Youth Pastor tells HS Student Old Earth views are of the Devil, even though most if not all YEC/YCC cosmologies are wrong!

I think we understand him perfectly well.

Moreover I affirm biblical creation too, and that hasn’t been at question by me at any point. What do you mean?

It pertains to the evidence we have in hand, and God doesn’t always provide the evidence that will clarify issues. That is clearly seen in the GeoCentric vs. HelioCentri issue, as well as archaeology like the burial of Saul.

I go to Creationist conferences. It’s part of my job. The data we have today do not give a slam dunk to the YEC/YCC case. I know that because I’ve personally built experiments (like the Cahill interferometer) and researched other experiments related to distant starlight, the speed of light, and nucleosynthesis and decay of radioactive isotopes. Also, the YEC/YCC can’t even agree on which of the 10 YEC/YCC models of the distant starlight issue correct. That hardly backs up YEC/YCC. And I’ve been to conferences where I saw YECs/YCCs practically screaming at each other and turning red over what model was correct.

The young man in the video pointed out how well he thought Bill Nye argued his case, and I can say, creationists who are both researchers and well schooled on the issue thought Ken Ham did a terrible job.

The problems are more difficult that the popular creationist books advertise. We don’t serve the youth well by telling them otherwise - especially those who go on to study general relativity and cosmology and astrophysics as I have in graduate school.

I don’t know why there has to be such a crusade against Old Earth Creationists. They could be wrong, but we don’t have to treat them bad, and they do have good scientific arguments against YEC/YCC.

That 15-year-old in the video. If he were in our church, I’m not going out of my way to get him to change his mind. In the video, I asked him a simple question to the effect, “would you be willing to change your mind if you had physical data that would suggest the world is young.” He said, “yes.” The way to solve the issue then is to make a compelling empirical case. Arguing about church history and historical theological viewpoints doesn’t give us the empircal data God has hidden away for us to discover to make a compelling case. And God does hide things, Prov 25:2.

Ok thank you. That helps. I just did not want to leave it at this stark, lone statement:

edit: You actually think Bill Nye did a good job? Whew. Pardon me, but you can keep that opinion tucked away.

11 posts were split to a new topic: What is “Biblical”?

Alright. Alright. Everybody calm down. I just reread what @stcordova stated about the Bill Nye debate and my statement is guilty of embellishing his comments. Therefore, I retract this entire comment and offer my apology

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Thanks for the apology, but I can’t let that go without pointing out it wasn’t just me, but other YECs. For example David Coppedge:

In summary, it is with sadness I evaluate this debate as a loss for Ham, even though he did score well at times

Privately I don’t remember a single creation scientist think Ham did well, the impression I got was he didn’t serve as a good ambassador for the guys that actually do RESEARCH vs. someone building 100 million dollar amusement parks and thinks that’s how to build faith.

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14 posts were split to a new topic: Sal Cordova and Aging Galaxies

There must come a point we do something about that.

WE? How about trusting God to provide datapoints we don’t have. That’s happened over and over in the creation science movement. Right when it looked like the YECs didn’t have a case, an immense breakthrough occurred.

2 Kings 4:27

and the LORD has hid it from me and has not revealed it to me

Trying to pound scripture and hermaneutics into the church goers – it works for some, and drives out the very people whom God has gifted to do research and solve some of the problems.

John Sanford, for example, after becoming a Christian at age 39, was a Theistic Evolutionist for almost 10 years before becoming a YEC/YCC/YLC. He went from athiest, to Christian, to Old Earth Creationist, to Young Earth Creationist. Getting rid of Old Earther’s or Theistic Evolutionists out of the church isn’t the solution, imho. Giving them the space and grace to ask questions, to think about things, to let God work in their lives while they are welcomed in Christ’s fellowship is the answer. Demonizing them, trying to purge them out of the church unless they accept YEC/YCC isn’t the solution.

I was a Theistic Evolutionist for a short time and Old Earth Creationist for a long time. I can tell you, the crusading attitude of YECs did more harm to my conversion to YEC than it helped. The video that started this thread with Paul Price shows exactly the sort of thing that turned me off to YEC.

Ironically, what changed my mind was actually studying physics, and studying it HARD with some very smart classmates and professors. I crawled, but it was after this I saw YEC/YCC was promising. Seeing someone build 100 milliion dollar amusement parks and claiming this is will help people’s faith in YEC? Not for me. That’s like taking them to Disney land and building someone’s faith in Mickey Mouse.

On the other hand, I’ve seen many YEC physicists like John Hartnett and Russ Humphreys honorably say some their previous solutions to the distant starlight problems were WRONG. I found that far more trustworthy behavior than going around trying to do thought-policing in the church.

There are disputes in the church regarding baptism, predestination, gifts of the spirit, eschatology, etc. etc. and for a while even GeoCentrism!

Several Old Earth Creationist and even a few Theisitic Evolutionists did a lot to restore me to faith when I nearly left it. They did more for me, even though I now believe they are mistaken, than Answers In Genesis and a 100 million dollar amusement park. Though I now oppose Hugh Ross’s views of the age of the universe, I personally thanked him a couple of years ago when he visited University of Maryland, because of his organization’s work on criticism of Abiogenesis. Same for Stephen Meyer (who is an old Earth Creationist).

And if I can relate a very sad story of Biology Professor Caroline Crocker at my undergrad alma mater, George Mason University. She is an Old Earther but a devout Christian. She lost her job because of her pro-ID views. The martyrdom of her promising career as an immunology researcher inspired me to fight what I felt is the real problem, the idea that Abiogenesis and Evolutionary theory are good scientific theories. They are not, even Jerry Coyne, and to a degree Eugene Koonin (on abiogenesis) admit as much, and they are top evolutionary biologists.

Dr. Crocker’s courage, inspired me to fight evolutionary and abiogenesis theory. But for YEC to be doing some sort of witch hunt against people like Old Earther Caroline Crocker? Not for me, and I’ll stand at her side as I did when the Darwinists kicked her out of George Mason University.

So my suggested solution, admit when God hasn’t given us the data points to make a convincing case, but don’t on the other hand start biting and devour other Christians as if they’re some sort of cancer on Christianity because they believe the Universe is Old. Nowhere in the Bible are such mistakes (and I believe they are mistakes) to be treated as if they were guilty of crimes worthy of ex-communication or labeling as apostates.

Personally, I found far more offensive is a creationist back stabbing CMI for financial gain and then not being called into account, or a YEC getting caught preaching morality and a clean life on Sunday and then hiring male prostitutes and getting high on meth in his private life – being an Old Earther is not a moral deficiency – that was Ted Haggard.

LOL! Thanks Sal. That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all week. :slightly_smiling_face:

It’s also necessary to trust God to invalidate most of the data points we do have. You look for evidence of YEC in esoteric and hard to understand places while ignoring all the easy and obvious data: the nested hierarchy of life, faunal succession, radiometric dating, and so on.

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That is simply false. Her position was not renewed because she was actively pushing her religious Creation views in the classroom.

Caroline Crocker lost her position teaching biology after lecturing on ID, no question about it. The film puts it this way: “After she simply mentioned Intelligent Design in her cell biology class at George Mason University, Caroline Crocker’s sterling academic career came to an abrupt end.” Here is what seems clear from the public record. Dr. Crocker did not “simply mention ID” in her instructional responsibilities - she lectured on and advocated views that advanced ID and denied evolutionary common descent. Both the Washington Post and the DI have essays describing how she begins class with a slide of an arrow and a question mark running between a monkey and a human.Shankar Vedantam, "Eden and Evolution." Washington Post. February 5, 2006. (http://www.discovery.org/a/3516). And linked from the Discovery Institute: Markus Gunther, "Did Humans Descend... An essay praising her linked from the DI website quotes an appreciative student: “She has finally expressed what others didn’t dare say, but what I always thought…people have a soul, one can’t put them on the same level as animals. To believe in evolution would mean that death would be the last word.”Gunther article, above. However, other students were apparently not nearly so appreciative, and there were complaints about the teaching.Several articles on the Crocker incident report that it involved student complaints. While this claim entails confidential personnel information, there are publicly accessible criticisms of her teaching...

Although she was not fired, it does appear that she was instructed not to lecture on this material again. After her temporary appointment expired (she did not have a permanent position at George Mason), she was not rehired to teach more classes. However, her career did not “abruptly end” at that point. She had another appointment at a Northern Virginia Community College. She lectured against evolutionary theory there as well, in the presence of a national reporter, and included standard creationist criticisms of the fossil record.Washington Post article, above. She was not invited back there either, after which she secured a research appointment. Since temporary teaching positions are granted on a contingent basis, there is no assumption of continuity and no obligation to provide reasons for not renewing. But with or without the Caroline Crocker story, both ID advocates and their critics would agree on this: nobody who uses the biology classroom to advance views that reject evolutionary common descent, is going to be in the classroom for long at a major university. What ID advocates and critics do not agree on (and not even all ID advocates agree on) is whether or not this should be the case.

Was Caroline Crocker expelled?

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You hang in there. The YEC movement can only be helped by your addition to their number. I will believe for those datapoints with you. In the meantime, right now the Universe looks very old to me.

Edit: And the planet? Well, it looks old too. I am trying to work with that.

A lot of people think Bill Nye should not have debated Ham at all. Nye was well paid for his time though, and he makes his living this way, so I can’t blame him for working to pays his bills.