So Who Are We and How Did We Get Here?
According to a 2018 Survey by the Pew Research Center, 38% of white evangelical Protestants reject evolution entirely and believe that humans always existed in their present form. In the general population, 18% of U.S. adults agree that evolution is wrong and that humans always existed in their present form. 48% believe that humans evolved guided by God or higher powers, while only 33% of U.S. adults believe that humans evolved due to natural selection. In contrast, 98% of scientists believe that humans have evolved over time. (Masci, 2019)
Again we see the Great Divide between those who believe in science and those who reject science. To the Christian fundamentalists who cling to the idea that the book of Genesis in the Bible reveals the literal truth about creation, evolution is heresy. To repeat, the Young Creationists believe that the world is only between 6,000 and 10,000 years old. How did they arrive at that conclusion?
Ken Ham is the owner of the $35 million Creation Museum, where the entrance quote informs visitors, “The Bible is authoritative, without error, and inspired by God.” Inside the museum, according to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic in a 2014 article, “the museum is filled with buff animatronic Adams and sexpot Eves (plastic breasts covered by waterfalls of extremely healthy hair) and writhing snakes and flying dragons and — dinosaurs… (Goldberg, 2014)
Built on 40 acres in northern Kentucky, the Creation Museum is a high-tech amusement park for Christian fundamentalists. As to how he arrived at determining the earth’s age, Ham said, “The Bible says God created everything in 6 days. He created people and land animals on Day 6,” and “Adam was the first man. He was created on Day 6. By adding up the ages of Adam, his sons, their sons, and so on, we see that the Earth is about 6,000 years old.” (Goldberg, 2014) It should be noted that Genesis says that Adam lived to be 930 years old. Eve may have lived a bit longer. Their oldest son, Cain, died after 910 years. And so it goes down the list of their many descendants. Add up their lifespans and, according to Ken Ham, you get the true age of the earth: 6,000 years old.
Intelligent Design is the newer, largely Christian view that evolution did, in fact, occur over millions of years, but higher species were shaped instantaneously by the hand of God. It rejects the process of natural selection. Humans and other forms of higher life were created by God in a context that allows for time to be greatly expanded beyond the narrow confines of the Young Creationists. It’s creationism with a nod and a wink to the antiquity of ancient fossils and the earth.
The bottom line, however, is that only 33% of U.S. adults believe in scientific evolution. “Europeans, on the other hand, score much better, with over 80 percent of French, Scandinavians, and Icelanders seeing evolution as true. In Japan, 78 percent of people agree that humans evolved.” (Coyne, 2009)
Now that we’ve outlined the Biblical point of view, how does the contrasting view of scientific evolution change our perspective? (to be continued in the next post)