Bobby Rappach
11-1-12
Mr. Boyle
Creationism

The concept of Creationism has been around since a monotheistic Abrahamic God. It is nothing more than a literal interpretation of the creation story of Genesis as a basis for the creation of everything in the universe. Until the early 1500’s it was the common belief that the world was flat and this is one the only exceptions that creationist sects have excepted when it comes to modern day science along with the earth not being the center of the universe. Today’s definition can be understood as Christianity and Catholicism until the years surrounding 1500AD. Even after such discoveries it had a large amount of belief compared to new scientific discoveries. As scientific advances over the past 500 years have explained more mysteries, more and more different sects of creationism have come to be. Each sect has a certain set of scientific facts that they accept as being true, and use their own type of science to prove modern scientific findings to be incorrect. The most extreme sect of creationism that I will be focusing on is Young- Earth Creationism (YEC). The Earth to them in term of age is somewhere between 5,700 to 10,000 years old and either rejects or has an alternative version of every science. Many ancient calendars throughout time have recorded the world dating back to as early as 5500BC, and this history merged with the creation story leads to claims of times before humans being able to write is nonexistent. In the 1800’s when Charles Darwin theorized evolution, there was a great decline in people who thought the Genesis Creation story was real, while at the same time, devout believers in the creation story broke off creating what are now forms of creationism. Also, James Hutton is known, as the father of modern geology is one who has been a troublemaker for modern creationists to find sufficient proof of their religion holding any real truth. Due to the findings in rocks dating back millions of years and evolution taking place throughout life on earth, creationists have used this as science forcing religion to put those millions of years in the bible, not taking the bible as past writing but a book containing Earth’s beginning and end. After the decline due to evolution and geology, a rise came in 1923 when George McCready Price wrote The New Geology giving a fundamentalist’s perspective on geology attracting Lutheran pastors and Seventh-Day Adventists. Young Earth creationists having a lack of support for their beliefs is claimed to be the doing of the scientific community by discrimination and censorship by professional science journals or among professional science organizations. After all the debate going back and forth over the years, a 2012 poll of U.S. adults shows that 32% agrees with the statement "human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process"; 15% believed that "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process"; and 46% agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." 1With this finding, the U.S. is the biggest supporter of quote on quote creationist idea but not fully on board with other elements of creationist ideas. Among the wide variety of different forms of creationism, the most extreme is the Young- Earth Creationism group. By taking the most literal approach of the Bible to accommodate their beliefs, they have the most trouble in today’s largely scientific community. By denouncing all aspects of modern science and using creation science which a alternative incorrect form of science that proves to them that the bible explains creation while modern science is incorrect on many levels such as physics, biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, cosmology, and genomics, and linguistics. Belief wise, their version of each science differs from normal science using the Bible as a basis for facts and failed attempts and experiments in modern science to disprove regular science. In geology, instead of the Earth’s rock layers forming over millions of years they believe that Noah’s Great Flood brought upon the shape of mountains and diverse amounts of hills, valleys, plateaus etc. One of the greatest controversies when it comes to creationists is the idea of dinosaurs and humans. Today the average person could tell you that dinosaurs were around before humans, but not creationists. They believe that along with other animals, dinosaurs were brought on Noah’s Ark and died out due to rapid climate change. Since dinosaurs were not mentioned in the bible, they were referred to as dragons, behemoths, and leviathans brings upon the idea in their mind that they lived along side the ancient people mentioned in the bible. In this they denounce the geology of dating rocks and fossils by criticizing the formula used to date them back millions of years. In chemistry they have said that the carbon dating of radioactive isotopes is incorrect because of the lack of 100% accuracy while being relatively close, they have created there own formula which no matter how they date it, it will always come to a conclusion of less than 10,000 years ago. Away from the science controversy in their belief, on a theological level they believe most of the same views as Catholics. There are three persons in one God as well as Jesus being born of the Virgin Mary. Also, they believe in the resurrection as well as Satan being an adversary to mankind and a fallen angel of God. They hold many if not all of the Christian beliefs in God, including the doctrine of the trinity, the Nicene Creed, Henry Morris, a leading member of the creationist movement once said “Christians who flirt with less-than-literal readings of biblical texts are also flirting with theological disaster.” This explains that even Christians are easily fooled into going with society on the teachings of the Bible being parables and stories that have moral standings in the text, while some of the Bible is a credited source of historical facts rather than separating from the nonbelievers who don’t take the Bible from a literal stand point. “Evolution teaches that the Bible has errors and cannot be trusted. Christians need to have their questions answered and doubts removed. Churches, seminaries and denominations need to be called back under the authority of the Book that they have been taught to doubt. That is the real message of creationism.” This was part of newsletter of Acts and Facts back in June in 1995 written by John Morris, Vice President of ICR, explaining that science has put a recent burden on Christians to either believe in Bible all the way or why bother. This predicament would fall to 1.8 out of the 2 billion Christians on Earth who believe that evolution has something to do with how the world is today and don’t take a literal understanding of the Bible. This mission to try and turn Christians back to their old beliefs before science is their so-called goal. This is intertwined in their faith to save those who have fallen short of true belief due to society’s look upon the mixture of religion and science. This could be put into the seven dimensions of their religion, due to the basics being quite similar to Christianity.

On a theological level, creationism and Christianity have very litter disputes. When speaking of the seven dimensions, a few are actually identical. On the first dimension, which is experiential, creationism has the same faith as early Christianity or the Protestants when they first split from the church due to their fundamentalist views of the bible. Taking into account this mixture of beliefs of the early church while also a 19th century manufactured religion, there is not much to show when it comes to depth of the seven dimensions due to everything they hold truth and belief in comes from the Bible as their only source.
The mythic dimension in this case is taken literal by means of using the bible or the creation story of Genesis as a literal basis of their religion that holds sacred truth but not by definition of the mythic dimension. It is said that such a mythic dimension is not to mess with history or science but in this case it strongly denies all other ideas, theories, and scientific proof of the origin of humans, and the world. For instance, science books teach that rock layers form over millions of years and create the surface of the world we have now, but creationism states that instead of Noah’s Ark being just in that region or a story of God destroying the nonbelievers it happened soon after the six days of creation causing the shapes that form land that we see today. The doctrinal dimension reflects the various doctrines of the early Catholic Church. The Apostle’s Creed, being one, outlines most of their beliefs alongside Catholics as well as the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the Nicene Creed. Also, the matter of sin, temptation, and hell is also the same but the temptations lie more with the turning away from the true faith revealed in the bible and siding with society due to it being the majority. Next we have the ethical dimension showing the code or rules they go by for living. There code I suppose would be the Ten Commandments just like Catholics in trying to be a good person seeking Heaven after death instead of Hell. As they stand for loving one’s enemies and other teachings and parables of Jesus just as Christians do, they find that they specifically preach or put more emphasis on teachings that are directly in the Bible. When it comes to rituals performed by creationists, not much is done besides masses and social gatherings and seminars. In this dimension we see a shocking part that shows that even though belief wise it was close to Christianity on this level they don’t have to be Christian. Sacrament wise, not all celebrate the Eucharist or other sacraments or even have some sort of equivalent to any sacraments. From what I have researched there are not many rituals involved or important to the religion. On the social dimension, most would have to do with the seminars of leaders or prominent members trying to get new members or at least get their good news out. Their social work is mainly focused around people that are protestant or catholic because they would have a lot easier transition than someone for instance didn’t even know about the genesis creation story or had a polytheistic religion. Lastly, we have the material dimension, which in this case doesn’t bring up much when it comes to cathedrals or large churches. The most iconic and recognizable material place would be the Creation Museum in Petersburg Kentucky. This is the basis that explains much of the faith they believe in, such as a model of Noah’s Ark with animals on it including dinosaurs, as well as depiction of the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve coexisting with dinosaurs. As creationism is not a mainstream religion it has not done much in terms of changing society or had an effect on the culture. Throughout the world there are many different sects of creationism under Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam. In the U.S. the largest footprint creationists have left is the movement that stopped the teaching of evolution in public schools. New York and Colorado are the only states that teach evolution and that are based upon the school’s decision, while schools in Ohio and Kentucky actually teach the criticism of evolution. In Australia, there are many scientific communities that attack creationism aggressively when the idea of creationism being taught as a science class and evolution being taken out. “ | An essential element in the teaching of science is the encouragement of students and teachers to critically appraise the evidence for notions being taught as science. The Society states unequivocally that the dogmatic teaching of notions such as Creationism within a science curriculum stifles the development of critical thinking patterns in the developing mind and seriously compromises the best interests of objective public education. This could eventually hamper the advancement of science and technology as students take their places as leaders of future generations. | ” | —Geological Society of Australia 1 | |
"Unacceptable" to teach creationism and intelligent design, whether it happens in science lessons or not. The statement claims two organizations, Truth in Science and Creation Ministries International are "touring the UK and presenting themselves as scientists and their creationist views as science"…"Creationism and intelligent design are not scientific theories, but they are portrayed as scientific theories by some religious fundamentalists who attempt to have their views promoted in publicly funded schools,"4 With this being said, we can see the more brutal side of criticism towards creationism when it comes to future education of children in the field of science. As earlier mentioned, the U.S. being freer and open to education like this is the greatest supporter of this curriculum having it taught in a few states and evolution banned in others. Due to the continues stream of scientific advancements, many outside sources from other religions say that some scientific facts should be accepted and will help understand where we came from and God’s plan. But creationist leaders have said that at this point in time science has been cocky and is trying to wipe religion away and they will continue push religion out of the picture.

WORK CITED 1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_and_evolution_in_public_education 2. http://www.oldearth.org/doctrine.htm 3. http://www.answersingenesis.org - about us mission statement and statement of faith 4.http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/19/scientists-demand-guidelines-creationism-schools 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism