The site is certainly not friendly to Christianity, but it acknowledges the rise in creationism
Well, according to the Gallup polls, which that site misrepresented, there hasn't been any significant change since 1982. The numbers are available at several sites, including
http://www.unl.edu/...courses/current/creation/evol-poll.htm and
http://web.grcc.cc.mi.us/mseei/related_news_and_events.htm and the question was:
quote:
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?
(sorry about the huge space coming up, it appears to be a board bug with tables):
|
Humans developed, with God guiding |
Humans developed, but God had no part in process |
God created humans in present form |
OTHER (vol.)/No opinion |
2001 Feb 19-21 |
37% |
12% |
45% |
6% |
1999 Aug 24-26 |
40% |
9% |
47% |
4% |
1997 Nov 6-9 |
39% |
10% |
44% |
7% |
1993 Jun |
35% |
11% |
47% |
7% |
1982 |
38% |
9% |
44% |
9% |
And in graphical format:
{Rescaled graphic, to restore page width to normal. Getting rid of the space before the table is beyond my knowledge - Adminnemooseus}
From this I draw several conclusions:
- A depressingly large number of Americans believe in recent special creation of humans.
- The number of Americans that believe in some form of evolution of humans and millions of years of human development (that is, all those who picked one of the "Humans developed ..." choices) is consistently slightly (although probably not significantly) greater than the number of Americans who believe in no evolution of humans.
- The numbers of Americans believing in one or another of the choices has not changed significantly since 1982.
IOW, there
is no "rise of creationism" in the beliefs of the American public.
Those good folks simply want to preserve the free exercise half of the first amendment.
Who's infringing free exercise of First Amendment rights? (Which rights, BTW, dod not include saying anything you want wherever you wish, e.g. teaching whatever you want in public schools).
[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 03-20-2004]