Alas, “creationism” is a wide spectrum but is pigeonholed as a narrow view. There are creationists who study what actually exists and seek sensible understanding of what & why things are, attributing the ultimate initiation & guidance of everything to God. There are creationists who take a couple pages written by an inspired sheepherder and declare their absolute perfect understanding while denying the plain reality of what physically exists and creating inane explanations for what is. Of course, it’s the latter group which gets all the press, because insulting the wantonly ignorant is fun.
Would that “creationists” would realize
- they don’t know everything
- science works
- what actually happened actually happened regardless of what one says happened
- there are legitimate differing interpretations of both scripture and science
- declaring “God made it _look_ old to test your faith” makes a god of “truth” out as a liar.
I’m fundamentally a creationist, and acknowledge fossils & starlight only make sense in an “old universe”.
(Now where did I put that Nomex suit...)
Old earth creationism is more or less uncomfortably accommodated in most fundamentalist circles.
Any serious view of scripture must acknowledge that metaphysics has changed since the times of creation and that factor, let alone others, makes it very difficult to project back to the creation times from a modern viewpoint. If you have done what the Scotty of Star Trek could not, then the rules go out the window. What is a 24 hour creation day? What is a multimillion year creation day? It becomes an exercise in imagination, not in science or even in hermeneutics.
Insulting the wantonly ignorant is bullying, and proves just as little.
On serious issues, the media should try to arrange discussions/debates between intellectual peers, not run Punch and Judy shows where the discussants are badly mismatched. I have no doubt, for example, that Richard Dawkins is seriously smart, and intellectually outclasses someone whose higher education amounts to two weeks at Cousin BillyBob's Bible Academy. But has Dawkins ever sat for a serious discussion on religious issues with someone with the scientific and philisophical chops to punch back?
No requirement for the Nomex; God created the earth in 6 days then sat back on the 7th to observe his little experiment.
So; what exactly what constitutes a day for GOD, that’s one question only GOD knows the answer to.