Are you a Creationist?

[RFayette]

Theistic evolutionist.  Unlike gravity and the atomic theory, evolution and often-conflated scientific fields (like cosmology, abiogenesis, etc.) probes far deeper into fields that were once occupied solely by religion and philosophy, like the development of life. As such, I'm going to have to disagree with bedstuy when he says evolution has nothing to do with religion.  Yes, the theory certainly doesn't have to, but when a theory of origins challenges the traditional, literal interpretation of a religious text, then such terms as "theistic evolutionists" need to be used to demonstrate how both views can be harmonized. 

Personally, I find young-Earth creationists rather amusing and mostly full of BS.  There have been times I've joked about becoming a creation scientist because it seems like one of the easiest feels known to man. 

However, I also feel there's very little difference between an old-Earth creationist and a theistic evolutionist in reality.  Hugh Ross, an old-Earth creationist, explains the fossil record by saying (something of the effect) "God creates a new kind of animal when he wants to over the timeframe seen in the fossil record."  While that's certainly not how a biologist would put it, it's certainly not "science denial" to the same extent as the YECs, who are pretty willfully ignorant.

[RFayette]

Is theistic evolution a subset of old earth creationism or are there actual differences?

To clarify what I posted a few minutes earlier, there are multiple types of Old Earth Creationists.

Gap Theory old Earth creationists believe each day was a long period of time and are firmly anti-evolution.

Progressive creationists are the more common/vocal type of YEC today (such as Dr. Hugh Ross mentioned above) and are very very close to theistic evolutionists.

[RFayette]

Think of it this way, religion can change to accommodate science, but science can't change to accommodate religion.  Because, science is a reflection of empirical research about actual reality, but religion is a belief-system that depends on human's spirituality and personal feelings and interpretations.

There's no reason to necessarily believe that the Bible is literally true or that the Bible should be taken to deny the fact of evolution.  So, people can believe that evolution fits with their religion, no problem.

But, you're never going to use the concept of "God" to guide how you interpret science or the empirical evidence that demonstrates evolution.  You're never going to say, "I know that God exists, therefore..."  There are no "theistic evolution" classes, or scientific articles or journals.  God has no part of science, it's just that people can believe in God and also use science. 

Scientists don't do this in journals or classes because theistic evolutionists recognize that science and religion are two separate spheres in terms of what constitutes truth.  How could you perform a laboratory test on the creator of the universe?    But individuals definitely do interpret scientific evidence and discoveries in light of Scripture. 

Theistic evolutionist is a useful identifier because it says two things:
1) This person believes that God created the Earth.
2) This person accepts what scientists have discovered through reason and inquiry regarding the origin of the Earth, despite what the particular religion (such as Christianity or Islam) and its text literally says about Earth's creation.

I think we mostly agree and this boils down to semantics.  But the bottom line is that when a good chunk of self-identified Christians don't believe in evolution, then calling oneself a "theistic evolutionist" is necessary to identify oneself as both a believer in the God of the Bible (or a different religious text) and the scientific theory of evolution.  Because evolution is controversial and gravity isn't, we have these discussions, even if evolution is empirically true based on the standard of the scientific method.

[RFayette]

I am an ''Old Earth, Young Humanity'' creationist.

How would this affect your interpretation of 40,000-year-old dated cave art?
http://www.livescience.com/48199-worlds-oldest-cave-art-photos.html

[RFayette]

No. I'm not focking stupid. I make no apologies for my crassness because that's what this topic boils down to.

This.

While many YECers are ignorant, I think dogmatism is just as much a cause of it as ignorance.  One discussion I had with a YECer ended with him saying "Satan is messing with radioactive decay."  It's impossible to win with them.

[RFayette]

No. I'm not focking stupid. I make no apologies for my crassness because that's what this topic boils down to.

This.

While many YECers are ignorant, I think dogmatism is just as much a cause of it as ignorance.  One discussion I had with a YECer ended with him saying "Satan is messing with radioactive decay."  It's impossible to win with them.

My gf the geologist, who is an Old Earth Creationist has problems with radioactive dating.

It's one thing to be skeptical about the reliability of a dating method (though there are many different types of radioactive dating, so this enhances the reliability), but "Satan did it" is a very poor, ad-hoc argument and what I have heard too many times from YECers.

[RFayette]

'There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.'--Bertrand Russell

I mean, the scientific consensus is that the Earth had a beginning, and the "Big Bang Theory" certainly suggests a beginning of sorts.  I happen to believe in a Creator God, as most members on this subforum do.  I think the quote is a bit disingenuous. 

[RFayette]

'There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.'--Bertrand Russell

Wasn't that, like, literally before we discovered the Univerese DID have a beginning?...

Atheists are to history what Baptists are to biology dude.

Good to see you are still an idiot.
Just because I am not a Christian, in no way means I am automatically an atheist.

Quoting Bertrand Russell does lend the impression that you are though....

[RFayette]

'There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.'--Bertrand Russell

I mean, the scientific consensus is that the Earth had a beginning, and the "Big Bang Theory" certainly suggests a beginning of sorts.  I happen to believe in a Creator God, as most members on this subforum do.  I think the quote is a bit disingenuous. 

My point was that not everyone believes in evolution or creationism, like 1.5 billion Hindus and Buddhists who don't necessarily think we should have to choose one or the other.

My point is that science, which many secularists and anti-religious folks deify to an incredible degree, points to both the Earth and the universe having an actual beginning.  As far as what Buddhists and Hindus believe, those are faiths and have no bearing on your Russell quote. 

[RFayette]

'There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.'--Bertrand Russell

I mean, the scientific consensus is that the Earth had a beginning, and the "Big Bang Theory" certainly suggests a beginning of sorts.  I happen to believe in a Creator God, as most members on this subforum do.  I think the quote is a bit disingenuous. 

My point was that not everyone believes in evolution or creationism, like 1.5 billion Hindus and Buddhists who don't necessarily think we should have to choose one or the other.

My point is that science, which many secularists and anti-religious folks deify to an incredible degree, points to both the Earth and the universe having an actual beginning.  As far as what Buddhists and Hindus believe, those are faiths and have no bearing on your Russell quote. 

Really? There’s recent research to suggest that the Big Bang did not begin with a singularity, and instead existed forever as a quantum potential before ‘collapsing’ into the Big Bang. And that’s only for this universe that we can observe. So as much as you wish to mock TexasGurl (whom I note you’ve ‘labelled’ as something without giving her the opportunity to tell you what she believes in) for quoting Bertrand Russell, in such a context Russell is not wrong in his statement. Why do you think Buddhism, making similar points to Russell in it's cosmological claims, is somehow different? Or Hinduism where the traditional Hindu cycle of the universe claims that the universe is actually a ‘multiverse’ with no origin and remains in flux. The description of the multiverse in the Rig Veda as being ‘so unlimitedly large, they move about like atoms in you’ even

All this ties in neatly with the tentative theory that there are multiple universes (and radiation patterns, currently being mapped gives weight to this) and that the ‘Big Bang’ was the beginning of ours, but not necessarily the beginning of others.

Each ‘exhalation’ creates a universe and that each universe lives for ‘100 Brahma years’ (some 311 trillion years) and then is annihilated. However there are an infinite number of ‘brahmas’. Even the age of this planet, 1 ‘day of Brahma’ is estimated at 4.32 billion years (it is actually 4.54) That was only understood in within our lifetimes.

It's a damned good creation story.

.

I apologize for the manner in which I posted but at the very least, the Earth had a beginning nearly 5 billion years ago, and this is not contested.  As for the Big Bang Theory, it still is the predominant view among cosmologists to my understanding.

[RFayette]

My views are somewhere in between an Old Earth Creationist and a theistic evolutionist, which means my denomination would probably want me burned at the stake.

Are Adventists generally YECers or day agers?

[RFayette]

Of course not!

I'm not going to call people stupid for it, just extremely misguided and illiberal.

Illiberal?

I assume in a classical sense of the word.