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Young Earth creationism is the belief that the Earth and life on Earth were created by a direct action of God a relatively short time ago. The belief is held by those Christians, Jews, and Muslims who believe that the ancient Hebrew text of Genesis is a historical account.
Young Earth Creationists (YEC), perhaps the largest and most organized group of creationists currently active in America, is composed primarily of Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and Christians who interpret the creation accounts of Genesis and the Quran as literally historically accurate, and in many cases, inerrant. Creationists insist, however, that true science is consistent with their view and strenuously reject claims that they are opposed to science.
The defining characteristic of Young Earth Creationism is their belief that the Earth is "young," on the order of 6,000 to 10,000 years old, rather than the age of 4.5 billion years as determined by a variety of methods including radiometric dating. This figure is arrived at using the ages given in the genealogies and other dates in the Bible, similar to what was done by Archbishop James Ussher when he dated creation at 4004 BC.
Young Earth Creationism is normally regarded as something which is opposed to the scientific theory of evolution, but that doesn't tell the whole story. YEC is fundamentally opposed to any explanation for the origins of anything which replaces God as creator as reported in the Bible, whether it be the origins of biological diversity, the origins of life or the origins of the universe itself.
Young Earth creationists challenge the dominant assumptions of Philosophical naturalism and Uniformitarianism in the mainstream scientific community, and assert instead that the physical evidence today best supports the creationist viewpoint. See Creation vs. evolution debate and Views of creationists and mainstream scientists compared for a more complete discussion.
Young Earth Creationism is not considered scientifically viable by the vast majority of scientists, who assert that creationism is at odds with many direct and indirect observations, is largely unfalsifiable as being based upon assumed faith in non-natural causes, and is generally lacking in rigor or productive development.
The contemporary model of Young Earth Creationism
Young Earth Creationists insist that their position is based upon a plain reading of the Bible. For them, the Bible is the central organizing text of their lives. It is the source of how they understand the world, man's place in the world, and his purpose for life.
As Henry Morris, a leading young earth creationist, explains it, Christians who flirt with less-than-literal readings of biblical texts are also flirting with theological disaster. Allegorical readings of Creation, the Fall, the Flood and the Tower of Babel undermine core Christian doctrines like the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ. According to Morris, Christians must "either...believe God's Word all the way, or not at all."
Young earth creationists take the account of Genesis to be a historical account of the origin of the Earth and life.
Genesis reports that God created the Earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. After creating the Earth and all the animals and plants, God planted a Garden with all kinds of trees including the Tree of Life and the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He planted the field in Eden.
Geographic details are given for the location of the garden. It is said to have been placed where the river running out of Eden parted into four rivers: the Pison, which encircled the land of Havilah and where there was gold, bdellium, and onyx; the Gihon, which encircled the land of Ethiopia; the Hiddekel, which ran East to Assyria; and the Euphrates.
In Eden, the account goes that God breathed life into Man—Adam—who named many of the animals and birds; then, God created woman from a rib in Adam's side, and gave her to him. Adam subsequently named her Eve "because she would become the mother of all the living". They were naked, but were not ashamed, and walked and talked directly with God.
In the Garden, Adam and Eve were permitted to eat of the Tree of Life, which prevented them from dying. They were forbidden to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but they did and as a result, God removed them from the Garden. This forced Adam to work hard to feed himself and Eve, gave Eve pain in childbirth, and denied them access to the Tree of Life, so that they would die.
The Genealogies of Genesis record the line of descent from Adam to Noah to Abraham, with the ages at which they had the next in line and the ages at which they died [1] (http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Gen/Gen005.html). That article explains that there are some differences in recorded ages between two different Biblical sources. This article will refer to the shorter genealogy, used by most young-Earth creationists.
The genealogy reports that Adam lived 130 years before bearing his son Seth, and died at the age of 930. Ages of between 777 and 969 years are reported for all people until Noah (except for Enoch, who was taken to heaven without dying).
According to the account, over time, man became corrupted. Seeing this, God determined to end the violence and wickedness of men by sending a flood to destroy the world. He found one man, Noah, who was just, and preserved him and his family on an ark. He instructed Noah to build an ark of gopher wood of particular dimensions and design, and to bring seven (or seven pairs) of each clean animal and two of each unclean animal into the ark.[2] (http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/tools/printer-friendly.pl?book=Gen&chapter=6&version=rsv&Go.x=32&Go.y=12).
According to the figures in the genealogies, God sent the flood 1656 years after he created Adam, in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, "in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month." According to the account, "the fountains of the great deep and windows of heaven broke open," flooding the Earth. Noah was instructed to bring his wife, and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, for a total of eight people. All other people were to be destroyed. The shorter genealogies indicate that Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, died in the same year as the flood, meaning he could have died in the flood. All his other ancestors were already dead, including his father Lamech, who died five years before the flood. Alternatively, it has been suggested that God waited for Methuselah to die before he sent the flood.
Contemporary creationists assert that the flood was a combination of radical geological activity (the fountains of the great deep opening) and extreme rain. They argue that the land before the flood was much more level, but that extreme geological action during the flood raised mountains to new heights and dropped the sea-bed, so that the water that had covered the land flowed into the sea. Flood geology argues that the fact that 80% of the Earth's crust is covered in deep sedimentary strata is a result of liquefaction after the flood.
According to the account, the rains lasted 40 days, and the waters covered the earth for 150 days, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ar'arat, and in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month of Noah's life, the face of the Earth was dry. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month of Noah's life, the earth was dry, and God instructed Noah to leave the ark.
From that point, the account indicates that lifespans dropped quickly from an average of 900 years at the time of Noah to an average of 100 by the time of Abraham. Contemporary creationists have suggested that this is due to the effects of the inbreeding that took place after the flood, as only eight people remained. Creationists also assert that all the contemporary species of animals are descended from those original animals on the ark; that the animals adapted to their environments by the process of variation and natural selection. Contrary to the theory of evolution, however, Young Earth Creationists assert that the process of variation and natural selection resulted in a loss of genetic potential.
Subsequent genealogies in the text identify individuals named Egypt, Gomer, Sheba, Canaan, and Sidon, who are believed to have founded the cities and civilizations that were later to bear their names.
Young Earth creationists usually distinguish their own hypotheses from the Omphalos hypothesis put forth by Philip Henry Gosse. Gosse's hypothesis claims that, just as Adam had a navel, evidence of a gestation he never experienced, so also the Earth was created ex nihilo complete with evidence of a prehistoric past that never actually occurred. Gosse's hypothesis allows for a young earth without giving rise to any predictions that would contradict scientific findings; Young Earth Creationists, by contrast, attempt to re-interpret scientific data to support their hypothesis that the earth is in fact young.
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