Why I Dumped YEC

I should have ended up as a rabid creationist due to my formative educational years, but a couple of things went wrong. First: I am a bit of a skeptic by nature (with a math professor for a father it was bound to be so), but that alone was not sufficient to cause my fall from grace. The biggest single reason I abandoned the Genesis Account is most certainly the lack of cohesive explanations offered for the natural world by my church teachers. Let me explain...

I spent my grade school tenure in a small private school run by Seventh Day Adventists. That alone should more or less void any cries of "Darwinist indoctrination" that may come up. How does one attain the priesthood in the First United Congregation of Darwin anyway? I've been looking for a while and just can't seem to find the answer. If anyone knows, feel free to contact me...

As a young boy, much like any other, I became interested in dinosaurs. I ran into a problem here because the Bible never mentioned T Rex, Triceratops, etc., not to mention that it says man was there from the beginning (and I don't recall human fossils ever being found alongside dinosaurs). I did what any confused kid would do: I asked my teacher.

"Fossils are a trick of Satan," he said without so much as an instant of hesitation. "Dinosaurs never existed."

That didn't sit so well with me. You see, I'd had the pleasure, not too long before, of visiting Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, and the fossils certainly didn't look like a trick to my seven year old eyes. Unwilling to argue with the teacher at that point, I just let the issue slide for a while.

A couple of years later, probably around the end of third grade or so, I had the opportunity to ask a different teacher the same question. The answer, while different, was equivalent to the previous as far as my newly-formed B.S. meter was concerned.

"Dinosaurs were made by Satan," she said. "God killed them all in The Flood because they were evil."

Like I said before, I don't remember Dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible at all, short of a few word games employed by various creationists to make the evidence fit (word games I hadn't heard yet at that point). I was also pretty sure that only God had the power to create and Satan's power was merely to corrupt. I ran into one other small problem as well: the local Adventists seem to view any form of meat eating as bad (if not outright evil), so the carnivorous dinosaurs seemed to fit the "evil" bill by their reasoning, but what about all of those frightened plant-eaters? Did they deserve to be wiped out as well? Not that I ever subscribed to the idea that a natural diet was good or bad in iteself, even at that age... it just was the way it was. I guess, in this case, that I identify with Mark Twain's Eve when she concludes that the buzzard looks like it was designed to survive on decaying flesh instead of plants. Against my better judgment, I let the matter slide once again.

The last straw came a year later when I was in fourth grade and the school brought in a special guest speaker. Her job was to "educate" us about the way things were before Noah's flood. She expounded in great detail about how humans were once giants by our standards, gifted with extremely long life-spans and intelligence far superior to our own. She did her job well and was very convincing as far as us kids were concerned. Here, I thought, was my chance to get a real answer. I once again asked about dinosaurs.

"They were the result of genetic engineering experiments by the evil men before The Flood," she answered, matter-of-factly. That did it for me. The problem with being a skeptic at such a young age is that I lacked the prudence to keep my mouth shut after getting nothing but half-baked answers for the last several years. I raised my hand again, and she called on me, apparently impressed that I was so interested in her vast knowledge at such a young age.

"You mean to say," I began, with all the innocence of childhood in my voice. "That these men were so far ahead of us in technology that we can't begin to equal them, but they didn't know how to build a boat to survive a flood until God told them how?"

I don't think her eyes could have bugged out any farther without summarily exploding. The color of her face drained off briefly, replaced almost instantly with a deep, crimson hue. I, of course, found myself dragged before the principal, wondering all along what I had said to warrant such a response. He informed me, in no uncertain terms, that evolution was a tool, used by Satan of course (everything they didn't agree with had to come from Satan), to ensnare kids just like me into devil-worship.

Problem here: I'd never even really heard of evolution until that moment (all I cared about were the dinosaurs at that point), and now I had to go and find out what it was. I spent the rest of my grade school education buried in various books about the subject. I paid lip-service to the church to avoid trouble, but in truth, I never looked back after that day in fourth grade.

If you are a creationist with a skeptical child, you had better come up with a cohesive explanation for the world and not ever vary your answers. Otherwise, you'll end up with more kids just like me. Scary thought. If a couple of "lost sheep" don't concern you, may I remind you that someone like me, once we turn from your illusions, dedicate our time to flinging turds at them everywhere we can. Under the weight of enough feces, any structure will eventually collapse.