Thoughts and clarifications concerning YEC wikipedia page.

[Crazyharp81602]

Me again,

A long while ago, I've contribute my history of the YEC movement with references to Ronald L. Numbers The creationists to the young earth creationism wikipedia page. However, someone by the username of Wattssw put down in the discussion area of the page saying that I'm wrong and changed the YECism history part saying that this is traced to Judaism through Jewish philosophers like Abraham Ibn Ezra for instance.

Here's what he said about what I did.

YEC is NOT a form of 7th day adventism. There are clear and distinct differences between 7th day adventists and many YEC'ers. " Its history can all be traced to one woman, Ellen G. White, the founder of the Cult of Seventh Day Adventism" -- this is wholly inaccurate. It is clear that yom implies a 24 hour period in Genesis, there is no reason previous generations of Genesis readers wouldnt believe similar things to a current YECist. It is also innacurate to say that no scientist in 150 years has considered YEC a valid line of reasoning. This is clearly an atheist viewpoint, and though the scientific community at large rejects the concept of a deity, it is wrong to consider YEC impossible or anymore unscientific than the theory of evolution. The article also lacks in its explanation of the growth of YEC in recent years as a backlash against the improbable, er, impossible myth of evolution. While the scientific community is entrenched in a myth, a lie of the geocentric universe scale, many intelligent critics are beginning to understand that faking things such as transition fossils merely causes evolutionists to lose any respect they may have had.

At first I agreed with him, but after I look at this quote closely, I realized that he could be wrong himself because he has been saying as if he favors YECism.

Hey, I'm just following what Ronald has written all along in his book The Creationists and sticking to that resource for origins of the YEC cult and movement all together.

Here's what the section of the history of the YEC movement says after that person changed what I wrote:

Young earth creationism in the West primarily has its earliest roots in Judaism. For example, Ibn Ezra's (c. 1089–1164) commentary on Genesis is greatly esteemed in traditional rabbinical circles and he believed the Genesis days were 24 hour periods.

Also, when one looks at the early Church and their view on the age of the earth the young earth creationism view was the majority view as shown by a work by Robert I. Bradshaw given in the article section below.

With that being said, in 1960 Henry M. Morris published The Genesis Flood creating a sensation among many fundamentalist Christian groups and started the modern creationism movement that continues to this very day. In addition, in the 1970's there were hundreds of public debates in the United States at colleges, universities and other public forums. Over the years, many organizations sprang up to advocate young earthism, such as the Institution of Creation Research founded by Henry Morris, Answers in Genesis (AIG) founded by Ken Ham, and many others.



I'm not sure if what he wrote down is accurate and true but still I'm sticking to my resource on YECism cult and history through Number's book.

Any thoughts as well as clarifications on this?

Crazyharp81602

[theyeti]

I would say that the scientific creationist movement is wholly distinct from earlier biblical literalist beliefs which did not attempt to claim scientific evidence for a 6000 year old Earth or Noah's flood. That begins with Morris in the 1960s, and is a direct result of the widespread inclusion of evolution in public school curricula. (This being caused by a NAS revamping of the school science curriculum after Sputnik scarred the shit out of everyone.)

The claim about "hundreds of debates" in universities and colleges back in the 70s sounds dubious to me. Even if technically true, this gives the impression that scientists were taking YEC seriously, which they most certainly were not. YEC has not had any validity within the scientific community since the early 19th century when it became obvious that the Earth could not be young, and that a global flood could not explain geological strata. The fact that the occasional religious nut-case with a PhD thinks otherwise doesn't change this.

As for the actual statement that he directed towards you, it's full of bullshit top to bottom, but I won't bother pointing out where. It obviously marks him as a YEC.

theyeti

[theyeti]

BTW, young-Earthism really has its roots in Bishop Usher who in 1650 calculated the age of the Earth to have begun in 4004 BC, based on geneologies in the Bible. This is the first known calculation of a young Earth, though of course biblical literalism predates this. (Of course, interpreting the Bible non-literally goes way back too.)

theyeti

[Jayjay]

I think it's a copout to mention the early church and 11th century philosopher, and then jump straight to Morris. YEC as a movement is characterized by the countering ideas of old Earth, not just Bible interpretation.

EDIT: I noticed that under external links the page doesn't have a single article critical of YEC.

[Valentine Pontifex]

" Its history can all be traced to one woman, Ellen G. White, the founder of the Cult of Seventh Day Adventism"

I would agree with the YEC that that is not exactly an accurate description. The idea that the Earth was created in six days a few thousand years old hardly starts with White. Furthermore there has never been a time which a significant amount of Christians did not accept the six days thing. Now Christians who who ran in intellectual circles got over it for two centuries ago, but amoung the less sophisticated and uneducated what we call YECism has very often been taken for granted.

Now that being said, one cannot understand the history of the so-called "scientific creationism" movement without knowing about White. She directly inspired many of those who built the foundations of what Morris and friends would latter argue for. If she had never came around both the history and form of YECism would have almost certainly been radically different. The YEC's revision quoted is not acceptable since it jumps from early Church history to Morris which is simply not accurate. Replace your original "all" to wording to the effect of "much of" and it would be far superior to what the YEC did.

Another thing to consider is that YECism is usually accepted due to fundamentalism. The fundamentalist movement was in the early 20th Century was largely motivated as a reaction against Higher Criticism. This is an important root of YECism that does not depend of the writings of White.

The word "cult" is innappropriate for a Wikipedia article since it is a rather loaded term.

I would also point out that YECism is itself not a cult. Sure it has many characteristics of a cult, but it also lack an important defining characteristic. There is an enormous range of opinion within YECism and its followers can be found in many distinct denominations.