I think a good steelman would investigate the concept of faith.
Even when you live in a country with statistics that show a high divorce rate it can still make sense to have faith that your partner keeps their weeding vow. If you don’t have that faith and your partner knows that you don’t have that faith that will damage your marriage.
If you look of the entomology of believe at webster you see that it comes from a word having something to do with “to allow”. Choosing to believe is an active act of allowing something instead of rejecting it.
Having strong belief in your own religion makes the things that your religion provides better. Mormons are a religion with relatively strong believe compared to some other Christian sects and the happen to be healthier as a result. Enough healthier that there’s a published paper that says that one Mormon can tell whether another person is a Mormon by looking at characteristics that correlate with that person being healthy.
If that’s your idea of what beliefs are about it just makes sense to trust what your church says and not seek for evidence for empirical evidence. If you are operating in that frame Young Earth Creationism might make sense if your Church preaches it.
*I’m a German and I have never meet a Young Earth Creationist to argue with him about his beliefs, so I might be wrong about what their frame actually entails. In particular Young Earth Creationism isn’t a old framework but a modern one.
If you look of the entomology of believe at webster you see that it comes from a word having something to do with “to allow”. Choosing to believe is an active act of allowing something instead of rejecting it.
Etymological fallacy, anyone? Or perhaps we should call it entomological fallacy from now on? :)
What you’re proposing is not a steelman of Young Earth Creationism. It’s a steelman of the claim that people should believe in Young Earth Creationism, which is the same only if you presuppose a desire for truth—but that’s precisely something you’re not assuming once you start talking about faith.
Part of Young Earth Creationism is to handle the term belief in a certain way.
If you switch out that definition of belief into another definition of belief than the thing you end up isn’t really authentic Young Earth Creationism anymore.
As Nietzsche said, God is in the grammar and to the extend that you now have a concept of belief that’s different from the one”s of Christians it’s a sign to have eliminated God from one part of the grammar.
You take certain ontological claims about the nature about of reality and therefore beliefs for granted in which you differ with Young Earth Creationism.
The difference between the frame of looking at the world between a Young Earth Creationist and the average rationalist is a lot more profound than just a number of when the world happens to come into place.
Part of Young Earth Creationism is to handle the term belief in a certain way.
I’m not following. You’re just redifining the position from “the earth is 6000 years old” to “people should believe that the earth is 6000 years old”. I take Young Earth Creationism to be the first position—and the notion of “belief” doesn’t feature there.
I think you are fooling yourself when you think you can summarize the position of someone with a substantial different worldview than your own like that Young Earth Creationists take in a single sentence.
In particular “is” can be interpreted differently.
If you look at the Wikipedia page for the Ussher chronology which is sort of the basis of modern Young Earth Creationism you find the sentence: “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth, Gen. 1, v. 1. Which beginning of time, according to our Chronologie, fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty third day of Octob[er] in the year of the Julian [Period] 710. The year before Christ 4004. The Julian Period 710.”
There no is or be in that sentence.
It just defines the beginning of the earth through the Chronologie. Just like part of the Gregorian chronology is that it happens to be the year 2014 at the moment, the beginning of the earth falls in the year before Christ 4004.
If I go and claim that you don’t have any real evidence that it happens to be the year 2014 and that the number is just an arbitrary human invention I might be right, but that doesn’t invalidate the calendar.
What on earth are you talking about? It’s not about summarising the position. My point is that Young Earth Creationism is a position about the world, not about what people “should believe”.
I think a good steelman would investigate the concept of faith.
Even when you live in a country with statistics that show a high divorce rate it can still make sense to have faith that your partner keeps their weeding vow. If you don’t have that faith and your partner knows that you don’t have that faith that will damage your marriage.
If you look of the entomology of believe at webster you see that it comes from a word having something to do with “to allow”. Choosing to believe is an active act of allowing something instead of rejecting it.
Having strong belief in your own religion makes the things that your religion provides better. Mormons are a religion with relatively strong believe compared to some other Christian sects and the happen to be healthier as a result. Enough healthier that there’s a published paper that says that one Mormon can tell whether another person is a Mormon by looking at characteristics that correlate with that person being healthy.
If that’s your idea of what beliefs are about it just makes sense to trust what your church says and not seek for evidence for empirical evidence. If you are operating in that frame Young Earth Creationism might make sense if your Church preaches it.
*I’m a German and I have never meet a Young Earth Creationist to argue with him about his beliefs, so I might be wrong about what their frame actually entails. In particular Young Earth Creationism isn’t a old framework but a modern one.
Etymological fallacy, anyone? Or perhaps we should call it entomological fallacy from now on? :)
What you’re proposing is not a steelman of Young Earth Creationism. It’s a steelman of the claim that people should believe in Young Earth Creationism, which is the same only if you presuppose a desire for truth—but that’s precisely something you’re not assuming once you start talking about faith.
Part of Young Earth Creationism is to handle the term belief in a certain way.
If you switch out that definition of belief into another definition of belief than the thing you end up isn’t really authentic Young Earth Creationism anymore.
As Nietzsche said, God is in the grammar and to the extend that you now have a concept of belief that’s different from the one”s of Christians it’s a sign to have eliminated God from one part of the grammar.
You take certain ontological claims about the nature about of reality and therefore beliefs for granted in which you differ with Young Earth Creationism.
The difference between the frame of looking at the world between a Young Earth Creationist and the average rationalist is a lot more profound than just a number of when the world happens to come into place.
I’m not following. You’re just redifining the position from “the earth is 6000 years old” to “people should believe that the earth is 6000 years old”. I take Young Earth Creationism to be the first position—and the notion of “belief” doesn’t feature there.
I think you are fooling yourself when you think you can summarize the position of someone with a substantial different worldview than your own like that Young Earth Creationists take in a single sentence.
In particular “is” can be interpreted differently.
If you look at the Wikipedia page for the Ussher chronology which is sort of the basis of modern Young Earth Creationism you find the sentence: “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth, Gen. 1, v. 1. Which beginning of time, according to our Chronologie, fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty third day of Octob[er] in the year of the Julian [Period] 710. The year before Christ 4004. The Julian Period 710.” There no is or be in that sentence.
It just defines the beginning of the earth through the Chronologie. Just like part of the Gregorian chronology is that it happens to be the year 2014 at the moment, the beginning of the earth falls in the year before Christ 4004.
If I go and claim that you don’t have any real evidence that it happens to be the year 2014 and that the number is just an arbitrary human invention I might be right, but that doesn’t invalidate the calendar.
What on earth are you talking about? It’s not about summarising the position. My point is that Young Earth Creationism is a position about the world, not about what people “should believe”.