As a young child I was fascinated with dinosaurs and soaked up as much information as I could.  Even today I still have some of those old dinosaur books on my shelves and glance through them on occasion. I learned all the wonderful names, such as Pachycephalosaurus, and could pronounce them better than adults, and I even knew their Greek and Latin meanings. And without knowing any better I believed in the millions of years reported in those books.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I became exposed to the controversy regarding the age of the earth and evolution. My sister married a doctor, and he presented evidence suggesting that the earth and universe were quite young. Some of that evidence I now know shouldn’t be used to support a young earth, such as the ‘moon dust’ theory, but it was enough to catch my attention and encourage me to start thinking critically. He also explained carbon dating and other various types of dating techniques and made some very compelling arguments as to why they weren’t accurate and couldn’t be trusted.

It’s important to note that I became a Christian as a child, accepted Jesus Christ into my heart as Lord and Savior, and I believed what was taught in the Bible. As a college student I didn’t have a firm position on the age of the earth because I had also been taught by others that “a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years like a day”. So I didn’t think we really knew exactly how old the universe was, and that no one should be dogmatic about it. For all I knew the universe could have been billions of years old, one hundred thousand years old, or ten thousand years old.

Then in my twenties I had a friend introduce me to Young Earth Creationist arguments; in fact he bought me a magazine subscription. Being that I had an interest in the creation v.s. evolution topic I eagerly studied up on it. I wasn’t expecting to have my mind changed because I was already convinced that I was right. How could anyone accurately know the age of the earth? I had read through Genesis a number of times and couldn’t find anything demanding that the six days of creation be taken literally. Sure, they could be taken literally, but then again perhaps they were not literal- who’s to know? I wasn’t going to be swayed unless someone could demonstrate to me that the Bible really did provide solid evidence that the earth and universe were young.

Well, as it turns out, there was such Biblical evidence. Not only was the six days of creation in Genesis, but it was also in Exodus 20:8-11. But what was most compelling to me was Mark 10:6: “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female’.” As I studied this entire passage in Mark 10 over and over, I realized that Jesus’ words made it clear that man was created at the same time as the beginning of the universe. Jesus was talking about marriage and divorce in this passage, but he makes the point that divorce is sinful in the context of the creation account in Genesis. This realization is what convinced me to become a Young Earth Creationist (YEC), and what lead me to continue studying the topic and increase my knowledge and understanding of science and evolution.

Today I read and follow a number of topics on these issues and have sought to understand them as thoroughly as possible and gain as much knowledge about science and the Bible as possible. So now I begin another journey by taking up a blog in which I can discuss this in an open forum. Thanks for joining me.