Are YEC's and literalists harmful to the faith?

[undone]

Myco

All science and medicine must collapse because the laws that we have identified that govern the world no longer apply, and therefore, everything we know about our world is false.

Science and medicine will "collapse" - do you really believe this?

Why would I write it if I didn't?

This appears to be a very emotional and narrow-minded worldview (IMO). I think many members of the science community take a much more tolerant and certainly a much less extreme view than many on this board who feel threatened by "biblical literalists". I would offer the following (pro & con) article from the New York Times science page a few months ago as evidence of such tolerance. The reaction of many scientists to a "young earth creationist" who became a scientist appears to be more reasonable than the emotionalism exhibited by the above poster.

Read the article more carefully than you did. This is a guy who compartmentalized his beliefs--a hall mark of scientists who are immature Christians. His position is exactly what my position was at the same stage of his life. He says he is a YEC (I wasn't a YEC, but couldn't reconcile the bible with science, so I kept them separate), but then writes in a manner indistinguishable from the people you label as athesist and Darwininists, or whatever you call them. Rather than "separating the paradigms" he should be saying they are in confllict and try to sort them out. Instead, he punted. Seems to me he has a problem with honesty. Which position is true, the 65 MYO mosasaur or the 6000 YO earth? He's got thetools to decide.

Regarding the reaction of the scientific community

[undone]

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.

Thanks Biblicist.

Edit: I felt this needed to go in Apologetics for two main reasons- (1) To allow unbelievers the opportunity to comment on whether or not it would make a difference to them; (2) It is a topic of debate as far as I'm concerned.

NOTE: This thread is intended to debate whether or not YEC's and literalist are 'harmful' to the mission of the faith, not the merits of the YEC/literalist world-view.

[undone]

Myco

All science and medicine must collapse because the laws that we have identified that govern the world no longer apply, and therefore, everything we know about our world is false.

Science and medicine will "collapse" - do you really believe this?

Why would I write it if I didn't?

This appears to be a very emotional and narrow-minded worldview (IMO). I think many members of the science community take a much more tolerant and certainly a much less extreme view than many on this board who feel threatened by "biblical literalists". I would offer the following (pro & con) article from the New York Times science page a few months ago as evidence of such tolerance. The reaction of many scientists to a "young earth creationist" who became a scientist appears to be more reasonable than the emotionalism exhibited by the above poster.

Read the article more carefully than you did. This is a guy who compartmentalized his beliefs--a hall mark of scientists who are immature Christians. His position is exactly what my position was at the same stage of his life. He says he is a YEC (I wasn't a YEC, but couldn't reconcile the bible with science, so I kept them separate), but then writes in a manner indistinguishable from the people you label as athesist and Darwininists, or whatever you call them. Rather than "separating the paradigms" he should be saying they are in confllict and try to sort them out. Instead, he punted. Seems to me he has a problem with honesty. Which position is true, the 65 MYO mosasaur or the 6000 YO earth? He's got thetools to decide.

Regarding the reaction of the scientific community

[Guest Biblicist]

Short answer, at 2am.

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

That would be tre if the bible was written simply and exclusively as an hostorical narrative. Since we know this is not the case, we need to discrn what is poetic, and analogy, etc... I think the creation story falls under that. More importantly, with a few simple changes in interpretation, it would read like a pretty accurate description of how we came into being, general as it is.

OK Off topic, completely. However, what are the first five books of the Bible called??? The books of History. Can't get much more plain than that.

[Guest yod]

But I did not Say USA, did I? I said world. Planet Earth to be precise. I was not including Martians because I have no clue what they believe.

I think they all worship Ted on Mars...

[Guest Biblicist]

But I did not Say USA, did I? I said world. Planet Earth to be precise. I was not including Martians because I have no clue what they believe.

I think they all worship Ted on Mars...

I think there are many here who would agree with your statement.

[The Lorax]

Hr, can you link to some of those posts you were talking about, the ones which were ignored?

[Guest Biblicist]

Is it possible that arguing about it, rather than letting scripture speak for itself, is what is harmful to the faith, and our witness??

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning

[The Lorax]

I don't see how someone can misinterpret morning and evening, or beginning. Their definations are as clear as glass.]

Enter literary devices, which appear throughout the rest of the OT as well.

That Genesis should be read plainly is not a safe assumption. It runs counter to what much of the Bible and the rest of the universe tells us.

[MorningGlory]

So, is there any truth to the notion that YEC's and literalists are damaging to the faith?

I personally don't think so. My faith is what it is. I didn't become a Christian because of the Genesis or Old Testament stories. I am a Christian because I believe in Jesus Christ and what the New Testament says about him.

What about you? What do you think?

All of the arguing between OECs and YECs fails to produce anything but more argument. I don't think the positions taken by YECs are damaging to the faith at all. People will continue to believe what they believe regardless of the heated debate; ever hear of anyone who lost their faith because of this issue? How about a nonbeliever that went screaming into the night because of it? Neither have I.

I, personally, don't see a conflict between the Old Earth scenario (which is proven by the fossil record) and the Young earth proponent's insistence that the earth is only six thousand years old. We know that dinosaurs and the like vanished from the planet millions of years ago. Why is it assumed that there was only one creation? It's my belief that the earth has existed for eons, and went through many, many 'revisions' (homanids come to mind), before the Lord decided on his greatest creation, Man. This was the time of Creation, correctly recorded in Genesis at about 4,000 B.C. God isn't limited by time and space and yet we keep trying to make His actions conform to our reality. In engineer-speak, you have to 'think outside the box' and, honestly, you have to approach both sides of the argument with an open mind.