Does Creationisim preclude faith?

See, the point of science is to take personal experience out of the picture. That's the essence of "objectivity" and "repeatability".

With statistics and basic sociology. It's pretty simple, really - the idea is to keep accurate records and interpret them in such a way as your own personal experience doesn't enter into it. After all I can't reproduce your personal experience. I can reproduce your statistics, if I know your methodology. Sure it does. It suggests that different people are happiest in different communities. That, in fact, they may not feel part of a community at all in the wrong community, and that discovering the community that's right for them has a profound effect on their behavior and outlook on the world. No need for untestable divine entities with that explanation, either. And it explains all the data, not just the experience of believers or atheists. It explains them both.

Well, jeez, if that's all it takes to convince you, then surely you must also suspect that there's something to this Buddha they keep talking about, and something to this Allah they keep talking about, and something to this Vishnu they keep talking about, and - paradoxically - something to this atheism they keep talking about.Now, I don't know that you're a monotheist, but as that's usually considered a large part of Christianity - there's that Commandment, and all - you either have some remarkably pluralistic views for a Christian, some extra criteria for determining which gods are real which you haven't talked about, or the third alternative - a double standard for the Christian god above those of other cultures. And that's hardly fair, is it?

I think that you're taking a view of Creationism too broad to have meaning. Creationism, as creationists usually define it, isn't just the idea that there's a Creator god, because that idea isn't contradictory to evolution.Creationism is the specific belief that God created (at least) life on Earth via a process different than the accepted evolutionary view.What you were talking about - creationism in the "broadest sense" - is what most people call "evolutionary theism."

Sounds like six of one, half a dozen of the other, to me. If that's what you want to call your position, that's fine... but you may wish to elucidate the difference between your position and evolutionary theism, as I don't see it, yet. And if you refer to yourself as a "creationist" you're going to have a lot of people very puzzled until you explain how your position isn't exactly opposed to evolution.Honestly I don't see why anyone would call themselves a "creationist" if they didn't want to lump themselves in with Hovind, Baugh, and all those guys.

The first atheist, for one, I should imagine.