In comparison to the billions of years required by secular cosmogonies, the difference between 6,000 years and 10,000 years is only slightly longer than a millisecond—hardly worth quibbling over. Certainly creationists will gain no more respect, either in the culture or in the academy, by opting for 10,000 rather than 6,000. To put it the other way around, we will lose no respectability by going with 6,000 rather than 10,000. So why should I even bring it up?
The short answer is because AIG brings it up—repeatedly. Ham is echoed by such writers as Larry Pierce, Monty White, Rick Freeman, Paul S. Taylor, and Bodie Hodge. These individuals not only advocate a theory that the earth is only approximately 6,000 years old, but (as can be seen from the opening quotation) also freely castigate individuals who accept the possibility of even a slightly less-young earth.
Their position, however, has not been characteristic of young-earth creationism since its inception.
The earth certainly “appears” to be old. Of course, as some advocate, God could’ve created the earth with the appearance of age. That’s a subject of debate but not taught in Scripture. Old earth position has not in itself entailed denial of creation or of Adam and Eve.
Steve
The problem you have, and you clearly see it where Biologos has gone, is that the natural inclination is to question a historical Adam and Eve. Sure the earth looks old, so the old earth hypothesis is examined, but you have the same issue with skeletons. There are clearly skeletons (if you use the same aging mechanism as the earth) that are very old and non-human. So how do you explain that. And what you end up doing is going down a vicious cycle, and you begin to embrace hominids and other elements before an Adam and Adam was really the first chosen evolutionary character that God chose. Every friend that I have that believes in old-earth has eventually embraced a non-historical or a death before Adam approach.
Ok I’ll take the bait. You are using both an anecdotal fallacy and the slippery slope fallacy in your reasoning. Also, I think there is a huge difference between death of a hominid species/human being before Adam (which is where the Biologos people land) and the death of plants and animals), as a healthy ecological system depends on a continuing cycle of life and death. And many things that are important to human life–coal, oil, limestone, topsoil to name but a few–all come from the death and decay of animals. Both Old Earth creationists and Young Earth creationists need to be careful not to go beyond what Scripture does and even doesn’t say about death and the fall.
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NewBauder: Would You Rethink This, Please?
http://religiousaffections.org/articles/in-the-nick-of-time/would-you-r…
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Newdgszweda wrote:
Ok I’ll take the bait. You are using both an anecdotal fallacy and the slippery slope fallacy in your reasoning. Also, I think there is a huge difference between death of a hominid species/human being before Adam (which is where the Biologos people land) and the death of plants and animals), as a healthy ecological system depends on a continuing cycle of life and death. And many things that are important to human life–coal, oil, limestone, topsoil to name but a few–all come from the death and decay of animals. Both Old Earth creationists and Young Earth creationists need to be careful not to go beyond what Scripture does and even doesn’t say about death and the fall.