Young Earth Creationists? Really believe it? Really?

[balotelli]

Cant believe that anyone actually thinks that the earth was created by a god 6000 years ago!

I have to agree with Richard Dawkins who said they are either ignorant, stupid or insane.

If you do believe it, explain dinosaurs!

Young earth creationism isn't well-known for going hand in hand with tolerance.

Chaotic in their opinion its the evolutionists that are harming, and they all think they're way of thinking is right.

That wasn't the purpose of OPs thread though, it was to make fun and make young earth creationists feel stupid, that's why I am annoyed.

Great stereotyping there noblegiraffe

noble - again, I find that hurtful in the extreme.

There are of course fundamental Christians that are intolerant, in the same way that there are people in every walk of life, whether they have faith or not, who are bigoted, violent, hateful, intolerant.

But I will never understand what sport there is in selecting people of any faither (or none) and flinging one's hands up in the air at their stupidity, their ignorance - what nutters! How foolish! what benighted idiots! God! Can you imagine! don't you just pity them! etc. etc.

Being brought up in very Christian home I have had more mockery and contempt in my time than I can begin to describe.

Thankfull I have rhino hide, but that doesn't mean that I welcome coming onto Mumsnet as an adult and discovering on a weekly basis that mockery all over again.

I just cannot believe that the dear, good, kind, sweet, clever people who brought me up, and their friends, who loved and cared for me and for so many others, could be so utterly despised.

Not because they have DONE anything.

But because of what they THINK.

It's....well. It's madness. And it hurts.

If you tend to believe the old testament as historical fact and the inspired word of god, then you tend to pay attention to what it has to say regarding e.g. homosexuals, no?

As what it has to say regarding e.g. homosexuals is that they should be stoned to death then that would link young earth creationism to intolerance, no?

Without any need for stereotyping based on observation.

I too see no value in these endless threads about ~shock! horror!~ how some people can believe what they do. I'm sure they have their reasons and I'm fairly sure that if they're not hurting you OP (the owner of, if I remember rightly, some fairly bloody unbelievable views yourself!) then why not just STFU about it and let them get on with it?
Fundamentalists of any flavour are disagreeable in my view so yes, the USA creatonists who wish to restrict other teachings need to be dealt with.
In my opinion much of the Bible is more in line with rogermelly's - it's largely symbolic and designed to provoke deeper thought than to be taken absolutely literally - in many ways as we learn and understand more this is no longer possible anyway.

I just do not understand how you can deny what modern science has conclusively proven.

As for Richard Dawkins being a god......... its possible, at least there is some evidence that Richard Dawkins may acutally exsist.

Good post jodie. Bloody good post.

Jodie, I absolutely don't think that people should be mocked for their beliefs. I am a devout, practising Christian and fundamentally believe in tolerance and respect. I think that young earth creationists should be free to be just that. Many of them have invested significant time into researching their belief (see Answers in Genesis), not all of them are ignorant or ill educated, just like any other group.

My problem lies in the fact that the only YECs that I have come into contact with have been very intolerant of other views. I belief in God on Christ, I belief that God created everything etc. etc. but I was still unceremoniously dumped from a Christian support group for respectfully suggesting in "conversation" that perhaps the Adam and Eve story was allegorical. There appears to be no room for questioning or understanding of others in some young earthers' faith and I don't think that that is a very Christian attitude.

I would not tar all of them with the same brush, of course, but that is my experience.

What the hell business is it of yours what anyone believes balotelli? Can you explain that please? Maybe you should get your beak out of other people's business?

If I turned round and said for example how it is incredulous that people believe a virgin, an actual virgin, got pregnant and had a baby who was the son of god, these people must be very ignorant for believing that, or stupid, or insane....how many people would that offend, evangelicals, Roman Catholics, church of England, mormons, Presbyterians the list goes on.

But I wouldn't say it because I respect other peoples beliefs and don't poke fun and expect everyone to jump on the band wagon which they inevitably do if they don't agree.

Get over yourselves ffs!

noble, I would like to asure you that my parents have never expressed a willingness to stone a homosexual, nor indeed to do anything to them whatever. As far as I am aware, my mother didn't sacrifice pigeons at certain times in cycle either.

Look: one thing my childhood taught me was that there are some people who will willingly cause distress and hurt, out of a perverse pleasuring in deriding people who are different from them, whether that it because of how they dress, or where they live, or what they believe.

i guess, in my optimistic way, I thought that by the age of 32, and not even being a churchgoer anymore, the vilification of those with faith wouldn't be so hurtful. Meh, I was wrong!

(and yes, if this thread had been about deriding people of any other faith, I would have felt the same).

My main issue with (some) creationists, young-earth or not, is that a fair number of them wish to see their beliefs taught in science classes with equal standing against cosmology and evolution. That, to me, is wrong.

that should say I Believe, for goodness sake

Thank you Lentilly. Am actually almost in tears

It's like being back in the playground when that boy kicked me thoroughly in the shins howling BIBLE BASHER! over and over again.

However, at least 50% of this is PMT. I am not normally this wet. I promise.

Awwww jodie - this particular OP can't really be taken all that seriously, but I agree with you - it's just bloody rude to start on at people's beliefs. I have my opinions about some of them but I will continue to keep those to myself - I believe the same about Politics. Don't pick on people because of their beliefs.

Stressed perhaps you believe what I do - ie, God created the heavens and earth, 'cos he must have done, what with being God and all that; but I think it's pretty clear that he did it by means other than flinging a big round rock into the sky and making a little clay man...

My mother knows I think this and does NOT approve

snorbs they believe creationism is right, so if course they would like children to have the option of knowing about it, I'm not saying its wrong or right, but I will be ensuring ny DD gets to know all her options. Evolution is still a theory IMO.

Didn't science think the world was flat for hundreds of years? So if people want to believe something different who are you to stand in their way.

Jodie, yet you must accept that there is a logical link between YEC and intolerance of homosexuals, however nice your parents were.

I don't see the problem with mocking people for ther bonkers beliefs. And I think what you are really saying is "you can't mock ME for MY beliefs".

David Icke and the lizards, happy to mock them, for example. Scientologists and their spaceships full of enlightened aliens, they're pretty daft too.
What makes your faith so special and protected? WE can all laugh at things we find silly and funny. You do it, you just don't like it when its too close to home.

But thing is, I don't even mind a bit of debate Lentilly - I welcome it indeed! And Lord knows I've no right to get too up on my high horse given that I am possibly THE most conflicted and uncertain Christian of ALL TIME.

It's just the mocking and contempt I cannae stand. Especially I think of my lovely old Dad being so despised (by implication).

I should hide the thread really.

and "science" didn't ever think the world was flat. Nobody did. The experience of mariners, travellers and a cursory look at the night sky or the horizon confirmed to the earliest people that the world was not flat. The ancient greeks knew it was round, and others long before that.

MissRepresentation - actually, I don't openly mock and deride anyone for anything they believe. Especialyl if I can see it hurts 'em. Sorry!

(For instance, I have a close friend who regularly sees a healer and psychic. Now, I can't myself see that there is likely to be much in it, but who knows: there is more in heaven and earth then is dreamt of in our philosophy, as Shakespeare says. Now, when she comes round for a gin and tells me all about the sensations that coursed through her when her head was massaged, do you think I guffaw and point and start leafing through a medical textbook?! No! Of course not - what on EARTH would I get out of making someone feel small, and foolish?!)

That pretty much sums it up, Jodie [smile} I believe HE did, but I don't know how. I think a lot of the earlier biblical writings are like that; not meant to be read literally but to contain the things that we need to know in a kind of simplified version.

I think that there is pretty much an obsession with mocking people of faith on here. It's not very nice. We should, surely, just try to live and let live and appreciate that we are all different.