This is an oldie but a goodie, and some of you may not have seen it.
Archived entries for Creationism
One question non-believers often get is “if religion isn’t true, how have so many people and the world’s greatest minds been religious?” This, obviously, does not prove anything. So you might imagine my frustration around 1999 when 20/20 first ran a small segment claiming that the “world’s smartest man” was on his way to proving God’s existence through complex mathematics and science that most people, even mathematicians, could barely understand. By the way, the reason mathematicians cannot understand it is not due to its complexity. Continue reading…
Gallup has released an interesting new scientific poll gauging America’s belief (or lack thereof) in evolution. I think you can look at this data in one of two ways. If you are a glass-half-empty person, you can look at it like the pollsters did:
Most Americans believe in God, and about 85% have a religious identity. It is not surprising as a result to find that about 8 in 10 Americans hold a view of human origins that involves actions by God — that he either created humans as depicted in the book of Genesis, or guided a process of evolution. What no doubt continues to surprise many scientists is that 4 out of 10 Americans believe in the first of these explanations.
These views have been generally stable over the last 28 years. Acceptance of the creationist viewpoint has decreased slightly over time, with a concomitant rise in acceptance of a secular evolution perspective. But these shifts have not been large, and the basic structure of beliefs about human beings’ origins is generally the same as it was in the early 1980s.
On the other hand, if you are a glass-half-full person, you will notice that creationism is currently at an all time-low, and secular evolution is on the rise. Sure, the overall numbers are 40% to 16%, but that’s still an improvement over 2000, when the gap was 47% to 9%. Continue reading…
I’d like to take a moment to introduce you all to a YouTube user named QualiaSoup, whose channel is found here. QualiaSoup has a lot of great videos on science and popular creationism arguments, the production value is always great and they are really easy to follow. Here is a great example of one of his newer videos on irreducible complexity. Irreducible complexity is one of the most popular arguments in favor of creationism. Time and time again, leading biologists have proven that the irreducible complexity argument is without merit. Have a look for yourself at the video below to explore the topic more:
We discuss the emerging trend of “hipster Christians” - kids who smoke, drink, maybe even have sex, doing it all for the Lord; also, a new report suggests atheists and agnostics know more about world religions than the faithful themselves and, a new paper attempting to massage the problem of ancient supernovae light and Youth Earth Creationism is discussed.
Tom also interviews Texas community organizer Whitney Ford of the Happy Atheist Forum.
Let us know what you think of the show in the comments section.
Show Notes
http://anamericanatheist.org/2010/10/07/answers-in-genesis-publishes-cutting-edge-research/
http://anamericanatheist.org/2010/09/30/hipster-christianity/
http://anamericanatheist.org/2010/09/28/atheists-and-agnostics-most-knowledgable-about-religion/
Host(s): Chris Thielen, Tom Beasley, Robin Marie, Sam Won
Music: CAVE, MWD, Lee Rosevere, Nouvellas (from freemusicarchive.org)
Episode 27: Hipster Christianity, Trickster God, and Smart Atheists [59:44] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (324)Answers in Genesis recently published an article entitled Anisotropic Synchrony Convention—A Solution to the Distant Starlight Problem. At first, this site might remind you of other sites based on Poe’s law (spoof sites), like Objective Ministries (a good example is one of its funnier articles that depicts half-eyed octopi). The Answers in Genesis article deals with some of the essential problems creationist scientists face, such as the distant starlight problem:
According to the Bible, everything in the universe was made in the span of six days (Exodus 20:11); these are clearly ordinary earth rotation days comprised of one evening and one morning (Genesis 1:5). Moreover, this creation happened a few thousand (roughly 6,000) years ago, as deduced from the genealogies we read in sections of the Bible such as Genesis 5 and 11. The clear biblical teaching therefore is that everything in the universe is a few thousand years old. Since light travels a distance of one light year (about 6 trillion miles or 9 trillion kilometers) in one year, it would seem that we should only be able to see objects within a radius of 6,000 light years. Objects beyond that distance should not be visible, since presumably their light has not yet reached us. Yet, paradoxically, we can see galaxies whose distances have been measured to be many billions of light years away. This apparent mystery has been often addressed in creation literature as “the distant starlight problem.”
A sane person reading this might find a lot of problems, don’t worry, creationists see problems too and the author of the article elaborates (because of his scientific integrity) on some of the problems this approach has:
But the light-in-transit model undermines the basic reliability of our senses. Consider: the light-in-transit model would mean that all events (supernovae for example—fig. 1) beyond about 6,000 light years have never happened. They would merely be a sequence of images in a beam of light created by God. These images would not correspond to any real event… But if God is willing to make movies of fictional events at distances beyond 6,000 light years, then why would we arbitrarily assume that He would not also make fictional movies nearby? (Is the tree outside my window real, or is it merely a picture embedded in light beams created by God?)
Arguments of this nature embody the ‘mental gymnastics’ that creationists undergo to maintain their beliefs regarding creationism and evolution. What is worrisome is that so many individuals who don’t believe in evolution, 25% in last year’s Gallop poll (36% with no opinion either way), hold this belief likely without giving it much thought or investigation. So why bother targeting clearly foolish people like those at Answers in Genesis, or the Creation Museum? The people who believe in creationism defer to those people as their experts and never investigate their claims. It is appalling, perhaps even dangerous, that so much of our citizenry think the Earth is 6,000 years old and furthermore that evolution is an absurd notion.
.http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v3/n1/anisotropic-synchrony-convention
… The message is clear: no science programs offered from a biblical creationist viewpoint are allowed. Even private schools will be judged by the restricted, secular practices of public schools, reinforced by the secular interpretations of the Establishment Clause that now dominate the legal system.”
The Texas Tribune, and other sources, report that the Creation Institute has, for now, ended its fight to grant M.S. degrees in creationism. The Creation Institute’s side, in part, can be read here. According to the Texas Tribune:
Henry Morris III, the CEO of the Institute for Creation Research, has announced the end of the school’s fight with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.”
The initial judge found against the Creation Institute on summary judgment. More information about the lawsuit and the issue can be found here, and here. I should note that this strange light of reason specifically emits from, strangely, Texas, and other states do allow a variety of degrees to be granted from Christian/creationist points of view.
