Posted on 10/23/2009 8:18:13 PM PDT by john in springfield
After spending time on some of the recent discussions here at FR about Young Earth Creationism (YEC) and other points of view (which I will call Old Earth Creationism (OEC) and Naturalistic Evolution), I found myself wondering: how many FReepers (and how many Americans) hold each particular view?
Obviously, there aren't any statistics on FReepers. But there are on Americans as a whole, and on certain groups of Americans.
The best general resource I've found so far on people's viewpoints is located here. I will summarize some of those here.
(Note: This page uses slightly different terms for a couple of these viewpoints, but as far as I can tell, they mean the same thing.)
About 45% accept the Young Earth Creationist viewpoint, about 37% accept the Old Earth Creationist viewpoint, and around 12% to 14% accept the Naturalistic Evolution viewpoint.
This has held fairly steady over the past 25 years or so. The percentage who believe in NE may have increased slightly, but overall, the numbers have held fairly steady.
A CBS News poll gave a bit different percentages: YEC 55%, OEC 27%, NE 13%.
Observations:
There are a lot of people who believe in young earth creationism, and there are also a lot of people who believe in old earth creationism as well.
The vast majority of Americans believe in God.
The majority of Americans believe in evolution.
The numbers change significantly among the college-educated:
YEC: 25%
OEC: 54%
NE: 17%
It is interesting to me that most - a full 54% - college-educated Americans accept the Old-Earth Creationist (or theistic evolutionist) view.
Note also the effect that a college education seems to have: With a few exceptions, people who go to college don't stop believing in God. However, quite a few do seem to shift from YEC to OEC.
This graph also means that an awful lot of people who don't go to college believe in YEC rather than in either OEC or NE.
Note that while this poll is nearly 20 years old, based on what we know from some other polls, overall beliefs do not seem to have changed greatly during this time.
YEC: 5%
OEC: 40%
NE: 55%
Note: The word "scientist" seems to be very vague in this poll, which apparently includes a lot of people with professional degrees in fields completely unrelated to biology, geology, etc.
In any event, a majority of "scientists" don't seem to believe that God was involved in the development of life on earth. It's not a very large majority, though. "Scientists" are divided as to whether God was involved. Most of those who think He was believe that this involvement included the process of evolution.
However, given that only 5% of "scientists" support YEC, the under-1% figure may well be true. I just don't know. Nor do I have access to the original 1987 Newsweek article to see exactly how they got their information.
If there's another poll or two out there on this, it might be interesting to know about.
A 2007 Harris Poll showed the following percentages of Christians who accept the theory of evolution:
Catholics: 43%
Protestants: 30%
"Born-Again Christians": 16%
Finally, a 2005 CBS Poll stated that a full two thirds (67%) of Americans believe that it's possible for one to believe both in God and in evolution.
It is a common tactic among the YEC types to bait, insult and tattle to mods if there is a response in kind. Initially I was shocked, then insulted, now indifferent. I continue to read the threads and post, but will no longer respond to the chest thumping, feces throwing, red-assed alpha male types. It just isn't Christian.
More silly pictures from the contemptible fraud. Yes, the passage from Matthew addresses you perfectly.
“I continue to read the threads and post, but will no longer respond...”
I admire your restraint!
And of course he means that in the most nonjudgmental, Christian of ways. After all, he is not here judge, but to be judged. Let's hope some day he will convert to real Christianity.
Once I realized exactly what I was dealing with I decided that I wouldn't stoop to that level. Why bother when there are so many adults with which to exchange thoughts and ideas without getting an un-Christian blow-back. I'm pretty sure he really believes that Jesus is smiling on his conduct.
That was just totally hilarious. Thanks for posting it!!
The one thing that antagonizes his type more than anything else is the fact that educated, pious Christians can and do hold that creation and evolution do coexist. Many, including over a billion Catholics, believe that evolution is the process created and then used by God to bring man and ultimately His Son into a dynamic universe.
The Catholic Church holds that "It [the Bible] is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it. One cannot get from it a scientific explanation of how the world arose; one can only glean religious experience from it. Anything else is an image and a way of describing things whose aim is to make profound realities graspable to human beings. One must distinguish between the form of portrayal and the content that is portrayed. The form would have been chosen from what was understandable at the time -- from the images which surrounded the people who lived then, which they used in speaking and in thinking, and thanks to which they were able to understand the greater realities. And only the reality that shines through these images would be what was intended and what was truly enduring. Thus Scripture would not wish to inform us about how the different species of plant life gradually appeared or how the sun and the moon and the stars were established. Its purpose ultimately would be to say one thing: God created the world.
Roman Catholicism and Genesis
A review of The Doctrines of Genesis 1–11: A Compendium and Defense of Traditional Catholic Theology on Origins by Fr Victor P. Warkulwiz
http://creation.com/review-doctrines-of-genesis-1-11-warkulwiz
This is cool.
Now when someone asks me what I believe, I’ll have some links to point to.
If you can agree to a dialog without antagonism and insult I will respond. Although the Catholic Church harbors a diversity of opinion, the positions expressed by Fr. Warulwiz do not represent anything other than a small minority of Catholics and do not represent the position of the Church. The citation in post 239 is by Pope Benedict XVI and echos the position of Pope John Paul II before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996.
“The Catholic Church holds that “It [the Bible] is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it.”
Very true. However, GGG and the crew refuse to acknowledge that Catholics are Christians.
It is always you who leads off with the insults, so I’m not sure why your directing your plea for dialogue at me. At any rate, according to Fr Victor P. Warkulwiz the historic position of the Catholic Church has always been biblical YEC. Have you read the book, btw. If you haven’t, perhaps you should...who knows, you might even change your mind about a few things.
Catholics are a conundrum for GGG and his posse. They will find one or two Catholics out of the main stream that they will agree with on the issue of creation, and them declare them heretics when a their interpretation of Apostolic Succession, Sola Scriptura or the five points of Calvinism is raised.
So much for your phony plea for “dialogue.”
Do you agree with Fr. Warkulwiz's positions on Apostolic Succession too? I have read the book as well as the encyclical Humani Generis that it was based upon. Whats your point? I have also read the Inquisition Minutes and Decree of the 1616 trial of Galileo. Do you think that the Church still holds that the sun revolves around the earth?
You just couldn't help yourself, could you?
For one brief moment there, it looked as if GGG might actually engage in some real and adult dialogue...
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