Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

I was recently at a coc this Sunday in bible class, and they were talking about how do we know God exist and somehow they got on the topic of evolution. And obviously they dismissed this notion from the start, saying that “humans didn’t come from monkeys” and other types of statements. This also led to a rant about watching what our kids learn in school and not relying on what teachers teach and that this is why we need to have prayer and God back in school, etc. What was your coc’s view on evolution?

Additionally this made me think about earth creationism as well, and my guess would be that most of them and most coc’s believe in yec (young earth creationism). It’s just interesting to me because even when I still believed in the coC doctrine, I always rationalized creationism and evolution as factual but obviously many in the coC don’t.

The preacher at my church actually equates people who believe in evolution with atheists. Anti-evolution/Anti-Big Bang is taught regularly from the pulpit. It is very clear that if you believe in those things, you're damned to hell. Because Genesis 1 is to be taken literally or you throw the whole Bible out. The number of Catholic evolutionary biologists in existence doesn't matter, since Catholics aren't Christians anyway. They're not part of the "One True Chruch of Christ".

I homeschool. I'm teaching my kids Big Bang and evolution, and I've told them that Genesis 1 doesn't have to be taken literally and that you can believe in an old earth/universe and still believe God did it. In our history last week, we were talking about times when the church thought the Sun revolved around the earth, and I explained that the Bible isn't intended to be a science book. It's intended to tell about the nature of God.

Then we also got into more fun science topics yesterday, like how you shouldn't be scared of something that is "one molecule away from antifreeze". Salt is one molecule away from deadly chlorine gas, but we still eat it. I'm hoping to NOT contribute to the anti-science nature of conservative Christians in our society (and it's not limited to conservative Christians... there are plenty of tree hugging atheist hippies that don't understand science either... it's just the conservative Christians perpetuating the young earth thing which starts the anti-science train).

Before I started questioning coc beliefs, I was using the YEC homeschool materials, though I wasn't taught such stuff as a child. I learned it when I was 20 via sermons. But when I really started digging, I found that it was all bunk. When I've researched individual topics that the preacher says is evidence that evolution is wrong, I've quickly learned how the science actually works and that he clearly doesn't understand modern biology (which has changed a whole lot since hew as in school). But when I was falling in line on the YEC thing, I kept running into issues trying to teach YEC... There were so many things that I didn't know how to explain in terms of a young earth. And they don't have any actual science to backup their claims. They will make some wild theory (not scientific theory, but common theory) and then say it's just as good a theory as the scientific theory. Well no, scientific theories don't become theories without evidence to back them up. And there has to be a lot of evidence before something is considered a theory (which is just an explanation of how/why things work based on evidence collected). When they start screaming, "But it's just a theory!", I know they have no science education.

Shrubbery wrote:
I homeschool. I'm teaching my kids Big Bang and evolution, and I've told them that Genesis 1 doesn't have to be taken literally and that you can believe in an old earth/universe and still believe God did it. In our history last week, we were talking about times when the church thought the Sun revolved around the earth, and I explained that the Bible isn't intended to be a science book. It's intended to tell about the nature of God.

Very good points Shrubbery. Genesis chapters 1 and 2 simply declare God to be the creator, and the bible was never intended to be a science book. These chapters in Genesis are intended to tell us about the WHO of creation, and not about the HOW of creation.

Can anyone say what difference it really makes in a practical way to anything whether the Earth was created 10k years ago or 10 billion years ago?

What if any impact is there to math, medicine, engineering, cancer research, astronomy, orbital mechanics or travel beyond Earth, etc?

Seriously...what difference does it make? It is unknowable one way or the other, so why do folks pride themselves one holding one position or the other?

It makes no practical difference and cannot be known/proved. So what is the big deal other than choosing sides and serving some other agenda?

KLP wrote:Can anyone say what difference it really makes in a practical way to anything whether the Earth was created 10k years ago or 10 billion years ago?

What if any impact is there to math, medicine, engineering, cancer research, astronomy, orbital mechanics or travel beyond Earth, etc?

Seriously...what difference does it make? It is unknowable one way or the other, so why do folks pride themselves one holding one position or the other?

It makes no practical difference and cannot be known/proved. So what is the big deal other than choosing sides and serving some other agenda?

I agree, it seems to me that both sides can not prove anything in any definite way and I really don't see why it bothers either side. Except, whichever position one dogmatically accepts influences an agenda and people keep right on fighting.

You know if you listen to all the evolutionists talk about their theories and you change a few of their words you could almost have yourself a conservative fundamentalist sermon on any given Sunday . All I'm saying is the extreme components in both schools of thought are very similar in their disdain for opposite groups in how they talk and fuss.

KLP wrote:Can anyone say what difference it really makes in a practical way to anything whether the Earth was created 10k years ago or 10 billion years ago?

What if any impact is there to math, medicine, engineering, cancer research, astronomy, orbital mechanics or travel beyond Earth, etc?

Seriously...what difference does it make? It is unknowable one way or the other, so why do folks pride themselves one holding one position or the other?

It makes no practical difference and cannot be known/proved. So what is the big deal other than choosing sides and serving some other agenda?

My view on that .... it does matter in practical ways. Math / numeric calculations are inseparable from all of these disciplines. Medicine.......diseases and microbiological / biological entities evolve and change, and we need to know in what time frames those things occur / occurred in order to make informed predictions, discover treatments, identify preventive methods, etc. Engineering......well, you'll have to handle that one. Astronomy...all about mathematical calculations, laws of physics, and unfathomable time frames. Orbital mechanics, travel beyond Earth? I guess one could be a YEC and still work effectively in these fields, and that's not for me to judge. However, it is important to me personally to try to understand where we are in deep time as it informs my learning and views about the universe. It improves my overall quality of life - practical for me. I don't agree with you that 10k vs 10b is "unknowable".....unless one distrusts the sciences.

KLP wrote:Can anyone say what difference it really makes in a practical way to anything whether the Earth was created 10k years ago or 10 billion years ago?

What if any impact is there to math, medicine, engineering, cancer research, astronomy, orbital mechanics or travel beyond Earth, etc?

First, scientific literacy matters. People spread crazy ideas (like "hanging onions in your house will kill flu germs in the air!") when they don't understand science. And if they are following the YEC line of thought, they have to throw out much of "science" and say that scientists have no idea what they're talking about. So then that leads to even more crazy ideas spread, some of which can be dangerous. I don't think I've met a YEC'er that believed man has anything to do with climate change, even though there are vast amounts of evidence for those effects. Much of the evidence deals with spans of time, and the YEC'er can't handle those spans of time, and they just throw the whole idea out.

Second, most of modern biology is built on evolution. So without that, I think it would be hard to even do cancer research. All that DNA sequencing and such? That's based on evolution. I was just reading the other day about a fish in the ocean that has the genes for walking but it doesn't have legs. They're going to use that fish to do research on human medical problems involving walking. They found that gene because of evolution (and apparently the gene for walking came before sea animals left the water - kind of neat!).

Third, figuring out why multiple extinctions have taken place in the past (in time periods that YEC'ers don't believe exist) could possibly help prevent future mass exinctions. But if you think there was only one mass exinction caused by a supernatural global flood, you're going to not care to even look into any of the past extinctions. While this likely wouldn't affect you or me, it might affect our distant discendents, and they're people too.

I'm sure there are more effects, but that's just off the top of my head. I've seen in various online groups how the lack of scientific literacy affects the spread of snake oil cures, dangerous "medical" advice, and not caring about our environment.

OK..since this is all about science...surely something of this must be measurable right?

Science and math that are observable and repeatable and knowable are simply not dependent upon any set of personal beliefs. Cancer research? drug development? I hope there is more than just hope and belief that some new treatment is worth giving to a patient....better be some testing to back up the theory.

Actually...I applaud the effort to even offer a response...generally the challenge is never engaged.

So far what we have is "I think it must matter" but no actual practical examples or specifics. Believe it or not, testing and developing drugs and testing and developing cures for cancer is not dependent on if one "believes" the universe is 13 billon years old. Creationist believe there is commonality since there is a common designer...evolutionist believe there is a commonality because the observed order and complexity happened randomly from primordial ooze. But somehow now we are supposed to think that despite not ever observing this creation of random life and random occurrence of complexity, that just believing it must happen is somehow crucial to studying actual observable cancer? But really it is the belief in the commonality of life that allows application and understanding across species...not that they all came from ooze by accident...no, it is the aspect of commonality that is the key. How that commonality came to be is not relevant.

Global Warming. Firstly to date there is no vast amount of evidence that man has caused Global Warming...there is interpretation of data and modelling. There is a suggested correlation and a lot of re-adjustment to past data. But the amount of warming has never followed the predicted science based models based on CO2...but yes there is a lot of belief that SUVs and drinking straws are killing the planet. But if that is considered bunk...then please...What is the exact percentage of Global Warming that has been caused by Mankind?

To the point that man has to believe in a billion year time line to have a concern about planet integrity and preservation of species is simply a non sequitur and doesn't begin to pass the smell test. I mean seriously, who thinks because one believes in the Bible that they must not care about preservation of life and all life forms? Preservation of life???? By the way, the cause for species extinction is Human/Mankind...poachers, development, destruction of habitat. It really isn't rocket science. It is easily observable. So a belief in billions of years is not required to accept that extinctions are occurring and ongoing.

So does believing the universe is 13 billions years old really have an impact on quality of life? Is that measurable? I am not saying people cannot believe it but is any of this stuff objective or measurable? If not, then how is this a discussion about science?

And that is the point I am making...somehow it is oh so important to choose sides about something that is not knowable and not be like those other people. Both sides do it and it is not science or objective at all IMO. So I just stuck to the actual science and data.

Is there any actual harm to believing a God created everything and that it didn't just pop up out of nothing?

I don’t think this has to be a zero sum game though. Just because you believe in an older earth, it doesn’t mean you think that God didnt create the earth. There are plenty of people that are Christians that don’t believe in a young earth.

As far as knowing exact numbers on how old the earth is, I don’t think that matters as much as accepting a minimum threshold. For YECs to accept a <10k yr old earth, it means they don’t accept a lot of the science that is known today. Scientist have carbon dated things that are way older than 10k years old, so then a YEC would have to then deny that it doesn’t exist. We know that dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago using radiometric dating!

So I think some of the frustration is that we have all of these other observable facts that scientist have used to date objects and organisms, and many other scientific facts that you have to ignore if you believe the earth is at a young age.

Ivy wrote:

KLP wrote:Can anyone say what difference it really makes in a practical way to anything whether the Earth was created 10k years ago or 10 billion years ago?

What if any impact is there to math, medicine, engineering, cancer research, astronomy, orbital mechanics or travel beyond Earth, etc?

Seriously...what difference does it make? It is unknowable one way or the other, so why do folks pride themselves one holding one position or the other?

It makes no practical difference and cannot be known/proved. So what is the big deal other than choosing sides and serving some other agenda?

My view on that .... it does matter in practical ways. Math / numeric calculations are inseparable from all of these disciplines. Medicine.......diseases and microbiological / biological entities evolve and change, and we need to know in what time frames those things occur / occurred in order to make informed predictions, discover treatments, identify preventive methods, etc. Engineering......well, you'll have to handle that one. Astronomy...all about mathematical calculations, laws of physics, and unfathomable time frames. Orbital mechanics, travel beyond Earth? I guess one could be a YEC and still work effectively in these fields, and that's not for me to judge. However, it is important to me personally to try to understand where we are in deep time as it informs my learning and views about the universe. It improves my overall quality of life - practical for me. I don't agree with you that 10k vs 10b is "unknowable".....unless one distrusts the sciences.

Well written post, Ivy (but I'm too old to know what a YEC is)....to me, science is a subset of creation....God made it within the context of his own creation....for us to not only discover, but enjoy, and "have life ever more abundantly" (even in the words of Jesus)....as we learn more of the amazement of ourselves and other creation around us....and hopefully discover one of those Ancient Aliens someday....