What drives YEC

[callmeMurph]

So I've been wondering this lately. What drives most people to hold the Young Earth view?

I could only think of two possibilities. Either ignorance or relativism.

Is there a pattern? Or does it really depend on the person?

Thoughts

 

[rcorlew]

So I've been wondering this lately. What drives most people to hold the Young Earth view?

I could only think of two possibilities. Either ignorance or relativism.

Is there a pattern? Or does it really depend on the person?

Thoughts

Simple answer, misrepresentation!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe that the actual propagator is Julian Huxley and the Humanist movement.

There is no separate supernatural realm: all phenomena are part of one natural process of evolution. There is no basic cleavage between science and religion;... I believe that [a] drastic reorganization of our pattern of religious thought is now becoming necessary, from a god-centered to an evolutionary-centered pattern

Many people assert that this abandonment of the god hypothesis means the abandonment of all religion and all moral sanctions. This is simply not true. But it does mean, once our relief at jettisoning an outdated piece of ideological furniture is over, that we must construct something to take its place.

Julian Huxley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So in order to refute this movement of naturalism, Christians have adopted a YEC counterpoint, you are either YEC or a naturalist (they rationalize) and those are the battle lines. It is interesting to note that it was the church who was responsible for our modern science, that was of course before the "enlightenment" where man is now creator.

 

[gluadys]

Simple answer, misrepresentation!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe that the actual propagator is Julian Huxley and the Humanist movement.



So in order to refute this movement of naturalism, Christians have adopted a YEC counterpoint, you are either YEC or a naturalist (they rationalize) and those are the battle lines. It is interesting to note that it was the church who was responsible for our modern science, that was of course before the "enlightenment" where man is now creator.

In a weird way you may be right.

I first became aware of YEC in the early 1980's. (The anti-evolution I had heard of earlier were OEC versions. So what surprised me about YEC was not its opposition to evolution, but its opposition to geology.)

I heard about it when a friend invited me to a lecture by Duane Gish who happened to be touring Ontario at the time. I remember he began his lecture by defining evolution--and the definition he used was not a standard textbook definition, but an atheism-loaded definition from Julian Huxley.

During the Q&A he was challenged on the use of this definition because it was one-sided, but that was the point. Similarly he was challenged because he ruled out theistic evolution right from the get-go. And that was another point in using the Huxley definition. He needed Huxley (or someone like Huxley) to shore up the YEC position that evolution=atheism.

I do think YECs genuinely believe that the fight against evolution is a fight against atheism and immorality.

But they are not aware of how the link of evolution to atheism is manufactured by lecturers like Huxley and Gish.

 

[rcorlew]

In a weird way you may be right.

I first became aware of YEC in the early 1980's. (The anti-evolution I had heard of earlier were OEC versions. So what surprised me about YEC was not its opposition to evolution, but its opposition to geology.)

I heard about it when a friend invited me to a lecture by Duane Gish who happened to be touring Ontario at the time. I remember he began his lecture by defining evolution--and the definition he used was not a standard textbook definition, but an atheism-loaded definition from Julian Huxley.

During the Q&A he was challenged on the use of this definition because it was one-sided, but that was the point. Similarly he was challenged because he ruled out theistic evolution right from the get-go. And that was another point in using the Huxley definition. He needed Huxley (or someone like Huxley) to shore up the YEC position that evolution=atheism.

I do think YECs genuinely believe that the fight against evolution is a fight against atheism and immorality.

But they are not aware of how the link of evolution to atheism is manufactured by lecturers like Huxley and Gish.

Yeah, I do not know who began the fight, I know the modern thought is that the church has opposed science, but when I actually researched the topic I found that Galileo had a special advisory position with the church, and the church actually hired Copernicus to do his work of creating an accurate calendar via solar observation. The battle lines are drawn where they are, and this is evident by many posters here on this particular forum. I believe that the YEC is arguing for a faith in God that states He can do absolutely anything, the TE argues the same thing oddly enough. The sole difference (at least as I can see) is that the YEC believes that God created ex nihlo, while the TE believes that evolution is the mechanism for creation.

Things begin to break down from there on, with TEs (I prefer Evolutionary Creationist) are caught in between, being seen as spineless by both sides for not actually taking a position. The YEC says 'You are just like them, you believe in evolution' and the naturalist says 'You are just like them, you believe that God created us for a purpose'. I have begun to feel like Susan Powder "STOP THE INSANITY!"

So what if Creation was and is a process, it is identical to building a house, you do not need to make all the 2x4's "poof" into existence to be able to say that you created a new house (or built it which is creation), you use the trees that are growing to make the 2x4's and such. If you want the gospel to really be spread through the whole Earth, what better way than providing fossil fuels by having millions of dinosaurs and plants dies suddenly then become covered with feet of sediment producing the required heat/pressure/time to rearrange and purify the hydrocarbons to produce oil. Science and the Bible are not actually at war with each other, in fact Romans 1:20 (or 21) says that they are compatible and complimentary; this thought gave rise to natural theology and later modern biology, but people with egos and agendas turned that practical application of scripture to replace God as the Creator with man the creator.

Science can no more disprove God than it can prove God.

 

[Willtor]

Yeah, I do not know who began the fight, I know the modern thought is that the church has opposed science, but when I actually researched the topic I found that Galileo had a special advisory position with the church, and the church actually hired Copernicus to do his work of creating an accurate calendar via solar observation. The battle lines are drawn where they are, and this is evident by many posters here on this particular forum. I believe that the YEC is arguing for a faith in God that states He can do absolutely anything, the TE argues the same thing oddly enough. The sole difference (at least as I can see) is that the YEC believes that God created ex nihlo, while the TE believes that evolution is the mechanism for creation.

Things begin to break down from there on, with TEs (I prefer Evolutionary Creationist) are caught in between, being seen as spineless by both sides for not actually taking a position. The YEC says 'You are just like them, you believe in evolution' and the naturalist says 'You are just like them, you believe that God created us for a purpose'. I have begun to feel like Susan Powder "STOP THE INSANITY!"

So what if Creation was and is a process, it is identical to building a house, you do not need to make all the 2x4's "poof" into existence to be able to say that you created a new house (or built it which is creation), you use the trees that are growing to make the 2x4's and such. If you want the gospel to really be spread through the whole Earth, what better way than providing fossil fuels by having millions of dinosaurs and plants dies suddenly then become covered with feet of sediment producing the required heat/pressure/time to rearrange and purify the hydrocarbons to produce oil. Science and the Bible are not actually at war with each other, in fact Romans 1:20 (or 21) says that they are compatible and complimentary; this thought gave rise to natural theology and later modern biology, but people with egos and agendas turned that practical application of scripture to replace God as the Creator with man the creator.

Science can no more disprove God than it can prove God.

I think the TE's, here, accept creation ex nihilo. I do. Evolution (and geology, and the other points of dispute in the YEC camp) operates within a universe (or multiverse, or whatever the case may be) that was created by God.

 

[rcorlew]

I think the TE's, here, accept creation ex nihilo. I do. Evolution (and geology, and the other points of dispute in the YEC camp) operates within a universe (or multiverse, or whatever the case may be) that was created by God.

There is a slight problem with ex nihlo though, the First Law of Thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, to which I have an answer for the problem. Mark 5:30 says that Jesus possessed raw power "dunamis", John 1 tells us that Jesus was there in the beginning from eternity he was there, and through him everything that created was made "ginomai" by him, Albert Einstein stated that energy is mass times velocity squared. Mass has energy, and oddly enough the same equation says that energy has mass.

There is much more than that in my theory, but dwell on that for a while:

John 1 + Mark 5:30 + E=mc^2 == Jesus power derived from love creating everything.

I once asked an atheist which is easier to believe, that energy has always existed of that Jesus always existed, he replied "energy". I chuckled to myself and left the conversation.

 

[Willtor]

There is a slight problem with ex nihlo though, the First Law of Thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, to which I have an answer for the problem. Mark 5:30 says that Jesus possessed raw power "dunamis", John 1 tells us that Jesus was there in the beginning from eternity he was there, and through him everything that created was made "ginomai" by him, Albert Einstein stated that energy is mass times velocity squared. Mass has energy, and oddly enough the same equation says that energy has mass.

There is much more than that in my theory, but dwell on that for a while:

John 1 + Mark 5:30 + E=mc^2 == Jesus power derived from love creating everything.

I once asked an atheist which is easier to believe, that energy has always existed of that Jesus always existed, he replied "energy". I chuckled to myself and left the conversation.

Energy is created and destroyed all the time... just on a probabilistic level. But that aside, God is Lord of nature. If the alleged problem with ex nihilo creation is that it couldn't have happened naturally, I don't see how that's a problem.

 

[Dark_Lite]

So I've been wondering this lately. What drives most people to hold the Young Earth view?

I could only think of two possibilities. Either ignorance or relativism.

Is there a pattern? Or does it really depend on the person?

Thoughts

YECism is driven by the idea of that the Bible must be 100% true for Christianity to be true. A lot of people (not all) would agree with that statement. But, YECism's problem is that the idea of 100% true is equated to 100% literal. This is where it begins to fall apart.

In order to justify a 100% literal Bible, ideas and arguments are constructed on misunderstandings and ignorance. This misunderstanding and ignorance is then perpetuated by people who don't know what they're talking about (creationist "science" organizations). It then trickles down to the more "common folk," as it were. They continue the perpetuation.

The root of YECism is false equivocation. Misunderstanding and ignorance is the fuel. Destroy the root, and the whole plant will die. Remove the source of fuel, and the engine will eventually stop working. Either way can combat the misunderstandings present in YECism.

 

[solarwave]

They hold the view because they don't like the scientific explanations of how we got here.

Also they believe the Bible is totally literally true (even though they arn't consistent with this) and the obvious to them is true.

 

[shernren]

My old, old contribution on the matter: http://www.christianforums.com/t2848141/

 

[callmeMurph]

Thanks Shernren

I was wondering, are there any young earth creationists who don't use fallacious arguments? I'd like to hear or read the best arguments that YECs have but it seems like the "best" proponents can't even do that. Is it even possible?

 

[Mallon]

I was wondering, are there any young earth creationists who don't use fallacious arguments?

The best I can find is Todd Wood, who is the only YEC I know of that actually understands evolution and doesn't simply knock down strawman versions of it. Unfortunately, he still places his literalist interpretation of Scripture above the evidence, so his YECism is ultimately untestable.

 

[shernren]

Kurt Wise? How's he?

 

[rcorlew]

Okay, on the way home I heard a quote from C.S. Lewis that may shed some light on the situation.

"To be ignorant and simple now --not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground --would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen," Lewis continued,

"Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. . . . Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times, and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pouts from the press and the microphone of his own age."

C S LEWIS: Public Christian and Scholar

I think simply that the harder the atheist pushes evolution to disprove God, the YEC pushes equally as hard back.

The problem lies here though

There is no question of a compromise between the claims of God and the claims of culture, or politics, or anything else. God's claim is infinite and inexorable. There is no middle way. Yet in spite of this it is clear that Christianity does not exclude any of the ordinary human activities. . . . There is no essential quarrel between the spiritual life and the human activities as such. Thus the omnipresence of obedience to God in a Christian's life is, in a way, analogous to the omnipresence of God in space. . . .

People are told, yes TOLD, that science and Christianity do not mesh, but tell me this, who is the Truth and who is the deceiver? There in lies the problem, the reason the YEC fights, pushes back equally as hard.

 

[razeontherock]

So I've been wondering this lately. What drives most people to hold the Young Earth view?

I could only think of two possibilities. Either ignorance or relativism.

It's really not ignorance. There's quite a lot of data that supports it, and does not fit the mainstream scientific view.

BUT

the $ behind the ID movement was one person, who had no intention of doing anything but using it as a "wedge issue," as one part of a much bigger scheme. So he skewed findings of fact w/ undue influence, and basically everything all of creation science discovered then got discredited.

I'd hate to be him come Judgment Day.

 

[razeontherock]

There is a slight problem with ex nihlo though, the First Law of Thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, to which I have an answer for the problem. Mark 5:30 says that Jesus possessed raw power "dunamis"

The problem with your theory is we ALL can have dunamis. None of us can go and create a Universe, or anything (beyond work or sexual reproduction)

 

[Assyrian]

Okay, on the way home I heard a quote from C.S. Lewis that may shed some light on the situation.

"To be ignorant and simple now --not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground --would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen," Lewis continued,

"Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. . . . Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times, and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pouts from the press and the microphone of his own age."

C S LEWIS: Public Christian and Scholar

Wait a minute is C.S.Lewis being postmodern here? Lewis was a massive influence on me as a young Christian, I have a whole library of his books in the attic*. Thinking back I remember reading this, if not that precise quote, the same idea that the way we think today is not how people thought in the past. It is something I keep coming back to in discussions with YECs that their 21st century perspectives assumptions and interpretations of scripture are not necessarily what scripture is saying. I get called postmodern for that. Now I find out my postmodernism is all C.S.Lewis


*philologist pun

 

[Willtor]

I would also like to point out that C.S. Lewis was an evolutionist.

 

[callmeMurph]

It's really not ignorance. There's quite a lot of data that supports it, and does not fit the mainstream scientific view.

I guess I consider it ignorance when people don't look at all of the data. And by that I mean withholding judgment in order to determine what is actually true, not just looking at the "other side" to determine how to defend your own views.

So lets say I start at the belief that God created everything. I want to know how it happened. How do I do that?

Lets say I narrow it down to 4 possibilities.
1 - Young Earth Creationism
2 - Old Earth Creationism
3 - Theistic Evolution (or as I prefer Evolutionary Creation)
4 - Atheistic Evolution

First thing I realize is that if the Bible is true then atheistic evolution cannot be. So I cross that off.

1 - Young Earth Creationism
2 - Old Earth Creationism
3 - Evolutionary Creation

Now I learn about each of these views and how they interpret the Bible and science. They all sound good so I suspend judgment until I have further information.

I now decide I want to read what they think about each other this should help me determine which is true because they are conflicting views. I learn their criticisms of the other views. First thing I ask is "do they have an answer to the opposing view"? In most cases they do. The second thing I ask is "does their answer actually answer the question"? Finally I ask "is their representation of the opposing view consistent with that view"?

The majority of the time I find that the Young Earth view represents their opponents inaccurately or does not respond to their objections. On the other hand in most cases I find that the Old Earth and Evolutionary Creation views do accurately represent the Young Earth view.

So either I figure they are ignorant, meaning they don't actually know what the other sides believe, or they blatantly reject it. The problem is they are poor at showing why it should be rejected because they either misrepresent it or do so just because.

 

[Dark_Lite]

It's really not ignorance. There's quite a lot of data that supports it, and does not fit the mainstream scientific view.

There is zero evidence for creationism, and plenty of evidence against it. This is particularly true of YECism. OEC is sort of between "we reject science because it disagrees with us" and acceptance of science.

YECism, on the other hand, is founded entirely on the notion that science must be rejected because it disagrees with their beliefs.

There is a reason you almost never see positive arguments for creationism. Almost all of it is attacks on (a strawman version of) evolution. In the rare event that you do find a positively framed YEC argument, it's either based on misunderstandings or works only in a tiny microcosm of assumptions that become false once you leave the microcosm.