Dealing with Fundamentalism: Secular alternative, or take back the church?

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


Apparently not, I read in this months national geographic.... 45% of Americans believe in strict creationism, 37% believe in a combination of evolution and creationism and merely 12% concur with 99.98% of scientists who hold that atheistic evolution is the case. They put that down to creationists interferring with attempts to teach evolution (a la monkey trial), general ignorance and the prevalence of popular religion and media to teach evolution, the best of which is left to wildlife documentaries.

You are kidding? Are you kidding?
Please tell me it is not so!
82 % of all americans believe either fully or partly in creationism?


Pulling numbers out of my ass, but from my experiences, pretty good guess would be that in Finland less than 10% of people believe in creationism. And I'm being generous here. I suspect rest of the Europe is pretty much similar, atleast scandinavia.

[Kuciwalker]

You're right, you are pulling numbers out of your ass. From my personal experience, I'd guess that much, much less than 10% of Americans believe in creationism. Doesn't mean it has any true basis in reality. Until you put forward numbers, I really doubt Europe is much better.

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
You're right, you are pulling numbers out of your ass. From my personal experience, I'd guess that much, much less than 10% of Americans believe in creationism. Doesn't mean it has any true basis in reality. Until you put forward numbers, I really doubt Europe is much better.

Which ones? The ones that I quoted that didn't come from me?

[Kuciwalker]

I meant numbers for Europe.

[Dr Strangelove]

IIRC the official Catholic position is that evolution and the creation story told in Genesis are not incompatible. The official Catholic position could therefore fit into either of these two categories: "believes in creationism" or "partially believes in creationism".

[Sava]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
IIRC the official Catholic position is that evolution and the creation story told in Genesis are not incompatible. The official Catholic position could therefore fit into either of these two categories: "believes in creationism" or "partially believes in creationism".

That's nice to know the church is keeping up with things. Didn't they finally admit Galileo was right in 1996?

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by tinyp3nis


You are kidding? Are you kidding?
Please tell me it is not so!
82 % of all americans believe either fully or partly in creationism?


Pulling numbers out of my ass, but from my experiences, pretty good guess would be that in Finland less than 10% of people believe in creationism. And I'm being generous here. I suspect rest of the Europe is pretty much similar, atleast scandinavia.

you will find that most theists (probably over 90%) could have their beliefs classified as partly creationistic

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Doesn't matter. They are all violations of physical laws.

no they aren't

physical laws state that the earth will continue spinning given no other force or action

having some supernatural event is outside of the realm of what the physical law says

Jon Miller

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by tinyp3nis
82 % of all americans believe either fully or partly in creationism?

If you believe in a diety, it's not a strretch to believe that God created the world, but did it the way evolution says it happened. That's what I believed prior to being an atheist.

[Jon Miller]

I think that is the partly, which is what most americans believe

those that believe in 7 literal days of creation is much much smaller (I know very few who beleive so myself)

JM

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Catastrophists fit in much better with a God who can, and does intervene in the world.

Catastrophists? Gah.

How about Phrenologists? Do they fit in with a God who intervenes in the world? Or do you have the brainpan of an autogyro operator?

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes. So?

Why would they steal the body? The disciples had no motivation to do so.

[Ben Kenobi]

Not that many with Christ's teachings themselves, rather, why does Christianity continue to use so much of the Old Testament

That's a good question. However, before I will deal with this, do you accept all of what Christ taught?

If so, then you have your answer to your question here. Christ did not set out to replace the Mosaic code, but rather, to fulfill the code. As such, to gain proper understanding of the NT, requires the OT to fill in the gaps.

The NT doesn't really make sense, particularly Matthew without some familiarity with the OT.

[Ben Kenobi]

And finally, it is impossible to be a good biologist and NOT believe in evolution. It is a plain contradiction. Especially if you're a biochemist.

What about saying that God, rather than chance directs the evolutionary process? I don't see how that contradicts biology, or biochemistry.

I think you are getting a little bit ahead of yourself. I don't think biochemistry requires all processes of the human mind to be summed up as changes in brain chemistry.

In fact, could not one say, as I have, that the brain's chemical changes are in response to other changes, rather than triggers?

[Ben Kenobi]

Catastrophists? Gah.

How about Phrenologists? Do they fit in with a God who intervenes in the world? Or do you have the brainpan of an autogyro operator?

Hey, their theories make much more sense than steady state theories. Why else have something like punctuated equilibrium, if you prefer a more 'nuanced' term.