SJ, I am giving you and fellow YEC'ers the opportunity to give your side of the story - now, let's hear your reason to believe in Young Earth Creationism rather than your reason not to believe in natural selection.

Well, for one thing we don't reject natural selection.

Yes, but you don't believe it to be responsible for evolution and has no role in YEC. Is that correct?

I'm pulling this from the other thread.

This is not by any means a full exposition on what YEC is all about, but it speaks to your question about natural selection.

"Biological life on this planet is the result of a highly intelligent designer that has created life so as to be highly adaptable, with wide ranges of variation within the limits established by the underlying informational code that organizes life."

1. Life is highly adaptable. We can create numerous controlled experiments that demonstrates this.
2. There are wide ranges of variation within any particular genome. This, too, is experimentally verifiable.
3. There are limits to that variation, and the underlying informational code defines and sets those limits- break the limit and the progeny dies and does not reproduce. This too is experimentally verifiable- see inbreeding experiments, for example.

So, you see, YECcers ALSO point to microevolution as substatiantion to their POV.

"The funny thing about the controversial part? It isn't controversial. But this is not another evolution debate thread."

Come on, dude.  How hard is it for you to figure out that that is the part that the YECcers are disputing?  How hard of a leap is it for you, in a thread you created to explore the YEC position, to understand what this sentence refers to?

Of course you knew, but you couldn't let it slide.

"That is the question, SJ. Please answer it in your next post,"

It is being answered.  You forget that you also said "If possible, keep it brief and in simple language."

You know, when you ask an involved question, you shouldn't be put off by involved answers.  If you insist on brief and simple, you'd better be content with more bite-sized answers.  I know how these things work.  Maj gave you a pretty decent answer to your question and you turned around and misunderstood and misconstrued practically everything she said.  So, be patient.

Please comment on what I posted, because I wouldn't have mentioned it if it didn't form the basis for an answer to "the question."

Stathei - In response to your initial question, I lean toward a young earth creation because I trust divine revelation as a way of knowing.  This does not mean that I altogether ignore or reject scientific inquiry as a way of knowing.  Scientific inquriy is, oftentimes, a helpful tool.  However, my personal position is ultimately rooted in a belief that the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures constitute the revealed message of God (the God described in those Scriptures).  Of course, this is not sufficient, as there are some who believe the Scriptures to be divine revelation, but interpret certain historical books like Genesis as if they were books of poetry.  So, I should further note that my position is based upon a belief that the book of Genesis is indeed a record of actual historical events and should be interepreted as such.

Feel free to skip everything below if you want a nice quick short answer.  The short answer is: "fides quaerens intellectum."  

The longer (but likely flawed) answer?

I'd like to say that I sat down one day, learned every ancient language, studied every religious text of present day and antiquity, and after careful and thorough consideration concluded that the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are indeed the Word of God...and unlike any other.  

The more accurate answer is that I was taught as much year after year starting in 6th grade and that I began to question it in high school, but I didn't care enough or have sufficient discipline to act upon my questions and doubts.  I eventually attended a Lutheran university as a physics and math major, and established heroes like Asimov, Hawking, Feynman and Sagan.  But I was too undisciplined (and likely genetically lacking) to walk in the footsteps of my heroes.  So, I studied history...and eventually theology.  I liked theology, enjoyed the debates and talks, and craved to know more about spiritual matters.  I was challenged to start reading the Bible daily by someone, so I did.  I started by reading a chapter of Proverbs a day.  It was amazing.  Given that I didn't read much, the little that I did had ample room in my empty brain :).  I was amazed to read Proverbs during the day and walk throughout the day seeing the wisdom of those words in my observations and interactions.  I began to have similar experiences as I read other parts of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.  The moral teaching and description of human nature made sense to me.  The framework held up to my life experience...with a few exceptions.  Eventually, I began to organize my thoughts and actions around the stories and events in the Scriptures.  I craved not only knowledge, but intimacy with what I chose to believe as the source of that knowledge.

I then started reading parts of Christian classics and books related to the Scriptures in one way or another: books by people like Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas, Athanasius, Eusebius, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pascal..to present day Christian apologists like: Montgomery, McDowell, Arndt, James Sire, Philip Johnson, C.S. Lewis, G.K Chesterton, Norman Geisler, Francis Schaeffer, etc.  These (and a number of other authors) made a strong collective case that the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are unique, even miraculous in nature...in essence the inspired Word of God.  Somewhere along the line I came to view the internal evidence and the external explanations to be convincing.  Of course, if I am honest, I really wanted to believe that the Scriptures were divinely inspired.  It was definitely not an unbiased pursuit of truth.

Then one day I realized the ramifications of all of this.  I started experiencing what George Herbert describes in his poem The Collar.  I didn't want to believe in God or the truths of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and at times I still don't.  But, it was too late.  I had read and studied too much to reject what was now altogether obvious to me, that the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are indeed of divine origin in message.  Unfortunately, I am still not a disciplined mind, and I suspect that my explanation of these matters is far too inadequate.

"Sorry, SJ, but I don't call the Holocaust "controversial" because Holocaust Deniers dispute it."

Its funny you use that term.  I was going to use it to describe you.

"Five posts, no answers."

Sorry.  I can't tell you why I am a YECcer when you don't even have a clue what it means to be a YECcer.

I guess our conversation is over.

Why do you believe in Young Earth Creationism?

To borrow a line from Rabbi Weinberg of Aish HaTorah [ http://aish.com ]
"Because the evidence suggests it."

Because the evidence suggests it

What evidence are you referring to, nojc?