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Friday, September 04, 2009

Logical Practicum 2 - Evolution part 1

As with all the series of logical arguments for or against a certain topic, it is essential to note each party's preconceptions, so here's mine. I hold the position of Young Earth Creationism, one of the most vilified, derided and laughed-at positions to hold in the whole origin science field - and yet, I maintain that I came by this position honestly, after much thought and consideration - and moving away from my previous position as a Theistic Evolutionist - due to the evidence. Not to mention that being a YEC puts me squarely in the best of company, with the majority of my fellow Christian saints who have gone to their glory before me.

The YEC position is a simple one to grasp; fundamentally, a Christian YEC accepts the Bible's creation account in Genesis on its face value; hence the world was created in six days (and God rested thereafter on the 7th), and working forwards from that date, using the Bible's internal chronology (and genealogy) until we come to events whose secular dating is known, a figure of ~6.5k - 7k years since Creation is obtained. As contrasted with the current Big Bang model of the earth being ~4.3x10^9 years, and the universe about 3x that, hence the term Young Earth.

Now, the YEC position is not just in terms of cosmological and geological timeframes, but of course in terms of origin science, the position also specifies that God created all life already differentiated into the different kinds, as opposed to the evolutionary model of one common ancestor life form which diverged into the various species we have today.

As an evangelical, orthodox and fundamentalist Christian, the YEC position is a distillation of all the various doctrines which currently make up the only logical and tenable model to hold that is consistent with the Biblical picture. As with all science, the latest word is never the last word, so I expect further refinements to happen along the way.

Onwards to the logical issues at hand. In order to make sense of the debate, the terms must be clearly understood and agreed upon. I'll do this in the next post. Can't make these things too long, after all.

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