How many Catholics are YEC

[TrueRomanCatholic]

Ok well I appreciate this but there’s no way the Earth could be that much older than the Creation of Mother Church.

The world truly started fresh with the birth of the Most Holy Spouse of the world’s shepherd, Mother Church. We’re truly only 2019 years old

 

[GordonP]

My Irish grandparents were a good deal more “Calvinistic” than my parents or me. So were the Alsatian ones.

That’s due to Jansenism, not Calvinism. Jansensism was a heresy that arose in France in 17th and 18th centuries. Even after it was squashed, it continued to have a deep influence on Catholicism in some places until quite recently, particularly Ireland and Quebec.

Jansenism looks a bit like Calvinism, as both are the result of a particular interpretation of St. Augustine’s writings. Jansenism arose independently from Calvinism, though.

Because the clergy in the US was dominated by the Irish in the late 19th century, American Catholicism had some Jansenist influences at that time, but that largely died out by the middle of the 20th century.

Jansenism never took hold in parts of Italy (as you note), Spain, Portugal, Germany or Poland. This created a lot of tension between Catholics of these ethnic groups in the US and the predominantly Irish bishops during the great immigration period.

 

[thistle]

So what’s your personal opinion, Ed. I asked a few posts ago but you must have missed it. A few thousand or a few billion? Ball park figure?

In case he keeps avoiding the question I will answer it. The earth is around 4.5 billion years old.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

So what was your opinion on the age of the planet?

God was the only intelligent being around for the first five days of creation, so how would God measure the length of his day?
If God lived in Australia, his day would be 24 hours long. But why would God measure the length of his day by some insignificant little specs of dust that he created, we call them the Earth and the Sun, but what are they to God?
God said, that a day to him, is like a thousand years to us. But a thousand years to us is 365,000 days in round figures. 365,000 days to God would be 365,000 times a thousand years.
The important thing for me is that God created the universe in six stages, he called them days, but the length of each day is not important to me. The most significant meaning is that creation could not happen without God.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

The shame is not so much that an ignorant person is laughed at, but rather that people outside the faith believe that we hold such opinions, and thus our teachings are rejected as ignorant and unlearned.

And, let’s face it—there are some atheist philosophers and writers who know very darn well that YEC isn’t a mainstream Christian view, but trot it out anyway to make Christians look stupid

 

[Bradskii]

niceatheist:

The shame is not so much that an ignorant person is laughed at, but rather that people outside the faith believe that we hold such opinions, and thus our teachings are rejected as ignorant and unlearned.

And, let’s face it—there are some atheist philosophers and writers who know very darn well that YEC isn’t a mainstream Christian view, but trot it out anyway to make Christians look stupid

You are kidding, right?

‘Four in 10 Americans believe God created the Earth and anatomically modern humans, less than 10,000 years ago, according to a new Gallup poll.’ https://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationists.html

So ‘atheist philosophers and writers’ and random Australians you meet on forums like this find it necessary to keep pointing out the fact that almost every other American that you might meet on a random soiree around the United States of America thinks that the planet is only a few thousand years old. And it goes without saying that that percentage will increase when you travel around certain states.

Now this isn’t to make Christians look stupid. Every single Christian I personally know is quite intelligent. And there is a possibility that those who think that planetary formation takes about 300 generations are not stupid. In fact, I would say that most of them are just as intelligent as the ones that I know.

But this willfull ignorance needs to be addressed. By all interested parties. And you are one of those interested parties. Because yes, you will be tarred by that same fundamentalist brush. If you mention that you are an American Christian anywhere outside of the continental USA then you will be pigeon-holed. And not in a way that you would appreciate.

If you hide your head in the sand about these views (‘it isn’t a mainstream Christian view’) then you have no reason to complain about being associated with them.

 

[Magnanimity]

You are kidding, right?

‘Four in 10 Americans believe God created the Earth and anatomically modern humans, less than 10,000 years ago, according to a new Gallup poll.’ https://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationists.html

A more recent sampling showed a downward trend.

Now this isn’t to make Christians look stupid. Every single Christian I personally know is quite intelligent.

Fair enough but the polling shows a pretty clear link between creationist beliefs and education level. For example, for those polled with HS diploma or lower—close to 50% hold to creationism. And for those with postgraduate degrees? Closer to 20%.

None of this has to do with IQ, but it may have to do with level of education, sure.

I am a recovering YEC myself! The first ‘intellectual’ I ever heard speak at my church when I became a Pentecostal in my teens was a guy named Ken Ham. Anyone familiar with creationism knows him. He has good rhetorical skills and to my 16 y.o. new Christian mind, he made a lot of sense! I carried that YEC into Catholicism in my late 20’s, and it took quite some time (and a post-grad degree probably) to let is all go. And I was all-in with the YEC stuff—AiG, ICR, CRS, all of it. I’m not embarrassed about it—that stuff can be quite persuasive, especially if presented to a young or less educated mind. Again, nothing to do with IQ… Among educated Catholics, it’s a clear majority who hold to evolution (whether naturalistic or “God-guided”).

 

[goout]

“I need fundamentalist caricatures to justify my atheism”

There, fixed your thread title.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

I stand by what I said.
YEC is not a mainstream view:
Some atheist philosophers play the pretending game that YEC is a mainstream Christian view.

You are not one of those atheist philosophers I’m referring to , because AFAIK, you haven’t written any popular books.

 

[edwest211]

You’ll have to cite some sources to show what that majority actually believes.

 

[Bradskii]

You’ll have to cite some sources to show what that majority actually believes.

Again, you have absolved yourself from asking questions by your refusal to answer them.

 

[Bradskii]

I stand by what I said.
YEC is not a mainstream view:
Some atheist philosophers play the pretending game that YEC is a mainstream Christian view.

You are not one of those atheist philosophers I’m referring to , because AFAIK, you haven’t written any popular books.

So you don’t consider 40% of a nation who thinks people rode dinosaurs (a quick hi to Ken Hamm who was just mentioned) isn’t a problem? For you?

 

[Magnanimity]

You’ll have to cite some sources to show what that majority actually believes.

Feel free to follow the link in my reply above to @Bradskii

 

[edwest211]

Why is that a problem?

Note: Someone else will have to respond since I was ‘banned by Bradskii ™’

 

[Bradskii]

“I need fundamentalist caricatures to justify my atheism”

There, fixed your thread title.

Thanks. But knowing that so many people believe this nonsense doesn’t float my boat in any way. It is depressing. Most of what Catholics believe has resulted in my atheism. It doesn’t need the willfull ignorance of YEC to bolster it. That just makes me frustrated at the lack of education in some parts of the world.

Tell me you are not depressed in some way that ignorance is rife.

 

[TMC]

I stand by what I said.
YEC is not a mainstream view:
Some atheist philosophers play the pretending game that YEC is a mainstream Christian view.

So you don’t consider 40% of a nation who thinks people rode dinosaurs (a quick hi to Ken Hamm who was just mentioned) isn’t a problem? For you?

I think it matters what is meant by “mainstream.” If “mainstream” means - believed by large numbers of people, or a significant percentage of Christians - then I’m afraid YEC is depressingly mainstream. If “mainstream” means believed by most Christian theologians or espoused by the largest Christian denominations - then YEC is not mainstream.

Another factor at play here may be a form of polling bias. Some people give pollsters extreme answers to poll questions to signal a cultural affinity. So it may be that at least some of the 40% do not “really” believe in YEC, they are signalling that they have a cultural affinity to that mindset. Its hard to measure that kind of polling error, although I think attempts were made to do so in measuring certain political conspiracy theories.

And yes, if 40% of Americans actually deny basic science in this manner that is a problem.

 

[edwest211]

Regarding your last sentence, what would be the practical effects of this problem?

 

[TMC]

Tell me you are not depressed in some way that ignorance is rife.

Its depressing, but its not really ignorance. One of the fascinating features of this kind of willfully erroneous belief is that it is resistant to education. Watch the newish documentary on the flat earth phenomena on Netflix. Most of those people are not stupid or ignorant - but their ability to maintain false and even contradictory beliefs in the face of objective evidence is amazing. There are some really interesting things going one there, but it is not ignorance. Its much more persistent (and pernicious) than that.

 

[Bradskii]

Regarding your last sentence, what would be the practical effects of this problem?

Still asking question…?

 

[TMC]

Regarding your last sentence, what would be the practical effects of this problem?

I think that once such a large portion of the populace willfully rejects objective reality, it becomes difficult for that population to make reasoned decisions that are based on objective reality. Put another way, real life issues are rarely handled well by those who reject empirical reality.