Is defending a 'young' earth necessary?

[klaus54]

Yeah, and you would never say similar things like say, KJV Onlyism?

This is a total misrepresentation of what Jorge has said.Having a distorted view of the Bible is not anywhere near the same as saying someone is not a Christian.

What does Jor's post have to do with KJV-onlyism? I don't get your point.

And Pix did NOT misrepresent Jor.

YEC is (wildly) scientifically incorrect.

Like I said, YE = me fleeing as far from this "brand" of Christianity as far as possible.

Study some geology (for example), wake up, realize that YEC is a risible disgrace, and smell the coffee.

K54

[Cow Poke]

Nope, not really.
Only you - through your own words - can become one of 'them'.
Well, are you?

Jorge

My Police Chief would occasionally call me into his office, put his hand on my shoulder, and say "CP, there are two kinds of people in this world -- us and them -- and I'm beginning to think you're them".

I still smile when I think about those little talks.

[Jorge]

Calm yourself, brother -- I'm still here.

I just see no point in arguing with you.

I don't "argue", CP ... I have worthwhile discussions.

Otherwise, what's the point?

God said, "Come and let us reason together..."
That is my guiding principle.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to reason with 'certain' people.
No, I do not believe you to be one of 'them'.

I'll have to end this delightful chat soon. My computer has
been acting up and needs to be fixed. But I'll be back asap.

Jorge

[Cow Poke]

I don't "argue", CP ...

[Jorge]

I think winning the lost is more important than battling with the saints, or attempting to "cull the fellowship" by divisive means.

Are you a soulwinner, Jorge?

Had to reply to the above before logging off ...

Soul-winning is the # 1 most important duty of a Christian.
That should answer your question forevermore.

HOWEVER ...

We cannot be narrow-minded / tunnel-visioned. For instance, what is it that prevents many of our children from coming to Christ? What is it that makes many people - young and old - to depart from the Christian faith even after being brought up in a Christian home and/or being in the faith for many years? What was it that caused Charles Templeton -- one of the greatest evangelists of the 20th century, some say once-greater than B. Graham himself -- to depart from the faith, even to renounce God altogether, ending with a book Farewell to God?

If you don't know the answers to those questions, then perhaps you should.

Okay, got'ta go and tend to my comp issues. Back 'soon' .................

Jorge

[Juvenal]

I think winning the lost is more important than battling with the saints, or attempting to "cull the fellowship" by divisive means.

Are you a soulwinner, Jorge?

There's a certain brand of human so righteously convinced they're fighting for righteousness that no evil is beneath them in support of their cause, so convinced they hold the truth that any dishonesty used to spread that truth counts as righteousness as well.

And then there's Jorge.

He's just nuts.

[rwatts]

I just came across this posting at Creation Ministries International (CMI) that was so to the point that I had to post it here. It was written by Carl Wieland in response to a letter from an evangelist. This evangelist is doing what many Evolutionist TWebbers do (most notably O-Mudd (Jim) and Rogue06) with their "the age issue is not salvational" schtick.

One thing that I'd like to point out is that the essence of Wieland's response, including the four related articles linked at the end, is exactly what I have tried to communicate to the "unbelievers and compromisers" here at TWeb. I sincerely hope that this inspires you to do better.


Here are the letter and response ...

A New Zealand correspondent who supports our [CMI] ministry has expressed doubts about whether the Bible teaches a young earth and Dr Carl Wieland responds.

http://creation.com/defending-young-earth-not-biblical

I am an evangelist … and really endorse your ministry. You give me the tools I need to counter the evolutionary arguments I face.

I just wanted to say that I don’t believe the Bible says the earth is young. It may be young, and I have read your many articles on scientific evidences supporting this argument as well as your articles on interpreting scripture as saying it is young.

However, I do not believe scripture says this and am concerned that you are trying to defend a position which is not necessary to defend. All your other work is so wonderful that I would not want you to try to defend a position which is not biblical and then maybe lose that argument or have the whole ministry discredited.

You don’t need to reply to this—it is just a concern of mine that we don’t get tied up trying to defend what the bible doesn’t explicitly say.


Dear Mr ******,

I have carefully read your email, and note that you are an evangelist, a very significant calling and task at any time.

You may wonder why I am responding, considering you have said it is unnecessary. Perhaps it will help you to understand if you put yourself in the position of just having received an email from someone who says, e.g.: “The Bible doesn’t teach that God is a Trinity. I’ve looked and looked but the word ‘trinity’ doesn’t even appear in the Bible.”

I’m sure you would find it difficult to resist pointing out to that person at least some of the many ways in which the teaching (as a deduction from combining various threads of separate teaching) is not only a very, very important one, but a blindingly obvious one. I’m sure you would also want that person to have the opportunity to at least consider things they likely have not done to date. Including not just Bible passages, but also [theological] implications from the evidence of the real world. [my emphasis]

Do you really want to be on the side of the scoffers in 2 Peter 3:3–5, even if only partly?

For example, the implications of having bloodshed, disease and suffering before the Fall, which is what long-agism must imply (since fossils show these things, then if they are millions of years old, it means they predated Adam and hence the Fall/Curse).

And it then also means rejecting the clear teaching of the global nature of the Flood. [There are long-age creation ‘ministries’ that push the idea that the earth is old. Consistently, they all deny the global nature of the Flood—but one only needs to read Genesis to see if that is even remotely possible from the language.]

Do you really want to be on the side of the scoffers in 2 Peter 3:3–5, even if only partly?

Do you really want to say with your stance that the overwhelming majority of great Christian scholars and thinkers were wrong in deducing from the Bible that the Bible teaches a perfect world before sin, ruined by sin, to be restored in the future to a sinless deathlessness? Do you really want to say that Jesus got it wrong about man’s relative position in the history of creation, as in the article below on Jesus and the age of the earth?

I submit for your careful and prayerful consideration just three articles, below, and invite your followup comments. May I suggest first the one featuring Jesus’ teaching. I know you are not advocating theistic evolution, but the implications of a long-age position are exactly the same when it comes to the particular statement by Jesus.

http://creation.com/6000-years
http://creation.com/jesus-age-earth
http://creation.com/the-fall-a-cosmic-catastrophe

Also see here: http://creation.com/old-earth-or-young-earth-belief

Kind regards in Christ,

Dr Carl Wieland


Again, I sincerely hope that this inspires you to try harder. If not, oh well, I can only try.

Jorge

The Bible teaches that rain, frost, and other meteorological phenomena are created directly by God. It also teaches that we know nothing about how babies form and grow, and that it's God who creates them. This is the literal, common sense meaning of the associated verses in the Bible. Nowhere does the Bible teach that God created the laws of nature to do these things in part or in total. It's all done by God.

Naturally, these beliefs, like the belief in a 6 day creation some six thousand years ago, are also necessary for salvation - right Jorge?

Imagine it, if you don't believe some things the Bible teaches, because the literal meaning could be scientifically incorrect, then what else might tumble?

[rwatts]

Despite claims to the contrary the arguments here don't get any more heated than they do in Civics.

Okay. That's not saying much

This place is really very mild. There is always that other place where the dancer, the ranter and the forum donkey hang out. :)

[klaus54]

Had to reply to the above before logging off ...

Soul-winning is the # 1 most important duty of a Christian.
That should answer your question forevermore.

HOWEVER ...

We cannot be narrow-minded / tunnel-visioned. For instance, what is it that prevents many of our children from coming to Christ? What is it that makes many people - young and old - to depart from the Christian faith even after being brought up in a Christian home and/or being in the faith for many years? What was it that caused Charles Templeton -- one of the greatest evangelists of the 20th century, some say once-greater than B. Graham himself -- to depart from the faith, even to renounce God altogether, ending with a book Farewell to God?

If you don't know the answers to those questions, then perhaps you should.

Okay, got'ta go and tend to my comp issues. Back 'soon' .................

Jorge

[Cow Poke]

Had to reply to the above before logging off ...

Soul-winning is the # 1 most important duty of a Christian.

You woulda done better just to stop with that.

[Jorge]

Show me where I did that. Actual quote, please.

Sure thing ... coming right up!

"I don't think there's any hope of an actual discussion with you, Jorge, so I shall leave you to your devices."

and,

"No need."

Obviously, to you it is.

That is true. My point is that it should be to anyone that is serious about
Christian apologetics. You asked me if I was a soulwinner. You got my reply.
Now, are you a Christian apologist?

[/He is - but not just from one side.

And where (QUOTE PLEASE!) did I ask you to listen to "just one side"?

It's just as good you're not in my congregation. We're WAY more about "It's all about Jesus", and WAY less about "let's see what we can fight over".

Everything you're saying tells me that you may be (I wouldn't know, of course) a good pastor --- filled with love for everyone and ready to preach salvation to anyone at any time --- you're just not one that subscribes to 1 Peter 3:15. And that's okay, we can't be all things. My only complaint against those such as you is that you lash out against those like myself that DO see the critical importance of what we do - an importance specifically called out in 1 Peter 3:15.

It's not "picking a fight" that we are about (which, ironically, seems to be what you're doing here). But let me clue you in: we ARE in a fight whether we want it or not. That fight is the war between God's Holy Word -- undistorted as He meant us to understand It -- and the perverted, distorted version that has been put out by men. By this I also speak of false doctrines, secular philosophies and vain imaginations of men all of which are meant to supplant what God has said - to usurp God's authority in all matters.

If members of your flock come to you with genuine questions such as why the Bible (clearly!) says one thing while the teacher or college professor tells them that the Bible is wrong, how do YOU answer? Do you just hug them and say, "Don't worry about that stuff, God loves you and that's all that matters."

The love is there - that part is true. But that person will go away filled with doubt and intellectually unfulfilled. The other side (your ideological/spiritual "enemies"), however, will have plenty of "answers" for them. Guess what will happen in due time? Yup, you guessed it - that person will depart from the faith because "one side had answers, the other side gave me a hug and told me to blindly believe".

Believe me, the importance of knowing the purely theological aspects of the Christian faith -- God's unconditional love for us and His plan of salvation through Christ -- is not being questioned or put into the back seat. But to insinuate that that's all we should be concerned about is certainly not being realistic nor does it meet the spiritual needs of the people. It is not realizing that the war rages at every moment and in many fronts - not just the theological. The Enemy wants to plant doubt and to call God a liar ("Yea, hath God said?") in every area of life.

One more important point (I'll just state it without explanations): Whether the universe/earth is 6 seconds old, 6,000 years old, 13.6 billion years old or 50 quadrillion years old BY ITSELF is certainly not a salvational issue. I have made that claim over and over but it has fallen on deaf / dishonest ears.

WHAT IS A SALVATIONAL ISSUE is whether we, the created creature, are going to take God's Word and grant ourselves absolute editing liberty to make it say what our "science" tells us it should say. In case you missed it, that is either another way of calling God a liar OR placing ourselves above God - i.e., we dictate what God "meant". I challenge you to refute that last sentence.

I'll end with this and if this doesn't at least make you stop and think then I have nothing more to say: Clearly it cannot be BOTH true that the creation is thousands of years old and 13.6 billion years old - one of these is undoubtedly wrong. The former can be shown to be in accord with Scripture without having to distort the Bible. The latter can only be true if and only if the Bible gets distorted in multiple ways and in many verses. Now, based on that fact alone, where would you guess that the Truth resides?

Got'ta go for now ..............

[NOTE: by "distort(ed)" I mean: delete from; add to; interpret in ad hoc ways; mythologize; allegorize; classify as "figurative language"; classify as "the writings of primitive men" ---- that's what I mean by "distort(ed)"]

Jorge

[Cow Poke]

Sure thing ... coming right up!

"I don't think there's any hope of an actual discussion with you, Jorge, so I shall leave you to your devices."

THAT is "pulling a TERROR" on you? Wow --- I wonder what happens when somebody yells BOO!

and,

"No need."

That is true. My point is that it should be to anyone that is serious about
Christian apologetics. You asked me if I was a soulwinner. You got my reply.
Now, are you a Christian apologist?




And where (QUOTE PLEASE!) did I ask you to listen to "just one side"?




Everything you're saying tells me that you may be (I wouldn't know, of course) a good pastor --- filled with love for everyone and ready to preach salvation to anyone at any time --- you're just not one that subscribes to 1 Peter 3:15. And that's okay, we can't be all things. My only complaint against those such as you is that you lash out against those like myself that DO see the critical importance of what we do - an importance specifically called out in 1 Peter 3:15.

It's not "picking a fight" that we are about (which, ironically, seems to be what you're doing here). But let me clue you in: we ARE in a fight whether we want it or not. That fight is the war between God's Holy Word -- undistorted as He meant us to understand It -- and the perverted, distorted version that has been put out by men. By this I also speak of false doctrines, secular philosophies and vain imaginations of men all of which are meant to supplant what God has said - to usurp God's authority in all matters.

If members of your flock come to you with genuine questions such as why the Bible (clearly!) says one thing while the teacher or college professor tells them that the Bible is wrong, how do YOU answer? Do you just hug them and say, "Don't worry about that stuff, God loves you and that's all that matters."

The love is there - that part is true. But that person will go away filled with doubt and intellectually unfulfilled. The other side (your ideological/spiritual "enemies"), however, will have plenty of "answers" for them. Guess what will happen in due time? Yup, you guessed it - that person will depart from the faith because "one side had answers, the other side gave me a hug and told me to blindly believe".

Believe me, the importance of knowing the purely theological aspects of the Christian faith -- God's unconditional love for us and His plan of salvation through Christ -- is not being questioned or put into the back seat. But to insinuate that that's all we should be concerned about is certainly not being realistic nor does it meet the spiritual needs of the people. It is not realizing that the war rages at every moment and in many fronts - not just the theological. The Enemy wants to plant doubt and to call God a liar ("Yea, hath God said?") in every area of life.

One more important point (I'll just state it without explanations): Whether the universe/earth is 6 seconds old, 6,000 years old, 13.6 billion years old or 50 quadrillion years old BY ITSELF is certainly not a salvational issue. I have made that claim over and over but it has fallen on deaf / dishonest ears.

WHAT IS A SALVATIONAL ISSUE is whether we, the created creature, are going to take God's Word and grant ourselves absolute editing liberty to make it say what our "science" tells us it should say. In case you missed it, that is either another way of calling God a liar OR placing ourselves above God - i.e., we dictate what God "meant". I challenge you to refute that last sentence.

I'll end with this and if this doesn't at least make you stop and think then I have nothing more to say: Clearly it cannot be BOTH true that the creation is thousands of years old and 13.6 billion years old - one of these is undoubtedly wrong. The former can be shown to be in accord with Scripture without having to distort the Bible. The latter can only be true if and only if the Bible gets distorted in multiple ways and in many verses. Now, based on that fact alone, where would you guess that the Truth resides?

Got'ta go for now ..............

[NOTE: by "distort(ed)" I mean: delete from; add to; interpret in ad hoc ways; mythologize; allegorize; classify as "figurative language"; classify as "the writings of primitive men" ---- that's what I mean by "distort(ed)"]

Jorge

I didn't read any of the above.

[Cow Poke]

OK, I was bored, so I scanned your missive and noted this.....

--- you're just not one that subscribes to 1 Peter 3:15.

First, you're wrong. I would say you are a liar, but I'll be gracious and assume you're just profoundly ignorant on this.

Let's see what that scripture actually says.....

1 Pet 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

I am ALWAYS ready to give an answer, but it will, to the best of my ability, be an HONEST answer. Sometimes that HONEST answer is "I don't know". And I have no problem admitting that, and am not vain enough to try to bluff my way through it, or dishonest enough to make something up.

NOR do I try to steer every question to Creationism - I deal with the questions that are actually ASKED, not ones I "plant".

I shall wait patiently for your apology.

[Cow Poke]

My only complaint against those such as you is that you lash out against those like myself that DO see the critical importance of what we do - an importance specifically called out in 1 Peter 3:15.

I "lashed out"?

[Roy]

Everything you're saying tells me that you may be (I wouldn't know, of course) a good pastor --- filled with love for everyone and ready to preach salvation to anyone at any time --- you're just not one that subscribes to 1 Peter 3:15.

This is 1 Peter 3:15:
"But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect"

Does anyone here think Jorge responds to questions about his beliefs with gentleness and respect? Or, if you prefer the KJV, with [u]meekness[/i]? Or does he respond with insults, dismissal and evasion?

I could start a poll, but it'd be like starting a poll on whether people think water is wet.

Roy