Why I Am a Young Earth Creationist

I didn’t always used to be one, but for the past few years I’ve been a Young-Earth Creationist.  For those in the know, admitting that you are a YEC is tantamount to wearing a Scarlet Letter (you’ve committed adultery against science) or an “I’m With Stupid” T-shirt with its arrow pointed up.  As a YEC, rarely does a conversation with a skeptic, or even fellow Christian, not include some form of ridicule.  “Young-Earth Creationism” has purposefully and methodically, PZ Myers I’m looking at you, been associated with geocentrism and the belief in a flat-earth.  Basically you are automatically assumed to be a simple-minded nincompoop who is allergic to science.  Take a look at how the Left is treating Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann and you’ll get an idea of what it’s like.

I grew up in the public school system learning about and believing in evolution like every other kid around me.  I didn’t really start questioning it until high school when I heard of a few lectures by the now imprisoned Kent Hovind.  Even then, and through out the first years at the university level, I was merely skeptical of evolution.  I couldn’t really argue with it, especially when I was required to learn about it (or tons of science based upon it).  After all, the vast majority of scientists, including my professors, considered it unassailable fact.  Who was I to question it?

One of the basic skeptical arguments against my YECism is the classic, “Well, you’re just adhering to a stuffy old Book and ignoring science.”  Surprisingly, my journey to YECism didn’t start with the Bible but with spending numerous hours studying science, evolution, philosophy and epistemology.  In hindsight, I can see God’s hand in it, but at the time, I just made an intellectual commitment to nail down this “evolution thing” once and for all.  How did they know that the Earth is old enough to allow evolution to take place?  Are they right about the fossil record?  In order to adhere to traditional Christianity, would I have to abandon my reason and intellect?  I can see evolution taking place right in front of me, can’t I?  Is evolution really a threat to Christianity, or is it much ado about nothing?  These questions were pounding inside my skull and I had to silence them, one way or another.

My purpose in this post is not to write an exhaustive treatise on what I found, but merely a brief manifesto on the key points that lead me to becoming a YEC. Perhaps this “Why I Am a YEC” topic will become a series in which I defend different points of contention as they come up.

• I found that the conclusion of an old Earth is not actually scientific at all.

• I found that the scientific evidence doesn’t exclusively point to evolution.  In fact, scientific evidence doesn’t, by itself, point to anything.  It is the interpretation of men that makes science mean something.

• I found that behind evolution, and an old earth, lurked naturalistic presuppositions.

• I found that the fossil record does not exclusively support evolution, and indeed can be a problem for it.

• I found that Darwin, and his contemporaries, had a certain idea of God as they searched for exclusively natural explanations for the world around them.  In fact, they assumed that God could not have been responsible for nature as they saw it, so there must be a way to explain it without Him.

Once I realized that without naturalistic presuppositions evolution is standing upon thin air, I turned to Scripture. Did Scripture have anything to say about the age of the Earth, or anything scientific? What did Moses mean by “day” in Genesis?  Where there any other narratives that support a young earth?  Do any New Testament figures comment on the age of the earth or anything scientific?  Were Adam and Eve real people?  Where does the allegory end and the narrative begin?

• I learned that every other time the word for day in Genesis, yom, is used in conjunction with a number (359 times) and/or “morning” and “evening” (23 times) it means a literal day.  In fact, every time the Bible uses “morning” and “evening” without yom it means a literal day.  Why would Genesis be the exception?

• The Bible tells us that sin caused death, yet if the earth is old then death existed billions of years before sin did (Rom 5:12).

• I couldn’t reconcile God calling creation “very good” with billions of years of disease and death preceding that claim.

• I learned that God’s entire basis for keeping the Sabbath, one of the Ten Commandments, is tied up in seven literal days of creation (Exodus 20).

• I couldn’t find a place where Moses implies that he’s done with metaphor and allegory and will now start telling us history.

• I learned that Paul’s reasoning for why Jesus died, and why we need salvation, is because sin entered the world through one literal man (Rom 5).

• Jesus said that God created humanity “from the beginning” (Mark 10:6).

• Jesus is called the “Last Adam”, which implies there must have been a first Adam (1 Cor 15:45).

• If I believe in an old Earth as “science” tell us, shouldn’t I also believe that we came from apes, as “science” tells us?  Or that men don’t rise from the dead as “science” tells us?

• I’m open to reading one, and hope I do some day, but I’ve never read an Old Earth Creationist article that didn’t start with “Since science tell us the Earth is old therefore ____” or “In order to reconcile the Bible with science the Bible must say _____”.

Once I discovered that the Biblical case for an Old Earth was, well, not there, I realized that in order to get support for an Old Earth out of the Bible I would first have to swallow naturalistic presuppositions.  I wasn’t willing to do this.  In fact, I vowed to allow Scripture to inform me of my presuppositions, not men.  That’s when I realized that the age of the Earth is an authority issue.  Will I allow the presuppositions of men to inform my thinking?  Or will I strive to submit even my mind to God as the Great Commandment urges?

Furthermore, any brushing aside of Biblical presuppositions is a literal assault on the authority of Scripture.  I could no longer ignore the issue of the age of the Earth, it was definitely much ado about something.

Is Christianity a Science-Stopper?

The common narrative of scientific history is that science always had to battle against Christianity.  Just think of the names Galileo and Copernicus and the stories will come to mind; scientists being condemned by closed minds.  The terms “Dark Ages” and “The Enlightenment” were coined to picture this conflict.  When Christianity and faith ruled, we were all in the dark.  But now, having become enlightened, we can begin thinking rationally.  Just put “Happy Feet” at the top of your Netflix queue and you’ll get the picture.

I found this great article from Wintery Knight that explains that not only is Christianity not a science-stopper, science would not have come about without it.

I encourage that you read all of it, it’s truly well done, but if you do not have time, here are the points that I found the most significant.

• The standard view among historians of science is that the impact Christianity had on science was positive
• Science came about in one time period only; medieval Europe where the Christian worldview permeated the culture
• According to Rodney Stark, out of the 52 individuals who had an impact on the scientific revolution only two were skeptics and 60% of those theists were devout
• Not only this, but the article argues compellingly that science could only have come about in a culture dominated by the Christian worldview.
• Modern politicians and many in the media are using this old, erroneous interpretation of history to push a secular agenda of abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and to expel basically anything that could have the moniker of “faith-based” attached to it.

Which One Will Go First?

There is something I don’t get about New York’s new law, you know the law I’m talking about, where New York just legalized same-sex marriage.  The point of this post isn’t to express my position on same-sex marriage.  The point is to discuss something that I find much more concerning.

The language of the bill defines marriage as a “fundamental human right”, which is the driving force behind every argument I’ve heard in defense of SSM.  While I am opposed to the rationale behind being able to create new basic human rights, and define words like “marriage” to be whatever we want them to be, that also isn’t the point of this post.

Within the bill itself, there are protections for any “religious corporation”.  Such religious organizations “shall not be required to provide accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges related to the solemnization or celebration of a marriage.”  Do you see that? Religious organizations are being protected from being forced to acknowledge and participate in SSM.

Wait, let me get this straight.  SSM is a “fundamental human right” but some organizations do not have to recognize this right?  That is, religious organizations can violate a basic human right and this is lawful?  I just don’t get it.  It seems that you can’t rationally have it both ways; either SSM is a basic human right and everyone must fall in line with it, or it’s not and people don’t have to acknowledge it.

What concerns me is this question: Which one will fall first?  There is an obvious inconsistency in the logic behind defining SSM as a basic human right and allowing certain groups to violate this right.  Which one will be changed in the courts to make this logic sound; the definition of marriage or the protections for religious groups?  And when these “protections” are lifted, how will the acknowledgement of SSM as a “basic human right” be enforced?

Thinking Of Caylee Anthony

Many things happen after you become a parent.; you forget what sleeping in feels like, vomit and feces become common substances, you wonder what you did with your free time before.  Of course those are only a few.  Something strange, at least for me, happens as well.  Every TV show, movie, book or news story that involves a child being in danger takes on a different significance.  Where before these stories were just like any other, now I associate it with my son and immediately become emotionally invested.

It is Friday.  To me, Friday means getting to hang with my boy, read him stories and put him to bed.  It’s guys night.  However, this Friday, for obvious reasons, I can’t stop thinking of little Caylee Anthony.  I’m not much of a news junkie, but I’ve seen the same picture of her that all of America has.  She was about the same age and had the same cheeks as my son.

Then my thoughts turn to Casey Anthony.  I know people like her, people who will be damned if they let their children get in the way of their fun. But Casey took it several steps further and actually did something about it.  She didn’t report her missing little girl for 31 days . . . 31 days.  She lied to investigators, she hindered the investigation to find her daughter, to find who did it.  She invented a relationship with a nanny named “Zanny”.  She’s a proven, and convicted, liar.  She’s guilty, we all know it.

I wonder what Caylee Anthony’s last moments were like, if she was asking herself why her mother was suffocating her or burying her alive.  I hope Casey used the chloroform first.  The human justice system has failed Caylee, her murderous mother is walking out of jail, a free woman, in about ten days.  I wonder how I would feel if I believed that only the physical realm exists.  I would have to also believe that there was truly no justice for Caylee, that justice is merely an invention of the human mind.  A woman like Casey would get to merely cease to exist upon her death, just like her daughter did when she killed her.  I don’t know if I could swallow that.

Where Do I Go From Here?

I’ve been truly struggling lately.  It seems that the more real this seminary thing gets, the more daunting it becomes.  Not in the sense that becoming a seminary student will be difficult, but everything that comes with it.  I will be held to a higher standard by both men and God.  I’ll be scrutinized by everyone around me.  Even in the back of my head there will be the voice, “Giving up on the real world eh?”.

For some reason, where before I was proud to take a controversial stance, I’m now hesitant to do so.  Perhaps it is because I am linking this blog to my real name and posting it on Facebook.  There is no hiding behind a computer screen here.  Perhaps it is because I actually care what people think about me, though I’m loathe to admit it.  I would like to think it is also because I care about people.  Growing up and living in southern California, my “neighborhood” is so diverse that almost anything I say will offend someone I care about.

Not to mention all the new things I’ll be called to do, all the new responsibilities.  I must confess, I’ve been less than a true spiritual leader in my family.  What does trying to change that look like?  Just the other day I fell flat on my face in an attempt to be responsible for what goes on in my home; embarrassing my wife and making a fool out of myself in front of my friends.  The the voice comes out again, “What do you think you’re trying to do?  You can’t do this”.  The voice is right, I can’t.

Maybe that’s the problem, that I’m trying to do this.  I’m striving under my own power.  After all, isn’t it God who has done this?  Called me, pulled me out of what I wanted and set me on the path of what He wanted?  He’s opened every door toward seminary so far and has only a handful left to open before it is a reality.  Didn’t Jesus warn us that we would be hated as He was?  That we would share in His shame as He carried His own cross through Jerusalem to Golgotha?  Any controversial stance I take isn’t truly my stance, it is His.  At least that is what I should be striving for, to have God’s perspective, to think His thoughts after Him.

I must admit that I’ve felt alone lately.  Sure, I have friends whose calls are similar to mine.  But they’re busy, have their own lives, their own ministries which far outweigh the scope and responsibilities of mine.  Should I really bother them with complaints about how hard this is?  Well maybe . . . they would understand.  Perhaps I’ve isolated myself for no good reason and I should change that.   I guess I just don’t know how.

I also don’t know where I go from here.  Maybe that’s where I’m supposed to be, sitting, waiting for a direction, a sense of empowerment I do not now possess.  If that’s true, I sure as heck don’t like it.

Can The Elect Know They’re Saved?

I’ve been trolling a fellow Christian’s blog.  His name is Stan and he’s over at Winging It.  He’s been locked in my Google Reader for some time now and I truly enjoy his occasionally social, but mostly personal and theological, commentary on life as a Christian.  He is not afraid to tackle the taboo issues and cordially engages in discussions with anyone who disagrees or requests it of him.

His most recent post is one of those requests.  His purpose in the post was to explore whether or not Christians should question the salvation of others who claim the cause of Christ.  That will not be my purpose here.  I have a question for Stan, and anyone else would like to take a crack at it.  For full disclosure, Stan is of the Reformed persuasion and I am not.  I am truly indebted to the Reformation and all the folks that participated in it, Luther especially since he, you know, started it.  I also look forward to the day that I can study Calvin in depth.  This question is born out of my difficulty with Reformed theology and it’s something I’ve been mulling over in my mind for some time.  I honestly don’t know the answer to it.

Stan said something very interesting in his post, he pointed out that:

I know that there are people who think they are among the elect but are not

I do not doubt the truth of that statement.  I thought his wording was curious, he didn’t say, “there are people who think they know Jesus” or “there are people who think they have a relationship with Christ”, he tied in their self-delusion with “the elect”.  My question is: can the elect know they’re saved at all?  In Reformed theology, faith is a gift in the most literal sense of the term.  God gives us the faith to believe in Christ because we cannot possess it, it is Gods sovereign act of election that saves.  He chooses because you cannot.

Like Stan intimated, there are people who think they are saved, but aren’t.  So, if the question of whether or not I am saved is ultimately tied into the question of whether or not God elected me, can I ever be sure of my salvation?  I won’t know whether God elected me or didn’t elect me until I die, so can I have any sort of assurance on this Earth?

Response: Evidence for Creation

Two weeks ago, I demonstrated the difference between science and philosophical naturalism in order to be able to be rational and accurate about the types of beliefs we all hold to.  A discussion with a naturalist friend of mine ensued and he asked some great questions that I would like to respond to with a post because it will allow me to get two main points across.

1.  The common idea in academia of all levels is that evolution is the scientific view while creation, and even Intelligent Design, is the religious view.  I am here to show that both are rooted in religious thought.  “Religious” meaning unverifiable, unfalsifiable belief systems.

2.  One of the most common misconceptions in the creation vs. evolution debate is that there are two types of evidence owned by each camp; evolutionary evidence and creationist evidence.  This is untrue.  We are both looking at the same evidence and interpreting that evidence through different paradigms, different systems of thought.

Definition revisit:  Generally speaking, uniformitarianism is the belief that the presently observable physical laws and constants have always been the same and apply the same way everywhere in the universe.

In responding to my naturalist friend, Mike, I will generalize his position into two sections.

Where Is Your Evidence?

…what is your evidence of catastrophism that you feel trumps the scientific data?  What have the world’s scientific community been overlooking out of sheer stubbornness for 300 years (despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of them were people of faith)?  Where is your compelling spiritual, pro-supernatural data that predates naturalistic, anti-supernatural scientific record-keeping?

I’m very glad that you asked this question because the question itself displays what I’m talking about. When you ask me what evidence I have that “trumps the scientific data”, you are assuming that the scientific data points to uniformitarianism.  That’s entirely my point…it doesn’t at all!  Uniformitarianism is a starting assumption, a presupposition, not a conclusion that is borne out of brute evidence.  There is no such thing as brute facts, brute evidence, and the evidence, itself, doesn’t point to anything, much less uniformitarianism.  

The answer to your question is this:  I have the same evidence that you have.  What would we expect to find if there was global flood that covered the Earth in a matter of days and lasted for over a year? Billion and billions of fossils buried all over the Earth.  And guess what we find?  Even in the evolutionary framework, a fossil only occurs when an organism is buried quickly and without oxygen to break it down.  If a dead fish floats to the bottom of the ocean, or a lake, chances are slim that it will fossilize.  It will be eaten by scavengers or pounded into nothing by the currents and other elements.  The chances are even slimmer for a land animal. 

One of the main evolutionary explanations for the massive amounts of fossils we’ve been able to find is smaller, local floods that happened all over the Earth through out billions of years (notice the uniformitarian presupposition in full swing).  Creationism just says there was one big one.  The Karoo formation in Africa is a good example.  Billions of fossils found in the same area; insects, birds, mammals, and fish.  They weren’t fossilized where they died, or where they lived, they were fossilized where they were buried.  What mechanism could accomplish this?  A global flood could. 

We know, thanks to Mount St. Helens, that catastrophic events do indeed create geologic stratum that supposedly takes hundreds of millions of years to form.  Remember, in the flood, the water came up in unfathomable amounts out of the ground.  This would have caused millions of tons of sediment to be moved violently; similar to the explosion of Mount St. Helens. 

We also know that fossils can be formed very rapidly and, indeed, most of the time must be.  If fossilization takes millions of years, how do we explain the fossilization of soft tissue such as the fossilization of squid-like creatures?  A global flood which rapidly deposited massive amounts of sediment, rapidly buried, and rapidly fossilized the soft tissue of these “squids” sure could. 

We have fossils of footprints of animals all over the earth.  Footprints disappear with a strong wind, a mild rain and/or the trampling of other creatures. How does the evolutionist explain the existence of such fragile fossils found with in the record?  Surely he can’t appeal to the slow build up of sediment as the footprint wouldn’t have survived for the thousands of years it would have taken to be covered.  He must appeal to rapid burial.  Funny, that’s what creationists appeal to as well.

These are just a few examples of creationist explanations for supposedly “evolutionary” evidence.  You’ll notice that I gave a cursory treatment of each.  I did this in the interest of space and to show that it’s about the paradigm through which the evidence is interpreted, not the evidence itself.

Whither the supernatural-neutral evidence, then?  You can claim bias all you want, but you’re not demonstrating it.  What evidence has been right in everyone’s faces that we’ve rejected out of anti-supernatural bias?

Well later on you say, “…one has to make tremendous logical and mathematical leaps in the fields of geology, biology, thermodynamics, chemistry and several others just to make the state of present-day earth fit the young earth paradigm…”.  There is your anti-supernatural bias.  The supernatural doesn’t take place because the math must be reliable and consistent (read: uniform).  You are stating that the math must work without any “outside” (read: supernatural) interference . . . because it must. Your bias is the same as Hume’s; “If God exists He doesn’t interfere with His creation because if He did then science wouldn’t be reliable and science must be reliable because . . . well because it must be”.

Allow me to agree with you on one point.  The creationist must indeed “make the math fit” a young earth paradigm.  My point is that you are doing the exact same thing.  You are assuming uniformitarianism just so the math will fit an old earth paradigm.  You are doing this because you must presuppose it, the math has no where to go without it.

Uniformitarianism Is Falsifiable

The hundreds of thousands of tests done every year presuming uniformitarianism would, if it were wrong, easily falsify uniformitarianism.  Show me a rabbit in the precambrian.  Show me any material showing radioactive decay in conflict with everything else in its same geological strata.  Show me uniform evidence at the same geological strata of a global cataclysm.  Uniformitarianism may once have been a presupposition, but it has been repeatedly tested in falsifiable conditions literally billions of times, and each time it is supported.

I see what you’re saying and it is a good point, “Hey, it’s worked so far”.  But here is the problem; you haven’t actually falsified uniformitarianism.  You’re advocating a sort of ad hoc logical fallacy by saying, “We assumed uniformitarianism and it worked, therefore uniformitarianism has been shown to be true”.  Of course it worked, you presupposed it!  You are quite literally presupposing uniformitarianism so that the numbers will work out and then saying, “See!  The numbers work!”.

You are also petitioning for a special pleading regarding uniformitarianism.  You feel that you don’t have to have scientific evidence of uniformitarianism itself (since this is categorically impossible) in order for it to be scientific or true, while demanding evidence of catastrophism (which we have actually).

Uniformitarianism isn’t falsifiable because it is a belief about the unobservable, untestable past.  It is presupposed before every piece of evidence is collected, that evidence is interpreted through uniformitarianism, not evidence of it.  You must presuppose uniformitarianism for any piece of evidence to fit your paradigm, otherwise the evidence doesn’t do anything for you.  This is a categorical distinction, not an evidential one.

But this has practical application, let me show you.

Rabbit in the precambrian.  Fossilized Kangaroos under Israel.  Decoding the DNA strand and finding a US patent number.  Again, totally falsifiable.

I’m glad you made this point because it will allow me to clear up a common misconception.  I get your point, but this is a bit unfair.  Creationists don’t believe that God created every single species of household dog and common cat 6k-10k years ago and they’ve stayed stagnant ever since.  God created “kinds” and life has evolved with in those kinds every since.  In the Flood model, we would also not expect to find common household or even many currently observable species in the fossil record; life has changed so much since then.

You’re painting a picture of evolutionary academia that suggests that, given an unexpected result, they would be willing to throw up their hands and go, “Well, we were wrong all along!  Back to the drawing board!”.  This is not an accurate depiction of academia.  Your argument, if I can break it down, is this; “If we found something completely unexpected by the uniformitarian paradigm then we would know it’s not true”.  I’m glad that I get to show you that this has happened, and the paradigm has merely shifted.

The half-life of Carbon-14 is 5,730 years, which is relatively short, and it would mean, in the uniformitarian framework, that there should be no detectable amounts of carbon in any fossil older than 250,000 years.  So, when uniformitarian scientists started finding C-14 in fossils even hundreds of millions of years old, they began looking into the contamination of their methods and instruments (without any scientific evidence that this contamination took place).  Instead, what they found over the past 20 years, is that the C-14 is intrinsic in the fossils, even though it shouldn’t be there according to uniformitarian standards.  This is exactly like finding a rabbit in the pre-cambrian.  Instead of questioning the assumption, the scientists just shift the paradigm a bit, “There must be something going on that we don’t understand”.

Evolution is defined, in layman’s terms, as change yet it is able to explain both massive change, from amoebas to astronauts, over hundreds of millions of years, and zero change over hundreds of millions of years.  I’m not saying the silly, “If humans evolved from apes then why do apes still exist?” argument, I’m talking about a species of fish, the coelacanth, that is virtually unchanged for, supposedly, tens of millions of years.  And there are many more examples of this.  Evolution claims that change is always happening yet, in some cases, none has happened  How can evolution be falsified if it can explain both drastic change and no change over the same period of time?

Sea creatures are found thousands of feet above sea level, in the Himalayas and in the Grand Canyon.  This is definitely unexpected by uniformitarianism, and more easily explained by a global flood.  Again, evolution can explain sea fossils that exist in the depths of the geologic column and the heights of the Himalayas; it can adapt to anything!

Uniformitarianism tells us that the T-Rex is 65 million years old yet several years ago they discovered hemoglobin and other soft tissue proteins that inexplicably survived that long (or not that long as I would contend).  Instead of questioning the paradigm that led them to believe the age of the T-Rex fossil, the scientists assume the truth of the age (without evidence) and conclude they must be wrong about something else.  “I guess soft-tissue proteins CAN survive for 65 million years”.

The Cambrian explosion is a great example of why uniformitarianism is not falsifiable.  The paradigm before the discovery of the explosion was the change only happened slowly over hundreds of millions of years.  Once it was clear that the ancestors to the Cambrian fossils didn’t exist, the paradigm was shifted to account for change within one tenth of the time frame!  How can we falsify uniformitarianism if it can explain both slow and rapid change?

In Summary

The evidence that you and I are looking at is the same, we just interpret it through different paradigms.  Your paradigm, uniformitarianism, is just as much a religious system of thought as Christianity (although with a Book).  Just like Christianity, it is based upon unobservable, untestable, unfalsifiable and all-encompassing beliefs.

The Flood model works just as well as uniformitarianism when it is presupposed just as uniformitarianism is.  Uniformitarianism is categorically not falsifiable due to the nature of the belief (a presupposition) and is apparently not falsifiable when taking into account all the times a “rabbit in the pre-cambrian” has showed up; the paradigm is merely adapted to fit all comers.  I’m not saying that uniformitarianism has to have it all figured out to be right, nor that any of these examples prove it wrong, I’m saying that I cannot prove it wrong and therefore it is not scientific.