What does a creationist believe?Are these the same guys that go to The World Church Of The Creator with Matthew Hale ( a racist) or something different?
Here’s a good start for you.
They can be a diverse lot. Some believe biological evloution does not occur, and some believe it does. Some believe the Universe is literally 6000 (or so) years old, and some believe the bible days are just longer than human days. Some are not christians, they just beleive the Universe was created by something intelligent. So if you use the word, you shoulld probably indicate which one you mean if it is relavent to the discussion at hand. I would reccomend the same with the word evolution (learned this the hard way :))
The one traight they can all be said to have is that they beleive the Universe was created by an inteligent entity. Just being a creationist doesn’t mean you claim crazy unprovable ideas about metaphysics, but many of them do . . .
In normal use, a creationist is one who believes (for whatever reason) that the world is populated by flora and fauna that were created in pretty much their current forms and that species of such flora and fauna did not evolve from earlier forms.
There are numerous versions of the specifics of what individual creationists believe.
A somewhat looser use of the word might also include people that are more accurately called theistic evolutionists, who believe that the universe and all that is in it was created by a supreme being, but that the universe runs on specific material rules and that species have developed following those rules, including the idea that any current life forms have evolved from earlier life forms.
Why is it that this debate is largely confined to the US? It doesn’t really appear to be an issue at all here in Australia or Europe although I am sure there are people who are WAY out of the mainstream who believe in it. It’s just that in America, creationism isn’t held to be such a loony idea necessarily. I’ve heard reasons like poor education and religious fundamentalism as being reasons for creationism’s popularity but other countries also have these features to varying degrees. What gives?e
Two things may be at work, here.
- Christian Fundamentalism was pretty much invented for the purpose of fighting Scriptural Liberalism (treating Scripture as something other than a line-for-line factual document) and fighting Darwinism (which provides a clear contradiction to a literal reading of Genesis 1 and 2).
- I suspect that few countries allow the people in the street as much leeway in having a say in how the educational system is run. My (very limited) experience with European educational systems seems to indicate that a central educational authority was set up in most European countries no later than the middle of the nineteenth century. These bureaucracies lay down what will be taught and the people simply assume that that is how life and education are run. I would guess that that model was carried across much of the globe in the colonial period (and some systems that might have resisted that model had their own variant of it already in place, notably China and Japan).
However, in the U.S., the byword for generations has been local control of local education. This means that when a local community is dominated by a specific cultural group, that group has an opportunity to impose some of their ideas on the local classrooms. (That is not limited to Fundamentalists, of course. Catholics and Mormons have exerted pressure in their enclaves, as well–as have “mainstream” Protestants.)
In addition, beginning with Dewey, around 100 years ago, education has been seen in the U.S. as an active agent for reform. Those who perceive “reforms” as destructive to the American Way of Life, of course, then try to wrest control of the educational system from the hands of the “reformers” and so the battle goes.
Answers in Genesis has a significant Australian presence at AIG Australia. One of the best debunking sites, No Answers in Genesis, is based in Australia and includes many references to Australian creationism.
I’m sorry. I have nothing of any substantial value to add to this thread at all. I just wanted to have five Xan threads in a row at the top of GD.
I condider myself a “creationist” in as far as I have a belief in G-d and the Bible, the first chapters of which tell me that G-d created the world. I dissociate myself from those “Creationists” (note use of capital letter) who insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis and the implications thereof.
How G-d created the world is not a question to which I pretend to know the answer, nor is it something that concerns me overly much.
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In the same way, I am a “fundamentalist” in that I have certain fundamental beliefs that underpin all of my belief system, but I am not a “Fundamentalist” in the way it is used in news stories around the world. The Evolution debate is not one of my fundamentals, G-d’s love and grace toward me and the rest of humanity and the means in which I respond to this, is.
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Gp
Hey, i’m a creationist as well. Just not the way the fundies define it. I have, thanks to the SDMB, developed my own metaphysical theory that integrates with evolution as a tool of The Divine, not as a be and end all.