Still No Apologies

Why I Left Young Earth Creationism: My apologetics journey, part 2

The debate between theistic evolutionists and young earth creationists is not about whether to believe Genesis or compromise. It's not about whether God lied or was honest. It's not about whether God had the power to make the world in 6 days (I fully believe He could have made it in 6 milliseconds!). The debate is about what genre Genesis is. The debate is about how God chose to create the world.

This second part of my apologetics journey will explain how I left YEC (Young Earth Creationism, also an abbreviation for Young Earth Creationist. The point here is not to convince my readers to leave YEC and accept evolution (although I don't think that would be the worst thing in the world!). The point is simply to share my story and explain that my view of God and the Bible has not been compromised in any way.

When I went to college, I took three biology classes. In these classes, only the basics of evolution (most of which I already accepted as a YEC) were discussed. My first professor never debunked YEC arguments, however he often mocked the ideology in his lectures. I found this amusing rather than offensive, especially because I felt his critiques were unfair and missed what I actually believed. My other two biology professors never discussed YEC. Thus, it was not college biology classes or mockery that made me change my mind.

My opinions started to shift when I realized that Answers in Genesis had overstated their case. I had long since been disappointed with one of their articles on mental illness, so I no longer felt they were a "flawless" website as my childish mind used to. AiG made it seem like if you accept anything less than YEC, you were compromising and thus entering a slippery slope where morality, the Bible, and even the Gospel was at stake! As I learned more about theistic evolution, I saw some of my simplistic arguments (like the one about "yom" meaning a literal 24-hour day) falling apart. I realized being a theistic evolutionist does not mean you are an inferior Christian. As I realized this, my mind became more open to questioning YEC.

After watching videos on Genesis by Inspiring Philosophy, I realized I had been reading Genesis with a hyper-literal Westernized lens. This meant I was reading Genesis almost as a science textbook rather than a beautiful, artistic depiction of God creating order from chaos. While Genesis' human authors and original audience would have understood the deep meaning of Genesis, I- with all my modern resources- had been missing the point entirely! I wasn't yet a theistic evolutionist, but I realized that taking the Bible as it was meant to be understood sometimes meant not taking the Bible literally. Instead, we should take the Bible literarily, meaning in context and as it is meant to be understood.

While watching another Youtube video, this one by Professor Dave (a bit of a peevish atheist), Dave mentioned something blew my mind. He said he didn't understand why some Christians were so intent on YEC. If God was able to order the universe in such a way that everything He planned would play out naturally from the Big Bang like the most complex and elegant machine... wouldn't this be a greater demonstration of his power- His omniscience- than creating each species separately? I then realized that no matter how God chose to create the world, His power was in no way diminished. If anything (as I see it), theistic evolution would magnify His power!

I started accepting evolution when I listened to the Youtube channel, Creation Myths. The channel's creator is a very kind and chill molecular biologist. He was the first anti-YEC I knew of that did not treat YECs as humans with lesser intelligence. He did not scoff, misrepresent, make foolish jokes, or "dumb down" the science. Even more than this, he was very humble when it came to speaking about topics outside of his field, even if he knew more about those fields than the YEC he was debunking. The first thing I learned from this channel is to be humble: I was never going to become an expert in evolutionary biology, cellular biology, molecular biology, geology, paleontology, chemistry, and all the other fields of study that would be required to make a truly educated decision on what to believe. I realized the best way to go was trusting the scientific consensus; the people who spent their lives studying one particular topic. And if all these varying fields agreed that the earth was old, I'd have to be an arrogant fool to stand against this.