Can you explain what you mean by this? I don’t see how Genesis 1-2 involves eyewitness testimony. No-one was there at the origin of the cosmos.
How is YEC scientific? It isn’t repeatable. It can’t be tested in the lab. There is no evidence only interpretation which is controlled by your worldview. It is historical science which is invalid. When you calculate the probability it proves that it is impossible. It is based on unproven assumptions and presuppositions. Etc. Etc. Obligatory smiley face 
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And what do you think is the most convincing evidence that the earth is less than 10,000 years old? I’m all eyes and ears…
Saying things like this is ‘really’ gonna help Non-Christians accept Christ.
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I agree with you against the modern bias against what can’t be explained by science.
As for eyewitnesses, God was there at the creation and told us what happened.
And just as creation accounts are not teaching science, so the resurrection accounts intend to say that Jesus was raised bodily. So I take that seriously.
Here is where it breaks down. The creation accounts intend to teach something about creation just as the resurrection accounts intend to teach something about the resurrection. Yet there are treated two different ways. I think we absolutely must take into account genre and historical context. That is a major reason why various old earth theories are not in line with the text. Genre matters.
But none of that is my point here. I was simply pointing out how people will treat texts entirely differently depending on the conclusion they already decided to reach, or that they desire to reach.
YEC and OEC are scientific in the same way. The probably of direct creation in YEC is far higher than the probability of any evolutionary scheme. Evolution is based on unproven assumptions and presuppositions, and can’t account for reality as we see it.
And what do you think is the most convincing evidence that the earth is less than 10,000 years old? I’m all eyes and ears…
Scripture.
Saying things like this is ‘really’ gonna help Non-Christians accept Christ.
So you are saying we should adjust what we say based on what will help people accept Christ? That is not the way Christ did it, nor the way he instructed us to do it. And if they accept Christ based on that, are they really accepting Christ?
You expect them to believe in the resurrection from the dead, right? Why is direct creation any less helpful? You surely see the problem, right? Why is believing in the resurrection easier than believing in creation?
Repenting and believing in Christ is not a matter of science, but of the divine work of the Spirit. It is a new birth.
But I think you hit the nail on the head. A great many people are more concerned about reputation than Scripture. “Educated people just won’t believe it” is not a good reason to change something. With origins, it is even less of a good reason because there are many good reasons to believe the scriptural account.
And yet they totally contradict one another. How is that “scientific”?
You didn’t pay attention to my smiley?
Clearly an inspired position - - because you’ve been on this list longer than I have been - - and yet, your mind is so full of the holy ghost there is no room left for eye-witness scientific testimony…
You must love this text:
Job 38:22-23
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail,
which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?"
Very wise … and True !!!
There is a massive difference between the two. Creation in six 24-hour days, just six thousand years ago, requires creation of evidence for a history of 4.5 billion years of history that never happened. The Resurrection, on the other hand, does not.
I’m constantly hearing YECs trotting out that line, as if it were some kind of magic shibboleth that can send any idea of millions of years flying. I’m sorry, but it isn’t. Most of the time they completely fail to articulate exactly what assumptions and presuppositions are supposedly unproven. And when they do, it can easily be shown that the “assumptions and presuppositions” are nowhere near as unproven as they think they are.
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Hello LT_15,
I’m Richard, please allow me to join the fray.
100% agree.
This is where we disagree. Question, have you perused the, “Scientific Evidence” of evolution section under, “Common Questions”? If you do, you will see a slice of the enormous amount of evidence that God’s creation has given us of biological evolution. And that’s why so many educated people, believers or not, accept evolution - because there is so much evidence for it. You may disagree or believe it’s a non-starter based on your commitments from early Genesis. However, why put a stumbling block in front of non-believers if, as you say, the important thing is to repent and believe (and I would put baptism in there as well)?
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I said they are scientific in the same way, meaning that neither are repeatable and both are based on drawing conclusions from observations of current evidence.
No, my mind isn’t nearly as fully of the Holy Spirit as I would like it to be, but I have lots of room for eyewitness testimony. With respect to origins, the only eyewitness is God. It is universally agreed that there are not other eyewitnesses.
Well, no. YEC requires no creation of evidence. The evidence exists already. The only issue is interpreting it. And the resurrection requires evidence as well. The NT is filled with it, including the appeal to eyewitnesses. But the point is that both are “non-scientific” as the terms are frequently used. And if one believes the resurrection, YEC is actually a lesser sort of belief–an easier one with more solid evidence.
It’s no magic shibboleth. It is simply the facts that virtually all agree too. You demonstrate them yourself here, though perhaps you are unaware of them.
My phrase “eye-witness scientific testimony” is a reference to the fact thousands of scientists are eye-witnesses to how natural law controls the events of nature and the progress of the Cosmos.
This is not frivolous information…
While many books of the Bible were written by unknown individuals, with unknown purposes in mind, about events that know no other corroboration.
And frequently, when we have two sources about the same events, they differ.
Question, have you perused the, “Scientific Evidence” of evolution section under, “Common Questions”?
Yes, that is tired old stuff that has been around a while. There is no solid evidence of biological evolution of the sort needed that doesn’t depend on the prior assumption that it is true. Educated people accept it because of presuppositions and assumptions. And there are plenty of educated people who don’t accept it .
I would ask you the same question: Why put a stumblingblock in front unbelievers? As I pointed out above, accepting a direct divine creation is but a small matter compared to faith and repentance (though baptism is never added to those two things as a means, but only as a subsequent sign). To call someone to repent of sin and turn fully to Christ as Master and Savior is by far a bigger step than accepting divine creation.
My phrase “eye-witness scientific testimony” is a reference to the fact thousands of scientists are eye-witnesses to how natural law controls the events of nature and the progress of the Cosmos.
None of them are eyewitnesses to origins or to actual evolution. The natural law to which you appeal is the product of the Creation and Creator which you deny. You can’t have it both ways.
While many books of the Bible were written by unknown individuals, with unknown purposes in mind, about events that know no other corroboration. And frequently, when we have two sources about the same events, they differ.
The authors are generally known and the purposes are generally known. There are some events that have no other corroboration, but that is common in history. Many events of the Bible are corroborated. The supposed differences often turn out not to be different at all.
Which is all to say that your arguments and objections are not based in fact and good argumentation and have been answered long ago.
We have been back and forth before and I don’t have time to go back and forth again, considering how very differently we approach the issue. I find your view to be philosophically incoherent and scientifically untenable. For the life of me, I can’t see why anyone is convinced of it. It makes so little sense. But again, I simply don’t have time for it right now.
My point is posting this was actually on another thread and this was unfortunately separated from the point it was intended to address by starting another thread.
The point is that one cannot believe the resurrection and deny creation without engaging in special pleading.
You just described evolution. Well except for the fact that evolution, like OEC, is repeatable.
What does this phrase mean… I can’t have it both ways? Does not the Creator use natural laws to create the rains? Does he not, from time to time, use rains to fulfill his plan?
You are barking platitudes… and they have no force. You say that God is the witness, and you say that you can rely on the specifics of what other humans say are his words.
But you ignore the words of Job that speak of God storing snow and hail in warehouses orbiting Earth.
And you ignore the senselessness of referring to four consecutive days, when the only way the Hebrew ever measured days was by counting the circuit of the sun through Earth’s sky… it is how they know when it is the Sabbath. But for four days there was no sun … and by any judgment of our esteemed ancients… there could not have been four days. The four days were in fact one day.
So … how is it that the scribes wrote what they wrote? They believed that the light of the day came from the sky itself… and the sun merely synchronized itself with the sky’s light.
So… now you will say that the Hebrews marked the days by the light of the sky? But even then we are missing at least one day. And the Bible does not instruct the Hebrew to know the Sabbath by the sky’s light … but by the Sun.
When it comes to natural law, the 6 days of creation is a cobblestone of error and contradiction. And that is because it was not intended to mean what you say it must mean.
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