How is it so?

[TolkienFan]

I tend to avoid debates in this area and will continue to do so. However, I am curious about something. I opened this thread to ask the question of how you came to your current point of view on protology. (Note: Just the facts, no debates please)

I am a YEC. I hold to the view not because of the science behind it (I don't really know much anymore in this area because I'm not interested in developing a scientific expertise), but because of exegesis. I was convinced that the Creation Week was literal week because of the grammar involved. "Yom" is just as stretchy as the English word "day", but just like day, there are rules it follows. Every time a number appears next to it (since there were no ordinal numbers in the original Hebrew), "yom" is a 24-hour day. When the phrases present in the Genesis narrative ("evening and morning") appear in the same context as "yom", it is a 24-hour day.

The literal week definition also makes sense of the case where the Creation Week is used as a pattern for the work week of Israel in Exodus 20:8-11 (and expansions on this thereafter in Leviticus).

If you want to debate this, please don't do it here. I'm only interested in what convinced you to take up your current point of view. This is my testimony, what's yours?

[Chaotic Void]

You're reason is the same as mine. Good to know that someone else holds the same belief for the same reason.

[KBertsche]

I tend to avoid debates in this area and will continue to do so. However, I am curious about something. I opened this thread to ask the question of how you came to your current point of view on protology. (Note: Just the facts, no debates please)

In my case, I was encouraged in both science and Scripture since I was young. My Dad was an extremely committed evangelical Christian with a ThM from Dallas Seminary. He was a church elder and a professional engineer and science buff. He held to biblical inerrancy and also to an old-earth day-age view (similar to B.B. Warfield and other early Fundamentalists a century ago). So I grew up knowing that there was no conflict between a high view of Scripture and the scientific evidence for an old earth.

As I studied science, the multitude of evidence for an old earth became more clear. I investigated numerous supposed scientific claims for a young earth and found them all badly in error. As I have studied theology, especially biblical languages and hermeneutics, I've seen more and more convincing textual evidence that Gen 1 is not necessarily teaching literal days or a chronological sequence.

[To respect the wishes of TolkienFan, I will not debate the erroneous claims of his OP here. If you are interested, please see my post in another thread: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...&postcount=291 If anyone wants to debate these things, let's do it there or in a new thread.]

[faithymom]

I lean towards YEC, but haven't studied it a whole lot as I think it's somewhat ...unimportant...as long as we hold to God creating the world...
I have no problems in believing a literal 7-day creation even if the earth 'looks' older than that.
Had someone else showed up 2 seconds after the creation of Adam and Eve, they would have naturally assumed that the 2 humans had existed for 20 years or so (who knows how old they looked when God formed them)...so I don't see why God wouldn't have formed the earth itself with apparent 'age'.
Since God initially created all of this out of nothing, there is no reason He couldn't have done it in a mere 168 hours.

[Messor Mortis]

im personally neutral on this issue and im witholding my opinion until i can learn more. I see good arguments on both sides and bad arguments on both sides both sides sometimes seem to talk past another and dont really pay attention to what the other side is really saying. i am definitely convinced on the falsity of evolution but as for the age of the earth like i said before im witholding my opinion until i learn more.

[Biologos101]

I tend to avoid debates in this area and will continue to do so. However, I am curious about something. I opened this thread to ask the question of how you came to your current point of view on protology. (Note: Just the facts, no debates please)

I am a YEC. I hold to the view not because of the science behind it (I don't really know much anymore in this area because I'm not interested in developing a scientific expertise), but because of exegesis. I was convinced that the Creation Week was literal week because of the grammar involved. "Yom" is just as stretchy as the English word "day", but just like day, there are rules it follows. Every time a number appears next to it (since there were no ordinal numbers in the original Hebrew), "yom" is a 24-hour day. When the phrases present in the Genesis narrative ("evening and morning") appear in the same context as "yom", it is a 24-hour day.

The literal week definition also makes sense of the case where the Creation Week is used as a pattern for the work week of Israel in Exodus 20:8-11 (and expansions on this thereafter in Leviticus).

If you want to debate this, please don't do it here. I'm only interested in what convinced you to take up your current point of view. This is my testimony, what's yours?

YECists Helped me become a TE. I sat in on a YEC biology professor at Kentucky Christian University (formerly College) and some of the ideas he was pouring out just made me groan. It was then that I decided I needed to take a better look at the world around me and figure out, for myself, how God created it. Galileo Galilei once said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." And I feel a lot of YECists forgo the use of Reason and intellect, I know I did. Like you said, you don't care to know the science of it....then how can you make a full claim on either side? The science is a HUGE part to understanding the world our Lord created.

But back to my TE testimony (That was neither here nor there) I began studying the first chapters of Genesis and theories about their interpretation and I came to the conclusion that they were written as poetry. After I decided that it does NOT have to be taken literal, i started looking at the science behind the theory of evolution vs the lack of science behind YEC and I found the science overwhelmingly backed the Theory of Evolution. Thus, I made up my mind. I did this all while attending a Conservative Christian College in central IL...talk about alienation. The only friends I had there after I came to that conclusion was one who did not care and one who cared, but had not made up his mind so that was my last year at that kind of a Christian College (that wasn't the only thing to drive me away, one other thing was a professor being joyful over the destruction of all sinners rather then trying to help them find the way).

[jordanriver]

The more I study science, the more I am convinced that if there are any conclusions to be reached vis-a-vis origins, they will probably have to reached with the help of Biblical Exegesis. Creationists make the mistake of relying on science to confirm their faith, not taking into consideration that whatever theory they come up with is likely to be obsolete next week as has happened with so many 'scientific' theories, like the Steady State theory, Physiognomy, Phrenology, Expanding Earth theory, Hollow Earth theory, Open Polar Sea theory, Ptolemaic system (Geocentric model), Caloric theory, Lamarckism, spontaneous generation, Phlogiston theory, Plum pudding model of the atom, Recapitulation theory, Atomic theory (atoms are indivisible theory), Rain follows the plow theory.

JR

[Biologos101]

The more I study science, the more I am convinced that if there are any conclusions to be reached vis-a-vis origins, they will probably have to reached with the help of Biblical Exegesis. Creationists make the mistake of relying on science to confirm their faith, not taking into consideration that whatever theory they come up with is likely to be obsolete next week as has happened with so many 'scientific' theories, like the Steady State theory, Physiognomy, Phrenology, Expanding Earth theory, Hollow Earth theory, Open Polar Sea theory, Ptolemaic system (Geocentric model), Caloric theory, Lamarckism, spontaneous generation, Phlogiston theory, Plum pudding model of the atom, Recapitulation theory, Atomic theory (atoms are indivisible theory), Rain follows the plow theory.

JR

That is the amazing thing about Science...when it is wrong it will correct itself. When someone observes something, scientists always think about it critically. No theory is blindly accepted.

But where science disproves something, religion will hold on with vigor. YEC would be one example. But another one would be the geocentric model of the universe. Many Christians still believe in it because scripture points to it.

[TolkienFan]

Originally posted by me

I tend to avoid debates in this area and will continue to do so. However, I am curious about something. I opened this thread to ask the question of how you came to your current point of view on protology. (Note: Just the facts, no debates please)

I am a YEC. I hold to the view not because of the science behind it (I don't really know much anymore in this area because I'm not interested in developing a scientific expertise), but because of exegesis. I was convinced that the Creation Week was literal week because of the grammar involved. "Yom" is just as stretchy as the English word "day", but just like day, there are rules it follows. Every time a number appears next to it (since there were no ordinal numbers in the original Hebrew), "yom" is a 24-hour day. When the phrases present in the Genesis narrative ("evening and morning") appear in the same context as "yom", it is a 24-hour day.

The literal week definition also makes sense of the case where the Creation Week is used as a pattern for the work week of Israel in Exodus 20:8-11(and expansions on this thereafter in Leviticus).

If you want to debate this, please don't do it here. I'm only interested in what convinced you to take up your current point of view. This is my testimony, what's yours?

I just wanted to clear something up here since this post is quite old. I'm now an Open Creationist. What that means is I hold God to be creator of everything, but I express apathy (more generally the position in OC is openness) towards how long it took or by what method God used to create. I'm apathetic because ultimately the central doctrines of Christianity are unaffected one way or the other.

I came to this position after reading material by such members as rogue06, oxmixmudd, Ansgar Seraph, and others. Thanks to them, I'm leaning towards Theistic Evolution, but I don't quite want to announce myself as one because I don't have enough of an interest in science to be motivated to become well enough learned to be a good defender and asserter of the position. From my perspective, TE seems to be the position most scientifically grounded. Theologically speaking, it's of course consistent with a Christian worldview. But like I said, the most important doctrines of Christianity are not affected one way or the other.

[jordanriver]

That is the amazing thing about Science...when it is wrong it will correct itself. When someone observes something, scientists always think about it critically. No theory is blindly accepted.

But where science disproves something, religion will hold on with vigor. YEC would be one example. But another one would be the geocentric model of the universe. Many Christians still believe in it because scripture points to it.

How is it so? (good title for this thread)
How is it so that science has disproven YEC unless YEC is science (and can be falsified)

Is 'God-did-it' science ?

JR

[KBertsche]

How is it so? (good title for this thread)
How is it so that science has disproven YEC unless YEC is science (and can be falsified)

Is 'God-did-it' science ?

JR

Many (probably all?) of the "scientific arguments" put forth for a recent creation can be shown false. However, if a YEC advocate maintains that God made everything recently but made it to consistently appear old, this is consistent with science and cannot be shown false.

[Biologos101]

How is it so? (good title for this thread)
How is it so that science has disproven YEC unless YEC is science (and can be falsified)

Is 'God-did-it' science ?

JR

It has falsified it by proving the earth is more the 10,000 years old. It has falsified it by proving that everything came from a common ancestor. It does not have to be science for science to falsify it. Geocentric model is not real science, but has been falsified by proving the sun is the center of our solar system.

[MooseOnTheLoose]

The Bible has clearly been falsified and therefore cannot be taken as any relaible account of the origins and reasons for the existence of the universe and humanity. As the Bible is false, either atheism or some other form of religious faith is the only logical progression from the truths that science has revealed to us.

[Biologos101]

The Bible has clearly been falsified and therefore cannot be taken as any relaible account of the origins and reasons for the existence of the universe and humanity. As the Bible is false, either atheism or some other form of religious faith is the only logical progression from the truths that science has revealed to us.

The BIBLE has not been falsified. What has been falsified is taken poetry out of context and calling it history.

[TolkienFan]

Originally posted by me

(Note: Just the facts, no debates please)

I know it's an old post, but still, I asked that there be no debates in this thread.