Maybe I’m . . . torn about the young earth stuff.
Certainly as it’s most often stated, I think it’s not true.
I do happen to think that Genesis creation was in 6 rotational days. But it doesn’t really matter that much, to me, if it was 6 thousand years/a thousand years = one of God’s ‘days’ sort of time line.
I do believe that the earth is much older than 6,000 years.
It may well be that the VOID AND WITHOUT FORM state of the world was 6 or so thousand years ago but I mostly don’t believe that, either. There’s Chinese writing that’s 7,000 years old.
There’s nuclear sites in India that go back a very long time.
I suspect God has used this boot camp a lot for a long period of time, mushing things all over and starting over many times.
It doesn’t really matter.
What matters is what we do with Jesus The Christ in the here and now. Are we ready to meet HIM, OR NOT?
Do we love HIM unsurprassingly, or not.
All else is chaff.
This is one of the big reasons why it matters. We cannot get ready to meet him without fully understanding what he has told us. The detailed information given in his word is not without purpose. He placed the information in his word because we need it desperately. Many souls drift due to this old Earth blasphemy.
“It doesn’t really matter.”
Well actually brother it does. With all kindness in what I am saying, understand that if we can’t take all of Genesis literally, then how can we take the Garden of Eden situation literally which is essentially to the idea of original sin for which the Lord Jesus Christ had to be the second Adam without sin so he could be the bearer of our sins as described in the Bible. I tell you in great humility that it is indeed important.
One thing you may want to think about: did sin and death enter the world when Adam fell? Or was there all sorts of dying going on prior to Adam’s fall?
It would seem to me that assuming thousands of years or what have you prior to Adam’s fall would involve a lot of dying, so if that were the case, death did not enter when Adam fell after all.
The consequences of that change in doctrine I’m sure you can figure for yourself.
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Your point about Jesus is point on. The other stuff is still important if one lives, works in a so called elite, intellectual, scholarly community: colleges, universities et al. After all, it is also fun as well as stimulating to opine on theories, on certain geological , anthropological, historical facts and deal with issues such as pre-historic, dinos et al. But, the final point is what will all the readers, listeners, opinion makers do with Jesus?!