What is Creationism?

[Arikay]

Hello,

Ive read some article and I've asked questions around here, and i'm not sure exactly what the views of creationists are. I understand the basic ideas, however there seem to be different explinations for different events, and they dont quite mesh. Is there a basic set of creationist beliefs like there are with evolution or is it based on what the person feels is right?

 

[Orihalcon]

from what i understand, it's a theory that there is an intelligent, conscious entity that brought the universe into existance. everything that exists has been designed.

 

[Jerry Smith]

Originally posted by Orihalcon
from what i understand, it's a theory that there is an intelligent, conscious entity that brought the universe into existance. everything that exists has been designed.

I disagree with this. If these were the criteria, then many who accept mainstream science and its conclusions would be called "creationists". I think the one element common to all creationists is that they insist on "special creation" of separate "kinds" of organisms. In other words, they believe that God created many different "kinds" of organisms and placed them on the earth miraculously in forms that would be recognizable to us.

Many creationits also dispute the age of the earth and contend that the earth was recently completely submerged by water, but all that is necessary to be considered a "creationist" is that they believe that organisms were created in something close to their modern forms, and that common descent of humans with any other organism is false.

 

[Micaiah]

Creationists are given that label to distinguish them from Evolutionists.

Scripture makes some simple and clear statements about Creation. The Creationist accepts that those statements are truth, even though at times they appear to contradict popular science. We are confident that true science will confirm God's word.

So what does the Creationist believe. Read the first two chapters of Scripture? This is a historical record of Creation, so accept the plain sense of the words.

Incidentally, I think you will find there are a variety of opinions among scientists on the meaning and implications of evolution.

 

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by Orihalcon
from what i understand, it's a theory that there is an intelligent, conscious entity that brought the universe into existance. everything that exists has been designed.

That also describes theistic evolution.

Creationism comes in several flavors.  There is a continuum of creationist theories  http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/1593_the_creationevolution_continu_12_7_2000.asp

The common denominator that I can find is that creationists believe that organisms are manufactured artifacts made off the planet by an unknown manufacturing process by a deity and then placed fully formed on the planet.

 

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by Micaiah
Creationists are given that label to distinguish them from Evolutionists.

Scripture makes some simple and clear statements about Creation. The Creationist accepts that those statements are truth, even though at times they appear to contradict popular science. We are confident that true science will confirm God's word.

Creationism is not restricted to biblical creationism.

So what does the Creationist believe. Read the first two chapters of Scripture? This is a historical record of Creation, so accept the plain sense of the words.

Do you belive in a solid sky that separates upperwaters from us? Can you show me the floodgates in this sky? If not then you don't accept the plain sense of the words. For all their claims of taking the word at face value, creationist still read alot into their bible. For instance, find me passages that describe a post-flood ice age or post-flood biological radiation. Can't do it huh? Yet these are two things advocated by various creationists, with neither scriptural nor empirical support.

 

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by Micaiah
So what does the Creationist believe. Read the first two chapters of Scripture? This is a historical record of Creation, so accept the plain sense of the words.

As Rufus noted, this won't work. Creationism is not simply a reading of the two different creation stories in Genesis.  The typology that is used to describe species traces back to Plato.  The concept that the Flood accounts for all geological features is not in the Bible.  In fact, the Bible describes a Flood so gentle that the location of pre-Flood Eden can be described by unchanged post-Flood rivers.

John Haught looked at creationism and found that creationism has 3 sources: 
1. Greek philosophy of eternal types
2. A literal reading of Genesis 1, but not Genesis 2.
3. The theories of 18th century naturalists, which includes the Flood accounting for all geological features

 

[Arikay]

Interesting. Someone was talking about speciation (something like that) that the species mutated after the ark to get what we have today. However they didnt mutate enough for macro evolution.
Would this still be considered creationism?

Well, evolutionists do have slightly different opinions of the findings, however, there isnt such a wide difference as with creationism.

 

[Micaiah]

Scripture isn't a science text, or history book. However it does make scientific and historical assertions. Scripture doesn't teach anything about the laws of physics, but that doesn't stop the Christian formulating scientific laws and theories on the matter. There are many Christians who have made great sceintific discoveries. However, that is always done within the framework of truth taught in Scripture.

 

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by Micaiah
Scripture isn't a science text, or history book. However it does make scientific and historical assertions. Scripture doesn't teach anything about the laws of physics, but that doesn't stop the Christian formulating scientific laws and theories on the matter. There are many Christians who have made great sceintific discoveries. However, that is always done within the framework of truth taught in Scripture.

Well one biblical assetion is that the sky is a solid dome and contains floodgates. I guess that is one truth in scripture that modern world has forgotten about. When taken in an appropriate biblical worldview, it is clear that the moon landings were a hoax.

 

[ocean]

Another biblical "scientific" assertion is that the earth is flat and held up on pillars.

I guess all those pictures of a round earth were hoaxes too.

 

[JohnR7]

Originally posted by lucaspa
Creationism comes in several flavors.  There is a continuum of creationist theories  http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/1593_the_creationevolution_continu_12_7_2000.asp 

So why would you object to something like that being taught in our school system?  Just a overview of all the various creation theorys. If a student had a interest in one of the various theorys, then they could do a science project on it. Or they could do a project that would explain all the different theorys.

 

[Arikay]

How could you do a Science experiment on it?

Well, the biggest problem is that creationism is completly based around a religion and evolution is not.

Originally posted by JohnR7
So why would you object to something like that being taught in our school system?  Just a overview of all the various creation theorys. If a student had a interest in one of the various theorys, then they could do a science project on it. Or they could do a project that would explain all the different theorys.

 

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by Arikay
Interesting. Someone was talking about speciation (something like that) that the species mutated after the ark to get what we have today. However they didnt mutate enough for macro evolution.
Would this still be considered creationism?

Well, evolutionists do have slightly different opinions of the findings, however, there isnt such a wide difference as with creationism.

Remember that Darwin's famous book was On the Origin of the Species.  What has happened is that speciation is so well documented that creationists can't fight it any more.  Therefore they have retreated to allow speciation but try to make an imaginary wall such that change can't go to "macroevolution".  Unfortunately, we are never told where in the taxonomic hierarchy that wall is supposed to be.

What creationists have really done by accepting speciation as a result of adapting to new environments is accept evolution.  What they are trying to deny is atheism. But since evolution was never atheism to begin with, this is unnecessary.

Science works in layers. Answer one question and 3 or 4 new questions pop up out of the answer.  All evolutionists agree that species evolved by descent with modification.  They also all agree that natural selection is the means to get designs in biological organisms.  This is how Eldredge put it:
"We have come a long way since Darwin, but we still have a way to go before we can find ourselves in total agreement on all details of how the evolutionary process works. Indeed, realist that I am, I know that day will never come.

We do all agree that life has evolved.  We do all agree that the reason why organisms tend to fit their environments so well is that their anatomies, physiologies, and behaviors have been shaped by natural selection, working on local populations living resource-limited lives within the confines of local ecosystems.  And we are coming ever closer  to agreeing that whatever phenomena of stability and genetic change take place within local populations, gaps between species arise primordially through speciation." Niles Eldredge, The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism, pg 89

 

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by JohnR7
So why would you object to something like that being taught in our school system?  Just a overview of all the various creation theorys. If a student had a interest in one of the various theorys, then they could do a science project on it. Or they could do a project that would explain all the different theorys.

As long as you teach them like you teach phlogiston theory or geocentrism -- as falsified theories -- I have no problem.  However, that isn't how you want them taught.  You want them taught as currently valid theories.

Also, there is the issue of time.  Is this an appropriate use of very limited class time?  We don't have time to teach all the thousands of falsified theories out there.  Instead, we concentrate on the valid theories.  My daughter did an experiment with geocentrism and observations of planets in the night sky as an exercise in how theories are falsified.  There are several ways we could do the same with creationism.  However, I doubt that is what you want.

 

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by Micaiah
Scripture isn't a science text, or history book. However it does make scientific and historical assertions. Scripture doesn't teach anything about the laws of physics, but that doesn't stop the Christian formulating scientific laws and theories on the matter. There are many Christians who have made great sceintific discoveries. However, that is always done within the framework of truth taught in Scripture.

But you pointed out one very important point: the "framework" doesn't teach anything about physics.  So anything Newton or Einstein discover can't ever be outside the "framework of truth taught in Scripture", can it?

Now, the Christians (and they were all Christians) who discovered an old earth or evolution considered that they were within the framework of truth taught in Scripture.  They weren't within a literal interpretation of scripture.  So, are you saying that a literal interpretation is the only framework of truth taught in scripture?

If so, aren't interpretations human constructs?  How do you know your human interpretation is any more true than another intepretation?

 

[Micaiah]

Lucaspa,

Are you a Christian?

How is it that some Christians can claim Scripture sanctions homosexuality and even so called Christians deny the resurrection of Christ? You can make Scripture say whatever you like if you use the right interpretation.

 

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by Micaiah
You can make Scripture say whatever you like if you use the right interpretation.

And that is how we get creationists. . . .

 

[JohnR7]

Originally posted by ocean
Another biblical "scientific" assertion is that the earth is flat and held up on pillars.

Thank God we all came to our senses and assigned that theory to the same junk pile they assigned the theory that we evolved from a common ancestor to the monkey.

 

[JohnR7]

Originally posted by ocean
Another biblical "scientific" assertion is that the earth is flat and held up on pillars. 

I think that theory ended up on the same junk pile as the theory that we all evolved from a common ancestor to the monkey.