I wish they hadn't phrased it as "less advanced forms of life", but rather "earlier forms of life". It's a common misunderstanding that evolution favours what we humans would consider improvements, when in reality evolution has no goal.
Yeah the title is very misleading then. I expect that 40% refers to option 3, which is wrong, but is way less concerning than believing the entire earth was created 10k years ago.
If you know anything about what creationists believe, you'd understand that this is a distinction without a difference. Anyone who believes the Earth is 10,000 years old believes that man was created in the same week as the creation of the Earth.
I would consider myself a "creationist", in that I believe than human beings were created by God, for a purpose, and with intent. I also believe that the mechanism through which human beings came about is entirely understandable and is well-described through our current understanding of evolution via natural selection. My beliefs are not at all at odds with scientific understanding because they focus on "why" - not "how".
The people I believe you're referencing are usually called "Young Earth Creationists". They, as a group, reject the vast majority of mainstream understanding of biology, geology, and astrophysics.
> I would consider myself a "creationist", in that I believe than human beings were created by God [...]
How is this definition of "creationist" any different than that of "Christian"?
Why overload the word "creationist" with a meaning that is equivalent to "Christian"?
> The people I believe you're referencing are usually called "Young Earth Creationists".
Century Dictionary (1897) defines creationism in this sense as "The doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by the fiat of an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed." [...] Creationist (n.) in an "anti-Darwin" sense is attested by 1859 in a letter of Darwin's, and it is said to be used in Darwin's unpublished writings as far back as 1842.
Could you please elaborate a bit on how you see the coexistence of
- a god that creates humans
- and evolution?
Specifically, what is his role and actions to go from a cell billions years ago to the human we know since 100k years?
Has he programmed evolution so that it takes a specific path (so it is not evolution because it takes randomness), or created humans but let the rest of nature evolve (but that would probably fit the young earth creationism you mentioned)? Or something else?
God set up the conditions under which the Universe operates. Omniscience means that He was well aware of what would result, up to and including human beings.
It is an admittedly untestable assertion, which is why I don’t ask anyone else to believe it :).
Not really: the title of this submission editorializes the original title changing the very concepts. The term 'Earth' does not even appear in the article body.
Is the term 'Creationism' something a non-expert in religion is supposed to know about? According to the survey it seems 40% of Americans willing to answer a survey happen to know this, but I'm not so sure the other 60% + error margin happen to know this definition, which the 'editorialization' might be clarifying to common language.
For that matter, none of the things we discuss are part of a universal preparatory course.
> the 'editorialization' might be clarifying
And yet potentially states a falsehood in more ways, on literal facts and possibly indirect. Pretty trivial, and a reason why the guidelines are very clear:
Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
> Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings:
> 1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process;
> 2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process;
> 3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.