Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumGallup - Polling Shows Steady Growth Of Young Americans Who Reject Creationism, Creation "Science"
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The God plays no role category is the only one on the Gallup poll with a consistent trajectory, rising steadily from nine percent in 1982 and reaching 19 percent this year, with only two one-percent regressions along the way. In contrast, the creationist positionGod created humans 10,000 years agohas held steady around 44 percent, with only minor fluctuations.
The God-guided-human-evolution category came in at its lowest point ever, however, which is the most curious feature of the new poll. Two consecutive declines have taken it from 38 percent in 2010where it has hovered for decades to 31 percent today.
The trajectories of these numbers are suggestive and correlate with other things we know. For example, young people who abandon organized religion often blame the anti-science culture of their church for their disenchantment. Religiosity, naturally, is highly correlated with rejection of evolution, so we should expect to see the God plays no role demographic increase unless something reverses the exodus of young people from the church. This seems unlikely, however, as the more significant issue of gay marriage has created an unbridgeable gap between most religious traditions and their young people. I talk to college students for a living, and somewhere near 100 percent of them reject their churchs position on gay marriage a number that is steadily hardening.
What is of greater interest to me, however, is the failure of the middle ground to capture more support. Believing that God guides evolution in some unspecified way is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too position, and I would have expected movement into this category. You can accept the science you learned in high school and simply affirm that, in some undefined sense, evolution is Gods way of creating. This is known as theistic evolution or evolutionary creation and has been championed vigorously by people like Francis Collins, Ken Miller (although he rejects the label) Sir John Polkinghorne, myself, and others. The BioLogos organization that Collins and I launched a few years ago, and the more recently formed Colossian Forum promote this view. And it is also the view that has been consistentlyif quietlypromoted at most of Americas evangelical colleges for decades. So why is it moving backwards rather than forwards?
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https://news.yahoo.com/americas-dumb-evolution-divide-021854410--politics.html
kickitup
(355 posts)Last edited Tue Jun 24, 2014, 11:27 AM - Edit history (1)
I have two sons (22 and 26), one a college graduate and one still in college and both are vocal about their belief in science and evolution. One is a science major, the other studied philosophy, so their majors may have something to do with their rejection of any form of creationism.
They were raised Methodist, but it seems to me like there is a wholesale fleeing from Christianity among both them and their friends and I honestly think some of it has to do with the idiocy that the Christian Right brings to the table.
My brother-in-law is a professor at a liberal seminary so it's not like they don't get a real glimpse of the sane Christians, but that's not enough to overcome what they are presented with from the other side, including many on my side of the family. If my mother knew that my youngest had two gay roommates for one semester she would probably have to take to her bed. My son isn't gay, but my mother would never be able to comprehend how their gayness had no bearing on my son's sexuality or how their gayness was not a factor in his picking them for roommates.
This is here in rural Kentucky, albeit in a college town. But I think it's proof paradigms are definitely changing - and there is no going back.
annabanana
(52,791 posts)The RW crazy does engender bitterness in young people, who are reluctant to believe something "because I said so".
The big job for the liberal arms of Christianity (or ANY religion) is to note that God created our inquiring mind. Surely He would rejoice in our unraveling all the mysteries of the natural world.
eppur_se_muova
(36,222 posts)Blanks
(4,835 posts)Obviously....
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)as they become adults....they SHOULD reject fairytales
starroute
(12,977 posts)There are a lot of people out there who embrace alternative forms of spirituality that are not God-based but who do see the universe in mystical or even frankly magical terms.
They may be the real middle ground that the poll records as being in decline -- but asking a neo-pagan or a chaos magician whether they agree that human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process isn't necessarily going to elicit a "Yes."
MisterP
(23,730 posts)it can only survive within a (lower-case H) hermetically-sealed, incestuous, self-satisfied, complacent subculture (often pretending to a long story of persecution--many fundie churches in fact say they were founded in like the 4th century, partly explaining the phrase "Real True Christian"
Britain used to be a hotbed of useless crankery--creationist and fleat-Earth theories were concocted here, as was British Israelism; Wells's nonsense also comes from here