Do You Believe in Creationism?

No, I believe in science. I think religion is nice for people but I believe it is all created by humans and it made up of stories.

I do believe in creationism and reject evolution. When my GD asked me about it, I told her that that was what faith is all about - believing in something you can't see or explain, you just believe it. Faith.

I was raised Catholic and have a Master's Degree in Theology, and I have always been taught not to take the Bible literally. That's simply not how it is meant to be read. If you look at the first 5 books of the Old Testament, there are often two versions of the same story (for example, the flood, the 10 commandments). Through years and years of studying history, analyzing writing samples, looking at any old manuscripts that could be found, looking at the writings of political leaders of the times, many Scripture scholars have concluded that those first 5 books are actually a combination of the writings of 4 different groups of people and that those writings were meshed together into what is now called the Torah or the Pentateuch.

I think of it this way, the Pentateuch is the theology of the people at the time. It is their way of understanding who God was and what God asks of the people. The nitty gritty of exactly how God created the world or exactly how long the great flood was or how many years Moses lived to be are just details that can distract us from God's message.

The point of the creation stories (and there are two of them in Genesis ... Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 do not list things in the same order, hence the believe that they were written by two different groups of people) is that God created the world, it is good and God wants us to be happy. We have free will, so evil exists. But God's hope for us is that we do not choose evil. God hopes that we choose to live lives of love.

If your child is assigned a school project on evolution, this is the perfect time to help her understand that, while you may not believe what she is being taught at school, it is ok for her to do the project and learn more about something that many other people believe. She will be faced with these types of questions all her life. Please do not shy away from them. Help her to be confident in her own beliefs. That will help her to better accept other people's beliefs, even if she doesn't agree.

I read this in a book called The Science of God

Science is the HOW. God is the WHY

The two are not mutually exclusive. My God is masterful enough to set evolution in place. He is the Grand Architect. When a blink of his eye can be our year - why couldn't his day be a millenia? In my life, Science proves the existance of God

Kari:

I believe in both. I believe God is the reason and why....science is the how.

You can't reject the science behind it. Science, in my opinion, proves to me that God does exist.

God had a lot of experimenting to do!!! :)

I believe in God and I don't know how He did it.

***Wrong, right, or indifferent...if we evolved from apes, then where did the apes come from? Why did evolution stop? Why haven't humans morphed into aliens by this point (or something)? Who hit the stop button and said we have come to the perfect human? I can't believe in anything other than creation must have come from the miracle of God because it is all a mystery.

And, no offense to our fellow Mama's who want to only read about diaper rash.

Here is the thing, when was the day created? Off the top of my head day four? So if god didn't create the day right off the bat who is to say how long the first days were. Could very well have been a million years.

I think the only time religion doesn't jive with science is when we try to be too literal.

I believe in Creationism. I also believe every species on earth, was intelligently made. Meaning, they were created to adapt and evolve, as the earth and their surroundings change. (This includes humans, of course. I believe in dinosaurs, personally.) Could we have come from monkeys? Sure, why not?!?! If we did, it's not because of an accident. It's because we designed that way. I believe in all life evolving, but not in the theory of evolution. If that makes sense...

I also think the Bible never says how long it took. (Aside from the amount of days.) A day very well could have been 2 million years. Who knows? I don't need to. WE know days to be 24 hours long. We certainly should not assume that's the time frame God had. That would be silly. I think God is a little more ingenious then that. I do think aspects of the THEORY (it's NOT fact, just like I can't say creation is fact. It IS to me, but I don't expect the world to accept that.) of evolution are very true. I don't see why so many people have to be either, or. I see the truth in both.

Personally I don't care if you believe the universe was created when God sneezed and we evolved from divine snot.
What's beyond pointless is killing each other over what can never be proved one way or the other.
Why do people feel they need to force others to believe as they do?
With 7 billion people on the planet, why can't we accept there may very well be 7 billion different beliefs and they are all as right as the next guy.

I believe in God, but I also believe in evolution. I don't know, that probably doesnt make sense that I believe in both. I see the bible as some good lessons, but I do not take it literally.

I haven't read too many responses, however, I do believe in God and the bible. I also believe God is both science and spiritual... I believe in miracles and if God wanted to turn water into wine in seconds he could... but I believe one day with God is like a thousand years... therefore, I also believe the one day that God created the earth, wasn't our "one" day 24 hours, but if he wanted too, he could...

My husband and I were just talking the other day about a memory that haunts him from high school biology class. They were discussing a chapter about fossils and a girl at the next table over let out the most absurd giggle. When the teacher asked what was funny, she responded, "God put those there to test our faith." My husband, to this point, had thought this girl was smart and rational. After that comment, he began to re-evaluate a lot of the people around him in the small, rural town he grew up in.

I believe the Bible is the word of God as Shakespeare's Sonnets are a Guide to Love. It is written in verse for a reason. The Bible itself says "God is Love," but I can't say I know any two people who have had the exact same experience of love and would be inspired to write the same poetry.

The Bible does have some historical recounting in it. There are pages of so-an-so was the son of so-and-so that go on and on.... But there were concepts and questions that were not on the radar at the time(s) of the writings, so we are under an obligation to our children and their children and all future generations to build on that which is *known* and move toward a progressive future. To believe that God created this world as the bible states and allow that to fester into a belief that God will create a new world is downright dangerous. This is the world God gave us. Like any parent would agree, if you don't treat your first planet right, there is no way I am getting you another!

God is the penultimate parent and is a wonderful talking point for a parenting website. We human, mortal parents must be responsible in our parenting decisions, that includes how we teach the concepts of religion and science to our children. Honestly, for some, but the time they get to school, it is too late.

We read passages of the Bible in high school. It was AP literature class. We read the creation story of several cultures and did a literary comparison. We NEVER read the Bible in history or science.

yes I believe in creationism. I also believe in every single word of the Bible and take it VERY literally.

Of course not. I understand how evolution works - how could one believe anything else? I also believe in gravity.

Why on earth would the Christian creation story be any more valid than any other culture's? And every culture has one.

Creationism or intelligent design and evolution are mutually exclusive theories. Evolution proceeds by the processes of RANDOM mutation and NATURAL selection. There is no need for 'intelligent design' in the theory and hence no room for it. If you understand evolution you cannot believe in both. If you want to believe in a deity that stands back and observes random mutation and natural selection and consider that intelligent, ok.

Evolution has not stopped - it is continuing all the time. Evolution and creationism are not equivalent theories. Evolution is a scientific theory that can be tested, has been tested over and over and over and has stood up to that testing. It is evidence supported. Creationism is an opinion that can not be tested in any way. Hence it cannot be found to be true or false. It is therefore not worth considering.

Funny, I never see a question like this being about religion, I see it as a scientific question.. religion is all man made.

Nature is science.

I don't understand why people think creationism and evolution are mutually exclusive. I do believe in intelligent design. Thinking that an inanimate object can come to life, be self-aware, and have a conscience is the craziest thing I have ever heard!
I also don't understand why people can't believe that God is infinitely smarter than any human. We are tiny little specks of dust on a tiny dirt ball for heaven's sake!
edited:
Just remembered something I wanted to add: when I was in the 5th grade, this kind of stuff was big in the news with Madeline Murray O'Hare. I asked my teacher, "If Adam and Eve were the first people, where did the cavemen come from?" Of course she got that deer in the headlights look on her face. Then she said, "I guess they took after their dad."

Disclaimer: I am NOT a Creationist, so I guess my answer is probably not the one you're looking for. I'll contribute anyway, though.

I guess you could put me along the lines of Intelligent Design? I was raised Catholic, and we as a Church tend to be more open to the ideas of evolution than some fundamentalist Christian churches. I just remember coming home from biology class - probably in junior high - and telling my mother everything I was learning about evolution, and she just shook her head and said, "Isn't God amazing?" That made me stop and think, What an incredible system God created!

I do not struggle to reconcile evolution with the Bible. I am not a literalist in any sense of the word, but when I would debate with my creationist friends, a couple of arguments would come up repeatedly (such as the earth being created in six days). A day is a time period defined by our Earth's rotation around the sun - a day is not the same length of time on Mars, for example. God created the earth, the sun, space - he knows that a day for Earth is different from a day for another planet - why are we so egocentric to assume that OUR days must be HIS days? Also, Adam and Eve left Eden and had Cain and Abel, who then procreated with - ? Hmm. Who else (and what else) was out there? I suppose my personal approach to the Bible is yet another reason I'm not a creationist. ^_^

Buddhists avoid the duality of the "either / or" propositions, while Western culture embraces it. And as every culture has its own creation story, many with the same elements and themes, I'm happy to look for the truth in any and all of them.

How can one reject dinosaurs when there are BONES to prove they existed? (someone said something like this earlier today on here and I just about fell off my chair! How can you deny that?)

I do believe in a literal 7 day creation. I believe that mankind co-existed with dinosaurs. I believe in a young earth. I believe in a global flood ala Noah's ark. I believe because I believe the Bible. I also have seen some wonderful papers and creation scientists who have spent a lot of time researching.
I'm not an idiot. I did not crawl out from underneath a rock. I don't think people who believe in big bang THEORY or the THEORY of evolution are idiots. I do love how most of them are so quick to judge those of us who do not agree with their theories.
I'm an intelligent person. I've done research. I just don't buy that we came from nothing. My faith is strong. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong. In the grand scheme of things how is it going to hurt anyone? Yes, I teach my kids Creationism. In highschool we delve into evolution and other thoughts. If they choose to believe differently that will be their choice.
People say I'm narrow minded because I teach my kids from the Bible. Well if they only teach their kids one belief doesn't that make them narrow minded as well?

No, I don't believe in the biblical version of creation. To me it's a story, inspired by God but made up by people, to explain in simple terms, to ancient people, what happened over millions of years. Science explains the details. Science, in my opinion, reaffirms that there is some divine power behind the universe.

Science trumps Religion any day. I choose evolution over unproven woo-woo beliefs. I also think it's hilarious that people still believe that the Earth is only thousands of years old. They must live in a constant state of bliss, being that ignorant :)

eta: A scientific theory is not a "guess" as that term is understood in conversational language. It means "a set of principles that explain and predict phenomena.[1] Scientists create scientific theories with the scientific method, when they are originally proposed as hypotheses and tested for accuracy through observations and experiments.[2] Once a hypothesis is verified, it becomes a theory."
So the "theory" of evolution is not a "guess" that it "might be right". It's a scientific explanation based on rigorous scientific study and testing. Please don't compare the theory of creationism with the Theory of Evolution. Creationism has not been put through the scientific method. The bible doesn't count, sorry.

I do, but I also believe that the Bible never states how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden or what was happening to the rest of the earth outside of it.

I also believe in adaptation and survival of the fittest as it applies to nature. Who's to say God didn't create Homosapien (us) in the garden then the lesser "humans' outside the garden? Who's to say they didn't adapt and inter-mate and change? When Adam and Eve sinned they left and ran in to the "lesser" groups? I wasn't there, I don't know, i'm just gessing from what evidence has been shown to me but makes scenes to me? God made perfection in the garden and made everything from scratch outside the garden.

I plan on teaching my daughter both, then teaching her my theory and see what she thinks.

nope don't believe in it, god or religion and didn't raise my kids with any of that mess so never had to worry about explaining the differences. Makes life easy :)

No, I don't believe in creationism. Creationism is an idea that nearly every civilization has come up with in some format or other since humans first began trying to understand their origins. It's natural that mankind has always wondered where we came from, and wondered about the why and how of it - the biblical version is what a nomadic desert people (the Hebrews) came up with as their explanation several thousand years ago. Every culture has a similar story. While it's important in a sociological sense, in no way does that make it scientifically valid, nor does it make creationism the literal truth.

We are Catholic, and I guess I believe in both. I believe that we, and the earth, are here because of God. If there was a 'big bang', it was His doing. My daughter goes to a Christian school, and they will not be teaching evolution, so I need to figure out how to explain the different theories to her, and let her know that it can sort of be both (in my opinion/belief). Interesting question!

No, not the bible version. I do believe in intelligent design, I don't think anything was an accident and I also believe in evolution.

God and evolution do not cancel each other out.

Science doesn't disprove god, I believe that the existence of sciences proves intelligence and planning.

Evolution makes a lot more sense to me than a supernatural being.

Kari, here is my short answer. I am a strong Christian AND I do not believe in Creationism. Briefly, the answer is "in" regarding the age, dinosaurs, the cosmos, etc. The Creationism movement is simply misguided and based on a set of assumptions that if you don't interpret the Bible literally that somehow, God's word isn't strong enough to stand up to scrutiny. Isn't this sad? God uses physical processes so that we can understand Him better. . . subjects like Quantum Physics actually show how He can exist out of space and time. I explain it to my kids like this: God gave us the Bible so that we can understand his character and he gave us science so we can understand how he works. Just like a book about Civil War doesn't cover subjects like space exploration, the Bible doesn't cover science. Both a real, valid, and relevant, just different.

Yes I believe in it but I also believe that dinosaurs could have existed. There is a creation science center about an hour or so away from me and there guy that runs it has done resurch on the great flood and had proven how they could have excisted just not as long ago as most of science says it was.

My approach is to acknowledge our limitations about what we have to understand the world. But, we can use our observations and ability to reason to form the best possible theories. Creationism is for people who chose to ignore rational thought and believe something blindly. We do have substantial evidence that life evolved from non-life on this earth and how the process continued since. We may not know every detail along the way, but denying evolution is denying the foundation of the entire field of biology. I don't see how this relates to the existance of God.

I believe in the Bible, and creationism. i do not totally reject all science, but i do reject evolution, and Darwin's theories. there are good explanations for many things, like dinosaurs, etc. there is a lot of evidence that goes along with the Noah's flood, that shows that dinosaurs were killed at the same time as all other living things, and that many of the rock layers in the Earth were formed during that time, and they did not take millions of years to form.
check out this website: www.answersingenesis.org
Ken Ham is an amazing scientist and will do a better job answering then I can!

Some staunch creationists state that evolution occurred on a "tiny, micro-level"! How's that for crazy?!

I believe in creationism. However, it is a fallacy to believe that Christian creationists reject all science and evolution, in fact some of the biggest scientists who are Christians, feel that science proves their is a God. Remember, evolution is still considered a theory and has not totally been proven either.

Some very interesting Christian top scientists to listen to for clarity:

"“…[T]he universe is God’s handiwork….[S]cience and religion represent two independent witnesses of creation. And we are told [in the scriptures] …that two or more independent witnesses are required in order to certify the truth. They are not opposites, but they are like the vision seen from your two eyes. If you close one eye, and then close the other [and] alternate back and forth, you don’t see the same thing with the two eyes. But it is the combination of those two views…that shows you a lot of things that neither eye by itself sees.”
- Dr Dr. John Lewis, renowned planetary scientist, shares a short video explaining this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR8qIrJcJh4

This is a 2 hour very well rounded debate about this very topic from Dr William Craig and Christopher Hitchens, though shorter versions can be found on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8

I believe in creationism and I don't reject science or dinosaurs.

http://amazingdiscoveries.org/audio#8-12-0-Walter_Veith_G...
here is an audio series from an evolutionary scientist turned creationist.

Aslo look into the book called: The Gensis Flood.

Some things to consider:
The Cambrian Explosion
There are absolutely no fossil examples of transitionary species. Not one. Even Lucy is easily debunked.
There really is no such thing as "primitive life forms". A crocodile is said to be more primitive than a horse. But actually its cell functions, eye sight, blood, heart, and any other systems are as complex as "more advanced" life forms.
Methods of dating are far more subjective than you might think
Even one example of cat, a tool, or a human existing in the same time layer with a dinosaur throughs the whole evolutionary thesis on its head. Well infact, there are many such examples of this occurring.
We are able to measure the age of the oldest river and the age of the oldest first generation forests and guess what, they are about 5,000 years old. Hmmm
Most preserved fossils in existence were created in flood conditions (quick burial before decomposition is necessary for intact fossils). Consider the layers that would be created in a world wide flood scenario. Things that sink on bottom, things that bloat and float on top. Ohh, kind of like we see in our earths layers.
So we share 98% of DNA with chimps. We share 60% with gnats and 70% with bananas.

I could go on and on.

I think both can be right. We haven't covered this as a topic in our house yet, but we will soon. And when we do, I think I will explain it that both are right. The Bible doesn't cover all the little details that evolution science does, but I believe it summarizes the process. And who's to say what is really meant by 7 days in the Bible. I believe that in ancient translations, or in metaphoric meanings, 7 days could have meant 7 really long periods of time that for the purposes of simplicity we'll call "days." I do think God created the heavens and the earth. And the dinosours and the young earth. And God was in charge of all the little details that scientists have since discovered. I don't believe that these things are mutually exclusive. I believe the science, and that God is behind it all. I hope that helps!

exactly. i think that is what pulled me away from my church. how does one explain why we find these bones of giant dinos and primal looking humans.
i guess how i personally look at it is like this. we were created as primal humans with primal animals (dinos etc). we have had to evolve to adapt to hunt, live and survive to an ever changing world and such. as for the bible with noah and the ark. this is how i see it. if god flooded the whole world and killed everything except what was on the ark then arent we inbred from noah and his family? adam and eve would have been killed. possibly the dinos at the same time? i mean that could really make me understand why there are sick and disturbed people in the world.
i guess that i can believe something that is tangable. we find bones and put them together and bam a dino! but we find nothing of adam, eve, noah, jonah etc. unless they are these primal human remains.

my favorite theory was that my science teacher was explaining the big bang theory and told us we were made from star dust. i then told him no wonder i have such a sparkling personality!

We read the Biblical account and yes we take it literally as the truth and God said it and it happened and not as a theory or nice story as I'm hearing many say it is now. Recently I heard a talk show on the radio where they claimed to be Christians but said how could Noah take animals on an ark and it was just a story with a lesson, etc. These were not Christian broadcasters, not Christian programing, but just claimed to be Christians. So all this to say I believe the Bible so therefore I don't believe in evolution. I think Adam and Eve were there and real and created by God and that sin is real as it says in the Bible. So we taught our kids that and they read the Bible too and so there was no issue with evolution. I do believe the earth is fairly young and yet the exact age shouldn't be an issue to me. God created it and he will make a new earth some day. I think if children are taught the Bible there is no issue. If you don't believe the Bible or all of it or that it's God's word then you would have an issue presenting it. God is the one who made everything used in science so I don't reject science but the men who incorrectly understand it. That is my belief so that's how we addressed these issues with our children. http://christiananswers.net/q-aig/darwin.html
I don't see how you can believe both from reading the link about Darwin.

Yes I do believe in creationism BUT there are several different schools of thought on creationism.
I do believe like Bug.
Everything was intelligently made, I mean really think about it, the human body is a fabulous and intricate thing, there's no WAY it could be an accident.
But I believe that God can use what ever means he wants to do what ever he wants. And there is current evidence that evolution happens much faster than what Darwin thought. Current dating methods are flawed. Yes I do believe in a young earth. Not sure where you get the no dinosaurs thing, I've never heard that in conjunction with creationism. Generally the dinosaur theory that people associate with creationism is that dinosaurs and people were around at the same time.

Some of the evidence I was talking about :
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111116-an...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5657338

http://www.news.leiden.edu/news/super-fast-evolution.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/yeast-reveals-h...

I'm taking a course on this right now at my church. It's led by a very religious scientist. I hope it will help me with some confusion. He has not yet explained to me how Adam and Eve can coexist with what science says about evolution. Hopefully in the weeks to come. I've learned so much already. Darwin himself was a very religious man and struggled to understand how this fit in with what he believed about God. the theories of evolution were already around he just went farther in confirming them. He lost his faith much later, after his son died and yet was still considered an imp. religious man, buried in the Church. Are there people who do not believe in dinosaurs or just dont believe in natural exinction

You've already got a lot of answers, so I'll be brief. First, in Genesis, God commands Adam and Eve to "replenish" the earth. Not fill it, but replenish it... I read this as to imply that there was something there before. Also, in the book of Job it speaks of the "bohemath" (sp?), which I believe to be references to the dinosaurs that roamed the earth before Adam and Eve and the command to replenish the earth. My own personal interpretation... God knew we would evolve with knowledge and technology, and he placed in this earth all of the things that we needed so survive and thrive, in terms of natural resources. This included fossil fuels. My two cents. :-) I have no doubt that there is a God and that our lives here in our physical bodies are only a small part of our total experience. How it all works out in terms of details and how the dinosaurs fit in to the history of our planet, I don't believe is necessary for us to understand. By that I mean, it's not critical to our salvation and has no bearing on our ability to keep our spirit closely connected to God... so who cares? We're benefitting from the many conveniences to our lives that have been obtained through fossil fuels, so let's just thank Him for having the foresight to leave it for us! :-)

I'll say it again....I really don't think this is a place to discuss religion...it just stirs up so many steadfast comments. If you are asking if we "believe" in God...is that along the same lines if we "believe" in Santa? And evolution...who believes in that? Show me the proof of any of it in this day or time...and I might have an answer for you. Here we go..............!!!!!!Believe is the operative word here...there is no real proof...it's what you believe.