Creationism: Is it New? Are creationists by default dishonest& ignorant in basic science?

[exchemist]

Hmm. Okay. So you associate creationism with the literal reading of the Bible? Is that your definition of creationism?

Im sorry, this definition I have not heard of before. So I am clarifying to be sure. How about the older Christians? Did they not take the Biblical account literally? How about Jews?

OK, my earlier reply was a bit rushed as I had to go out. Let me fill it out a bit.

From the very earliest times in Christianity, the Genesis story was fairly widely read as as allegorical, rather than literal. Origen, one of the Fathers of the Church, wrote, as early as 300 AD: "Who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, planted a garden eastward in Eden, and set in it a visible and palpable tree of life, of such a sort that anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life?"

Diarmaid MacCulloch writes in his book "A History of Christianity" that Origen, "when he read the bible, shared Greek or Hellenistic Jewish scepticism that some parts of it bore much significant literal meaning" (p.151).

However, it is probably fair to say that, until Darwin came along in the mid c.19th with a natural mechanism for the origin of species, most or all Christians were creationists in the sense that they would have assumed life forms were created by God in much the shape and diversity we see them today. After all, up to that point there was no reason to think anything different.

So yes I quite agree that, up to the publications of Origin of Species, Christians could be and were creationists, without being biblical literalists. But, once Origin of Species came to be widely accepted in the intellectual community, that form of creationism was superseded by the theory of evolution. The bishops of the church were not fools: they could see the logic of Darwin's concept and the evidence for it. So as a result, while Christians still believed, as they do today, that the world, including life, is the product of a Creator God, they then came to believe that the mechanism by which it came to be as it is today must have been via evolution. Just as the mechanism by which the solar system arose is the one proposed by science.

Since that time, "creationism" has come to mean instead the explicit rejection of evolution, the origin of the solar system etc, in favour of a literal reading of Genesis. That is the retrograde step taken by the Seventh Day Adventists and their like. This was due to their deliberate rejection of all earlier church scholarship, as a result of taking the Protestant principle of sola scriptura to inordinate lengths.

 

[firedragon]

OK, my earlier reply was a bit rushed as I had to go out. Let me fill it out a bit.

From the very earliest times in Christianity, the Genesis story was fairly widely read as as allegorical, rather than literal. Origen, one of the Fathers of the Church, wrote, as early as 300 AD: "Who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, planted a garden eastward in Eden, and set in it a visible and palpable tree of life, of such a sort that anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life?"

Diarmaid MacCulloch writes in his book "A History of Christianity" that Origen, "when he read the bible, shared Greek or Hellenistic Jewish scepticism that some parts of it bore much significant literal meaning" (p.151).

However, it is probably fair to say that, until Darwin came along in the mid c.19th with a natural mechanism for the origin of species, most or all Christians were creationists in the sense that they would have assumed life forms were created by God in much the shape and diversity we see them today. After all, up to that point there was no reason to think anything different.

So yes I quite agree that, up to the publications of Origin of Species, Christians could be and were creationists, without being biblical literalists. But, once Origin of Species came to be widely accepted in the intellectual community, that form of creationism was superseded by the theory of evolution. The bishops of the church were not fools: they could see the logic of Darwin's concept and the evidence for it. So as a result, while Christians still believed, as they do today, that the world, including life, is the product of a Creator God, they then came to believe that the mechanism by which it came to be as it is today must have been via evolution. Just as the mechanism by which the solar system arose is the one proposed by science.

Since that time, "creationism" has come to mean instead the explicit rejection of evolution, the origin of the solar system etc, in favour of a literal reading of Genesis. That is the retrograde step taken by the Seventh Day Adventists and their like. This was due to their deliberate rejection of all earlier church scholarship, as a result of taking the Protestant principle of sola scriptura to inordinate lengths.

See, Christianity is not the whole world. Christians are not the only creationists in the world. Hindus are too. So are Muslims. I understand your post and respect it very much. Just that, we must understand that our small world or our bubble (Not you) is not the whole world. So making such general statements as we have been seeing based on our little bubble is highly questionable.

Anyway, though many Christians in history were literalists, there were many who were not. Just like Jews and Muslims. So lets say that Origen was believing the garden of eden and the tree episode is allegorical, yet he believe in the creation story and that we are created. On the flip side, the literalists also thought the same. Both are creationists. There were many Jewish philosophers who did not think some of the biblical narratives were literal, but they believed they were creationists.

There were many muslims who had very literal interpretations of the same story as per the Quran and through the literal interpretation itself they said that Its not a tree and a fruit matter but an enlightening matter. People like Ibn Arabi have gone very far in the philosophical understanding of these texts. Also, most of them did it literally, not only allegorically. This is all true. Appreciated. But all of these people are "creationists". Thats the whole issue.

Yet I understand better now since reading your post. At the mention of the word creationists some people interpret it as modern day, anti evolution, evangelical pseudo scholars. I get it.

They should know that prior to Darwin, the theory of evolution was also called "Muhammedan theory" because it was highly alive in the Islamic discourse. Maybe it was just absent in the west but the western scholars of the time knew the Muhammedan history in this area. They were not as uninformed as the modern day proponents of Darwinism. This shows that these people have made darwinism a religion and consider everything else as "opposition to darwinism".

Thats why they believe there are no creationists who believe in evolution. The problem is, that's just an uninformed presumption.

Thanks a lot.

 

[exchemist]

See, Christianity is not the whole world. Christians are not the only creationists in the world. Hindus are too. So are Muslims. I understand your post and respect it very much. Just that, we must understand that our small world or our bubble (Not you) is not the whole world. So making such general statements as we have been seeing based on our little bubble is highly questionable.

Anyway, though many Christians in history were literalists, there were many who were not. Just like Jews and Muslims. So lets say that Origen was believing the garden of eden and the tree episode is allegorical, yet he believe in the creation story and that we are created. On the flip side, the literalists also thought the same. Both are creationists. There were many Jewish philosophers who did not think some of the biblical narratives were literal, but they believed they were creationists.

There were many muslims who had very literal interpretations of the same story as per the Quran and through the literal interpretation itself they said that Its not a tree and a fruit matter but an enlightening matter. People like Ibn Arabi have gone very far in the philosophical understanding of these texts. Also, most of them did it literally, not only allegorically. This is all true. Appreciated. But all of these people are "creationists". Thats the whole issue.

Yet I understand better now since reading your post. At the mention of the word creationists some people interpret it as modern day, anti evolution, evangelical pseudo scholars. I get it.

They should know that prior to Darwin, the theory of evolution was also called "Muhammedan theory" because it was highly alive in the Islamic discourse. Maybe it was just absent in the west but the western scholars of the time knew the Muhammedan history in this area. They were not as uninformed as the modern day proponents of Darwinism. This shows that these people have made darwinism a religion and consider everything else as "opposition to darwinism".

Thats why they believe there are no creationists who believe in evolution. The problem is, that's just an uninformed presumption.

Thanks a lot.

Oh yes, I can only write about creationism in the culture I know, which is that of Christian Europe. I rely on others to do the same for their own religions.

Some definitions of creationism, even today, include a general meaning by which anyone who believes the cosmos was created by God, however it was done, is a creationist. In that sense, all followers of the Abrahamic faiths are ipso facto creationists. But the modern usage today almost always denotes those who believe God had to interfere in the workings of nature (His own creation) to create life etc by miraculous means. Mainstream Christians, at any rate , are not taught to believe that.

 

[firedragon]

Oh yes, I can only write about creationism in the culture I know, which is that of Christian Europe. I rely on others to do the same for their own religions.

Some definitions of creationism, even today, include a general meaning by which anyone who believes the cosmos was created by God, however it was done, is a creationist. In that sense, all followers of the Abrahamic faiths are ipso facto creationists. But the modern usage today almost always denotes those who believe God had to interfere in the workings of nature (His own creation) to create life etc by miraculous means. Mainstream Christians, at any rate , are not taught to believe that.

I understand what you say.

Still, you can never generalise something as subjective as that to maybe 70 or more percentage of the human species. Its not valid to me.

 

[exchemist]

I understand what you say.

Still, you can never generalise something as subjective as that to maybe 70 or more percentage of the human species. Its not valid to me.

Er, I am not trying to do anything like that, am I? I'm just giving you a sort of short history of creationism in Christendom.

 

[firedragon]

Er, I am not trying to do anything like that, am I? I'm just giving you a sort of short history of creationism in Christendom.

Haha. Sorry if I made you feel like you are trying something like that. I did not address you. I appreciate your input and I understood a lot from that.

Cheers.

 

[firedragon]

@Valjean @Subduction Zone @gnostic

Maybe you might like or dislike this thread. I thought I will quote you anyway.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

1. Is creationism a brand new concept that came up 100 years ago?

More like about 140 years ago, but close enough.

creationism | Origin and meaning of creationism by Online Etymology Dictionary

2. Is creationism by default against evolution?

Creationism is against evolution by definition, not by default.

If that is the case how about creationists who proposed evolution in history? Are they not considered creationists?

I wouldn't say such people exist. Who are you talking about?

3. Being a creationists, does that mean you are dishonest by default? So all our parents, friends, scientists, laymen, in history who believed in creationists, called themselves creationists, all just dishonest?

Nope. Most are sincere. Mistaken <> dishonest.

4. Are all creationists ignorant in science? To reiterate, that's ignorance in basic science!

Yes.

How about those creationists who were scientists, physicists, biologists, etc? Are they all ignorant in science? If that is the case can an ignorant person in science be called a scientist?

Being an expert in one narrow discipline of science doesn't make a person an expert in anything outside that narrow discipline.

Having a PhD in theoretical physics doesn't necessarily mean that you know anything about evolutionary biology.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

So in your thesis, your bottomline is that any Christian, anyone who believes that Jesus is God, is lying. Not that they are mistaken, their faith is flawed or anything of the sort but they are simply being dishonest. They are lying. So you are saying that about 2.3 billion people in the world are all liars because of their belief. You dont need to know his reasoning, what his claims for proof are, or anything. Nothing is necessary because just because he believes in Jesus being God, he is a liar. All Christians in the world are simply lying. Thats your thesis.

Brother. With all due respect. Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Deist, or alien, what you just portrayed was the definition of bigotry.

Cheers.

Absolutely, that is very much bigotry, I agree, and yes.

So here is how I define the words:

A lie in my use and definition is an untruth, something false, not true, can never be true, wrong. So like, 2+2=5 is an untruth, it is false, it is not true, can never be true, its wrong, its a lie. They may tell the lie or promote it without any deliberate malicious intent, but its as much of a lie as "put a fox on your head and you will be healed of cancer" or something. I could waste my precious short time on Earth saying "ok lets test this out" but I really don't need to, because its a bloody obvious idiotic lie that really makes no sense and could never be true. We don't have time to just waste on every idiotic claim or falsehood, its rubbish, isn't even slightly convincing, its not worth anyone's time even. If something is a little confusing though, then you can test it to make sure, for example, I was told that I need to poke holes in my potatoes before heating them or they will explode, I tested putting in potatoes at high heats in the oven and microwave without holes, nothing happened, the bastahs had lied to me, they had spread a lie, they had believed a lie, they were LIARS, LIARS SPREADING LIES, WASTING MY TIME MAKING ME POKE HOLES IN MY POTATOES, MY PRECIOUS LITTLE TIME.

Ok.

Next, anyone who spreads or speaks a lie, deliberately or non-deliberately, is LYING and thus a LIAR in that moment, someone telling LIES or believing LIES.

So that is my idea of dishonesty, even if a person doesn't intend to be dishonest and isn't being dishonest on purpose, they are not telling the truth, they are telling lies.

Those who tell lies, are concealing the truth, they are saying what is not true instead of what is true (its basically the definition of a kaffir, and a kaffir is what a mainstream Christian is, as the Qur'an condemns the liars and exaggerators for saying what is false, what is so odious in the sight of God apparently that it would, if it were true, lead to the destruction of everything, it is an abominable lie, the Qur'an has very strong words about it, and is likely a greater bigot than myself.

So, you can waste your time and your life listening to shirk, listening to lies, listening to absurdities, listening to falsehoods, listening to obvious untruths, but you can also quickly assess and estimate what is not true in some cases, how Jesus can not ever be God, how it is non-sensical to think that Jesus is God or that the death of Jesus should be trusted to have cleared our sins, and whatever other obnoxious things are said which the Qur'an says will destroy people and basically lead them straight into hell, so that a person's soul and future is at stake here, so that the matter is grave and very serious, and so that what they are doing with their lies and misunderstandings they promote as the truth with force is causing the destruction of minds and lives and afterlives, its no joke or lighthearted matter if you actually believe in the Qur'an and take it deadly seriously.

Similarly, the ones who tell lies about mathematics, about science, who say the Earth is Flat, these are all liars who are spreading lies, they are all dishonest people, even if their dishonesty and spreading of lies stems from their being belligerent dimwits, that doesn't excuse them from the damage they are doing, how their ideas are spreading like a disease, how this disease can lead to more people going mad and being corrupted, how all this corruption can lead to destructive freaks like Donald Trump not imposing any proper rules or judgments and everyone spreading the COVID-19 disease because "they don't believe in the virus", leading to short lives being made shorter.

Do you see why its not a bloody joke why the LIARS should not be permitted to spread their filth?

There was this scumbag in India who was defrauding the poorest of people, taking their entire life savings, because he said he could say a single prayer that would heal them and that they should absolutely reject medicine because "Allah didn't create medicine", and this fraudster scumbag devil was even a Doctor himself, but because an evil liars who spread lies and disease and harmed the poor, may Allah destroy him and his whole family, may they be utterly destroyed and wiped off the face of this Earth, may every disease destroy that bastah and his family for what he did to the poor.

So my bigotry is completely justified. These devils are the wickedest of creatures for the harm they do, he spread the lie among people that taking Medicine was a sin in the sight of God, that they should never take medicine, that they should maintain their diseases and spread their diseases freely and without caution, and that they should pay him their entire life savings, money they didn't have even so that they would be in debt to him for their entire lives, so that he utters a single prayer in private for them to be healed if God will heal them. May Allah destroy him, may Allah stop his heart, may Allah gouge out his eyes and destroy his senses and decimate his body and existence, for what he did and may even still be doing to the poor in India.

Do you understand the seriousness of this and LIES? Do you understand why LIES and LIARS, even with the best of intentions, are EVILDOERS, spreaders of EVIL, who cause harm, who should not be listened to, who are criminals despite their intentions, who are trying to send people into distress and misery and backwards with their lies. They should be stopped, they should be fought diligently, they should be shunned, stigmatized, ridiculed, and punished for their lies, in this life as they should be in the next as well, because they do harm, they mislead other dimwits, they speak injustice, they spread corruption, may each one of them be removed from existence, they are BAD.

So yes, the Christian, saying that one should do nothing but "wait for Jesus" or the Christian who says "don't take medicine" or the Christian who says "Jesus is God and your Savior, all you have to do is say stuff you don't even know and which can never be and Jesus will save you" are all destructive liars, dishonest people, criminals, who are destroying themselves and others in this life and the next.

Furthermore, the person who says "Abandon all science" or who says "turn away from biological medicine, anthropology, the sciences, genetics" and whatever else, all these are causing people to stagnate with illnesses, causing people to be delayed in finding cures to illnesses, these are Devils however they may seem like they are well intended, they are not, they are agents of Evil, and they are no joke.

They call themselves "Creationists" and tried to destroy the educational system and tried to turn back science and progress and health and medicine, they are DISHONEST, they are LIARS, and yeah, I'm bigoted against any Lying Devil and wish them the absolute worst. If a car were to smash into them and end their lives suddenly, before they can trick and convince and harm more people and dimwits, that is all for the best, because as they grow an army of dimwits and miscreant liars like themselves, they become all the more dangerous, then they can infiltrate governments and become Lords over us and authorities and impose their LIES as LAWS and oppress people with their falsehood, that is why, while these SNAKES are thin and young, they need to be ridiculed, disparaged, and make it near impossible for their lies to be spread or profitable for anyone, they need their resources cut off, their support cut off, everything cut off so their evil movements stop spreading and corrupting people which eventually takes people backwards and leads to great harm. Do you see?

 

[firedragon]

More like about 140 years ago, but close enough.

creationism | Origin and meaning of creationism by Online Etymology Dictionary


Creationism is against evolution by definition, not by default.


I wouldn't say such people exist. Who are you talking about?


Nope. Most are sincere. Mistaken <> dishonest.


Yes.
Being an expert in one narrow discipline of science doesn't make a person an expert in anything outside that narrow discipline.

Having a PhD in theoretical physics doesn't necessarily mean that you know anything about evolutionary biology.

Well. That’s fair.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

Intent to spread "the truth" isn't dishonest.
That word then is mere insult.
"Wrong headed" would be a better term.

Wrong-headed then, pig-headed even, I've heard all kinds of terms, but yeah, dishonest is probably being misused here or doesn't mean what I am trying to make it mean or taking it as.

To me:

Honesty = Truth = Accuracy = Reality
Dishonest = Falsehood = Error = Inaccuracy = Not Reality
Lie = Falsehood = Incorrect Information
Truth = What is in Accord with Reality and Apparent and hopefully pretty Undeniable
Liars = Anyone spreading falsehood and inaccuracies or things not in accord with Reality

Creationists are people who deny evolution a lot of the time, and other things like some things related to physics, all these important sciences which have benefited mankind tremendously and seem much more in accord with the apparent reality than the suggestions of the so-called Creationists (not simply people who believe everything or some things were created or brought about by God, but this specific bunch most people seem to be referring to who are some American movement or whatever).

Christians are people who say that Jesus will save them so long as they say some thing about Jesus being the Son of God or whatever, they are also dangerous people causing great harm if the other religions are to be believed regarding the afterlife and they are thus being illogical and telling lies basically or spreading things they themselves don't even know and can not know and should not say, but they instead say it with force and a false confidence that fools other people, these are dishonest people, bad people unfortunately, however nice they may seem at a dinner party, anyone who goes around confidently telling lies or things they don't know as if it is so, these are dangerous people who are doing harm to others and other simpletons, which is a great injustice.

Even more harmful, are the specific types that reject medicine, reject precautions, who think they can "pray away" HIV or go around spreading all sorts of diseases because they lies they speak, the lies they believe, or even being dishonest "there is no such thing as disease". These are menaces to society and safety.

 

[thomas t]

fundamentalist Protestant sects

why is that a sect? Becaue it's not catholic and because they don't agree with you?
I don't think that mere creationism belongs to a sect.

I take the Bible literally - in all instances that are not prophecy or (song-)poems. That's not sect-like, it's a reasonable approach to the Bible. Even if your Origen has a different approach. I'm not silly.

Taking Bible literally is a very old concept. Biblical writers used a literal approach, too, I think.

Take for instance the meaning of "day".
When Bible writers said "7 days" they understood it as 7 literal days, not 7 weeks, not 7oo,ooo years; just 7 days. See Genesis 7:4, Genesis 8:10, Genesis 8:12 and many more. Understanding days as a timespan of a more or less arbitrary length is modern. Just as an example.
Also, if day can mean anything between a minute and the age of the universe... you can't communicate, I think.

edited to add last sentence

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well. That’s fair.

Perhaps we can have a reasonable discussion. I was going to point out that the term "creationism" arose in the English language by those that believed the creation myths of Genesis. They themselves separated themselves from other Christians, and at that time most scientists in the western world were still Christians, by coming up with that term. Just because one believes in a creator is not enough to be a "creationist". The people that first refuted a literal interpretation of Genesis tended to be Christians themselves. Calling anyone that believes in a God a "creationist" dilutes the term to such an extent that if becomes worthless. Once again it arose because Christians themselves demonstrated a literal interpretation of Genesis to be wrong. And not just in evolution, but the Flood of Noah as well. In fact the Flood was refuted before the theory of evolution came along.

 

[thomas t]

I put that they are by default dishonest,

I'm not. I'm no liar.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

Creationism - Wikipedia

The real group that people are talking about usually seems to be the Christian Fundamentalist Literalist type. People like these:
Young Earth creationism - Wikipedia

"
A 2017 Gallup creationism survey found that 38 per cent of adults in the United States held the view that "God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" when asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings, which Gallup noted was the lowest level in 35 years.[15] It was suggested that the level of support could be lower when poll results are adjusted after comparison with other polls with questions that more specifically account for uncertainty and ambivalence.[16] Gallup found that, when asking a similar question in 2019, 40 per cent of US adults held the view that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so".[17]

Among the biggest YEC organizations are Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, and Creation Ministries International."

"Reasons for the higher rejection of evolution in the U.S. include the abundance of fundamentalist Christians compared to Europe.[56] A 2011 Gallup survey reported that 30 per cent of Americans said the Bible is the actual word of God and should be interpreted literally, a statistic which had fallen slightly from the late 1970s. Some 54 per cent of those who attended church weekly and 46 per cent of those with a high school education or less took the Bible literally.[59]"

"
Young Earth creationism directly contradicts the scientific consensus of the scientific community. A 2006 joint statement of InterAcademy Panel on International Issues (IAP) by 68 national and international science academies enumerated the scientific facts that young Earth creationism contradicts, in particular that the universe, the Earth, and life are billions of years old, that each has undergone continual change over those billions of years, and that life on Earth has evolved from a common primordial origin into the diverse forms observed in the fossil record and present today.[11] Evolutionary theory remains the only explanation that fully accounts for all the observations, measurements, data, and evidence discovered in the fields of biology, ecology, anatomy, physiology, zoology, paleontology, molecular biology, genetics, anthropology, and others.[43][44][45][46][47]

As such, young Earth creationism is dismissed by the academic and the scientific communities. One 1987 estimate found that "700 scientists ... (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) ... give credence to creation-science".[48] An expert in the evolution-creationism controversy, professor and author Brian Alters, states that "99.9% of scientists accept evolution".[49] A 1991 Gallup poll found that about 5 per cent of American scientists (including those with training outside biology) identified themselves as creationists.[50][51] For their part, Young Earth Creationists say that the lack of support for their beliefs by the scientific community is due to discrimination and censorship by professional science journals and professional science organizations. This viewpoint was explicitly rejected in the rulings from the 1981 United States District Court case McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education as no witness was able to produce any articles that had been refused publication and the judge could not conceive how "a loose knit group of independent thinkers in all the varied fields of science could, or would, so effectively censor new scientific thought".[12] A 1985 study also found that only 18 out of 135,000 submissions to scientific journals advocated creationism.[52][53]"

"
The common belief of Young Earth creationists is that the Earth and life were created in six 24-hour periods,[60] 6,000–10,000 years ago. However, there are different approaches to how this is possible given the geological evidence for much longer timescales. The Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College has identified two major types of YEC belief systems:[60]

• Believers in flood geology attach great importance to the biblical story of Noah's Flood in explaining the fossil record and geological strata. Major American YEC organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis support this approach with detailed argumentation and references to scientific evidence, though often framed with pseudoscientific misconceptions.[60]
• A less-visible form of YEC not seen as often on the internet is one which claims that there has been essentially no development of the Universe, Earth, or life whatsoever since creation — that creation has been in a steady state since the beginning without major changes. According to Ronald Numbers this belief, which does not necessarily try to explain scientific evidence through appeal to a global flood, has not been promoted as much as the former example given.[61] Such YECs believe that fossils are not real and that major extinctions never occurred, so dinosaurs, trilobites, and other examples of extinct organisms found in the fossil record would have to either be hoaxes or simply secular lies, promoted perhaps by the devil.[60][62]

View of the Bible[edit]
See also: Biblical literalism and Biblical literalist chronology
Young Earth creationists regard the Bible as a historically accurate, factually inerrant record of natural history. As Henry Morris, a leading Young Earth Creationist, explained it, "Christians who flirt with less-than-literal readings of biblical texts are also flirting with theological disaster."[63][64] According to Morris, Christians must "either ... believe God's Word all the way, or not at all."[63] Young Earth creationists consider the account of creation given in Genesis to be a factual record of the origin of the Earth and life, and that Bible-believing Christians must therefore regard Genesis 1–11 as historically accurate.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

Part 2

Interpretations of Genesis[edit]
See also: Genesis creation narrative
Young Earth creationists interpret the text of Genesis as strictly literal. Young Earth Creationists reject allegorical readings of Genesis and further argue that if there was not a literal Fall of Man, Noah's Ark, or Tower of Babel this would undermine core Christian doctrines like the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The genealogies of Genesis record the line of descent from Adam through Noah to Abraham. Young Earth Creationists interpret these genealogies literally, including the old ages of the men. For example, Methuselah lived 969 years according to the genealogy. Differences of opinion exist regarding whether the genealogies should be taken as complete or abbreviated, hence the 6,000 to 10,000 year range usually quoted for the Earth's age. In contrast, Old Earth Creationists tend to interpret the genealogies as incomplete, and usually interpret the days of Genesis 1 figuratively as long periods of time.

Young Earth creationists believe that the flood described in Genesis 6–9 did occur, was global in extent, and submerged all dry land on Earth. Some Young Earth Creationists go further and advocate a kind of flood geology which relies on the appropriation of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century arguments in favor of catastrophism made by such scientists as Georges Cuvier and Richard Kirwan. This approach which was replaced by the mid-nineteenth century almost entirely by uniformitarianism was adopted most famously by George McCready Price and this legacy is reflected in the most prominent YEC organizations today. YEC ideas to accommodate the massive amount of water necessary for a flood that was global in scale included inventing such constructs as an orbiting vapor canopy which would have collapsed and generated the necessary extreme rainfall or a rapid movement of tectonic plates causing underground aquifers[65] or tsunamis from underwater volcanic steam[66] to inundate the planet.

Age of the Earth[edit]
See also: Age of the Earth, Dating creation, Flood geology, and RATE project
The young Earth creationist belief that the age of the Earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old conflicts with the age of 4.54 billion years measured using independently cross-validated geochronological methods including radiometric dating.[67] Creationists dispute these and all other methods which demonstrate the timescale of geologic history in spite of the lack of scientific evidence that there are any inconsistencies or errors in the measurement of the Earth's age.[68][69]

Between 1997 and 2005, a team of scientists at the Institute for Creation Research conducted an eight-year research project entitled RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) to assess the validity and accuracy of radiometric dating techniques. While they concluded that there was overwhelming evidence for over 500 million years' worth of radioactive decay, they claimed to have found other scientific evidence to prove a young earth. They therefore proposed that nuclear decay rates were accelerated by a factor of one billion during the Creation week and at the time of the Flood. However, when subjected to independent scrutiny by non-affiliated experts, their analyses were shown to be flawed.[70][71][72][73]

Human history[edit]
See also: Early human migrations
Young Earth creationists reject almost all of the results of physical anthropology and human evolution and instead insist that Adam and Eve were the universal ancestors of every human to have ever lived.[74] Noah's flood as reported in the book of Genesis is said to have killed all humans on Earth with the exception of Noah and his sons and their wives, so young Earth creationists also argue that humans alive today are descended from this single family.[75]

The literal belief that the world's linguistic variety originated with the tower of Babel is pseudoscientific, sometimes called pseudolinguistics, and it is contrary to what is known about the origin and history of languages.[76]

Flood geology, the fossil record, and dinosaurs[edit]
See also: Human-dinosaur coexistence, Paleontology, and Dinosaur
Young Earth creationists reject the geologic evidence that the stratigraphic sequence of fossils proves the Earth is billions of years old. In his Illogical Geology, expanded in 1913 as The Fundamentals of Geology, George McCready Price argued that the occasionally out-of-order sequence of fossils that are shown to be due to thrust faults made it impossible to prove any one fossil was older than any other. His "law" that fossils could be found in any order implied that strata could not be dated sequentially. He instead proposed that essentially all fossils were buried during the flood and thus inaugurated flood geology. In numerous books and articles he promoted this concept, focusing his attack on the sequence of the geologic time scale as "the devil's counterfeit of the six days of Creation as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis."[77] Today, many young Earth creationists still contend that the fossil record can be explained by the global flood.[78]"

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

Part 3:

"
Young Earth creationism is most famous for an opposition to the theory of evolution, but believers also are on record opposing many measurements, facts, and principles in the fields of physics and chemistry, dating methods including radiometric dating, geology,[92] astronomy,[93] cosmology,[93] and paleontology.[94] Young Earth creationists do not accept any explanation for natural phenomena which deviates from the veracity of a plain reading of the Bible, whether it be the origins of biological diversity, the origins of life, the geological, atmospheric, and oceanic history of Earth, the origins of the Solar System and Earth, formation of the earliest chemical elements or the origins of the universe itself. This has led some young Earth creationists to criticize other creationist proposals such as intelligent design, for not taking a strong stand on the age of the Earth, special creation, or even the identity of the designer.[citation needed]

Young Earth creationists disagree with the methodological naturalism that is part of the scientific method. Instead, they assert the actions of God as described in the Bible occurred as written and therefore only scientific evidence that points to the Bible being correct can be accepted. See Creation–evolution controversy for a more complete discussion.

Compared to other forms of creationism[edit]
Main article: Creationism
As a position that developed out of the explicitly anti-intellectual side of the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy in the early parts of the twentieth century, there is no single unified nor consistent consensus on how creationism as a belief system ought to reconcile its adherents' acceptance of biblical inerrancy with empirical facts of the Universe. Although Young Earth Creationism is one of the most stridently literalist positions taken among professed creationists, there are also examples of biblical literalist adherents to both geocentrism[95] and a flat Earth.[96] Conflicts between different kinds of creationists are rather common, but three in particular are of particular relevance to YEC: Old Earth Creationism, Gap creationism, and the Omphalos hypothesis.

Old Earth creationism[edit]
See also: Old Earth creationism
Young Earth creationists reject old Earth creationism and day-age creationism on textual and theological grounds. In addition, they claim that the scientific data in geology and astronomy point to a young Earth, against the consensus of the general scientific community."

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm not. I'm no liar.

The OP misapplied the word "and". A creationist cannot be honest and informed when it comes to evolution. That does not mean that they are "dishonest& ignorant".

His OP has an incorrect negation of the phrase "there is no such thing as an honest and informed creationist". A creationist can be honest, but he will also be ignorant of the sciences that he opposes. Or a creationist can be informed, but then unfortunately he will have to openly lie to defend his or her beliefs. I can give endless specific examples of this and it would only take one honest and informed creationist to refute this well known claim. It has not happened to date.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

So I think its mainly these people, people like these mentioned above, who seem to be Americans, who are the ones who come to mind when the term "Creationist" is used to represent a vocal group of Christians with certain ideas and famously known to reject evolutionary science.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

The OP misapplied the word "and". A creationist cannot be honest and informed when it comes to evolution. That does not mean that they are "dishonest& ignorant".

Can you clarify a little more please?