Where did YEC begin??

[KungFuPanda]

Not all OEC believe in evolution, though some do.

Wait. What? I can see debating the age of the earth because the numbers seem too impossibly big to comprehend or it's a faith issue for some. Are you saying that they don't believe that plants and animals can evolve??? It's a concept that's basic enough that humans can make it happen if they want. How the heck else do you explain weird little lap dogs? Or tangelos?

[TracyP]

Tracy, I can try to explain my understanding, but I am afraid it will far short of what you are looking for. Furthermore, I don't have all day to spend on this forum. But here goes with my feeble attempt to answer your question: Revelation 4:11 tells us that God created all things for his pleasure. (Why does an artist create art?) Isaiah 43:7 refers to God's people being created for His glory. Isaiah 45:18 says that God did not form the earth in vain; he formed it to be inhabited. He made living creatures to live here and, according to Psalm 147:11, he takes pleasure in those who fear him and who hope in his steadfast love. Genesis 1:27 tells us that we were created in the image of God. (We are special to him) BUT God didn't make robots. He gave us moral freedom. Romans 5:12 explains that sin brought the curse of death to the world. Ezekiel 33:11 says that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Romans 6:23 tells us that the payment for sin is death BUT goes on to say the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. In his infinite mercy, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). In Luke 15:7, Jesus speaks of the joy in Heaven over sinners who repent. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that, for the joy that was set before him, Jesus endured the cross...God made us for his pleasure and we messed up. Because he loves us, he made a way for us to be restored to Him. That's why John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."

 

Some will scoff at this post, but it is what it is. As I said, don't just take somebody's word for what the Bible says or means. Crack it open (I am not only speaking to you, Tracy) and read it yourself. Ask God to help you find the truth.

 

You are right that I find this answer less than satisfying, but I appreciate the time you took to answer. :) I regret the derail and will try to bring this back to the original point.

 

God created humans for his pleasure and glory. He wants us all to love him and be restored to him in Heaven. Those were the two questions that I already knew the answer to. ;) The third was - Why do it in this long, drawn out, full of suffering way? We don't know. You asked why God would allow the suffering and death of billions of animals if his ultimate goal was to create humans. I asked why God would allow the suffering and death of billions of humans if his ultimate goal was to bring humans to heaven. It does indeed seem that there would be better, more humane ways to reach those goals. That God apparently doesn't mind using a long time frame complete with the suffering and death of billions doesn't tell us much about the age of the Earth.

[creekland]

Nah, she asked where, not when, lol.

 

Details, details.  People always get hung up on the details.   :lol:   I guess the answer to where is supposed to be in a garden?

 

Wait. What? I can see debating the age of the earth because the numbers seem too impossibly big to comprehend or it's a faith issue for some. Are you saying that they don't believe that plants and animals can evolve??? It's a concept that's basic enough that humans can make it happen if they want. How the heck else do you explain weird little lap dogs? Or tangelos?

 

Even the YEC folks I know of have no problem with the evolution within "kinds" (in science terms, within a genus - maybe a family according to some).  This is why they also don't question virus mutation or other similar deals.  That's part of natural selection to them - as it is with evolutionists.  The two don't differ in their thoughts with those.  (With little lap dogs you are even in the same species, so definitely not questionable.)

 

(Note:  I'm always talking about those I know IRL.  There may, indeed, be other types out there.  I just don't know any of them - they might not choose public schools.)

[creekland]

I see many folks thinking YEC exists solely among homeschoolers or only in the south.  This is definitely not true.  Not even close to true.  Not even remotely close to true.  As I mentioned previously, it comes up pretty often in papers (English) in our high school.  Kids can take either stance.  It's a well known controversial subject.  There are always some students in our Bio (or other, but usually Bio) classes who want to "discuss" the issue.  We, of course, can not do that legally.  Our response is that there's no reason not to learn about evolution even if you choose not to believe it.  School is there to teach prevailing thoughts in science.  Evolution is a major prevailing thought.  What kids do with that knowledge is up to them.

 

The time actually spent on origins evolution is pretty slim though.  There are tons of topics that need to be covered in Bio from cell structure to DNA to ecology, etc, etc, etc.  There's hardly enough time to get it all in.  Bio is getting to the point where it needs to be a 2 year course.  We sort of start that in Physical Science now (our 9th grade course) to help.  Physical Science has been renamed General Science recently.

 

They may do more in the pre-high school years.  I don't know.  I don't get down there.

[Reefgazer]

I think it's always been there, but it's flown under the radar for most of us (if we are not religiously conservative, homeschooling, or living in the Bible belt). 

[Lady Florida.]

1. Evolutionists act as if that's what has been believe since the beginning of time (millions of years ago? thousands?) I really haven't researched this topic enough to know the history of it. Is there anyone or group of people that believed in evolution before Darwin? 

 

2. Also, I would like someone to explain how you can evolve male and female of the same species. They need each other to procreate, but yet they are so different. How could they evolve at the same rate to be able to do that? "I'll make a cell that needs one of your cells to jump over, uh, make that swim, and join my cell." I'd need way more faith in that theory than I do in Creationism.

 

3. Evolution, to me, is the world's excuse for trying to avoid the truth.

 

Code still isn't working for me so I'm not able to split a quote, hence my numbering system inside the quote.

 

1. No, we know that science only relatively recently learned how evolution works. But we also know he wasn't the first to suggest at least some form of evolution. Darwin expanded on it and put it into words, but again he wasn't the first. Questions about some form of evolution go back as far as the ancient Greeks. A number of naturalists, including Charles Bonnet and Georges Cuvier, and of course Lamarck were trying to figure it out. Also, Darwin's grandfather had some ideas but no evidence. Darwin was the first (beating a friendly competitor) to really hammer it out and put it in writing. And of course we've learned much since his time. Darwin got some things wrong and his theory is not the be all and end all of evolution. That's what science does though. It learns and grows.

 

2. The theory of evolution explains this. Someone else (albeto.?) already mentioned Evolution 101. It's an excellent place to get answers to some of your questions. Among other things, you can learn about sex and gender development.

 

3. Funny how we see things differently. That's how I see religion. 

[LizzyBee]

That seems a needless distinction to me. YEC who believe in a literal 6 day creation see the age of the earth as being more or less the same as the creation of the first man and woman, separated by a mere 5 days. It is, in fact, more or less the same thing which is why the headline on the polling is about creationism vs. evolution.

 

Are there any people who believe in "Old Earth" who think that then, sometime in the last 10,000 years (the number used in the polling), God decided to create man in their present form? If so, they are not literal Genesis believers, not by half.

 

Yes, there are people who believe the earth is old but the rest of the creation story took place in 24-hour days 6,000 or so years ago. They believe there was a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 and that the earth was originally created for life other than humans, but something happened to cause the earth to become void and formless. I think they teach that in the Hebrew, the word "was" in Gen 1:2 is more accurately translated "became." Back in the early 1980s, I had a pastor who taught this view. There are also books that teach this view.

[LizzyBee]

As far as literal interpretation being a long-held belief - isn't there some discussion about the Hebrew/Aramaic word for "day" also possibly meaning "era" or period of time?  So, even a literal interpretation of the original language does not necessarily lead to a YE conclusion?

 

 

 

Yes, the Hebrew word can refer to a 24 hour day, or an era or age. I always feel like it's a trick question when someone asks whether I believe the Bible literally. Define literally. :-)

[musicianmom]

Another theory is that when death entered the world after the fall of Adam and Eve, it caused a rapid and catastrophic aging of the universe, resulting in the current old appearance of everything, and possibly killing off the dinosaurs at this point.

[Guest]

Another theory is that when death entered the world after the fall of Adam and Eve, it caused a rapid and catastrophic aging of the universe, resulting in the current old appearance of everything, and possibly killing off the dinosaurs at this point.

Is there something to back up that theory or is it just a thought?

[luuknam]

I was born in 1984 in The Netherlands, and grew up there. I obviously hadn't heard the term YEC when I was a kid (for one, they speak Dutch there), but I'd come across the concept, mostly in the context of "various religious people take various parts of scripture literally or figuratively". From what I remember, not many people even debated evolution though. My one memory of someone who didn't believe in evolution was a classmate I had in college (majoring in biomedical science & engineering) who was a Jehova's Witness and didn't believe in that. Definitely no debates as to whether to teach evolution in schools or not. I went to christian schools (in the Dutch version of the bible belt) and evolution was taught. There were some fundamentalists (mostly in that bible belt, but still quite a small percentage of the people living there) and they had their own schools, but I don't know many of the details as they really did not socialize much with people not belonging to their church.

[creekland]

I was born in 1984...

 

Ok, rabbit trail here, but now I officially feel old.  Isn't the "Y" in the topic supposed to stand for "young?"

 

I want to be a YHM (young homeschool mom), not an ORM (old retired mom).   :glare:

 

On a totally different rabbit trail... middle son got invited today to interview for an internship at Harvard.  It by no means guarantees him a position there, but does show that homeschooled kids can do decently in college even with their lack of socialization, etc.  It even didn't hurt him to understand YEC (or evolution), but I seriously doubt that has anything at all to do with the position.   :lol:  Origins in general have nothing to do with the position - well - other than linguistics origins perhaps if one stretches things.

[AMJ]

The Teaching Company/Great Courses has a course on The History of Evolution. He talked about how early on, Christians accepted evolution, but at some point, people began to see evolution as an attack on faith. I don't remember all the specifics, but it was pretty interesting. I might have to check it out of the library again to refresh my memory.

 

I will look for this course.  It sounds interesting, and I might find a way to push a few more of some crotchety old relatives' buttons.  It drives Dad nuts when I come up with a topic he wants to be expert on and isn't.  Bwa ha ha....  :D

[AMJ]

Ok, rabbit trail here, but now I officially feel old.  Isn't the "Y" in the topic supposed to stand for "young?"

 

I want to be a YHM (young homeschool mom), not an ORM (old retired mom).   :glare:

 

On a totally different rabbit trail... middle son got invited today to interview for an internship at Harvard.  It by no means guarantees him a position there, but does show that homeschooled kids can do decently in college even with their lack of socialization, etc.  It even didn't hurt him to understand YEC (or evolution), but I seriously doubt that has anything at all to do with the position.   :lol:  Origins in general have nothing to do with the position - well - other than linguistics origins perhaps if one stretches things.

 

Someone recently was all too ready to mark me down as a Senior when I told him I was old as the hills.  I had to tell him they were young hills.  He was easily 20 years older than me.

 

1984 is young.  1964 is young.  1934 is young.  You are young.  'Nuf said.

[Guest]

I think I've told this story before on these boards, but I ceased believing in YEC when I was looking for apologetics materials to defend YEC. My kids were little and I wanted them to know all the solid reasons (I kept hearing existed) to believe in YEC. While looking at a book that is presented in a Q/A format, I read the Skeptic's Question, "If the universe is only a few thousand years old, how can we see the light from stars that are billions of light years away?" Seems embarrassing to admit I never wondered that before. But I went, "Yeah...How!?" The apologetical response was completely idiotic. God just created the light in transit!

 

Oh. That's all ya' got?

 

I briefly felt like the dumbest creature walking. It was like a House of Cards had fallen down right before my eyes. Pretty much every Q/A thereafter just looked like a foolish bunch of fitting the evidence to the presupposition, rather than the (scientific) other way 'round. There was a heck of a lot of, "That's the way God did it!" Golly-Gee-Whiz explanation.

[Jasperstone]

Wait. What? I can see debating the age of the earth because the numbers seem too impossibly big to comprehend or it's a faith issue for some. Are you saying that they don't believe that plants and animals can evolve??? It's a concept that's basic enough that humans can make it happen if they want. How the heck else do you explain weird little lap dogs? Or tangelos?

I was talking about evolution the way Darwin describes it.

From fish to ape to man etc...

 

I think all creationist believe that God created each species to stay within its own kind.

 

I'm not going to get into an evolution debate. I was just clearing up the old earth view, by pointing out that some believe it (evolution) while others stick to a literal creation week.

[AMJ]

The nuns in my Catholic schools (when I was growing up) all taught evolution and old earth if the subject came up in science class -- not a one of them considered it contrary to the idea that God created everything.

 

In college I had a nun for a Geology professor, and she was quite popular.  Her students loved to hear her respond to whichever new class upstart decided to broach how she can teach about evolution if she believed God created everything.  She would reply that she believed it took a far greater God to create a living, dynamic planet full of life which could all change and adapt over time, than to create something that only worked for a while, which he would then have to wipe out before starting over again from scratch.

 

The concept was around, I guess, when I was growing up, but it was discussed more in the history classes, when we were talking about what was "known" over the millenia, than anywhere else.  I don't think I heard the actual label "Young Earth" anything until years later.  The terms we used were more like "strict Creationism" or "literal Creationism".

[Jasperstone]

Another theory is that when death entered the world after the fall of Adam and Eve, it caused a rapid and catastrophic aging of the universe, resulting in the current old appearance of everything, and possibly killing off the dinosaurs at this point.

Or God created it to be old already.

 

Adam wasn't a newborn.... the trees were mature with fruit, and not seedlings etc....

[Wheres Toto]

I have met YEC in person but they are homeschoolers.  My dd was in public school and never knew anyone who was a YEC, or heard it come up in any of her classes.   The only peer she knew who was YEC was a homeschooler (dance friend).

 

I don't remember it ever coming up when I was in school either.

[Guest]

Or God created it to be old already.

 

Adam wasn't a newborn.... the trees were mature with fruit, and not seedlings etc....

Is this an acceptable solution to you?

 

ETA: I'm sorry, I retract my remark.

[Jasperstone]

That's okay Quill.

 

 

I lean towards the earth being old, as in *The Gap* way of thinking actually. That it was refurbished when man was created... and it was here in another form when the 'fallen angels' fell down from heaven etc...

 

But, hey, who knows 100%?

[Guest]

That's okay Quill.

 

 

I lean towards the earth being old, as in The Gap way of thinking. That it was refurbished when man was created... and it was here in another form when the 'fallen angels' fell down from heaven etc...

 

But, hey, who knows 100%?

Exactly. We don't know. I'm old, but not *that* old. I wasn't there. I'm going with Some Things Happened Long Ago.

[Bluegoat]

One of the things that is a little tricky about this question is that people who take the YEC position tend to see those who lived in the ancient and medieval world as YEC.  That is probably an anachronism though - those people really had no reason one way or another to think the earth was millions of years old, so they were hardly likely to propose it for no reason.

 

And they were concerned in the ancient world with countering the idea that the world was eternal, which many pagans believed, and people sometimes read that as if they were arguing for YEC.  But really, that is not the context of the argument.

 

What we can say reasonably is that in the past, before the Enlightenment say, many people believe that the earth was not especially old.  However, there was from early on within the Church questions about how literally people were meant to read the Genesis account.  There were those who thought it should be understood more literally, and those who argued that it could not be.  Neither had any emperical reason to think it might be non-literal, so we really can't say how those who thought it was literal would have responded to that. In any case, there is a long tradition from before the Christian period that continued into it of seeing it as more or less allegorical, and that was always considered an orthodox interpretation.

 

In the Enlightenement, many people who were atheists or deists actually thought that the world was eternal, like the ancient pagans, and Christians of course disagreed, so the complextion of the argument changed again there.  But again none of this really had much to do with emperical questions.

 

When there began to be scientific theories about an older earth and an older universe, this was not initially considered to be controversial as a religious position - many of the scientists themselves were Christian.  YEC as we know it today, with its charachteristic set of beliefs, really only arose in the late 19th and 20th century, and it still tends to be very regionally focused in parts of the US. 

 

 

 

 

[livetoread]

There is an excellent book on the history of creationism written by Ronald Numbers called "The Creationists".

 

I was raised Seventh-day Adventist and attended SDA schools through college. We were taught YEC up to college and then, depending on the college, some sort of vague whatever so the professors can keep their jobs. There are more than a few biology professors who still support YEC/YLC and then some who dance wildly around the topic. The denomination is always trying to clean house, so it isn't easy. OEC is okay, but not old life.

 

There are SDAs who aren't YEC/YLC, but most are.

[Audrey]

I never heard of it before homeschooling.  Raised very conservative Christian.  DH never heard of it either.  We were raised in the Bible belt and I never heard of it.

 

 

Same here.  Grew up in the South, then lived the next 10 years in the Bible Belt. Raised Methodist (although, I've recently learned there may be doubt and debate as to whether that "counts" as Christian even).  I'd never heard of it before we started homeschooling.  Dh was raised Catholic, but in an area heavily populated with very conservative Mennonites.  He had heard of it, but considers it a very, very small sub-subset of a small subset of Christians. I am inclined to consider likewise.

[creekland]

I don't remember it ever coming up when I was in school either.

 

I don't recall it when I was in public school in my youth either.

 

But it's definitely in our school in the northeast now - among some of the students anyway.

 

[Slache]

There is an excellent book on the history of creationism written by Ronald Numbers called "The Creationists".

 

I was raised Seventh-day Adventist and attended SDA schools through college. We were taught YEC up to college and then, depending on the college, some sort of vague whatever so the professors can keep their jobs. There are more than a few biology professors who still support YEC/YLC and then some who dance wildly around the topic. The denomination is always trying to clean house, so it isn't easy. OEC is okay, but not old life.

 

There are SDAs who aren't YEC/YLC, but most are.

What's YLC?

[Joanne]

Grew up liberal protestant. Remained so until over 40. Never heard about YEC as a science until I got online and began homeschooling. That would have been about 2000?

 

To me, the only Christian God that makes sense is a metaphoric/figurative/parable/literary one.

[Jasperstone]

What's YLC?

I'm thinking it stands for Young, Literal, Creation?

[eternalsummer]

Ok, regardless, the fact remains that a plurality of Americans believe that humans did not evolve and were created in their present form sometime in the last 10,000 years. That is an incredibly high number relative to the rest of the western world and is incredibly telling about the state of scientific literacy of Americans in general.

 

I think OE vs. YE is pretty contrived. The issue people on both sides point to is evolution, specifically evolution of humans.

 

I don't think it's necessarily indicative of the scientific literacy of the USA relative to the rest of the West as much as the religiosity of the USA relative to the rest of the west.

 

The two are to some extent regrettably intertwined,, though.

[eternalsummer]

The only thing I remember about evolution (in an upper middle class, white, conservative/religious, late 90s high school) was a pre-IB class where we had an entire period in Pre-IB biology debating whether a wrench found on Mars would disprove evolution.

 

The teacher was Christian; he was not stupid, but man, that was a terrible class period.  The idea that wrenches don't reproduce didn't make any impression on him as a valid point of debate.

 

 

I went to a Messianic Temple led by a man who considered himself an Orthodox Jew (he was born Orthodox but had been, I assume, excommunicated as he accepted Christ as his savior upon marrying his Assemblies of God wife - odd congregation, that), and he explained creation as a relational story rather than a literal one.  Something about the second three days demonstrating rulership over the first three days, I don't remember exactly.  At any rate, they both believed in this metaphorical account of the Creation and also thought dinosaur fossils were invented by god to challenge us?

[luuknam]

Ok, rabbit trail here, but now I officially feel old.  Isn't the "Y" in the topic supposed to stand for "young?"

 

I want to be a YHM (young homeschool mom), not an ORM (old retired mom).   :glare:

 

Just think of all the years of accumulated wisdom you've got over me! :)

 

I just put it in there to provide the context of when/where I'd learned of the concept of YE (I don't recall exactly when, but I think it was during elementary school).

 

I can't wait for the kids to be a little older and a little more independent.

[JFSinIL]

mid-1970s, public school in S. California, one girl, Jane B. , presented an entire timeline as her project in sixth grade (for history?) and it was all Young Earth.  She passionately believed the earth was about 6,000 years old....the teacher had to stop the class from mocking her.

 

I suspect my neighbors across the street are also YE.  I know of others in town, too So since we are NEVER going to change each other's minds, we just don't go there. 

[Bluegoat]

I don't think it's necessarily indicative of the scientific literacy of the USA relative to the rest of the West as much as the religiosity of the USA relative to the rest of the west.

 

The two are to some extent regrettably intertwined,, though.

 

That might be part of it, but I think it's interesting that just among western Christians, YEC is really an American thing.  Even if you look at western Christians with pretty "non-liberal" theology, that's still the case.

 

I've wondered if it isn't in part an aspect of the wider distrust that seems to be so evident in American culture in the last 40 years or so, in everything from politics to community relations.

 

ETA - another way I'd put this is that I think that it is not necessarily that people who believe in YEC, like people who think global warming is a hoax, generally take that approach because they havn't the ability or opportunity to be scientifically literate.  I think it is because they don't trust the sources of information.

 

I actually think some of the people who see themselves as crusaders to rememdy lack of literacy in these areas (Richard Dawkins I am looking at you) make the problem far worse, because they actually accentuate the fundemantal cause of the disagreement.

[eternalsummer]

That might be part of it, but I think it's interesting that just among western Christians, YEC is really an American thing.  Even if you look at western Christians with pretty "non-liberal" theology, that's still the case.

 

I've wondered if it isn't in part an aspect of the wider distrust that seems to be so evident in American culture in the last 40 years or so, in everything from politics to community relations.

Yes, you can track it pretty much directly from Nixon, the distrust of government (and institutions in general)

[eternalsummer]

And for the record, I don't know 100% what I believe regarding human origins either - I'm not religous, but it is very very hard to discount the where are they paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox); thus, while the prevailing scientific explanation makes sense, I am not prepared to teach it without serious qualifications.  Perhaps YEC people *feel* these doubts without being able to place them, and thus they manifest within the paradigm through which they see there rest of the world anyway (that is, a literal bible worldview)?

[eternalsummer]

The cause of the disagreement, fundamentally, is legitimate - institutions are corrupt.  Nixon lied, Clinton lied, the priests molested the boys, etc.  It is not a political or religious problem, it is a society is failing problem.  

[Bluegoat]

Yes, you can track it pretty much directly from Nixon, the distrust of government (and institutions in general)

 

Yes, that, and I think within science, there actually are serious problems that contribute.  There really are problems in the scientific community with the way funding directs science, there are real problems everyone knows about with corporate science and its relationship to government - and that is probably worst in the US.  (I always find it weird that many people still trust corporations though and distrust the government end, and want to disempower government so they can't resist corporate influence - what is with that?)

 

I think its interesting what James Lovelock has said about the fact that idependant science is now quite rare, and generally speaking to look at how his theories were treated by the institutional scientific community.

 

There have been some real scandals with journals and such too over the last number of years.

 

I think that when people are trying to argue for the trustworthiness of science, they can't ignore these things, beacsue it makes them seem less than credible.

[eternalsummer]

I think it is that people think somehow that corporations are pure capitalism, while government is sort of diluted

 

 

as if they weren't both part of the exact same system, at this point enabling/supporting each other

 

I don't worry about it because at some point things become unsustainable and it all speaks for itself

 

It is unfortunate that there are few institutions or groups of people who are fully trustworthy but at the same time think of the opportunity for development we and our kids have that people before us didn't have - for them, the institutions worked, so they didn't have to think as critically or establish their own standards of intellectual and moral integrity.  For us, these things have been, to one extent or another, corrupted, so we have to strike out on our own and think for ourselves (part of what drives the homeschool movement imo), and while it is more stressful, it is not necessarily *worse* - just harder.

 

[Bluegoat]

The cause of the disagreement, fundamentally, is legitimate - institutions are corrupt.  Nixon lied, Clinton lied, the priests molested the boys, etc.  It is not a political or religious problem, it is a society is failing problem.  

 

 

I think I would qualify that - because people are corrupt, institutions can also fall prey to corruption.  That can actually be embodied within the institution, or it can be that corrupt people you the power of the institution for their own ends.

 

The thing is, there are no human societies without institutions.  The necessity is to create ones which have some ability to self-correct and resist corruption. 

 

Scientific institutions, the structure of science, were developed in part specifically to do that. 

 

I think the mistake that some people make is in thinking that the answer is radical individualism, be they atheist or religious.  but you can't have a society that way.

 

Radical Biblical literalism as you said seems an answer for some - the problem with that is it creates an analogous gap within the theology, between natural revelation and special revelation.  So you tend to end up in a kind of dualism.

[eternalsummer]

Instutions go in cycles, as do societies.

 

They rise (while having integrity), become corrupt, and fall.  Institutions are just amalgamations of people, nothing more and nothing less.  It's like economics.

 

Certainly I don't think radical individualism is the answer - all that happens when you take away government is Might makes Right, as the strong take over and rule the weak.  No thanks, as one of the weak (physically) I am not hugely interested in anarchy.

[PrincessMommy]

One of the things that is a little tricky about this question is that people who take the YEC position tend to see those who lived in the ancient and medieval world as YEC.  That is probably an anachronism though - those people really had no reason one way or another to think the earth was millions of years old, so they were hardly likely to propose it for no reason.

 

And they were concerned in the ancient world with countering the idea that the world was eternal, which many pagans believed, and people sometimes read that as if they were arguing for YEC.  But really, that is not the context of the argument.

 

What we can say reasonably is that in the past, before the Enlightenment say, many people believe that the earth was not especially old.  However, there was from early on within the Church questions about how literally people were meant to read the Genesis account.  There were those who thought it should be understood more literally, and those who argued that it could not be.  Neither had any emperical reason to think it might be non-literal, so we really can't say how those who thought it was literal would have responded to that. In any case, there is a long tradition from before the Christian period that continued into it of seeing it as more or less allegorical, and that was always considered an orthodox interpretation.

 

In the Enlightenement, many people who were atheists or deists actually thought that the world was eternal, like the ancient pagans, and Christians of course disagreed, so the complextion of the argument changed again there.  But again none of this really had much to do with emperical questions.

 

When there began to be scientific theories about an older earth and an older universe, this was not initially considered to be controversial as a religious position - many of the scientists themselves were Christian.  YEC as we know it today, with its charachteristic set of beliefs, really only arose in the late 19th and 20th century, and it still tends to be very regionally focused in parts of the US. 

 

The Church Fathers are all over the place when it comes to interpretation of Genesis.  Some believed in literal reading of the text and others metaphorical/allegorical.  I'm not sure the literal age of the church was ever really a topic of debate among the CFs.     And still, all were considered Christians in good standing with the Church.   This is why the EO church does not take a stand on the age of the earth or evolution vs creationism.   The only thing we all agree on is what it says in the Nicean Creed about creation - "I believe... in one God..... creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible....." 

 

I think that making the distinction about someone's salvation based on their belief in Old Earth/Young Earth is very new.  I like to believe that none of us on these boards believes that, no matter how strongly we may defend our personal conviction about the age of the earth.

 

[Greta]

I've wondered if it isn't in part an aspect of the wider distrust that seems to be so evident in American culture in the last 40 years or so, in everything from politics to community relations.

 

ETA - another way I'd put this is that I think that it is not necessarily that people who believe in YEC, like people who think global warming is a hoax, generally take that approach because they havn't the ability or opportunity to be scientifically literate. I think it is because they don't trust the sources of information.

My impression is that it's a combination of not respecting expertise in others, and overestimating one's own expertise. American culture very much emphasizes equality, and praises the common man. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that in and of itself, but I think that recently it's been taken too far, and we now seem to have this notion that everyone's opinion and perspective is equally valid, or carries equal weight. And that just isn't true. The perspective of someone who has spent their entire adult life pursuing education, knowledge, and expertise on a particular topic, getting a PhD and working full time in that field, carries more weight than someone who read an article about that topic online. And yet the latter person thinks his/her opinion on the matter is just as valid. I have seen this kind of hubris many times.

[albeto.]

I think that making the distinction about someone's salvation based on their belief in Old Earth/Young Earth is very new.  I like to believe that none of us on these boards believes that, no matter how strongly we may defend our personal conviction about the age of the earth.

 

I think it's as legitimate as any religious argument. It follows naturally, logically even. If one trusts the bible to say what it means and mean what it says, then one trusts it to be accurate with regards to its historical claims. After all, the argument may go, if one can be disinclined to believe the creation myth as historically accurate, can one be disinclined to believe the gospels as historically accurate? Does it matter what a Christian believes about the legitimacy of the claims written in the bible? 

 

I assume there are a number of boardies who will, when push comes to shove, profess the necessity of believing the creation myth as a valid record of history as an integral part of what it means to trust God, to have faith. In other words, for boardies here, it really is a salvation issue. Why do like to think that wouldn't be the case? 

[PrincessMommy]

I think it's as legitimate as any religious argument. It follows naturally, logically even. If one trusts the bible to say what it means and mean what it says, then one trusts it to be accurate with regards to its historical claims. After all, the argument may go, if one can be disinclined to believe the creation myth as historically accurate, can one be disinclined to believe the gospels as historically accurate? Does it matter what a Christian believes about the legitimacy of the claims written in the bible? 

 

I assume there are a number of boardies who will, when push comes to shove, profess the necessity of believing the creation myth as a valid record of history as an integral part of what it means to trust God, to have faith. In other words, for boardies here, it really is a salvation issue. Why do like to think that wouldn't be the case? 

 

At the risk of going far off topic:

because some things can be true without being literally true.  The parable of the Prodigal Son is not literally a true story...but it points to a greater truth about the love of God the Father for His children...no matter how far we wander away from our inheritance.

 

The Bible does not clearly state exactly how old the earth is.. it just states that God created it.   Some people choose to interpret "day" in the English way and other interpret "day" as "eon" (IIRC that is the Hebrew word "yom") and others believe in the gap theory (which I think means they believe in 6 literal days of creation...but then there's a gap in the history of an unterminated time).

[albeto.]

At the risk of going far off topic:

because some things can be true without being literally true.  The parable of the Prodigal Son is not literally a true story...but it points to a greater truth about the love of God the Father for His children...no matter how far we wander away from our inheritance.

 

The Bible does not clearly state exactly how old the earth is.. it just states that God created it.   Some people choose to interpret "day" in the English way and other interpret "day" as "eon" (IIRC that is the Hebrew word "yom") and others believe in the gap theory (which I think means they believe in 6 literal days of creation...but then there's a gap in the history of an unterminated time).

 

I get you here, and I don't mean to argue against it. I'm just wondering why it would make you happier to believe no boardies believe this part is literally true, and necessary to believe as literally true. There was a time when I wasn't sure if the crucifixion and resurrection was literally true, and decided that it was, like you say, true without being literally true. I suspect most Christians would not support that, but would have encouraged me to hold onto it in faith no matter how fantastic the story is when taken out of a religious component and analyzed logically. After all, the bible just says Jesus was dead three days and was resurrected, it doesn't say how the organic cells in his body reversed the damages of death and decomposition, but Christians are encouraged to believe it literally happened anyway. This belief goes against everything we know about the natural world as much as a six day creation or young earth. Believing in a literal account as an indication of having a genuine faith seems to me to be the same thing regardless of which story is the focus, so I wonder why it you would be happier if it weren't so in this case. 

[5of5]

And for the record, I don't know 100% what I believe regarding human origins either - I'm not religous, but it is very very hard to discount the where are they paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox);

 

Personally, I don't find it hard at all.  A quote from the article:

 

"The fundamental problem is that the last four terms (fraction of planets with life, odds life becomes intelligent, odds intelligent life becomes detectable, and detectable lifetime of civilizations) are completely unknown." [emphasis added]

[Bluegoat]

The Church Fathers are all over the place when it comes to interpretation of Genesis.  Some believed in literal reading of the text and others metaphorical/allegorical.  I'm not sure the literal age of the church was ever really a topic of debate among the CFs.     And still, all were considered Christians in good standing with the Church.   This is why the EO church does not take a stand on the age of the earth or evolution vs creationism.   The only thing we all agree on is what it says in the Nicean Creed about creation - "I believe... in one God..... creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible....." 

 

I think that making the distinction about someone's salvation based on their belief in Old Earth/Young Earth is very new.  I like to believe that none of us on these boards believes that, no matter how strongly we may defend our personal conviction about the age of the earth.

 

Yup, I absolutly agree, they were all over the place.  Although I am not sure any of them took it quite so far as many modern literalists, in general they were more open or used to making spiritual interpretations and so I think that came naturally.  They all seemed to think that there were many layers of meaning.

 

I think though there are some new elements in the modern discussion.  One is around this idea that there are layers of meaning or layers of reality, and all can be true, different modes of knowing and being, and another is related to apophatic theology - I think both of those elements are largely ignored in modern creationsim which gives it a different complexion.

 

But the other is related to the treatment of emperical questions.  When someone say, as they mentioned above, that one YEC explanation for us being able to see light that must have traveled for millions of light years is that God made things to look as if they had developed over time, that is a very odd statement, and I suspect that many of the Church Fathers who were believed in a more literal sort of creation account would have been very uncomfortable with it.

[Bluegoat]

I think it's as legitimate as any religious argument. It follows naturally, logically even. If one trusts the bible to say what it means and mean what it says, then one trusts it to be accurate with regards to its historical claims. After all, the argument may go, if one can be disinclined to believe the creation myth as historically accurate, can one be disinclined to believe the gospels as historically accurate? Does it matter what a Christian believes about the legitimacy of the claims written in the bible? 

 

I assume there are a number of boardies who will, when push comes to shove, profess the necessity of believing the creation myth as a valid record of history as an integral part of what it means to trust God, to have faith. In other words, for boardies here, it really is a salvation issue. Why do like to think that wouldn't be the case? 

 

The question is, where does it make historical claims?  We wouldn't expect to find the OT written in a modern poetic form, why would we expect it to be written in the form of histories that did not yet exist?

 

You can only judge what something is suposed to mean if you understand the forms and conventions for expressing it, and the forms and conventions of the people of the late 19th and early 20th century don't really apply.

[albeto.]

The question is, where does it make historical claims? 

 

Everywhere. From the creation of the world to the battles against the foreign peoples to populate the Land of Milk and Honey given by God Himself, to the kingdom of David, to the birth of his descendant Jesus, to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. 

 

 We wouldn't expect to find the OT written in a modern poetic form, why would we expect it to be written in the form of histories that did not yet exist?

 

Because God is timeless? Because he is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow? Because the bible wasn't written with the idea that academic studies would be necessary for one to glean the meaning of the "word of God"? Just throwing out ideas, really. I don't believe there is reason to accept any of the bible's claims, but others do, and they don't agree with each other about these claims. I find it interesting when things that must be taken on faith are challenged, but then other things equally taken on faith are left alone, assumed to be true. I was particularly curious why Princess wants to think no one here might accept that belief in YEC indicates personal salvation in some way. I'm wondering why it would be a bad thing to accept that belief as true. It's clearly believed by many people (and is the inspiration for this thread), so there are many who accept this as a positive thing. I'm wondering why one would hope that's not the case here.

 

You can only judge what something is suposed to mean if you understand the forms and conventions for expressing it, and the forms and conventions of the people of the late 19th and early 20th century don't really apply.

 

 

You're assuming there is a right way to understand the will and mind of God. This is an impossible task to pursue, as there are no objective means by which this claim can be explored. Written sources like the bible are, as you illustrate, assumed to mean different things according to different schools of thought. Ultimately, this these beliefs rest on personal faith, and there is no objective source by which one person's personal faith can be measured for accuracy with regards to a thing that cannot be identified or measured in any objective way.