Why do so many americans believe in Intelligent Design?

  • Thread starter Thread starter aprilfloyd
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Ahhhhh, but the theory of evolution is philosophy; it’s used by science to order certain things as in biology, but the theory of evolution is not science. It is simply an alternative way of explaining how we all got here,
No, it’s a way to explain the diversity of life that we see today.
which includes some very unscientific aspects (spontaneous generation,
aka abiogenesis in other words a different field of study
violations of scientific laws, etc)
such as?
Thanks for the answer. So it is a way to sneak ‘creationism’ into American science classes, where the schools systems forbids religion? If so that makes sense, why it is an American phenomenon.
That’s exactly what it is. It’s a reaction to several legal cases involving the issue of creationism being taught in schools whose outcomes did not favor the creationists.
If it is obvious to Americans that it is pseudo science, why would a popular scientist come out and express a worry about American children? Or Krauss for that matter
They are just being dramatic.

I do think lots of people including several in this thread seem to erroniously equate natural with random and with atheism. As if one can’t believe in the e-word and God. What they may not be considering is these wise words from a statement from the International Theological Commission, endorsed by Cardinal Ratzinger:

"In freely willing to create and conserve the universe, God wills to activate and to sustain in act all those secondary causes whose activity contributes to the unfolding of the natural order which he intends to produce. Through the activity of natural causes, God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation…

…[A]ccording to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation."

IOW, natural does not have to mean atheistic. Natural selection does not preclude God from being involved, though of course scientific methods cannot detect God.
 
No, it’s a way to explain the diversity of life that we see today.

aka abiogenesis in other words a different field of study

such as?

That’s exactly what it is. It’s a reaction to several legal cases involving the issue of creationism being taught in schools whose outcomes did not favor the creationists.

They are just being dramatic.

I do think lots of people including several in this thread seem to erroniously equate natural with random and with atheism. As if one can’t believe in the e-word and God. What they may not be considering is these wise words from a statement endorsed by Cardinal Ratzinger:

"In freely willing to create and conserve the universe, God wills to activate and to sustain in act all those secondary causes whose activity contributes to the unfolding of the natural order which he intends to produce. Through the activity of natural causes, God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation…

…[A]ccording to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation."

IOW, natural does not have to mean atheistic. Natural selection does not preclude God from being involved, though of course scientific methods cannot detect God.
Not the only way. In fact the tree of life has fallen and is now a bush. The modern synthesis is being replaced by the EES as we speak. Peering into the cell makes it much harder for an evo explanation. Proteins are a real problem.

Essential reading…a trillion trillion years or more

We now know natural selection is a conservative process not a creative one. DNA actively fights through many iterations against mutations.

Dr. John Sanford “Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome”

Junk DNA is gone.

We now know there are 500 or so “immortal” genes that life shares. From these just about any creature can be built by switching.

I can go on.
 
Well, I’m gonna say, I’m proud to be both an American, and a Creationist. I don’t know anything about “Young Earth”, or nothin, but I do believe the Bible when it says that God created the heavens and the earth. “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing: that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8) i think it’s quite possible it could have taken a few years. Considering that the sun wasn’t created until the fourth day, who knows how long the first three were.
 
Well, I’m gonna say, I’m proud to be both an American, and a Creationist. I don’t know anything about “Young Earth”, or nothin, but I do believe the Bible when it says that God created the heavens and the earth. “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing: that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8) i think it’s quite possible it could have taken a few years. Considering that the sun wasn’t created until the fourth day, who knows how long the first three were.
Consider Gen 1 seems to be written from Gods perspective. Imagine a rolled up tape measure. We live on the tape and have to look back past the graduations. God sees the entire tape at once, perhaps all seven layers.
 
No, it’s a way to explain the diversity of life that we see today.

aka abiogenesis in other words a different field of study

such as?

That’s exactly what it is. It’s a reaction to several legal cases involving the issue of creationism being taught in schools whose outcomes did not favor the creationists.

They are just being dramatic.

I do think lots of people including several in this thread seem to erroniously equate natural with random and with atheism. As if one can’t believe in the e-word and God. What they may not be considering is these wise words from a statement from the International Theological Commission, endorsed by Cardinal Ratzinger:

"In freely willing to create and conserve the universe, God wills to activate and to sustain in act all those secondary causes whose activity contributes to the unfolding of the natural order which he intends to produce. Through the activity of natural causes, God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation…

…[A]ccording to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation."

IOW, natural does not have to mean atheistic. Natural selection does not preclude God from being involved, though of course scientific methods cannot detect God.
Science and scientists have created this:

stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

God has nothing to do with science. ZERO. He cannot be studied. And it is obvious that scientific inquiry has led leading scientists to abandon Him.

Mention God in a science class? Not going to happen, unless you live in one of “those” states. God is always “not part of the picture.” That is the official version. So students are likely to draw only one conclusion.

Peace,
Ed
 
No, it’s a way to explain the diversity of life that we see today.
I am speaking of materialist (a-theistic) evolution, which is what is taught in school and which is what the scientists referenced in the OP (Nye and Kraus, iirc) were talking about.

God’s creating everything would also explain diversity of life.
aka abiogenesis in other words a different field of study
A different field of study from what?
That things fall apart.
I do think lots of people including several in this thread seem to erroniously equate natural with random and with atheism. As if one can’t believe in the e-word and God. …
Well, yes. This would be because what was originally proposed is that teaching ID in the US would lead American students to fall behind the rest of the world in science. The contrast is indeed between random chance evolution and a form of theistic evolution. Believe me, those guys in the videos would not be any happier if the proposed Catholic version of evolution were taught!
 
As Bill Nye indicates - ID belief is such an American phenomenon.

I agree with Bill, why is it being taught to kids and where are the future engineers and scientists going to come from.

youtube.com/watch?v=gHbYJfwFgOU

Or as Lawrence Krauss puts it, is this child abuse to validate such ignorance.

Why is this state of affairs so peculiar to America

youtube.com/watch?v=UTedvV6oZjo
I thought Lawrence Krauss’s name was familiar. He wrote Something out of Nothing. Here is a Catholic take on the book, by a priest who is also a scientist. The first few mintues are about something else, but then he begins to discuss this book. I think this talk might explain why some people are so skeptical of a-theistic evolution.
 
God has nothing to do with science. ZERO. He cannot be studied.
Yep. Exactly. So why do ID proponents say ID is science?
And it is obvious that scientific inquiry has led leading scientists to abandon Him.
Mention God in a science class? Not going to happen, unless you live in one of “those” states. God is always “not part of the picture.” That is the official version. So students are likely to draw only one conclusion.
I am speaking of materialist (a-theistic) evolution, which is what is taught in school and which is what the scientists referenced in the OP (Nye and Kraus, iirc) were talking about.
Since God cannot be scientifically studied by the natural sciences i.e. biology, He is not (or ought not be) mentioned in biology classes.
I dunno about you guys but I learned about mitosis and meiosis, ecosystems, the difference between plant cells and animals cells, dominant vs recessive genes, etc.
I was not taught that God did not exist.
The involvment of a supernatural being does not change what the scientists have found.
God’s creating everything would also explain diversity of life.
Yes it would. But that is not science. Biology is the study of life. The study of God is called theology.
Well, yes. This would be because what was originally proposed is that teaching ID in the US would lead American students to fall behind the rest of the world in science. The contrast is indeed between random chance evolution and a form of theistic evolution. Believe me, those guys in the videos would not be any happier if the proposed Catholic version of evolution were taught!
These guys want science taught in the science classroom. How would you like it if we started teaching Native American creation mythology in the science classroom? No? Well then why should Christian creation theology/mythology be taught in the science classroom?

How about they just teach what actually happened. What is known. It is known that populations change. Genes drift. Certain traits get passed on while others fade away.
 
OP: Everything in America is politicized these days. You can say the sky is blue and have people who will argue with you just because they don’t like you, your religion, or your politics. It’s really a sad state of affairs.

Most Americans are moderates, but you’d never know it if you only focused on what the media tends to present as the debate on the fringes.

In terms of ID, our schools are politicized. Our science is politicized. Being religious is politicized. People arguing about what they think Jesus would do and trying to make it fit their policy and ideology - it’s uniquely American.

Americans are more religious than Europeans. However, our university system tends to present modern, secular Europe as some sort of ideal. Scientists tend to be well-educated (not a bad thing), but our universities have a distinctive liberal bias and conservative/traditional views of faith and politics aren’t tolerated so much. There’s inherent conflict in the values of our scientists (who tend to be more educated) and the general population. The general population doesn’t have the noticeable bias against religion that a lot of academics/scientists do.

A lot of the population attends church every week and takes the Bible literally. So, when it says in Genesis that the Earth was created in 6 days, people take it to mean “6 days” (right or wrong, that’s not the point of the thread). It is what happens.

I tend to see ID as a theory that allows both faith and science to have merit and not be in conflict with each other. Why do science and faith have to be polar opposites, if God created the world? If God created the human mind to discover and explore the world? We have this need to understand how the world works.

The Bible was never meant to be a scientific document. However, science can’t explain everything that happens either. An inherent part of religious faith is having faith in the unseen or unknowable. Scientists are never going to definitively prove that God exists.

However, I don’t need someone else to prove to me that God does exist because I’ve experienced His presence in my life. (Just because someone is in denial about the existence of God doesn’t mean that I have to disrespected because I have a different belief system.)

I think that a lot more Americans would have a lot more respect for scientists if they didn’t come off as disrespecting their faith and value system.

Most Americans just aren’t rigid: one way or another. They are comfortable with both faith and science and can’t understand why there’s such antagonism towards faith and towards science.

Faith informs my life and values, but I understand why scientists use the scientific method to show and prove how things work in the world. I tend to see people who don’t have religion as unreasonable because there’s more to our world than what we can see and touch. I tend to see people who don’t value science as uneducated and foolish because science has made our world what it is today. 21st century is a lot different that 1st century Palestine and a lot of that has to do with scientific knowledge and advancement.

Just my two cents.
Peace.
Jo
 
OP: Everything in America is politicized these days. You can say the sky is blue and have people who will argue with you just because they don’t like you, your religion, or your politics. It’s really a sad state of affairs.

Most Americans are moderates, but you’d never know it if you only focused on what the media tends to present as the debate on the fringes.

In terms of ID, our schools are politicized. Our science is politicized. Being religious is politicized. People arguing about what they think Jesus would do and trying to make it fit their policy and ideology - it’s uniquely American.

Americans are more religious than Europeans. However, our university system tends to present modern, secular Europe as some sort of ideal. Scientists tend to be well-educated (not a bad thing), but our universities have a distinctive liberal bias and conservative/traditional views of faith and politics aren’t tolerated so much. There’s inherent conflict in the values of our scientists (who tend to be more educated) and the general population. The general population doesn’t have the noticeable bias against religion that a lot of academics/scientists do.

A lot of the population attends church every week and takes the Bible literally. So, when it says in Genesis that the Earth was created in 6 days, people take it to mean “6 days” (right or wrong, that’s not the point of the thread). It is what happens.

I tend to see ID as a theory that allows both faith and science to have merit and not be in conflict with each other. Why do science and faith have to be polar opposites, if God created the world? If God created the human mind to discover and explore the world? We have this need to understand how the world works.

The Bible was never meant to be a scientific document. However, science can’t explain everything that happens either. An inherent part of religious faith is having faith in the unseen or unknowable. Scientists are never going to definitively prove that God exists.

However, I don’t need someone else to prove to me that God does exist because I’ve experienced His presence in my life. (Just because someone is in denial about the existence of God doesn’t mean that I have to disrespected because I have a different belief system.)

I think that a lot more Americans would have a lot more respect for scientists if they didn’t come off as disrespecting their faith and value system.

Most Americans just aren’t rigid: one way or another. They are comfortable with both faith and science and can’t understand why there’s such antagonism towards faith and towards science.

Faith informs my life and values, but I understand why scientists use the scientific method to show and prove how things work in the world. I tend to see people who don’t have religion as unreasonable because there’s more to our world than what we can see and touch. I tend to see people who don’t value science as uneducated and foolish because science has made our world what it is today. 21st century is a lot different that 1st century Palestine and a lot of that has to do with scientific knowledge and advancement.

Just my two cents.
Peace.
Jo
I enjoyed reading your posts and can see how a lot of the debate around ID, Creationism and Evolution is uniquely American. I agree with your point that no one is ever going to prove any god exists. That explains why there are so many religions in the world and no doubt more still to be created.

I don’t think scientists disrespect faiths as such, it is more that whilst believers don’t need evidence, why won’t they supply some to the rest of us. It would be nice to know which gods are true which are not and would certainly be a big leap for mankind. Could you imagine it.
 
Yep. Exactly. So why do ID proponents say ID is science?
Because the way evolution is taught in our schools does completely eliminate the idea of God, and because in our colleges, there are many who overtly teach it as atheistic. This is the reason so many atheistic scientists are so *angered *by the idea of ID or anything relating to God.

For example, if God designed the universe, one would say: bears are designed to … birds are designed to… But what do we say instead? Bears evolved to… birds evolved to… The evolutionists have all these little stories about how things evolved, and they have not one shred of evidence as to how it happens or even whether it did. And the mere idea that we went from something lower to something higher, that out of an amoba arose fish and lions and complex interacting species … is really kind of crazy.

And to say a one-celled animal in all its microscopic complexity randomly came to life out of a swirl of chemicals hit by lightning exactly reverses common sense, causing a cognitive dissonance which actually is bad for people.
Since God cannot be scientifically studied by the natural sciences i.e. biology, He is not (or ought not be) mentioned in biology classes.
True, but neither can evolution be scientificallly studied. Hence my idea that evolution should not be taught in science classes, and that when it is taught, it should be taught as a conflict–all the evidence for the different ideas should be shown to students.
…How about they just teach what actually happened. What is known. It is known that populations change. Genes drift. Certain traits get passed on while others fade away.
Well, first of all, that is only change within species, not a split into a completely different species.

Second, this is precisely what I advocate. I advocate taking out stories and false illustrations and discredited “evidence” and teaching solely and only *what we know. *And we do not know, from a scientific point of view, about the ultimate origin of the universe or of species.
 
I enjoyed reading your posts and can see how a lot of the debate around ID, Creationism and Evolution is uniquely American. I agree with your point that no one is ever going to prove any god exists. That explains why there are so many religions in the world and no doubt more still to be created.

I don’t think scientists disrespect faiths as such, it is more that whilst believers don’t need evidence, why won’t they supply some to the rest of us. It would be nice to know which gods are true which are not and would certainly be a big leap for mankind. Could you imagine it.
This is an excellent question, and there are people here who could answer that question, but it is a big enough question to deserve its own thread 🙂

Many of us here used to be in your shoes and can explain it well. The first thing that is important to understand is that if one refuses to accept any evidence other than what we can perceive with our 5 senses, then one is stuck, because that is the realm of science. However, there are many things which cannot be explained by science, or using scientific methods, not just God.
 
Because the way evolution is taught in our schools does completely eliminate the idea of God, and because in our colleges, there are many who overtly teach it as atheistic. This is the reason so many atheistic scientists are so *angered *by the idea of ID or anything relating to God.

For example, if God designed the universe, one would say: bears are designed to … birds are designed to… But what do we say instead? Bears evolved to… birds evolved to… The evolutionists have all these little stories about how things evolved, and they have not one shred of evidence as to how it happens or even whether it did. And the mere idea that we went from something lower to something higher, that out of an amoba arose fish and lions and complex interacting species … is really kind of crazy.

And to say a one-celled animal in all its microscopic complexity randomly came to life out of a swirl of chemicals hit by lightning exactly reverses common sense, causing a cognitive dissonance which actually is bad for people.

True, but neither can evolution be scientifically studied. Hence my idea that evolution should not be taught in science classes, and that when it is taught, it should be taught as a conflict–all the evidence for the different ideas should be shown to students.

Well, first of all, that is only change within species, not a split into a completely different species.

Second, this is precisely what I advocate. I advocate taking out stories and false illustrations and discredited “evidence” and teaching solely and only *what we know. *And we do not know, from a scientific point of view, about the ultimate origin of the universe or of species.
Evolution is scientifically studied and explains how humans came to be - There was no ‘designer’. I started the thread as I was curious as to why the pseudo science theories are arguably more popular in the US than any where else.

It has been explained to me about attempts to ‘sneak’ creationism into schools using ID and I can see how that would cause concern to the wider community.

Bill Nye and others have a genuine worry about the future of science in a america, if pseudo science continues to grow.

I was concerned that people such as Bill Nye seem worried, but feel satisfied to read posts, that explain that most scientists can separate real science from pseudo science.

I do think human being’s propensity to create gods and religions is fascinating and most definitely worthy of scientific study. It seems people on here genuinely believe in a Catholic God and that is fascinating. They believe with no evidence, as do followers of other gods and religions.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top