Recovering Evangelicals #23 Young Earth Creationism
Young Earth Creationism.
“Really?” … you might ask. “Why are we still talking about this? I mean, how many people still think this way?”
According to polling agencies like Pew and Gallup … “many!”
For example, Pew asked two groups of people: “did humans evolve, or have they always existed in their present form?”
The first group — 4000 members of a national scientific organization (including professors, high school teachers, engineers, drug sales reps, lab technicians, government officials, lawyers) — largely accepted human evolution. In fact, 98% of them agreed with this. Bear in mind that this group included people of faith (Christian; Muslim; Jewish; Buddhist) as well as atheists.
The second group — 2000 members of the general public — were less in agreement: only 65% of them accepted evolution. Bear in mind that members of this group may or may not have had scientific training, and may or may not have held a religious belief.
When that second group was whittled down to only those who did hold some kind of religious belief, the percentage accepting evolution dropped from 65% down to 52%, and when only the Evangelical Protestants among them were asked, that percentage dropped down even further to only 33%.
So, yes, Young Earth Creationism is indeed alive and well today.
And pervades 21st century Western society broadly and deeply.
In this episode, we explore where that thinking comes from, and how one of their founders claimed that Creation happened on the evening of Oct. 23, 4004 BC, while another one among them “calculated” that it was instead 9:00 am on Sept. 17, 3928 BC.
We also look closely at how this thinking sets young people up for a catastrophic failure of their whole belief system when they go to college/university, or enter the workforce.
This will set the stage for several follow-up episodes in which we explore three different coping strategies adopted by people when their Young Earth Creationism encounters an alternative scientific explanation for the origin of all things, as told through the eyes and lives of unique individuals.
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