Are YEC's and literalists harmful to the faith?

[The Lorax]

What is odd about this to me is that the vast majority of Christians do not believe in a young Earth. A young Earth Christian is actually in the minority.

How do you know YEC's are in the minority? What statistics do you have to support this?

YECs are the majority, according to the most recent gallup poll, anyway. More Americans believe in creation than in evolution, and most creationists believe in a young Earth:

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/default.aspx?ci=27847

It is kind of intellectually dishonest to assume believing in an old Earth compromises your Christian beliefs.

Definitely.

[The Lorax]

Are YEC's and literalists harmful to the faith?

What is "the faith?" My faith? Your faith? It's undefined.

My personal faith is not harmed by YECs or literalists. Science strengthens my bond with Jesus. Pseudoscience doesn't interfere.

[undone]

Are YEC's and literalists harmful to the faith?

What is "the faith?" My faith? Your faith? It's undefined.

My personal faith is not harmed by YECs or literalists. Science strengthens my bond with Jesus. Pseudoscience doesn't interfere.

I almost want to defer your question to the one's who say it. However, I interpret it to mean, YEC's and literalists ruin the credibility of the rest of the bible's message and Christian mission. Their unwavering committment to a full literal translation of all the bible's text compromises our ability to reach lost people who otherwise might believe.

I've even heard it said that we will be held accountable for ignoring the evidence that is found in God's creation and as a result, those people who may have believed did not.

[The Lorax]

I interpret it to mean, YEC's and literalists ruin the credibility of the rest of the bible's message and Christian mission. Their unwavering committment to a full literal translation of all the bible's text compromises our ability to reach lost people who otherwise might believe.

I don't think they ruin anything other than their own credibility. Well, I guess the creation movement makes America look intellectually backwards to the rest of the developed world, but what does it matter what they think?

[undone]

I interpret it to mean, YEC's and literalists ruin the credibility of the rest of the bible's message and Christian mission. Their unwavering committment to a full literal translation of all the bible's text compromises our ability to reach lost people who otherwise might believe.

I don't think they ruin anything other than their own credibility. Well, I guess the creation movement makes America look intellectually backwards to the rest of the developed world, but what does it matter what they think?

I don't now where you guys live but down here in Texas, we catch part of the bible belt. My kids attend bible studies in the schools in which pastors are guest speakers. Teachers even run them. It would not be a difficult thing to make a pretty competitive fight of it, to teach creation as a science. Just the fight itself would do massive harm, regardless of whether it carried or not, and that is with a fairly sympathetic media.

I'm in the Lone Star State! I guess one just needs to look at what they tried in Kansas (it was Kansas, right?).

[Guest Biblicist]

Short answer, at 2am.

I think the opposite is true. Trying to meld together God's Word with man's view of how things happened is confusing. And just what the evolutions want, I might add.

Either you believe God's books of History as literal or you don't.

God is a God of order. God wishes us to have understanding. "For the Lord gives wisdom and from His mouth [bible] comes knowledge and unersanding." Proverbs 3:6

Satan is the King of Confusion. Considering that some have said beliefs in Evolution and OEC mixed with God's Word are confusing, then you must consider where that idea is coming from. Does Satan want us to clearly understand and rightly divide the Word of Truth?

"Did God really say?"

[WayneB]

Cobalt1959

God is all-powerful. He could snap His fingers and create anything in a instant

Then why did it take him 7 days? Why wasn't creation instantaneous?

Who says he is done?

[Guest Biblicist]

Cobalt1959

God is all-powerful. He could snap His fingers and create anything in a instant

Then why did it take him 7 days? Why wasn't creation instantaneous?

Formation of time 6 days you work and on the seventh you rest. He was giving us a day off, a day for worship of Him. Everything he did was for our benefit and his glory.

Exodus 23:12 "Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well, may be refreshed.

Exodus 31:15 & 17; 35:2

Leviticus 23:3

Deuteronomy 5:13 & 16:8

Ezekial 46:1

Luke 13:14

[The Lorax]

Short answer, at 2am.

I think the opposite is true. Trying to meld together God's Word with man's view of how things happened is confusing.

So it hurts the faith because it is confusing? We must have an easily confused faith, then.

In some ways I guess we do. There are a lot of people out there who don't like having to really think. Interpreting Genesis plainly is an easy way out, theologically.

And just what the evolutions want, I might add.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory. Care to explain?

[Guest Biblicist]

Short answer, at 2am.

I think the opposite is true. Trying to meld together God's Word with man's view of how things happened is confusing.

So it hurts the faith because it is confusing? We must have an easily confused faith, then.

In some ways I guess we do. There are a lot of people out there who don't like having to really think. Interpreting Genesis plainly is an easy way out.

And just what the evolutions want, I might add.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory. Care to explain?

If you read my entire post, you would understand what I meant by these statements. If you read the word of God you would understand that we are supposed to have the faith of a little child. If a little child's faith is confused by someone's complex answers to the Word of God then yes, it does hurt the faith.

Do you read secular history books this way? When you read about the Holocaust did you think maybe it was slanted or meant something other than what actually happened or did you take the information at face value? It amazes me that people take books written by man at face value and never quesiton their intpretation. Yet when it comes to the Word of God it's questioned left and right, even by those who claim to believe it's true. Who is the author of confusion? "Did God really say?"

Undone, honey, I gave you my answer. I really didn't want to get involved in this conversation, due to the already slanted feedback of the thread, and where it was posted. You have my thoughts. If people can't agree on how to interpret the Word of God, how can the agree on what it says? If they don't believe that it is infalable then why would they believe what it says at all? I get tired of people reading posts and taking sentences out of context to prove their point, just as they do with God's word.