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In America, 46% of People Hold a Creationist View of Human Origins
An anonymous reader writes "The latest Gallup poll is out, and it finds that 46% of Americans hold the view that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. According to Gallup, the percentage who hold this view has remained unchanged since 1982, when they first started asking the question. Roughly 33% of Americans believe in divinely guided evolution, and 15% believe that humans evolved without any supernatural help."
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted May 3-6, 2012 with a random sample of –1,024—adults, aged 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
It's the very first line of the report. http://www.gallup.com/file/poll/155006/Creationism_120601.pdf
For a while I thought this, but then I was pointed out that Muslims have very low acceptance rates of evolution even though Islam doesn't need the details of a creation story in any deep theological way. http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/02/21/acceptance-of-evolution-by-var/. This may be due in part to the general more reactionary and hyper-religious aspects of Islam currently having more sway than in much of Christianity, but at least on its surface this suggests that whatever causes high rates of creationism in Christianity may be more subtle.
The book of Genesis is definitely considered allegorical by most Christians, including the Pope. However most Christians also believe that left to themselves, humans quickly descent into sin, and from there war, pestilence, famine and whatnot. Jesus saves us not because he died on the cross, that is just a spectacular example of incomprehensible self-sacrifice. He saves us because if you believe in him, then you will not descend into sin, simply because by loving your neighbor, war, famine, whatnot becomes quickly impossible.
Anyway, even if the garden of Eden never happened, Christianity does not collapse. Christianity is a faith, it can explain away anything.
As Gandhi said, I love your Christ but I don't love your Christians.
I'll insert myself here by saying "YES."
It's bad enough that these businesses in the US exist to collect donations which go to pay for their land, buildings and the ridiculously high salaries of priests, preachers, pastors or whatever they want to me called and do it all tax-free because it's "religion." But they go on to insult the whole educational process in every way possible by asserting things without evidence or experiment or verification of any kind. Some people even get real PhD's in this crap.
"The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it." [Lazarus Long, _Time enough for Love_, by Robert Heinlein]
A PhD in ancient Greek or Roman or other mythologies is "okay" but to declare a difference between that and "religious studies" is simply ridiculous and I demand an explanation of the fundamental difference between "mythology" and "religion." You have to realize that today's "religion" will be tomorrow's mythology right? Just as today's mythology was yesterday's religion?
Simple. Religion is what you believe; myths are what others believe or with another Heinlein quote:
One man's religion is another man's belly laugh. [Robert Heinlein]
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben