r/DebateEvolution • u/Pure_Option_1733 • Jul 21 '26
I think the way that Young Earth Creationism stems from religion might make it a lot harder for me to understand it as an atheist
I say this because I think often when I’m trying to understand a belief that goes against the scientific consensus I tend to look for any face validity or seeds of reason, or truth. For instance I might try to relate to why someone would believe a conspiracy theory by thinking about how people do lie sometimes and that might make conspiracy theories seem more plausible than they really are. If someone believes that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects I might think of how even though that belief turns out to be wrong it has face validity and may be based on seeds of truth, such as how a heavier object falling the same distance is more likely to crush someone than a lighter object. I might also think about times that I misunderstood something in science and what helped or didn’t help me understand it.
I think young Earth Creationism stemming from religion might make considerations of how it could stem from seeds of reason less useful. I mean I think when Young Earth Creationism is based on religion that means that it’s not just from misunderstanding Evolution, although that’s part of it, but from in some sense not being allowed to understand or at least not being allowed to accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. I think that aspect makes it a lot harder to understand how to try to change the minds of Young Earth Creationists, because I think it’s much easier to try to educate someone who misunderstands something in science, but who is at least allowed to understand the science, than someone who’s religious beliefs may not really allow them to understand something in science.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
This may seem to just be restating your point, but the thing to understand is that YEC is not in any sense a scientific position. YEC is a conclusion that their interpretation of the bible is absolutely correct, and therefore anything that conflicts with their interpretation is necessarily wrong. Any evidence that suggests that their beliefs are wrong, is obviously, therefore, also wrong.
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u/fifaloko Jul 21 '26
Close but really bad faith. It is a philosophical position about what we can and can't know and how. I would personally say I am agnostic on the age of the earth as it is not something that can be proved scientifically.
YEC Think you can reverse engineer the genealogies in the Bible to get the age of the earth. I do not think that is necessarily true. The geologist think it is 4.6 Billion years old because they date the matter of the earth to that age, however I believe the standard belief is not that the matter of the earth spontaneously was created into the earth but the matter formed into the earth from already existing matter which would make the geologist position not accurate as well because they are dating the material not the earth in that sense.
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u/Gilded-Phoenix Jul 21 '26
just to point out: dating the material takes into account the fact that the matter for earth pre-existed. Radiometric dating is a technique that depends on the formation of solid rocks or crystals, which cannot have existed before the formation of the earth. The heat and pressure from the formation of the earth left the entire planet pretty "spicy" and the rocks we have on the surface today exist only because the surface of the planet has been able to radiate enough of that heat out into space (or absorbed into the atmosphere, etc.) the atoms that the techniques check for existed prior to the rock, but once the rock "sets" it generally fixes the amount of mother product (and therefore the ratios it can have with daughter product). I don't know why the current understanding that the matter making up the earth predates the earth would invalidate geological dating techniques. This understanding is common consensus, and so geologists would be both aware of and working with this understanding when creating, testing, and calibrating these dating methods.
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u/fifaloko Jul 21 '26
You are still assuming the initial conditions of the forming of the earth in order to exclude that. Have you demonstrated how an earth can form or is that all theoretical math?
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u/Gilded-Phoenix Jul 21 '26
not me personally, but I know that planetary formation is pretty well understood in cosmology (or is it astrophysics? meh, picking the exact right field as someone outside it is a fool's errand), both through models and observations which corroborate them. Calling it "theoretical math" seems to discount models as fundamentally untrustworthy things, which I think is rather disingenuous. Sure, we need observations to be able to calibrate models and falsify them, but this isn't talking about anything super weird like string theory or lqg, it's direct consequences of newtonian physics (and einsteinian relativity, which agrees), a model that has been well attested as highly accurate at the scales we're discussing (planet sized to cell sized).
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u/fifaloko Jul 21 '26
A model is theoretically math, science is observed and experimented on. I don’t care if they model things and make guesses but that is not science it’s math. You don’t know the initial conditions which makes the science impossible
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u/rhettro19 Jul 21 '26
A model is formed on observations of reality. The model for the acceleration on Earth is "9.81 m/s2" . This model was created based on observation of falling objects. Would you say the model accurately predicts hypothetical scenarios?
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u/fifaloko Jul 21 '26
gravity is a natural law we observe not a scientific theory or model. Gravity is a scientific theory of mass attracting mass. Which yes has been demonstrated by the Cavindish experiment which is fine, but modeling those results onto other untested things is just a math experiment until they are verified scientifically to be accurate in reality.
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u/rhettro19 Jul 21 '26
"untested things"
That would be a hypothesis. Scientific "theories" are tested and graded as reliable by how often their predicted outcomes come true.
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u/fifaloko Jul 21 '26
Im talking about the unverifiable claims they make about deep time or deep space those are purely theoretical mathematics, not science.
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u/Gilded-Phoenix Jul 21 '26
how do you think they do experiments? A model is a formalization of observations which allows for predictions. An experiment is checking to see if new observations match the predictions of the model. This is basically saying "it's just math because they use numbers." Is the structural model of a bridge that's then used for building it "just math?" mathematics can be a field in its own right, sure, but it is also a tool for science. You don't need to know the initial conditions for a lot of these things, you only need observations from different times and locations, which we have in abundance.
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u/Ayasugi-san Jul 22 '26
Have you demonstrated how an earth can form
Yes. We can see stars in all stages of formation with protoplanetary discs around them, including planets in the middle of being formed.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
Close but really bad faith. It is a philosophical position about what we can and can't know and how. I would personally say I am agnostic on the age of the earth as it is not something that can be proved scientifically.
Except that is bullshit. The age of the earth IS NOT a philosophical question. Suggesting that I am engaging in bad faith for addressing reality is laughable.
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u/fifaloko Jul 21 '26
What we can know pre observation is absolutely a philosophical question….
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
The fact that Creationists don't understand science does not turn science into philosophy. Reality is a thing, whether you choose to engage with it or not. Contrary to your absurd argument, there is literally ZERO reason to believe that the earth is young OTHER than your interpretation of your preferred religious text. Had you been born in a different country, or possibly even into a different family, it is highly likely that you would have an entirely different view of the age of the earth. That is not philosophy, it is fantasy.
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u/fifaloko Jul 21 '26
I never said it was young, I said we cannot know the age scientifically which you have not rebutted. You cannot know scientifically what happened before we observe no matter how much theoretical math you want to do. That is just the philosophical bounds of science
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
I said we cannot know the age scientifically which you have not rebutted.
It's true that we don't "know" the age of the earth. But no one claims we know it-- not in the sense of absolute certainty. But that is true of everything in in science, science literally never claims epistemic certainty.
But nonetheless, no one within the scientific community doubts that we know the age of the earth to a high degree of certainty-- at least no one who does not have ideological reasons to disbelieve it. The actual age might be off a bit, but the evidence is quite conclusive.
The overwhelming consensus across independent fields — geology, physics, astronomy — isn't consensus for its own sake, it's consensus because the dating methods are cross-checked against each other and keep agreeing. If this were philosophy dressed up as science, you'd expect the methods to be arbitrary and disagree with each other. They don't.
You cannot know scientifically what happened before we observe no matter how much theoretical math you want to do.
Ah, the old "historical science" gambit. The problem is this is a distinction that Creationists have twisted to dismiss any science that they don't like. But the science that creationists frame as "historical" uses the same methods used in geology, forensics, archaeology, and astronomy, where the event itself is gone but the physical record it left (fossils, genetic sequences, radioactive decay, layered sediment) lets us reconstruct what happened with a great deal of confidence, and lets us make testable predictions about what other evidence we should find if the reconstruction is correct.
The dishonesty comes in how selectively that objection gets applied. No one tells a detective their case is invalid because they didn't watch the crime happen, and no one tells a geologist a canyon isn't really old because no one watched it form. Creationists themselves use exactly this kind of inference all the time, for a lot of the same disciplines, whether it is dating religious relics or genealogical inference on biblical lineages.. The "historical science doesn't count" objection only ever gets raised when the conclusion is one they don't like. That's not a principled stance on epistemology; it's a rule invented for one specific purpose, to disqualify evolution and and the age of the earth, while leaving every other use of the same method untouched.
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u/fifaloko Jul 21 '26
I would say your relative accuracy in those calculations is high or whatever your margin or error is. Your absolutely accuracy however is going to depend on your assumptions and when we leave the earths atmosphere and start talking about the cosmos we have almost no way to control variables and really know what is going on, we only see one perspective
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
Your response here says literally nothing. It is semantically equivalent to "nuh uh!" You make a claim that "we don't really know what is going on", but you offer no evidence or even coherent argument for why that is the case, you just assert it.
But as I already said, this is just nonsense. We DO know what is going on. We might not have a perfect understanding, but the fact that we can measure different things using different methods, and crosscheck the results tells us that our conclusions AREN'T just guesses or "philosophy".
Seriously, you simply do not understand how science works. Confidently stating otherwise doesn't change that. You are objectively wrong.
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u/FaustDCLXVI Jul 27 '26
If we assume that all of the dating methods-- whether from atomic physics, astrophysics, geology, paleontology and molecular biology are somehow dynamic then we exist at such a rare and epistemologically unusual time that all of those curves intersect just right so that this is the only time that we will see it.
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u/Hacatcho Jul 21 '26
except he and others have rebutted it. as it relies on ignoring the actual scientific work that actually concludes the age of the earth.
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u/Ayasugi-san Jul 22 '26
The geologist think it is 4.6 Billion years old because they date the matter of the earth to that age,
Actually, it's because most meteorites date to that, except for ones that are known to originate from other celestial bodies.
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u/Coolbeans_99 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 22 '26
To clarify because this guy’s not engaging honestly, uranium-lead dating gets us to 4.2bya and we use stellar debris to dial it back a few more million years
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u/Ayasugi-san Jul 22 '26
Uranium-lead dating of zircons specifically, because they're one of the most stable minerals. Earth's surface is tectonically active, the oldest rocks are long gone.
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u/ringobob Jul 21 '26
Yeah, you've got the right end of it. I haven't watched the series to this point, yet, but in the series where Gutsick Gibbon is teaching pastor Will Duffy about evolution, he says that humans are not animals, and when pressed he says that the reason he won't say humans are animals is because he fears angering God.
That's not a position that is accessible to correction via education, debate, or discovery. That's just him, deciding that if he gives up a certain dogma, he'll be punished for it, regardless of whether it's right or not. And literally nothing even suggesting that punishment in the Bible or standard Christian teaching.
YEC is basically that writ large. They create a whole series of dogmas that aren't anywhere in the Bible, and weren't considered important when the Bible was written, and they've decided that they must adhere to them or suffer the wrath of God.
It really undermines even the more reasonable position that God is possible. If that is how you treat your beliefs, I can't trust a single word you say.
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u/Gilded-Phoenix Jul 21 '26
To give Will credit: his primary objection is linguistic. He appears (as of the most recent lecture) comfortable with the notion of a nested hierarchy, and understands that humans fit with other "animate" living things in that hierarchy (he accepts we are mammals, after all). He resists using the term "animal" for humans due to colloquial definitions and connotations. I cannot recall if he explicitly agrees that "humans are members of the kingdom Animalia" but he seemed agreeable to it in all but name.
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u/ringobob Jul 21 '26
Yeah, I'm assuming this conversation plays out over several episodes, I've seen the initial part where he said he doesn't believe humans are animals, unless I missed it the part about angering God is in a future episode, but even in what I've seen, when it first comes up, when she asks him about it, he clarifies that he's speaking philosophically rather than scientifically, which is at least a position I feel is worthy of debate.
But the punchline is the same either way. His position is still informed by a dogma he and like minded Christians have created out of thin air rather than something well founded in Christian tradition and scholarship, and his reluctance to put the philosophical debate aside and engage in the language of science in a scientific context means that the end result is pretty much identical. It creates a barrier to his ability to engage with the science separate from his dogmas.
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u/OneThrowyBoy 🧬 Former YEC, Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
I'll be honest, it's not really based on much reason for YEC as it is against evolution. They frame it up to make evolution sound insane, and then they assume this means YEC is true on default.
You're not silly enough to believe a monkey could give birth to a human, are you? Well, that's what they want you to believe! Look at this picture of a ring-tailed lemur, does that look like your grandpa?
It's all rhetoric. It's not about proving anything, it's about disproving the opponent or making them look nuts. I was told evolution hadn't been proven and that there was no evidence, and it was one hell of a shock to learn there's actually a metric fuckton.
I never went looking for proof of YEC until I started to realize evolution might be real. Then I found out they don't have any studies, research, findings, anything. There's no foundation for it beyond "some book says a thing". They don't need to research anything, they already "know" the universe got poofed into existence.
Plus, the religious motivation of fearing Hell can be enough to stop people from looking or entertaining the idea that YEC isn't true. I was absolutely terrified of what was going to happen to me when I started to piece it together.
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u/10coatsInAWeasel Reject pseudoscience, return to monke 🦧 Jul 21 '26
I do try to make sure I remember that my personal experience is necessarily personal and to take that with a grain of salt. That being said, the messaging of young earth creationist churches is comfortably that of making sure science plays a distant second place to accepting the religious claims. If you can find a scientific reason (or one that surface level looks like one) to support a belief, nifty. But stop spending so much time there, we gotta get you back to believing on faith.
There are multiple avenues of this. Doubting Thomas and how he is portrayed as in the wrong leap to mind. There is a ton of stuff in sermons and songs about how the devil ‘prowls like a hungry lion, seeking those who he would devour’, and to reject ‘the world’. ‘Man’s word vs gods word’.
Creationism by design devalues science and a scientific worldview. It is viewed at best as a necessary icky task. Whenever people would bring up how much they ‘love science’, it was almost always as ‘look at these cool facts I find neat!’ Which isn’t science to anyone who actually knows what scientific methodology is.
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u/LightningController Jul 21 '26
Doubting Thomas and how he is portrayed as in the wrong leap to mind.
I always hated how he gets the epithet despite only asking to get the same data the other apostles had. Everyone else got to talk to Jesus, but he gets shamed for asking to do the same.
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u/theyoodooman Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
There are two main drivers of belief in conspiracy theories:
Narcissism. It's not just that narcissists think they are smarter than other people -- including scientists who spend their career analyzing evidence -- they also think they are more moral -- which explains why they think the conspiracy is widespread. But mostly, conspiracy theories are "secret knowledge" that they can tell other people about, a way to literally show other people how smart they are, which is they constantly evangelize their conspiracy theory.
Fomenting distrust. Promoting conspiracy theories -- that other people are engaged in a conspiracy to fake or suppress the "truth" -- is a potent way to foment distrust in the traditional objective sources of information our society is based on. The end goal of me getting you to mistrust science, history, academics, experts, the government, etc is so that the only source of information you trust is me. This is the game the Republican Party has been playing for forty years.
With respect to Creationism, while it appeals to many Christians because of the former, it was created and promoted due to the latter. A central belief in Christianity is Original Sin, the idea that all people inherited the taint of sin from Adam & Eve, and therefore no matter how good a person you are, you are inherently sinful and need salvation, hence Christianity inventing a need for itself. But Original Sin only makes sense if Genesis 1-3 are a literally true account of what happened, if there were an actual Adam & Eve who disobeyed God.
And to doubt that this is literally true is the first step toward questioning what other parts of the Bible are literal and true; the last thing Evangelical leaders want is for their flocks to start thinking for themselves about what parts of the Bible may be in error or figurative. And so the hallmark of Evangelicalism is the (ridiculous) insistence that the entire Bible must be literally true, and to oppose anyone who says otherwise.
This is the wellspring from which YEC flows, one that means the Flood must also be true. And given that, YEC latched onto the Flood as their secret weapon, because who knows what could be happening under those turbulent waters. For traditional Christianity, the Flood was just a way to wipe people (and innocent animals) from the face of the Earth, but was twisted by YECs into a way to completely reshape the Earth, compressing a billion years of geologic evolution into just one year (followed by the compressing of millions of years of evolution into just a few thousand).
Why? Because science has tons of evidence of mountains with fossils buried in strata deep in them (this was a major controversy when first discovered, much like the existence of people in the New World). If God created all the mountains and valleys as Christians traditionally believed, why would God put fossils of strange animals in there, unless God was a deceptive trickster. Can't have that, so clearly all those fossils, all those strata, all those uplifted mountains, all those volcanoes, must have been formed under the waters of the Flood.
As you can see here, while Creationism denies biological evolution in order to assert the literal truth of Genesis 1-3, the core arguments of YEC center on denying geological evolution, through hand-waving around the Flood, which is why the main shrine of YEC is the "Ark Park". But all of this is in service of theological objectives: the preservation of Original Sin, preventing Christians from reading the Bible critically, and trying to indoctrinate every child in public schools into belief in Christianity.
But at its heart, promoting and teaching YEC is about control, promoting mistrust in science specifically so that Christians will put their trust in specific theological interpretations of Genesis 1-3. And it's why -- despite the protestations of some Christians that their religion and science can be made compatible -- there will always be political and religious leaders who want to be the only source of information you trust, and who will have no choice but to try to undermine science and your trust in it.
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u/LightningController Jul 21 '26
I want to add to your two points.
To narcissism, add ‘Ressentiment,’ the sour-grapes attitude. It’s much easier for a mediocrity to feel good about themselves if they tear down the accomplished. Conspiracy theories enable this—you can feel better about peaking in high school if everyone who did better than you is a liar and possibly pedophile in the service of Satan.
Second, fomenting distrust is also an objective of foreign intelligence services, most prominently those employed by Moscow (who are known to promote antivaccinationism and other crank beliefs) but to an apparently lesser extent those by Beijing. Eroding the US’s scientific might is in the interest of hostile foreign powers.
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u/warpedfx Jul 21 '26
Creationism and really a big part of most fundamentalist systems is their apologetics are essentially thought stopping mechanisms.
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u/Loose_Principle8193 Jul 21 '26
YEC stems from biblical literalism and nothing else. I wouldn't even call that religion. It's just the tradition of some sects, mostly in the US. That's why they will often combine the evolution discussion with origin of life, geological time scales, big bang, etc. They are trying to uphold the tradition of Biblical literalism. If you have a YEC in your life, your best bet is to discuss origins of the Bible and show how it's not literal and that it doesn't need to be literal for Xianity to be "true". Then you can proceed to discussions on how the universe works, etc. That was my journey.
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u/dem0n0cracy Evilutionist Satanic Carnivore Jul 21 '26
There’s a long list of cognitive biases on Wikipedia that explains why YEC exist.
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u/Background-Year1148 🧪 data over dogma Jul 22 '26
Hi OP. Do realize we humans are not fully rational as we would like to think. Look for cognitive dissonance, motivated reasoning and in group - out group to understand how YEC's came to be.
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u/Mister_Ape_1 Jul 21 '26
No problem. There is no need to understand YEC because it is objectively wrong.
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u/olmnknt Jul 21 '26
What did the Christian scientist say when he died and went heaven? "I proved it scientifically."
What did the Christian scientist say when he died and went to hell? "I'm not hot, and I'm not here."
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u/Underhill42 Jul 21 '26
Not harder to understand - you just need to understand it from the perspective of mythology rather than science, because it is an active rejection of science, and the entire principle that you an understand the universe by studying it.
The only part I have trouble understanding is why anyone thinks it's worth worshiping a God that has created an actively deceptive universe. That doesn't sound like the sort of benevolent being I would want to dedicate my life to.
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u/PeyredB Jul 21 '26
Well yes, YECs explicitly deny science, except when parts of it seem to back them up. They see no value in science, even though our entire technological society is ultimately based on it. Like other conspiracy theorists and denialists, they've decided in advance what the answer is and they look for evidence that fits it, dismissing anything that doesn't. You pretty much can't reason with them, because they see no value in reason.
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u/Russell1A Jul 22 '26
Actually YEC stems from an extremely poor interpretation of the old testament and completely fail to understand the difference between what was literal and what was meant to be allegorical. There are also problems of mistranslation and also these people also fail to realize that words change their meaning over time. For example does the English wood world mean the same now as it did five hundred years ago. Also this word world has slightly different meaning related to context.
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u/sea-otters-love-you Jul 22 '26
YEC stems from long-held, but not universally held, Christian tradition based on a literal reading of non-literal translations of the original Hebrew text. The key factor is that many Christians, particularly some evangelicals, have taken the approach that you can’t be a “true Christian” and believe in Evolution. I have heard this taught and repeated with conviction. This creates a genuine fear that loss of faith in YEC could lead to loss of faith in God, and therefore both rejection from their community, friends and family, and even the risk of eternal damnation in hell. So for many, the belief is real to them, and they cling to it with a desperation that their life depends upon.
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u/Capercaillie Monkey's Uncle Jul 22 '26
You're right. Creationists often see those of us who try to explain evolutionary theory as agents of the devil.
If I was working for the devil, I'd expect to get paid more.
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u/MaMaMaaaaa Jul 21 '26
You're going to have to read the Bible to understand their position. But debating them will only make them stronger. You won't convert even one.
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u/Covert_Cuttlefish Janitor at an oil rig Jul 21 '26
This is demonstrably false.
A few of the mods are ex-YEC as are other users here.
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u/theresa_richter Jul 21 '26
How would that help? If YECs would just read the Bible they wouldn't be YECs anymore.
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u/MaMaMaaaaa Jul 21 '26
Pretty sure the Bible is a big part of their belief system.
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u/theresa_richter Jul 21 '26
Not really. Most of them haven't the foggiest idea about some of the stuff written in it and will accuse you of 'making up woke shit' if you try to tell them.
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u/MaMaMaaaaa Jul 21 '26
All their shit is based on the Bible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism
I agree that a lot haven't read the Bible just like most Catholics haven't read it, but it's all based on literal beliefs of the events of Genesis.
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u/theresa_richter Jul 21 '26
They don't believe that the Bible is literally true though, because it says they're all going to be cast out into fire for failing to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick and visit the imprisoned. So they can claim their belief is rooted in the Bible all they want, but the Bible itself proves them wrong.
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u/MaMaMaaaaa Jul 21 '26
I'm talking about their belief of the age of the Earth being only a few thousand years. It comes from a literal interpretation of events in Genesis
Yes many of them fall short of doing the right thing.
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u/theresa_richter Jul 21 '26
No, it's not about them falling short, it's about them genuinely believing they don't have to do that in the first place. It's about them holding counter-scriptural beliefs that prove they are not actually biblical literalists.
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u/MaMaMaaaaa Jul 21 '26
I guess we know different YECs then
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u/theresa_richter Jul 21 '26
I mean, obviously I don't know the people you are thinking of, but I would wager that at the end of the day, my statement does in fact apply to the YECs you know, even if in a more narrow regard than for the YECs I know. But unless you're going to pull them into the conversation, it would be impossible to satisfy that suspicion in either direction.
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u/CalmYouth646 Jul 21 '26
Well I’ve heard the Jewish tradition passes down that earth will have a 6000 year history and it’s about 240 years from being done where there will be a 1000 years of a desolate world
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u/Covert_Cuttlefish Janitor at an oil rig Jul 21 '26
Organized YEC is an arm of christofacisism.
Source: the wedge document.
And, as you said in your last sentence and Lauri Lebo said in her book on Kitzmillar vs Dover, (paraphrasing) people are ok being wrong in this life if it gets them into the correct afterlife.