Religion
Related: About this forumCreationism, by the numbers
The latest numbers from Gallup are in: 42% of Americans are young-earth creationists.
A number of states have been embroiled in fights in recent years over the degree to which evolution and creationism should be included in their public school curricula. Residents in the South are more likely to believe in the creationist view of the origin of humans than are those living in other regions, making it clear why the fights to have creationism addressed in the public schools might be an important political issue in that region.
Still, few scientists would agree that humans were created pretty much in their present form at one time 10,000 years ago, underscoring the ongoing discontinuity between the beliefs that many Americans hold and the general scientific consensus on this important issue.
Additionally, 31% of Americans, while not denying evolution, nevertheless reject the scientific consensus in believing evolution to be a guided, purposeful process.
All said, a mere 19% of Americans accept the scientific consensus: that humans evolved as a consequence of selective pressure.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Because while they technically aren't "denying" evolution, they are denying the wholly naturalistic processes behind it, undermining scientific investigation and understanding.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)that the numbers of people moving towards the "god not involved at all" number is rising and the strict creationist number is falling.
It's also good to note that increased education and younger age are positively correlated with belief in evolution.
We can hope that this represents a true trend.
Movement away from superstition/ignorance and toward rational inquiry is always a good thing.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)...the numbers are shifting from the weakly-scientific view to the strongly-scientific view. Those who accept Biblical creationism have remained more or less constant for as long as Gallup has been polling this issue.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I am a strong supporter of the Neil deGrasse Tyson POV that we need to find a way to educate people about the science behind evolution in a way that doesn't threaten their religious belief system.
I think it can be done and needs to be done.
At any rate, the way we are doing it doesn't seem to be working all that well, so I think the case can be made for finding a new approach.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)The clothes are different, but it is the same choir.
The shift from guided-evolution to the scientific consensus -- while nothing to balk at -- does not represent a shift in the overall attitude towards evolution. Those who oppose its teaching in public schools are as numerically strong today as they were in 1982. That's not too encouraging.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)at how we currently address this and how we might change that approach.
Apparently mocking, dismissing or calling people stupid isn't working all that well.
So, as a scientist, I would like to see more information on why people maintain this belief despite the evidence and develop new educational approaches that take that into consideration.
Same goes for gobal climate change and other issues.
FWIW, the neo-cons were masters at this kind of approach and the repubs continue to use it to their advantage.
Democrats could learn something from that.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Only laughter can blow to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
―Mark Twain
cbayer
(146,218 posts)particularly when one can laugh at themselves.
Derision, which is often accompanied by snide laughter, generally is not very effective and may drive people even deeper into their positions.
Mark Twain's quote is wide open for interpretation and has been read very differently by many.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)If one person says something to a room full of people, and one person responds with laughter, no power. If 90% of the room laughs, now the idea is in trouble.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)are going to think it's funny.
Until we get those evolution/creation numbers more reasonably in our favor, I think laughing at them is not going to be very effective.
And the data tends to back that up.
We need a new approach.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)That's one thing you have frequently criticized others for doing - using "we" when speaking only for themselves.
So why can you do it?
rickford66
(5,524 posts)No wonder we're a bunch of dopes. If 81% truly believe that God is watching over them, why do they act the way they do?
cbayer
(146,218 posts)rickford66
(5,524 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)Do you believe that to be true of all religious people? Or just some?
rickford66
(5,524 posts)If someone believes the entire Universe was created by a God to be worshiped by a speck in the void, I believe they are delusional. There may be a God of some sort but I doubt he/she/it cares about my or your individual actions. The Universe has "free will" as I see it. Quantum physics is composed of many uncertainties and randomness. Just a combination of facts and my beliefs and I wouldn't try to convert others.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I need to know this before we continue, because if you consider religious believers to be psychiatrically ill, we really have nothing to discuss here.
You may not try to convert others, and I applaud you for that, but I do object to derision or dismissal of alternative POV's regarding the existence of a god or gods.
rickford66
(5,524 posts)But there are quite a number of psychiatric one also. The complete dismissal of science makes me wonder what goes on in their minds. I didn't want a long religious discussion. I see plenty of positive reasons to have a belief in God and the good works that follow. An atheist is capable of the same works also. Some people see miracles and others see coincidences. I personally don't believe we should rely on a book written by who knows who, especially when the believers pick and choose. I'll go with science, empathy and logic instead. Peace be with you.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Not sure what you mean by that. Are you saying that religious people have more psychiatric issues than non-religious? As someone who apparently puts a lot of stake in scientific findings, I would challenge you to back that up with some data.
If you don't want a religious debate, I suggest that you not come into the religion room and make a broad brush and unsupported claim that 81% of the people in this country are delusional and ungodlike because they haven't fully embraced evolution.
Peace be with you as well.
I didn't see it was the religious room at first. My data is just as good or better than religious data. Facts vs beliefs. Among my engineering circle of friends there are a few fundamentalist conservatives and some who seem to go through the motions, but most are liberal agnostic/atheists. Is scientific knowledge the reason for this distribution of beliefs? Probably. I will try to avoid this room. I really really thought it was a general discussion thread. I don't want to change the religious beliefs of others. We all discover the truth at some point.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)prevalence of psychiatric disorders among believers and nonbelievers. There is just scientific data and it doesn't support a difference.
There is no doubt that within the hard sciences there are a larger number of atheists and non-believers in general. The data clearly supports that. But the numbers change within other fields and is not positively correlated with education in general. I agree that those drawn to the hard sciences are more likely to be skeptics to begin with and their atheism/agnosticism may be reinforced by their knowledge base.
Everyone is welcome in this room, believer or not. But people have to expect some significant push back if they attack the religious or the non-religious. It's not about changing the religious beliefs of others and I would propose that your "truth" may not be true at all. That's what makes religious such a fascinating subject.
rickford66
(5,524 posts)The Ark, the Virgin birth, walking on water etc. Those who believe these things have a problem in my opinion. Show us some evidence of these things.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)or parable. It's only the literalists that you may have an issue with.
Defending literalism is really hard to do, as the bible is full of contradictory information and culturally based rules that no longer make any sense at all.
But assuming that all believers are literalists is also a problem, imo.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)In the believer community, there aren't two distinct groups - one "literalists" and one "non-literalists." I don't understand why you keep pushing this simplistic and erroneous meme.
Instead, virtually every believer has SOME literalist beliefs (parts of their text they take literally), and SOME non-literalist ones.
You don't do the dialog any favors by painting your false wishful picture of your black-and-white world.
rickford66
(5,524 posts)If I profess to believe that the Bible miracles were performed by extraterrestrials, the facts are on my side. Because of the vastness of the Universe, there's a good probability of others out there and given a few million years head start, they could easily have visited here. Now that's more probable than an invisible spirit doing all the illogical and sometimes confusing things in the Bible. But who would be considered psychotic? The alien abduction believer or the Christian? There's nothing in the Bible supported by real evidence. The Romans who kept careful records, didn't mention Jesus. There's also no Egyptian records of Jews kept as slaves to build the pyramids.
LostOne4Ever
(9,289 posts)Because I feel not engaging and exposing the creationist has not worked. Rather than denying them credibility, it allows them to tell others and perpetuate the false notion that their position is scientifically sound when its not!
Besides, Nye is not a real biological scientist so its not like he could lend them credibility in the first place. Same goes with other people who debate creationist like AronRa.
I just feel that we need to fight back more. Our position is scientifically sound, we have a mountain of evidence and just like Bill Nye did, and Clarence Darrow before him, we will win in any debate. After we expose lie after lie people will start to doubt their claims more and more and do their own research and find out that the creationist claims are all groundless.
The article about messages from creationist a while back demonstrates this. They repeatedly went back to the long ago debunked claim that evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Why do that when it is so easily and quickly refuted? Because we are not doing a good enough getting the message out.
They (the creationist) keep telling themselves these outright falsehoods over and over and over and there is no one there to be the voice of reason and challenge their assertions, causing them to think they actually have a point. Then they convince others, and we have to deal with this nonsense.
If getting people who are already drowning in group think to get together and build another amusement park (that is bound to go bankrupt) is the price of reducing the overall number of people believing in the creationist fairy tale then let them have their damn amusement park. I will be happy knowing they have been marginalized into obscurity.
Keep science in the science class room and religion OUT!!!
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I see the case being made on both sides and feel they both have valid points.
But I'm not sure what the answer is. Clearly you are correct that we are not getting the message out effectively.
The answer may be in getting a louder voice in the educational system. Evolution is fascinating and fun. If people are taught it in a way that does not demand that they reject their religious beliefs as a whole, I think there is a chance for change. Republicans rather successfully put a lot of energy and resources into local elections and focused on school boards. That's an area I think we can be equally active and get back to some extent.
Unfortunately, they are not being marginalized at all. They remain in the majority.
LostOne4Ever
(9,289 posts)Whatever it is we are doing, it is not working. However, it was by directly facing William Jennings Bryan, that Clarence Darrow gave the pro-evolution side its greatest victory, and Nye destroyed Hamm.
The evidence, to me, is pretty clear. We need to engage them more. We need more Bill Nye's and AronRa's out there calling them out. A louder voice in Educational system would help, but that is part of the problem as well. The creationists have control of too many school boards, and my state has a strangle hold on Textbooks. By debating them more we can get more traction and then get more people into those boards and give evolution a stronger voice in the science classroom.
But by continuing to not engage them we are surrendering the public debate. As for rejecting religious beliefs that is one of the foundational falsehoods of creationism.:
&list=PL126AFB53A6F002CC#t=234
^^Trying to get the video to load at time 3:54 but it keeps cutting the link off
Not that I would necessarily be sad if it did cause more non-believers
If I am wrong and it actually works against us we can change strategy again, but something has got to change. We are in trouble if over 40% of Americans do not acknowledge evolution.
*I don't know if your broadband is still limited so let me warn you its a youtube video of AronRa explaining how believing in evolution or God is a false dichotomy.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)FTR, before anyone jumps on me for supporting the use of a "psychiatric" word, "insanity" is not used in medicine. It's used in law and has a colloquial use.
We are going to win when it comes to the courts, I have little doubt about that. But that won't have much impact on kids in private schools or home schooled.
Even though I agree that Nye technically won, I haven't seen anything that indicates that it changed anyone's position. If anything, it seemed to drive some deeper into their position.
I don't disagree with continuing the debate and I think Nye is a good person to do it. I also like Neil deGrasse Tyson very, very much and I think he's a good person to approach this.
My internet is better at this time, but videos are still pretty difficult. Maybe later.
Dollface
(1,590 posts)ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)gets the result it wants to get all too often.
Even in my conservative little suburb, with so many churches, some in direct competition, I find it impossible to believe that 40% of them are creationist idiots.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)has come up with similar results.
http://www.pewforum.org/2005/08/30/public-divided-on-origins-of-life/
Those that believe in "guided evolution" are included in the evolution category.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)Well, sort-of. I believe that god sparked the first Big Bang and then let the cosmological and biological rules he created give rise, eventually, to us. What's a few billion years wait to a supreme being? We know that human perception of time speeds up as we age. How much faster must an ageless being's perception of time be?
cbayer
(146,218 posts)and since no one has advanced anything reasonably provable about what there was or wasn't prior to the big bang, it's a reasonable position to take. Could have been anything, including a god or gods.
It's an idea that allows one to both teach/embrace evolution without giving up one's religious beliefs. This is an approach that might make a difference in terms of education.
I'm not a scientist but I know that there are people working on what happened prior to the big bang. For you to say that "God did it" is a "reasonable position to take" right up there with significant scientific study is just ridiculous.
"Could have been anything"? And then atheists get in trouble when we actually then compare belief in God to belief in Santa Claus. Maybe Santa Claus caused the big bang? Maybe a unicorn fucked leprechaun and that caused the big bang.
I just don't even know how anyone takes that "could have been anything" stuff seriously at all.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)And that's not even to mention her confusion between evolution, abiogenesis, and the origin of the universe. I somehow doubt Ken Ham will suddenly accept evolution if you "allow" him to believe that his god still created the universe 15 billion years ago.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)I lump them together because firstly, they are often lumped together and secondly, to show that, once god (by my beliefs) kicked off the Big Bang, the rules of the cosmos allow the rise of humanity with no further intervention.
Ham is a moron whose beliefs are less about god than about glorifying his own sense of purpose.
Oh, and I'm a guy, btw.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)You can't prove it wasn't a waffle.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)I think firstly, that forcing a choice between faith and science is needlessly adversarial and secondly, completely unnecessary. Science and faith can co-exist quite easily. It's only the fundies (and a very few extreme anti-theists) who insist that the Genesis account must be entirely literal (while they're quite happy to accept metaphor in, for example, the passages that tell them not to make a show of prayer or sell all they have and give it to the poor).
I suspect that it's a position caused less by piety than by a fear and rejection of modernism (Karen Armstrong has some interesting things to say on that subject). Since the modern world is so confusing, they cling to a bastardised version of faith. That, and that I'm pretty sure fundie religion exists purely as revenge fantasy (in the sense that the believer's greatest pleasure would be watching sinners burn in hell).
trotsky
(49,533 posts)must be taken literally. I've seen non-believers take a "devil's advocate" position on creationism from time to time, but not a single one insisting that a literal reading is the only possible one. Mainly because that would mean they would be a god-believing creationist, and not a non-believer. Is that a straw man? Perhaps you could clarify.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)I was thinking of those like Bill Maher who make a big joke about how the faithful believe in talking snakes and so on, acting like a literal interpretation is the only one possible.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)just what individual believers decide to take literally, and what they do not. (And why.) Some DUers have said that they believe Jesus was a real person who was literally crucified, resurrected, and then ascended to heaven. Apparently these are "acceptable" things to take literally, but the talking snake and other items are not.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)I think it's usually better to ask the particular believer what they believe than to assume since beliefs vary so widely even among those who might be described as Christian (which, btw, doesn't include me; I'm a Luciferian Satanist).
On the subject of Jesus, I think a man called Yeshua (or Yahshua) ben Yosef really did exist in Palestine about two thousand years ago. I believe he preached a good message of peace and love and, because the Romans didn't like rabble rousers, he was eventually executed in some fashion. Thereafter, he was buried somewhere and, unless his tomb has been destroyed, remains buried to this day. The oldest surviving Bible fragment (Rylands) simply records a small example of Jesus's teachings. After his death, his teachings and life were heavily mythologised by the early Christians, more by Chinese whispers than deliberate deception (although there was probably some of that too).
cbayer
(146,218 posts)not demanding that people give up their religious beliefs in return, and I agree with you that faith and science do not have to be adversarial and it's unnecessary to make them so. While there will always be people who will cling to a belief despite evidence, they are indeed fundamentalists and include religious believers and non-believers, as you point out.
Love the revenge fantasy idea. There is something rather fundamentally sinister about saying that there is one way, I have it and if you don't get it you will suffer.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)The Inquisitions (there were several, the Spanish being notable only in it's corruption) started from the position that the church and it's doctrine were perfect. Any deviation was therefore either madness or heresy and heresy was a capital offence. So if you didn't agree, you would suffer. The only way out was to refuse to take part (as Giles Corey famously demonstrated).
There was a Christian theologian, whose name escapes me for the moment, who said that the greatest pleasure of heaven was watching sinners burn in hell. I firmly believe that is the attraction of fundamentalism. It's an extension of the "just world" fallacy into matters spiritual.