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For a fascinating and impeccably researched deep dive into this and many other questions of Genesis interpretation, see John Walton’s “The Lost World of Genesis One.” https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0...

I was (and still am) an old-earth evangelical christian.

Many of my friends were young-earth creationists. It's not a topic I hear much about anymore, but I've had many lively discussions about it.

YEC is interesting because there are different ways people think about it in relation to science. The most straightforward would be to claim something like "God created the universe with the appearance of age", so that it would be actually < 10k years old, but appear billions of years old.

Such a theory is consistent with scientific findings, albeit falling prey to Ockham's Razor, and violating the principle of Uniformitarianism, both of which are probably pretty crucial to the Philosophy of science.

Theologically this approach isn't quite as jarring as it may at first appear. I once heard it put as a question: "Did Adam have a belly button?" If he did, then that's not really all that different from "the appearance of age" in general.

For me personally it still didn't sit right with me, and I also disagreed with the general interpretive approach taken to scripture. Genesis isn't a scientific textbook and I don't think it should be read that way. I highly recommend this book for an alternative interpretation: https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0...

In general I think science is very important and undervalued in the christian community in general and that's unfortunate. To give just one Biblical example, King David spent years tending a flock of sheep by night, with nothing better to do than stare at the stars for hours on end. As scientifically illiterate as he was, he still knew a lot more about the constellations than I ever will.

⬐ nurettin

Yes, young creation with old age idea would fall prey to more than just logical reductionism, such tempering would be deceptive at best. And that is not a good thing for an anthromorpic deity.

⬐ nurettin

sorry for terrible spelling, I meant anthropomorphic.

Obviously, there are many different ways to view the Bible and Christianity. As another practicing Christian, I'd say that the most important thing to understand that the Bible is about the revelation of Jesus, and the book is through and through about revealing his nature, character, and way of interacting with the world. If you talk to or read most orthodox theologians (and by this I mean, not 'church leaders' but those who study and write about belief and doctrine and are generally accepted as largely non-heretical), you'll find a surprisingly wide view of the 'literal' nature of scripture, but a significant agreement on the essential nature of the teachings of Jesus.

The moral side of the Bible is a side affect of growing closer to, and following the teachings of, Jesus.

I'd also say that one of the things that non-fundamentalist Christians have done particularly poorly in popular culture in the last 30 years is discuss how the Bible we have was written to a different culture than ours, and taking it 'literally' means stripping it from much of the intended meaning. You asked about creationism and the big bang, here's a book you could possibly be interested in, by a scholar of Genesis, discussing how the text of Genesis is not intended as a scientific document. It's called The Lost World of Genesis One, by John Walton (https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0...).