Ship of Fools: No evolution please, we're British

Thread: No evolution please, we're British Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

Visiting Christian friends over Christmas, the scan of another friend's new (unborn) baby was passed around. Whereupon the wife of this devout Christian couple said, "And how can anyone believe we came from apes?"

I was a little surprised to find any British Christians believing in special creation of species, or literal 6 day creation (ok, to be fair to her, she never said she believed in the literal 6 days thing, but I inferred it)

But I had thought that (apart from a few eccentric communities) British Christians had come to accept evolution and an old earth, and had little or no difficulty accepting that God creating humans in the Imago Dei was compatible with evolution.

Is creationism influential in British Christianity? Are there particular denominations, traditions, regions or demographics where it's significant, and others where it's unheard of? Was my friend a rare example of an eccentric, or representative of a significant trend in some UK churches?

Caveat: I don't want this to turn into the Dead Horse on this topic; it's a specific question about creationism in UK Christianity. Also sorry to ostracise non-UK readers, I appreciate I'm raising quite a narrow question here.

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

If I'm reading this article correctly, it looks like about 10% of the UK population believes in creationism. So you must have hit one of them.

BBC: NI tops creationist belief survey

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

And from the Guardian:

quote:
The survey suggests there is a widespread lack of religious sentiment across Britain. National average figures revealed that less than a third of adults see evolution as part of God's plan, 89% dismiss intelligent design and 83% reject creationism as plausible explanations for the existence of human life.

The survey reveals a relatively high proportion of people in London who believe in creationism. "Whereas the national average is 17% who believe that human beings were created by God in the last 10,000 years ... in London, that figure is 20%. That may well be due to the growth of Pentecostal churches in London, which are growing at an extraordinary rate," said Paul Woolley, director of Theos.

According to the survey, Northern Ireland has the highest proportion of people who believe in intelligent design (16%) and creationism (25%).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/02/charles-darwin-creationism-intelligent-design

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

Goodness - I had no idea belief in creationism/disbelief in evolution was so high (in the UK.)

The (otherwise very conservative) evangelical church I attended as a teen was very happy with evolution; it read Genesis literally in a sense, but didn't see that as ruling out evolution or an old earth.

[ 31. December 2010, 13:41: Message edited by: Calleva Atrebatum ]

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

The Guardian article has a "Belief Map" where it is broken down by region. East Anglia seems to be the most secular region of the country. The north [of England] is less secular than the south. Can anyone explain the regional differences?

Posted by RadicalWhig (# 13190) on :

I guess it's like totally another example of californication.

Skateboards, BMX, video games, wearing baseball caps, wearing baseball caps backwards, dayglo socks, shopping malls, trickle-down Reaganonics, ever since I can remember we've been the slow but certain victims of American culture - or rather we've absorbed the worst aspects of Americanism, without the best, just like we've kept the worst of British Imperialness but lost whatever was good about it: the fact that creationism is creeping in shouldn't surprise us.

Dude, I'm like totally out of here man.

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :

Wanting ain't getting. It's a DH: dowsn you go.

--Tom Clune, Purgatory Host

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
...the scan of another friend's new (unborn) baby was passed around. Whereupon the wife of this devout Christian couple said, "And how can anyone believe we came from apes?"

Well, the literal answer to that is: "by looking at pictures of unborn babies of other ape species which look just exactly the same as human ones".

In fact I'd be surprised if your friend could tell an 11-week human foetus from a chimp of equivalent age.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

Or a newborn of the species Homo sapiens from that of the species Gorilla gorilla.

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
11-week human foetus

I think the scan was a 20 week one; but even then, I expect only a midwife or similar could tell the difference between that and the ultrasound of a chimp, ape, gorilla.

What I wondered was... maybe when people hear the phrase "we came from apes", does anyone actually thing that that means an ape, once upon a time, gave birth to a human child? Since that would be plainly ridiculous, maybe if that's what someone believes evolution to be, it'd be very easy to dismiss it. I dunno.

[ 31. December 2010, 14:39: Message edited by: Calleva Atrebatum ]

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Or a newborn of the species Homo sapiens from that of the species Gorilla gorilla.

Or, as I once discovered, even the parents, not the newborn itself. I once had occasion to visit a young couple who'd just had a baby, and the baby was quite ill (don't worry - happy ending). And as I sat with them, we lapsed naturally into a few minutes of silence. Dad was holding the baby, and it suddenly struck me that the gestures he made, the way he held the child, even his expression and the non-verbal noises he made to the child - everything corresponded exactly to a tv wildlife programme I'd seen the previous evening about gorillas. I'm a thorough-going evolutionist, and even I was shocked.

There are a lot of very interesting percentages being thrown around in the Guardian survey that ToujoursDan cited. I'm not only surprised at how many believe in creationism, I'm surprised at how many apparently know the difference between that and intelligent design. I'd really like to know what questions were asked.

Posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop (# 10745) on :

Belief or non-belief in evolution has nothing to do with the Christian Faith. In fact, creationalism is a misnomer; it is not about what method God created, but the mere fact the He did create. Whichever view you take is up to you.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Just as it's a shame for Christians to be frightened of the Logos' material revelation it's a shame that modern Christians HAVE to be materialists.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
The north [of England] is less secular than the south. Can anyone explain the regional differences?

I'd imagine that creationism correlates with Islam. Also, as pointed out above, pentecostal Christianity. Both would be religious communities that feel that received opinion in the UK media is much more likely to lecture to them than listen to them: the perception gives rise to a general unwillingness to listen to the lectures.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'd imagine that creationism correlates with Islam.

How? Islam has always regarded science as one of the two ways in which Allah reveals himself. (The other being the Holy Qur'an - and because Allah cannot contradict himself, any seeming discrepancy is to be held in tension.)

Posted by Louise (# 30) on :

Because there's a major modern Islamic creationist movement, which is in many ways a copy-cat of Christian creationism. It tends to be associated with strands of Wahabi/Salafi Islam which reject the traditional schools of Islamic jurism and qur'anic interpretation, but also and more worryingly with the backlash against secularism in Turkey. The chief nutter who churns out the glossy creationists books is based there- Harun Yahya and yes, it has had a very bad effect on the relationship between Islam and science in that country. Evolutionary biologists in Turkey are now afraid to speak out against this for fear of death threats.

This sort of creationism has made it over here. We've seen it in displays at our local Saudi-financed mosque. It turns up in some Islamic schools here too, but I haven't time to dig out articles on it (Hogmanay being about to kick off up here). You're quite correct that historically this attitude is alien to Islam, but it's taken root and sadly appears to be growing in influence.

L.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
Visiting Christian friends over Christmas, the scan of another friend's new (unborn) baby was passed around. Whereupon the wife of this devout Christian couple said, "And how can anyone believe we came from apes?"
<snip>

I have heard exactly that comment from a work colleague - worryingly, just as we were working out how to teach gestation in humans. That conversation continued, in paraphrase, if evolution had happened, with all the very specialised organisms around, humans couldn't possibly have come from the same evolutionary strand because we are less specialised [brick wall]

quote:
But I had thought that (apart from a few eccentric communities) British Christians had come to accept evolution and an old earth, and had little or no difficulty accepting that God creating humans in the Imago Dei was compatible with evolution.

Same colleague responded with an absolutely appalled silence when I responded, without thinking, to a question as to where the dinosaurs had gone: "they evolved into birds". And I am sure, from other things I've seen, that this colleague believes in an Earth that's 6000 years old.

quote:
Is creationism influential in British Christianity? Are there particular denominations, traditions, regions or demographics where it's significant, and others where it's unheard of? Was my friend a rare example of an eccentric, or representative of a significant trend in some UK churches?

I am not sure how influential this is, but it's something that's very strongly held by this colleague, who also has a passion for youth work [brick wall]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
Because there's a major modern Islamic creationist movement, which is in many ways a copy-cat of Christian creationism. It tends to be associated with strands of Wahabi/Salafi Islam which reject the traditional schools of Islamic jurism and qur'anic interpretation, but also and more worryingly with the backlash against secularism in Turkey. The chief nutter who churns out the glossy creationists books is based there- Harun Yahya and yes, it has had a very bad effect on the relationship between Islam and science in that country. Evolutionary biologists in Turkey are now afraid to speak out against this for fear of death threats.

This sort of creationism has made it over here. We've seen it in displays at our local Saudi-financed mosque. It turns up in some Islamic schools here too, but I haven't time to dig out articles on it (Hogmanay being about to kick off up here). You're quite correct that historically this attitude is alien to Islam, but it's taken root and sadly appears to be growing in influence.

L.

Sorry - I WAS aware of such a movement but had no idea it had grown so big.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

In this Monty Python skit, a British bishop is recording a radio ad for beer, which involves him describing the creation of the world over millions of years. At the end, the bishop complains that the idea of the world coming into being that way is "not quite creation as we see it".

That's from about 1980. I would take it to indicate that the idea of respectable British clerics disbelieving in evolution was not totally foreign to the Python's target audience at the time. (Mind you, part of the joke seems to be that the bishop's protests are rather half-hearted, and he's more concerned about getting his cheque.)

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
Because there's a major modern Islamic creationist movement, which is in many ways a copy-cat of Christian creationism. It tends to be associated with strands of Wahabi/Salafi Islam which reject the traditional schools of Islamic jurism and qur'anic interpretation, but also and more worryingly with the backlash against secularism in Turkey. The chief nutter who churns out the glossy creationists books is based there- Harun Yahya and yes, it has had a very bad effect on the relationship between Islam and science in that country. Evolutionary biologists in Turkey are now afraid to speak out against this for fear of death threats.

There's also a Hindu(well, Hare Krishna) school of creationism. They do their own research, separate from the Christians, and have actually reached diametrically opposed conclusions.

The Hare Krishnas believe that man is BILLIONS of years old, as opposed to the three thousand years postulated by Young Earth creationists. The point of similarity between the two groups is that they both believe humans were on earth, in their present form, from the very beginning.

link

[ 31. December 2010, 19:21: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

Technically, we are not decended from apes, but we share a common ancestor, though I read somewhere/heard someone say that we are more closer to chimpanzees than to apes.

Frankly creationism has always struck me of having a little bit of human hubris, as in we aren't like those stupid animals, but special and rational god-like beings. Evolution in contrast, knocks humans off their pedestral. It doesn't IMHO knock God off.

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

Thanks for your story Curiosity Killed.

This emoticon [brick wall]

is a neat description of how I felt when they said this - especially as the people saying it had the luxury of being highly literate, educated Christians living in a large town in a Western country. I can't believe that in their situation they hadn't access to a good understanding and explanation of evolution.

So is that it? Do people just not understand evolution? Or do they understand it, but still don't believe it? [brick wall]

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

I'm not sure this helps, but ...

The movement away from modernism via postmodernism included a dethroning of claims for objectivity in scientific finding. Evolutionary understanding can easily be seen as a classic "meta-narrative" coming out of a scientific world view, a really big picture. But what is that really worth? Postmodernist thinking provided a convenient vehicle for all who wanted to be sceptical about such meta-narratives. Just another socially driven, word-driven, power game, folks!

I think postmodernism has lost much of any intellectual cutting edge it ever had, but there do seem to me to have been some pervasive social effects. "This is my truth, tell me yours" is a pretty commonly held view point. If it seems OK to me, what's wrong with that? There is a kind of appeal for tolerance in it, which is superficially attracitve. And it seems to bring with it a kind of rejection of too much analysis. "Boring, boring" is the cry!

Well of course I was brought up in the modernist thought world, so I would say all of that, wouldn't I? But I think the danger is that almost any veneer of plausibility which can be wrapped around ideas will be sufficient for some folks. YEC and Intelligent Design just come apart at the seams when subject to critical examination. But you can buy plenty of books, look up plenty of stuff on the Net, which will paint a very different picture. Who cares too much about provenance of sources, peer review etc?

In fact, how popular is critical examination, particularly when applied to one's own views? Self-critical analysis may be very popular when it comes to personal relationships, but it seems to have lost power for many when considering big ideas.

And a Happy New Year to you, too!

Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :

Anglican

quote:
Evolution in contrast, knocks humans off their pedestral. It doesn't IMHO knock God off.

Well as long as God doesn't mind people disbelieving the very first chapter of His Word, fine.

Posted by mrs whibley (# 4798) on :

YEC views are fairly prevalent in Evangelical circles around my way.

IME, YECs fall into one of two categories: Either they have been brought up believing in this world view, and have seen no reason to change it, or they have converted to Christianity from a position of a lack of scientific background knowledge, and therefore again seen no reason not to accept YEC uncritically. Unfortunately, despite the fact that theoretically the UK is a developed nation and teaches science to all school pupils, evolutionary theory would seem to be either too poorly taught or intrinsically too complex for the uninterested to absorb. I meet people regularly who, despite having passed through the British state school system, think that evolution is a crazy theory that only those with an axe to grind would believe.

I only know one person who has converted their view from scientific evolutionist to YEC Christian as an adult. In her case, it was an important part of her conversion to reject many aspects of her background, and for all I know the Holy Spirit needed her to go down this path more than he needed her scientific expertise!

All this is only really important in that the population at large is increasingly told by the media and vocal Christian groups that to be a Christian you have to reject evolution (and hate the gays, but that's a different DH). Who knows how many people we are putting off exploring Christianity because they think they will have to check in their brains at the church door?

We Christian evolutionists may never convert our brothers and sisters in Christ to our views, and indeed probably don't need to, (which is why we are in DH, after all) but we should get out there and tell everyone else! Time for a bus advert, maybe?

[ 01. January 2011, 09:39: Message edited by: mrs whibley ]

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Technically, we are not decended from apes, but we share a common ancestor, though I read somewhere/heard someone say that we are more closer to chimpanzees than to apes.

I don't understand the last comment: chimpanzees are apes.
We're pretty solidly in the middle of the ape family tree. The latest common ancestor of orang-utans, chimpanzees, and gorillas was (by most definitions) an ape; we're descended from that latest common ancestor; therefore, we're descended from apes (and therefore are apes ourselves).

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Anglican
quote:
Evolution in contrast, knocks humans off their pedestral. It doesn't IMHO knock God off.
Well as long as God doesn't mind people disbelieving the very first chapter of His Word, fine.

What makes you think that? Why should believers not distinguish between truth as facticity and truth as meaning?

Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

I believe in evolution but that it was brought about through the hand of God. There is no problem in my mind in believing that God created everything but not in the simplistic way it is described in the Bible.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:

quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Anglican
quote:
Evolution in contrast, knocks humans off their pedestral. It doesn't IMHO knock God off.
Well as long as God doesn't mind people disbelieving the very first chapter of His Word, fine.
What makes you think that? Why should believers not distinguish between truth as facticity and truth as meaning?

No, only literal truth is true. That's why Jesus spoke in parables.

[Disappointed]

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Here is an interesting quote from Pope Pius XII

quote:
What is the literal sense of a passage is not always as obvious in the speeches and writings of the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the works of our own time. For what they wished to express is not to be determined by the rules of grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the context; the interpreter must, as it were, go back wholly in spirit to those remote centuries of the East and with the aid of history, archaeology, ethnology, and other sciences, accurately determine what modes of writing, so to speak, the authors of that ancient period would be likely to use, and in fact did use. For the ancient peoples of the East, in order to express their ideas, did not always employ those forms or kinds of speech which we use today; but rather those used by the men of their times and countries. What those exactly were the commentator cannot determine as it were in advance, but only after a careful examination of the ancient literature of the East. (Divino Afflante Spiritu 35–36).

And here is a link which looks at various views about evolution within Judaism.

It includes this arresting quote from Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

quote:
The Torah's story of creation is not intended as a scientific treatise, worthy of equal time with Darwin's theory of evolution in the curriculum of our public schools. The notes it strikes in its sparse and majestic narrative offer us an orientation to the Torah's entire religious worldview and value system. Creation is taken up first not because the subject has chronological priority but rather to ground basic religious beliefs in the very nature of things. And I would argue that their power is quite independent of the scientific context in which they were first enunciated.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

You know what'll happen now, don't you Barney?

BHB will reject the Papal comment because ... well, because it's Papal ... and the Jewish one because ... well, because God wrote the Bible and interpretation doesn't come into it.

[Roll Eyes]

Posted by Amiyah (# 11989) on :

I believe in a Creator God, still involved in the world, most of the time. I believe in evolution as well, all the time. Creationism doesn't appeal/stack up. But I can't quite get my mind round how God and evolution go together. This is probably because I don't understand evolution or God properly.

I thought that chance and random mutations were fundamental to the way evolution works? Surely the idea isn't that God pushed the button at the beginning and then waited to see what turned up at the end, and it happened to be humans, but other outcomes were possible? That can't be right?

But if God controlled the process of evolution - determining what happened at each step in the process of evolution - then that's not really evolution, is it? It's just very slow creation??

Help?

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Having my cake and eat it I accept everything between the miracles of life and mind with the exception of humans for the entirely subjective reason that we are just too pretty.

Otherwise evolution, alone, explains the story of life on Earth.

And nowhere else.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I have to admit that I was a bit peeved with the Hosts when this was cast down into Dead Horse territory. I thought, 'this is going to be an interesting debate not about different views on creationism etc but differences between how this whole subject is seen in different countries and different Christian cultures, and why that might be'. That is what I thought the OP was about.

But I was wrong. Hosts you are right. You obviously have sad experience of this.

Going back to the OP though, my impression is much the same as Calleva's had been until the photograph was passed round. Generally, I'm not aware of it being an issue the way it seems to be elsewhere. We seem to have different shibboleths.

I wouldn't, though Toujours Dan, reckon much to the Guardian as having the ability either to conduct a sound survey of religious belief or write a sensible article about it.

For example, unless the differences were explained very carefully, I think most people here would assume that 'Do you believe in Intelligent Design?' and 'Do you think evolution is part of God's plan?' are the same question. After all, I think of myself as a fairly intelligent person, and even I am not sure what the difference is, or if they are different, whether it matters.

I did hear that one of the reasons why creationism might have become such an issue in the Southern USA in the 1920s was that rich people on the east coast were advocating Darwin as authority for survival of the fittest and letting the poor go to the wall - their evolutionary destiny. 'Look, we must be the future because we have succeeded. You haven't. Accept it. Hard luck'. To which the response is 'We don't believe you. We don't care about science or any other 'ism'. Look what the Bible says. We have God on our side. Put that in your pipe and smoke it'.

However, that is not my country, and not part of my history. So I don't have any idea whether there is anything in that explanation.

Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
... So is that it? Do people just not understand evolution? Or do they understand it, but still don't believe it?

You can explain it, but they won't believe it because they are mathematically unable to grasp the vast numbers of organisms, generations, and years involved. That's why the creationist "argument from incredulity" has stood up for so long. A few weeks ago a Shipmate (ken?) demonstrated with a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation that a mutation which is supposedly extremely unlikely is probably happening several times a day because there are just so damn many bacteria everywhere. I'm sure there were some that were unconvinced by that too. OliviaG

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
You know what'll happen now, don't you Barney?

BHB will reject the Papal comment because ... well, because it's Papal ... and the Jewish one because ... well, because God wrote the Bible and interpretation doesn't come into it.

Seems likely. But I'm not really writing for BHB. I just thought they were pretty good views from diverse sources. A good view is a good view, regardless of which mouth speaks it. It's a shame not everyone can see that kind of simplicity.

Posted by Nicolemrw (# 28) on :

quote:
I thought that chance and random mutations were fundamental to the way evolution works? Surely the idea isn't that God pushed the button at the beginning and then waited to see what turned up at the end, and it happened to be humans, but other outcomes were possible? That can't be right?

Why should "humans" be the destines end result? Surely you don't think that we were modeled _physically_ after God, that God has two legs, and arms, and a long white beard? Would we not as much be children of God no matter what form evolution had cast us into?

Why should God care what shape we evolved into?

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Technically, we are not decended from apes, but we share a common ancestor...

More accurate to say that we are apes.

quote:

...though I read somewhere/heard someone say that we are more closer to chimpanzees than to apes.

Yes. Humans and chimps are more closely related
to each other than either of us are to gorillas. That is we share a more recent common ancestor. And all of the African apes, including ourselves, are more closely related to each other than to orangutans.

quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Well as long as God doesn't mind people disbelieving the very first chapter of His Word, fine.

The one that says God created us from the dust of the earth? And does not in fact say how long he took about it? Yes, I believe that chapter of God's word.

quote:
Originally posted by mrs whibley:

Who knows how many people we are putting off exploring Christianity because they think they will have to check in their brains at the church door?

Yes

The American young-earth-creationist cultists make God out to be a liar. They do a terrible thing by persuading millions of non-Christians that Christians are either liars like themselves or stupid enough to believe such lies. One of the greatest obstacles to evangelism.

A lot of YEC propaganda is so egregiously stupid, and a lot of their tactics have been so blatantly dishonest, that I have trouble believing that all of them really mean what they say. I think many of the YEC leaders really must be in it for the money. Its just another TV scam like some of the fake healers.

quote:
Originally posted by Amiyah:

But if God controlled the process of evolution - determining what happened at each step in the process of evolution - then that's not really evolution, is it?

But that problem exists for anyone who believes that God is the omnipotent and eternal creator. Its teh same as the problem of pain and suffering. Or of sin - does God just allow evil to happen or does God cause it? Or of free will - if God controls the molecules in our brain that we are thinking with how can we say our thoughts are our own? Does God just allow us to think, or does God make us think our thoughts? When a leaf falls from a tree is that the laws of nature which God allows to function independently? Gor is it something God actively does?

Even if the world was only 6,000 years old - or six minutes - that would still be a problem.

quote:

It's just very slow creation??

Sort of. But if God is eternal and not contained in the time and space of the universe, than creation is in a sense instantaneous, not slow at all. God doesn't have to start creating at year 0 and work his way up to whatever the timespan of the world will be, any more than God has to start creating at one end of the universe and work his way to the other. So the universe looks both ancient and huge to us, inside it, but from God's point of view it might be one thing, or one event, or one process, or one action.

I can't resist a quote:

quote:
...and he showed me a little thing the quantity of a hazelnut lying in the palm of my hand and it was as round as any ball. I looked thereupon and thought "What may this be?" and it was answered generally thus: It is all that was made". I marvelled how it might last for methought it might fall suddenly to nought for littleness, and I was answered in my understanding: "It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it". And so has all thing being by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second is that God loves it. The third is that God keeps it.

(Julian of Norwich, spelling modernised)

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
I did hear that one of the reasons why creationism might have become such an issue in the Southern USA in the 1920s was that rich people on the east coast were advocating Darwin as authority for survival of the fittest and letting the poor go to the wall - their evolutionary destiny. 'Look, we must be the future because we have succeeded. You haven't. Accept it. Hard luck'. To which the response is 'We don't believe you. We don't care about science or any other 'ism'. Look what the Bible says. We have God on our side. Put that in your pipe and smoke it'.

Something to that, I think. William Jennings Bryan, who is now best remmebered for his clownish prosecution efforts during the Scopes trial, had a previous history of generally enlightened politics on behalf of those most victimized by capitalism and imperialism, both of which in those days were justified by appeals to Darwin.

And H.L. Mencken, Bryan's journalistic nemesis(and coiner of the phrase "Bible Belt"), combined with ease belief in evolution with contempt for the poor. (In his diaries, he refers to poor southern whites, whom he destested, as "anthropoids"). And he poured hateful scorn not only upon Bryan's creationism, but his support for the economically disadvantaged.

Having said that, I'd rather read Mencken than Bryan any day of the week.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
You're quite correct that historically this attitude is alien to Islam, but it's taken root and sadly appears to be growing in influence.

You can, of course, replace 'Islam' in that quote with 'Christianity' (or, even 'Evangelical Christianity') and it would still be entirely correct. I wonder if there's some sociological explanation why anti-science views seem to be growing in influence in different religions.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amiyah:
But if God controlled the process of evolution - determining what happened at each step in the process of evolution - then that's not really evolution, is it? It's just very slow creation??

Yes, I would say that that's a form of creationism. It's a view that falls under a fairly broad umbrella of beliefs that's called "Theistic Evolution" - at one end you have the modern Intelligent Design ideas (in which the steps taken by God to direct evolution leave 'scientifically determinable' fingerprints, or at least some of them do), at the other end you have people who would say that the directing power of God is totally invisible to science and whether or not you accept God had a hand in the process of evolution is entirely a matter of faith. I have a certain amount of respect for the extreme that doesn't have God leaving his grubby fingerprints all over everything, it at least takes science seriously and doesn't try to keep saying science must be wrong.

There is also a strong tradition in theism that states that God has given genuine freedom to the processes of the physical universe, creating the universe with the potential to allow intelligent life to develop but leaving it to the free processes of the universe to determine whether such intelligent life will actually develop - and the form and location of that life. Polkinghorne uses the phrase "Free process" as a parallel to "Free will", except that whereas human free will includes a conscious decision maker the free processes of the universe have no such decision making process.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

There is also a strong tradition in theism that states that God has given genuine freedom to the processes of the physical universe, creating the universe with the potential to allow intelligent life to develop but leaving it to the free processes of the universe to determine whether such intelligent life will actually develop - and the form and location of that life. Polkinghorne uses the phrase "Free process" as a parallel to "Free will", except that whereas human free will includes a conscious decision maker the free processes of the universe have no such decision making process.

I agree with this one. I don't think God would mind at all what shape that intelligent life took. I think s/he is the power behind and through the universe - but has given total free will to the whole shebang. That's why we can be conscious of God's presence, because s/he is everywhere imo.

Posted by mattyou (# 15646) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
The Guardian article has a "Belief Map" where it is broken down by region. East Anglia seems to be the most secular region of the country. The north [of England] is less secular than the south. Can anyone explain the regional differences?

Dunno, given that the sample size was only 35 in that region (http://www.comres.co.uk/systems/file_download.aspx?pg=404&ver=1) I wouldn't pay it much heed anyway.

[cutting and pasting that URL to follow it takes you to a PDF download, but it has been checked and is as advertised - L]

[ 02. January 2011, 15:30: Message edited by: Louise ]

Posted by TonyK (# 35) on :

mattyou

I can't access the web address http://www.comres.co.uk/systems/file_download.aspx?pg=404&ver=1. [warning- downloads PDF if you click, but file is as advertised- L]

Can you double-check it please (and while you're at it, use the URL button in the Instant UBB code section to post website addresses).

Thank you

Yours aye ... TonyK
Host, Dead Horses

[ 02. January 2011, 15:28: Message edited by: Louise ]

Posted by Louise (# 30) on :

quote:
Originally posted by TonyK:
mattyou

I can't access the web address http://www.comres.co.uk/systems/file_download.aspx?pg=404&ver=1.

Can you double-check it please (and while you're at it, use the URL button in the Instant UBB code section to post website addresses).

Thank you

Yours aye ... TonyK
Host, Dead Horses

I can by clicking your link Tony, but it automatically downloads a PDF file. The file is harmless and indeed contains the data mentioned, but people should not link to downloads without warning other users that this will happen. Downloads could contain anything or be malicious. I will flag up both links.

Mattyou, please don't do this again without a clear warning that a download is involved. I know it says download in the URL and you didn't make a link, but you should still flag that up. Thanks!

cheers,
Louise

Dead Horses Host

[ 02. January 2011, 15:31: Message edited by: Louise ]

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

Enoch:

quote:
I wouldn't, though Toujours Dan, reckon much to the Guardian as having the ability either to conduct a sound survey of religious belief or write a sensible article about it.

I guess you didn't read either article. [Roll Eyes]

The Guardian didn't do the survey. A thinktank called "Theos" did. Both the BBC and Guardian articles I linked to refer to the same survey.

Posted by TonyK (# 35) on :

Louise and mattyou - that is real weird! When I copy mattyou's link to the address bar I get a message to the effect that the file cannot be downloaded - but when I click on the address in my post it works!!

I'll never understand the blasted 'net [Disappointed]

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

The Guardian did a larger spread on creationism (which they seemed to think was purely a Christian phenomenon) in their G2 Supplement a few years ago and that estimated that there were only about 300 hundred 'active' Christian creationists in the UK. Even in the ultra-calvinist independent evangelical circles my sig other grew up in creationism is by no means universal. While creationism does exist in conservative Christian circles here, I don't think its nearly as important or as universal as it would be in the US. IME UK creationists are also much much less likely to actively campaign on the issue. Islamic creationism on the other hand seems to be fairly strong and assertive in some areas with large Muslim populations.
I recently read an interesting book chapter by a popular science writer (whose name I've completely forgotten [Hot and Hormonal]

) about the extent of Islamic anti-evolutionist agitation in UK universities with large Muslim intakes.

Posted by mrs whibley (# 4798) on :

Yerevan

Do you remember how the Guardian defined 'active'? That's probably correct in terms of campaigners, although a few more may have discovered the Internet since then; but if by 'active' one means 'proselytising' - i.e. happy to butt into a conversation with an attempt to ridicule or 'refute' evolution, then the number must be at least 100 times that. After all, we've all met a few, and I would say that most non-Christians I know have met at least one (and complained to me about them!)

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

I've never met a proselytising creationist, either before or after becoming a Christian. And I've met some veeerrryyy conservative Christians. I obviously move in the wrong circles [Razz]

Its a long time since I read the article, but IIRC they were defining 'active' creationists as those who campaigned on the issue through letter writing, joining organisations etc, rather than those who happened to hold creationist beliefs. Judging by their account of the UK's one and only creationist museum, which seems to be run on half a shoe string, there isn't much cash behind British Christian creationism. As for numbers, a quick google reveals that one third of Evangelical Alliance church members were estimated to be Young Earth Creationist in 1998, a figure which the Evangelical Alliance believes has fallen since.

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

I'd reckon that a proselytizing creationist would merely be a subset of a proselytizing Christian.

In other words, they would expect that once you become a Real Christian [tm] then the Holy Spirit would lead you to believe that the Bible is True [tm] and therefore Genesis is literal history. It's an all or nothing package. I've never come across an individual who proselytizes for a singular Biblical interpretation apart from the entire faith.

But your Real Christian [tm] credentials would definitely be in jeopardy if you continued to believe in evolution after you'd been saved.

Posted by mrs whibley (# 4798) on :

Thanks ToujoursDan, that's pretty much what I meant. There is an implication that if you are a Real Christian you will sign up to x, y and z - and if you don't, well, how can you be sure of your salvation?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

TD, my understanding is that the original point that Calleva Atrebatum was making - and trying to get us to discuss - is that the general impression is that in Britain it is rare and a bit esoteric for a person to take the line that one of the marks of a 'Real Christian' is that they believe that you can't be taking scripture seriously unless you ignore prevailing scientific, geological, palaeontogical etc argument and insist that Genesis 1 is a simple historical account of what happened.

On the other hand, in other parts of Christendom, a lot of people take this position. Why this difference?

Can anyone suggest explanations - is it sufficient just to condemn all of us over here as time-serving, half-hearted, compromising, Laodicean Christians who can't see the truth? Or why is it that some of the faithful feel insecure about this and the rest of us don't?

Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :

Enoch

quote:
Britain it is rare and a bit esoteric for a person to take the line that one of the marks of a 'Real Christian' is that they believe that you can't be taking scripture seriously unless you ignore prevailing scientific, geological, palaeontogical etc argument and insist that Genesis 1 is a simple historical account of what happened.

I meet many Americans, Australians and Germans who feel similar. Like me and the British you mention, they disregard no confirmed scientific data and many of them are respected Scientists in their chosen field. This notion that to be a non-evolutionist you must have had your brain removed or had a blindfold for Christmas is laughable!

TD

quote:
But your Real Christian [tm] credentials would definitely be in jeopardy if you continued to believe in evolution after you'd been saved.

I have never seen any Creationist say this so can only presume that it comes from insecurities and maybe the constant rewrite/ update of the 'truth' among evolutionists.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
...they disregard no confirmed scientific data and many of them are respected Scientists in their chosen field.

I really don't think that there is anyone who genuinely understands the biological issues who believes in YEC (unless they also believe in Gosse's Ompahalos theory, which almost no-one does). If there is I have certainly never read anything they have written, and trust me, I've read a lot of YEC stuff.

Old-earth creationists, yes. Even the IDiots (the problem with them is more theological than scientific). But not YEC. "Creation Science" (TM) really is somewhere between a myth and a propaganda tool.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
I ... can only presume that it comes from insecurities and maybe the constant rewrite/ update of the 'truth' among evolutionists.

What constant rewrite and updates? The general picture of the development of life on Earth is fundamentally no different now than when Darwin penned Origin. We've cleared up some details, in particular a vast amount of new information on the function of DNA and how it allows inheritance to function in the manner Darwin knew it had to. And, we've got a much larger collection of fossils and living species to study that has allowed many gaps in the evolutionary sequence to be filled, admittedly the resulting story is often much more complex.

On the other hand, 60 years ago practically no one except a handful of Lutherans and the Seventh Day Adventists accepted that the 'truth' consisted of a creation over six 24h periods a mere 6-10 thousand years ago. We have seen far more rewriting and updating of the 'truth' presented by Creationists than that produced by scientific research.

[ 05. January 2011, 11:07: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

quote:
But your Real Christian [tm] credentials would definitely be in jeopardy if you continued to believe in evolution after you'd been saved.

I'm not sure this is the case in con evo circles in the UK (or so I've heard). There seems to be much more willingness to view creation v evolution as a secondary issue on which Christians can legitimately disagree. For example one incredibly conservative independent evangelical church I know of had a creationism pastor whose assistant and successor was a theistic evolutionist....apparently that kind of 'live and let live' approach isn't unusual. The local independent Christian school likewise teaches both creationism and theistic evolution. IME you really have to get into the outer fringers of UK evangelicalism before people start arguing that only YECs are Proper Christians.

Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :

AC

quote:
What constant rewrite and updates? The general picture of the development of life on Earth is fundamentally no different now than when Darwin penned Origin.

Maybe the updates that mean that 90% of the best 'evidence' presented in 1925 is now dismissed by 21st Century evolutionists.

AC

quote:
And, we've got a much larger collection of fossils and living species to study that has allowed many gaps in the evolutionary sequence to be filled, admittedly the resulting story is often much more complex.

Indeed, because you still have micro-evolution and you actually need evidence of macro-evolution. There is none.

Quoting what Cults have said re Creation is no challenge to what Creations have believed, which is simply what God stated via Moses, zilch needs to be altered, ever.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
AC
quote:
What constant rewrite and updates? The general picture of the development of life on Earth is fundamentally no different now than when Darwin penned Origin.
Maybe the updates that mean that 90% of the best 'evidence' presented in 1925 is now dismissed by 21st Century evolutionists.

Yeah? And, what evidence would that be?

quote:
because you still have micro-evolution and you actually need evidence of macro-evolution. There is none.

There is no difference between so-called 'micro-evolution' and 'macro-evolution', it's one and the same thing. Evidence of evolution of one species into two or more different forms (one of which may be extinct) is evidence for evolution.

None of which addresses the second point in my post, which is the rapidly changing description of 'truth' presented by the modern heresy known as Young Earth Creationism or Creation Science.

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
Enoch:

quote:
I wouldn't, though Toujours Dan, reckon much to the Guardian as having the ability either to conduct a sound survey of religious belief or write a sensible article about it.
I guess you didn't read either article.

The Guardian didn't do the survey. A thinktank called "Theos" did. Both the BBC and Guardian articles I linked to refer to the same survey.

I have significant doubts about the methodology and the questions used in this survey. There were four main questions:

Q1. Young Earth Creationism is the idea that God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years. In your opinion is Young Earth Creationism: Definitely true/Probably true/Probably untrue/Definitely untrue/Don't Know
Q2. Theistic evolution is the idea that evolution is the means that God used for the creation of all living things on earth. In your opinion is Theistic evolution etc etc
Q3. Atheistic evolution is the idea that evolution makes belief in God unnecessary and absurd. In your opinion is Atheistic evolution etc etc
Q4. Intelligient Design is the idea that evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages. In your opinion is Intelligent Design etc etc

It is not clear whether respondents were informed in advance that they were going to be given four options and what those four options wouild be. But without that knowledge they may well be uncertain about how to respond to the earlier questions in particular. E.g. did they know there was a choice between "theistic evolution" and "atheistic evolution"? This may partially explain a problem with the figures. As they are phrased all of the options are mutually exclusive, but no less than 161% of the sample said that one or other was Definitely or Probably true which means that many must have voted in more than one camp.

Worse, the question on Atheistic evolution is inaccurate and uniquely loaded. Firstly Atheistic evolution is the position that God was not behind evolution (compare theistic evolution), and was not necessary for it to happen. Secondly, this is the only question which replaces a simple process definition with consequences for other beliefs, and it does it in such a way that is pejorative about those other beliefs (why doesn't the question on YEC add that it makes much of science to be a lie, for example?). This question alone seems designed to turn people away from responding to it favourably.

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

Actually, there is lots of evidence of so-called "macro evolution" in bacteria, viruses, fruit flies, etc. So-called "macro evolution" would be harder to observe in reptiles, mammals, etc., because their lifespans are long.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:

quote:
But your Real Christian [tm] credentials would definitely be in jeopardy if you continued to believe in evolution after you'd been saved.

I'm not sure this is the case in con evo circles in the UK (or so I've heard). There seems to be much more willingness to view creation v evolution as a secondary issue on which Christians can legitimately disagree.

Yes, that was my experience, in the days when I used to hang around in creationist circles.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
Actually, there is lots of evidence of so-called "macro evolution" in bacteria, viruses, fruit flies, etc. So-called "macro evolution" would be harder to observe in reptiles, mammals, etc., because their lifespans are long.

Technically it's not the lifespan, it's the span of a generation (the time from birth/hatching/etc. to full reproductive maturity) that's the critical factor, but the main point holds.

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:

quote:
But your Real Christian [tm] credentials would definitely be in jeopardy if you continued to believe in evolution after you'd been saved.

I'm not sure this is the case in con evo circles in the UK (or so I've heard). There seems to be much more willingness to view creation v evolution as a secondary issue on which Christians can legitimately disagree.
Yes, that was my experience, in the days when I used to hang around in creationist circles.

This may be more true on this side of the Atlantic and with more fundamentalist groups. I went to a well respected con evo school and had my faith questioned by friends when I opened my mouth on this topic. YMMV.

Crœsos: thanks for the correction.

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

quote:
This may be more true on this side of the Atlantic and with more fundamentalist groups. I went to a well respected con evo school and had my faith questioned by friends when I opened my mouth on this topic. YMMV.

UK evangelicalism has its share of faults, but I don't think its possible to exaggerate how different it is from some forms of American evangelicalism.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:

quote:
This may be more true on this side of the Atlantic and with more fundamentalist groups. I went to a well respected con evo school and had my faith questioned by friends when I opened my mouth on this topic. YMMV.
UK evangelicalism has its share of faults, but I don't think its possible to exaggerate how different it is from some forms of American evangelicalism.

Is that some sort of corrollary to Poe's Law?

For those unfamiliar with the term, Poe's Law states "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :

I have no idea how that follows from Yerevan's post, Croesos. Feel free to be more verbose?

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

I haven't the foggiest either. I could list in detail at least ten major ways in which British and American conservative evangelicalism differ noticeably if that answers whatever Croesos happens to be saying.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
I have no idea how that follows from Yerevan's post, Croesos. Feel free to be more verbose?

Verbosity is not sufficient unless it has some explanatory power mixed in as well. But I would like to hear the explanation as well.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

Yerevan stated that he(?) didn't "think its possible to exaggerate how different [UK evangelicalism] is from some forms of American evangelicalism".

Poe's Law states that it's impossible to exaggerate evangelicalism/fundamentalism to a degree that that satire/exaggeration/hyperbole is obvious to all.

It was mostly about how certain things seem to be beyond the ability to exaggerate.

Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :

Yerevan's post says that two things are very different.

Poe's law says that you can't make a parody which somebody wouldn't call the real thing.

Both use the word exaggerate, but that's pretty much the only similarity.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
Yerevan's post says that two things are very different.

Poe's law says that you can't make a parody which somebody wouldn't call the real thing.

Both use the word exaggerate, but that's pretty much the only similarity.

Not just that they are very different but that they are so different that it is literally impossible to exaggerate such differences, in the same way Poe's law postulates that it is literally impossible to exaggerate the extremism of fundamentalists to a degree that it no longer resembles some kind of real world fundamentalism.

Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :

Yerevan used some hyperbole, oh noes! Note that he didn't say that American evangelicals are all crazy fundamentalists whereas UK evangelicals are all perfectly sane little lambs, etc....

One could easily say that it's literally impossible to list the differences between Greek Orthodoxy and Calvinism and it would still just be a bit of hyperbole and not a value judgement.

So, like I said, they share a word and that's it.

I'm finding it hard to see this as something more than an attempt at scoring points.

Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :

TD

quote:
So-called "macro evolution" would be harder to observe in reptiles, mammals, etc., because their lifespans are long.

What a shame, yet as you would insist that most fossils are NOT laid down by the great water event of 4,400 years ago and are spread over the millions/ billions of years your faith requires, then why can't you show macro-evolution among them?

Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :

Huh? He is talking about within our lifespan, or within human history.

The whole fossil record attests to so-called "macro" evolution.

Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :

Alan

quote:
There is no difference between so-called 'micro-evolution' and 'macro-evolution', it's one and the same thing.

As I said earlier.....

Micro evolution evolution is the observed variation with in a kind of animal. It is the fact that dogs produce a variety of dogs, cats produce a variety of cats and roses produce a variety of roses. These increases in variety usually represent a loss of information, rearranging of existing information through the generic recombination, or Natural Genetic Engineering. In Natural Genetic Engineering, DNA is rewritten by an organism to adapt to specific environmental conditions. This has been observed and it is no problem for creationists sense it is restricted to the genetic range of individual kinds of animals.

Macro evolution is amoeba to man evolution. This has never been observed, but it is assumed to occur. It is a result of the failure to see the limits to micro evolution. It is assumed that repeated occurrence of micro evolution, produces macro evolution, It also assumes the addition of new genetic information. The real result of repeated occurrence of micro evolution would be a deterioration of the kind of animal. This would ultimately lead to extinction.
The chemicals that are alleged to have formed life, supposedly resulted from the eroding rocks by water. Macro evolution would actually be rock to a man. Furthermore based on the Big Bang it is really subatomic point to man.

Evolutionists routinely give examples of micro evolution, to convince people of macro evolution, but there are no examples of macro evolution.

Website

Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :

We are all very familiar with the distinctions that people make between the two, like the site you linked.

Those distinctions, as said prior, are bullshit.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

DNA evidences macro-evolution as defined by that site, but from a quick glance, that site doesn't seem to have considered DNA development evidence.

Your sites would be a whole lot more convincing if they had pages on how to contact the site owners and about the site. The ones that tell you about the authors and their credentials, for example.

Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :

Pj and Curiosity,

Please see This Scientist and should your patience/ time be limited begin at 9 mins 30 seconds which will lead to video 2/2.

[ 06. January 2011, 23:49: Message edited by: ByHisBlood ]

Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :

I'll glance at it later, but from looking at his wikipedia page, I'm rather unimpressed so far. Answers in Genesis? P. Chem? It would be nice if the YEC community could put forth a reasonable sounding, published, biologist. Only problem of course is that they all find YEC to be silly.

I will be responding in a more creationism-centric thread though, as this part of the debate doesn't belong here. It's the same shit happening yet again.

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Alan
quote:
There is no difference between so-called 'micro-evolution' and 'macro-evolution', it's one and the same thing.
As I said earlier.....

Macro evolution is amoeba to man evolution. This has never been observed, but it is assumed to occur. It is a result of the failure to see the limits to micro evolution. It is assumed that repeated occurrence of micro evolution, produces macro evolution, It also assumes the addition of new genetic information. The real result of repeated occurrence of micro evolution would be a deterioration of the kind of animal. This would ultimately lead to extinction.
The chemicals that are alleged to have formed life, supposedly resulted from the eroding rocks by water. Macro evolution would actually be rock to a man. Furthermore based on the Big Bang it is really subatomic point to man.

Evolutionists routinely give examples of micro evolution, to convince people of macro evolution, but there are no examples of macro evolution.

Website

As I said earlier, this assertion is completely false, very poorly written and parts of it are completely nonsensical.

I have to laugh at this bit:

quote:
This would ultimately lead to extinction.

Well, over 99% of all the animal species that has ever existed in the 4.6 billion years of earth's existence ARE extinct, but the less than 1% have continued to evolve. So there is a bit of truth in this, but not much.

quote:
The chemicals that are alleged to have formed life, supposedly resulted from the eroding rocks by water.

This statement makes no sense at all. No mainstream biologist makes this assertion. The current model (which, BTW, has been around since 1924. They should really update their website.) presupposes that the Earth's atmosphere was composed differently than now: methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), water (H2O), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and phosphate (PO43-).

Life began from organic (Carbon based) compounds catalyzed by lightening or another energy source to form amino acids, which formed proteins, which became increasingly complex until they were able to self-replicate. As life developed further it became aerobic (though anaerobic live continued to exist) and introduced molecular oxygen into the atmosphere which slowly transformed it into something like ours today.

quote:
Macro evolution would actually be rock to a man. Furthermore based on the Big Bang it is really subatomic point to man.

Nope. See above. This isn't macroevolution even by the definition creationists use. This shows no understanding of what evolution is whatsoever.

[ 07. January 2011, 00:31: Message edited by: ToujoursDan ]

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

And to highlight the absurdity to this statement:

quote:
Macro evolution would actually be rock to a man.

Beyond the fact that this is a very poorly written sentence, you won't a single scientist who would make this assertion. So called "macroevolution" even as defined by most creationists is the evolution of one species into another; which creationists deny happened (except when the obviously limited number of animals in the Ark were suddenly transformed into the estimated 50 million species that exist today, and were somehow magically transported to places like Australia, Antarctica, the Amazon and Greenland instantly and were able live in intact habitats that somehow weren't rendered sterile by a 40 day flood of saline water, which we all know poisons soil.)

So while no scientist believes rocks turned into humans creationists do. In Genesis, God formed Adam from the dirt and they believe this is literal history, as opposed to myth-story. But they haven't produced any fossil (or other scientific) evidence that this ever occurred.

[ 07. January 2011, 00:49: Message edited by: ToujoursDan ]

Posted by Louise (# 30) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:

I will be responding in a more creationism-centric thread though, as this part of the debate doesn't belong here.

hosting

Precisely so and thank you.

ByHisBlood and the rest of you who are replying to him/her, please take your derails about micro/macro evolution and other creation vs evolution talking points to the main thread 'Death of Darwinism'. Feel free to cut and paste your off-topic posts from here across or if you prefer, you can start a new sub-thread in micro/macro evolution.

This thread is for discussing the question 'Is creationism influential in British Christianity?' Please stick to the topic.

ByHisBlood, this is the second time you've derailed a thread here from its specific subject onto general creation/evolution controversies. Please learn to take that stuff to the general thread or to start new threads for new topics. Taking every opportunity to have a swipe at 'the other side' does not help matters, it's a recipe for derailing threads (this goes for both camps)

thanks!

Louise

Dead Horses Host

hosting off

[ 07. January 2011, 02:00: Message edited by: Louise ]

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

quote:
Yerevan used some hyperbole, oh noes! Note that he didn't say that American evangelicals are all crazy fundamentalists whereas UK evangelicals are all perfectly sane little lambs, etc....

One could easily say that it's literally impossible to list the differences between Greek Orthodoxy and Calvinism and it would still just be a bit of hyperbole and not a value judgement.

So, like I said, they share a word and that's it.

I'm finding it hard to see this as something more than an attempt at scoring points.

Yes, I used some rather tongue-in-cheek hyperbole. Big wow. I'm not clear as to why this requires several posts of in-depth analysis from Croesos. I used hyperbole to stress that UK and US evangelicalism are very different, and that it is therefore wrong to assume that UK evangelicals will respond to issues in the same way as US ones. None of which is terribly controversial. If Croesos would like me to expand on this by discussing the differences in detail I have (just about) got the patience to do so. Otherwise there's nothing more to add. Shall we all get back to the point of the thread?

[ 07. January 2011, 12:04: Message edited by: Yerevan ]

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

PS I'm a girly by the way

Posted by Louise (# 30) on :

Just so you all know as it was on a different thread, BHB has been planked - so no need to bother following that derail.
cheers,
L.
Dead Horses Host

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

Interesting reading - and, yes, I didn't really want to start a thread about evolution/creation debates (I am aware of the arguments) I was just interested in the state of the debate in UK churches. And why YEC has never caught on here (the UK) in the way it has in the States - as I understand it the Scopes trial was viewed as a kind of quaint 'oh those funny Americans and their ways' news item by the British press.

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

quote:
And why YEC has never caught on here (the UK) in the way it has in the States

I think its partly an issue of class. I understand (hopefully American posters will correct me if I'm wrong) that the rise of US fundamentalism was to some extent a populist reaction against university-educated urban elites who were perceived as out of touch with 'ordinary folk'. I think that class dimension was/is missing in the UK. There isn't really a discernible class difference between liberal and evangelical Christians here. The leaders of both movements were/are usually middle class, urban-based and university-educated. Anglican evangelical leaders in particular were/are very often Oxbridge-educated. So there isn't the same tendency towards anti-intellectual obscurantism.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

But there is an anti-science snobbism.

The person I'm thinking of is an English graduate who *can't do maths* and doesn't do science. That's not unusual, in my experience. I found as a science graduate I am expected to know about history, literature, art and music plus other culture, but anyone who has studied those subjects can see no need to have any understanding of science or engineering and not be regarded as ignorant.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Although long in the tooth (1978 vintage) this 1978 Tyndale lecture has something to say about pond differences.

It contains this rather good quote

quote:
One reason why Britain did not experience a
Fundamentalist controversy in the 1910's and 1920's akin
to the bitter battle in America lay in the more
widespread acceptance of biological evolution by
thinking evangelicals before the beginning of the century.
And whatever their professed attitude to philosophical
evolutionism, many evangelicals displayed a cast of mind
that reflected an evolutionary approach to historical
development, including biblical history

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

[Post interrupted by lunch]. There's also an educational element. With the exception of a very small number of 'independent Christian' primary schools the UK doesn't have a conservative evangelical educational sector. Conservative evangelicals attend the same schools and universities as everyone else, including elite universities (Oxford and Cambridge have the largest and most conservative Christian Unions in the country and several big student-orientated con evo churches). There isn't really an scope for educationing young people within a creationist bubble.

quote:
But there is an anti-science snobbism.

I don't think that has anything to do with religion though. Personally I was just as much of a scientifically illiterate Arts grad when I was an atheist as I am now [Hot and Hormonal]

[ 09. January 2011, 13:23: Message edited by: Yerevan ]

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
I think its partly an issue of class.

Indeed. Where there are creationist movements in the UK I think they tend to be the black-led churches or Muslims, both groups who are at the receiving end of the British class system.
It's as much about media access as class (not that those are independent). If you know that you are constantly misrepresented in the press, it's not such as stretch to think that God's creation is being misrepresented in the press as well.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

The creationists I know are middle class white British.

Posted by mrs whibley (# 4798) on :

'My' creationists are white, and technically British although a couple are the offspring of missionaries and therefore born and educated abroad. Social class is a mixture.

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

quote:
The creationists I know are middle class white British.

I'm not saying that they aren't. I'm merely suggesting that US fundamentalism is closely linked to a contrast between perceived elites and self-identified 'ordinary folk', creating a particular kind of anti-intellectualism. Those self-identified 'ordinary folk' may in fact be quite well off, so 'class' probably wasn't the right word for me to use. I don't think that dynamic exists in the UK, because the majority of British Christians of all stripes, including creationists, are comfortably middle class and quite often (secular) university educated. And I do think that that dynamic fuels creationism. Creationism can of course exist without it...its just strengthened by it. Hence creationism is much more of a force in the US than it in the UK.

Well thats my theory anyway...

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Previously quoted by Barnabas 62 from a Tyndale Lecture

"And whatever their professed attitude to philosophical evolutionism, many [UK] evangelicals displayed a cast of mind that reflected an evolutionary approach to historical development, including biblical history"

That's an interesting, and for once, relevant, tangent. Can any shipmates tell me whether the sort of preachers who proclaim Young Earth Creationism also lack any sense that, as described in the scriptures, the history of Israel demonstrates a development in peoples' understanding of God's personality? Would they, for example, regard suggesting the following as straightforwardly orthodox or dangerous heresy?

- that even if one has a high view of biblical authority, the various books of scripture are not all the same, and are affected by the time and circumstances when they were written.

- that scripture is not simply the voice of God, but the books also demonstrate the personalities, concerns and characters of their writers.

- that the prophets proclaimed new understandings of how God called his people to live that it would have been difficult to reach from reading the Torah alone.

- that Judaism after the exile is very different from Judaism as practised in Judah under the later kings.

- that it is relevant to understanding what Jesus was saying, and which elements were innovation and which were not, to know a bit about Judaism as it was by the C1.

There are plenty of other examples one could give.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
I don't think that dynamic exists in the UK, because the majority of British Christians of all stripes, including creationists, are comfortably middle class and quite often (secular) university educated.

I believe(*) the majority of Christians in southern England, at least, are in black-led churches. If they are middle-class they are not what one would call comfortably so.
(*) source: Robert Beckford, theologian and reader in black theology.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

There's an awful lot of very white southern England for me to find that statistic convincing. If you were just talking London, OK, but Southern England includes Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire at the very least, and if you then consider Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, I really question that statistic. (I used to live in Salisbury diocese and don't remember many black led churches in that area).

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

quote:
I believe(*) the majority of Christians in southern England, at least, are in black-led churches.

I would also be quite surprised by that, even accounting for London.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

South London maybe, if you allow majority-black churches, whether black-led or not. But not even the whole of greater London, never mind the whole south of England.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Previously quoted by Barnabas 62 from a Tyndale Lecture

"And whatever their professed attitude to philosophical evolutionism, many [UK] evangelicals displayed a cast of mind that reflected an evolutionary approach to historical development, including biblical history"
That's an interesting, and for once, relevant, tangent. Can any shipmates tell me whether the sort of preachers who proclaim Young Earth Creationism also lack any sense that, as described in the scriptures, the history of Israel demonstrates a development in peoples' understanding of God's personality?

I reckon from the DH point of view, this is the point where evolution and biblical inerrancy get joined at the hip!

IME, I have never heard anyone who proclaims YEC who did not also proclaim that scripture presents "the same view" of God, from Genesis to Revelation. To give an example, the henotheism of the Pentateuch (eg 10 Commandments) and elsewhere (e.g Psalm 95:3) and the monotheism of the Isaiah writings seem clearly to express a different view of God via different texts, but I've personally never heard any YEC "go there". Harmonisation seems to be inevitable. "You shall have no other God's before me" will be read as "Of course not! No other God's exist!" There is perhaps a problem with Ps 95:3 "For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods" but "its poetry innit?"

If there is a hostility to the findings of evolution relating to the physical world, it seems invariably to come along with the same hostility to any concept of the "evolution of ideas". I guess evolution and evolutionism are both "no-no" words.

What is interesting in that lecture is that "it was not always so", even amongst conservative evangelicals. The rest of the lecture makes that clear by specific example.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Can any shipmates tell me whether the sort of preachers who proclaim Young Earth Creationism also lack any sense that, as described in the scriptures, the history of Israel demonstrates a development in peoples' understanding of God's personality?

In my experience, it was believed that earlier Scriptures were entirely free from error, but newer Scriptures could contain additional information. So people's understanding of God can't change from wrong to right - and a later understanding can't contradict an earlier one - but it can change from incomplete to more complete.

In practice I think YECs struggle to draw a convincing line between "incomplete, but without errors" and "containing errors".

To your specific questions, the YECs of my experience would probably answer as follows:

quote:
That even if one has a high view of biblical authority, the various books of scripture are not all the same, and are affected by the time and circumstances when they were written.

Only to the extent that the prophecies were given by God for specific situations, and the epistles were written for churches facing specific problems. Those situations would (so to speak) inform God what to put in, but they wouldn't cause errors to creep in.

quote:
That scripture is not simply the voice of God, but the books also demonstrate the personalities, concerns and characters of their writers.

Again, the writers' personalities can affect the books, but not to the extent of introducing errors into them.

(Elsewhere I cited the idea that Solomon wrote the Song of Songs when he was a lusty young man, the Proverbs when he was middle-aged and wise, and Ecclesiastes when he was old and bitter.)

quote:
That the prophets proclaimed new understandings of how God called his people to live that it would have been difficult to reach from reading the Torah alone.

I think there was a sense that the prophets proclaimed what Jews "ought to have known", even if it wasn't explicit in the Torah.

quote:
That Judaism after the exile is very different from Judaism as practised in Judah under the later kings.

When the last book of the Old Testament was written, that was the end of God's revelation to Israel until the coming of Christ. Therefore, insofar as Judaism changed during that period, it was a falling away from the truth.

quote:
That it is relevant to understanding what Jesus was saying, and which elements were innovation and which were not, to know a bit about Judaism as it was by the C1.

Yes, to the extent that Jesus criticised the way Judaism had fallen away since the last letter of the Old Testament was written. (His condemnation of the Pharisees was often understood in this light.) Otherwise no.

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

An interesting thing which the same Christians said who I referred to in the OP, was that they believed that Jesus couldn't come back until Israel had been made a nation state (as in, in 1948). I just decided to say nothing - but I can't really place where this type of belief comes from in British Xianity, except that it be a belief (along with the OP of YEC) inherited from US Xians. However con-evo the OICCU and CICCU (and DICCU) get, they never seemed to me to be bothered about creationism. Even if they do love the UCCF DB [Mad]

If it's relevant, I know that these people attend a somewhat emerging-evangelical church, so I am 90% certain that creationism is not the de facto account of Gen 1-3 there.

[ 12. January 2011, 18:44: Message edited by: Calleva Atrebatum ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

What does the UCCF DB have to do with Creationism?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
YEC) inherited from US Xians. However con-evo the OICCU and CICCU (and DICCU) get, they never seemed to me to be bothered about creationism. Even if they do love the UCCF DB

Calleva what do YEC, OICCU, CICCU, DICCU, UCCF and DB stand for please? I'm guessing YEC might mean Young Earth Creation but am I right and what are the others?

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Yes, YEC is Young Earth Creation (or, Creationist/ism depending on context).

UCCF is the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, and they have a Doctrinal Basis (DB) which outlines the Christian beliefs that they hold that make them distinct from other student Christian bodies (many evangelical churches will have similar statements that are often more or less identical). The UCCF has Christian Unions (CU) in every university in the UK - OICCU, CICCU and DICCU are the CUs in Oxford, Cambridge and Durham - the IC in the acronyms is "InterCollegiate" as these universities are comprised of multiple colleges.

Although, as UCCF and CUs have no stated position on Creationism, and it isn't mentioned in the DB, I'm still not sure what relevance the comment has. Except that as probably the most influential Evangelical group in the UK (the majority of UK evangelical church leaders would have come through CUs at university) it is probably noteworthy in the context of this thread that they have no stated position on the subject of Evolution and Recent Creation - indeed, in my experience of 7 years as a leading CU member, the majority of CU members and UCCF staff would reject YEC.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

So Calleva, does this answer your question in the OP?

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
So Calleva, does this answer your question in the OP?

well, insofar as it can be answered... I think these three pages of discussion pretty much have, yes.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
I just decided to say nothing - but I can't really place where this type of belief comes from in British Xianity, except that it be a belief (along with the OP of YEC) inherited from US Xians.

Actually, I think that belief technically originated in Britain, with a guy named Darby. Though it took off to a much greater degree in the US, and it's probably true that the version of it in the UK now "re-entered" the country through American evangelical influence.

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