{"id":194,"date":"2025-09-23T19:40:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T19:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/?p=194"},"modified":"2025-11-13T20:25:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T20:25:40","slug":"why-i-am-not-a-young-earth-creationist-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/2025\/09\/23\/why-i-am-not-a-young-earth-creationist-anymore\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Am Not A Young Earth Creationist anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, I used to be a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) but these days they like to call themselves Biblical Creationist, whatever that means. OK, I know what it means but I don\u2019t want to waste my time in this post to dissect their stupid name change as if that would help them with their underlying flawed theology and science.<\/p>\n<p>I stumbled on this<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pTn6Ewhb27k?si=B-GmoV9NUbE9M8Pt\" width=\"560\" height=\"314\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is an idea that YEC like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CdsHMD6TgCc\">Jason Lisle<\/a> have espouse for some time. This is the reason why I am no longer a YEC. I used to think \u201csecular\u201d scientists misuse the data from science to attack the Bible but YEC scientists are the ones who correctly show how science supports our Biblical interpretation. But when I start to really dig into the YEC arguments I find it not only lacking but many times misleading. Which led to a crisis of faith.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/AkoTubA52SQ?si=IAhBdE6KXRD_kaml\">&#8220;You think well billions of years must have elapsed. The light did get here. It takes billions of years. So the universe has to be at least billions of years old, <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>therefore the Bible can&#8217;t be true<\/strong><\/span>.&#8221;<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Are you kidding me! This is outrageous. If the universe is billions of years old then the Bible can&#8217;t be true? Me Genoito! <em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Romans 3:4 (NIV84) &#8220;Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written: So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Every man including Jason Lisle.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Romans 8:37\u201339 (NIV84) <sup>&#8220;<\/sup>No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>YEC have made their interpretation of the Bible as Scripture. If they admit their science is wrong the Bible is wrong. And if the Bible, as the Words of God is wrong, then maybe there isn\u2019t a God. It is very difficult for a YEC to give up their young earth view because to them it is like giving up their faith.<\/p>\n<p>I digress. The video above is one example of how YEC misrepresents science in order to support their faulty interpretation of the Bible for a young earth. <strong>Dr. Jason Lisle study astrophysics in school and as soon as he graduated, he went into full time creation ministry.<\/strong> So, in essence he has not done any professional work and has not contributed to any research or published any paper outside of his young earth community. But with his understanding of physics, he explains to us that according to Einstein\u2019s theory of relativity we can\u2019t really know what the one-way speed of light is. It is true Einstein does mention in his paper on special relativity that the two-way speed of light is a convention that he adapted. So, all measurements of the speed of light are based on a round-trip time of travel.<\/p>\n<p>He goes on to give an example of bouncing a beam of light to the reflector on the Moon and measuring the time it takes for the light to come back. This gives us a round-trip time of about 2.56 seconds. So according to Einstein\u2019s two-way convention, the speed of light is the same for all frames of reference. This means it takes light 1.28 seconds to reach the moon and 1.28 seconds to return with a combined time of 2.56 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>This is what I dislike about YEC the most and what final drove me away from YEC. They will pick out these ambiguities in established scientific theories and claim, see secular science has been lying to you it does not prove the universe is old, it is actually young. An old universe is only a threat to YEC. It does not threaten Biblical theology or creationism. But when YEC pushes these kinds of loopholes in science it is nothing more than a negative argument at best. It is not a positive proof for young earth. And worse they almost invariably get proven wrong. Which is what happened to me when I believe so much of what they were promoting and when I found out they were wrong it was like a dam breaking and I experienced a crisis of faith.<\/p>\n<p>So, what does Jason Lisle say is the problem with the way we look at the data? He said like Einstein we assume that light that bounces off the moon and returns back is equal to the time it takes going to the moon. But according to special relativity that was just an assumption by Einstein, there is nothing to stop us from adopting another relativity assumption. In Lisle\u2019s convention it would take the light beam 2.56 seconds to go from the Earth to the moon and zero time for it to come back. All the light from the farthest part of the universe reaches us instantaneously. We are observing the universe in real time not billions of years ago due to how long it would take for light to travel to us.<\/p>\n<p>He goes on to give a dig at his detractors by saying, <span style=\"color: #800080;\"><em>\u201cfor people who are experts in physics, they know that\u201d<\/em><\/span>. I assume he meant, experts with a PhD in astrophysics who has never worked professionally in the field like him. <em><span style=\"color: #800080;\">\u201cit\u2019s the layman who think they know something about physics, who think that\u2019s a powerful argument.\u201d<\/span><\/em>\u00a0 True. A lowly layman like myself who think I know something about physics, does think that is a powerful argument and Lisle is wrong. Do they put out this type of argument deliberately to deceive people in the YEC choir? Or have YEC become cultish followers of their own young earth interpretation of the Bible. They have to twist everything to fit their pontificated belief.<\/p>\n<p>There is one big flaw in his one-way speed hypothesis. Why does light only travel instantaneously in one-way with respect to Earth? Lisle&#8217;s\u00a0 example, he sends a signal from Earth to Mars, it takes 20 minutes to reach Mars and instantaneously to return. Why? Why couldn\u2019t it be instantaneously to Mars and 20 minutes to return. But the bigger problem is if we can assume that one-way light speed is not geocentric and it is the same for all observers.<\/p>\n<p>Here is what would happen. You send a signal from Earth to Mars. From Mars\u2019s perspective the light will reach it instantaneously. If your signal was to tell your friend on Mars to take 2 steps to his right. Immediately after receiving your signal, he takes 2 steps to his right. If you sent the signal at 12:00pm, you might think it takes 20 mins to get to your friend, but he got it instantaneously because for him all lights coming toward him is instantaneous. So, he takes two steps to his right at 12:00pm Earth time. But the light from Mars to Earth happens in real time so you would see your friend take two steps to his right also at 12:00pm Earth time. Or basically whatever the lag is between when your friend sees the signal and his move to the right. This has to be the case if all incoming light is instantaneous for all observers everywhere. Unless Earth is the special observer that we are the only one who can see light in real time.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it is that easy to disprove YEC arguments because they are not actually doing science, they are looking for loophole and ambiguity in establish scientific research to make a claim and wedge young earth creationism into science. This is why it is important that although Lisle has a PhD in astrophysics he has never worked as a professional astrophysicist. As a real astrophysicist you can\u2019t just throw out some conjecture and call it a day. You have to do the rigorous research and experiment to show how the existing theory is wrong and your new perspective is right. Please take notice he never proved Einstein\u2019s convention of constant light speed is wrong. He only shows that relativity allows him to have a different two-way light speed, but offers zero proof that his convention is any better than Einstein\u2019s. It is his word against mine kind of argument. I don\u2019t have a PhD in astrophysics but I can make as valid an argument as Lisle using his logic. Instead, I say outgoing light is instantaneous and incoming light is c\/2. Lisle just made everything we see in the universe twice as old as we current think it is. Instead of a young universe it has become twice as old. Prove me wrong.<\/p>\n<p>There is something else shady about how YEC like Lisle respond to their opponents. They never leave a link to their opponent\u2019s paper. They just talk about how the other person is wrong. Such as when Philip W. Dennis wrote a <a href=\"https:\/\/answersresearchjournal.org\/astrophysics\/refutation-of-lisles-refutation-of-dennis-2024\/\">critique of Lisle\u2019s ASC<\/a> junk science. Who is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Phillip-Dennis\">Dr. Phillip W. Dennis<\/a>? Phillip W. Dennis is a retired physicist and a graduate of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri. Phillip does research in General Relativity and Gravitation, Cosmology, Quantum Field Theory, and Philosophy of Science. Currently retired from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/institution\/University_of_Missouri?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InByb2ZpbGUifX0\">University of Missouri<\/a>, Dpartment of Physics and Astronomy. Dr. Dennis is a real working cosmologist, actively contributed to the field of cosmology. Compared to Jason Lisle who received his Ph.D. and immediately went into full-time young earth creationism ministry. Never worked a day as a professional astrophysicist.<\/p>\n<p>He posted on his own website a series to attack Dr. Dennis\u2019s criticism of his ASC baby like this.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c<em><a href=\"https:\/\/biblicalscienceinstitute.com\/refuting-the-critics\/refuting-phillip-denniss-errors-in-physics-asc-and-philosophy-part-1\/\">This article series will be very important for those interested in the distant starlight issue.\u00a0 <strong>Secular astronomers<\/strong> claim that the light from the most distant galaxies has taken billions of years to reach Earth.\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Eh\u2026, there is a slight problem Dr. Phillip Dennis is a Bible believing young earth creationist. But sorry don\u2019t let me confuse Lisle with the facts. In the next paragraph.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c<em>Last year, a physicist named Phillip Dennis wrote a technical paper in which he criticized the ASC model \u2013 my creation-based alternative \u2026 It was <strong>clear<\/strong> in his paper that <strong>Dennis did not have a good understanding<\/strong> of synchrony conventions nor the model that he was attempting to criticize.<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That\u2019s rich, coming from a guy who never work a day in the field of astrophysics instead, in full-time young earth propaganda. I would think he should be the last one to tell a real scientists whether they have a good understanding of Special and General Relativity. Lisle has created a mathematical smoke and mirror baby that crashed against the cold hard fact of reality. He might be better off to focus his energy in chasing the pipe dream of multiverse, where he never has to face reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, I used to be a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) but these days they like to call themselves Biblical Creationist, whatever that means. OK, I know what it means but&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,17,16],"tags":[38,39,25],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-theology","category-yec","tag-lisle-one-way-light-anisotropic","tag-lisle-one-way-light-anisotropic-phillip-dennis-general-relativity","tag-young-earth-creationism-yec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teleological.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}