Finding Serenity in the Age of Anxiety
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I am curious to see how others liked this book. Did you discover your toxic voice? Have you been able to find your sacred or natural voice?
No, I don't think it's true. I wonder if 80% of Americans agreed to a generic question about some form of higher power creating the earth and life. If you asked the same people a slightly different question they'd probably say they believed in evolution, too.But I don't live in the south. Good point, Tracy. I don't know you handle it down there...evangelical, bugs, humidity, alligators....
Hi, Ko. I'm Sarah and I'm a Creationist. Nice to meet ya.But there's no way that we are 80% of the American population.
Here's what I found on Wikipedia1997 Gallup Poll Results : USA
Young Earth Creationism 44%
Belief in God-guided Evolution 39%
Belief in Evolution without God 10%
But as you say, this is a bit dodgy. You could say from this that "only 10% of Americans believe in evolution". When people talk about Creationism these days, do you think they actually mean Young Earth Creationism which is the Genesis-is-Literally-True theory? Or something slightly more sane?
I'm surprised by the 80% number, but I'm even more surprised that some of you don't know any other Creationists besides me. I wonder if that's just because it's not really a question you ask when you first meet someone. "So, what do you do for a living? Are you married? Have any kids? Do you believe that God created the Heavens and the earth?"Paul, let's try to avoid calling me insane, okay? I'd appreciate that.
Sarah, could you please define "creationist" as you see it? I wonder if we're using the terms without really defining them. I respect whatever you believe, I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying.
For the most part, Ko. I believe in a young earth Adam and Eve-type creationism. I believe that the flood of Genesis (Noah's Flood) is the cause of fossilization, not a billions-years-old earth.
Again, for the most part, Donna. I don't think that "seven days" necessarily meant seven 24-hour periods, but I don't think that they were billions of years, either.
I don't know if there is a god, or an afterlife. I just try to live a thoughtful life here and now. As for the Bible, there is too much evidence in the form of fossil records, carbon-dating, DNA studies, etc., for me to be able to consider creationism seriously.
I think there is something in the theory that the Adam and Eve story is a myth explaining man's move from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural one.
From: A brief history of humanity
By Richard Moore, Wexford, Ireland, 19 June 2004
Daniel Quinn, in “Ishmael” and subsequent novels, argues that the agricultural revolution was primarily the result of a paradigm shift in world view—from being in harmony with nature to having dominion over nature. There's no way to tell if he is right about primary causation, but it is obvious that such a new myth would be supportive of a nature-altering lifestyle, and we know that the adoption of a dominion myth came very early on the various paths to civilizations worldwide. In the case of Western Civilization, the shift in mythology is memorialized in the Old Testament's Garden of Eden story. Adam and Eve in the Garden represent primordial humanity, living in harmony with nature—part of nature. When God is presented with agricultural products, he rejects them as being unsuitable. Adam's tribe has known “good and evil”—the power to change nature—and is banished from the Garden. God sends them forth, ironically, with instructions to take dominion over the beasts, the birds, and the fishes. As part of Christian doctrine, this ancient (but less than ten thousand years old) Hebrew myth of divinely mandated dominion has become deeply rooted in the belief systems of Western civilization.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/...
I don't find the high percentage surprising. The question was probably posed in such a way to get that high percentage and there are different takes on creationism, as Paul pointed out. Also, as Sarah says, it is a question of personal belief, often left unexamined, that just doesn't come up in casual conversation. One other thought. We tend to surround ourselves with like-minded people, intentionally or not. So if you're a biblical literalist then many of your friends probably are as well and vice-versa.I'm a fan of intelligent design. You can call it creationism if you want. I won't be offended.
Very interesting stuff here - a hasty apology to Sarah for calling you insane, that was intemperate and premature. This whole debate is very peculiar. Western civilisation evolved out of the mediaeval world view and we had the Renaissance and the Reformation and then the irresistible rise of science which, unlike religion, proves its veracity every minute of the day in all the technology we use such as this magical cyberspace message of mine. And then whammo! there's a bunch of people who throw out the whole Western scientific project just like that.I think Young Earth Creationists/Biblical literalists are but one of various different groups who have lost faith in science, and I can see why. In the 1940s Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed the world that the advancement of science could be terminal for our own species. These days you turn on your tv news and see weird-ass contemporary bio-engineering experiments which appear to require animal/human embryos for their stem cell research (we are told this is a good thing) and last month we had the pregnant man. Gimme a break. Can you imagine what Western societies look like to Muslim societies? Inhuman and revolting, in many ways. (The feeling might be mutual there.)
I think YE Creationism is part of this reaction against science. To believe it you have to throw out the scientific method, which has got us all into so much trouble, and when you do that life is so much simpler. But I wonder if YE Creationists have to go through everything science has so far taught, all the chemistry and physics and astronomy, and figure out which bits are wrong because the Bible says so and which bits are okay because the Bible is silent on the subject. Darwin is obviously rejected, but what about Newton and Einstein?
As for hardcore atheism, I don't think we know enough (sorry Tracy). Was it Terry Pratchett who said "in the beginning there was nothing. Which then exploded". What a ludicrous notion. Whatever the nothing which exploded was, I'm happy to call it God. I just don't think it has anything to do with me. Except it inadvertently allowed me to be created. Hey, belated thanks. And thanks for my cats, except for the one which is a little incontinent.
Finally I can't find much meaning in the phrase "intelligent design" (sorry J) - if you're talking about a God designing this planet earth, he did a poor job. Couldn't he have figured out a way of making a planet which doesn't suffer from earthquakes which kill many people including little children in slow and painful ways? If not he's very bad at his job. Or maybe this planet is an early model (Earth 2.0) and he went on to design much better planets where happier races now live. Tough shit for us, stuck on this one. But if you're talking about a God designing something more fundamental like the laws of physics & then letting the universe roll out then I'll go along with that, it's so abstract it's what Mrs K pungently describes as "namby pamby". God = gravity. No problem.
So... I invite you all into this debate then boot your ideas around - what a great guy I am!
We shouldn't have to argue, but when schools in Kansas want to have textbooks espousing creationism, and not evolution, it becomes necessary. Faith has a place, but when it asks its followers to ignore empirical evidence, the world as it is (and presumably as God made it), there's a problem.
So, why does this happen? Why does a religious belief get considered seriously for a science curriculum? In the United States, side by side with the cultural love affair with science, there has been suspicion toward it. Science is viewed as meddling in God's domain, and there are many cautionary books and movies about what could happen. Frankenstein for one. Jurassic Park. The Fly. The mad scientist stereotype is widespread.
I think it is important to advocate for science, and not assume that naturally everyone will want geology and evolution taught in the schools. Just because non-creationists can see a distinction between science and faith, doesn't mean creationists do, or even want to.
Hi Tracy - I may have said all this before in another part of the goodreads forest, but I've never actually known what people mean by the word God anyway. People of faith make one very large assumption - they think that God is interested in the human race, that we're special. I don't get that one at all. It's such an arrogant notion. These days I tend to think a) whatever caused the big bang or whatever it was which brought being into being may as well be called God as anything else; b) the whatever it was has now left the building. It was just a one-time thing, there was never any commitment, it's sorry if we got the wrong idea. No hard feelings. Time to move on.
I apologize for using such an overused catch phrase as intelligent design when what I should have said was something more like “intelligently designed”. We are miraculous. I believe that. Show me all the hurts and horrible things in the world and I will counter with all the good there is to be found and that we are capable of. I don’t ask anyone to accept my beliefs. Sometimes I don’t even believe them myself. I do submit that everything we “know” is theory based on theory. It’s a question that can not be answered. We can point to scientific evidence/theories that will cause others to call us libertines. We can make a leap of faith toward something that will earn us ridicule from those who believe themselves too clever for such foolishness. But we can not know.
Paul, I'm with Tracy on this one. Well, not life long, but...before the Big Bang? Someday science will be able to tell us. But what's interesting to me is that I just found this link today (on the Atheists and Skeptics threads) that says less than half of the pop. in the UK accepts evolution. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/l...
Is that an accurate figure as far as you know?
Documentaries have to be taken with a grain of salt. I don't know what source this one used, but if you go to gallup.com and search American beliefs, that group's most recent research shows that roughly one in two Americans believe that God created man exactly as it says in the Bible.Creationism has no place in public education -- separation of church and state makes that clear to me. But all parents have choices, and if that is what they want to teach their children, there's always homeschooling or private school.
My parents sent me to Catholic school as a child and I'll never forget how my third-grade science teacher reconciled religion with evolution: "No one knows how long a day is to the Lord."
And there seem to ranges of belief -- hardcore creationists interpret the Bible literally and think that places like the La Brea tar pits are plants by non-believers to create doubt among the faithful. That I seriously don't get. But I embrace the marketplace of ideas. The only thing I have no patience for is people who are so rigid they have no respect or tolerance for the beliefs of others. If I choose to believe the earth rides on the back of a giant turtle, that's my business.
And it only took 400 years for the Church to concede he was right....
I've got empirical evidence that turtles DO move. I've swum with green sea turtles in Hawaii, and when they swim, they look like they are flying.
People are slow to give up their personally held beliefs for scientific truth. I have an extremely religious friend who won't let her son read about dinosaurs, yet has no problem telling him that two of every animal on earth fit on Noah's ark. I love her and that's part of who she is. But it puzzles me greatly. How do you see blue and call it red?
I've debated this whole evolution vs. creationism elsewhere, but still I rise to the bait. Science is the search for truth. Religion is the search for meaning. Not the same thing, folks.
She won't let her son read about dinosaurs? She doesn't think dinosaurs existed, or she doesn't believe that they existed as long ago as they say? Most young earth creationists I know believe the dinosaurs perished in the flood.
Thanks for nutshelling the point I was trying to make Brian.Hi Sarah -- my friend believes that dinosaurs, carbon dating, etc. is all a scientific fraud.
There was a Friends episode which encapsulates the debate very amusingly :Phoebe: Go ahead and scoff. You know there're a lot of things that I don't believe in, but that doesn't mean they're not true.
Joey: Such as?
Phoebe: Like crop circles, or the Bermuda triangle, or evolution?
Ross: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, you don't, uh, you don't believe in evolution?
Phoebe: Nah. Not really.
Ross: You don't believe in evolution?
Phoebe: I don't know, it's just, you know...monkeys, Darwin, you know, it's a, it's a nice story, I just think it's a little too easy.
Ross: Too easy? Too... [Ross is nearly having a heart attack] The process of every living thing on this planet evolving over millions of years from single-celled organisms, is-is too easy?
Phoebe: Yeah, I just don't buy it.
Ross: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact, like, like, like the air we breathe, like gravity.
I have studied evolution my entire adult life. Ok, I can tell you, we have collected fossils from all over the world that actually show the evolution of different species, ok? You can literally see them evolving through time.
Phoebe: Really? You can actually see it?
Ross: You bet. In the U.S., China, Africa, all over.
Phoebe: See, I didn't know that.
Ross: Well, there you go.
Phoebe: Huh. So now, the real question is, who put those fossils there, and why?
Ross: Ok, Pheebs. (He’s holding two little toys.) See how I'm making these little toys move? Opposable thumbs. Without evolution, how do you explain opposable thumbs?
Phoebe: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts.
Ross: Please tell me you're joking.
Phoebe: Look, can't we just say that you believe in something, and I don't.
Ross: No, no, Pheebs, we can't, ok, because—
Phoebe: What is this obsessive need you have to make everyone agree with you? No, what's that all about? I think, I think maybe it's time you put Ross under the microscope.
Ross: (To Chandler) Is there blood coming out of my ears?
-------later--------
(Ross enters carrying a briefcase.)
Phoebe: Uh-oh. It's Scary Scientist Man.
Ross: Ok, Phoebe, this is it. In this briefcase I carry actual scientific facts. A briefcase of facts, if you will. Some of these fossils are over 200 million years old.
Phoebe: Ok, look, before you even start, I'm not denying evolution, ok, I'm just saying that it's one of the possibilities.
Ross: It's the only possibility, Phoebe.
Phoebe: Ok, Ross, could you just open your mind like this much, ok? (Holding her thumb and forefinger close together) Wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the world was flat? And, up until like what, 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess of crap came out. Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this? .)
Ross [through gritted teeth]: There might be…a teeny…tiny…possibility.
Phoebe: I can't believe you caved.
Ross: What?
Phoebe: You just abandoned your whole belief system. I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. How, how, how are you going to go into work tomorrow? How, how are you going to face the other science guys? How, how are you going to face yourself? How??? (Ross slowly closes the briefcase and walks out hugging it.) Oh! That was fun. So who's hungry?
Shelley - that was a very good link you posted, in which I find this:"Any leader who thinks evolution is a matter of belief is arguably unfit for office. How can someone who dismisses the staggering amount of evidence for evolution assembled by researchers in myriad fields possibly evaluate more subtle scientific evidence for, say, climate change?"
As for the almost 50% of Brits who don't accept evolution, wow, I did not know that. I have one friend who doesn't, he's my only Muslim friend. The Muslims and the Christian literalists see eye to eye over this one! Mike Huckabee and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would have got on fine.
Donna: Do you mean that nothing is ever proven beyond the possibility of any challenge and revision? Yes.I intentionally avoid these debates here because it breeds misunderstanding. Besides, I didn't come here for debates. Fun. That's what I'm after.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1091617/
which does for Darwin what Michael Moore did for Bush. I guess we need to define the term a little and this is where I come unstuck because it seems there may be literal creationists and metaphorical creationists. The latter I can live with - you say seven days and I say Big Bang, potato potahto, but the former - noooooo! So what do you guys think?