Talk:Creationism

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Dating back to the time of Jesus...

I have no other grievance apart from the (seemingly) hijacking of creationism by Christians. There are plenty of other earlier religions, myths and sagas that mention it. Creationism certainly dates from earlier times than the first century AD. Brutal Deluxe (talk) 22:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

There are certainly other stories of creation for other religions. Those are covered in general in places like creation mythology. Creationism, however, is a specific movement that is specific to Abrahamic faiths.Farsight001 (talk) 00:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

As per Farsight001 above I restored the material.--LexCorp (talk) 01:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course, but Jesus did not invent Abrahamic faiths, therefore the history of creationism does not date to the time of Jesus, but to an earlier time, the beginning of history, possibly.Brutal Deluxe (talk) 11:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Creationism dates to a specific time in the Abrahamic faiths, but as far as I can tell, that time is in the 20th century. In the Middle Ages, the Church accepted Aristotle's views about how the physical universe was created, and viewed the first chapters of Genesis allegorically. Certainly many Jews interpreted them allegorically as well. Philo of Alexandria interpereted the creation stories allegorically, and I think that is the earliest interpretation we have. As for Jews before Philo, well, what evidence do you have that the people who wrote the first two chapters of Genesis intended that they be taken literally? Creationism is an ideology that developed in the 20th century or perhaps late 19th century as a reaction against modernity. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Lutheran belief

Why does one of the paragraphs reference the Lutheran church as a church that does not hold the Bible as applicable to the physical world? I am not trying to fight or argue, but as a Lutheran I am curious as to where this reference was acquired. To my understanding, nowhere in Lutheran doctrine is the Bible discounted as a source of knowledge of the physical world. Help?Prussian725 (talk) 02:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyone?Prussian725 (talk) 16:53, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Having looked out some references, I've rephrased it as "consider that there is no conflict between the spiritual meaning of creation and the science of evolution." For additional info, see Judge Jones interviewed by The Lutheran | NCSE and linked articles. . . dave souza, talk 17:56, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the ref's dave. I myself am a LCMS Lutheran, whereas judge Jones III is ELCA. Don't know if the distinction is pertinent enough to mention, but it might be considered as there are some differences in belief. What do you think?Prussian725 (talk) 14:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Changing legit Wiki Links

There is a user who is going back and changing all proper wiki-links in this article to an old article title. Now that old article title was only in effect for 2 months, and yet all the wiki-links were changed to match that. Somehow this user didn't object then. Now that the article is changed back, that user is pushing that the wiki-links remain the same. Does anyone else see this as pov-pushing? I certainly do. SAE (talk) 03:13, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Religious belief, revisited

I'll acknowledge upfront that I've recently taken issue with the opening line's introduction of creationism as a "religious belief". I backed off from that argument (i.e., the position that labeling creationism a religious belief was over-simplistic), pending a look at the source already provided. I haven't checked that source and haven't seen that anyone else has checked it, and I retain my final position that the legitimacy of the opening phrase hinges on what the source says. So, I do not mean to rehash my old/original position here. However, as I was editing the article today, I still sensed something awkward about the first line. The problem, IMO, is that it's simply redundant. Even if we understand religious belief as belief generally in a supernatural agency, what we ultimately have, in the assertion that "Creationism is [a] religious belief [about] a supernatural agency" is, "Creationism is a religious belief pertaining to the object of a religious belief." To avoid this sort of redundancy, I might suggest rephrasing the line as something like, "Creationism is the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural, or religious, agency." Or, perhaps, "Creationism is the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural agency of religious import." Or even, "Creationism is the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural deity." Or just, "...the creation of a deity." Again, I acknowledge having raised (and relented on) a related theme a while back. I trust my fellow editors not to assume that I'm trying to push any particular POV (e.g., some form of naturalistic legitimation), but nonetheless offer evidence of my neutrality to any... shall I say, non-believers. ;-) Basically, regardless of whether or not the opening line is over-simplifying, I wonder if it might be overstating its idea. Cosmic Latte (talk) 20:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I have the second edition of the book. I found this on page 114 regarding Creationism as a religious belief

"McLean v. Arkansas was tried in federal district court... The Arkansas ACLU would argue that because creation science was inherently a religious idea, its advocacy as required by Act 590 would violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution." That is what I can find on page 114. But it goes on further about the trial and how the defense was unwilling to use people from the ICR due to the fact that they wrote Christian apologetic material.

Essentially by passing Act 590, the state of Arkansas was acting in the advancement of religion (by allowing for the teaching of creation science). The Act was overturned in that court case because creation science is a religious belief.ZgokE (talk) 21:53, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Cosmic Latte - I do see your point about the clumsiness of the opening sentence right now. There is redundancy in there. My first leaning was towards your suggestion of "Creationism is the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural, or religious, agency." However, I think it's important to emphasise in the wording that by far the strongest promotion of creationist views today is from the more fundamental Christian organisations, largely within the United States. (And this comes from someone constantly working to remove US centric aspects of Wikipedia!) To mention "supernatural" before "religious" in your definition seems to put an inaccurate slant on that. How about we reverse those words, giving us.... "Creationism is the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a religious or supernatural agency." HiLo48 (talk) 23:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

What is a religious agency? Sorry but that sentence does not make any sense. For what is worth I do not see any redundancy or clumsiness in the current version. Also extra ref from Decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover, by Judge John E. Jones, December 20, 2005 at page 43 reads "The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.". I hope "view" as synonym of "belief" is not too problematic as it is mentioned as such in almost all dictionaries.--LexCorp (talk) 00:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I concur with LexCorp ZgokE (talk) 09:14, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

True--"religious agency" doesn't sound quite right. To rephrase my initial thought, "religious belief [about] a supernatural agency" just sounds a bit like, "religious belief about a religious idea". Perhaps omitting "religious" and adding "deity" (e.g., creationism is the belief ... a deity or other supernatural agency") would do the trick. Or, perhaps, omit "religious" and replace "supernatural agency" with "Creator deity", which even has its own article. Or, of course, leave as-is: I still sense a copy-editing issue with implying "religious" twice in one sentence, but I have no doubts (after reading the above) that "religious belief" is verifiable regardless. Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:10, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Growing evidence for naturalistic explanations

Don’t be sorry, be specific. Point out the evidence (I maybe missed it), rather than simply be disdainful and patronising. Mannafredo (talk) 14:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Cosmic Latte deleted the relevant paragraph. I agree with the deletion in that it was unsourced and irrelevant to this particular section.--LexCorp (talk) 15:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, Mannafredo, even if that passage as a whole had been relevant to the surrounding text, abiogenesis would not have been germane to the passage. That abiogenesis may be something of a mystery does not mean that "detailed scientific and naturalistic explanations" of abiogenesis have not been offered. They exist; they're just debated and in need of greater synthesis. And that, really, is how it often goes in academia: If there is a God of the gaps, he's lord over lots of things that scholars study. Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I thought the passage seemed fine relevant to the heading ‘…naturalistic explanations’. The evolution bit that’s left is only part of the picture - post-origin-of-life. My problem with the passage was that it seemed to ignore the ‘gaps’, and by doing so include all the gaps (including the origin-of-life) under the ‘Growing evidence…’ part of the heading. It is this particular gap, to me a biggy, that I don’t think there is ‘growing evidence’ in solving at all - hence its being recognised as an on-going ‘mystery’ as you put it. Mannafredo (talk) 07:57, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

revert by Scientizzle

I am not advocating spontaeneous edits, but the most recent edit by a random IP has brought to light an uncited statement that I think deserves some sort of reference, since it does speak for literally millions of people around the globe. I understand that it does only say "many" Christians, but this language is somewhat floppy and does not entail any factual data. Thoughts?Prussian725 (talk) 16:59, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

For reference this was the revert. The claim in question

Many Christians around the world today accept evolution as the most likely explanation for the origins of species, and do not take a literal view of the Genesis creation narrative.

comes before other claims attributed to the source found at Miller, J. D.; Scott, EC; Okamoto, S (11 August 2006). "Public Acceptance of Evolution". Science. 313 (5788): 765–766. doi:10.1126/science.1126746. PMID 16902112. For what it's worth, I think the "many" may fall into WP:WEASEL territory, but it's a claim clearly supported by the source (that outside of the US & Turkey, "Western" nations are far less literal in their interpretations of scripture and less antagonistic its relationship to science). — Scientizzle 17:17, 17 May 2010 (UTC)