Doesn't not believing in Creationism mean rejecting the bible?

Janhoi has answered this question excellently. I'll just add a few additional details to flesh out his last point.

Young Earth Creationism is a modern interpretation of the Bible that sprang out of the revivalism movement in the late 1800s in the United States, the same movement that gave rise to the fringe Christian groups like the Mormons, SDAs and JWs, as well as birthing the modern Evangelical, non-denominational groups. One of the Revivalism movement's messages was that the Bible was/should be easy to interpret by each and every Christian, which flew in the face of not only Catholic doctrine, but also mainline (read ALL) of Protestant doctrine as well, which held that while all answers could be found in the Bible (sola scriptura), proper interpretation of the Bible was something that required study and practice and benefited from the understanding and interpretations of the past in order to be fruitful and accurate.

Catholic and Protestant theology stated that the early accounts of Genesis were allegorical, and were examples of Hebrew poetry used to describe, though metaphor, the relationships of God to Creation and to Man in specific. They pointed out the structure of the story, they pointed out the differing accounts of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2 which alter the specifics but keep the metaphorical core. They point out that throughout the history of the Church and to the time of Christ and beyond, great numbers of theologians have found issue with the notion that God created the world in six literal days, and offered an explanation of the true meaning of the passage.

The Revialists thought this was too complicated. The Bible was SIMPLE, they stressed. The nuanced argument of the rest of Christendom couldn't be right, as it required specialized knowledge not found within the Bible. No, instead, the Bible was simple. If Genesis said that the world was made in six literal days, then that was the Truth, regardless of how contrary to prior belief or the growing scientific evidence that position was.

This is why, to this day, YEC is mostly limited to the evangelical movement of the United States, and why it is estimated that, worldwide, less than 5% of Christians actually believe this. YEC is actually a fringe position, not supported by history or other Christian groups, which has, in my opinion, done more to damage the faith than pretty much any other development in the past 500 years.

First thing is. Who are these "many scientists"? Over 98% of the scientists in the world accept Evolution. Less than a % dont and still less than that believe the earth is less than 6000 years old.

Second, Scientists operate on the basis of not only verifiability, but also falsifiability. So the test of any great scientific theory is whether it can not only be verified, but also falsified. Evolution does have a falsifiable mechanism in place and that is natural selection. If natural selection where proven wrong, then Scientists would go back to the drawing board again. But natural selection has been tested time and time against proven right. One way of does that is through observing bacteria. When it is put in conditions that it cannot survive in, many of them die of for obvious reasons, but the few that do survive adapt and eventually form a new strand of bacteria. Creationists by contrast operate on the basis of only verifiability, but not falsifiability. So what that means that you principally assume that your view of how old the world is can only be verified, but never falsified. That means implicitly that you are both not open to the evidence, and not doing Science.

Third, on the theological question of Genesis and the age of the Earth I would say this. The Bible is not a science manual, but a library of Books that each have different genres and styles of writing in them. So the Book of Chronicles and Kings fall under the genre of Ancient History. The Gospels, Ancient Biographies. Song of Solomon and the Psalms, Poetry. Book of Ecclesiastes, Philosophy. The first chapters of Genesis fall under Creation myth, and we know this by comparing it to other texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh and Hesiod's Theogony. This means that the text implicitly is not trying to teach Science, but the deepest theological truths of why God created the universe in the first place.

Finally, many theologians over the centuries have taken an Allegorical view of Genesis, the most famous being St Augustine who wrote this:

"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation"_St Augustine(On the literal interpretation of Genesis)(394 A.D)

I also recommend you watch this

Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x3JJILFmU4

LOL no, just a little serious investigation will do that. In the end the OT and the NT are both expressions of religious political opinion at the time they were written, the former being about 550 BCE, the latter began 60 to 100 CE. THe NT was not codified, or assembled until about 350 CE. There is no evidence of divine inspiration that I have seen, there is much evidence of plagiarism.

Denying the literal truth of Genesis is only a rejection if you also deny that allegory and poetics have instructive or inspirational value. This was a solidly Christian understanding of the Old Testament before the anti-modern backlash movement that we've come to know as fundamentalism.

The Bible does not say the earth was created in 6 days. It's six yoms, which are creative time periods, probably millions of years. Even a casual reading shows it cannot be a 24 hour "day" as the sun/earth system was not even created until the fourth creative time period.

Most Christians accept evolution.

Just because Genesis 1 is not completely literal doesn't mean it's false. Look at Exodus 15 and Judges 5. Both give poetic descriptions of true events.

http://www.oldearth.org/

http://www.theistic-evolution.com/

Actually, there is no place in the Bible that says Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden 6000 years ago.

It's science that says it was 6000 year ago.

And science makes mistakes.

Creationism is not an official dogma.

Yes.

In answer to your title question, that would be a fair assessment.