If it was proven that the Earth is no more than 10,000 years old

[T_aquaticus]

@fmiddel

I think the theological implications of YEC vs. “old universe” are significantly relevant.

Reality has this strange way of not caring about theological implications. The age of the Earth is what it is, no matter what the theological implications are.

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@T_aquaticus

The age of the Earth is what it is, no matter what the theological implications are.

True, that! And yet on the other hand, aren’t Michael and others replying to him here also part of reality? And as such … darn it if they aren’t there caring about the implications!

Okay - maybe they shouldn’t be - such a point may still be needed and well-taken; but still I couldn’t resist.

-pedantic Merv

[fmiddel]

@mitchellmckain

You want there to be theological implications. I saw none.

Didn’t say I wanted it. That was the question. What implications would there be?

For me (and I hadn’t yet answered it), I think it would make my perception of God “smaller.”

[fmiddel]

@T_aquaticus

Reality has this strange way of not caring about theological implications. The age of the Earth is what it is, no matter what the theological implications are.

Once again, missing the point of the “game.”

IF reality was different, what would be the theological implications?

Man, some of you guys are more stubborn than YECers! And that’s saying something!

[T_aquaticus]

@fmiddel

IF reality was different, what would be the theological implications?

The theological implication is that God would be a deceiver.

Phillip Henry Gosse wrote a book titled “Omphalos: Untying the Geologic Knot”. In it, Gosse argued that God implanted age into the creation. This is what a fellow Christian had to say about Gosse’s book after he reviewed it:

Shall I tell you the truth? It is best. Your book is the first that ever made me doubt, and I fear it will make hundreds do so. Your book tends to prove this—that if we accept the fact of absolute creation, God becomes Deus quidam deceptor [‘God who is sometimes a deceiver’]. I do not mean merely in the case of fossils which pretend to be the bones of dead animals; but in the one single case of your newly created scars on the pandanus trunk, your newly created Adam’s navel, you make God tell a lie. It is not my reason, but my conscience which revolts here … I cannot … believe that God has written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie for all mankind."
–Rev. Charles Kingsley

[Randy]

@T_aquaticus

Shall I tell you the truth? It is best. Your book is the first that ever made me doubt, and I fear it will make hundreds do so. Your book tends to prove this—that if we accept the fact of absolute creation, God becomes Deus quidam deceptor [‘God who is sometimes a deceiver’]. I do not mean merely in the case of fossils which pretend to be the bones of dead animals; but in the one single case of your newly created scars on the pandanus trunk, your newly created Adam’s navel, you make God tell a lie. It is not my reason, but my conscience which revolts here … I cannot … believe that God has written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie for all mankind."
–Rev. Charles Kingsley

This is a terrific quote. Yet, in the 1990’s a megachurch pastor I listened to said (and many in the congregation “amen’d” it), why shouldn’t God make the universe mature, like he made Adam?

It’s an illustration of how little science the average lay person knows, who would accept that enthusiastically. It was even accepted by a YEC physician I knew at the time (which goes to show that having a degree in an allied branch of science doesn’t teach you anything about the other branch).

Science is way cooler and more interesting once one learns some of the intricacies of how the earth aged. It has nothing to do with what YEC term the desire to fit in with the scientists, or rebel to make one’s own decisions without God. Rather, it is practicing one’s God-given ability to reason, in His image, if one wants to take it from the most logical theistic point of view.

Thanks.

[fmiddel]

@T_aquaticus

The theological implication is that God would be a deceiver.

I don’t disagree with you on that in principle.

BUT, given that the hypothetical premise is that a young earth is proven, it suggests that it is provable, and our present scientific conclusions are incorrect. Like, say, 100 years ago, when the scientific consensus was that the universe did not have a beginning. Would it have been appropriate at that point to accuse God of being a liar because our scientific conclusions were wrong?

Again, to play the game according to the rules, you have to accept that the young earth has been proven. As such, God is not deceitful. We were just wrong before.

[Realspiritik (Jennifer Thomas)]

@Randy

Science is way cooler and more interesting once one learns some of the intricacies of how the earth aged. It has nothing to do with what YEC term the desire to fit in with the scientists, or rebel to make one’s own decisions without God. Rather, it is practicing one’s God-given ability to reason, in His image, if one wants to take it from the most logical theistic point of view.

Amen. The science is so cool and says so much about God’s creativity and patience that I sometimes think YEC members are shooting themselves in the foot. Maybe they don’t realize what they’re missing!

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@fmiddel

Reality has this strange way of not caring about theological implications. The age of the Earth is what it is, no matter what the theological implications are.

Once again, missing the point of the “game.”

IF reality was different, what would be the theological implications?

Man, some of you guys are more stubborn than YECers! And that’s saying something!

Stubborn is stubborn yeah, so it’s neutral. A man hears what he wants to hear. Back to the theology. If YEC is proved true by real science, then God is the true monster of the Bible from Alpha to Omega, from true Genesis to true eschatological Revelation. The Bible is a flat cookbook of the ‘progressive’ revelation of an ever more complex psychopathic damnationist or at least instrumentally redemptively violent God of history and real prophecy and great sci-fi (Grey Area in Banks’ Excession; pathologically righteous): Hell is real. 97% of humanity burn forever. Every worst case interpretation is true including God the cosmic child abuser. He murdered His own Son to appease His rage and we better acknowledge that. Or burn.

There are more liberal fundamentalist tropes of course. I danced to one for decades. God would thrash us to our senses and 97% of humanity would be saved, the rest annihilated. God the Killer Lite.

If YEC and other wooden literalism were true. If God were as small and nasty minded as we (note no Oxford comma).

[Mindspawn]

I agree on an old universe, but the age of the earth itself is primarily based on radiometric dating, which has some flaws.

If the Cambrian Explosion represented creation around 7000 years ago, and observed speciation in fossils (within clades) was merely rapid speciation, this would actually fit the fossil record satisfactorily. Rapid speciation being an observed phenomenon occurring primarily via changes to allele frequencies with an occasional beneficial mutation.

Thus if radiometric dating was proven wrong by an approximate factor of 100000 years, this would suit the theory of biological creation nearly 7000 years ago.

[gbob]

It would make no difference at all to how I live my life. It would impact my views on geology (which is the biggest reason not to believe the earth is 10kyr old. )

[fmiddel]

@Klax

Back to the theology. If YEC is proved true by real science, then God is the true monster of the Bible from Alpha to Omega, from true Genesis to true eschatological Revelation. The Bible is a flat cookbook of the ‘progressive’ revelation of an ever more complex psychopathic damnationist or at least instrumentally redemptively violent God of history and real prophecy and great sci-fi (Grey Area in Banks’ Excession; pathologically righteous): Hell is real. 97% of humanity burn forever. Every worst case interpretation is true including God the cosmic child abuser. He murdered His own Son to appease His rage and we better acknowledge that. Or burn.

A young earth leads to all that!? How?

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

You tell me. YECists always, that’s always, as in always, say that if you can’t do YEC, you can’t, won’t do mandatory PSA Jesus AND YOU’RE DAMNED TO HELL IN YOUR SINS!!! Always.

[fmiddel]

@Klax

You tell me. YECists always, that’s always, as in always, say that if you can’t do YEC, you can’t, won’t do mandatory PSA Jesus AND YOU’RE DAMNED TO HELL IN YOUR SINS!!! Always.

So…it doesn’t. It just “belongs to” a type (or stereotype)?

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Glad to hear it. There are YECists who aren’t damnationists. Who actually don’t say that if YEC is untrue then PSA is untrue. Is there a theology of that? A link? Or is it just you?

[fmiddel]

@Klax

Glad to hear it. There are YECists who aren’t damnationists. Who actually don’t say that if YEC is untrue then PSA is untrue. Is there a theology of that? A link? Or is it just you?

Don’t know. My point is that “young earth” doesn’t mandate any of those other things. You could argue that “young earth” falls into a particular type of interpretation that leads to those other things, but it’s not a given.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Please show me a non-PSA, non-damnationist, YEC theology.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

Upon further consideration, why not? Suppose it was proven that the earth was no more than 10,000 years old. I would be fascinated to learn how that was determined and what the explanation for all the past data supporting a billions of years age for the earth had been misunderstood. It would truly turn everything we know about cosmology, geology and biology on its head. I’d pay good money to learn how that happened. Really, past the initial shock, and assuming both the new data and the old data fit into a cohesive explanatory theory, I’d be all ears.

Of course if the new theory turned out to be “that it was created by a being capable of blinking into existence anything it liked, in any form it liked to appear in any manner it chooses” then I’d expect to see exhaustive repeated demonstrations of that. But even then, if the causal mechanism reduces to goddidit with no finer grained explanation of how, then I’d say we’d reached the end of thinking very much will ever make sense to us and so an end also to the endeavor of searching for explanations.