46% of Americans believe in Creationism

[Screamapillar]

dsgrue3 said:

Screamapillar said:

dsgrue3 said:

I think there has been a misunderstanding in here that is pervasive.

This is strictly about evolution vs creationism. Not creationism vs science.

Evolution - abundance of evidence. Creationism - Zilch. And it is in this respect that I speak ill of the proposition. 

Alright, let me rephrase, in order to further this dicussion instead of spinning wheels.

You speak of creationism and the theory of evolution as if they are these ironclad rulesets that are set in stone.  Neither of them are, though.  Evolution is still a working theory, and yes it may be the closest thing we have to a full answer, but still yet it is far from a full answer.  Creationism does not mean that you do not believe in evolution.  One belief or ideal, whatever you want to call it, does not cancel out the other.  You can be a "Creationist" so to speak and believe that God (whatever God is or isn't) is responsible for causing evolution to exist in the first place.  Just as easily as you could say that you believe soundly in the theory of evolution, and that there isn't such thing as God or any higher power, and that things in the universe simply occured and continue to occur according to nothing more than random events and collisions. 

These ideas, I argue, are by no means incompatible with one another.  Further, most major world religions say nothing to discourage scientific discovery or lay disdain for the idea of evolution.  Quite the contrary.

They are mutually exclusive concepts. 

We don't need a god for evolution to take place, and it has taken place. So why are you putting god in where it isn't needed? 

Creationism is, as described in the OP, the belief that god placed humans in their current form on Earth. In other words, no evolution involved.

The debate about evolution is in the minutia of what each component does - natural selection, random mutation, and what role the environment plays. There is no dispute about its occurrance. 

I am not putting God in anywhere, I am merely arguing on behalf of people of faith.  I don't believe in ridiculing others for not believing the exact same thing I believe.   As I stated originally, neither of us have all the answers, and so it is disingenuous at best to pretend as though we do and claim that large groups of people are ignorant simply because we disagree with them.  I take your point about the narrow definition of Creationism in the OP, yet I guarantee you that most people's definition of Creationism is not so narrow.  Most people of faith do not take the story of Adam and Eve as literal, it is taken as metaphorical.  It has been that way for some time now.