I just stumbled across this startling statistic (while reading The Language of God): 45% of Americans are Young-Earth Creationists. That means that almost half of my fellow Americans believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. I must say I was a bit taken aback to learn that the number is so high.
I'm curious -- what are your thoughts on creationism? Are there any Young-Earth Creationists among my readers? If you are so inclined, please use the comments to discuss.
8 comments:
Fair warning: I want this to be a friendly and civil conversation. I will not hesitate to delete comments that stray from that goal. You're on notice.
Bet you thought you would hear from me on this. I grew up in a setting where I was surrounded by young earth creationists (ironically my father was not one of those. He believed in a theory which sees a gap between genesis 1:1 and 1:2 during which a lot of things happened and which encompasses millions of years)I even have a good friend who worked for a Creaion Science organization for a number of years and is very adamant on this subject.
I find myself torn . Once again I see both sides of the coin and see the weaknesses in both sides. Young earth proponents do bring out some compelling questions about the reliability of dating methods and also holes in the Darwinian interpretation of the fossil record. . Mt St Helens has also given them ammunition to demonstrate how a cataclysmic event can bring about results in seconds which geologists have claimed would take millions of years.
But there are questions that they have not been able to answer to my satisfaction. many of these are from astronomy. How is it if the universe is only thousands of years old that we can see stars and galaxies which are millions of light years away?
So once again I am still looking for answers. I do believe that most people have not ever really taken a close look at either side and have come to their conclusions based on one sided information. Bot sides can be very arrogant and condescending towards the other. I find myself leaning towards an older universe but i still have trouble with the whole spontaneous generation thing and the idea that one species can turn into another. I have yet to see anything that shows me that this has ever happened.
Thanks for that comment, FL! I was especially curious about where you might stand on the issue, knowing that you're in a state of flux right now. I appreciate that you took the time to respond.
It will surprise no one that I think young-earth creationists actually have no good criticisms when it comes to the reliability of dating systems, the fossil record, or the evolution of life, but I guess I'm just being predictable.
Once again, let me recommend Francis Collins' The Language of God. (Thanks, Grandpa Paul! I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this book!) I think it would be right up your alley, FL, and he addresses exactly these issues. I'm still waiting for your post about what it means to be an evangelical Christian -- Mr. Collins calls himself an evangelical Christian, which has definitely challenged my understanding of what that term means.
I believe that God works in natural ways. I believe that when "days" are spoken of in the story of the Creation, I think it means "time periods" as opposed to 24 hours.
I thought the Hubble telescope proved that the universe is 14 billion years old. It did this mathematically. Mt ST Helen did not occur in a vacuum it had a living earth around it. Birds fly over it the wind brings seeds the rain brings things. The use of logic is imperfect unless it is proven mathematically( the only precise language we have)
Darwin's theory was only the beginning,
formed with imperfect tools as our math evolves and our tools evolve it has already improved. It is close to be a working theory such as the theory of gravity and relativity. (they are still classified as theory)
As to creation let quote one of my favorite authors Terry Pratchett This we know in the beginning there was nothing and then it blew up. The idea theory. What caused faith.
I think proved is too strong a word. I do agree that the Hubble has provided some evidence for which the young earth crowd has yet to form adequate answers.
Faith is simply belief. It is not the belief in the illogical or unreasoned belief. No matter what you believe at some point you have to take a leap of faith because there are questions that we simply can never have all the answers to.
Faith is interesting. I think religeon is necessary for the delopement of intellegence, Religeon started when we first asked why. Why is so essentual to develope our brain. Faith is strang it to ofen answers the question why and the why is not investaged more. Take illness until the renaissance night vapors and the judgement of God was believed to be the causes.
We are an amazing species we are able to build on the knowledge of pass generations changing pass knowledge in the light of new tools. We invent new math to answer these questions (to calculate yhr speed of light new math was inverted)
I had two years of college that was heavily into math and science(Chemistry and biology) before I went into nursing. That and history are my fields of interest. So I believe in evolution ( yes we are desendent from primates. not apes or monkeys) We share much of our genetic material with all mammals. That is why we are able to use procine valves and shin on people.
It never ceases to amaze me at how convincing evidence can be overlooked when one has deep seated beliefs based on little more than sacred writings and family tradition. Even most believers hold dear the "god" given ability to question the conventional wisdom. I think that a good non-religeous (mostly) example of this phenomonon is the current political debate. This administration...but wait, I digress.
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