I believe in a Creator, but not a young earth believer/creationist. My opinion of creationism is that it leaves out evolution, most people who are considered creationists, don't believe whatsoever in creationism. Maybe it's just semantics. lol
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The Threat of Creationism
- Thread starter Mickdrew
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- creationism evolution science
I believe in a Creator, but not a young earth believer/creationist. My opinion of creationism is that it leaves out evolution, most people who are considered creationists, don't believe whatsoever in creationism. Maybe it's just semantics. lol
I am afraid so.
But I have to confess you this: I have less problems to understand a YEC than a believer that thinks that things like evolution are part of God's plan. i really cannot imagine today how the evolutionary process can be even remotely associated with a benevolent, efficient, goal oriented, Christ-like, kind of God. i obviously include my past self in the set of these believers.
Don't take it the wrong way, but I believe the latters want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to be intellectually hip, while preserving their inherent creationism.
Ciao
- viole
This is an interesting opinion, I hear you…but, while the Bible or any other holy text can offer up ideas about God, no one knows what God might actually be like, entirely. Depending on what school of thought/belief system you are drawn to, God is interpreted a myriad of ways. So, I don’t get hung up on well if the Bible states that God must be this, this and that…how could evolution be possible? This is why many people feel that they can’t support their belief system and also support the theory of evolution. That’s how I see it anyways. But, it also makes sense as to why Deism is so attractive, at times. lolI am afraid so.
But I have to confess you this: I have less problems to understand a YEC than a believer that thinks that things like evolution are part of God's plan. i really cannot imagine today how the evolutionary process can be even remotely associated with a benevolent, efficient, goal oriented, Christ-like, kind of God. i obviously include my past self in the set of these believers.
Don't take it the wrong way, but I believe the latters want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to be intellectually hip, while preserving their inherent creationism.
Ciao
- viole
I agree with you. There are many different people from different cultures genuinely seeking to come closer to their creator, yet coming to different understandings and interpretations. It is interesting how culture tends to have a large part in their interpretation of God. For instance look at the differences in Christianity from one culture to another, not to mention the differing opinions within denominations from a single country.
Vorkosigan
Member
I wonder how this would be affected if we couldn't mention god or religion to a person until he/she is 20 years old. Would we have the same amount of believers?
Zosimus
Active Member
Well, perhaps this depends entirely on your definition of religion and faith. For example, I have faith that my employer will pay me. However, I don't consider that a religious belief.
Zosimus
Active Member
Let's talk about the assumptions and faith that are inherent in the statement above.
Your assumption is that serpents do not speak human language and that only faith in superstition would make someone believe otherwise.
Have you spent much time with serpents? I personally must say that I have not done so. I know next to nothing about what a serpent is capable of. Furthermore, the exact species of the serpent is not mentioned anywhere. Do you think that your experiences (whatever they may be) with serpents are indicative of all serpents everywhere in general?
How do you know that the serpents you have had contact with are a random sample of all serpents everywhere past, present, and future?
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
https://arkencounter.com/
Has it?
Horse**** like what's referenced above wasn't prevalent when I was a kid. It was relegated to Baptist pulpits and traveling "counselors" who would illegally delve out copies of the New Testament the moment that the school bell rang at 2:30. Now, like every other ridiculous endeavor, it's given a very tall soap box, covered with bells, whistles, and animatronic dinosaurs that only ate vegetables because a naked lady and her guy had yet to eat some fruit from a specific tree, placed in a specific place, by a specific god...
Yes, I feel YEC has lost ground in the 32 years since the video was made. YEC is not significant enough to be considered a 'threat' to modern society but more of a fading remnant of a previous era.
I see this YEC thinking losing ground but you are saying it is on the rise? It might just be that with the internet and the many medias out there you just hear more from everyone now.
Mickdrew
Member
Once more, it does not apply.
I do not hold "Darwinism" to be true. I only support the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection which was first proposed by Charles Darwin.
His original hypothesis has evolved (no pun intended) and changed over time.
Mickdrew
Member
Anywhere from a third to one half of Americans believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old as implied in the Bible [Sources 1, 2, 3, 4,]
If you don't think that has an impact, then I don't know what to say.
I do agree that the threat has not been as dangerous to the education system since the 2005 federal ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover
But from the way you describe it, it seems pointless to even have Holy Books because God is so mysterious that we may never truly know anything about him.
I question those numbers (sounds high). I am not sure what terrible impact it has though on society. I guess I'm saying the belief is not really causing any major problems and for many people believing in the Bible is probably even preferable for them than not knowing where to turn. Some, less worldly (perhaps that's arrogant for me to say) see it as more black/white than perhaps we here. I think their quality of life might actually be better as a 'believer' than believing in something they (yes, erroneously) see as atheistic.
I say let YEC decline slowly as the future is not on their side.
Mickdrew
Member
I could accept 1 or 2 polls being off, but a decade of results all giving similar numbers make it much less plausible.
As for the impact, I think it causes problems by being a symptom of larger issue. There is a great lack of scientific curiosity in the US, and many people would rather remain ignorant than try to understand what we've discovered. It's the same reason why half the country doesn't think humans are having a major effect on current climate change and aren't worried about.
People are moving in the right direction, at least - and thankfully so, because the alternative gives us a very bleak future.
Zosimus
Active Member
That's because the data are not sufficient to rule that possibility out.
Well, I do see a difference between things that have practical applications (like climate change) and YEC.
Mickdrew
Member
I don't think that's true at all.
Do you think 40% of the public believing in creationism is due to them knowing the most about the data, or the least?
Fair enough. One definitely has more relevance to most people than the other.
You know a thought hit me regarding our discussion and shifts the gears abruptly.
A lot of people like to talk about evidence denial by YECs as some horrible threat. How about evidence denial by the scientific-atheist-materialist types. Now I have studied parapsychology and related things for decades now and if you listen to the types I just described there is nothing of value to learn in these fields and that all successful experiments are the result of incompetent investigators, liars, fantasy prone people, etc., etc. I honestly believe it is flat out science denial.
People too attached to any worldview be it Biblical or Physicalism, lose objectivity (which is unscientific) because they are vested in defending a worldview they have become attached to.
I think the evidence denial of the scientific-atheist-materialist types have reduced the knowledge of subjectively positive information about our place in reality.
gnostic
The Lost One
Oh yeah, serpents can talk?
But in human languages, no...unless, you are four-year-old, watching some cartoons on tv, where all sorts of animals can talk, or your mum reading fairytale or children's fables. Or perhaps, you think humans can talk in the languages of animals, like Doctor Dolittle or Harry Potter.
None of these are real. If you think it is possible, then please show us some evidences.
You can train animals do certain things, with commands, as you would do with pet dogs, only because you getting to respond to do things, but a dog wouldn't talk to you with human voice and speak in human language.
And there are birds, few of them, like cockatiels, parrots, that mimicking spoken human languages, but they don't understand what humans are saying; they don't understand the words they have mimicked.
The story in Genesis about Eden, were never meant to be taken literally. Many Christians and Jews still believe in God, but many of them understand the Eden episode is an allegory or myth.
The most important values is understanding the meaning in the messages that the allegory or myth are trying to convey, very much like Jesus' many parables.
The mistake modern Christians make, especially these creationists, is treating the allegory literally, as if it is history or science.
Hey, even I used to believe in the stories of the bible. I nearly join two different churches when I was still a teenager, one of them being my sister's church (15 or 16). The other church I nearly joined, was a pastor I had befriended and who attended the same college I did, but didn't join after a quarrel (I was 19 at this time). And I didn't stop believing in my early 20s, but being busy with my studies and later with works, my reading and attendance at the church trickled until I have stopped altogether, not because I became an "atheist". I was simple too busy with my life, that the bible, the church and the very idea of saving my soul were no longer my priorities.
But getting back to my point about allegory, I was treating the bible as if they were history, if not as science when I was a teenager.
So for nearly 15 years, I didn't touch the bible. When I began changing my career direction, I was doing my final year (in 1999), part-time, in computer science, when I decided to create a website for myself, just for fun. Originally, I was going to create webpages as fan site for two favourite fantasy novelists at that time - David Eddings and Raymond Feist. Instead, I scraped it, and decided to do website on Greek mythology, called Timeless Myths.
I kept adding new webpages on Greek myths that year, and before the mid-year, I wanted to add Norse myths, to my growing website. Before the end of 1999, I decided to add Celtic myths. At the beginning of 2000, I wanted to add a new section about the legends of King Arthur and his knights, so on the day of Timeless Myths' one-year anniversary, I posted the Arthurian Legends.
It is during my research on the legend of the Holy Grail, looking up, Joseph of Arimathea.
In Perceval (or Conte de Graal "story of the Grail", c 1185), Chretien de Troyes didn't mentioned Joseph as the original keeper of the Grail, which Chretien described the Grail as a platter, not a chalice. It was another French poet, Robert de Boron, who wrote a trilogy (c 1200), mentioning Joseph of Arimathea and describing the Grail as a chalice or cup that he used to catch the blood of Christ.
Hence, it renewed my interests in the bible, and in the months to come, I have began re-reading the bible from cover-to-cover. But my views have changed. I began to have doubts about the stories in the bible. I had also began looking up that were related to the bible, for instance, Pseudepigrapha (e.g. The Book of Jubilees, the 2 books of Enoch), the legends and folktales of the rabbis in the Aggadah, and the infamous heretic literature of Gnosticism (the codices of Nag Hammadi, discovered in the 1940s, just like the Dead Sea Scrolls from the Qumran).
My other website - Dark Mirrors of Heaven (2006) showed my interests in those non-canonical biblical literature.
I have read a number of other translations, from Egypt, from Sumer and Babylonia, from the old Hittite empire, and from the Ugarit. I had originally thought of starting yet another, website on all these myths, and I still have my notes of my research, but my life was too hectic from 2007 and onward, because my parents became ill for a long time.
My point in all this regaling of my time, is that my worldview have changed since picking up the bible again. With the 15-year hiatus, have stripped away all the church teachings and interpretations of the bible, and I was looking at the bible for the first time, with fresh eyes and new understanding, that many of these stories are just stories, or allegories.
And I have read enough myths to recognise that animals don't talk the human languages.
In the Old Babylonian epic - Epic of Etana, there is the story of eagle and snake, befriending each other, until the eagle betrayed the snake, by eating the snake's offspring. The snake took its revenge by crippling the eagle. The young king - Etana found and save the eagle. Etana and eagle can talk to each other, and in return for saving the bird, the eagle flew to the heaven, which a goddess gave Etana, so that he and his queen could have a baby.
This is just one of many tales, which human and animals can converse with each other. How is the story of Eden true, and not others?
You have admitted that you know not of any serpent speak in human language, that should be indicative of that's not possible, but you want to keep an open mind. But at what point, do you realise that it is merely a fantasy?
I still love reading myths. I even love reading Genesis creation and flood, and they are still my favourite parts in the bible.. The only differences between now and when I was teenager, is that the world made me see what I see, and I come upon the realisation that not everything that I read, are real...not unless I am tripping on magic mushrooms or acid.