7 Billion People in 6000 Years

[FoxyMoxie]

Do Creationists even realise how NEW Creationism as a Christian doctrine is? The historic churches (RCC, Orthodox, Anglican, historic Protestant groups like the Methodists and Presbyterians) have never had a problem with evolution - the fuss over Origins of Species was over the idea of nature being 'cruel', but not evolution as an idea. Creationism, like the pro-life movement, is a 20th Century idea and has no basis in historic church teachings.

It shouldn't even be a question that it has no place in schools. In the UK even church schools must teach evolution and are forbidden from teaching Creationism as factual - they can say that some religions believe in it, but cannot teach it in science lessons.

[Walking Cat Bed]

Mutations being able to fashion eyes or feathers or blood clotting in creatures with ancestors lacking eyes or feathers or blood clotting? Humans and apes having a common ancestor? Human intelligence being a total fluke? Dogs and cats living together?

MASS HYSTERIA!!!

Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

[prayawaythefundie]

How do they differentiate microevolution from macroevolution? With statements such as:

"Variation and natural selection do not produce new genetic information; they only rearrange or remove the existing information."

and "Mutations do not generate new genetic information; they destroy some of the existing information."

:cray-cray: A nice genetics class could fix that.

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation! I'm always fascinated by creationist beliefs and how people make it all add up in their minds while not much of it really adds up scientifically. Creationism is something I only read about. It's not very common here. While some people don't really understand evolution where I live, they still kinda accept it or at least tolerate it as the the common scientific standard. :lol:

[CyborgKin]

Do Creationists even realise how NEW Creationism as a Christian doctrine is? The historic churches (RCC, Orthodox, Anglican, historic Protestant groups like the Methodists and Presbyterians) have never had a problem with evolution - the fuss over Origins of Species was over the idea of nature being 'cruel', but not evolution as an idea. Creationism, like the pro-life movement, is a 20th Century idea and has no basis in historic church teachings.

It shouldn't even be a question that it has no place in schools. In the UK even church schools must teach evolution and are forbidden from teaching Creationism as factual - they can say that some religions believe in it, but cannot teach it in science lessons.

I don't follow. Isn't Darwinism only a 19th century idea?

The way you phrased your statements seemed like you were saying the church has been pro-evolution since the first century.

I found a quote from dear old Duane T Gish from the 80s

Do you have a source for that quote? It would be a great feedback question to pose to the folks on creation.com.

[FoxyMoxie]

I mean that Creationism didn't pop up in its current form as some kind of instant rebuff to Darwinism, and the mainstream churches accepted evolution if not all of Darwinism (eg Cardinal Newman explicitly said that evolution and faith can coexist). John Ray and Linnaeus, although neither using the term evolution, both talk about biological change in the 17th and 18th centuries - so although the church couldn't have been called 'pro evolution' then, there were certainly Christians who were going along those lines.

[August]

I know more about the state of the science around then, rather than reaction to it, but I thought that up until Darwin (and Wallace) there was no non-supernatural mechanism for change?

[anniebgood]

I got into a discussion about the dissemination of people with my Fundie stepbrother who was raised Catholic and then turned. He totally believes that the entire world came from the offspring of Adam and Eve, that the brothers married their sisters and so on and so on. I said how do you account for different races and genetic DNA? He said God did it.

He nearly spit out his Ginger Ale when I was telling him about a pastor friend of mine who came back to LA out of her retirement to do a funeral for a good friend of her family. I said she had 2 homes when she went to seminary, and when she was ordained it was a great celebration. He can't understand that some women actually do have a gift of speech. He asked my mom about it and how about St Paul and women being silent, she smiled shyly and said, "Deal with it, things change".

[CyborgKin]

What creationists say about articles published on natural selection pre-Darwin:

William Wells (1757–1817) was a Scottish-American doctor who, in 1813 (and published posthumously in 1818), described a concept like natural selection. He said that in central Africa some inhabitants ‘would be better fitted than the others to bear the diseases of the country. This race would consequently multiply, while the others would decrease.’ He went on to say that ‘the color of this vigorous race … would be dark’ and that ‘as the darkest would be the best fitted for the climate, this would at length become the most prevalent, if not the only race, in the particular country in which it had originated’.⁶

Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) was a Scottish fruit-grower who, in 1831, published a book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, in the appendix of which he briefly mentioned natural selection and evolutionary change. Matthew publicly claimed that he had anticipated Charles Darwin, and even described himself on the title pages of his books as ‘Discoverer of the Principle of Natural Selection’.

Professor Pearson points out that Wells, Matthew and Charles Darwin were all educated in the university city of Edinburgh, ‘a place famous for its scientific clubs and societies’, which was also Hutton’s home town. He makes the interesting suggestion ‘that a half-forgotten concept from his [Charles’s] student days resurfaced afresh in his mind as he struggled to explain the observations of species and varieties compiled on the voyage of the Beagle’.³

Edward Blyth (1810–1873) was the man whose ideas probably influenced Darwin most. An English chemist and zoologist, Blyth wrote three major articles on natural selection that were published in The Magazine of Natural History from 1835 to 1837.⁷ Charles was well aware of these. Not only was this one of the leading zoological journals of that time, in which his friends Henslow, Jenyns and Lyell had all published articles, but also it seems that the University of Cambridge, England, has Darwin’s own copies of the issues containing the Blyth articles, with Charles’s handwritten notes in the margins!⁸

3. Reviewed by Paul Pearson in Nature 425(6959):665, 16 October 2003.

6. Quoted by Stephen Jay Gould in Gould, S., Natural selection as a creative force, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Belknap Press of Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA, p. 138, 2002.

7. Blyth, E., The Magazine of Natural History Volumes 8, 9 and 10, 1835–1837. Sourced from ref. 8, Appendices.

8. Source: Bradbury, A., Charles Darwin—The truth? Part 7—The missing link, www3.mistral.co.uk/bradburyac/dar7.html, 30 October 2003.

Source: creation.com/charles-darwins-illegitimate-brainchild

[salex]

Do Creationists even realise how NEW Creationism as a Christian doctrine is? The historic churches (RCC, Orthodox, Anglican, historic Protestant groups like the Methodists and Presbyterians) have never had a problem with evolution - the fuss over Origins of Species was over the idea of nature being 'cruel', but not evolution as an idea. Creationism, like the pro-life movement, is a 20th Century idea and has no basis in historic church teachings.

It shouldn't even be a question that it has no place in schools. In the UK even church schools must teach evolution and are forbidden from teaching Creationism as factual - they can say that some religions believe in it, but cannot teach it in science lessons.

I am not sure how many realize how recent this is, however, what I find is that it is part of the "holier than thou" race. The earth is only 6000-10000 years old became a public belief of an inlaw about the time he became a fundie anti evolution politician. His anti abortion stance has moved from no exceptions for rape or incest to no exception for ectopic pregnancies, and wanting to ban many contraceptives. All the inlaw's kids went to college, his grandchildren are being groomed not to go to college, in general. While I understand college is not required, it remains to be seen how this will work out.

I was never taught that the Bible was literal in my methodist church, and my husband, who was more American Baptist, also was not taught this in the 70s. The same church he went to would now expect him to toe the line on the literal 6, 24 hour day creation story :?