How Colleges Create Creationists

[dyanaprajna2011]

How Colleges Create Creationists

(Note: I just copied the title of the article for the title of this thread.)

From the article:

While the debate (between Ham and Nye) was entertaining, it was not helpful to the conversation, since it suggested that there was a “Christian” view and a “scientific” view, and these were mutually exclusive options. Many trained biblical scholars with strong Christian commitments completely reject the approach to the Bible taken by Ken Ham and his Answers in Genesis organization. Ham’s hyperliteralism is not the way Christians have approached Genesis over the centuries and everyone from Augustine in the 5th century to B. B. Warfield (one of the founders of fundamentalism) in the 19th century have pointed out that a literalist reading is not a required or even a defensible approach to Genesis. There is no problem believing that God is the creator and that natural processes are his chosen mode of creation.

This article is from a Christian scientist who accepts scientific views of the age of the earth, the big bang, and evolution. What he's railing against is the way conservative evangelical colleges teach creationism in spite of the fact that there is no evidence supporting ID/creationism, and how such indoctrination is probably the primary reason why we still see creationism in this country.

 

[Revoltingest]

If some religious colleges create creationists,
then do other colleges evolve evolutionists?

But back to the link, it seems these colleges don't take a rigorous approach to the scientific
method in their teaching of creationism. I don't think it can be forced upon them.

 

[nazz]

I didn't see that in the debate. We had Nye who acknowledged that millions of religious people accept evolution. And Ham who said science supports creationism. So I don't see the debate being framed as religion vs. science.

 

[Amechania]

I didn't see that in the debate. We had Nye who acknowledged that millions of religious people accept evolution. And Ham who said science supports creationism. So I don't see the debate being framed as religion vs. science.

Well it isn't about religion vs science. Creationist I've talked to take the position that evolution is a "worldview" that persists in all academic disciplines. It's a worldview that represents a kind of relativism that is philosophically at odds with the creationists own absolutist position.

 

[LuisDantas]

If some religious colleges create creationists,
then do other colleges evolve evolutionists?

But back to the link, it seems these colleges don't take a rigorous approach to the scientific
method in their teaching of creationism. I don't think it can be forced upon them.

No one is suggesting forcing them. Raising awareness of a real problem, now, that is something worth doing.

 

[LuisDantas]

I didn't see that in the debate. We had Nye who acknowledged that millions of religious people accept evolution. And Ham who said science supports creationism. So I don't see the debate being framed as religion vs. science.

Yep. And yet, Creationism is a distortion of religion that amounts to simple and misguided opposition to science.

The debate was framed on jaundiced grounds, and damaged the perception of both religion and science.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I didn't see that in the debate. We had Nye who acknowledged that millions of religious people accept evolution. And Ham who said science supports creationism. So I don't see the debate being framed as religion vs. science.

The argument simply is "Science' and "not science". The "not science" just so happen to be religiously motivated by a certain sect of extremist Christianity.

We live in a world where people still seem to think that "popularity" has any hold on what is true.

 

[Revoltingest]

No one is suggesting forcing them. Raising awareness of a real problem, now, that is something worth doing.

I agree.