The article actually answers the question of the source of the hostility.
And by implication the YEC actually question the salvation of anyone who disagrees.
And then they double down on their accusation. In general I found the tone of the entire article to be rather hostile.
Why does your cult demand that scientists accept your lies about the Bible and the universe in order to be a Christian? Why have you changed Christianity into an anti-science cult?
Becoming a liar for Jesus is not to serve Jesus at all. The father of lies is the devil not Jesus.
John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your fatherâs desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Matthew 23:15 you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
There is no support for lies in the Bible or the words of Jesus.
The creationists are definitely among the false prophets God warned against. All their prophecies have proven false and so they have to tell more and more lies in order to serve the devil they worship.
Perhaps when you have more time you could respond here and here
Just in this title, calling YEC âbiblical creationâ, is a bit hostile in precluding other Bible believing OEC, progressive or evolutionary creationists.
First of all, nobody here is rejecting Biblical creation. We are rejecting young earth creation. Young earth creation is not Biblical; it is a cartoon caricature of Biblical with a thick layer of science fiction slathered on top of it.
Secondly, nobody here is rejecting young earth creation because it is creation. We are rejecting it because it is blatantly dishonest, because it is hostile to science, because it demands that we reject the evidence of our eyes and ears as its final, most essential command, because it stirs up controversy among Christians about questions that are totally uncontroversial and completely settled everywhere else, and because in its more extreme forms (as here), it says that we must believe in something other than Jesus in order to be saved. We are rejecting it because it is a cult.
I know you will object to being told that it is dishonest, but Iâve said it before and I will say it again: honesty has rules, and if you do not want to be told that youâre being dishonest, you need to stick to the rules. And young earthism does not stick to the rules.
Just wow!
This from the blog post:
âIt is my own faith choice to reject evolutionâ
Well, ok. I guess. Todd C. Wood (blog post author), you do you. At least youâre honest about that.
@Argon, I have no idea what to do with this kind of thinking. I could understand holding out hope and being honest about that. But to deliberately settle against evolution, because âitâs not what I wantâ just doesnât make sense to me.
For the same reason you would be hostile to biblical Geocentrism and biblical Flat Earth?
I do very much appreciate Todd Woodâs honesty. He does think he can eventually marshal the evidence in favor of YEC, but he is honest enough to recognize the hill he has to climb. It is worth noting that he did earn a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Virginia. I suspect he learned through experience how science works and realized he couldnât honestly approach YEC and the evidence in the same manner that organizations like AiG approach these subjects.
Wood can probably talk with other scientists that are not of the YEC camp and have a reasonable conversation about the merits of various papers. There are fair referees that may want one side to win yet call the correct case in favor of the other side.
Yes I should modify what I said above, that I certainly do not know that all creationists tell lies. I suppose I just feel so overwhelmed by the quantity of lies I do see being told. Certainly making a faith choice for creationism over evolution does not make you a false prophet. My hostility is specifically for those seeking to exclude those supporting honest science from Christianity such as those accusing scientists of being false prophets in the OP. I certainly see more false prophesy in creationism than in science.
Not being a Christian it would be odd for me to accuse people of being false prophets, but if I were to make those accusations I would focus on YEC leadership and not the person in the pew. I can understand how the regular Christian can be pulled in by YEC arguments because they lack the scientific background to really analyze them. There is nothing inherently wrong with trusting fellow Christians which is why many of us criticize YEC organizations when they take advantage of this trust.
Indeed. That debate is one of the reasons Biologos as an organization exists, and why many of us are interested in this forum. Many of us here are Christians living our lives with the understanding that science currently does the best job at examining and understanding the natural world. Weâre looking for opportunities for healthy discussions with other Christians who arenât condeming us to hell, or telling us how bad our theology is because we think this way. For many of us, the debate is over, has never been relevant.
Others come here to discuss how to remain Christians after being raised with the belief that Christianity and science are mutually exclusive.
But then some folks come along, not looking to understand, but to debate and argue, and especially to condemn. Your posts fit that category. You are perpetuating the debate that you say is so damaging to the credibilty of Christianity.
You can choose to stop right now. If you stop arguing, the argument is over. You have the power to end it.
Let it begin with you. Since you started this thread.
A good first step to unity in Christ is to stop treating other Christians poorly. Stop misrepresenting them and what they think or believe. Stop threatening eternal damnation to Christians.
Unity in Christ revolves around Christ, not science or anti-science. So, practice what you are preaching.
Letâs just imagine that the Creation stories in the Old Testament had been written from the perspective of 21st century science. Letâs skip over âSteady State Theoryâ and go straight for Father George Lemaitreâs âBig Bang Theoryâ of the beginning of the universe. It would have to go into the matter of sub-atomic particles, nuclear fusion and fission, gravity and the dimensions of space-time. Of course, it would not work as a means of revelation to people in the centuries before Christ, (when the Creation stories received their final editing), because they would be lost wondering what all this was about. Insofar as the Creation stories are meant to be the vehicle of theological understanding, it would fail. The stories would be incomprehensibe to us even in the late part of the 19th century.
As we know from the miracle of the Incarnation, God meets people where they are. This means accommodating the message to the understanding of the day. The people of Judah had been taken away into the Exile in Mesopotamia. They came back some generations later thoroughly acculturated to Mesopotamian culture, speaking the Aramaic language and even writing the Hebrew language in Aramaic letters (which they still do to this day). They used and modified the Mesopotamian notions of Creation as a vehicle for Israelite theology in a way that the Jews would understand. Just as Marduk conquered Tiamat, so YHWH conquers Leviathan in the Hebrew Bible, showing a shared Near Eastern motif of cosmic battle.
Trying to treat ancient Mesopotamian mythology as a scientific explanation is laughable. These people want to isolate you from hearing this in the same way that perpetrators of domestic violence try to isolate their victims from others, because without such isolation they will no longer be able to control you. For you will begin to see their grasp of Biblical literature as pitiful and leave their fold.
Yes. I donât think it is coincidence that this way of thinking arose in the same area of the US supporting slavery and racism. Elsewhere the power Christians see and look for in Christianity is the power to change lives, to overcome self-destructive habits and become better people. But in this region, Christianity had become what they relied upon for economic and political power. And so to fight for regaining that power lost with slavery and racial domination, they remade Christianity into a scalpel that would cut their people from what was clearly giving much of the world so much power over the way people thought â science.
Hi Bill,
apologies, but here you make this egregiously false claim thatâs unfortunately quite typical of misrepresentations that frequently are made on this website.
You absolutely need to take on board and understand the reality and Truth here, that I myself donât question the Salvation of anyone, and I donât know any Holy Bible believing Christians, (who accept as historical fact that the creation occurred about six thousand years ago, there was a Global Flood that created a genetic bottleneck that drastically shortened lifespans from many hundreds of years down to less than one hundred years on average), that question the Salvation of anyone. As Christians, it is not for us judge others, is it?
I find your statement here puzzling, after all, as the article ever so clearly makes the point, âYoung-age creation is not exactly a new view in church history (it was the practically unanimous belief of the church until the 19th century!), and itâs easy to see how it can be deduced from the Bible.â
The position of believing the Holy Bible to say precisely what God means and mean precisely what God says is not new, it is the reality, the Truth.
The Holy Scriptures are âGod Inspiredâ and âGod Breathedâ.
I donât think there is any question whatsoever, that the Patriarchs, the Apostles and Jesus Himself all accepted the Holy Scriptures about the Creation and Global Flood as factual history as written; i.e., the creation occurred about six thousand years ago, (from the present), and there was a Global catastrophic flood that was Godâs judgement on ALL the evil on the face of the Earth. That Global Flood destroyed all terrestrial life on Earth that had the breath of life in their nostrils, except for those people and animals on board the Ark that was built by Noah and his sons.
The glaring error as I see it here, is to elevate mankindâs present day fallible interpretations and forensic science beliefs as truth and then re-interpret the clearly understood text of the Holy Bible to accommodate those beliefs and explain away the numerous inconsistencies.
God Bless,
jon
Hi Ethan,
thanks for your post.
I have a little time available tonight.
We differ considerably in how we understand this text from the Holy Bible.
When Adam rebelled against God and ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, the entire creation was cursed and death entered the creation.
The term âdeathâ within a correct Biblical context is applicable only to organisms that are alive. âPlantsâ are not considered alive in this respect in the Holy Bible.
Although we interpret plants as living things in our present day world, the same cannot be said for âplantsâ in the Biblical sense relating to death. In the Holy Bible âplantsâ do not die, they wither.
In the Old Testament, where the text refers to vertebrate animals, theyâre identified by the Hebrew phrase nephesh chayyah, (× ×¤×Š× ×××), that is accurately translated from the Hebrew as âliving creatureâ, and in the case of man, who has been created in the image of God, âliving soulâ. Plants are not nephesh chayyah, thus are not alive, thus cannot die in the Biblical sense.
The Holy Bible is abundantly clear that when Adam sinned, it was precisely then that Death entered into the creation.
12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adamâs transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. 15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. 16 And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. 17 For if by one manâs offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) {by one manâsâŚ: or, by one offence} 18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. {by the offenceâŚ: or, by one offence} {by the righteousnessâŚ: or, by one righteousness} 19 For as by one manâs disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. 20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: 21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:12 â 21
And
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christâs at his coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15:20 -26
Death and suffering of nephesh animals before sin are contrary to the Biblical text, as are suffering or âgroaning in travailâ (Romans 8:20 â 22).
Itâs likely God withdrew a portion of His sustaining power (Colossians 1:15 â 17) at the Fall of Adam in the Garden, so that the decay effect of the Second Law was no longer countered. Death has reigned on Earth since that fateful day about six thousand years ago.
I find it very difficult to understand your reasoning here.
It appears that you agree that as I believe, so Paul would also have believed that Adam is a real man in a real Garden who chose of his own free will to disobey the one clear direct command from God to freely eat of any tree in the Garden EXCEPT one.
Paul knew that Adam was a literal person as did Jesus Himself also; thus why do you see the need to turn what is so plainly clear and exceedingly obvious on its head? And then try and fit into the text that which suits the âdeep timeâ, evolutionary mythology that is unsurprisingly, supported by the academic system that first trains students into the naturalism worldview, after which seeing âdeep timeâ and evolution as real, is a given, or if you prefer a certainty.
God Bless,
jon
Thatâs a lie. The only groups Iâm aware of who held to it in the late 19th century were SDAs and some Missouri Synod Lutherans. EVERYONE ELSE thought that an old earth was utterly obvious from geology and had been for a century.
As examples, Michael Tuomey in 1848 regarded attributing the fossil record to the Deluge as antiquated:
And the authorâs preface to Dixon, 1850 (written by him somewhat before 1850):
So, no. Modern-style YEC (where it tries and fails to explain away geology, rather than simply tabulating history like the 17th-century chronologers or just not thinking about such things like William Smith) has only existed since Ellen White promoted the idea, and it only became a default option in many denominations from the 1960s. William Smith was about the last mainstream geologist known who held to a young-earth, and he became convinced that the earth was old by friends who were in the Anglican clergy noting the implications of the layers that he described in his publications.
Mainstream geology was widely supported by the church in the 18th and 19th centuries for giving solid evidence against the prevailing deist to atheist view of the time that earth was eternal and had gone through a series of predictable cycles in conditions. Whether there was a bunch of pre-human time that Genesis skipped over wasnât really seen as important to theology by most people.
Not only is it not egregiously false, but some-one here I wonât name stated outright that accepting evolution would lead to spending eternity in hell just this week.
You mean like Answers in Genesis does when they reject a flat Earth?
The thinking, both scientific and Scriptural, behind our rejection of a young Earth is exactly the same as the thinking of Answers in Genesis on rejecting a flat Earth. All we are doing is taking their own arguments against a flat Earth, substituting the word âflatâ with âyoungâ and âastronomyâ with âgeology.â Nothing more, nothing less.
If we are âelevating mankindâs present day fallible interpretations and forensic science beliefs as truth and then re-interpreting the clearly understood text of the Holy Bible to accommodate those beliefs and explain away the numerous inconsistenciesâ when we accept that the Earth is old rather than young, then Answers in Genesis is doing exactly the same when they accept that the Earth is round rather than flat. And so too are you.
Where in church history does anyone say that the animals as named by Adam are not the familiar animals of today, or that sheep and goats are actually the same kind? Or anything about speeded up radioactive decay? Or speeded up tectonic collisions? None of that is in the Bible nor in the manuscripts of church history.
If you want a simple literal view, it is that all the earthâs species went on the ark, the water went up, the water went down, and the animals disembarked. That is all there is to it. You can accept the ultra literalistic view, or accept the scientific and historical view.
âLet your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.â -Colossians 4:6
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