Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
What is the relationship between Young Earth Creationism (YEC) and Christianity? Can one be Christian without being a YEC? What difference would it make to one's Christian faith? And stuff like that?
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YEC and Christianity
- Thread starter Autodidact
- Start date
rocketman
Out there...
According to most YECers, yes, but they will tell you it's a compromised position that may lead to atheism. (example here).
I am sure most christians would agree with the spirit of this statment by Johnathon Sarfati: "Despite what some opponents have claimed, AiG (like most YECs) has always affirmed that one does not need to believe in six-day creation to be saved."
Which begs the question why all the fuss, right? The answer, from the same link: "yes, one can be a Christian and deny a young earth, but it can still have baneful consequences ........., mainly involving the authority and understandability of scripture, and sin as the ultimate cause of human and animal death and suffering in the world..."
Good thread topic Auto.
Jordan St. Francis
Well-Known Member
I would say you probably couldn't be a Catholic and believe in YEC.
...Well you could, but you'd be fairly at odds with spirit of Thomism.
...Well you could, but you'd be fairly at odds with spirit of Thomism.
Yerda
Veteran Member
I've read that the Vatican adopted the big bang theory as it's official standpoint due to it's implication of an outside agency. I think it would be hard to be a YEC and hold the big bang as the theory most consistent with our observations of the cosmos.
Breathe
Hostis humani generis
YEC is Biblical literalism. A bit too far. 
I always took the 'day' to be an 'age', myself.
I think the Bible needs to be weighed up with literal and metaphorical, it's kind of intellectually dangerous to say 'The world was made in 6 days, God said it in the Good Book, I believe it. Case closed'.
And, as Jordan and Jaiket said about Catholicism... see?
I always took the 'day' to be an 'age', myself.
I think the Bible needs to be weighed up with literal and metaphorical, it's kind of intellectually dangerous to say 'The world was made in 6 days, God said it in the Good Book, I believe it. Case closed'.
And, as Jordan and Jaiket said about Catholicism... see?
Luminous
non-existential luminary
Its true, one has to be completely blind, to be a good blind follower of illogical Dogmas and half-truths.
Luminous
non-existential luminary
there is an equal and probable chance, that if there is a Judment; God might say, "you weren't agnostic, then your not fit to be in heaven."
----everyone that claims they know, has eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and thus cannot eat from the Tree of Life.
Jesus didn't talk at all about a young earth (as far as I can remember), or indeed at all about "creation".
He probably believed himself in the young earth, but that's simply because at the time there was no reason to believe otherwise. If he had come today, he would most likely not believe in the young earth.
That's my answer.
He probably believed himself in the young earth, but that's simply because at the time there was no reason to believe otherwise. If he had come today, he would most likely not believe in the young earth.
That's my answer.
No*s
Captain Obvious
It's an interpretation of extreme literalists. There's more than one approach to the issue of relating the Bible to science. They simply get all the media attention, because they are the loudest and least humble.
What difference would it make? That's a hard question. YEC buys into an incredible level of literalism and demands it. Most major Christian heresies were started by being overly literal with verse X and creating a new doctrine, jettisoning something important, and so on. Marcionites and several other Gnostic sects, for instance, jettisoned the Old Testament because of it. Arius interpreted Proverbs 7 in a literal, and heretical, manner. The list goes on. It generally leads to schism and arbitrary doctrines. One can't draw a line and say, "We must take everything literal only in Genesis", and so it tends to spill over.
Beyond that, their approach makes the Scripture a joke, because it would have us believing the Creator of the universe has to look for Adam, that snakes eat dirt, the heavens are made of a metal dome (notably, however, they try not to be literal here). In other places, we have to believe that one of David's men killed 800 men with a single spear stroke. If this were the approach that one must take to the Bible, it would be a joke.
OTOH, some things like ancestral sin are challenged by the current scientific models. This, also, leads to tension, because Adam bringing death into the world is a basic, non-negotiable doctrine. There's quite a few ways of dealing with this, and everyone has one (including myself, but I'm not confident enough to stick it up on a forum very readily). Give it another hundred years or so, and the Church, at least, will have hashed it out if the current scientific paradigms stay the same.
Genesis was not meant to be read as a scientific history book. That's what makes the issue sticky, especially when people forget that. It's a poem, and so much of the language is figurative. There are two accounts with two different perspectives, and YECs, in particular, tend not to focus on that (especially when they disagree). Some words may be treated differently depending on how they're translated (e.g. "Adam" could also be translated "Mankind"). While it's obviously dogma that there was a first man and first woman who sinned, it isn't so clear how much of Genesis lends itself to literal interpretation. Personally, I think the ambiguity is there by divine invention, and we shouldn't be too hasty to do away with it through a lot of literalism.
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ThereIsNoSpoon
Active Member
I think that a true christian needs to be a YEC.
If not then his religion is one of pick and choose.
Dunemeister
Well-Known Member
First of all, it's always pick and choose. One person picks and chooses to read Genesis 1 in a woodenly literal fashion and another picks and chooses to read it as poetry. One hopes that one's choice of method is based on some understanding of genre issues and so forth rather than tradition alone, but that's as it may be from case to case.
However, this isn't really picking and choosing, it's wrestling with the text, and it's absurd to accuse me of not being authentically or fully or <insert complimentary adverb here> Christian because I'm not YEC.
ThereIsNoSpoon
Active Member
If you argue with pick and choose you render God a fool not being able to deliver a clear message or a devil purposefully delivering a message that misleads !
Dunemeister
Well-Known Member
No, I'm saying that interpreting scripture is a tricky business. God has chosen to reveal himself in a manner that requires responsible decision-making. It's not as easy as glancing at a newspaper to get the basic idea of what is going on. It takes discipline, study, and hard work to learn how to handle scripture well. This isn't making God a fool. It's making sure that we aren't foolish when dealing with him. If the message misleads, it's not God's fault but a result of our limitations and sin.
ThereIsNoSpoon
Active Member
I think this argument is flawed.
2000 years ago people believed the earth to be surrounded by different spheres, the sun and the moon being just two objects on such heavenly spheres, day and night being also part of a sphere. They had no clue about the sun being needed as source for plants, they had no clue about genetics. In short .. when confronted with a story the like of the bible they actually could believe that without trouble. It fitted ancient ideas. It WAS what they had been told technically anyway adorned with the creator and some religious prose.
I wonder if you ever asked yourself the question what strange and unfitting behaviour it would be for some supposed God that does not intend to mislead if that very same God by chance presented a text that every man of a certain age would take literal while none with a brain 2000 years later could.
Now 2000 years later we have people like you telling others that interpreting the bible is tricky and its not God's fault if we misinterpret it.
Sorry but that doesn't sound very reasonable.
Your God would have purposefully mislead people into strengthening part of their belief in the false ideas that they had anyway 2000 years ago and some still have while at the same time demanding from you to turn your back on the literal meaning once it becomes clear that the literal text is wrong. And through all that time he requires your belief that this actually are the words of a god.
Your God would have foreseen and accepted that thousands of people were killed as heretics for speaking out the truth .. namely that the literal words of the bible do not fit reality. And you couldn't even blame the people for doing that !
At the same time you state that it is not God's fault if people misinterpreted the bible while he supposedly intended it to be interpreted anyway...
Well if you can reconcile all this (and i am sure you will) let me just say that for me it is not reconcilable with the supposed character of a god worthy of that name.
As I said it before ... either he would be incompetent or evil.
Every man could have done a better job than that.
Which leaves just one conclusion....
If there is a God and IF the bible is Gods word then there is no way to follow it and at the same time be not a YEC. If there is a God and if the bible is his words then creation must have happened as stated.
Pick and choose is false. Because pick and choose can't legitimately claim any truth !
Why? Jesus never said anything about creation. There are sects of Christianity that do not follow the Old Testament at all, and in fact, there are sects that believe the God of the Old Testament to be evil, and not the God that Jesus spoke of.
The canonization of the Bible was a pick and choose scenario.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Wouldn't it have been considerate of God to make His book a little clearer and easier to understand? Especially as disposition of one's immortal soul depends on guessing correctly? Why would God want to make His word so cryptic?
Is one of the method's that one uses to evaluate the text comparing it to reality? Especially to current scientific discoveries?
DallasApple
Depends Upon My Mood..
Because MEN wrote the Bible...Did the memo get shredded before you had a chance to read it?
Love
Dallas
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
So, Dallas, is there any reason that the Bible is then more special or valuable than any other book? Any particular reason we should believe it?
DallasApple
Depends Upon My Mood..
No...Except Jesus...and there is some loving advice in there...Some big time lessons...I havent found any other book like it..
And the reason I try and follow it...(if you throw out the crap)...Is because its pretty right on in many ways..
You have to "discern"...
Love
Dallas