Yeah, in the context of the most recent exchange, I was only talking about the RCC.
I’m pretty sure that the general trend in the U.S. toward rejecting evolutionary science has a lot to do with the very prominent campaign by Fundamentalist Christians to promote Creationism. I would never pretend that there was no religious component to the failure of so many people to recognize the validity of biological science. My main point was that when we see the really tragic numbers, (relying, of course, on a poll that remains a bit suspect), I find it difficult to believe that “religion” is the direct cause of those figures, especially when the largest single denomination does not push Creationist beliefs and most especially when there are such a surprising number of non-believers who hold similar disconnected beliefs. I would suggest that there is more going on, here, than can be blamed on a simplistic “religion dood it” claim.
Actually, I have no trouble believing that God evolved various hominids & even humans, but that it wasn’t until about 6,000 years ago that He created “souls”
in a specific human couple, and put them in an Edenic testing situation, from which they came after their fall to mix with the rest of humanity and thus spread “soulishness” around.
NJ/NYC here and I have had the same experience. That is why I am shocked by the poll finding what it did about the RCC members. The RCC has its faults, but not this particular fault as far as I knew.
FriarTed, thanks for the explanation, but the theory seems weak, why try and reconcile the creation of the soul to 6,000 year when you cannot reconcile creation of the Earth to Genesis without stretching it. Why restrict God to this tiny 6000 year span when it was just some silly human crunching number that came up with this figure and not some direct quote by a prophet?
I would contend that it’s mostly a combination of any or all of intellectual laziness, apathy, anti-intellectualism, and “human-centrism”, which provides very fertile ground for fundamentalists to push their easy-to-understand “alternative”. So is “religion” to blame? Only in the sense that it offers this alternative.
After all, if we lived in a completely areligious society, similar percentages of people would probably choose options labeled “I don’t know” and “Who cares?”
I’m guessing here, but if Catholics there are the same as Catholics here, then the 41% mentioned may not be aware of the Church’s stance on evolution. Very few Catholics know the entiretly of Catholic catechism and it is rarely, if ever, mentioned in sermons.
I’m a bit older than you and was educated completely within Catholic schools and never had any experience with teachers, be they teaching religion or science, speaking out in opposition to evolution.
However, I was never one to accept what my teachers said, not my secular teachers and not my religious ones. Personally I find it a bit ridiculous that so many apparently bright young people believe blindly whatever their Catholic teachers told them, from a very young age I aggressively questioned much of what I was taught about the doctrines of the church and studied them personally as well.
No one is claiming that Religion, Inc. is conspiring to push creationism. However I think it is fair to say that all those pushing it are doing it for religious reasons, while the anti-Creationism side consists of believers and non-believers, with a majority of believers, just by demographics.
The Adam and Eve story, and the flood, is part of Western mythology. But so are the Greek gods. It would be interesting to see how many people think that Hercules was a historical figure. It would set a baseline for American ignorance. The one difference is that if the schools taught that the Garden of Eden story were a myth, there would be hell to pay, while it is okay for Greek myths. I think that has a religious component.
I have a hard time believing that Catholic third graders are taught the subtleties of the Fall story, and not Adam and Eve and the Serpent. Is there some place where students are taught it is a myth (though with important lessons?) There wasn’t in Hebrew School, and the story is less important to us.
Within the “intellectual laziness” category, we do have a large amount of the population not having a great amount of religious literacy in the religion that they subscribe to, let alone any other religion or sect around them. This article in Saturday’s Sun-Sentinel touched on the issue of religious literacy within American society. Although I don’t agree with the “expert’s” views on how the two classes he suggested should be split up, I do agree with him that very few Americans have enough of an understanding of their religion, other religions, and things like evolution to really put forth an educated opinion on the subject. There are enough people out there that are more trusting of hearsay because it doesn’t require them to actually think about the issue at hand instead of giving the matter some critical analysis and a little bit of research before stating an opinion.
I attribute the discrepancy amongst catholics to pop culture and the power of myth. Everybody knows the kindergarten version of the creation myth and the story of Adam and Eve. It is parodied in cartoons, dipicted in artwork, referenced in slogans and slang and it’s easy to understand and impart in less than 10 minutes. It also involves a monotheistic god directly and simply interacting with the world and people, identified clearly as his favored creation. That’s a winning myth right there, it tends to grab people like a good advertisement jingle for a bad product. People who believe in god might opt out for the most simple and well known explanation for their existence, god made them like in the story. Evolution can’t compete on that level, it merely has the benefit of being true.