Research On YEC vs Atheism?

This is an unwarranted attack on those who believe the bible as written. You are accusing bible believers of idolatry.

Christ is the cornerstone of our belief. There is no other name under heaven by which mankind is to be saved. He is the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except thru Him. Period.

It’s truly ironic that those who belief in death before sin should make such a damning claim that we put the bible above Jesus. We are defending the honor of the one who created us against the fiery arrows of the enemy who has beguiled the world by saying that things created themselves via naturalistic random forces and not the creator.

One should be extremely wary when self-confessed atheists ( on this website ) are cheering one on when one launches an attack on YECs. One needs to ask why it is that God’s confessed enemies are cheering one on against those one is supposed to be related to in Christ.

It is really interesting that the young people can see clearly that evolution flat-out contradicts the bible and therefore, since they believe that evolution is true, they check out. So now we have people who do not really want to also check out because the promise and hope rings deeply with them, run back to the bible armed with the evolutionary dogma and begin to reinterpret it so that it fits in. The evolutionary dogma now holds sway over what God has so clearly written for us to follow - a plain, straight-forward six days of creation.

Richard Dawkins himself said - those who believe that evolution can be reconciled with Christianity are simply “useful idiots”.

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Actually, I think the technical term is “bibliolatry.”

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The best constructive response I can give you is this: Be careful of your accusations of dishonesty because the shoe might best fit the one who makes it.

@Prode Given that there are mounds of evidence for evolution (snarky remark deleted) forgive us if we don’t take your word for any of this. You can deliberately use kind all you want, but you need to define exactly what that means as there is no standard definition in use by the YEC community.

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Hoo, boy. Yes, there is.

There seems to be some muddiness around what exactly is one kind, which really should be all the answer we need that we have such a hard time telling whether any two given animals are related to each other or not. Here’s an easy question to start you off with: how many kinds of deer are there?

Which is this?

Yes.

Only, I haven’t got room for all of it. Have you tried googling these questions?

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Glad we can agree on that. I have read many times in YEC literature that “Genesis is the foundation of the Bible, and without it, everything else falls apart” or similar words. And by Genesis, they mean their specific interpretation of Genesis.

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Amen. 

I’m not an atheist and I don’t reject the Bible. I interpret the first chapter of Genesis differently than you do. Goodness, with all the different views on baptism, the Lord’s supper, women in ministry, the end times, do you believe that every single person who interprets a passage differently than you is therefore “rejecting” the Bible?

Again, I don’t “reject the idea of a creator that has ownership rights” over me. Accepting science does not make me an atheist. And I grew up looking at the viewpoints espoused by AIG and others. Nothing new there – same old pseudoscience as when I was a kid.

Again, I’m not an atheist or a humanist, and I have already chosen to serve God. That does not require me to reject evolutionary science. You’re conflating evolution with atheism.

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Well, I think I’ll just respond to some thingns @jammycakes has written with Mark 7:7-8:

7in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

8You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

And I think I will respond to some things by @jpm and @Jay313 with II Timothy 4:3

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

It is nice to meet @Prode as well!

I would have liked to write more in-depth responses to everyone, but I think I will leave off with wishing a blessed week to all!

I’m well aware of that, Prode. My message to YECs has first and foremost been make sure your facts are straight, and accordingly I have tried to take as much care to do so myself as I can. Accordingly, if you have spotted any factual inaccuracies in what I have written, please point them out, providing clickable links direct to evidence to support you, so that I can address them, and, if appropriate, correct them.

However, I suggest that you go back and read what I have writtencarefully. You will see that I have not just made idle accusations. What I have done is provided evidence. I have also listed specific criteria that I expect YEC evidence to meet, and provided a specific reason why the problems I have highlighted can safely be considered representative of YEC claims as a whole.

Prode, I’m well aware of the YEC retort “but evolutionists tell lies too.” It is possible for anyone, when faced with scientific findings that they don’t like, to quote mine the literature looking for examples of dishonesty in the studies supporting it. But it is one thing to demonstrate dishonesty in individual studies; it is a completely different matter to demonstrate that whole disciplines are dishonest. The fact of the matter is that the falsehoods and factual errors in young-earth claims are blatant; they are pervasive; they are deal-breakers; they are frequently falsified simply by searching Google; and in some cases they are quite frankly so bad that I find it hard to believe that I am actually reading creationist apologetics and not some kind of parody. (Case in point: the RATE project’s claims of 22,000°C accelerated nuclear decay.) On the other hand, old-earth and evolutionary falsehoods almost always require expert peer review to spot them, were frequently retracted decades ago, and are always at the level of fine details and never affect the bigger picture of descent with modification from a common ancestor over billions of years.

In any case, “evolutionist dishonesty” does not undermine the credibility of our Christian witness as a whole. Creationist dishonesty, on the other hand, prompts people to ask us the question, “What else are you lying to us about?”

I’m glad you’ve said this. I think we can agree on this point. I’ve so often heard YECs say that a young earth is the cornerstone of our belief.

If there is “not a shred of evidence for evolution,” then you need to explain why endogenous retroviruses are not evidence for evolution for starters. Specifically, you need to come up with a non-evolutionary explanation that specifically addresses the question of why humans and chimps have 200,000 of them in exactly the same places in our respective genomes.

Prode, I’ve also explained to you on multiple occasions that the “were you there?” argument is not true. We can find out things about the past without having witnessed it directly through cross-checks and testable predictions. Or are you able to provide a convincing and accurate explanation as to why cross-checks and testable predictions do not provide us with any information about the past?

Prode, the bottom line is simply this. Stop throwing around Pharisaical accusations of “compromise” and “atheism” and “rejecting the Bible” and start providing some evidence to back up your assertions.

Jonathan, you need to explain exactly what you are responding to and why this verse of Scripture is an appropriate response to what I have said. Otherwise all I can conclude is that you’re closing your eyes, opening your Bible at random, and putting your finger on the page.

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Prode, which comes first: Truth or Christianity?

It should be Truth, and no this is not a false dichotomy. If YEC proves to be false, we should not try to force Christianity to fit it. Supposing Christianity would only work if and only if YEC is true. Then you must stand by the truth and reject Christianity.

The good news (no pun intended) is that you don’t need to force Christianity to fit YEC, as this website clearly shows.

Well, I rather intended to bow out of this discussion after my last post, but I do suppose I should explain myself. I mean, that verse was applicable to more people here than just you yourself, but I ended up @jammycakes mentioning you there…

Well, this verse immediately made me think of the people who for the sake of holding to the tradition of men (evolution) abandon God’s word, but a more applicable verse was the other I ended up posting:

I find this to be fairly applicable to BioLogos.

Also, of course I believe that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our faith, but I have learned of Him and His saving work from the scriptures, and I hold ALL these scriptures to the the God-breathed word of God. In the end, when it comes to Creation versus evolution, I will put my faith in God’s word, as opposed to the nominal wisdom of this world:

For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (I Corinthians 1)

The Bible comes out in favor of creationism, so I will go along with it, as my conscience is captive to the word of God, and to go against God (or conscience) is neither safe nor right. Thus, I will end with more from
I Corinthians:

25For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Here I stand…on the Word of God.

Jonathan, if you believe that remaining faithful to the Bible requires you to believe in a young earth and non-evolution, I have no objection to that. All I ask is that you make sure you are honest about how you approach it. Rejecting science may be faith, but misrepresenting science is lying.

The fact remains that old-earth and evolutionary creation are not just “traditions of men”; they are evidence-based science. They have significant commercial and practical applications (e.g. oil exploration, cancer research, etc.). They encompass areas of study where getting them wrong or failing to understand them correctly can have serious damaging consequences in terms of economics or public health. You just have to look at antibiotic resistance to see that. Where are superbugs in hospitals (one of which killed my father in 2001 while he was undergoing treatment for cancer) coming from? Answer: evolution. Superbugs are developing resistance to antibiotics at an alarming rate because farmers are ignoring the fact that mutations do create new information, and are providing selection pressures for that new information by recklessly pumping their livestock with powerful antibiotics that should only be used as a last resort.

Yes, that’s right, dismissing evidence-based science as “traditions of men” is putting people’s lives at risk.

I am satisfied that the Bible allows for an ancient earth and evolutionary creation with verses such as 2 Peter 3:8, Psalm 90:4, Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 and so on. As I’ve said before, that may not be enough to satisfy you, but at least it gives us something. The only honest alternative is the Omphalos hypothesis, and in support of that, the Bible gives us nothing.

“Abandoning God’s Word” has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It’s about honesty, pure and simple.

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You do realize when you say things like that, what many of us hear is “My interpretation of the English translation of ancient scripture is the only true way to understand the ancient Hebrew scripture, and anyone that disagrees is a fool, even if they have devoted their life to God and have spent their lifetime studying it.”

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Interesting… Not trying to pick a fight here, but I see this as more applicable to the man-with-dino myths that the YEC movement has been falsely peddling for decades. I just heard it again last night from the well-meaning dad of my son’s best friend (and I nodded my head and said, “Interesting!” because this is what EC folks do to keep the peace in their daily life). Sounds like a myth to me!

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Answers in Genesis:

image

Old earth/evolutionary creationist response:

image

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To use an analogy, cancer causes a lot of deaths but it wouldn’t be fair to say that all deaths are caused by cancer.

The problem is Christians being taught demonstrably false ideas, such as the Earth being young, a recent global flood, separate creation of species, and the idea that atheism is a religion. When they take those teachings and compare them to the real world they see those teachings are false, so that leads them to believe that everything in Christianity is false.

Christians who are taught these false claims then run into mountains of evidence, such as found this page. That’s what happened to Libby Anne.

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There are also those who claim that the planets are moved about the sun by a natural force called “gravity”, and not by the hand of the Creator. How do you handle this problem?

Didn’t you warn people earlier about agreeing with militant atheists?

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… I noticed how you snuck that last one in there … just for me probably! :slightly_smiling_face:Technically it is a different category assertion than all those you listed before it. Those are the ones that run up against evidence. That last one only runs afoul commonly accepted definitions, and is right or wrong on those grounds alone. [I’ll concede wrong so that we don’t feel a need to revisit all that here.] Carry on.

I really didn’t have you in mind when I wrote that, but your lack of objection is noted. :wink:

What I was getting at is when Christians interact with atheists on a day to day, peer to peer basis they will see that atheism really isn’t anything more than a lack of belief, at least in the vast majority of cases. Atheists don’t go to weekly meetings where they learn the latest atheistic catechisms while sacrificing kittens to the triune statue of Dawkins, Sagan, and Adam Savage.

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