How is it that people believe in creationism

[snowfairysjoy]

Hi! I just need to know why is it people think creationism is real even with all the obvious signs of evolution.

Fourty-five percent of the American population believe that God created humans and placed them on the Earth less than 10,000 years ago. It is an incredible statistic. That's 135,512,978 people in the USA who believe the Earth is 10,000 years old, twice the population of the UK.

Creationism is the belief that evolution is a myth and that everything was created by an intelligent designer. In this case the designer is God. Strangely it isn't actually the theory of intelligent design that irks me here, I like to think I'm fairly open to new ideas and generally accepting of religious beliefs, even if I do not agree with them. What does bother me is how the creationists present their views, and how they have such a large population completely brainwashed into the belief.

The creationist argument is that life and the universe as we understand it is so complex, infinitely so, that for it to have happened by chance is ridiculous. They believe that the Earth and all the life that lives on it has been designed and placed there by a divine creator, a God. Obviously this flies in the face of evolution, the theory with millions of years worth of hard evidence.

A common theory put forward by well known creationists is that the banana presents the 'atheist's nightmare'. They say that the banana is perfectly suited for a human hand, is colour coordinated to show how ripe it is, has a bio-degradable wrapper, is good to eat and is perfectly shaped for the human mouth. They say that with all these things taken into account it is so obvious that the banana has been designed for humans to eat and hasn't just occurred by chance. What they fail to mention however, is that the wild banana is quite different. Filled with hard black seeds it is completely inedible. The banana that we know has been genetically modified over thousands of years into it's current form. In fact the designer of the banana is Man himself, hardly proof of a divine creator.

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The problem with religion and creationism is that everything is so centered around our own species when really we've only been around for an astronomical blink of an eye. Even in our own planets history we are quite insignificant, we've been around for 200,000 years as opposed to the 500 million years that fish have existed for. To say that a God has designed everything just for us seems entirely implausible to me.

I think that fabricating beliefs based on an old book and presenting them as fact is wrong, however. Surely science and rational thinking should be the basis on which opinion is formed. The purpose of science is to find evidence and present theories based on it. By turning yourself over to a religion you are able to just explain everything away with 'God did it'. Against such an point of view it becomes difficult to construct an argument. Inevitably they will ask some questions that science does not have an answer for yet, and then they can answer it with 'God did it'. Science does not pretend to have answers for things it does not understand yet, but preset facts based on real evidence and testing.

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[mike the wiz]

A lot of people believe evolution and creation ignorantly. Others willfully. I am the latter.

Do you REALLY want to understand why I believe in creation though. There are lots of reasons. I have read and debated the issue for nearly a decade and I can tell you that evolution is by no means proved.

The mechanisms are true, such as mutations and natural selection, but when it comes to the phylogenetic tree of life, I'm afraid selecting possible transitionals does not prove relatedness.

But it's not just the problems against the ToE, it's that you have to place faith in natural processes such as a primordial birth, against laws such as entropy, which tells us that anything being made would break down long before it was made.

Also you have to place your faith in men. these days the univers is 14.5 billion years old, but it wasn't in the 1970s, as scientists, have, changed their belief in the age of the universe, each decade almost.

But what about design. Your cells synthesize one million chemical compounds per second. This means that the design in nature far exceeds human design.

If I said to you that I can't beat you at football, should I then expect to be able to play for a professional football club?

If basic pottery and sculpture requires design, then the best possible physical designs should require a designer, just as a professional footballer should play in a professional football team.

You say "millions of years worth of hard evidence". evidence is actualy only the consequent in a modus ponen, and scientifically, "evidence" is not regarded as special, only as confirmation via logical induction.

You can literally have a mountain of evidence for anything and it won't prove a thing. Only facts and superb logical deduction through sound sylloigisms provide proof. The facts themselves prove design, and logically and rationally it therefore follows that there is a designer.

If a ferrari must have a designer, rationally, then rationally the greatest designs must have a designer, because a ferrari is inferior.

So the hooks, barbs, barbules, feathers, hollow bones, and aerodynamic perfection of a birds flight, are all facts. A theory only PROPOSING that certain species are transitional links without proving so, in comparison, is the weakest sort of confirmatory evidence.

Evolution is a weak old paradigm because the scientific community simply have nowhere else to go if it isn't true.

Take the homo genus alone, and seperate it from the australopithecines, and you can explain the superficial differences in the skulls via adaptation alone, which doesn't require a macro-evolution.

Homo Erectus, Ergaster, Neanderthal, etc, are explanable pertaining to their archaic type skulls with heavy brows and a tough appearance. Believe it or not fossils of humans have been found but evolutionists PRESCRIBE them as "Erectus", because of the evolution dating methods. I.E. circular reasoning.

The fact is you can get archaic homo sapien skulls with the same heavy brows, and superficial skull changes. There is therefore literally no direct proof of evolution. Even the recent finds do not include the unique human foot design - they are only PROPOSED to be on an evolutionary journey.

You have to look into the details, you would be amazed at how many BAD assumptions are made by evolutionists because they have already concluded evolution is true without proving it.

I have made a blog going through all the issues in great detail, I can PM it to you if you want.

Trust me, it takes more than a scratch of the surface, it takes a willingness to be objective. Evolution is merely a worldview of presuppositions.

 

[CrazyInSane]

The mechanisms are true, such as mutations and natural selection, but when it comes to the phylogenetic tree of life, I'm afraid selecting possible transitionals does not prove relatedness.

Just joined the forum so I could respond to this. Our fused chromosomes actually prove that we evolved from the common ancestor with modern apes.

See here:

youtube(dot)com/watch?v=BXdQRvSdLAs

 

[laconicstudent]

I am posting the above poster's video, because it is true.

YouTube - Genome sequencing leaves Creationists unable to respond

 

[mike the wiz]

There is no "proof" for evolution. Scientists can only "prove" operational science.

There is operational science and forenzic science. Evolution is a forenzic, circumstancial, induction-based paradigm.

In the past people have came and said, "this proves evolution".

First of all, to prove something, you have to have a sound none-negotiable syllogism where the premisses can't be refuted.

Secondly, it is a fallacy to say that "X is true because person Z can't refute it".

That would be like saying that my mum is correct to believe that we didn't go to the moon because my sister can't refute her.

The problem with genome sequencing, pseudo genes, and percentages between Dna of chimps, etc, is that those percentages are GUARANTEED to be there, because of the nature of DNA.

If somebody wants to propose an argument that evolution is "proved", write down that argument for yourself, and I can see if it "proves" evolution.

Apparently ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny "proves" evolution, also. LoL.

Technically, to prove evolution, LOGICALLY, you have to prove that one kind of organism can become another kind of organism, with new designs in it's morphology.

This has not been shown experimentally.

Why does only this prove evolution? Because the specific claim of evolution is that all forms of life come from common ancestors, therefore you have to show atleast ONE such example.

There are no "absolute truths" in science. No evolutionary scientist has ever claimed to have "proof" of evolution, because he knows that you can't make absolutist statements about proof unless you can genuinely prove something 100% in a deductive syllogism.

Even the laws of nature are regarded as INDUCTIVE claims, and are not "proven".

To LOGICALLY prove evolution, you have to show it. This should be possible because there are organisms that reproduce millions of times faster than humans.

Therefore fruit flies, and bacteria, insects, should be able to be shown to evolve into new designs, different kinds of organisms never seen before, within our lifetime.

What happened in the fruit fly experimentS? There were some 3000 mutations, and not one of them improved or changed a fruit fly into anything other than a fruit fly.

As for bacteria, you can find fossils of the same bacteria and the same insects, from apparently millions of years ago, even though that this timescale on the bacteria's level is hundreds of billions of bacteria years.

So you have to show all of the ancestors that became human, and how the foot slowly changed into a human foot etcc....

Macro evolution is simply not the same thing as mutations and natural selection, under experiment, macro-evolution simply doesn't happen in small organisms, when it should. This is a GENUINE proof against evolution called a modus tollens falsification.

Example;

The following syllogism is sound;

IF evolution is true THEN we should see fruit flies and other tiny micro-organisms and insects evolve into new morphological creatures never seen before. (Modus ponen)

we do NOT see this, therefore evolution is not true. (Modus tollens).

So this massive induction of evidence against evolution I could call "proof". It isn't scientifically and logically "proof", it is infact a poerful falsification of evolution, which is stronger than a proof positive.

Why is a proof negative stronger than a proof positive in science?

Because a positive is only a confirmation. Example;

If there are only red balls in this bag then I shall pick out a red ball in my next choice.

Yes - this is a so called "proof positive" but does it prove red-ball ONLY theory? No because if I pick out a green ball then the whole theory comes crashing down. Therefore the proof-negative, or "falsification-evidence" is regarded as MUCH MUCH stronger "proof".

Think about it - you could pick out a million red balls and think you've proven red -ball -only theory, but on the one millionth and first selection if you pick a green, the theory is false.

think about it.

 

[snowfairysjoy]

Well yes Evolution is not 100% fullproof but more things point to evolution then creationism. I would also like to know why u believe in creationism , but not by saying because evolution is not proved yet. What is there that even POINTS towards creationism

 

[sandwiches]

There is no "proof" for evolution. Scientists can only "prove" operational science.
Therefore fruit flies, and bacteria, insects, should be able to be shown to evolve into new designs, different kinds of organisms never seen before, within our lifetime.

What happened in the fruit fly experimentS? There were some 3000 mutations, and not one of them improved or changed a fruit fly into anything other than a fruit fly.

What's a 'new design?' At what point does a fruit fly stop being a fruit fly? Do you expect animals to evolve into something they're not? Do you expect a future generation of your progeny to not be related to you?

As for bacteria, you can find fossils of the same bacteria and the same insects, from apparently millions of years ago, even though that this timescale on the bacteria's level is hundreds of billions of bacteria years.

First off, if you think bacteria have remained the same for millions of years, I'm afraid you need to do some reading. Second, do you expect organisms to evolve without a need to?

The following syllogism is sound;

IF evolution is true THEN we should see fruit flies and other tiny micro-organisms and insects evolve into new morphological creatures never seen before. (Modus ponen)

we do NOT see this, therefore evolution is not true. (Modus tollens).

Luckily, you're wrong. We're seeing animals evolving into new morphological creatures. However, if you expect something like a fly to turn something that doesn't resemble or is similar to a fly, I'm afraid you got the wrong idea of what evolution is, then.

 

[Geebs]

The mechanisms are true, such as mutations and natural selection, but when it comes to the phylogenetic tree of life, I'm afraid selecting possible transitionals does not prove relatedness.

You're misrepresenting the entire field of paleontology. All the way through you see a constant and gradual (on a geological sense) change. The reptilian-mammalian transition is one of these cases that are well documented. There is no cherry-picking of fossils.

But it's not just the problems against the ToE, it's that you have to place faith in natural processes such as a primordial birth, against laws such as entropy, which tells us that anything being made would break down long before it was made.

First, there is no law named "entropy". There is the second law of thermodynamics which states that in a closed system there will be a tendency towards disorder. To counter this, living organisms came up with cell membranes to contain and protect their reproductive molecules, and homeostasis to maintain the right endocellular environment for functioning. What I'm describing is the evolution of the cell as well as that of homeostasis. What you're doing, however, is putting up a strawman and attacking the study of abiogenesis, which is entirely unrelated to the theory of evolution. They are entirely independent of each other!

Also you have to place your faith in men. these days the univers is 14.5 billion years old, but it wasn't in the 1970s, as scientists, have, changed their belief in the age of the universe, each decade almost.

Welcome to the scientific method! The purpose of science is to observe phenomena, gather data, analyse this data, form hypotheses and ultimately theories to explain the observations. The age of the universe has been largely unchanged as far as the uneducated masses would be concerned for about 50 years. Presently the age of the universe is measured to be roughly 13.8 billion years (give or take 150 million years), not 14.5, and this has been determined with very high accuracy. It has been determined by several different mechanisms, measuring the cosmic background microwave radiation for one. Another is using Hubble's law. This is well outside my field of study so I won't embark deeper into it. Science makes a point out of always correcting its mistakes and that is one of its greatest virtues. To suppose that is a negative quality is absolutely absurd as the other two options are 1) to abstain from knowing anything ever, or 2) to suppose things without evidence and never ever change your mind.

But what about design. Your cells synthesize one million chemical compounds per second. This means that the design in nature far exceeds human design.

This is just an argument from personal incredulity. However, I will respond to it in defense of humanity. This is just for "[wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]s and giggles" as they say, I don't consider this a valid argument due to the mentioned fallacy.
Nature had about 3 800 000 000 years to conjure that up. Homo sapiens have been around for roughly 200 000 years. Nature has a 3 799 800 000 years headstart on us. However, in those 200 000 years we have already created systems that can process mountains more data per minute than any biological system can. Don't be too hard on us, we're a young species still.

If I said to you that I can't beat you at football, should I then expect to be able to play for a professional football club?

I don't get it...

If basic pottery and sculpture requires design, then the best possible physical designs should require a designer, just as a professional footballer should play in a professional football team.

If clay could reproduce with variations and there was a selection pressure towards aesthetically pleasing shapes and forms, then yes, you wouldn't need to "design" them. However, pottery don't reproduce as I'm sure you're aware which is the key mechanism of evolution.

You say "millions of years worth of hard evidence". evidence is actualy only the consequent in a modus ponen, and scientifically, "evidence" is not regarded as special, only as confirmation via logical induction.

You can literally have a mountain of evidence for anything and it won't prove a thing. Only facts and superb logical deduction through sound sylloigisms provide proof. The facts themselves prove design, and logically and rationally it therefore follows that there is a designer.

If you have a philosophical objection to methodological naturalism then stop using the bloody technology that is a product of said methodology. If you were opposed to eating meat, you would be a vegeterian, if you're opposed to the scientific method, you will not use the fruits of science.
Inductive reasoning is used in science, it never is flawless, but no one ever said it was. It is however in agreement with the consensus of virtually all epistemologists. You are right in saying that science never proves anything, as proof is a term only used in mathematics. However, evidence supports or opposes a hypothesis. This is how it works, and we build robots, make vaccines, vastly improve food production and send people to outer space based upon these principles. Using high school level logic to say that you can't be 100% therefore it's wrong just doesn't cut it. Again, if you have a philosophical objection to how science is conducted, and for that reason you reject evolutionary theory then fine. But then you have to be prepared to reject not only just the sciences that support evolutionary theory, but also everything that uses methodological naturalism as their central paradigm.

If a ferrari must have a designer, rationally, then rationally the greatest designs must have a designer, because a ferrari is inferior.

Again, ferraris don't reproduce. I don't exactly get where you're going with this other than trying to underline the rationality of your statement, of which there seems to be very little.

So the hooks, barbs, barbules, feathers, hollow bones, and aerodynamic perfection of a birds flight, are all facts. A theory only PROPOSING that certain species are transitional links without proving so, in comparison, is the weakest sort of confirmatory evidence.

A theory is not evidence. A theory is an explanation that ties together all observed facts, and does so well highly reasonable precision. The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. Citing individual examples is ludicrous as the scientific disciplines alone are too numerous. To list a few; molecular biology, paleontology, cellular biology, evolutionary biology, organic chemistry, pharmacology, evolutionary psychology, paleontology, sociobiology, cognitive neuroscience... You get where I'm going with this?

Evolution is a weak old paradigm because the scientific community simply have nowhere else to go if it isn't true.

Well thank you for that evidence-based statement. All you need to do is to demonstrate that evolution is false, submit it to a peer-reviewed journal - they will get people from the relevant disciplines to dissect your submission, as they do with all peer-reviewed papers submitted to the journal. If your paper is free from errors, if your methodology is appropriate and the reasoning sound it will be submitted into the journal, maybe one such as Nature. It would be an unprecedented achievement to falsify evolutionary theory, and every biologist would be there to do it. So either there is actual legitimacy in this theory, and you are simply not willing to see it through your Biblical glasses (as Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis, so graciously puts it) or there is a conspiracy of a global magnitude involving well over 95% of the world's biologist.

Take the homo genus alone, and seperate it from the australopithecines, and you can explain the superficial differences in the skulls via adaptation alone, which doesn't require a macro-evolution.

Homo Erectus, Ergaster, Neanderthal, etc, are explanable pertaining to their archaic type skulls with heavy brows and a tough appearance. Believe it or not fossils of humans have been found but evolutionists PRESCRIBE them as "Erectus", because of the evolution dating methods. I.E. circular reasoning.

I would like a trusted source to back up these statements before I'm willing to respond.

 

[Fallon]

To LOGICALLY prove evolution, you have to show it. This should be possible because there are organisms that reproduce millions of times faster than humans.

I appreciate that you typed LOGIC in capital letters to make your assertion look more LOGICAL, but where, exactly, is the logic in the above statement?

 

[Naraoia]

I would like a trusted source to back up these statements before I'm willing to respond.

I'm pretty sure both Neandertals and Homo erectus were recognised as separate human species and possible human ancestors well before any human remains were radiometrically dated.

 

[lucaspa]

Creationism is the belief that evolution is a myth and that everything was created by an intelligent designer. In this case the designer is God. ... What does bother me is how the creationists present their views, and how they have such a large population completely brainwashed into the belief.

You are raising several issues.
1. The validity of creationism as an idea.
2. the validity of religion and creation as ideas.
3. The behavior of creationists.
4. Why creationists tend to reject evolution.

I think that fabricating beliefs based on an old book and presenting them as fact is wrong, however. Surely science and rational thinking should be the basis on which opinion is formed.

1. Creationism is a scientific theory. It was the accepted scientific theory from 1200 to about 1800. Scientists (all of whom were theists and most of whom were ministers) showed it to be wrong. The inspiration or source of a theory is unimportant. What matters is the testing.
2. Science is a limited form of knowing. But all knowing is ultimately based on personal experience. That "old book" contains personal experience with God. In particular, it records the intervention of God into the lives of people and into human history. You obviously don't believe that personal experience is valid, but you can't dismiss evidence simply because our record of it is in "an old book". Much of what we find in "old books" is presented as fact, such as Hannibal taking elephants over the Alps. Science has not addressed the issue and "rational thinking" would say it is impossible.
3. Creationism presents a possible how that God created. Evolution also presents a possible how that God created. Evolution does not deny God, just creationism.

The purpose of science is to find evidence and present theories based on it.

You have that backwards. Science works by presenting theories and then testing those theories against evidence deliberately sought to test the theory.

So, why do creationists cling to creationism as how God created when the evidence from God's creation (science) clearly shows God did not create that way? Read this, because I think it has the correct answer:

Theology Today - Vol 39, No. 2 - July 1982 - ARTICLE - The Beginning

 

[lucaspa]

Therefore fruit flies, and bacteria, insects, should be able to be shown to evolve into new designs, different kinds of organisms never seen before, within our lifetime.

And that has happened. For instance, in this experiment JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie the "fruit" flies evolved to "potato" and "malt" flies. Living off diets Drosophila has never lived off of before.

You have just not been paying attention to the right fruit fly experiments.


Example;

The following syllogism is sound;

IF evolution is true THEN we should see fruit flies and other tiny micro-organisms and insects evolve into new morphological creatures never seen before. (Modus ponen)

we do NOT see this, therefore evolution is not true. (Modus tollens).[/quote]

But we do see this. For instance, with bacteria we see the evolution of a new microorganism that can utilize nylon as food. Never seen before. We have seen grasses and other plants evolve into plants capable of living on mine tailings with high amounts of toxic heavy metals. Again, never seen before. I mentioned one Drosophila experiment, there have been many more.

What you ask for has been done. Your ignorance that it has been done doesn't mean it hasn't.

 

[marktheblake]

Hi! I just need to know why is it people think creationism is real even with all the obvious signs of evolution.

The creationists want to know why is it people think evolution is real even with all the obvious signs of creation.

What does bother me is how the creationists present their views, and how they have such a large population completely brainwashed into the belief.

It bothers me how the evolutionists present their views, and how they have such a large population completely brainwashed into the belief.

and so on, and so on.

A common theory put forward by well known creationists is that the banana presents the 'atheist's nightmare'.

That creator of that 'theory' stopped using that 10 years so more ago and it was just a cute example. It could probably be redeveloped using another naturally occuring fruit. Such examples would be as bad as evolutionists presenting discredited theories supporting their arguments in textbooks and so on.

To say that a God has designed everything just for us seems entirely implausible to me.

Might be an idea to refer to that 'old book'

I think that fabricating beliefs based on an old book and presenting them as fact is wrong, however.

Then where did you get your belief as a christian from then?

Surely science and rational thinking should be the basis on which opinion is formed.

Indeed

The purpose of science is to find evidence and present theories based on it.

You have this backwards. Pick up a rock, or a bone, I bet you any money you like that it does not talk to you.

By turning yourself over to a religion you are able to just explain everything away with 'God did it'.

By turning yourself over to evolution you are able to just explain everything a way with "millions of years did it"

Science does not pretend to have answers for things it does not understand yet, but preset facts based on real evidence and testing.

If God is real, and he did create the Universe according to the description in Genesis, then science and rational thinking can still be used to try to understand how things "work".

 

[lucaspa]

The creationists want to know why is it people think evolution is real even with all the obvious signs of creation.

Two different ideas here: creation and creationism. It sounds like you are making them the same thing. That means you are trying to fight the atheism vs theism battle. Listen carefully:
EVOLUTION IS NOT ATHEISM

There is considerable evidence refuting creationism. Now, what "obvious signs of creation" do you have that are not creationism?

It bothers me how the evolutionists present their views, and how they have such a large population completely brainwashed into the belief.

Here, Mark, you have several huge problems. The first is that evolution is not a "belief". If you think so, that is more evidence that you think evolution is atheism. It's not.

Second, creationism used to be the accepted scientific theory. If you were to look at the scientific literature and writings by scientists in 1800, you would find them all accepting creationism. Come back 70 years later and you find essentially all of them rejecting creationism and accepting evolution. Yet none of them had changed their religious beliefs because of evolution. So, were scientists "brainwashed" to accept creationism? If so, how did they change their minds and accept evolution instead? If scientists were not brainwashed to accept creationism, then they certainly were not brainwashed when they changed their minds. After all, having decided creationism on the merits, they would not let anyone "brainwash" them without evidence, especially since accepting evolution did not cause any of them to abandon theism.

That creator of that 'theory' stopped using that 10 years so more ago and it was just a cute example. It could probably be redeveloped using another naturally occuring fruit.

Who was the creator and where did that creator admit that the banana was not an example of refutation of evolution? I have seen the banana example used this year, so why is it that creationists have not gotten the word?

Also, if any other fruits support the argument, then where are they?

Then where did you get your belief as a christian from then?

Perhaps the same place that the authors of the books got their beliefs? You aren't telling us that Paul got his belief from reading a book, are you?

Do you seriously think that the Bible is the only place to get our beliefs as Christians? Is that the only way to believe in Jesus as Savior?

You have this backwards. Pick up a rock, or a bone, I bet you any money you like that it does not talk to you.

That was nice distraction. That isn't what the OP said. What was said was: "The purpose of science is to find evidence and present theories based on it."

Nothing was said about rocks "talking". However, most geologists and anthropologists would say that rocks and bones "talk" in the metaphorical sense. They tell a story is you are willing to look and listen. Hutton found that unconformities like Siccar Point told a story about a very old earth that had undergone many slow geological changes. Anyone looking at the casts of Lucy's bones at the American Museum of Natural History and bones from chimp and modern humans can see that Lucy is telling us about evolution. The bones tell us that Lucy was in-between chimp and human. Not all one, not all the other, but a mixture of features of both. Hall of Human Origins | American Museum of Natural History

By turning yourself over to evolution you are able to just explain everything a way with "millions of years did it"

Is this what you think evolution is? Then no wonder you disagree with it. But, of course, you have a strawman of evolution. "Millions of years" by themselves don't do anything. It is the processes that have operated over that time frame that produce the diversity of life we see now. In particular, it is natural selection. Natural selection is an unintelligent process that produces design. It is an algorithm for producing design. So the designs we see in plants and animals today were produced by natural selection (thank God, because otherwise God is in big trouble).

If God is real, and he did create the Universe according to the description in Genesis, then science and rational thinking can still be used to try to understand how things "work".

Notice you have tied 2 things together: God is real and God creating according to a literal Genesis. Now, what do you think happens if God did not create according to a literal Genesis? Do you think that God ceases to be real?

I really suggest you read the essay here --http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/oct1982/v39-3-article1.htm -- and see if any of it sounds like you.

The problem for you is that, in understanding how things "work", Christians found that God did not create according to the description in Genesis. God created a different way.