Debate Proposal - YEC vs. OEC

You may want to check the following:

http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/28/2741.html?

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2740.html

 

How about a discussion on "The scriptures tell us the Sun moves across the sky to cause day and night?"

 

How about a debate where we try to teach evolutionists the difference between exegesis and desperate-grasping-at-strawman arguments that form a kind of non-response to serious Bible questions of exegesis.

The "classic" evolutionist argument on this debate area has been that if the Bible says "sun up" - then God is wrong and evolutionists are free to discount all the scripture they need to. (But when the weather channel speaks of sunrise it can still be "right" since we ALL know what it means).

In Christ,

Bob

 

Jason, your desire is well intended, but unfortunately, those debates nearly always result in name calling, the questioning of peoples' salvation, and personal catfights. They generally produce no more friut than a KJVO debate. For some reason, these topics tend to attract people who don't have the ability to engage in healthy and respectful dialogue. For this reason, I rarely, post in those threads.

I wish you well my brother, but iin my 10,000 plus posts on the board, I have never seen a single C/E debate bear fruit. Just rotten tomatoes.

 

Gup, no offense directed at you, just pointing something out. You should not have bothered with the second link. The "doctor" made it clear that he is not very interested in debating the physical facts and I count well over thirty references to published data just on the first page of that link.

 

Jason, I don’t think you will find someone here that will debate you on the subject that the scriptures tell us the earth is young. I mean, a confessing Christian can’t with a straight face tell us that the earth is old by reading the Bible. It’s just not there. For any Christian to debate this is calling God a bold face liar.

But the security blanket the old earther’s use to get around this is the atheistic scientific community that they use to explain away the Bible. Apparently to them God lacked in His communication skills and fallible man who evolved from a monkey can best explain what God really meant.

Keep the board posted Jason. If you find someone, I’d like to at least follow it.

 

Jason,

John6:63's last post is a good example of how these debates begin degrading into name calling, in this case, the questioning of peoples' faith.

And here, the debate you desire hasn't even started, but the mudslinging has.

Sad.

 

It is not so simple as you imagine.

If the earth be truely old, then your interpretation must truely be incorrect. If your interpretation were truely correct, then the data would truely show the earth to be young.

There are many areas of Biblical interpretation upon which good Christians disagree. Many of these we will only be able to learn for sure which is correct when we have passed into the next life. For creation, we are lucky in that we can examine God's general revelation as written in the creation itself. To say that you choose to fully ignore one or the other is a sign that you are not actually interested in the truth but in merely supporting your own notions.

I know about this. I came into this subject merely looking for support for what I believed to be a young earth. What I found convinced me otherwise. And it started with the distortions and misrepresentations of places like AIG.

If you examine both the Bible and the creation with an open mind, you will likely come to the conclusion that the creation account in Genesis is not literal, but that it instead teaches us inportant things. Things that form the basis for all that follows. But non-literal does not mean not true. Nor does it meant fairy tale. Nor does it mean anyone thinks God lied. It simply means that the meaning is other than what some think. I do not think you will find many that doubt that the literal words indicate a young earth. But that does not mean that the literal interpretation is correct.

We have shown that there are other places that you accept as not being literal even though there is no reason to think so merely from the text. You pull in outside knowledge. Though the Bible speaks of the sun traveling about the earth instead of the other way around, you do not see this as a problem. Though the Bible speaks of the earth as unmoving, you do not have problem with this. Though the Bible describes the earth as a circle (read flat), you do not have problem with this. Though the Bible speaks of a dome above the earth and of windows for the rains and of storehouses for the hail , you do not see this as a problem.

And they are not. But here you must admit that you have allowed what you know from outside the Bible inform you on how you should interpret the Bible. But I have yet to see anyone articulate well why this should be done, yet you should not look to the creation for the age of the earth. I have yet to see anyone articulate well why we should accept that the earth orbits the sun, but that we should deny the same kind of evidence when it speaks of the ancient age of the universe or of the earth or of the common descent of all life on earth.

How can you be so sure that you do not even need to see if there is anything to it? Even the disciples, those who walked with our Lord daily and heard the words proceed directly from His mouth did not understand all that they heard. ANd you must believe that their knowledge would be much greater than ours. The words recorded in the Gospels surely are not the only words our Savior ever spoke. SUrely His followers had additional conversations with Him. And yet you are so sure that you do not even have to consider that you might be wrong.

I would have no problem accepting a young earth today if the data supported it. But it does not. Yet you seek from the beginning to exclude such information. If you truely believed your position to be correct, you would welcome such a challenge. But look at what we actually have. Jason has made a challenge here. He first entered himself into our discussions with a list of alledged scientists who had "rejected" evolution. When most of the people on his list were shown to have lived before the theory or to have actually held old earth beliefs, he refused to support his assertions. He then sent us to his YE website. When the very first link on the very first page was shown to be playing loosely with the facts, he failed again to even try and defend to work. He did find time for plenty of name calling, however. (He also obviously feels so weakly about his position that when challenging a group of atheists to this debate, he wants to debate them on Biblical interpretation and not the physical evidence!) We have also seen dozens of such examples on the "Junk Science" thread. YEers claim the data shows the earth to be young, but when their claims are shown to be false and the real science is shown to disagree with them, they then fall back that all that is not important anyway. They know they are right so a few inconvenient facts won't stand in their way.

These things are worth discussing and debating. It is an important issue. But Johnv is right in that we too often let it slip into something entirely unchristian. I am likely as guilty of this as the next. This is an interesting subject to many of us, but we should strive to be as respectful as we can among ourselves.

 

We have had that discussion... remember... it ended with you deciding to reject Genesis as literal text, and accept Psalms as literal text. The YEC, on the other hand, have a proper exegesis viewing Genesis in a literal manner and Psalms as poetic text.

He fibs... he posts in them all the time - LOL.

In all the time I have been here I have never seen anyone question the salvation of an evolutionist. We can certainly see how such belief would undermine one's faith... or lead others away from a decision for Jesus... but we have ALWAYS maintained that the only pre-requisite for salvation is belief in Jesus. The only time OE views lead to a loss of salvation is when those who believe it allow their faith to be undermined to the point where they begin dismissing Jesus and belief in him along with their dismissal of Genesis. However... I am quite sure that OE or YE views do not change your salvation status.

Indeed... Bob and I have discussed this before as well. It is not that evolutionists here reject Genesis as literal (which they do) but that they use this excuse of 'non-literal' to dismiss Genesis entirely. It's not that they simply do not believe Genesis happened literally - otherwise we would see a non-literal exegesis of the scripture forthcoming. Instead, they claim it is not literal and put evolution in place of Genesis.

Actually, isn't the second link the supposed 'science only' link? I added that for the sake of contrast.

[rhetorical]Did we mention that JohnV is a commie, pinko, democrat, satan worshiper, evolutionist? No? Guess we seem to have left that out of all of our debates. Hrm... well looks like we have some catching up to do.[/rhetorical]

 

We have had that discussion... remember... it ended with you deciding to reject Genesis as literal text, and accept Psalms as literal text. The YEC, on the other hand, have a proper exegesis viewing Genesis in a literal manner and Psalms as poetic text.
</font>[/QUOTE]There you go again, doing a partial incomplete analysis. Did you forget the Joshua passage, the one Martin Luther quoted so famously when he declared (to his everlasting shame) how that upstart Copernicus was teaching a science clearly contrary to scripture?

Did you not notice how Peter, in his sermon at Pentecost, considered the Psalms to be a literal document for the purpose of asserting the God would not allow His holy one to see corruption?

All of us can continue to see the double standard of the creationist side, choosing to interpret non-literally or literally in accordance with their pre-determined knowledge - the very thing they regard as so shocking when done by somebody else!

 

Rhatorical or no, the comment isn't appreciated.

 

And on top of that, Gup20, it's clear from my last post that I don't know how to spell "rhetorical".

No harm, though. Though I didn't appreciate the comment, I do appreciate you.

(These boards have a way of making what we say sound more fiery than what was intended).

 

While it appears to have been a humorous comment, please refrain from such statements that could be misinterpreted!
The graemlins are your friends. Use them.
Gina

 

"Actually, isn't the second link the supposed 'science only' link? I added that for the sake of contrast."

Yes, that's the one. The "doctor" made it clear that he was not interested very much in such. All those citations of published data might not fit his preconcieved notions.

 

Before the debate begins - can someone tell me what they mean by OEC?

I think I understand YEC - but what in the world is meant by OEC if an evolutionist is using the term?

In Christ,

Bob

 

Never mind - someone just told me it means "Only Evolutionism Counts".

Thanks.

In Christ,

Bob