Just because you had already become deceived by age five about the existence of God doesn't make any of your assertions true.
LOL! No, no. That's grade five, not age five! I wasn't that precocious.
Trust me, at the age of ten my level of knowledge was pretty meagre. Did you catch the part where I said I was so naive I actually thought I was the only individual on Earth who didn't believe in God? I did not know the word 'atheist' at that time. I didn't know any of the things I know now, but contrary to the popular wisdom around here, I did have one thing right.
AgeofKnowledge said:
Obviously, the Genesis account was written in ancient Hebrew not modern English...
And the bulk of it was probably conceived in the Bronze Age, although the experts tell us the final redaction took place about 586 BC, putting the final work firmly in the Iron Age.
AgeofKnowledge said:
... and the word for day (e.g. yom) has a wide variety of meanings beyond a 24-hour solar period.
But not in this case. "And evening came and morning came, a second day." These are clearly 24 hour days. The Young Earth Creationists are absolutely correct.
AgeofKnowledge said:
Specifically, in the Genesis account with respect to creation days it's speaking of long epochs that certainly DOES correlate with science...
I've heard the claim, but you will have to explain it to me. I don't see that the days, or epochs, line up with science at all.
AgeofKnowledge said:
... which means that you are guilty of misrepresenting biblical creation presently just as the "young earth" parents of the children you attended grade school did.
I am guilty only if I am wrong, but I am convinced I am right. You are guilty, I think, of altering the meaning of the text of Genesis to better suit a modern understanding of the world.
What you don't understand is what the text is actually saying. The reason God could make the entire universe in only six days is that the writers of Genesis had a very different cosmological view than what you and I do. The universe for them was the Earth. God made the dome of the sky, the firmament, and placed the Sun, Moon, and stars within it. The stars were simply lights in the sky, and sometimes they fell to Earth, as stated in the Book of Revelation. The universe could be made in six days because the Earth was universe. There was nothing else. There were no other worlds, no star systems, no galaxies, no super clusters. There was only Earth. God didn't need epochs to get the work done.
AgeofKnowledge said:
One CAN keep God in their heart whether or not they accurately understand creation and/or science simply because God really exists.
Well, to you he exists. I have no sense of that at all. Peter Hitchens came to God out of fear of Hell. Francis Collins came to God out of a sense of wonderment of nature. People generally have no trouble believing in deities of all sorts. It's always been that way. And they believe in these deities irrespective of whether or not they exist. So, believing God exists cannot be taken as evidence that God exists – if that is what you are saying.
I have to tell you, before you get the wrong impression, that I have never argued the existence of God with anyone who accepts evolution. It is not my intention to disprove God, despite how this must look. What's happening here is that I am getting dragged into defending myself. You did, after all, tell met that I was deceived and claimed none of my assertions were true. I did not claim to have evidence that there is no God. I only stated that by grade five I had already become an atheist; and to be honest I am not exactly sure how that happened, though I have an idea.
I have a question for you. As a thought experiment, if I were to persuade you that the Genesis creation account is actually a Bronze Age/Iron Age myth, how would that affect your perception of God? You see, I think that's what may have turned me into an atheist.