What makes a creationist a creationist?

[Darkness27]

There are many ways to interpret scripture, and almost everyone interprets it a little differently. So my question is at what point would an interpretation no longer be considered creationist?

P.S. I consider myself a theistic evolutionist, and a creationist only in the broadest sense in that God created the Heavens and the Earth. If I have overstepped my boundaries I apologize in advanced and I will leave.

Edit:
A very moderate person could believe in special creation (abiogenesis is false), and that God made several distinct populations and guided them through evolution over billions of years while God still created us through supernatural means and we are not biologically connected to any other species. This person would adhere to special creation, accept evolution, yet put many of the same constraints on evolution as main-stream creationists do. So would this person be a liberal creationist or a conservative evolutionist?

 

[WingsOfEagles07]

Well, Ask yourself, What makes Evolutionists a Evolutionist? Then answer the question you pose. But what makes Creationists a Creationist, Is that "we" believe that GOD created everything in the Universe and the origins of Life, that lines up with the Biblical Account of creation in Genesis.

 

[Darkness27]

I see what you're saying, an evolutionist is someone who accepts evolution, yet many creationists also accept evolution on small scales. It is easy to tell when people are radical on this subject, but as you get closer to the middle it gets harder. Like a young Earth creationist has a radical stance by saying that the universe and Earth were created in six literal days less than ten-thousand years ago. Or a more moderate stance from an old Earth creationist could say that the Earth is billions of years old and its not six literal days but really a day is millions, or even billions of years. You get the same kind of things on the evolutionist side too. Like you can take a radical stance and say that the origins of life is natural and everything evolved from single cell organisms including humans. Or you can have a more moderate stance and say that God created the first life and things evolved, but humans were created specially and have no biological connection to any other species. And when you start having creationists accepting micro-evolution the middle starts to get convoluted.

 

[MattLangley]

A creationist is someone who believes in special creation:

Special creation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically that God created us via supernatural means. Young Earth Creationists typically don't believe in evolution at all and believed we were poofed as we are, humans and that every "kind" was poofed as an individual act of special creation.

Old Earth Creationists vary, though most do accept some form of evolution just not as the creation point of life, whether that be initial life that evolved into all life being an act of special creation or whether kinds etc...

Creationist does not equal a person who believes God created us in some fashion. I, like any Christian, believe we were all created by God... I am not a Creationist though since I don't believe God supernaturally created us. Instead I think God naturally created us.

 

[WingsOfEagles07]

I mean, I understand what you are saying, but as for me, I an Young-Earth Creationist, and I do not accept any Evolution of any kind (No offense Darkness 27) That is just my views, I believe that if Creationists believe in Evolution they are being too Biased. Because really Evolution and Creation do go together, If they did, Evolution vs. Creation would not be arguing against the origins of the universe and the beginning of life. That is just my presupposition though.

 

[Darkness27]

According to Wiki I adhere to the Catholic idea of special creation, but not creationism.

Still, I would say the majority of creationists do accept (not believe) some form of evolution. Usually in saying that variation with in kinds is okay, like breeds of dogs.

I don't mean to argue WingsOfEagles07, but at its most basic evolution is allele frequency changes in populations, to deny that is to ignore everything we know about genetics. An easy example is that you are different from your parents and they are different form their parents, it is a form of evolution called micro-evolution, which most creationists agree with.

A very moderate person could believe in special creation (abiogenesis is false), and that God made several distinct populations and guided them through evolution over billions of years while God still created us through supernatural means and we are not biologically connected to any other species. This person would adhere to special creation, accept evolution, yet put many of the same constraints on evolution as main-stream creationists do. So would this person be a liberal creationist or a conservative evolutionist?

 

[keyarch]

There are many ways to interpret scripture, and almost everyone interprets it a little differently.

I think there is "one" way that Scripture is written and "should" be interpreted. There are many interpretations by man, and I believe that all of them have some degree of error to them because of man's inability to understand or desire for it to fit their prior worldview.
"My" interpretation is an attempt at a "literal" translation of Scripture regarding Genesis. Simply put:

1. God created the "Heaven" (universe) and "Earth" (unfinished globe) at the "Beginning" which could have been billions of years ago if not more.
2. Some 6,000 years ago, He "fashioned" the Earth to support life and created all the biology mentioned in Genesis - fully formed.

Since the "creation week" there have been variations of "kinds" based on allowable limits within the genetic information that pre-exists.

"I believe" that any interpretation that combines the age of the universe with life on this planet is wrong. Inserting long periods for the days of the creation week is also wrong.

 

[Darkness27]

"I believe" that any interpretation that combines the age of the universe with life on this planet is wrong. Inserting long periods for the days of the creation week is also wrong.

I agree that there is only one truth in how the bible was constructed and how it should be read, yet I believe that no one has the one true way to interpret scripture except God.

While you believe that your interpretation is more correct than some one else, you still recognize them as Christian, or a creationist. Like you don't like the gap theory for the days in genesis, but in most circles they are still considered creationists.

 

[WingsOfEagles07]

According to Wiki I adhere to the Catholic idea of special creation, but not creationism.

Still, I would say the majority of creationists do accept (not believe) some form of evolution. Usually in saying that variation with in kinds is okay, like breeds of dogs.

I don't mean to argue WingsOfEagles07, but at its most basic evolution is allele frequency changes in populations, to deny that is to ignore everything we know about genetics. An easy example is that you are different from your parents and they are different form their parents, it is a form of evolution called micro-evolution, which most creationists agree with.

A very moderate person could believe in special creation (abiogenesis is false), and that God made several distinct populations and guided them through evolution over billions of years while God still created us through supernatural means and we are not biologically connected to any other species. This person would adhere to special creation, accept evolution, yet put many of the same constraints on evolution as main-stream creationists do. So would this person be a liberal creationist or a conservative evolutionist?

I know about alle's, and genetic things because I had biology class in 10th grade im in 11th grade this year. I am sorry but I do not accept any kind of evolution, because GOD created every living creature "after his own kind" not evolution from another creature. I do not care what man says about the genetics of animals or humans, GOD says each animal and creature that is created reproduces "after its own kind" not evolution over millions of years. millions of years is wrong anyway. Here is one link,

The Earth's Magnetic Field is Young

and tomorrow, i will post some other links for you to read that shows the earth is young and not old. by accepting any kind of evolution to me is like putting your faith in what a "scientist" says because his work is based on assumptions, like the age of rocks, the scientist depends and puts his "faith" in the object that fallible man made in order to produce the correct answer. And accepting what he says, is like putting your faith into what he is saying is true. I only believe the Word of GOD and the word of GOD alone. =] And were not arguing, It's all cool =]

 

[Sophophile]

I know about alle's, and genetic things because I had biology class in 10th grade im in 11th grade this year. I am sorry but I do not accept any kind of evolution, because GOD created every living creature "after his own kind" not evolution from another creature. I do not care what man says about the genetics of animals or humans, GOD says each animal and creature that is created reproduces "after its own kind" not evolution over millions of years.

Hi WingsOfEagles07

"After his own kind" sounds kind of vague. The theory of evolution also holds that all species reproduce only their own kind, so the Bible and evolution agree on this point.

The only point of contention seems to be the millions (actually billions) of years required for creatures reproducing their own kind to change and diverge, because evolution is such a slow process.

... millions of years is wrong anyway.

The universe is at least millions of years old based on direct observations of supernova. We can measure how far away they are using trigonometry e.g. supernova 1987A is 160,000 light years away. We can also observe the laws of physics were the same when the supernovae exploded (hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago) as they are now, such as nuclear forces and the speed of light. Thus, we can prove, using direct observations, that the universe it at least millions of years old.

Cheers
S.

 

[Darkness27]

I know about alle's, and genetic things because I had biology class in 10th grade im in 11th grade this year. I am sorry but I do not accept any kind of evolution, because GOD created every living creature "after his own kind" not evolution from another creature.

First off sorry for the delay.

Creationists usually differentiate between two types of evolution, micro and macro evolution. Macro evolution is what you are thinking of, and has two different meanings. The scientific meaning, which is essentially speciation(which we have observed), and the creationist meaning which is changes between kinds, which we have not observed yet according to creationists. The second kind is micro evolution, which is variation with in species, or kinds as creationists like to define it. Creationists, as a general rule, don't have a problem with micro evolution (variation with in kinds).

I do not care what man says about the genetics of animals or humans, GOD says each animal and creature that is created reproduces "after its own kind" not evolution over millions of years.

Well you should care, a lot of our food comes from the ability for life to adapt, genetic engineering in agriculture is fundamental to us not starving! I think micro evolution is very much embraced by creationists because it does account for what we see, and at the same time puts constraints on evolution so that no kind is able to reproduce anything other than its own kind. My goal is to get you to accept micro evolution! I am trying to be as objective as possible in this conversation, but definately talk about micro evolution to your fellow creationists, especially those that have been around the block.

millions of years is wrong anyway. Here is one link,

I can't show it because I don't have 50 posts in my name yet

and tomorrow, i will post some other links for you to read that shows the earth is young and not old.

I look forward to it. As someone else mentioned, the universe must be millions of years old because of the stars we see. About four months ago we just saw an object known as a quazar 13 billion light years away, that means that it took the light 13 billion years to reach us from its starting point. Unlike you I don't have a link, but look up parallax and Cepheid varriable stars and pay attention to how far away in light years, or parcects (about 3ly is one parcect) we can measure stars we see.

by accepting any kind of evolution to me is like putting your faith in what a "scientist" says because his work is based on assumptions, like the age of rocks, the scientist depends and puts his "faith" in the object that fallible man made in order to produce the correct answer. And accepting what he says, is like putting your faith into what he is saying is true.

There aren't that many assumptions in science, the only two that I'm aware of is that the universe is real, and that the same laws that we observe here on Earth are the same everywhere in the universe. Other than that everything must be scruitinized to the highest degree, they don't believe in the age of rocks, or evolution, or atomic theory, but that is what all the evidence points too.

I only believe the Word of GOD and the word of GOD alone. =] And were not arguing, It's all cool =]

Belief implies accepting without evidence, or contrary to evidence. I believe in God because there is no positive scientificly empiricle evidence supporting God, or disproving God (that's not why I'm a believer but why I must say I believe instead of I accept God based on the evidence). You don't have to have faith in scientists to accept what they say as valid.

 

[marktheblake]

I agree that there is only one truth in how the bible was constructed and how it should be read, yet I believe that no one has the one true way to interpret scripture except God.

That cant be, God is revealed to us through the scripture, and the truth will be revealed to those who seek it earnestly. That is scriptural, but unfortunately I am hopeless at remembering references

We can also observe the laws of physics were the same when the supernovae exploded (hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago) as they are now, such as nuclear forces and the speed of light. .

I agree that the Universe is 14 Billion years old, but I also beleive the Earth is 6000 years old, and all were created at the same time Genesis 1:1

The speed of light is not a constant that is a fact because we know that Gravity speeds up or slows down time. Now with reason you could come up with an explanation why time on Earth travels slower than at the far edges of the universe. There is some work by some who theorize that space/universe is bent, causing this dilation.

Many will scoff at this idea of 'contriving' to harmonise with young earth creation , but hey, the Big Bang'ers had to conjure up inflation theory to cover their bums with the Horizon problem.

 

[Darkness27]

That cant be, God is revealed to us through the scripture, and the truth will be revealed to those who seek it earnestly. That is scriptural, but unfortunately I am hopeless at remembering references

Are you referring to scripture where it says seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you, knock and the door will be open? I have no doubt that God will reveal to each one of us the knowledge required to carry out His will through us. Only that we, in our limited minds, cannot hope to fully comprehend God. And without being able to fully comprehend God we cannot hope to understand scripture as He does, therefore none of us have the 100% one truth, only parts.

The speed of light is not a constant that is a fact because we know that Gravity speeds up or slows down time.

The speed of light is a constant: C or 3*10^8 m/s as represented in Einstein's equation E=MC^2. It is further shown as a constant in one of Einstein's papers where he shows how the speed of light is the same for all observers, contrary to what Newtonian mechanics would have us believe.

When you are close to a strong gravitational force time does slow down but it does not affect the speed of light, only the light's wavelength/frequency. And of course there is the story of watching yourself or someone else get eaten by a black hole feet first. And while the gravity would be so strong the person's body would elongate and time would be different from the person's head to their feet, it does nothing to the speed of light.

If there is no constant to the speed of light than we have gotten very lucky in our miscalculations of atomic fission and fusion.

 

[marktheblake]

Only that we, in our limited minds, cannot hope to fully comprehend God.

Of course.

[quoteAnd without being able to fully comprehend God we cannot hope to understand scripture as He does[/quote]

it is not his scripture for him, it is from him to us. Of course we are meant to fully understand it.

If there is no constant to the speed of light than we have gotten very lucky in our miscalculations of atomic fission and fusion.

If i explained it wrong, i am sorry, my point still stands.

Nevertheless i have come across many articles in my time discussing "C" as not being constant. It seems the jury is out on that one.

 

[WingsOfEagles07]

Hi WingsOfEagles07

"After his own kind" sounds kind of vague. The theory of evolution also holds that all species reproduce only their own kind, so the Bible and evolution agree on this point.

The only point of contention seems to be the millions (actually billions) of years required for creatures reproducing their own kind to change and diverge, because evolution is such a slow process.



The universe is at least millions of years old based on direct observations of supernova. We can measure how far away they are using trigonometry e.g. supernova 1987A is 160,000 light years away. We can also observe the laws of physics were the same when the supernovae exploded (hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago) as they are now, such as nuclear forces and the speed of light. Thus, we can prove, using direct observations, that the universe it at least millions of years old.

Cheers
S.

The first statement you made is wrong. 1. The Earth is not millions of years old. 2. This occurs by mutations and mutations cannot add information to the genome.

Whenever you say "we" what do you mean? "we" is the actual scientists that do the work, and How do you know they are telling the truth? By putting "faith" into their "assumptions" that were made by people who were not there in the past to determine how old the earth is.

Evolution also stated that dinosaurs are billions of years old. Recently they found DNA in the dinosaur bones proving that this assumption was wrong, leaving evolution at an inconsistent state. If they were wrong in one area where is the justification of truth in other areas?

 

[WingsOfEagles07]

First off sorry for the delay.

Creationists usually differentiate between two types of evolution, micro and macro evolution. Macro evolution is what you are thinking of, and has two different meanings. The scientific meaning, which is essentially speciation(which we have observed), and the creationist meaning which is changes between kinds, which we have not observed yet according to creationists. The second kind is micro evolution, which is variation with in species, or kinds as creationists like to define it. Creationists, as a general rule, don't have a problem with micro evolution (variation with in kinds).

Well you should care, a lot of our food comes from the ability for life to adapt, genetic engineering in agriculture is fundamental to us not starving! I think micro evolution is very much embraced by creationists because it does account for what we see, and at the same time puts constraints on evolution so that no kind is able to reproduce anything other than its own kind. My goal is to get you to accept micro evolution! I am trying to be as objective as possible in this conversation, but definately talk about micro evolution to your fellow creationists, especially those that have been around the block.

I look forward to it. As someone else mentioned, the universe must be millions of years old because of the stars we see. About four months ago we just saw an object known as a quazar 13 billion light years away, that means that it took the light 13 billion years to reach us from its starting point. Unlike you I don't have a link, but look up parallax and Cepheid varriable stars and pay attention to how far away in light years, or parcects (about 3ly is one parcect) we can measure stars we see.

There aren't that many assumptions in science, the only two that I'm aware of is that the universe is real, and that the same laws that we observe here on Earth are the same everywhere in the universe. Other than that everything must be scruitinized to the highest degree, they don't believe in the age of rocks, or evolution, or atomic theory, but that is what all the evidence points too.

Belief implies accepting without evidence, or contrary to evidence. I believe in God because there is no positive scientificly empiricle evidence supporting God, or disproving God (that's not why I'm a believer but why I must say I believe instead of I accept God based on the evidence). You don't have to have faith in scientists to accept what they say as valid.

I do believe in variation in kinds, but not any evolution.

There are many different ways for light to reach earth. Faster than normally expected to.

There are a lot of assumptions in "evolution". The Big Bang = assumption ; The Primeval Soup = assumption ; We came from previous life forms = assumption ; Earth being million(s)/billion(s) of years = assumption. And many more. Why is this? Because no one was there in the past to show that was true. For scientists to come up with this stuff they have to assume this is what happened based on their "belief/interpretation" of the evidence given. Therefore it takes "faith" to believe in.

Their form of science is inconsistent within itself. Because in order to do science we have to have the preconditions of intelligibility in which this only makes sense in the Biblical Creation worldview. Without these preconditions we could know nothing about anything. Evolutionists have to assume these things in which they have no logical rational or scientific reason as to why they use these preconditions. Therefore makes them inconsistent. Also within the evolutionary worldview since they make "assumptions" this also means this is there "opinion" which makes them arbitrary to their worldview.

Yes you have to have faith in scientists to believe what they say is true because if you do not how do you that they are right or wrong? You must believe what they are saying. Also, you Empiricle evidence. empiricle - all knowledge is gained through observation. There is evidence for GOD, In his CREATION and more than enough. Read Romans 1:18-20 - it talks about how people will suppress truth in unrighteousness. And by creation there is more than enough evidence for GOD. go read it. =]

I totally forgot to post those links and i am sorry, I will post them tomorrow, okay. =]

 

[marktheblake]

Evolution also stated that dinosaurs are billions of years old. Recently they found DNA in the dinosaur bones proving that this assumption was wrong,

Don't you mean some soft tissue in a T-Rex? Thats was a real big spanner in the works for the Millions of years arguments.

(well i suppose DNA may still have been in it, but thats not the part that i remember)

 

[WingsOfEagles07]

Don't you mean some soft tissue in a T-Rex? Thats was a real big spanner in the works for the Millions of years arguments.

(well i suppose DNA may still have been in it, but thats not the part that i remember)

Actually, no that is not what I mean. I am talking of DNA from a bone extract of a dinosaur. DNA cannot last millions of years.

Inside of evolution there is one contradiction or inconsistency I know of that I just now thought of while typing.

The evolution of the "eye" ... Well, we "supposedly" came from this primeval soup (Abiogenesis).

Eye evolution is caused by a light-sensitive spot on the skin. Then had a depression and caused it to deepen until the eye came about.

If we all came from this "soup" then what part of us evolved first? Evolution requires millions of years to evolve. But which evolved first? Brain? Eyes? Body? How did this organism survive those millions of years? If it was the eyes, how did the organism survive without a brain to perceive the image it see's? If it was the brain, how did the organism see in order to survive? If the evolutionist says all of them together evolved. Then how come when you look up eye evolution they do not have a specified date as to when this occurred? What is odd to me, is that evolution caused all organisms to have different types of eyes that have different capabilities and they all by chance occurred on the skull of every being. How logical would be to say this soup produced the "body, eyes, and brain" all very complex structures all evolved at the same time by a "miracle of chance" ?? This does not add up.

 

[jpcedotal]

Anybody that tells you they know all there is to know about the Bible or has the "perfect" interpretation.......run from them as fast as you can.

Man can do nothing perfectly including having the correct interpretation of every verse of God's Word.

 

[marktheblake]

Actually, no that is not what I mean. I am talking of DNA from a bone extract of a dinosaur. DNA cannot last millions of years.

Neither can soft tissue, so cool there is now two significant recent discoveries that are causing the evolutionists some headaches.

What is odd to me, is that evolution caused all organisms to have different types of eyes that have different capabilities and they all by chance occurred on the skull of every being.

I beleive that is what they call convergent evolution. My understanding is that implies say a dog in africa evolved from a worm in africa, and a dog in america evolved from a worm in america.

If they dont have that, then as far as humans go, a hellavu lot of incest!