The Grand DesignFollow

Yes. I'm well aware that those who argue against creationism assume a far more dogmatic position in order to create an easy strawman for them to attack, but this is the *actual* definition:




Nothing in that belief precludes the existence or operation of evolutionary processes after the initial act of creating the universe out of nothing by a divine being.



I use the term as what it actually means. The problem is that for many, "creationism" is defined by its opposition to evolution. Which is somewhat self fulfilling, isn't it?


What we really need is a second term specific to the incredibly tiny percentage of people who believe that evolution doesn't happen and/or has never happened, and that God simply created all things as they are right now and nothing has ever changed. Maybe call it "static post creation theory" or something. The point is that the overwhelming majority of people who believe that "God created the world", do not believe that their beliefs in any way violate the principles of evolution. It's only when people insist that evolution disproves their beliefs about creation (which, I'll remind you, don't actually violate evolutionary theory) that they get defensive. And, as I pointed out earlier, that's largely a construct created by atheists in order to attempt to use science to attack religion.

When I was but a wee bairn, I asked a Southern Baptist preacher about evolution once.

He said that he believed that Genesis was about evolution, that the animals evolved and Genesis describes that, but that man did not evolve from a monkey. Man was created by god just the way the bible says.

I don't agree with him, and at the time I didn't really hold an opinion either way, but looking back, it's nice to see at least some open mindedness about it.

That was the same church that, a scant few years later, had on their sign out front, "Are you going to the lake of fire with Satan?"

Oh, speaking of weird church signs, there's another church in town who's sign currently says, "Jesus will come with clouds. Every eye will see him." I have no idea what that means at all. But it sounds dirty.

Edited, Sep 7th 2010 9:20pm by Belkira

My favorites are still "the most powerful position is on your knees" and "don't let your worries kill you, let the church help"

You're all wrong of course, the universe was created last Tuesday.

So I was there and I didn't even notice!
No it doesn't. People who take the bible literally and word for word are generally a lot more strict in their beliefs than the average Christian.
At least from the Christians I know. (which, admittedly isn't a huge number and I think the US has a lot more crazies than we do here in the Netherlands.)

Er? Nothing in there says that "God guided evolution". Catholics do not hold to a strict "6 day" creation, but they do believe that God "created" the universe, in some period of time, in more or less the order written in Genesis. Days are taken to be allegorical, but the entire creation story is not chucked out.


The problem is one of semantics. If you give the same poll and remove the word "evolution" and replace it with "changed until things were how they are today", you'd find that an overwhelming percentage of Christians will choose that selection. Ask them "Did God create all life and then guide it until it had formed into the forms we see them in today?", and they'll almost universally say 'yes'. Put down "God guided evolution", and a whole bunch of them will say 'no'.


That's purely a semantic issue though, isn't it? And a whole lot of it rests on exactly the issue of evolution being used by atheists as an attack on religion. You literally just have to change the word and people change their views. So it's not the actual thing, it's their perception of everything having to do with "evolution", and for many religious people, their experiences are that people push evolution as a way of attacking their beliefs. Hard to blame them for having a negative reaction.




Ask them how long each day was. Also, don't loose sight of the fact that people read into surveys like this what they think the survey is asking. In that case, if you've answered that you believe in a biblical account of creation, you're now faced with two options: Created in 6 days as written in the bible, or a vaguely defined "divine presence". Most people aren't thinking of that in the context of guided evolution or whether we're literally talking about 6 24 hour days. They interpret it as a choice between saying that God just started the big bang and then stepped back and let things run, or if he had a direct hand in creation.


Not surprising that most would chose the 6 day answer. I'll point out again that if you provided them with a more reasonable answer like "God actively created the world and all the plants and animals in it, and the specific time frame isn't important", you'd once again get a much higher response rate. All the surveys you keep quoting are giving those who are religious very poor choices. Why not give them more choices and find out how people really feel instead of forcing them to chose something which appears to violate their beliefs and one which parrots a hard core dogmatic position?


Could it be because the people doing the surveys *want* to maximize the number of people who provide the hard core answer? Why yes! I think that's it!

Edited, Sep 8th 2010 5:04pm by gbaji

No, it's saying that God set up a system for life to originate and evolve under his will and according to his ends. But it's great to see you miss the point.


You mean don't read it exactly as it is written because that doesn't help your point? Gotcha. Hey, I only have the Vatican stating that God set up the conditions for the origin of life so it could evolve over time according to his will (exactly as the poll option states). You have... umm... you have...

Well, I'm sure you think you're right.


Except that Catholics tend to vote Democratic and evangelical Christians who believe in literal Six Day Creationism vote Republican. Catholicism, incidentally, accounts for 24% of the US Christian population so while it's the "single largest" denomination in the US, it doesn't have a lock on Christian dogma in the US by any stretch of the imagination. That's ignoring the fact that, regardless of the official Vatican-approved stance, many older or more traditionalist Catholics still believe in a more literal interpretation of Genesis.

Honestly, you have nothing backing up your claims except you swearing that it's true. That's cute and I applaud your single-minded devotion to defending your political ideology but it's nothing to keep debating.

Edited, Sep 8th 2010 9:21pm by Jophiel

There is no war on religion. Aside from a few attention whoring radicals, there is no attack on religion. There's no attack on Christmas; the Easter bunny is not trapped in his bunker listening to the whistle of incoming shells.

Most people, most of the time, on most sides, are perfectly willing to live and let live.

Just 'cause it was interesting to me, here is one of the few polls I could find (PDF) to cross tab beliefs of Catholics vs Protestant vs Evangelicals.

Catholics are 51% likely to believe in Darwinian evolution and 37% likely to believe in Creationism.
Protestants are 32% likely to believe in Darwinian evolution and 56% likely to believe in Creationism.
Evangelicals are only 16% likely to believe in Darwinian evolution and 68% likely to believe in Creationism.
Jewish folk win the science awards with a 80/20 split.

On the other hand, Catholics are more likely to believe in ghosts, UFOs and astrology than their fellow Christians. Go figure.

Edited, Sep 8th 2010 9:44pm by Jophiel

Yes, it does. I stopped reading here since you fucked up at the very first sentence so I'm assuming the rest of your attempt to dig yourself out is equally retarded.

Quote where it says those exact words. If it's not there, then you aren't reading "exactly" what it says. Unless you've invented a new definition for the word "exactly"?