Where do people get the idea that the earth is less than 10,000 years old?

Great Debates
1

Do they get it from the pulpit or is it just a general impression?

Data from Gallup: Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design | Gallup Historical Trends

31 + 19 = 50 percent believe in evolution, possibly with God’s guidance. 42% believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form with the last 10,000 years or so. Specific wording: Which of the following statements comes closest to yoru views on the origin and development of human beings - (human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part of this process (or) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so)?

Ok, so about 42% of the country believe in young earth creationism. I know, I know: the question covered the creation of man and not the earth: I welcome further evidence and clarification.

I choose the Gallup survey because of its detail and the fact that they’ve asked similar questions since 1982. For example 79% report that they are either very familiar or somewhat familiar with evolution and 46% say that the theory of evolution is inconsistent with their religious beliefs. Huh. I’m most interested in, say, the 2/3 least committed of that 46%. I assume most don’t bother to buy anti-evolution books or visit talkorigins.org.

So I’m guessing that a lot of these 46% studied the theory of natural selection at some point during their schooling. But they don’t trust the overwhelming scientific consensus on this issue, though I think it’s fair to say that most will see a licensed physician when they are sick rather than a faith healer or snake handler.

Anyway, what I was wondering is whether creationism is a meme or something that is actively pushed in most non-mainline Protestant churches. And if it’s the latter (which I suspect) how does that sermon work? Nonbelievers believe the scientists? Hell and brimstone? Teach the controversy? Or what?

In the mainline church I grew up with, anti-evolution arguments never came up. My exposure to anti-evolution arguments in high school was limited to a fictional book about the Scopes monkey trials of the 1920s. It had been assigned to my brother and I had read it on my own.

2

God knows, huh!

3

And yet millions of people take worthless supplements every day.

As for evolution, I just think people are too personally invested in “we hoo-mans are special creatures, separate from the natural world”. Maybe for religious reasons, maybe for just not-understanding-the-science.

4

It’s in the book.

5

By adding up the ages of all the Biblical patriarchs in the Old Testament.

6

Archbishop Ussher’s chronology dated the act of creation to the night before October 25th, 4004 BC. It was thought to be a considerable feat of scholarship at the time.

7

I wonder about these numbers too. There are some Protestant churches that teach Young Earth Creationism but certainly not all of them. I grew up Methodist and later became Episcopalian and neither of those churches teaches Young Earth Creationism and aren’t even anti-evolution in general. The Catholic Church and other large Protestant denominations like Presbyterians aren’t either. That leaves us with denominations like Southern Baptists, Pentecostals and other fundamentalist or evangelical denominations to make up the bulk of the people that say they believe in Young Earth Creationism. I grew up in the Deep South which is a hotbed of such denominations and 42% seems high even there. I also know for a fact that some people who are members of denominations like Southern Baptists do not follow a lot of the church doctrine and still believe in ideas like evolution so that should create another numbers gap.

Of course, it is incorrect to assume that all of this is caused by people that are devoutly religious and belong to one of the churches that teach it. There are also many people who are simply scientifically illiterate and only say they believe what they do because they saw an explain they liked on TV once and never thought about it much again.

Maybe it really is 42% or maybe this was just a badly conducted survey built on a bad sample. I don’t hang out with a lot of Young Earth Creationists but I do know a few from childhood. Even then, the percentage is much lower than 42% especially among younger people among the groups supposedly most likely to believe it. Then again, I have a well educated aunt who believes in both Bigfoot and widespread UFO abductions so anything is possible.

8

I hope that the responders may be interpreting the question to mean, “Which do you care about more, your religion or science,” and are simply bowing to the former with their response. That may be wishful thinking, though. I don’t know where the idea of a ridiculously young earth comes from (and maybe I’m living in a bubble, but I’ve never run into anyone personally, in real life, who’s espoused that opinion), but it’s not that hard to maintain that opinion if you’re not interested in learning more about the subject. If you don’t have a job that involves any sort of science, don’t read or watch anything about science, don’t have more educated people around you to disabuse of the idea, or have fundamentalists around preaching about a very young earth, then it doesn’t seem that surprising that you’d continue to believe it. It’s like being asked what the capital of Indonesia is— except that there’s a somewhat well-respected group for whom it’s a shibboleth to proclaim that the capital of Indonesia is actually London.

9

Recall that Gallup provided an explicit opt-out: “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process”. The Catholic church doesn’t have a problem with evolution, and one can even give an evolutionary spin to the first page of the Bible.
Let me take the OP from another angle. Has anybody ever witnessed an in-church sermon where the preacher attacked evolution?

10

Thanks for your post. I want to rule out this sentence though. Gallup has asked the same question 12 times since 1982 and while agnosticism has drifted upwards, there haven’t been any dramatic jumps. So I don’t think this is a bad sample. It might be possible to argue about question wording though. Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design | Gallup Historical Trends

FWIW, in 2005, 41% claimed they had thought about these questions a great deal and 35% say they’ve thought about them a moderate amount. So that’s 76%. 35% believed that science and religion were in conflict (though the few number of atheists might choose that one as well). 20% think that evolution should not be taught in schools while 54% believe creationism should be taught. 58% thought creationism was definitely or probably true. 34% would be upset of evolution were taught in public schools.

And doesn’t most of TV prop up the scientist more than the holy roller?
ETA: More polling, this time from Pew: Public’s Views on Human Evolution | Pew Research Center

11

Yeah…but what isn’t?

12

Not one of those options reflects scientific consensus. What a terrible poll. “Less advanced forms of life?” Are they polling the 19th century?

13

Yes, I have. I used to go to different churches with friends when I was growing up in the rural South. I never expected to be converted and that wouldn’t have been possible because I belonged to the very moderate Methodist Church where we didn’t put up with such nonsense. Part of it was just to smirk at them in a quiet way and to learn something about different closed ceremonies in an anthropological kind of way. Most of it was just boredom and the fact that if you wanted to be with someone on a Sunday, your WERE going to church at least once if not multiple times throughout the day. It was just a center for social and community events and to get to the events, you had to sit through the sermons.

Southern Baptists, Church of Christ, Pentecostals and several other denominations definitely give hell fire and brimstone type sermons with a liberal sprinkling of statements of faith triumphing over science. However, not everyone truly believes it even if they attend those churches. My grandmother was Southern Baptist but she believed in evolution because she was a high school science teacher but she never said anything directly against the church teachings either. It was just two different parts of her life to her. The only reason she was a Southern Baptist was because they saved her father from drinking himself to death so she thought she owed them a lifelong favor.

14

It’s in the book clearly. You don’t have to do weird numerology to get this number, just fairly simple arithmetic. I don’t really know where the 10,000 BC number comes from, actually - I’d suspect some people added time since the 4000 BC number is provably wrong and just embarrassing.

A JW who came to my door believed it, though not for any good reasons I could find, except it’s in the Bible and people told her it was true.

15

10,000 years ago, not 10,000 BC. So up to 8,000 BC or 3,700 BC for Wikipedia’s low estimate. In the modern age they can say “carbon dating is flawed, because it didn’t work 0.01% of the time so the 99.9% is invalid!” They also feel that it would undermine much of their other beliefs.

Ussher was Church of Ireland, and ironically most people in the CoI/Anglican Communion/Episcopal Church do not believe this. His Calvinism mostly disappeared from this church.

JW also believe that only 144,000 people get into heaven, or something.

16

Yes, my office-mate and a few other coworkers that I travel with are Jehovah’s Witnesses. You would think that would be a nightmare but it isn’t at all. You will never meet a more honest and hard-working group of people. I ask about different aspects of the religion sometimes and have read the Watchtower many times. It is kooky as hell but I have worked with Jehovah’s Witnesses basically all of my working life and they have always been some of my best coworkers so I let it slide. They don’t ever try to push religion on me at work or anywhere else. I am not sure if my current office-mate truly believes it or not. He is a young guy and we work in IT where everything is about pure logic but he is devout and lives the lifestyle.

It doesn’t come up 99% of the time unless it has to do with holidays (forbidden for them). I asked him about the 144,000 people thing once and he just gave me a vague answer. I get the impression that he may want to defect at some point but that is what he grew up with and JW’s aren’t as strict in lifestyle as you may think except for a few things (no holidays except for Easter, no divorce and no blood transfusions for example). Most everything else is about living a moral life. They can drink and party hard though as long as they follow a few rules. I don’t believe what they do but I always find myself taking up for JV’s because they do tend to be good and genuine people in general even if some of their beliefs are very strange (that applies to lots of groups as well religious or not).

17

Thanks Shagnasty.

Pew report: “White evangelical Protestants are particularly likely to believe that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Roughly two-thirds (64%) express this view, as do half of black Protestants (50%). By comparison, only 15% of white mainline Protestants share this opinion.”

Here’s another factoid. According to Pew 26% of white Catholics and 31% of Hispanic Catholics say that “Humans existed in the present form since the beginning”, as opposed to “Humans have evolved over time.” Now majorities in both groups accept evolution, but I think it’s fair to surmize that the bulk of that 26 or 31% didn’t pick up their views while sitting in the pews. So what happened?

48% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats reject evolution.
3/4 of all Protestant pastors survey by LifeWay, which owns a chain of Christian bookstores, reject evolution. http://www.lifeway.com/Article/Research-Poll-Pastors-oppose-evolution-split-on-earths-age

Also: [indent]Geographically, pastors in the South are most likely to strongly disagree that most of their congregation believes in evolution. While 69 percent of Southern pastors strongly disagree, 47 percent in the Northeast, 60 percent in the Midwest and 56 percent in the West feel similarly.[/indent] So it’s not all in the South. Anecdotes of anti-evolution sermons from all parts of the country are invited.

18

They don’t get it from the pews because it’s not normally a topic for sermons. Similarly, Catholic school biology class doesn’t normally cover religious beliefs. I have known some who felt that way for some reason, but it wasn’t from church. Might mention pro-evolution statements from such obscure sources as Pius XII, John Paul II, and yes, even Benedict XVI. Still hard to dissuade, considering that this isn’t even a debate in many churches, and isn’t considered necessary to add to doctrine like creationist churches do because it’s taken as a given.

Yes, these polls can really skew results based on wording. From the Gallup link, I think that many educated mainstream Christians would have big problems with both “humans evolved, but God had no part in process” (Zero party or it’s saying He doesn’t exist? That doesn’t sound right!“) vs. “humans evolved, with God guiding” (“I don’t believe in ID!” But this option sounds the less-wrong”). That’s flawed in my eyes. The Pew question is much less ambiguous, but the third group is still scary high.
In academia, I can only think of 2 creationist-type people I met. Thankfully they were the types to agree to disagree, and thus didn’t refuse to answer questions or discuss.

When I was young, I went to a day camp where you signed in. It had restrictions listed, e.g. little Billy doesn’t get peanut butter or Alice is allergic to bees. These two sibilings simply had listed “no blood”, concise and with no explanation of religion. My imagination had fun with what that meant until my dad or someone explained it.

19

We had someone on this board not long about who figured Earth was around 5930 years old, or thereabouts. I asked if this meant the mummified Ötzi the Iceman (estimated age: 5300 years) lived at the same time as Adam (“born” shortly after Creation, lived 930 years).

I don’t recall if I got an answer.

20

Well Ötzi was gay so I don’t see how he could’ve been God’s creation. Wikipedia uses their agenda to make no mention of this. :smiley: