I fully agree with the above statements. With the caveat that the Nicene Creed does not include any positional statements regarding the age of the earth or the manner in which life appeared upon the earth. Insisting that one take a position for or against either is contrary to (what I believe is) one of the goals of the Creed which is unifying the church. This is why I have tried to explain in this thread that this issue is not so important as to cause so much contention, particularly among professed Christians.
Creationists practice all of the above and by doing so, distort the Gospel.
Perhaps some creationists do as you suggest, but certainly not all, and in my experience, not even most. I suggest that you consider changing your paradigm to include the possibility that people can be sincere, yet wrong. When you suggest that people are lying, you are by definition suggesting that they are KNOWINGLY misleading people. Do you really think that there is such a vast conspiracy among all the Christian Churches in this country who believe that the Bible is inerrant and literal? No, it is not so. The simple fact is, these people truly believe this in their hearts to be true.
There are certainly exceptions to any generalizations regarding human behavior, but generally, these are well-meaning people. They are arguing for what they believe to be true, they are not attempting to deceive.
I will grant you (probably to the delight of non-Christians on this board, lol) that a lot of Christians who show up here are ill-prepared to discuss science and are in over their head when it comes to reasoning logically. At least, that has been my observation. However, can you not admire their determination to enter the lion's den, so to speak?
Believe it or not, I just happened to stumble upon this thread out of curiosity of the subject matter. I have never visited a "crevo" thread or whatever it is called before this one (to the best of my recollection), and I have been a Freeper since 2000.
There are certainly exceptions to any generalizations regarding human behavior, but generally, these are well-meaning people. They are arguing for what they believe to be true, they are not attempting to deceive.
I would also remind anyone reading this that in all likelihood, the persons you may encounter in these forums are probably NOT a very good representative sample from which to draw conclusions. Many here are probably here because they are looking for a fight. This includes representatives from all sides of the issues.
If we continue to to concentrate on and to reinforce stereotypes of each other, (i.e. all creationists are liars, all Biblical literalists are radical fundamentalists, all Christians are idiots, all evolutionists are atheists, all scientists promote secularism, all non-biblical literalists are evil,) we will never find common ground and will remain at odds with each other.
"This is why I have tried to explain in this thread that this issue is not so important as to cause so much contention, particularly among professed Christians."
I understand your position and I think you are dead wrong.
It is important to our country that we teach good science in schools. That a certain sect of morons has been duped by charlatans is not a reason to allow the desire for "unity" to hurt our country. In fact, it is evil as far as I am concerned, to spout nonsense and leave children in ignorance due to willful ignorance on the part of adult
semi-Christians.
"The simple fact is, these people truly believe this in their hearts to be true."
Not the creationists who post on these threads. They are willfully ignorant.
"However, can you not admire their determination to enter the lion's den, so to speak?"
No. Do you admire the person that goes into a marked minefield and gets blown up?
"we will never find common ground and will remain at odds with each other."
I don't want to find common ground with people that are detached from reality.
Yes they do argue to deceive. That is their only hope of hurting evolutionary theory.