This quote by George Orwell from Nineteen Eighty Four comes to my mind:
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
I posted that quote on Facebook a couple of years ago, without comment, when it was doing the rounds in the wake of something that Donald Trump said. The very first response I got was from a YEC accusing me of “not believing the Bible.”
YECism really is nothing short of Orwellian. It isn’t just untrue, it’s blatantly untrue. Its falsehood is obvious to anyone with only a trivial level of scientific literacy. It robs you of your very ability to tell what is real and what isn’t. Yet its adherents attempt to weaponise the Bible in order to intimidate Christians into acquiescing to it. That’s what Answers in Genesis is doing with their accusations of “heresy” and “false teaching.” It’s gaslighting, pure and simple.