{"id":9002,"date":"2012-08-22T18:41:15","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T22:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=9002"},"modified":"2012-08-22T18:41:15","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T22:41:15","slug":"do-young-earth-creationists-deny-that-god-spoke-creation-into-existence-or-creation-out-of-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/08\/do-young-earth-creationists-deny-that-god-spoke-creation-into-existence-or-creation-out-of-nothing.html","title":{"rendered":"Do Young-Earth Creationists Deny that God Spoke Creation into Existence, or Creation out of Nothing?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/payingattentiontothesky.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/10\/gardenofeden.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"288\" height=\"200\">It illustrates the selective literalism of young-earth creationists, that they never seem to realize the ludicrous conclusions they end up drawing could be outdone by still more bizarre ones if they were consistent in their literalism.<\/p>\n<p>As an example, consider the repeated references in Genesis 1 to God speaking.<\/p>\n<p>For speech \u2013 literal speech \u2013 to be transmitted, there has to be a medium to carry it. That\u2019s why \u201cin space, no one can hear you scream.\u201d On Earth, the atmosphere transmits sound.<\/p>\n<p>So in order for God to have created through speaking, there must have been an already-existing atmosphere or other medium to carry the sound. And if one posits that, then one denies creation out of nothing, which young-earth creationists typically affirm. And that\u2019s without getting into a discussion about divine vocal cords.<\/p>\n<p>The alternative is to accept that there is anthropomorphism and other non-literal depiction in this chapter.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder which of the two options young-earth creationists will choose when confronted with these stark alternatives.<\/p>\n<p>On a related note, here\u2019s something some of you will enjoy. Let me know if you get the joke, as well as the connection with the topic of this blog post\u2026<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cache-ec6.pinterest.com\/upload\/53902526760968748_vvfbOGPO_b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"192\" height=\"190\"><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It illustrates the selective literalism of young-earth creationists, that they never seem to realize the ludicrous conclusions they end up drawing could be outdone by still more bizarre ones if they were consistent in their literalism. As an example, consider the repeated references in Genesis 1 to God speaking. For speech \u2013 literal speech \u2013 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,131,133,139,28,43,101,108],"tags":[2269,2765,3766,6621,11285,11309,11614,14016],"class_list":["post-9002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-christianity-religion","category-doctor-who-science-fiction","category-fundamentalism-religion","category-genesis-bible","category-inerrancy","category-theology","category-young-earth-creationism","tag-creation","tag-doctor-who","tag-garfunkle","tag-literalism","tag-silence","tag-simon","tag-sound-of-silence","tag-young-earth-creationism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Do Young-Earth Creationists Deny that God Spoke Creation into Existence, or Creation out of Nothing?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It illustrates the selective literalism of young-earth creationists, that they never seem to realize the ludicrous conclusions they end up drawing could\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/08\/do-young-earth-creationists-deny-that-god-spoke-creation-into-existence-or-creation-out-of-nothing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do Young-Earth Creationists Deny that God Spoke Creation into Existence, or Creation out of Nothing?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It illustrates the selective literalism of young-earth creationists, that they never seem to realize the ludicrous conclusions they end up drawing could\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/08\/do-young-earth-creationists-deny-that-god-spoke-creation-into-existence-or-creation-out-of-nothing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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