YEC without the bible, possible?

No, not an ad hominem. You presented them as experts in the scientific evidence, whereas in truth they are not qualified to be experts. Or as Steven Schimmrich{*}, a conservative Christian and believer in creation, had once put it (I've emboldened the pertinent point to your cry of "ad hominem"):

quote:

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I've read many of the materials written by young-earth creationists such as Steve Austin, Thomas Barnes, Carl Baugh, Duane Gish, Ken Ham, Henry Morris, John Morris, Gary Parker, and Harold Slusher among others. I'm also very familiar with the material put out by Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society. In addition, I've even attended lectures and seminars by several well-known young-earth creationists.

​

In general, I've been dismayed by the lack of scholarship, research, and ethics displayed by these men who claim to be devout Christians. They totally misrepresent mainstream science and scientists, ignore evidence contrary to their claims, and display an amazing ignorance of even the most basic fundamentals of science and scientific inquiry. Their materials are aimed toward laypeople who are in no position to evaluate their claims. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but who is better qualified to judge the accuracy of K-Ar dating, an evangelist who reads creationist literature and has never taken a physics or geology course in his life or a Ph.D. in isotope geochemistry (who may also be a devout Christian) who has spent 25 years studying K-Ar dating in granites?

​

(from "What is a Creationist?", no longer on the web, downloaded 28 June 2001)

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Creationist writers present themselves as experts, even though they are not. For example, Kent Hovind repeatedly boasted to his audiences that he was an expert in math and science, based solely on his first two years in college, after which he switched to religious studies and religious education, on his having taught math and science for 15 years at the private Christian high school that he ran; those poor kids! The extent of most of their "research" is to simply repeat other creationists' claims, which in turn had been "researched" from earlier creationists. And most of the time, they don't even cite the creationist they got it from, but rather the original source that their actual source had also falsely cited.You need to start researching those claims that you found so convincing. But the truth is that that is exactly what creationists routinely claim through their "two-model approach", which is a classic false dichotomy (while you're crying "Fallacy!", you might want to research that one). Instead of ever finding or presenting any evidence for creation, they only attack their misrepresentation of evolution and of the evidence for an old earth, explicitly claiming that does indeed prove "the creation model", which does indeed explicitly include a young earth.But thank you for recognizing their "two model approach" for the false and deceptive fallacy that it is. Too bad you didn't recognize that earlier. Yes, "each presenting valid arguments". The problem is that creationists do not present valid arguments. There's a lot of history behind this, but a basic reason for their approach is that they have no evidence to support their position.Yes, they keep claiming that they have mountains of evidence, yet they refuse to ever present any of it. When I went to a debate with a creationist friend, one which featured the really big guns of "creation science" (ICR's Duane Gish and Henry Morris, who had literally written the book), and as we were leaving, my friend was in shock, muttering over and over again: "We have all that evidence. Why didn't they use it? They could have blown those evolutionists with that evidence. Why didn't they? We have all that evidence ... ."I started studying "creation science" in 1981, started discussing it around 1984, and carried the discussion on-line around 1987. All that time on-line, I have repeatedly asked creationists to please present some of their evidence for creation. Would you like to guess how much evidence has been presented in response? Absolutely none whatsoever. All they ever come back with are false claims against evolution and science and they insisted that that is evidence for creation. Remember the fallacy, "The False Dichotomy" (AKA "False Dilemma")? Read up on that one and then re-read some of your creationist books critically. Oh, and I'm not the only one to ask for creationists' evidence and get nada; I've seen a lot of others on-line making the same attempts in vain. I even started a topic on this forum specifically asking for that evidence and the creationists here provided ... you guessed it, none! What evidence? Just what is the evidence for creation?And, as the others suggested, why don't you present -- in a new topic, of course -- some of the most convincing evidence you have for a young earth. It will prove to be a very valuable object lesson for you to research and verify creationist claims.

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{* Footnote:
Steven Schimmrich introduced himself as:

quote:

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I am an evangelical Christian and a creationist. I am also a Ph.D. candidate in geology, believe that the earth is approximately 4,600,000,000 years old, and have taught evolution in historical geology courses.

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In the 1980's and 1990's, he was very active on-line in strong opposition to "creation science" (AKA "scientific creationism", a politically-motivated deception). After completing his doctorate, he moved on in his life to pursue a career and to raise his family.If you Google on his name, you should still find a lot about and by him. I used to mirror some of his pages, but even those are off-line now that my provider has gotten out of the web hosting business.}Edited by dwise1, : Had forgotten to add the footnote

Unitarian Universalist, of the atheist stripe.Back in the 1950's, I had attended a mainstream Protestant church (can't even remember what denomination it was and that church is long gone) with our neighbors and around the age of 11 I was baptized. At that point I decided to get serious and learn exactly what I was supposed to believe, so I started reading the Bible. I found it so incredible that I came to realize that, since I couldn't believe what I was reading, I could not be a Christian. So I left, because of nave biblical literalism. Right choice, despite its having been for the wrong reasons.It wasn't the usual deconversion. Normally, becoming an ex-Christian is a very painful process triggered by betrayal by one's religious leaders or by discovering that they had been lying to you, or as a form of adolescent self-deception motivated by a desire to indulge one's rampaging hormones without guilt (one creationist activist who claims that he used to be an atheist explicitly gave this as the reason for his "atheism"; however, he also admitted that during his "atheism" he prayed to God every night -- yeah, he lied about a lot of other things too). But in my case, I just accepted that I didn't qualify and that was that. I felt no anger and begrudged no one their faith nor have I ever done so. As stereotypical as it may sound, a lot of my friends have been and are fundamentalists and, using a McCarthy-ism, during college I had been a fundamentalist fellow traveller, during which I learned a lot of what they believed. The only problem I have with Christians is when they try to force their beliefs on others through the government or through aggressive personal proselytizing. And when they refuse to be truthful and honest, which, thanks to "creation science", they all too often are not.During high school, I started learning more about the church's history and became glad about my decision. Around the time I graduated from high school (class of '69), the "Jesus Freak" movement -- hippies started turning on to Jesus and converting to fundamentalism -- was in full swing and a local small fundamentalist church, Calvary Chapel, was on the path to becoming a mega-church. A number of friends converted and I became a "fellow traveller", though I remained highly skeptical and never converted. If anything, what I learned about their beliefs went very far in innoculating me against conversion. I went on to learn about other religions as well, which served as booster shots.Then later, around 1991, I discovered that I had been a Unitarian all that time, somewhat the same experience that a lot of other Unitarians have had.It was during the start of my fundamentalist fellow-travellership (c. 1970) that I first heard about creation science, but from the fundamentalists associated with Calvary and from Chick Publication's "Big Daddy" -- used to read those tracts for fun and to give my eyes regular rolling exercises. What I remember are claims of scientific evidence for a young earth and the story of the living mussel carbon-dated at 2000 yrs of age (with no references, of course, though I did find the original article in the late 80's and found that it had been misrepresented by the creationists, as usual). There was also the infamous story of the NASA program that ran lunar positions back through time, only to stop abruptly at 4004 BC with the error message, "There was nothing before this date." Then when they restarted the program and ran it back to the present, they found a day to be missing. The only explanation for the missing day was the passage in Joshua (?), in which the sun was commanded to stand still. Even then, I knew that the story grossly contradicted the functionality and capabilities of computers and so was impossible. It surprised me when, in the late-80's age of increased computer literacy, the story resurfaced again.So, since the first creationist claims I encountered were obviously bogus, I just dismissed creationism out of hand and thought no more of it until about 1980. I was stationed in North Dakota at the time and a debate was staged at the local university -- the seventies was when the ICR and other creationist organizations had travelling road shows staging such debates. I had duty that evening and so could not attend, but it got me thinking that, gee, it's still around so maybe there is something to it after all. I was curious to see if there was anything to their claims, i.e. what their evidence is. I very quickly discovered their evidence to be non-existent, a discovery that has been repeatedly and consistently verified during the subsequent 29 years.I'll share the first time I saw creationists in action one night in 1982 on CBN (Pat Robertson's "Christian Broadcasting Network" which he later renamed to "The Family Channel" after which I lost track of it). A Tennessean host would run various debates (I believe it was David Ankerberg). This particular night, a creationist was debating a scientist (kind of looked like Drs. Morris and Awbrey, though I cannot be sure since I didn't know of either of them at the time). I remember that the scientist showed several slides of hominid fossils, such as knee joints (to show evidence of developing bi-pedalism). Then he showed slides of a human pelvis and chimpanzee pelvis side-by-side. First from the side, then from the top, he pointed out two sets of characteristics that clearly distinguish the one from the other (i.e. whether viewed from the side or from the top, the pelvis could be positively identified as human or chimpanzee). Next he showed both views of a hominid pelvis. From one view it was definitely ape, from the other it was definitely human; thus demonstrating it to be a intermediate form. The creationist then proclaimed the hominid pelvis to be 100% ape and not the least bit human by completely ignoring the human characteristic (even when reminded of it repeatedly by his opponent) and concentrating solely on the view that displayed the ape characteristic. Of course, the host declared this to be a creationist victory and threw in the standard gross misinterpretation of punctuated equilibrium for good [?] measure.That event made a lasting impression on me. The creationist's steadfast ignoring of the blatantly obvious evidence that was repeatedly pointed out to him is a selective blindness that I have found to pervade much of the creationist literature. And my subsequent dealings with creationists have all demonstrated to me again and again that I most certainly did make the right decision 55 years ago.I'll address the rest of your post later today.

I considered it not the usual deconversion because it was a very simple and peaceful parting-of-ways. Most stories that I have heard and read had the individual going through a lot of emotional turmoil during the process.Also, most of the stories I've heard and read involved feeling betrayed and/or lied to by the religion and/or by the religious leaders. But then I've not conducted a survey as you had, but rather it was an informal sampling from two sources, a radio broadcast by a local atheist organization (no longer on the air) and a freethought magazine.Out of curiosity, where did "creation science" rank on your list? Though perhaps it's more effective at keeping people from ever considering converting to Christianity. As a motivator to deconvert from Christianity, it would probably show up as "having been lied to". I know of some elementary school children who were taught "creation science" and as a result became atheists, just as the creationist materials had taught them to do (Ray Baird's class in Livermore, Calif, 1981).

quote:

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Evolution, contrary to the usual claims of fundie whackjobs, was right at the bottom.

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But that doesn't seem at all correct. Creationists put so much effort into indoctrinating themselves and their followers to believe that if evolution is right (or even an old earth), then the Bible is completely false and God doesn't exist. It's surprising that that booby trap hasn't claimed more of them.Edited by dwise1, : added Livermore

A quick history of "creation science", if I may. In part to support my comments and in part for Minority Report's edification.In the wake of World War I and with a sharp increase in high school enrollment, parents became increasingly alarmed at their children being taught evolution. The anti-evolution movement that developed was able to get evolution removed from the public schools through pressure applied to local school boards and to textbook publishers and through the infamous "Monkey Laws". The 1925 Scopes Trial was an attempt by the ACLU to challenge the constitutionality of the Tennessee "monkey law", but they failed to get it to the US Supreme Court when the Supreme Court of Tennessee overturned Scopes' conviction on a technicality (the jury should have determined the fine, not the judge); the next challenge wouldn't be until 1968 in Arkansas. However, the anti-evolution movement suffered such a public black eye, plus their leader, William Jennings Bryan, died; from Scopes Trial - Wikipedia:

quote:

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Edwards (2000) contradicts the conventional view that in the wake of the Scopes trial a humiliated fundamentalism retreated into the political and cultural background, a viewpoint evidenced in the movie "Inherit the Wind" and the majority of contemporary historical accounts. Rather, the cause of fundamentalism's retreat was the death of its leader, Bryan. Most fundamentalists saw the trial as a victory and not a defeat, but Bryan's death soon after created a leadership void that no other fundamentalist leader could fill. Bryan, unlike the other leaders, brought name recognition, respectability, and the ability to forge a broad-based coalition of fundamentalist and mainline religious groups to argue for the antievolutionist position

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The anti-evolution movement faded from sight, but they remained active on the local levels, maintaining pressure on school boards and textbook publishers and enjoying the protection of their "monkey laws." Though while evolution had been driven out of the high schools, it was still taught in the universities and practiced by scientists. But then there came Sputnik and we were in a race to close the "missile gap", which caused a drive to improve science and math education; from History of creationism - Wikipedia:

quote:

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The American shock and panic about the Sputnik launch in 1957 lead to the passage of the National Defense Education Act in 1958 to reform American science curricula. This resulted in the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, also begun in 1958 and with the goal of writing new up-to-date biology textbooks. These new biology textbooks included a discussion of the theory of evolution. Within a few years, half of American schools were using the new BSCS biology textbooks. In addition, the hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species was in 1959, and this sparked renewed public interest in evolutionary biology. The creationist fervor of the past seemed like ancient history. A historian at Oklahoma's Northeastern State University, R. Halliburton, even made a prediction in 1964 that "a renaissance of the [creationist] movement is most unlikely".

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When Arkansas schools adopted the BSCS biology textbook, the teachers found themselves in a dilemma: if they used the book then they'd be in violation of Arkansas' "monkey law" and be stripped of their teaching credentials for life (as I recall the penalty to be), but if they refused to use the book they'd be fired; either way they would lose. Susan Epperson sued the state and the US Supreme Court's decision on Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) struck down the "monkey laws" and also made the anti-evolutionists' standard methods of pressuring the schools and publishers ineffective, since religious reasons for barring the teaching of evolution was no longer allowed.So the anti-evolutionists had to change their tactics. Now instead of admitting their religious reasons for opposing evolution, they claimed that they had "purely scientific" objections which they termed "creation science" or "scientific creationism". They claimed to have "pure scientific" evidence ("nothing religious about it") for creation and they proposed a "two model approach" and made various demands of the schools; eg: stop teaching evolution; "balanced treatment", AKA "equal time", by including their "creation model"; include the "negative evidences" against evolution. Mind you, since "creation science" employs nothing more than "negative evidences" against evolution and related sciences, then the last two demads are actually identical.So you see, it started as a purely political trick, a deception to circumvent Epperson v. Arkansas. But then it also started getting used as an apologetic to ease followers' doubts and as a proselytizing tool. And although it started as a purely American ploy, the creationists started exporting it to bible-literalist communities in other countries, such as Australia (that's where Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis are from).Where did that initial batch of "scientific evidences" come from? Practically since the start of modern science, people have been trying to use science to explain the miracles of their religion. Their motives and goals varied, but some of them saw science as the enemy of their faith and viewed their efforts as attempting to defend their faith; "creation science" is often portrayed in that "God vs Science" vein. Between 1906 and 1923, George McCready Price developed "flood geology", laying down most of the geology arguments that creationists still use -- and he was just one of many creationist writers in the 20's. Indeed, it's amazing how many creationist arguments still being used came from the 1920's. Creationists continued their work up to the 60's, but largely ignored outside their own community.In 1961, Morris and Whitcomb wrote "The Genesis Flood" and in 1963 teamed with 9 other creationist to form the Creation Research Society, which produced more claims. Then in post-Epperson 1970, Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research, which became the principal creationist organization through the 70's and 80's and the principal producer of "balanced treatment" educational materials for public schools, as well as the principal architects of "scientific creationism" and the "two model approach" and the politics of pressuring for "balanced treatment". They had inherited a lot of material from the previous decades, but all that material was heavily religious. So to turn them into "public school editions", they made superficial changes; ie, removed Bible verses, removed overly explicit religious references, and tried to hide God with vague references to "the Creator" and the like. One of the greatest differences between science and "creation science" -- besides science being based on evidence and YECism not -- is that science is an endeavor to discover how the universe works, whereas "creation science" just tries to convince people. Of what? That science is wrong. Why work so hard at trying to convince people (including themselves) that science is wrong? Ah, that is the real question, isn't it?I didn't really realize that they're only concerned with convincing people until a discussion long ago in another forum. A creationist tried to use the sea-salt claim and we explained to him fully why it's wrong. The funny thing, though, was that, even though he was a strict YEC who believed that the earth could be no older than 10,000 years, here he was arguing that the earth was several millions of years old. I pointed that contradiction out to him and it didn't bother him a bit. He was perfectly happy with an earth that was several millions of years old, "just so long as it's not BILLIONS of years old like science says!".That's when I finally got it! They're not trying to prove creation, but rather they just want to prove science to be wrong. About anything. That's why they'll even make claims that have absolutely nothing to do with evolution or the age of the earth (eg, to role of refrigerants in depleting the ozone layer); from a strict creation/evolution perspective, that just doesn't make any sense at all, but from the perspective of proving science to be wrong it does make sense. And they don't even have to actually prove science wrong, just so long as they can cast enough doubt.Why do that? Well, if science is seen as threatening your faith, then destroy science. OK, not all of science; even the staunchest creationist loves his flush toilet too much. Just disable the parts that you think are a threat. And if you can't do that, then poke holes somewhere else just so you can reach the conclusion that those threatening parts could also be wrong, thus allowing you to pick and choose those parts of science that you want to accept, just as you do with the Bible.The other reason is that being able to cast doubt on science helps your efforts to get evolution out of the schools. That's right, they don't really want to get creationism into the schools; they just want to get evolution taken out. In the Arkansas "balanced-treatment" law, it only required the teaching of "the creation model" if evolution was being taught; if evolution wasn't being taught, then teaching "creation science" was not required.They don't understand that science creates a comprehensive world view that has to all hang together. You can't just yank out parts of it that you don't like without tearing the whole thing apart.And, of course, another reason for proving science wrong is so that their theology is based on the false belief that evolution has to be wrong and the earth has to young or else the Bible is completely false and God doesn't exist. And they must do everything and anything they can to keep that from happening.From another discussion on that other forum, I constructed the following table that compares scientists and creationists and how they work and are motivated (Help, Mod! How to I prevent that huge gap before a table?):

Science / Scientists ...	Creation Science / Creationists ...
What they are trying to do:
1a. The scientist is either trying to make a new discovery or to test or find corroborating evidence for a previous discovery, hypothesis, or theory.	1b. A creationist is normally not trying to make a new discovery, nor to test or find corroborating evidence for a previous claim. As rustyb puts so succintly in his signature, "I already know the Truth." There's little use in trying to discover something new about the "Truth" that you already know a priori, nor is there any use in testing it (which would probably be sacrilegious anyway), nor to try to add to its Completeness. Rather, what a creationist is normally trying to do is to come up with convincing claims and arguments against anything that appears to contradict "the Truth" that they already know. ​
How they measure success:
2a. The success of the scientist's efforts depends directly on the quality of his research and on the validity of the studies that he bases his research on. Therefore, a scientist is motivated to verify his sources and to maintain high standards of scholarship.	2b. It doesn't matter whether that creationist had done a proper job of researching the claim, or had even researched it at all (though it does help to make it more convincing if there's something in the bibliography, even if that source had never actually been looked at -- remember that NASA document?). It doesn't matter if the claim or argument is valid, just that it sounds convincing; after all, the creationist already "knows" that it must be true.
Scholarship
3a. Since scientists depend so much on the validity and quality of the work of other scientists, the scientific community is motivated to police itself against shoddy or falacious research.	3b. When you research some other creationist's claim, you're not depending on that claim being true or valid; you're only depending on that claim sounding convincing.
How they handle dishonesty:
4a. Thus, a scientist who is discovered to be performing substandard or dishonest work loses his credibility and his standing in the scientific community.	4b. And if a claim is discovered to be false or a creationist is discovered to practice questionable methods, none of that matters, just so long as they still sound convincing. A creationist is far more likely to face censure for theological lapses than for shoddy or questionable scholarship.
ditto
5a.	5b. Of course, if a claim starts drawing too much negative publicity, then it is no longer convincing and must be dropped, as quietly as possible, until everybody has forgotten about it, whereupon it can be resurrected and received as a "new" claim.
How they handle mistakes:
6a. Mistakes and hoaxes will still happen in science, but the near-constant scrutiny and testing will uncover them.	6b. Mistakes and hoaxes will also happen in creation science, but in this case there is no mechanism in place to uncover them; indeed, there is much resistence to uncovering creationist mistakes and hoaxes.

Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

That Scott Todd reference was a quote-mining job. Somebody tried springing it on me 7 years ago, so I read the original source (Are you listening, Minority Report? That's a practice that you need to adopt.). Here's from the email where I passed that info on to somebody else:

quote:

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In the "Kurt Wise" thread at 4/29/2002 9:03 PM, EdenNod sent:
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I found this and wondered if Dawkins would apply the same standard to a
fellow megaevo from Kansas as he did to Kurt. Read Scott Todd’s rejection of
a designer regardless of the evidence.

​

http://www.answersingenesis.org/...rea/tools/quotes/todd.asp

​

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​

Taking that link, I found this at the Answers in Genesis (AiG) site:

​

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​

Dr Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University:

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‘Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is
excluded from science because it is not naturalistic’

​

Todd, S.C., correspondence to Nature 410(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999.

​

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​

Then I did something that no creationist ever seems to think of doing: I went
to the primary source.

​

Dr. Todd's letter to the editor was regarding the then-recent events in
Kansas regarding the teaching of evolution. He told of having witnessed a
debate in which neither side understood what the other side was saying.
After examining and comparing where the two sides agreed and differed, he
concluded:

​

"The lesson to be learned from the events in Kansas is that science educators
everywhere must do a better job of teaching evolution. It must be made clear
that the evidence supporting the mechanism of evolution is empirical and
proven, but that speciation and natural history are derived from the
admittedly weaker evidence of observation. The fact that one cannot
reproduce the experiment does not diminish the validity of macro-evolution,
but the observed phenomena supporting the theory must be presented more
clearly.
"Additionally, one must question the interpretation of the observed phenomena
and discuss the weaknesses of the model. Honest scientists are far more
inspiring than defensive ones who scoff arrogantly at the masses and fear
that discussing the problems of macro-evolutionary theory will weaken general
acceptance of it. On the contrary, free debate is more likely to encourage
the curious to seek solutions. Most important, it should be made clear in
the classroom that science, including evolution, has not disproved God's
existence because it cannot be allowed to consider it (presumably).
"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is
excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. Of course the
scientist, as an individual, is free to embrace a reality that transcends
naturalism."

​

You can see how AiG had misquoted Dr. Todd by lifting him out of context.

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Now, I wonder what Lewontin had actually said.

I do not define "myth" as "false". I tend to follow the definition as I imperfectly understand Joseph Campbell (aye, laddie, ye actually heard a member of Clan Donald accepting the word of a member of Clan Campbell, that den of treachery against Scots): the role of myth is to explore our most fundamental questions of who we are and how we are related to the world around us (I did mention "imperfect", didn't I?)The first chapters of Genesis do just that. Now the question is whether those first chapters would need to be literally true. Because if they had to be literally true, then they couldn't really contain the greater truth that being myth would require of them.As an example, let's consider a modern myth: where babies come from. When parents try to describe this to their small children, how scientifically accurate are those descriptions? And how much sense would a scientific explanation make to a small child? Instead, we have storks and cabbage patches and who knows what else. But the true myth (yes, myths are very true, just so long as you don't insist that they be taken literally) of where babies come from is this: "Your mommy and I loved each other so much, that we needed somebody else to share our love with, so we made you."That is basically saying what Genesis says. So why can't Genesis be read as a proper myth (which it is) instead of being forced to be taken literally?Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

First, I need to inform you that bare links are not ever acceptable. If you want to use another site to support your claims, you need to actually state that claim on your own.However, Coyote has started a thread based on your bare link. As we demolish each and every one of those PRATTs, we fully expect you to be right there supporting each and every one of those claims. If you refuse to do so, then that is a tacit admission on your part that you were lying through your teeth. Are any of your claims sincere? If so, then defend them. If not, then we do know where you're coming from!

Let's try to get you back on track here. You claimed to have studied books that presented you with evidence which decided to for YEC. We repeatedly requested that evidence -- ie, the evidence that made you decide for YEC. In response to those requests, you gave us that gawd-awful list of "101 Evidences" (here's a hint: no normal person would ever use the term "evidences"; only a creationist would, because that is fundamentalist apologetics terminology). By doing so, you were telling us that that list was the evidence that you were referring to.If that was indeed the evidence you were referring to, then they were lying to you; you had been deceived into accepting YEC beliefs.But if that was not the evidence that you were referring to, then you have lied to us. Why would you do such a thing?So which was it?Ever read the Bible? I'm sure that you've been preached to about what the Bible is supposed to say, but have you ever actually read it?

quote:

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1 Thessalonians 5:21:
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

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Have you proven those YEC claims? Hmm? Let me tell you that we have. For decades we have. They're a load of crap. Is that what you are basing your faith on? A load of crap? Building your foundations on sand is infinitely better than building them upon a load of crap. Just ask former YEC Glenn R. Morton (a YEC until he had to face the rock-hard geological evidence for himself, whereupon his YEC training drove him to the verge of atheism), who pointed out that the coprolites we find (fossilized feces) are dessicated (id, dried out, not washed completely away as a flood would have done).You say that there was evidence presented to you that convinced you of the truth of YEC? You need to present that particular evidence. And be ready to discuss it. If for no other reason than for you to abide by the biblical injunction to test it. Of course, of you think nothing of what the Bible tells you that you must do ... .PS
Here's a friendly hint for ye, laddie. The young-earth claims of that calculated deception, "creation science", are the absolutely weakest part of that deception and the easiest to refute.Here's a quote for you. When Glenn R. Morton, not quite yet deconverted from being a YEC (his down-fall was that, as a field geologist for a petroleum company, he had to work on a day-to-day basis with the actual rock-hard geological evidence: No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/gstory.htm and No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/transform.htm -- other "Personal Stories of the Creation/Evolution Struggle" are to be found at No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/person.htm, he made a presentation of the actual geological evidence at the 1986 International Conference on Creation, whereupon the contingency from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) immeditely challenged him. John Morris of the ICR identified himself as a petroleum geologist and Morris chopped him off at the ankles with two questions:
1. What petroleum company did you work for?
Well, uh, I taught petroleum geology for one semester.
2. How old is the world?
"If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning."Well, guess what? The earth is indeed more than 10,000 years old. Therefore, by your own camp's criteria, Scripture has not meaning. Which also, according to the fundamentalist rhetorics that we have heard over and over again over the decades, means that God does not exist. Thank you very much. You have done what no atheist has ever been able to do. You have proven that God does not exist. You have devised a set of tests for the existence of God that, because they are all contrary-to-fact, are all absolutely guaranteed to fail.Thank you for having proven that God does not exist. Countless future generations of humanity will be forever in your debt.Of course, if your intent were to not disprove the existence of God, then perhaps you would need to rethink what you are doing.Nu? (if you don't know any Jiddisch or Russian, then be a Mensch for once in your life and learn something already!)Edited by dwise1, : PSEdited by dwise1, : No reason given.Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.