THINKING MORE ABOUT EVOLUTION




Creationism or Intelligent Design

Opposition to Darwin did not end in the nineteenth century. As recently as March of 1981, the Arkansas state legislature passed a law requiring that the Biblical story of creation of the Earth be taught along–side the theory of evolution in public schools. The law was contested in courts, and the federal courts eventually ruled this law was an attempt to impose religious beliefs in the public schools. This is expressly forbidden by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

What is creationism, and why dose it have such a strong hold in modern America? Three central beliefs of creationism, all based on a literal reading of the first book in the Bible—the book of Genesis. They are¦
  1. The Earth and the universe were created a short time ago, perhaps 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.
  2. All life forms were created by God in a miraculous act, in essentially their modern forms.
  3. The present disrupted surface of the Earth and the distribution of fossils are primarily the consequence of a great catastrophic flood.


From the creationist's point of view, all the diversity we see among life forms existed from the start, and almost no evolution happened since the start of time.

Back

Home