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Creationism

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Creationists believe that man was instantaneously created by God, based on an account in a book called the Bible.

Several thousand years ago, a small tribe of ignorant near-savages wrote various collections of myths, wild tales, lies, and gibberish. Over the centuries, the stories were embroidered, garbled, mutilated, and torn into small pieces that were then repeatedly shuffled. Finally, this material was badly translated into several languages successively.

The resultant text, creationists feel, is the best guide to this complex and technical subject.

Science Made Stupid [1985]

Creationism is the term given to a teleological explanation of existence. Specifically, creationism states that the universe, and life, were directly created by God, i.e. through magic, rather than naturalistic means such as the Big Bang and/or abiogenesis. By extention, creationism posits that there is a "purpose" to all creation known only to the Supreme Deity (who is not talking).

Belief in a literal reading of holy texts, such as Genesis in Abrahamic mythology, is the foundation to creationism. This is a tenet shared by fundamentalists of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and popularized in the West by the American Christian fundamentalist movement. In recent years, there have been attempts to come up with scientific rationalizations for these beliefs. Intelligent design, creation science (and cdesign proponentsism) are labels that have been applied to creationism in an attempt to give the concept an air of scientific legitimacy. The Discovery Institute is currently the leader in finding quasi-scientific rationale for creationism through the Wedge strategy.

The word "creationism" is very often used as a synonym for a more specific creationist belief known as "young earth creationism", where the Earth was created much more recently than any scientific study has agreed on. Other varieties of creationism are sometimes less in conflict with empirical observations; some are not in conflict at all, such as the deist belief that the universe developed exactly how the scientists say it did, but that the God of the gaps created the universe (i.e. caused the Big Bang).

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[edit] Categories

Creationists can be categorized in a number of ways according to the specifics of the creationist belief. These include:

[edit] Old Earth creationism

A wise man once said...
See the main article on this topic: Old Earth creationism

"Old Earth" creationists accept a conventional age of the Earth of 4.5 billion years (known as deep time) as has been known since the 19th Century. Similarly, they accept the dating methods used to reach this figure, including radiometric dating and ice-core dating. Nevertheless, they believe that life was deliberately created and possibly mucked about with by a religious deity — thus "Old Earth" creationists mostly differ in their attitude towards evolution, rather than other branches of established science such as geology. Evolutionary Creationists believe the creation event took place, and life subsequently developed through the process of evolution. Day-Age creationists believe the creation took place as recorded in Genesis, but that each of the "days" represents a vast period of time. Gap creationists believe that the Earth was created millions of years ago, but then laid waste, and repopulated as recorded in Genesis 1:2. Other creationists believe that Genesis records the terraforming of the Earth, rather than the "out of nothing" creation of the Earth.

[edit] Young Earth creationism

See the main article on this topic: Young Earth creationism

"Young Earth" creationism rejects the established geological age of the Earth in favour of calculations based on the Bible. There are several of these that vary greatly, but the most popular figure is that established by James Ussher. As a result, "Young Earth" creationists don't just reject evolutionary evidence but also radiometric dating methods — and they reject this solely based on the fact that the scientific results contradict their Biblical belief. Some young Earth creationists do acknowledge parts of evolution where denial would be too much, terming it microevolution, but continue to reject any theory of naturalistic abiogenesis and common descent. Instead, they believe that God created various lifeforms in something resembling their present forms, and that microevolution subsequently led to a degree of diversification among species - a branch of creation science known as baraminology has developed to try and explain this. This has led to a bit of an inconsistent position on creationists' part, in which they deny that millions of years of evolution could possibly produce speciation, but at the same time argue that thousands of years of microevolution was enough to give rise to entire baramins full of species.[2]

Some young Earth beliefs even go as far as to state that the universe itself is only 6,000 years old, and that their creator god created space and time at the same instant as our planet. This is again in conflict with even more fields of tested science. In the case of a young universe beliefs, physical constants such as the speed of light are often reinterpreted as "inconstant" to explain phenomena such as distant starlight.

[edit] Christianity

You saw it here first![3]

Particularly in the United States, the most prevalent young Earth belief is based on the Judeo-Christian mythology laid out in the Old Testament. This includes interpreting the various stories scattered throughout the book as historically accurate — the Tower of Babel and the global flood, for example. One of the additional issues with a literal interpretation of some holy texts is that they conflict, sometimes with themselves; this is especially true of Genesis. According to Genesis 1, God created the world in six days, resting on the seventh, with Man and Woman being created simultaneously, after the plants and animals. However, according to Genesis 2, God creates Man, then the plants and animals, then Woman as company for Adam. There have been several attempts to skirt this issue, but none of them produce a completely literal yet consistent reading — they are flat-out contradictions.

[edit] Islam

Although creationism in the west is more usually associated with fundamentalist Christianity, the Muslim world has its own brand of crazies — and creationist beliefs are often more prevalent in Muslim countries than America's Bible Belt.[4] Unlike the young Earth creationist movements within Christianity, few, if any, Muslim creationists insist that the world was created in a matter of days a few thousand years ago as most accept the Koran as a metaphorical and contemplative document. Translations of six "days" are also far more ambiguous than their explicitly Christian counterpart.[5] However, they do reject evolution, and especially the notion that humans evolved from animals, they accept that the Earth and Universe are old.

Perhaps the most famous Islamic creationist is the Turkish creationist Harun Yahya, who has been heavily influenced by American Christian creationism. In recent years, he has become one of the more vocal creationists and some of his publicity stunts and ramblings would make even Ted Haggard blush. He has repeatedly been shown to not know what he is talking about, such as with his Ask Darwinists question sheet (which even an amateur could answer easily) and mistaking a fishing lure for a live animal in one of his books. In line with Gish Gallop tactics, Yahya is probably there just to waste people's time and try to keep the "controversy" in the public eye, rather than make any real contribution.

[edit] Demographics

A 2006 poll among adults in developed nations showed that at only 40% of adult Americans accept evolution. Only Turkey has a lower acceptance rate (25%), while acceptance in Japan and Europe is typically higher than 60%.[6]

[edit] Intelligent design

Who made the maker?
See the main article on this topic: Intelligent design

Intelligent design (ID) is an idea fundamental to the attempted "mainstreaming" of creationism; it has been "politely" referred to as creationism in a cheap suit. It is a teleological argument or belief that complexity requires design, but it is also an argument from personal incredulity that natural causes are behind life, indeed, most "research" into intelligent design focuses on attempting to pick holes in known evolutionary theories, rather than attempting to establish any positive evidence in favour of a designer. Principles such as emergence and complexity theory are inherently incompatible with ID as these can explain apparent complexity using naturalistic means. One of the main proposals by intelligent design advocates is that it is not creationism, as the hypothesis doesn't specifically state what the identity of the creator is. However, the vast majority of intelligent design proponents, and especially the ones following the wedge strategy are Christian fundamentalists and don't hide it very well; consequently, they are often hostile to secular or atheistic forms of intelligent design such as directed panspermia.

[edit] Ethical objections to creationism

Apart from almost every field of science, creationism based on Biblical literalism also has some ethical criticism to face. One main objection is that, in the ever so lauded KJV version of Genesis 1:28, God says to the first humans,"God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."[7] Implying humans can do what they wish to all animals. See here for more details.

[edit] Creationgrams

[edit] In a nutshell

The creation must have happened, as it is in the Bible and therefore must be true. Believe in it, or you are an evilutionist and will go to hell.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. http://www.biocosm.org/
  2. For an example, see our side-by-side response to the CMI article, Snake Carnivory Origin.
  3. Appelbaum, Stanley, selection, translation and text, Simplicissimus: 180 Satirical Drawings from the Famous German Weekly, Dover Publications, New York, 1975
  4. International Humanist News
  5. About.com Islam - Six "Days" or Long Periods of Time
  6. U.S. Lags World in Grasp of Genetics and Acceptance of Evolution Live Science, 10 August 2006 [1]
  7. Genesis 1:28
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