Originally Posted by
verysincere
The misleading quote-mining in the long post illustrates what led me to re-examine my activism in the young earth creationist cause. The ethical issues among my colleagues forced me into a lot of introspection and the Biblical evidence and evidence from creation prodded me to abandon my young earth creationist beliefs.
So, what you're saying is, you lost your faith. You gave up on what you believe in because of something someone said that might have seemed to present a good point that contradicted your beliefs. You forgot that God's word is infallible and that everything in the Bible is completely true. That being said, I will pray for you sir. You need to remember what God has done and fully rely on His Word to guide you through life.
Yet another illogical and absurd set of conclusions which have virtually nothing to do with what I actually stated.
1) Why do you assume that my abandonment of young earth creationist TRADITIONS about the Bible -- replacing them with what the Bible ACTUALLY says--- is equivalent to "you lost your faith"? I have no idea how you summarize the Gospel message but the Bible I use says NOTHING about the age of the earth and in no way did Jesus link relatively recent "creation science" concepts with what it means to find salvation in Christ.
2) You stated:
"You forgot that God's word is infallible and that everything in the Bible is completely true." Where did I state that I no longer believe that the Bible is true?
Obviously, you assume that your personal interpretations are equivalent to the very words of God---and anyone who disagrees with you is disagreeing with God. Sadly, I once held the same standard. The problem was as I saw evidence in the Bible and in Creation which CONTRADICTED my personal interpretations, I had to decide if I was going to admit my error---OR if I would continue by means of my stubborness to insist that God was irrational and self-contradicting.
3) I abandoned my young earth creationist TRADITIONS because I came to realize that God's Bible and God's Creation described something very different.
I refuse to believe that God contradicts himself or would fill his creation with evidence for evolutionary processes and billions of years and then demand that we ignore his scriptures and his creation. God is not a liar. And God doesn't play games with us. Yet, when I was very young I knew pastors who told their people that God put dinosaur fossils in the ground in order to "test the faith" of believers and "to deceive the atheists". Perhaps that is what you believe---but I prefer to believe in the YHWH of the Bible.
4) The phrase "Lying for Jesus" has now grown to 313,000 hits on Google. It is a sad indictment of a strategy with which I was all too familiar when I was a YEC speaker/debater. Behind the scenes I confronted my colleagues about the dishonest use of quote-mines and the portrayal of pseudo-science factoids as truth. Jesus said, "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life." Why would we want to break the ninth commandment simply to win some temporary debate points?
Yes, it is easy to fool an uninformed audience with limited scientific and scriptural background. But it sets the stage for LOSS of faith. How many young people are forced into a totally unnecessary choice based upon a false dichotomy: "You must choose between God and the Bible versus Science and Satan's theory of evolution." Sadly, I helped contribute to that false assumption. And when young people become fully aware of the overwhelming evidence, many decide that they can't embrace that which is contradictory and in denial of what we observe all around us.
But praise God we DON'T have to make the absurd choice of assuming that belief in young earth creationism is necessary for our salvation.
Yes, I consider heresy your claim that loss of YEC beliefs is loss of faith. But I will reciprocate and pray for you! You forgot that "God's word is infallible and that everything in the Bible is completely true" and that God's revelations in his creation are ALSO completely true----and that we ignore them at our folly.
I praise God that I no longer live in the contradictory and confused world of a Pharisee who considered MY TRADITIONS (absorbed largely from my church) to be superior to what God has revealed in his scriptures and in his creation. Thankfully, I came to full faith in the truths of God! And I pray the same for you.
Yes, the Pharisees who opposed Jesus liked to attribute the works of God to Satan. The tradition-loving Pharisees of our day do likewise.
They refuse to praise God for the amazing powers of evolutionary processes to adapt and diversify life on earth. They defy God's answers in creation which tell a story of billions of years of earth history. "Professing themselves to be wise they became fools."
I prefer to listen and to heed God's Book of Creation and God's Book of Scripture and to oppose those who insist that God contradicts himself.
