Young Earth Creationism - battling it

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I’m hoping to start a discussion where we come up with the best arguments against Young Earth Creation.

I am also seeking ways in which we can create a synthesis and foster harmony between traditional Catholic hamartiology and monogenesis of the human race (Adam & Eve) with the findings of modern evolutionary biology and cosmology and geology - namely, that humans and all animal species are descended from a common ancestor and that the Universe is ~13.8 Ga, and the Earth is ~4.54 Ga.

I’ll start off by posting some great tidbits excerpted from Catholicism, evolution and young earth creationism | Catholic Culture arguing against Young Earth Creation (from hereon referred to with the acronym YEC):

“If young earth creationism is true, then there is little to ask about the world.” Many fields of scientific inquiry would have to be abandoned, including earth science, geology, astronomy, and cosmology. Physics and biology would be seriously undermined.

Young earth creationism implies that God deliberately set out to deceive us, since all relevant scientific disciplines tell us that the earth is very old. “If the world is deliberately constructed by God as a sham, then what confidence can we have in any ‘facts’ we can determine about the physical world? …What confidence can we place in God if one of the main purposes of creation is deliberate deception?”

…continued…
 
…continued.

On the other hand, if evolution is true, it should put us in awe of God’s power. It means that God was able to create everything as He wished, simply by setting up the starting conditions from which the whole universe would develop. “Catholic biologist Kenneth Miller has likened this to a billiards player. If we saw someone go around the table making shot after shot, never missing, we would be impressed. How much more impressed would we be by a player who sinks every ball with a single shot?”

“There is no compelling reason to read Genesis literally, but there is a compelling reason not to read it literally.” For example, when we are told that God said “Let there be light,” a literal interpretation would mean that God spoke actual words, which, as St. Augustine points out, would presuppose the existence of sound, air, language and a sense of hearing with which to perceive it. Augustine also remarks that it makes no literal sense to say that days and nights existed for three days before the sun was created.

Even if the earth were young, that would not prove the existence of God, and there is no reason to believe that an atheist would convert after being convinced of a young earth. On the other hand, the idea that “faith mandates a young earth” does turn away reasonable nonbelievers. Again, Augustine warns Christians not to make Christianity look stupid by speaking ignorantly about the natural world:

“Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. … If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?”

Thanks for any (name removed by moderator)ut fellow CAFfers!
 
Are you trying to say that God couldn’t talk in some way without air? Can people speak in Heaven? In any way?

Not that I’m a YEC, but that doesn’t seem like a good reasoning.
 
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Spyridon said:
“Catholic biologist Kenneth Miller has likened this to a billiards player. If we saw someone go around the table making shot after shot, never missing, we would be impressed. How much more impressed would we be by a player who sinks every ball with a single shot?”
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Proof reading my post, I was struck by this.

My God what an excellent analogy! O how I wish I would’ve thought of that!
 
@Kei I don’t wanna sound harsh here, but please don’t derail my thread.

Please stick to the topic: synthesizing traditional Catholic theology with modern science and arguing against Young Earth Creation.

If you want to debate something which St. Augustine wrote, please make your own topic on that subject.

The way you asked me “are you trying to say…” shows you didn’t even read what was written. I was quoting an article which was quoting St. Augustine. If you think something St. Augustine wrote is nonsensical, make a seperate thread please.

Thank you.
 
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Poking holes in one’s argument to make it better is important. I.e., if YECers don’t think the arguments are compelling or reasonable, then the exercise may be fairly useless.

To add to the topic,
Imagine how much more Majesty God demonstrates if the Universe is not mere thousands but BILLIONS of years old
 
What you “poked holes in” was a quote from a website which quoted St. Augustine.

I’m seeking (name removed by moderator)ut for apologetic reasons, not an argument over a quote written by a Saint and Doctor of the Church over 1,500 years ago @Kei.
 
Kei said:
To add to the topic,

Imagine how much more Majesty God demonstrates if the Universe is not mere thousands but BILLIONS of years old
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That’s the type of comment I AM looking for @Kei.

And that’s also one of the points from the article I quoted:
“On the other hand, if evolution is true, it should put us in awe of God’s power. It means that God was able to create everything as He wished, simply by setting up the starting conditions from which the whole universe would develop.”
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I personally find a 13,800,000,000 year old Universe to be more compatible with an Infinite and Omnipotent Deity than a puny Universe and World which are a mere 6,000 years old.
 
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Spyridon said:
I personally find a 13,800,000,000 year old Universe to be more compatible with an Infinite and Omnipotent Deity than a puny Universe a mere 6,000 years old.
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First, you need to decide which you want to discuss and refute – Young Earth Creationism, as in your thread title, or Young Universe Creationism, as in your statement above. It is possible to believe in an old universe, but a young earth. (I don’t, but it is possible.)

D
 
That would be inconsistent with Young Earth Creation.

I see what you’re saying @DaveBj that technically one could believe the Universe is 13.8 billion years old but the Earth is only a 6,000 year old creation in the ancient Universe.

But nobody actually believes that.

People either believe the Universe and the Earth are both 6,000 years old, or they believe the Universe is 13.8 billion years old and the Earth is 4.54 billion years old.

I’ll edit that to clarify my position though. Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut.
 
My take on the age of the universe is that it is at least the sum of two numbers, where the first number is the number of years that it took for light from the most distant object in the visible universe to reach us, and the second number is the number of years that it took for that object to reach the status that it has as we currently see it.

Not much help, is it 😃

D
 
@DavidBj
Well, it’s kind of like the MIT Physicist/Orthodox Jew Dr. Gerald Schroeder when he writes the Universe and the Earth are both 6 days old AND 13.8/4.54 billion years old (though this quote is older so the numbers aren’t that exact - he updates it and speaks of it in his website -The Age of the Universe | Gerald Schroeder ):

“Today, we look back in time and we see approximately 14 billion years of history and those years went by. But how would they be perceived from the Bible’s perspective of time? Looking forward from when the universe was very small – billions of times smaller – the Bible teaches that six days passed. In truth, they both are correct. What’s exciting about the last few years is that we now have quantified the data to know the relationship between the perception of time from the beginning of stable matter, the threshold energy of protons (their nucleosynthesis), looking forward and our measure of the history of the universe. It’s not science fiction any longer. A dozen physics textbooks all bring the same generalized number. The general relationship of the stretching of space between the era of proton anti-proton formation, that time near the beginning at the threshold energy of protons when the first stable matter formed, and time today is a million million. That’s a 1 with 12 zeros after it. Space has stretched by a million million. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says “I’m sending you a pulse every second,” would we see a pulse every second? No. We’d see one every million million seconds. That’s the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe on the perception of time.”
 
There is something that I don’t think I’ve seen anyone deal with, or if they did, it was way over my head (which, admittedly, doesn’t take much). Mass (an accumulation of matter, not Sunday morning at church 😮 ) has the effect of making a “dent” in the space-time continuum, and for those in that dent, time slows down. The deeper the dent, the slower the clock run. In the universe’s early days / years / whatever, it was extremely dense. What effect would that concentration of mass have had on how the early universe experienced time?

D
 
I’m wondering if these type of threads belong in the Philosophy section.

But, if you’ll allow me to ask:
Spyridon said:
I personally find a 13,800,000,000 year old Universe to be more compatible with an Infinite and Omnipotent Deity than a puny Universe and World which are a mere 6,000 years old.
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Wouldn’t it undermine the Catholic doctrine of God? You may or may not have heard of the doctrine known as the Primacy of Christ; that the Incarnation was the reason for creation. Since Catholics reject occasionalism, because they believe that the sterility of creation would be incompatible with the omnipotence of God, a humanity that came into being billions of years after the universe was created would make God assuming a human nature to be merely accidental.
 
Spyridon said:
Young earth creationism implies that God deliberately set out to deceive us, since all relevant scientific disciplines tell us that the earth is very old. “If the world is deliberately constructed by God as a sham, then what confidence can we have in any ‘facts’ we can determine about the physical world? …What confidence can we place in God if one of the main purposes of creation is deliberate deception?”
Click to expand...
Or maybe scientists are not as clever as they think they are. Science has been steadily advancing, but we have not reached the pinnacle of all scientific knowledge. In another thousand years we will have an even better understanding, but the more we seem to understand, will still mean there is even more we don’t know.

We believe in God through faith, not because of science.
 
Before creation began, how did God measure a day, he did not live on Earth?
Just for arguments sake, a day might be the time it takes for our universe to rotate round a central point, maybe a billion years.

However, God said creation took six days, so there has to be a meaning behind this.

Evolution could not happen without God, so evolution really has no great meaning to me one way or the other. I am not tempted to fall in line with science on the question of evolution, Adam was formed from clay, and I don’t believe we share a common ancestor with any of the monkey world.
 
Not quite.
It would mean humanity was formed after so long aperiod of time. Nothing implies humanity or the Incarnation as being accidental.
 
As a scientist, I can tell you there is so much evidence for the earth being billions of years old that it’s not even an argument. However, I do believe that anything is possible to God. So, the only way I could accept a young earth theory is if God created the earth to look old. This would imply that God is a card shark and he’s never been that way with me. I’ve always found that God is very up front about everything. Thus, I could never accept a young earth theory as being reality.
 
I agree fully @webmasterpdx

The evidence is comprehensive, conclusive, and overwhelming. To knowingly deny it is to be willfully scientifically illiterate.

Which is why I want to work on synthesizing modern scientific knowledge that the Universe and Earth are ancient with traditional Catholic understandings of original sin and Adam & Eve.
 
I agree fully with @Kei and his response @SalamKhan. I’m not sure why you drew the theoretical conclusions which you did.

An ancient universe/earth has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the significance of the Incarnation or any other Christological doctrine - it is utterly inconsequential.

Also @SalamKhan, I’m a bit confused about your comment about these threads being in the philosophy section of this forum - did you mean that it should be in that section? Because that is where I did post it. Or rather did you mean that the philosophy section is inappropriate for this type of discusion? If that’s what you meant to convey, which forum would you suggest these types of topics be posted on?
 
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