Note: I can trace the first unraveling of my lifelong faith in the reliability of the Bible to a specific date—September 27, 2010. On that day, at 1:35 pm Andrew Sullivan (of whom by then I was an avid reader) posted a short post entitled “Aiming Low” which ended with a single question, asked rhetorically: “How do you rebut a Senatorial candidate who believes that the earth was made 6,000 years ago?” The implied answer which Andrew seemed to assume all his readers would undoubtedly recognize and agree with was, ‘You can’t. They’re past reason.’ I, a convinced and passionate Young Earth Creationist (YEC), was provoked by what I perceived as both slight mockery from a writer I respected and admired and sad ignorance of the obvious scientific basis for the Biblical account of origins. I determined to write to Andrew to set the record straight. I began an email which I intended to be a clear, succinct and persuasive argument for a young earth–a clear demonstration that the YEC position was not nearly as irrational as he assumed. I never finished it. The research and reading I began as I wrote the email spiraled completely out of my control, and by the following Spring I had developed serious doubts about the historicity of the Flood narrative in Genesis. (DJL, July 16, 2023)
It’s hard to write an e-mail like this: the venue is wrong for the content and what you are able to communicate despite the formal limitations is going to be misread.
Nevertheless, here goes.
- I) The standard evolutionary mantra is patently, egregiously, and demonstrable inadequate as an explanatory tool–despite what the experts, Wikipedia, and Dawkins all say (and believe me, I’ve read my share of all of the above).
- A) Darwinian natural selection can function only if