u/redsahx645

Yesterday I came on here asking if evolution and Orthodoxy were compatible and to my surprise the overwhelming majority said yes.
Now I'm coming on here to ask because y'all CAN reconcile the two, HOW do y'all reconcile the two.

So I had some questions, read in order because some of them go into the next question.

1. The obvious YEC talking point, Romans and the church anathemas both saying that death didn’t enter until the fall. How do yall reconcile this? If it’s animal death fine, but according to science humans were living thousands of years ago. So what kind of death is Paul referring to?

2. In the Bible it says humans lived hundreds of years plus which also shows that Adam would have lived 6000ish years ago. Do yall believe humans DID actually live that long and that genealogy is historical? Or is that know allegory?

3. If that genealogy is accurate then humans lived thousands of years before Adam according to archeology.
   These humans had tools, weapons, buried their dead, made art, and even had religious practices (such as the temple that is dated 10,000 years ago in Turkey)
   So what makes these people ANY different than Adam? If there’s no difference then that means these humans are the same and did die, which is contradictory? If they’re different (say a soul) then what ACTUALLY is that?

4. Tying into that last question if there were humans and Adam was just the first one who has a soul then what about the rest of them? Did they just go their own way and never make contact with these new humans?

5. If evolution is just God’s method of creation then it must be all good, but I don’t see that necessarily with the old earth model? I get animal death or even human doesn’t =/= evil. That’s not my problem. My problem is that would mean God created tornadoes and earthquakes and volcanoes and cancer and disease and stuff.
   YEC has a cleaner way of explaining this just that everything WAS good until the Fall then thing like disease came into the world. So was this a corruption because it appears so? It appears no different than the YEC model after the fall?
   Even if not then why did God wait SO long? He waited 100,000 years of people to finally make Adam?

6. A lot of people say that no fathers thought this at all, that Genesis has always been understood as real history. I would like to trust that, but they were just living in a different time. They also didn’t believe a heliocentric model? Fr. Seraphim Rose though who’s very modern didn’t believe in it? So how do you reconcile this? Why would he not?

7. I’ve seen one claim that when Adam sinned he not only corrupted the present/future but also the past. There is a real objective past where God created everything in 6 days but Adam corrupted that and made it seem as if it was millions of years to where now we now need to Bible for the REAL understanding. Thoughts on this?

8. I always hear the whole “God was explaining it to a group of people who weren’t able to grasp evolution.” Basically humanity in its infancy. Is this accurate? If so then why does the entire modern people STILL read it how they would have? It’s like using candles instead of electricity because saints said fire is the best light source. Or using horses instead of cars because saints said horses is the best mode of transportation. At least that’s how I see it.

9. Where does the flood fit into this because I always hear how that changed radiometric dating and everything. Did the flood happen? Was the entire surface of every single piece of land submerged? I’ve heard that’s why dinosaurs are extinct too because Noah didn’t take dinosaurs.

The last few questions are just thoughts but the first few I don’t understand. I need some kind of timeline because every priest I see talk about it says it simply doesn’t work because of the whole death entering situation.
It seems very very clear that evolution or at least an old earth is real and not just “some religion that takes faith”. It’s like if I had 900 pieces built on my 1000 piece puzzles. I can very very clearly see what the rest will be. But YEC claims that we only have like 50 pieces of this puzzle and that science always changes. So I’m not sure?

And I know these questions don’t matter much. I’m just so curious and interested in all of this. I want to reconcile the two because like I said it seems to dishonest to go “no, a cow can’t give birth to a dog” because that’s not how it works. I can’t just say “nah evolution is fake because scientists wants to deceive us” when it seems very clear that it’s in many aspects of our life.
So how do I fit these models together?
It just seems like fitting this into the evident science is a lot more accurate than going “no! Dating is wrong” but then I’m told I’m prioritizing science over the Bible and the saints.
Also if there’s any other common questions are arguments you hear that you would like to add on to your reply I would like those as well, thanks!

Any biologists/paleontologists/geologists that can help me with YEC vs Theistic Evolution?

I often hear that there’s theological or philosophical problems if you say evolution is true however I think there are REALITY problems if you say it’s not true.

It seems way easier to explain the theological problems than it is to explain evolution not existing?

I was YEC for a while because of the theological issues but it just seems like everyone straw mans or completely misunderstands evolution. They think that evolution is pokemon, that animals just shapeshift into another animal or completely give birth to another animal but that’s not what’s taught at all so that kind of dishonesty is what has me confused. Thinking it doesn’t make sense is one thing but saying “we find bones and pair them with other bones” doesn’t work. I can’t just eat ribs and then bury the bones and fool someone into thinking they’re old, that’s not how it works at all?
The other “we don’t observe it” doesn’t make sense because then that would also refute forensic science?

Sure it does sound like “just some story” until you can go “well if there’s these bones here in the coast of America of this extinct animal then there should also be these bones on the coast of Africa at this depth because that depth is ____ years old which is before these continents shifted” then they go to the coast of Africa and there are the same bones from that same extinct species at the same depth that they said they would be.
I simply cannot understand how this just “doesn’t work”.

Any insight on this from anyone?

I’m tired of the schizo American politics as well as the very real ones (referring to a specific ally that controls us and a specific island that most celebrities have gone to)

I’m also tired of the poisoning our food, our clothes, etc.

We’re awful in education, we get more and more immoral as time goes on, healthcare is AWFUL and is now getting even worse with RFK, specifically vaccinating, housing is awful, the economic equality sucks (if you’re poor it’s very difficult to get rich)
And as time goes on we get more and more freedoms taken away, right now mass surveillance, data centers, etc.

What place has none of this? Maybe a government you can trust? Good healthcare? Good education? Good cost of living/wages? Good food supply that doesn’t have bs put into it?

To summarize, America was once the place that bred innovation and had high opportunity but as time goes on that gets lessened and control increases more and more and? I don’t care about the getting rich aspect of America. I just want a place where me and my family can live very comfortably without having to work 80 hours a week. I don’t want to struggle and I don’t want to sacrifice my time with them especially while living in a country who absolutely HATES me and only cares about their own personal gain.

Any insight?