Young Earth creationism

The Young Earth Creationism ( Young Earth creationism English ) is a direction of creationism, which assumes that the earth and life were created to her more than 10,000 years ago by the direct action of God. He is represented by believers who assume that those in the first book of Moses six days of creation and one rest day each correspond to 24 hours and completely describe the first week after an absolute beginning of time. The contents of the entire Bible is a truthful historical account, from which the magnitude of the time passed since then can be calculated in her eyes. The trailers are also of the opinion that the statements of the Bible in the context of creation science deserve priority over the science, or at least on an equal footing.

• 2.1 dinosaurs

History of the Young-Earth Creationism

Origin

The Young Earth Creationism has its earliest roots in Judaism. So was the view that the earth was young and was created in six days, for example, by Flavius ​​Josephus ( Jewish historian of the 1st century ) divided. The elapsed time since then has been estimated in the modern era based on the age given in the biblical gender boards to a maximum of 10,000 years.

Until the late 19th century, however, were those of geologists such as Charles Lyell empirically stated age of the Earth in the billions of total in contradiction to known physics. After completely undisputed evidence in the thermodynamic calculations of Lord Kelvin to the maximum duration of a cooling of a red-hot molten earth an age of the earth over 24 million years after the then physical knowledge was impossible. This changed with the discovery of radioactivity. This blatant contradiction did not prevent the geologists at the high-profile development of their theses on which the emergence of an independent scientific tradition of descriptive, historical operating Geo and life sciences based. Christian theology responded, inter alia, the development of a text-critical interpretation of the Bible, including the life of Jesus research, in which David Friedrich Strauss tried the biblical texts and derived religious beliefs and dogmas convert into philosophical ideas without them as truths of faith give up. Inner Ecclesiastical it stayed with a contradiction between literal interpretation of the Bible as text critical interpretation.

Decline as a scientific hypothesis

Support for Young Earth Creationism took from the 18th century with the development of the new science of geology from. The early geologists came to the conclusion that the earth must be of age to explain the large amount of geological phenomena that could be observed, can. James Hutton, regarded as the father of modern geology today, took the view that the Earth must be much older. He even said that she was infinitely old.

Hutton's main argument was that the phenomena of the earth's surface, which he saw could not have come in a short span by a catastrophe, but the same processes that can be observed today on the earth, they had spawned ( Uniformitätsprinzip ). Since all these processes slowly expired, the earth must be old to bring forth these changes. After a short time came the age of the Earth Science to a few million years - still short compared to today's popular numbers, but far more than the few thousand years of a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Hutton's ideas were popularized by Sir Charles Lyell in the early 19th century. Through the hard work of Lyell the public and the scientific community came to accept the idea of ​​an old earth. Middle of the century had the young-earth creationism discarded as a serious hypothesis established science. Many of the leading geologists of that time were themselves clergy, such as the Reverend William Buckland, the first professor of geology at Oxford University. Many religious groups gave the young-earth creationism as a literal description of the geology and came to the view that the Biblical account of creation is to be understood figuratively.

In particular, because of the development of a variety of reliable radiometric dating methods since the beginning of the 20th century, the young-earth creationism is today completely rejected as scientifically serious hypothesis. These include, for example, various independent radiometric dating methods, which yield a much higher age of the Earth, or dendrochronology. For instance, the so-called Hohenheim curve of dendrochronology, which now continuously to 14.6 thousand years ago today goes back (as of 2009 ), referred neither to the young-earth creationism nor the as gaps Creationism (gap creationism ) mix of young-earth creationism and Old earth Creationism to agree ( Kurzzeitkreationismus and Langzeitkreationismus ).

Renaissance in the religious environment

With the increase of Christian fundamentalism in the early 20th century, a new interest in young-earth creationism arose. In 1923 the Seventh- day Adventist George McCready Price wrote the book The New Geology ( The new geology) to give a fundamentalist response to the geology. The inspiration for this book he received in part from Patriarchs and Prophets, a book by Ellen G. White, one of the founders of the Seventh- day Adventist Church, in which she describes the disastrous effects of the flood on the shape of the earth's surface.

Price's work was taken up by Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb and expanded. In 1961 she published the book The Genesis Flood ( the Deluge ). Morris and Whitcomb argued that the Earth was geologically young and that most of the geological strata were deposited in the course of a year. (This is precisely the view that Buckland had rejected 130 years before. ) Based on this, they said, "the last refuge of the evolution disappears and the recording of the stones of a tremendous witness ... for the holiness and righteousness and power of the living God creation. "

This became the basis of a new generation of creationists who organized themselves in order founded by Morris Institute for Creation Research. Sister organization, such as operating as a mission organization Creation Research Society try to interpret the geological formations from the standpoint of Young Earth Creationism newly.

The thoughts of Morris had great impact on creationism and fundamentalist Christianity. With financial support from rich conservative organizations and individuals as his " creationist science" significant doctrine has been widely used both within and outside the United States. His books have been translated into at least 10 languages.

The renaissance of the young-earth creationism but had no significant influence on modern science. Creationism is rejected by the vast majority of scientists and, so far as it is scientifically classified as not serious. He had a significant impact on education, especially in the U.S., where there are always big arguments about whether the views of the young-earth creationists should be taught in public schools.

The influence of the young-earth creationism is limited to Orthodox Judaism and fundamentalist Protestant churches. Almost all other Christian denominations reject the concepts of the young-earth creationism. Many theologians believe that the creation story from the first book of Moses should not be understood literally.

Characteristic of the young-earth creationism

Young - earth creationists are often orthodox Jews or evangelical Christians who view the creation story from the first book of Genesis as historically accurate and mostly as infallible fact report.

The defining feature of this variant of creationism is the idea that the earth is "young", in the order 6000-10000 years. (For comparison, the conventional dating of the earth is 4.5 billion years. ) This age is derived from the genealogical information from the first book of Moses, and other data of the Bible. The calculation is similar to the system used by the Irish Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) was erected, which dated the creation to the year 4004 BC.

Young - earth creationists believe that life on earth by God in the course of six days of creation was created 24 hours each in the form of basic types or defined types ( " after their kind "). They also believe that the biblical account of the Flood is historically true, and that a worldwide flood has destroyed all life on earth about 4500 years ago, apart from the creatures that were saved in Noah's ark.

Young - earth creationists contradict the theory of evolution as well as many other theories of scientific fields such as physics, chemistry, astronomy and geology: They reject the absolute values ​​of physical and chemical dating methods as unreliable from. You will see the geologically significant shaping today's earth's surface by the impact of disasters, such as the Flood. They also reject random evolution of the planets, the solar system or the universe. For the linguistics postulating the creation of all languages ​​through the confusion of tongues at Babel ( Babelismus ). Neanderthal see them as examples of the present time people in the most advanced age and suspect trials of dating methods in fossil record older than 5000 to 6000 years. In particular, they consider no explanation of the origin of the world, God replaced as described in the Bible Creator of the universe, of life and of species by purely scientific tangible processes as possible.

They believe that naturalism and the actualism ( uniformitarianism ) are unsuitable as a scientific principle, to describe the world ( complete). The supporters of the theory believe that (especially geological ) allow the scientific data and individual geological paradoxes ( cf. paradox of the weak young sun) better with the adoption of a young earth and a singular catastrophism in regard to explain the Flood.

Dinosaur

Young - earth creationists contradict the scientific knowledge that the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, as the earth is only 6,000 years old. Therefore, it is represented in circles of young-earth creationists, the theory that dinosaurs had drowned in the Flood. "

In the book The Genesis Flood in 1961 by Henry M. Morris, the theory was considered that dinosaurs and humans had lived before the Flood. This view is represented in several creationist museums (such as the Creation Museum or the Creation Evidence Museum ). Another theory that dinosaurs survived the Flood and continued to exist as a dragon. Some Christians argue that the Bible would have already reported about dinosaurs. In the Bible, a monster called " behemoth " (Job 40:15-24 ) is mentioned. Some creationists see in the monster Leviathan a reference to dinosaurs. Some creationists believe that dinosaurs in Australia would have survived and that Aboriginal people have reported about them. On the website of Answers in Genesis Kenneth " Ken " Ham believes that dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark and extinct until later, because they ran out of food. Dinosaurs may have been the dragon, of which report old stories.

Theological Aspects

Major contributions to the modern theological understanding of the geology, paleontology and anthropology come from the Jesuits, geologists and anthropologists Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard's writings during his lifetime were in great conflict with the Church authorities, but were sold posthumously in millions of copies and also found within the church increasingly recognized. He saw the creation not as something " once " Completed, but as an ongoing process that is not in opposition to evolution. His reflections on the evolution of humans, especially with regard to its mental and spiritual aspects that coincide in some aspect with the Indian philosopher Aurobindo Ghose, who looks at the people currently living as a transitional nature to a higher stage of development.

These views are not shared by most evangelical young earth creationists. After their understanding of the Bible is one Mos 1.1-10 EU understands not as a myth but as a factual report. You make that finding, inter alia, on the following points:

• The shape of this Bible section corresponds to a report style, which in other places in the Bible historical facts are described.
• The creation account is considered later in the Bible as fact. In particular, Jesus himself had regard to the creation ( Mark 10:6 EU) and the Flood (Matthew 24,37 EU) taken and they thus confirmed as truth.
• You can see in 2 Peter 3:1-7 EU ( especially verse 5) a fulfilled prophecy, that people would no longer believe in later times to the Flood.

Strict Christian creationists also point out that according to the Bible, death only as a result of the sin of the first man came into the world (eg, Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21 EU EU), whereas already in the game all evolutionist types ancestors of the people are subjected to back to the first single-celled mortality.