quote:
Those are, in fact, religious beliefs - they are beliefs supported only by the literal reading of a set of holy texts, and are held only by the faithful of the source religion.
They may be (and are) held by others, and faithful of the 'source' religion (whatever that is) may not hold them, but take a non-literal view.
Irrelevant. The beliefs themselves
are religious in nature, no different than the belief that Jesus is God, or the Holy Trinity, or that Zeus rules teh heavens. Some, even many sects of the "source" religion as you call it may not hold the beliefs, but they are beliefs
only held on a religious nature. They have no external source whatsoever.
That is why debates about 'creation vs evolution' are of no absolute value, because for many (a majority, worldwide), perhaps all, there is no reason to believe that creation was not via evolution.
Have you ever met a Creationist? I have. There is more than adequate conflict between
some people of faith and science. There
is reason to claim that evolution has not happened
if one interprets the Bible literally, believes in 6-day Creation in teh order represented in Genesis, and believes that teh world is less than 10,000 years old as established in Biblical geneology. That's the entire point of this site.
As has been mentioned, the only useful purpose in debate is to ensure that fundamentalist views are not taught as science, a cause that theists and atheists alike may support- in the interests of continued prosperity and civilisation!
I would agree. It's unfortunate that there are many who disagree, and want "equal time" for Creationism, or other such non-science to enter the science classroom.
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It's pretty obvious that believing that the world was Created by God in 6 days roughly 6-10,000 years ago is a religious belief.
It isn't obvious at all. It is not a religious belief per se. It carries no religious import of itself. It is a belief that some hold as true, but it is not a religious belief, because it has no religious significance in itself. Some say that it is a prerequisite to religious belief, yes, but others of the same ostensible belief say that beliefs about the method of creation are neither here nor there. Some who oppose religion think that by disproving YECism they dispense with religion based on the book of Genesis, but they are completely misguided. If religion is to be opposed, it must be opposed honestly, on its essential grounds, on its necessary consequences, not on the views of those who may deliberately adopt phoney religious views in order to provide straw man arguments for their friends to oppose. And YEC beliefs are so mind-bogglingly inane that this must be the situation in the USA. It's the measure of the apparent desperation of Americans to come to terms with both God and Mammon. It's really just a giant white flag.
I'd realy love to see your definition of "religious belief." The courts have certainly agreed that Creationism qualifies as a religious belief - why do you disagree? Considering that the belief that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, or the belief in a global Flood, or a belief in 6-day special Creation, all come from the
bible and not from any
secular source, I think it's rather
painfully obvious that those things are religious beliefs.
This isn't about opposing religion. It's about opposing religion
in the science classroom. There is no attempt here to destroy religion as a whole by attacking Creationists - there is only the attempt to make
science classrooms exclusively teach
science as generally accepted
by scientists.
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