Gotquestions.org inconsistent?

[Canuckster1127]

I'll revise my earlier statement of "dishonest" to "misinformed".

Further, Nobody is forcing them to put up their board or to choose the articles they put up. If they aren't qualified to put up an article then it's hardly convincing to hide behind a lack of expertise on a board that represents itself, by its very title to have the answers to questions people are asking. If they aren't qualified to answer something then silence is preferable to misinformation.

I appreciate that Shea has responded, albeit after a long time and only after follow-up. I'll give him credit for that and hope there will be some more objectivity introduced to the article. Disgreement is fine. Principled believers can disagree upon something and regularly do. Strawman arguments are another thing entirely.

[DannyM]

I’m afraid that response won't wash.

If they aren’t being dishonest then they must be downright incompetent. For a website purporting to answer questions, this just isn’t acceptable. I’d suggest a more rigorous approach if they are to have any credibility.

Good response, Rick. Glad you didn't let them off the hook.

[PaulSacramento]

Not sure what they mean by Historical Christianity's view on Creation...
I mean, Augustine was a "historical Christian" as anyone and his views on taking Genesis literally where this:
St. Augustine of Hippo, from his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis, written in about AD 415.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [quoting 1 Tim 1:7].

(emphasis added; quoted from Noll, pp. 202-203, from the John Hammond Taylor translation of 1982)

[Philip]

I must admit that gotquestions.org perplexes me as well. So much of their content is scriptural and informative, and I hope the problems there will be resolved.

About two years back, I had corresponded with gotquestions over an article on their site that I asserted had many deficiencies. As they liked the analysis and points I made (via email), I was asked to submit a test/re-edited article to them as a potential contributor. After a long time of no feedback, I checked the site and was stunned to see that portions of the article I wrote for them had been inserted into THEIR edited version of the one I'd previously criticized. They took out portions I'd written that appropriately questioned a typical (and wrongful) Christian mindset over an important issue. To take and insert only desired portions of my article without ever contacting me is very disturbing. But I was really much more disturbed about the portions of my article that they left out, than over the portions they actually used.

As for the YEC thing, they are just so hung up over this "time" thing. They well know that the Bible's use of the word for "day" has varied meanings. They know God is eternal, that He transcends time, space, dimension, etc. But, somehow, YECs just see believing in a 10,000 year old universe as being more spiritual, that it is the measure of a true Christian. They're hung up over the mere difference between billions of years of Creation time, which for our ETERNAL, transcendent God is absolutely irrelevant. Don't they realize the damage they are doing to POTENTIAL believers? We should all be on the same side - admit we have a disagreement over time and just get over it, don't make it the focus. But guess which camp popular media always turns to for a handy quote about Creation beliefs - yep, YECs saying that man walked around like Fred Flintstone, with dinosaurs in their backyards. And as for Christians who believe in a 13.73 billion year old universe, a 4.5 billion year old earth - media either thinks we are a tiny minority or they don't even realize we exist.

[RickD]

Here is the proposed rewrite for "what is progressive creationism", that I received via email today from Shea at GotQuestions:

What is Progressive Creationism?
Progressive creationism is the view that God progressively created new forms of life over a time-span involving hundreds of millions of years. While progressive creationists typically subscribe to the conventional view that the earth and Universe are very ancient, they nonetheless reject the evolutionary view of a universal common ancestor which was the progenitor of all extant life. Instead, they maintain that God directly intervened to create different “kinds” of plants and animals to appear successively throughout the course of earth’s history. Progressive creationists are saltationists to the extent that they emphatically reject the interpretation of gradualism with regards the fossil record.
 
Progressive creationism is also a fairly diverse school of thinking, with a range of views on the correct understanding and interpretation of the Genesis narrative concerning origins. Many progressive creationists (notably Hugh Ross) will argue that the Hebrew word “yom” in Genesis 1 need not be rendered as descriptive of a 24-hour day, but could allow for an indefinite but finite period of time. In so doing, some attempt to claim to read the text literally, while disagreeing with the young-earth interpretation of the text’s literal meaning. Others maintain that, while the correct contextual reading of the Hebrew word “yom” necessitates it being understood as a 24-hour period, it nonetheless is not representative of a literal day, but may be taken as metaphorically representative of longer periods of time.
 
A popular view among progressive creationists is the understanding that the seventh day has not yet come to an end. Several lines of evidence are drawn to support this view. For one thing, Genesis 2:1 does not associate the terms “evening” and “morning” with the seventh day, in contrast to the uniform pattern of the six days preceding it. Furthermore, Hebrews 4:3-5 says, “And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: ‘On the seventh day God rested from all his works.’ And again in the passage above he says, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” If the seventh day is still continuing, progressive creationists argue, then why are we committed to understanding the previous six days as literal 24 hour periods?
 
Progressive creationists will also often point to the fact that the creation of the celestial bodies – i.e. the sun, moon and stars – which govern the day and night, were not created until day four of creation week, thus implying that the first three days need not be rendered literally. Progressive creationists may also argue for the presence of a time gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 (maintaining that verse 1 is not a part of the first day).
 
Progressive creationists generally, though not universally, reject the notion of a global Flood, and maintain that, instead, the Flood was regional or local in proportion. A popular view among progressive creationists (such as Hugh Ross), however, is that the Flood was universal to the extent that it wiped out all of humanity from the face of the earth, save for Noah and his family. In support of this idea, progressive creationists will typically draw from texts in ancient Hebrew and Biblical literature in which regional or localized events are described in terms of hyperbolic or universal language (e.g. 1 Kings 10:24; Luke 2:1; Acts 2:5; Romans 1:8).

He wants to know what I think. Any comments?

[RickD]

And here is the proposed rewrite for "what is the day-age theory. Any comments on this?

What is the Day-Age Theory?
The Day-Age Theory of creationism is similar in many respects to progressive creationism to the extent that it subscribes to the scientific consensus view that the world and Universe are very ancient. Day-Age theorists and progressive creationists also often use similar arguments with regards interpreting the Genesis 1 text. Day-Age creationists hold that the six days of Genesis one are not ordinary 24-hour days, but are, instead, much longer periods of time.
 
In contrast to progressive creationism, however, Day-Age theorists are to be found among both theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists. Day-Age theorists argue that the Hebrew word yom is used to refer to a period of time with a beginning and an end, and does not necessitate the translation as a 24-hour day. The Day-Age theory, as the name suggests, understands the “days” of Genesis to each be figurative of an “age” or a significantly long (but finite) duration of time. In partial support of this view, Day-Age theorists argue that the Hebrew word yom is employed in Genesis 2:4 to refer to the duration of the whole of creation week. It is also a popular view, among Day-Age theorists, that the seventh day (in which God enters his “rest”) has not yet been completed, thus adding support to the view that the word yom can be employed to refer to a longer period of time than merely 24 hours.
 
Day-Age theorists also typically hold Ussher’s chronology to be largely inaccurate, pointing out that the Hebrew words for ‘father’ and ‘son’ can also mean ‘ancestor’ and ‘descendent’ and that the ancients traditionally telescoped genealogies to emphasize the highlights. One line of support for this view comes from the genealogy of Moses in Exodus 6. These genealogies report that Amram and his wife Jochebed “begat” (Hebrew yalad) Moses and refers to him as “son” (Hebrew ben). So it uses the very same verb as used in Genesis 5 and 11. What is important here is that Amram and Jochebed lived at the time when the Jews entered Egypt while Moses was 80 years old during the exodus some 430 years later. This means that approximately 350 years and probably at least 6 generations separate Amram and Jochebed from Moses. Thus, literally, it means that Jochebed “begat” a son (unnamed) who was ancestral to Moses.