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.
GGGs is so bad! Seldom does a YECer get this reputation.
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To: GodGunsGuts I repeat, stop hitting the abuse button. 210 posted on 10/22/2009 3:29:31 PM PDT by Admin Moderator
I'm thinking that there is a real self esteem issue there. Those that project the playground bully image with the anonymity of the internet are usually the timid victims in real life.
Sorry, but I’ve never been banned from FR. Of course, you can tell from my posts that I generally don’t engage in the kind of personal attacks that you do.
I see you still will not deal with your unChristian behavior. Maybe God will get through to you some day.
I don’t know. Not my area of expertise.
I don't mean to paint all who believe in Young Earth Creation with the same brush. Most are very decent Christians with a narrow interpretation of Scripture. I do not belittle the belief because it is different than mine, but I do try to explain the differences to those who are interested. Unfortunately, GGG and his amen chorus chap a lot of butts.
Rather a different approach from that of some here.
Speaking of adult behavior, it is considered bad manners to talk about a fellow FReeper behind their back. But I’m sure you learned that during your previous screenname, Mr. Manners. You know, the one you used to use before you got banned.
PS What was your former screenname again?
I apologize. I do generally attempt to ping people when I talk about them. And I will try to do so for you in the future.
And I guess you hadn’t read my post at 243.
Presumably you’ve had a fair amount of conversation on the whole creationism/ evolution thing. Do you typically find that there is real ugliness on one side or the other? Or is that just kind of a random, one-off occurrence?
LOL...this, from the guy who calls himself a Christian, but can’t decide if God even exists. And if your version of god does exist, you posit that he/she/it would be an emergent property of an infinite multivierse!
And just for the record, have you ever posted over at Darwin Central?
I could pull up a few of your recent posts to show your hypocrisy.
Shaking in my boots...what do you want, money, power, fame?
What I posted, in effect, was this:
Observation: The finely-tuned nature of the universe is extraordinary, and could only be explained by one of two possibilities.
Either:
Explanation A: God created the universe.
Explanation B: There exist an infinite number of universes outside of our own.
If one starts from a position of reason, then those would seem to be the only two reasonable explanations for this phenomenon.
So either A or B has to be true.
If A is true, then: Voila. God exists.
If B on the other hand is true (note that I never stated that A was untrue, but IF B is true), then basically everything that can happen will happen, and, yes, this seems to me to imply that an all-knowing, all-powerful being will arise somewhere in the multiverse.
The point is: Essentially, if A, then A. If B, then also A.
It's true that a "B" A would not necessarily equal an "A" A. But the argument deals a blow to the notion that there is no God.
And in any event, what I do or don't believe about God still does not excuse your unGodly and unChristian behavior.
I just thought I would mention that, since you don't seem to have realized that from the Bible, a true Christian is admonished to do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
You surprise me. All I want is you to honor me with another thread dedication!
I already answered that, when I told you that I didn't know what "Darwin Central" was. I do now. I looked it up today.
Or at least, B pretty strongly suggests A. It's not an iron-clad argument, but I think it's a pretty fair one.
By the way, I’ve answered all of your questions. I’ve even apologized for failing to ping you to a thread.
Now when will you apologize to me?
When will you show humility for your actions? And when will you start acting like a real Christian?
What do you want me apoligize for...exposing you as a phony?
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