YEC HQ

This site, the YEC headquarters, makes me sad.

As you probably know, it is not YEC per se that bothers me—it's the attitude among dogmatic YECs that only YECs are true Christians. That fairly common viewpoint is alternately infuriating and depressing. The elevation of a non-essential into an essential—the history of Christianity is so littered with that mistake that it confirms Santayana as a sage. There is a reason that there is no detailed statement on either creation or the end-times in the historic creeds—it's an area where the early church understood that it was OK to agree to disagree. Those who believe six days = 144 hours? The early church had them. Those who believe six days = six thousand years? The early church had them too. Care to believe six days were instantaneous? The early church accepts you, Bishop Augustine. (My God wouldn't need to take six long days!) I will confidently speculate that had there been any reason in those days to believe the earth was old, the early church would have accommodated that as well. As long as you affirmed:

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffereddeath and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Well we've come a long way baby.

An anathema on this nasty dogmatic YEC Council-of-Trent–like anathematizing of the OECs. Last year I discussed this viewpoint at length in a post entitled: Spiritual Arrogance, The Garden of Eden, and How I Learned Not To Worry That A Dead Mouse Could Render Jesus Inconsequential.

Hunt around this YEC HQ site and you'll find, among other things, why God and Science will never mix. At least there is some gallows humor here; those who would agree with the author include Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

This is just wrong. Surely the writer knows that the bible tells us that the sheer wonderment of creation leaves all men without excuse. Why does he then want to neuter the means (science) used to study that creation? Does he not know that Adam was the first scientist, a biologist even, when he developed the first taxonomy?

Grr.