A WHOPPING 46% Of Americans Believe In Creationism According To New Gallup Poll

smash wrote: »

I didn't realise that high a percentage were retarded.

Gnobe wrote: »

From the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism_n_1571127.html

From the website itself:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx



So perhaps the hype about America and the world in general turning out to be more secular is a false one??

There's been a lot of threads on here recently about how religion will die out in 50 years etc, but gallup shows no evidence for it, infact the number of Americans believing in creationism has increased over the past 30 years.

Interesting I guess the concept of creationism is here to stay, at least in the most powerful country in the world it is.

philologos wrote: »

I'm more than happy to be called a lunatic, a fundamentalist, a nutjob, a bible basher and so on. I'm told that people will treat Christian faith with derision, that's what I signed up to when I accepted the Gospel.

As for you however, I won't be doing anything of the sort. I'm just going to try and respect you as much as God wants me to. I regard you as a sojourner through life just as much as I am. Exploring in Creation and trying to figure out our place in it.

The question you're hitting on is "Why trust the Bible?" - I think we can trust the Bible for a number of reasons:

1. The Biblical text isn't written as fiction -
People often make the claim that the Bible is written as fiction. This couldn't be any further from the truth, its authors are explicit as to what the intention of it is. For example look to the opening of Luke's Gospel. Or the ending of John's Gospel. There's no evidence anywhere within the Bible that it was ever intended to be taken as fiction. From what John says, and from what Luke says the explicit intention is that the reader might believe.



Luke was written on the basis of eyewitness testimony, and it was written so that Theophilus who it was addressed to might have certainty in the Gospel.



John was clearly written so that the readers would believe that Jesus is the Christ (the Jewish Messiah) and that He was the Son of God, and that by believing people would have life in His name. John's pretty clear about that.

We can't compare it to the Lord of the Rings merely on genre alone. The Bible is explicitly written as non-fiction. There are of course questions as to whether or not we should believe Biblical claims, and I'm happy to discuss that at length with you if you'd like, but the reality is that there is absolutely nothing to suggest that the Bible is written in a fiction genre.

So, to anyone who claims that the Bible is akin to fiction or fairystory on boards.ie I have to ask why do you say that? What textual evidence backs that up?

I'm interested to hear.

2. The Biblical text encourages questioning -
Belief systems which are clearly fictional do not encourage you to seek out the eyewitnesses for yourself and ask them. Some skeptics seem to forget that if people were making specific claims about Jesus, and clear events that took place in Galilee and Jerusalem that there would be eyewitnesses. If you don't want people to ask questions about your belief system, you don't point them to witnesses. Paul clearly does this in 1 Corinthians which is dated to around 54AD. Witnesses of Jesus' resurrection would have been alive when Paul wrote these things. People could have gone to Jerusalem or Israel themselves to find out:


If the Gospel were fiction, why would Paul do this if he wanted to cover up a lie as atheists suggest that Christianity is?

3. There simply wasn't enough time for the New Testament to be conjured together -

Here's something I've presented on why I think that the New Testament couldn't have been cobbled together as some skeptics would like to suggest on boards.ie. Here's an argument on the dating of Paul's letters to the Galatians (dated to 54AD) and the fact that he is a convert to Christianity.



Again, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts or anyone elses on this. It's definitely worth thinking about though.

4. The New Testament isn't written as propaganda -
What I mean by this is that the New Testament wasn't written in a manner that glorified the Apostles who would later go out into the Gentile world to preach the Gospel.

A - The first witnesses of the Resurrection were women -
Women were the first witnesses of the Resurrection (Mark 16:1-8) when in Middle Eastern culture the testimony of a woman in court would have been half of that of a man. If you were writing propaganda you wouldn't include this detail in your writing, because simply put it would have been regarded as embarrassing.

B - The Gospels include embarrassing details about the Apostles -
The Gospels don't include flattering details about the Apostles, something which you would expect if you wanted to make Christianity into a personality cult. For example Peter denying Jesus (Mark 14:66-72), Peter not getting that Jesus had to suffer and die (Mark 8:31-37), the Apostles arguing over who was going to sit at the right hand of Jesus (Mark 10:35-45), Thomas' skepticism and initial unbelief (John 20:24-29), Peter's lack of trust in Jesus in walking on water (Mark 6:45-52)

5. The New Testament is the most authentic ancient text in the world - - Look at this link for example. (large image) We have over 20,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, and by comparison of these manuscripts only 40 passages in the New Testament are in doubt. That means that 99.6% of the New Testament was exactly as it was when it was first written. Of the 40 verses that are in doubt, many of them merely repeat what was originally in other Gospels or back up the message that was presented in other verses which aren't in doubt.

No other ancient text in the world compares to the New Testament on the number of manuscripts. The sheer agreement in the manuscripts that we do have tells us a number of things, firstly that there were texts which preceded the copies, and that the copies of these texts largely agree with eachother, it also tells us that if a scribe were to introduce serious changes they would be caught red handed because there would be so much manuscript evidence against them.

It also presents a problem for the atheist / agnostic / skeptic. If you are to doubt the New Testament, you must also be willing to doubt every other ancient text we have in due measure. For example the earliest manuscript of Aristotle that we have in the world dates 1000 years after Aristotle. The earliest manuscripts that we have concerning Jesus come 70 years after his death. We can have confidence that there were manuscripts in existence that predated these, because all the copies we have are in agreement with eachother.

The question is, are you really judging the New Testament fairly on this basis, and why are you not judging every other ancient text in the world that we have with equal vigour?

6. There is evidence that the Old Testament hasn't been changed -
The archaeological finds of Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in 1948 are evidence that the Old Testament is authentic. The Isaiah scroll that was found in one of the caves in Qumran in Jordan. The meaning of the Isaiah scroll that was found at Qumran matched with the scrolls that we were previously using from Isaiah. Meaning that there has been no significant changes in the book of Isaiah. Other scrolls which were found such as commentaries on Habakkuk and texts on the Psalms can give us confidence in the authenticity of the Old Testament.

One of the advantages in respect to the Old Testament is that Jewish scribes were so scrupulous in their copies of the Tanakh that we have so many copies of the Old Testament to work with. Looking to my previous argument similar logic can be drawn. There were so many copies of the Old Testament in synagogues right across Israel and further afield that if someone did introduce significant changes they would be caught red handed.

7. The Biblical text is supported historically -
From a previous post of mine:




There are more reasons as to why I trust in Jesus wholeheartedly, but this is just on the level of why I can trust the Bible as being authentic.

Imagination, fiction, or truth? It's not as simple as you or other atheists / agnostics and skeptics think Ellis Dee. There are questions to be thought about here. The reality is, there's good evidence to suggest that the Bible is not equivalent to Beano, or the Lord of the Rings or anything else you might want to compare it to.

I guess what I'm asking you is, am I really an idiot? Should I really be locked in a lunatic asylum or are these valid questions to ask you?