Jesus didn't take God resting on the seventh day literally either John 5:16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I am working."

Scripture and Creation
Any attempt to deny a process of creation involving a series of successive divine fiats stretching out over a period of only six literal days is manifestly contrary to the plain, historical sense of Scripture. The Hebrew word yom ("day") in the Genesis 1 account of creation should be understood in a normal sense of a 24-hour period, for the following reasons:

(1) Argument from primary meaning. The preponderant usage of the word yom ("day") in the Old Testament is of a normal day as experienced regularly by man

That is what is so different about the days in Genesis. There were no people around until the work of creation was over. Most days in the OT can be measured against the human experience of what a day means, even then the word can be used figuratively. The days in Genesis are not human days. They are not days of human experience. They are not days humans bear witness to. They are God's days, days told to us in prophecy. And we have been told about God's days in both OT and New by Moses and Peter.

(2) Argument from explicit qualification. Moses carefully qualifies each of the six creative days with the phraseology: "evening and morning." The qualification is a deliberate defining of the concept of day. Outside of Genesis 1 the words "evening" and "morning" occur together in thirty-seven verses. In each instance it speaks of a normal day. Examples from Moses include:

• Exodus 18:13: "And so it was, on the next day, that Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening."
  Exodus 27:21: "In the tabernacle of meeting, outside the veil which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening until morning before the LORD." R. L. Dabney argues that this evidence alone should compel adoption of a literal-day view:

The sacred writer seems to shut us up to the literal interpretation, by describing the day as composed of its natural parts, ’morning and evening.’... It is hard to see what a writer can mean, by naming evening and morning as making a first, or a second ’day’; except that he meant us to understand that time which includes just one of each of these successive epochs: — one beginning of night, and one beginning of day. These gentlemen cannot construe the expression at all. The plain reader has no trouble with it. When we have had one evening and one morning, we know we have just one civic day; for the intervening hours have made just that time.6​

Interestingly, in the same creation Psalm where Moses tells us about God's days, he also uses 'evening' and 'morning' figuratively.

Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as a day yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.
5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning:
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

(3) Argument from ordinal prefix. In the 119 cases in Moses’ writings where the Hebrew word yom stands in conjunction with a numerical adjective (first, second, third, etc.), it never means anything other than a literal day. The same is true of the 357 instances outside the Pentateuch, where numerical adjectives occur.
Examples include:

• Leviticus 12:3: "And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised."
  Exodus 12:15: "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel."
  Exodus 24:16: "Now the glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud."

The Genesis 1 account of creation consistently applies the ordinal prefix to the day descriptions, along with "evening and morning" qualifiers (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31).

Then why does Genesis not say 'the first day' yom h'rishon the way Moses and everyone else in the OT does when they are counting days? Instead Genesis says yom echad, literally 'one day'. There is no definite artice 'the' hebrew:h'. It doesn't use the word 'first' rishon. Instead we have a phrase really means 'one day'.
Gen 27:45 Why should I be bereft of you both in one day?"
Gen 33:13 If they are driven hard for one day, all the flocks will die.
1Sam 27:1Then David said in his heart, "Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.

Anywhere else when the bible is counting out days it uses the definite article 'the second day... the third day... the fourth day...' Genesis does not. It say 'one day... a second day... a third day... a fourth day...' How can you say the use of the ordinal mean the Genesis days are literal, when Genesis uses a completely different grammatical structure to every other series of numbered days in the bible?

(4) Argument from coherent usage. The word yom is used of the creative days of four, five, and six, which occur after the creation of the sun, which was expressly designated to "rule" the day/night pattern (Gen. 1:14). The identical word (yom) and phraseology ("evening and morning," numerical adjectives) associated with days four through six are employed of days one through three, which compel us to understand those days as normal earth days.

Actually from the time of the early church the opposite has been recognised. If the evenings and mornings occur without a sun then they are not literal evenings and mornings. If they are not literal in the first three days they are not literal in next three days, whether there is a sun or not.

(5) Argument from divine exemplar. In Exodus 20:9-11 (the Fourth Commandment) God specifically patterns man’s work week after his own original creational work week. Man’s work week is expressly tied to God’s: "for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth" (Ex. 20:11). On two occasions in Moses’ writings this rationale is used:

Exodus 20:11: "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."​

Exodus 31:15-17: "Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. . . . It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed."​

God does not get tired. Any reference to him being 'refreshed' after a rest is clearly metaphorical. As we have seen Jesus didn't take God stopping work literally either.

Dabney’s comments are helpful: "In Gen. ii:2, 3; Ex. xx:11, God’s creating the world and its creatures in six days, and resting the seventh, is given as the ground of His sanctifying the Sabbath day. The latter is the natural day; why not the former? The evasions from this seem peculiarly weak."7

Because we need to stop after six days God doesn't? Again Jesus does not take this ground literally. According to Exodus and Genesis, God made the seventh day holy because he stopped working that day and the Israelites were to keep the Sabbath because God made it holy. The Sabbath is observed because God rested that day. But Jesus said Mark 2:27 The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It is nothing to with God literally resting for a day and making it holy. It is about people needing the break.


If God's day were 24 hour days the same as the Jewish Sabbath, then the Sabbath command breaks the Sabbath. Sabbath observance begins in the evening and runs to the following evening. But the days in Genesis, if you read them as six consecutive days, end in the morning. God created animals, he creates man, evening comes morning comes and that is the end of the sixth day. Then God begins his rest. His rest starts in the morning. The day he made holy starts in the morning. If Sabbath observance begins in the evening it is out by 12 hours and the Jews all broke the sabbath when they lit their lamps the following evening, because it was still the Sabbath made holy back in Genesis.

The day in Genesis do not fit the biblical calendar and the 24 hour days of Sabbath observance do not fit the days of Genesis.

(6) Argument from plural expression. In Exodus 20:11 God’s creation week is spoken of as involving "six days" (yammim), plural. In the 608 instances of the plural "days" in the Old Testament, we never find any other meaning than normal days. Ages are never expressed as yammim.

Pedantic. If day can be figurative, days can be figurative.

(7) Argument from alternative idiom. Had Moses intended to express the notion that the creation covered eras, he could have employed the term olam. Even the resting of God on the "seventh day" does not express his eternal rest, for it would also imply not only his continual rest but also his continual blessing of creation, as if sin never intervened: Genesis 2:3 — "Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made."

http://www.the-highway.com/creation_Gentry.html

Gentry should take that up with the writer of Hebrews who tells us God's Seventh day rest is still going on. It does not imply God's continual blessing of creation because God's rest is one we have to enter. Heb 4:9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

His argument about the use of olam instead of yom is a bit silly too. If God wanted to make it clear these were literal 24 hour days he could easily have used a phrase that is never used figuratively instead of yom, or simply never use yom figuratively in the bible, not use yom to describe the whole period of creation a few verse later in Gen 2:4, not speak of 'the day of the Lord', cut out that bit about God's days in Psalm 90, and definitely not have Peter repeat it in the NT.

 

[lucaspa]

If "critical thinking" is something we value regardless if we are YECs or TEs, why does the overwhelming YEC science, and leaders, attempt to teach the opposite?

Because YEC is a falsified scientific theory. It was already examined critically from the period 1500-1831, when it was the accepted scientific theory. And it was shown to be wrong. By scientists. Scientists who were all Christians and were often ministers.

So, since critical thinking already showed YEC to be wrong, you obviously can't use critical thinking on it to show it to be correct! DUH!

 

[juvenissun]

In fact, being struggling with the so-called critical thinking for nearly 20 years, I concluded that there is no such thing as "critical" thinking. As long a a person THINK "continuously" for a while, the thinking WILL become critical no matter what.

To criticize YEC by this illusive idea of critical thinking illustrates that the thinking is very non-critical.