I want to believe in evolution

[loinburger]

When the religious nutter / sane person ratio gets too high then you start running out of options

Plus there's an opportunity cost to having nothing but sane teachers, e.g. this would probably result in having pharmacists and doctors who are all religious nutters since you've depleted the sane person supply. "You have gonorrhea? Sorry, amputation and branding are the only cure."

[Jon Miller]

She does sound nutty.

However, for most people in general, American or not, understanding evolution has no bearing in their day to day life/etc. This is true of those who believe evolution or those who are young earth creationists or those in between. As such, for most, it is just about who they believe... they don't study/understand for themselves.

When I say most don't study/understand for themselves, I include almost all scientists and a large fraction of biologists even.

It is a surprisingly large fraction to me.

"When asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings, between 40% and 50% of adults in the United States say they share the beliefs of young Earth creationism, depending on the poll.[8] The percentage of believers decreases as the level of education increases—only 22% of respondents with postgraduate degrees believed compared with 47% of those with a high school education or less.[9]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism

"As of 2008 a Gallup poll indicated that 36% of U.S. adults agreed with the statement "human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process.", 14% believed that "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process." and 44% of US adults agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."[8]"

JM
(I say this as someone who has many family members, including successful/smart STEM-types, who believe in young earth creationism.)

[Jon Miller]

Yes, part of the reason why I posted is that this distraction was re-introduced mainly from SDAs, unfortunately.

JM

[C0ckney]

jon that is an incredibly large fraction to me as well.

what worries me is not so much that people have crazy ideas about the world (lots of people have these about all sorts of topics), but rather the rejection, by otherwise intelligent people, of science because it contradicts their holy book.

this woman was an adventist (but was somewhat reluctant to tell me, i can't explain why).

[Robert]

i met someone the other day who believes in 7 day creationism, believes that the bible is the literal truth etc. she was american (what a surprise). (...) what is it with the US and letting religious nutters instruct children?

Even if there would be no theory of evolution, taking the Biblical creation story literal is not the way to go.
In fact it even equals taking Darwins Origin of Species as an metaphore.

Having said that, for a common human being (=99,5% of all human beings) it's a decicion who they have to believe.
1. a preacher who says it's in the Bible and there are witnesses and it's therefore true
2. a scientist who says it's in the science books and there are people who were able to reproduce these findings and it's therefore true.

For a common person it's believing one or the other.
It's easy to just say that everybody who believes creation is therefore a silly idiot.

Personally I do not like it to rely on others for my opinion.
Eventhough I'm raised in a passive creationist environment (almost everybody believed creation, not in a fundamentalist way, not trying to convince others, etc.) I do not believe in literal creation anymore. Not b/c it conflicts with science but just b/c I started to try to understand what the authors of Genesis really meant to say back then thousands of years ago. And I can't imagine that they wanted to convince us of 7-day creationism (or any variant). Taking the Genesis account literal violates the intentions of the authors of the Bible.

But eventhough I do believe in evolution and an evolving world, I do not believe that everything evolved from one (or a couple of) simple 1 cell life form. I'm not a biologe or an evolutionist so it's just a fools opion, but if I reason from my field of knowledge, computer science, then I simply can't believe that Windows 7 could evolve from DOS 4.0, not even if you copy it a zillion times, have testers remove the too bugged editions from the copy pool, and have the copy system produce more copy errors then it does right now.

The principals of evolution are there, I simply can't make the leap (of faith! imho!) from these principals to the entire system of amoebe to parrot evolution.

So from Genesis I learn that God is responsible for the existing of the universe, and that he's not a part of that universe (compared to other gods of the times of the Genesis authors). And I certainly hope that scientist will continue to try to discover how he did it and how it works.

Am I 100% right? Most probably not, I'm only 1 human being that lacks about 99,99999% of the knowledge of everything there is to know.
Am I therefore a stupid silly idiot? Perhaps, but not more then anybody else on this world who also just bases his opinion on the 0,00001% knowledge he has on everything there is to know.

Fortunately we know still a lot more then then 0,00000000000000000000000000001% people knew 300 years ago, and maybe one day we'll know 1% or 2% or more!

[Jon Miller]

Among SDAs YEC is very common (it is the official position).

I think most would consider her nutty based on the shrines bit.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Not b/c it conflicts with science but just b/c I started to try to understand what the authors of Genesis really meant to say back then thousands of years ago. And I can't imagine that they wanted to convince us of 7-day creationism (or any variant). Taking the Genesis account literal violates the intentions of the authors of the Bible.

This is an important point.

I tell my YEC friends/family who ask me about it that evolution is what the science observes. I don't want to attack their Faith, though, so I point out Omphalos hypothesis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis ).

JM

[loinburger]

It doesn't bother me all that much when somebody believes something scientifically inaccurate (unless it's something actively dangerous, like the belief that vaccines cause autism, or the belief that HIV doesn't cause AIDS) - I'd consider belief in creationism to be less damaging than, say, devotion to Ron Paul. What bothers me is when somebody believes that failure to believe in creationism means that you're damned, because I consider this belief to be a severe moral failing.

[Jon Miller]

I think only one of my relatives has given me a creationism book, and that relative doesn't attend church anymore. I think it was more to get rid of a book than to give me a book.

JM

[MikeH]

Having said that, for a common human being (=99,5% of all human beings) it's a decicion who they have to believe.
1. a preacher who says it's in the Bible and there are witnesses and it's therefore true
2. a scientist who says it's in the science books and there are people who were able to reproduce these findings and it's therefore true.

I disagree. The vast majority of humans are smart enough to be able to learn more and then make up their own minds they don't have to just choose who to believe.

Anyone can go and find out more information about what is in the bible and what the science is and then make their own determination. I'm sure any scientist would want someone to learn more rather than just 'believe' the science.

And actually I'm sure most preachers would want the person to learn more about the bible and gain their own faith.

[Robert]

so I point out Omphalos hypothesis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis ).

JM

I usually point to the creation scheme in Genesis.
Light on day 1, after which it becomes evening and morning, the 2nd day... and God saw it was good.
Then on day 4 God creates the sun.

Then I ask: if it was good on day 1 that some unknown light source seperated day from night, then why is God on day 4 suddenly implementing the sun? Was he dissatisfied after all with how light, day and night worked on day 1?
And how was earth positioned before the sun existed? Was it hanging on a rope from heaven? And then on day 4 it was bound to the gravity of the sun? During day 1-3 earth was in position by some work around? Is a work around good?

Of course God can do anything and everything, but if he says that it's good, then why is there a need for workarounds from day 1-3 b/c the sun had not yet been created?

Every sane person, either a creationist or an atheist will agree that the authors of genesis were smart people, or at least the person who edited it all together. He was able to write, was able to write something that was an interesting read, good enough to stand the test of time, the piece of work was both in line and in response to writings of those days. It was well structured, etc.

This person was not a fool.
He was smart enough to understand that day and night are caused by the sun, and that the work-around for day 1-3 was not 'good'.
This can only lead to the conclusion that the authors/editors of Genesis 1 didn't mean it to be understood literally. As a matter of fact that's known of those days, that most writings and tales aren't meant to be understood literally, but carry a message along. Usually written in structures and rhymes to make it easier to understand.

And then suddenly the structure of the 6 days (not 7!) makes sense.
Day 1 light/night/day, Day 4 light bearers
Day 2 water / sky, Day 5 water-animals/ sky-animals
Day 3 land / plants Day 6 land animals / plants are taken care of

It's not meant to be literal and it hasn't been interpretated literal by most important theologes in history either.
Only when the Theory of Evolution popped up some christians started to explain Gen1 literally in response to this theory of evolution.
It's simple a reactionair way of reasoning.

[Robert]

I disagree. The vast majority of humans are smart enough to be able to learn more and then make up their own minds they don't have to just choose who to believe.

Anyone can go and find out more information about what is in the bible and what the science is and then make their own determination. I'm sure any scientist would want someone to learn more rather than just 'believe' the science.

And actually I'm sure most preachers would want the person to learn more about the bible and gain their own faith.

I do not disagree with you, but even after what you said, it's a choice in the end.
A choice because almost nobody grabs, knows and understands the full meaning of evolution or theism.
We chose based on the limited knowledge we have. It can be an educated choice, but it's still a choice in the end.

And we can be sure about 1 thing for 100%!
Whatever we choice, we're always wrong at least partly.
I bet that in 100 years a lot of our current science will be proven wrong.
And I also bet that if God exists he most probably wasn't understood 100% by the most devout religious person either.

That's why being 100% sure is a scary thing, both for theists/creationists and evolutionists.
Especially if we start to label others for being dumb nutjobs.

I've dined with smart educated people who believed that GWB was behind 9/11 and that chemtrails theories were at least partly true.
I insist that he is a very nice, smart and educated guy. Just believed the most stupid things.

It happens, we all do that once in a while. Don't think that you're better because you're currently on the 'right side of scientific history'.

[snoopy369]

i tried to explain that my 'belief' does not require faith in a single text written several thousand years ago but instead relies on a mountain of scientific evidence. she repeated that she respected everyone's beliefs. i decided to change the subject.

So she believes in a mountain of paper (the Bible was certainly never a single text) written ten thousand years ago by the leading minds of the day, and you believe in a mountain of paper written ten years ago by the leading minds of the day. Perhaps this is why your argument failed?

[loinburger]

So she believes in a mountain of paper (the Bible was certainly never a single text) written ten thousand years ago by the leading minds of the day, and you believe in a mountain of paper written ten years ago by the leading minds of the day. Perhaps this is why your argument failed?

"So, several thousand years ago, here's what some random people had to say about life, the universe, and everything."
"I see. They studied this topic pretty thoroughly then?"
"Oh no, they didn't study the topic at all - these were basically just campfire stories. Nevertheless, I believe that they are literal truths, and that you're going to hell if you disagree with me."

[MikeH]

I do not disagree with you, but even after what you said, it's a choice in the end.
A choice because almost nobody grabs, knows and understands the full meaning of evolution or theism.
We chose based on the limited knowledge we have. It can be an educated choice, but it's still a choice in the end.

And we can be sure about 1 thing for 100%!
Whatever we choice, we're always wrong at least partly.
I bet that in 100 years a lot of our current science will be proven wrong.
And I also bet that if God exists he most probably wasn't understood 100% by the most devout religious person either.

Science is designed to have it's theorems constantly challenged and improved. That's it's strength.

I'm sure our understanding of Evolution will improve, we don't know everything. But what we know is enough to know it's not going to be fundamentally wrong. It might be that it's not the full picture, like the difference between moving between Newtonian laws and Relativity. But Newtons laws still apply for most of what we do. They aren't wrong, they just aren't the complete picture.

It's not really fair to say one "believe's in Evolution" that's not accurate. People understand that Evolution is the best theory to describe the observations of life on our world, and understand that there are many predictions that can/could be made and all that can so far be tested conclusively have supported the theorem.

Which God understood by a person of which religion? There are so many that one of them might be right I suppose.