Young Earth Creationists? Really believe it? Really?

[balotelli]

Cant believe that anyone actually thinks that the earth was created by a god 6000 years ago!

I have to agree with Richard Dawkins who said they are either ignorant, stupid or insane.

If you do believe it, explain dinosaurs!

The trouble with arguing that aspects of the natural world are so amazing that only god could have done it, is that you have to make the assumption that god exists and that no other agency could possibly be responsible. There is the well worn idea of the blind watchmaker, or Aquinas' proofs for the existence of god - they are not proofs because they rely on an assumption that is not proved. E.g IF god existed then sure, he may well be omnipitent. It is with the IF there is a problem.

crescentmoon - "you cant say i don't believe in God because i believe in evolution." Don't think anyone did say that..?

The thread is about the diametrically opposed position; those who say I don't believe in evolution because I believe in God.

Interestingly though, a lot of people, when asked 'why do you believe in God', will give an answer about the design of the earth or somesuch. But I gave away the bloody book with the reference in, think it was Michael Shermer, How We Believe. Oh yeah, there it is. Good book, if anyone fancies delving deeper into the anthropology/psychology of religion.

Do the 'deeply' religious people on here believe every thing in their holy scriptures word for word and live their lives accordingly?

According to the Bible, God gave man the plants and the trees and its fruit and said this is your food. And yet so many 'Christians' are not vegans!

one of the main 10 commandments states 'thou shalt not Kill' and yet by buying and eating meat you are encouraging others to kill in your name and for your greed. It doesnt say 'dont kill fellow man but hey what the heck slaughter a few million chickens a day'

As a moral code most religious texts/scriptures are a good way to live your life. I am not religious. I do not believe that there is a god or that jesus died for me and rose to heaven but I do believe that I should treat everyone equally, love everyone without prejudice, help those who are less fortunate than myself and generally be as nice a person as I possibly can. I just dont need to worship and give my life to something I have no belief in or evidence of.

I'm a practising Christian and I try to live life according to the teachings of Jesus. I'm not very good at it, though.

I'm vegetarian as it happens, but there is no imperative for Christians not to eat meat. According to Genesis, God gave all things to Noah as food after the flood and in Acts, God tells Peter that there are no longer any unsuitable foods. The prohibition on killing refers only to people.

Genesis 1:26 -
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

...which is pretty much open season, no?

The 'moral' aspect of the bible which I found hardest to reconcile with the concept of a good and loving god, are things like the OT bits(Joshua 8 and 10 for eg), where God says they should basically massacre everyone, man woman and child, in the city they've conquered. Today we'd call that a war crime, right?

According to the Bible, God gave man the plants and the trees and its fruit and said this is your food. And yet so many 'Christians' are not vegans!

You mised out the birds of the air, beasts of the fireld etc. Selective, much?

one of the main 10 commandments states 'thou shalt not Kill' and yet by buying and eating meat you are encouraging others to kill in your name and for your greed. It doesnt say 'dont kill fellow man but hey what the heck slaughter a few million chickens a day'

Or even kill the wheat and barley, if you want to be that literal.....

Also, Jesus dod not divide the 5 loaves and 2 nut cutlets

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Is there a standard explanation as to why god speaks in the plural here? Not trying to catch anyone out - just curious.

Is there a standard explanation as to why God speaks in the plural here? Not trying to catch anyone out - just curious

We are not amused :)

You'd have to go back to the original Hebrew, of course.....and find its a typo because the lazy scribe was on the mead the night before.

was on the mead the night before

Or even "on the Mede".

God I can be clever at times :o

Is there a standard explanation as to why God speaks in the plural here? Not trying to catch anyone out - just curious

And who was he talking to, is the other pertinent question?

crescentmoon, the only person here who has made any claims regarding evolution explaining "everything" is you. And I note this isn't the first time you've tried erecting that particular straw-man.

Why is that?

If you want theories regarding where the first "mutating replicator" came from you want abiogenesis, not evolution. If you want to know about what's happened since the Big Bang, then you want cosmology. I even provided you links last time. Did you not do even the most basic of research?

He's probably talking to the other gods who he warns mankind not to have before him in the ten commandments.

He's probably talking to the other gods who he warns mankind not to have before him in the ten commandments

Anybody read Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods"? I think it explains everything perfectly clearly.

Tango No they don't teach it in US state run schools. The merest mention of religion in general is jumped on as it if were pure evil. However they still celebrate all the festivals and holidays - so they all become celebrated (in school) only for the material greed that has leapt up around them. I.e. Christmas is celebrated but is is ALL about Santa. The Christmas message is never mentioned, no Nativity plays or anything. Sane with Hannukah - it is all about dreidels and nothing to educate the kids what is really means. I'd be happy with them learning about what people believe these festivals are about - without doctrine being taught - as an RE excercise looking at all mainstream religions. But that does not fly here. State school, funded by government have to abide by the whole separation of church and state thing that exists here.

HOWEVER there are TONS of religious schools here. Strangely for all the gambling Vegas is quite a fervent Mormon stronghold, and there are huge communities of Mormons and of Many strong Christian groups, all of whom have their own church schools. Many of which are very very heavily doctrine based and teach creationism and other fundamentalist teachings. Makes C or E and Catholic Schools in the UK look positively wooly.

I have read Small Gods, but I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise given who my imaginary husband is.

You do, crescent, you do.

You said evolution didn't explain physics, as if this was a failing of evolution theory. Explain to us why a theory of BIOLOGY should have any influence on PHYSICS, and then we'll talk about your straw man.

Why can't the two be taught together? Because one is scientific reality and one is religious storytelling. What is wrong with saying god has designed how nature is to work is because its only a religious opinion, with no evidence to back it up. Why should we teach religious ideology as fact?

otherwise why can the two not be taught together?

One is evidence based, the other requires you to believe in the word of just one of a numvber of competing (and so far unproven to exist) deities on earth.

Thanks sharklet, so where are all these schools in the US that people have mentioned on this thread teaching this???? Just the religious ones who really have the right considering they are religious schools so if parents had a problem with it they would just send them to a state school right?

I was just curious because I was correctly under the impression that US state schools were not allowed any aspect of religion at all in them.

The two cannot be taught together because what would you teach? Science has some disputed matters but the stuff taught in schools is all pretty standard. I don't know of many scientists debating gravity.

However, you could teach religious observance in the following way: God or Gods or angels or spirits or a life force or the creator or possibly something else created the earth. Possibly this is 12,00, or 6,00 or 4,000 years old or whatever. You should thanks Jehovah, or Allah or God or don't say his name or a combination of lots of Gods, um. So, we should be nice to animals and be vegetarian, or not, or smoke ganja, or not, and drink, or not, and have sex, or not. It might take a while.

I lost a couple of zeros. Possibly they were smited. Smote?

This is interesting - Guardian Feb 2012

"there are a couple of new twists that make this same-old story more interesting than usual. One has to do with the temperature in a less metaphorical sense. The Oklahoma bill isn't properly speaking just an "anti-evolution" bill; it is just as opposed to the "theory" of "global warming". A bill pending in Tennessee likewise targets "global warming" alongside "biological evolution". These and other bills aim their rhetoric at "scientific controversies" in plural, and one of the New Hampshire bills does not even bother to specify which controversies it has in mind"

(apparently creationists are trying to get their hands on money for anti climate change work), and....

"[the other is] new anti-evolution ? make that anti-science ? bills [in 6 states] are emerging in the context of the most vigorous assault on public education in recent history. In Oklahoma, for example, while Senator Brecheen fights the forces of evolution and materialism, the funding for schools is being cut, educational attainments are falling, and conservative leaders are agitating for school voucher systems, which, in the name of "choice", would divert money from public schools to private schools ? many of them religious"

otherwise why can the two not be taught together?

Because, for a start, it's not just a case of science on one side and your preferred creation myth on the other. You might be fixated on an Abrahamic worldview but there's a lot more to religion than just the various versions of the Talmud plus sequels.

All religions have their own creation stories. We'd have to include the Hindu creation stories, and those from Shinto, and what about Paganism? Or Scientology? Or Roman mythology? They're all just as likely to be true as Genesis is.

We'd end up spending so much time teaching the various creation myths that there wouldn't be time to teach proper science.

Maybe, instead, it would be better to gather up all the religious stuff into one lesson which would specialise in Educating about Religion and leave the science lessons to teach evidence-based science.

'where are all these schools that people have mentioned'

Tango, It is not expressly taught but some states now require by law that students are taught evidence critical of evolution. Sounds ok in practice, right?

The problem is that there is a huge mass of evidence that supports evolution, but only a few - often poor academic quality (and sometimes funded by vested interests etc) - studies that are critical of evolution as a theory. Students should be taught not only the evidence but where the weight of that evidence sits, and how to critically assess the critical studies too. That doesn't always happen if the teacher or head is a creationist. So children often don't get taught evolutionary theory properly at school, then learn creationism at church and at home.

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