Difference between revisions of "Young Earth Creationism"

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* ''Creationists read the Bible literally, whereas parts, such as the creation account, are really metaphor.''
 
* ''Creationists read the Bible literally, whereas parts, such as the creation account, are really metaphor.''
 
: Creationists reject that they read all the Bible literally, and accept that there is metaphor an other non-literal passages in the Bible.  Instead, they read the Bible the way it was meant to be understood, which in the case of the creation account, is as literal history.  See [[#Biblical exegesis|Biblical exegesis]] above and [[Creation week]] for more.
 
: Creationists reject that they read all the Bible literally, and accept that there is metaphor an other non-literal passages in the Bible.  Instead, they read the Bible the way it was meant to be understood, which in the case of the creation account, is as literal history.  See [[#Biblical exegesis|Biblical exegesis]] above and [[Creation week]] for more.
* ''Evolution has scientific evidence, and creationism does not.''
+
* ''Evolution has scientific evidence, such as the fact that carbon dating has shown some rocks to be millions and some times billions of years old, and creationism does not.''
 
: Both creationists and evolutionists have the same evidence.  The difference is in how that evidence is interpreted.
 
: Both creationists and evolutionists have the same evidence.  The difference is in how that evidence is interpreted.
 
* ''Creation relies on faith, not evidence.''
 
* ''Creation relies on faith, not evidence.''

Revision as of 22:15, November 10, 2008

Michelangelo's painting of the creation of the Sun and Moon.

Young Earth Creationism, sometimes abbreviated YEC,[1] is a form of creationism which holds that the earth and the universe are approximately 6,000 years old.[2][3]

Young earth creationists hold that both creation and the evolutionary position are at root tied to worldviews, and because they are both claims about historical (or prehistorical) events, they depend on untestable assumptions. At the same time, young earth creation scientists argue that the young universe view is the explanation that best fits the evidence.

Most other scientists regard young earth creationism as being unscientific. Many do so because they believe that things such as radiometric dating and biological observations have disproved it, and/or for ideological reasons. In addition, these scientists may not be aware of the many anomalies associated with the old earth/universe position.

Beliefs

Biblical

Young Earth creationism generally takes the following positions regarding the biblical book of Genesis:

  • Creation took place over a period of six ordinary (solar/24-hour) days, with God then "resting" on the seventh day.
  • This creation, described in Genesis as "good" and "very good", was without flaw or defect.
  • All people are descended from the first couple, Adam and Eve.
  • Adam and Eve sinned, leading to their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
  • A global Noachian flood occurred, destroying all land-based, air-breathing life, except that on the Ark.
  • The dispersal of humanity was caused by God after the Tower of Babel. [4][5][6]

Scientific

Young earth creationism holds that the scientific evidence is unreasonably interpreted by evolutionists and atheists/naturalists as supporting their point of view, but that the same evidence can be reasonably interpreted by creationists to support the creationary point of view. This imposes a heavy burden on the testability of both theories, which is one of the reasons why some scientists question whether either the creationary or evolutionary view is scientific.

They further argue that the scientific evidence is more consistent with the creationary point of view than the evolutionary point of view.

Some specific arguments are as follows:

Biblical exegesis

Young earth creationism holds that the book of Genesis is historical in nature and that Bible exegesis warrants a six-day creation with each day being 24 hours.[14][15][16] Andrew Kulikovsky describes it as follows:

The hermeneutic employed by most YECs is best described as the historical-grammatical method in which historical narrative (such as the book of Genesis) is interpreted as literal history, prophecy is interpreted as prophecy, poetry is interpreted as poetry, etc. [17]
Historical-grammatical exegesis involves a systematic approach to analyzing in detail the historical situation, events and circumstances surrounding the text, and the semantics and syntactical relationships of the words which comprise the text.[18]

Age of the Universe and Earth - General Overview

Young earth creation scientists advance a number of reasons for the earth and universe being approximately 6,000 years old.[19][20][21][22][20][23] They argue that the evolutionary geological timescale is in error,[24][25][26] and that geology further provides multiple lines of evidence that the earth is young.[27][28][29][30] Rejecting the uniformitarian assumptions of secular geologists, they use a geological system that depends more on catastrophism[31] and point out that catastrophism is being increasingly accepted in the field of geology.[32][33]

Astronomy

The majestic spiral galaxy NGC 4414, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995.

The young earth creationism view is that the various astronomical bodies such as planets, stars, and galaxies were supernaturally created and that materialistic explanations of the the origins of various astronomical bodies are insufficient and counter evidence.[34] In addition, creationists often cite the secular scientific literature in order to make the case that materialist explanations of various astronomical bodies are inadequate:

...most every prediction by theorists about planetary formation has been wrong.[35]
Attempts to find a plausible naturalistic explanation of the origin of the Solar System began about 350 years ago but have not yet been quantitatively successful, making this one of the oldest unsolved problems in modern science.[36]
We don’t understand how a single star forms, yet we want to understand how 10 billion stars form.[37]
We cannot even show convincingly how galaxies, stars, planets, and life arose in the present universe.[38]

In 2001, Cristina Chiappini wrote regarding the Milky Way galaxy the following:

". . . it is an elegant structure that shows both order and complexity. . . . The end product is especially remarkable in the light of what is believed to be the starting point: nebulous blobs of gas. How the universe made the Milky Way from such simple beginnings is not altogether clear. - Cristina Chiappini, "The Formation and Evolution of the Milky Way," American Scientist (vol. 89, Nov./Dec. 2001), p. 506. [39]

Dr. Walt Brown provides numerous citations to the secular science literature that corroborate the failings of current old universe paradigm explanations in regards to the planets, stars, and galaxies.[40][41][42]

The Institute for Creation Research has a notable essay by David Coppedge entitled "Mature at Birth: Universe Discredits Evolution" which cites recent findings which challenge an old universe paradigm.[43] In addition, Henry Morris has an essay regarding the subject of the failings of the old universe paradigm entitled "What Astronomers Don't Know". [44]

Young earth creationist scientists also contest the Big Bang theory stating that it is scientifically unsound. [45] [46] [47] [48] [49]

Starlight and the Age of the Universe

For a more detailed treatment, see Starlight problem.

Anti-creationists often claim that starlight from millions of light years away demonstrates that the Biblical timescale of 6,000 years is in error, as insufficient time has passed for the light from distant stars to reach Earth. Creationists respond in part by pointing out that the popular Big Bang theory has its own star light-travel time problem (the horizon problem), citing the work of Dr. Charles W. Misner. [50]

Secondly, creationists have proposed a number of explanations for the objection, and although none are yet certain, they claim that it shows that the critics' claims that it cannot be explained is unfounded.

Setterfield's decay of the speed of light

One early explanation was that of creationist Barry Setterfield, who proposed that the speed of light was faster in the past.[51]. Critics objected to Setterfield's proposal, including on the grounds that the constancy of the speed of light is one of science's most fundamental laws.[52] Yet in 1999, John Webb, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues reported astronomical observations suggesting that the value of the fine-structure constant (which is related to the speed of light) may have changed (although the size of the change was much smaller than proposed by Setterfield). They subsequently published this in 2001 in Physical Review Letters.[53][52] However, other problems with the proposal has led most creationists to abandon the idea.[54]

Russell Humphreys' model

Creationary physicist Dr. Russell Humphreys proposed a model based on Einstein's law of relativity (as the Big Bang model is), but with a different starting assumption, a bounded universe. Humphreys' model proposes that God created the universe much smaller than it is now, then expanded it, quoting the Bible saying that God "stretched out the heavens". In such a scenario, time would pass at different rates on Earth and in outer parts of the universe, so that while 6,000 years went by on Earth, billions of years passed on the outer edge of the universe. This model is also based on the Genesis account recording the days of creation according to time on Earth, rather than elsewhere.

John Hartnett's model

Young earth creationist scientist Dr. John Hartnett proposes a model similar to Humphreys, wherein the Earth was trapped in a time-dilation field caused by extremely strong gravitation during the first few days of creation, from Earth's point of view, while billions of years passed for the rest of the universe. He attributes the field, it's removal and the continued balance in our solar system (after the field was removed) to divine intervention. [55] Whilst Humphreys' model has time dilation caused only by gravity (per Einstein's General Theory of Relativity), Hartnett's model also takes into account time dilation caused by motion (God's expansion of the universe) (per Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity).

Biology

According to young-Earth creationists, God separately created each kind of living thing, or baramin, to reproduce "after its kind". Living things had built into them a capacity for variation and adaptation, but within the limits of their kind. Genetically, in the case of sexually-reproducing species, much this is due to the information carried on each living thing's DNA being a subset of the parent's DNA, with the subset of information being selected for by the process known as natural selection (described by a creationist before Darwin wrote about it). Mutations also play a part in this variation, but only to the extent of destroying genetic information, not creating it.

Many of the ensuing variations have been classified by science as different species, but this speciation is not evolution, as it does not involve the generation of new genetic information and therefore could not have produced the evolutionary "family tree".

YECs believe that most of the world's living things were wiped out by the Great Flood, but that pairs of each kind that could not survive in a flood (i.e. air-breathing, land-dwelling creatures) survived the flood on Noah's Ark, and from the Flood survivors all modern species have descended.

Geology

YECs believe that most rocks were laid down in two main episodes. The first was in creation week, particularly when God caused the waters of the Earth to gather together into the sea and dry land to appear. The second was during Noah's Flood. The effects of a global watery catastrophe would have been enormous, with massive amounts of erosion and sedimentation. Further, many young-Earth creationists believe that there was a single supercontinent prior to the Flood, which broke up during the Flood. This would have further contributed to a massive reshaping of the Earth's surface.

Anthropology

For a more detailed treatment, see Biblical anthropology.

YECs believe that all intact evidence of civilisation is evidence of post-flood civilisation, as the Flood destroyed the pre-flood world. God confounded man's single language at the Tower of Babel, forcing different family groups to separate and spread around the world. Most of the people groups listed in the 'Table of Nations' in Genesis 10 , which contains a family tree of Noah's descendants, are identifiable from non-biblical records. People enduring a forced migration will find any shelter they can, and this would explain much of the evidence of "cavemen".

Contrasted with evolution

The young earth creationism view contrasts with evolution and other aspects of the old universe view in the following ways:

  • According to the chronogenealogies in the Bible, the age of the universe and Earth is approximately 6,000 years. The old universe view is that the universe started about 14,000 million years ago, and Earth was formed around 4,500 million years ago.
  • The creation account has everything being created over a period of six ordinary days, whereas the old universe view has things appearing over billions of years.
  • The order of creation is different. The creation account has the Earth before the sun, plants before the sun, and birds before land animals, among other differences. The old universe view is the opposite order for each of these.
  • The creation account records that death didn't exist prior to the Fall, whereas the evolutionary view is that death and suffering are part of the biological process and existed for billions of years of death prior to the appearance of man.
  • The creation account records various living things being separately created, whereas the evolutionary view has all living things being descended from the first living cell.

Responses to criticisms

Young Earth creationist responses to criticisms from atheistic evolutionists, theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, and others include the following:

  • The young Earth view is just one interpretation of the Bible.
The young Earth view is the clear intention of the authors of the Bible. See Creation week for more. Also, the young Earth view was the view of most of the church throughout most of its history. That has only changed in order to accommodate non-biblical views of history.
  • Creationists read the Bible literally, whereas parts, such as the creation account, are really metaphor.
Creationists reject that they read all the Bible literally, and accept that there is metaphor an other non-literal passages in the Bible. Instead, they read the Bible the way it was meant to be understood, which in the case of the creation account, is as literal history. See Biblical exegesis above and Creation week for more.
  • Evolution has scientific evidence, such as the fact that carbon dating has shown some rocks to be millions and some times billions of years old, and creationism does not.
Both creationists and evolutionists have the same evidence. The difference is in how that evidence is interpreted.
  • Creation relies on faith, not evidence.
Both creation and evolution are faith positions based on different worldviews. Evolutionists exclude God from consideration a priori, not because of the evidence.
  • If creation had scientific merit, why don't they publish their evidence in peer-reviewed scientific papers?
The scientific establishment won't allow creationists to publish. See Suppression of alternatives to evolution.
  • Creationists start with a preconception and try and fit the evidence to that. Evolutionists start with the evidence.
Both creationists and evolutionists have their worldview as a starting point. Evolutionists try and fit the evidence into their idea just as much as they accuse the creationists of doing.
  • Because they are based on the Bible, creationists are not willing to change their views. Evolutionists will change their views as new evidence is found.
Creationists start with the Bible as the foundation of their views, but beyond that are willing to change their views as new evidence is found. Evolutionists are willing to change the details of how evolution works, but are not prepared to change their basic view that evolution did occur.
  • Creationists are anti-science.
Many creationists are scientists and fully support science. They never reject science itself, and the criticism is bogus.

Arguments for a recent creation

For a more detailed treatment, see Arguments for a recent creation.

The arrows point to paraconformities at the Grand Canyon.

Many arguments for a recent creation have been put forward by creationary scientists, both scientific and theological arguments.

Scientific arguments include radiometric dating results that disagree with secular ages, other dating methods that do not fit with secular ages, and phenomenon showing events that occurred quickly.

There should be no 14C present in carbon supposedly older than 100,000 years, yet it has proved impossible to find any such carbon without 14C.

Dating methods don't have to be based on radioactivity. Measuring the amount of sodium in sea water, for example, and calculating how long it would take to reach those levels is another method. Yet calculations show that the amount of sodium could not have taken longer than 62 million years to accumulate, well short of the 3,000 million year supposed age of the oceans.

Polystrate fossils demonstrate that many layers of sedimentary rock that are normally supposed to take a long time to form can be formed quite quickly.

Adherents of Young Earth Creationism

Young Earth Creationism is a subset of Creationism most commonly found among members of the Abrahamic religions, especially Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (for details please see: Creationism). In regards to early Judaism and early Christianity, early Judaism supported young earth creationism and a majority of the early church fathers held the young earth creationist view.[56]

Organizations and publications

Organizations

Some of the more notable young earth creationist organizations include: Answers in Genesis (America and the United Kingdom), Creation Ministries International (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.A., and United Kingdom), Institute for Creation Research (U.S.A.), Creation Research Society (U.S.A.), and NorthWest Creation Network (Washington state, U.S.A.) which founded CreationWiki.

Magazines and newsletters

The Institute for Creation Research publishes a free monthly magazine, Acts & Facts, which includes news of the organization and articles.

Creation Ministries International publishes a 56-page colour magazine, Creation, with no paid advertising, which is distributed to 140 countries.[57]

Answers in Genesis, which previously distributed Creation, began their own magazine, Answers, in 2006. It contains advertising and its target audience is primarily American.[58]

Peer-reviewed journals

The Creation Research Society Quarterly is published quarterly by the Creation Research Society,[59] and the Journal of Creation is published three times a year by Creation Ministries International.[60]

Further Reading

External Links

Young earth creationism websites:

Articles focusing on arguments for a young earth:

Videos focusing on arguments for a young earth:

See also

Alternative views

References

  1. "YEC", can refer to Young Earth Creationist or Young Earth Creationism. "YECs" refers to Young Earth Creationists.
  2. Sarfati, 1999, Chapter 8, How old is the earth?.
  3. Sarfati, 1999, Chapter 7, Astronomy of Refuting Evolution.
  4. Is there any reference to the confusion of languages at Babel in early Mesopotamian literature? (ChristianAnswers.Net).
  5. Is there archaeological evidence of the Tower of Babel? (ChristianAnswers.Net).
  6. Jackson, Wayne, The Tower of Babel—Legend or History? December 17 1999 (Christian Courier).
  7. Evidences for God From Space—Laws of Science
  8. Thompson, Bert, So Long, Eternal Universe; Hello Beginning, Hello End!, 2001 (Apologetics Press)
  9. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/AstroPhysicalSciences14.html
  10. http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/21
  11. Creation Ministries International, Speciation: Questions and Answers
  12. Bible Scientific Foreknowledge
  13. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i1/medicine.asp
  14. Days of Creation (CreationWiki).
  15. Genesis Questions and Answers (Answers in Genesis).
  16. Niessen, Richard, Theistic Evolution and the Day-Age Theory Impact 81, March 1980.
  17. Kulikovsky, Andrew S., Fostering fallacy Journal of Creation 16(2) 2002, p.31-36.
  18. Kulikovsky, Andrew S., The Bible and hermeneutics Journal of Creation 19(3):14–20, December 2005, p.14-20.
  19. ‘Young’ age of the Earth & Universe Q&A (Answers in Genesis).
  20. 20.0 20.1 Astronomy and Astrophysics Questions and Answers (Answers in Genesis).
  21. ‘Young’ age of the Earth & Universe Q&A (Creation Ministries International).
  22. Radiometric Dating Questions and Answers (Answers in Genesis)
  23. http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/young.asp
  24. Woodmorappe, John, The Geologic Column: Does It Exist? Journal of Creation 13(2):77–82, 1999
  25. Morris, Henry, Geology and the Flood Impact 6, August 1973
  26. Geologic Time Scale - The Misconceptions (All About Creation)
  27. Geology Questions and Answers (Answers in Genesis)
  28. Geology (Creation.org)
  29. Geology Links (Northwest Creation Network)
  30. Baumgardner, John, Genesis Flood 28 July 2003.
  31. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/ee/geologic-record
  32. http://www.grisda.org/origins/12061.htm
  33. http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=print&ID=84
  34. Brown, 1991, Astronomical and Physical Sciences; Sarfati, 1999, Chapter 7.
  35. Scott Tremaine, as quoted by Richard A. Kerr, “Jupiters Like Our Own Await Planet Hunters,” Science, Vol. 295, 25 January 2002, p. 605, quoted by Brown, 2001, notes for chapter 43.
  36. Stephen G. Brush, A History of Modern Planetary Physics, Vol. 3 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 91, quoted by Brown, 2001, notes for chapter 43).
  37. Carlos Frenk, as quoted by Robert Irion, “Surveys Scour the Cosmic Deep,” Science, Vol. 303, 19 March 2004, p. 1750, quoted by Brown, 1991, Notes for chapter 61
  38. Michael Rowan-Robinson, “Review of the Accidental Universe,” New Scientist, Vol. 97, 20 January 1983, p. 186, quoted by Brown, 1991, Notes for chapter 62.
  39. http://www.icr.org/article/547/
  40. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes43.html
  41. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes60.html#wp1142334
  42. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes61.html#wp1212721
  43. http://www.icr.org/article/2946/
  44. http://www.icr.org/article/547/
  45. Thompson, Bert, Harrub, Brad, and May, Branyon The Big Bang Theory—A Scientific Critique Apologetics Press, May 2003 - 23[5]:32-34,36-47.
  46. Brown, Walt, 2001, Big Bang?
  47. http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/309
  48. http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2047
  49. http://www.icr.org/article/343/
  50. Lisle, Jason, Light-travel time: a problem for the big bang, Creation 25(4):48–49, September 2003.
  51. Wieland, Carl, Speed of light slowing down after all?, Journal of Creation 16(3):7–10, December 2002.
  52. 52.0 52.1 Sarfati, Jonathan, Have fundamental constants changed, and what would it prove?, 22nd August, 2001.
  53. http://www.nature.com/physics/highlights/6849-3.html#ref1
  54. For example, CMI and AiG say that this is an idea that should not be used.
  55. Hartnett, John G., A new cosmology: solution to the starlight travel time problem Journal of Creation 17(2):98–102, August 2003.
  56. http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3871/97
  57. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am
  58. http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq.html
  59. http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3873/98
  60. http://www.icr.org/store/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&products_id=2176
  61. http://www.grisda.org/origins/05105.htm
  62. http://www.wysong.net/page/WOTTPWS/PROD/EDUAIDS/ED022-S
  63. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/darwin.html
  64. http://www.ldolphin.org/chance.html
  65. http://store.apologeticsgroup.com/product_info.php?products_id=191