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August 27th, 2012
11:31 AM ET
Bill Nye slams creationismBy Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN)–Famed TV scientist Bill Nye is slamming creationism in a new online video for Big Think titled "Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children." "Denial of evolution is unique to the United States," Nye begins in a YouTube video posted on Thursday. The video quickly picked up steam over the weekend and as of Monday morning had been viewed more than 1,100,000 times. Nye - a mechanical engineer and television personality best known for his program, "Bill Nye the Science Guy" - said the United States has great capital in scientific knowledge and "when you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in it, it holds everyone back." "Your world becomes fantastically complicated if you don't believe in evolution," Nye said in the Web video. Creationists are a vast and varied group in the United States. Most creationists believe in the account of the origins of the world as told in the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories In the creation account, God creates Adam and Eve, the world, and everything in it in six days. For Christians who read the Genesis account literally, or authoritatively as they would say, the six days in the account are literal 24-hour periods and leave no room for evolution. Young Earth creationists use this construct and biblical genealogies to determine the age of the Earth, and typically come up with 6,000 to 10,000 years. Your Take: 5 reactions to Bill Nye's creationism critique The Gallup Poll has been tracking Americans' views on creation and evolution for the past 30 years. In June it released its latest findings, which showed 46% of Americans believed in creationism, 32% believed in evolution guided by God, and 15% believed in atheistic evolution. During the 30 years Gallup has conducted the survey, creationism has remained far and away the most popular answer, with 40% to 47% of Americans surveyed saying they believed that God created humans in their present form at one point within the past 10,000 years. Survey: Nearly half of Americans subscribe to creationist view of human origins "The idea of deep time of billions of years explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your worldview becomes crazy, untenable, itself inconsistent," Nye said in the video. "I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, that's completely inconsistent with the world we observe, that's fine. But don't make your kids do it. Because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems," he said. Creationists' beliefs about the origins of the Earth are often a narrow focus, based in large part on religious beliefs, and while they reject evolution as "just one theory," they often embrace other fields of science and technology. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter In "The Genesis Flood," the 1961 book that in many ways help launch the Young Earth creationism movement in the United States, the authors write: “Our conclusions must unavoidably be colored by our Biblical presuppositions, and this we plainly acknowledge." Their goal for the book was to harmonize the scientific evidence with the accounts in Genesis of creation and the flood. The idea of creationism has been scorned by the mainstream scientific community since shortly after Darwin introduced "The Origin of Species" in 1859. By 1880, The American Naturalists, a science journal, reported nearly every major university in America was teaching evolution. "In another couple centuries I'm sure that worldview won't even exist. There's no evidence for it. So..." Nye ends his video. soundoff (14,640 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 Next » |
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Why is creationism any more insane than the big bang? To use the excuse that things "get complicated" if you believe a particular way is a poor scientific argument. Science never contradicts itself, right? Never comes to a conclusion only to find our later that conclusion was incorrect.......
A belief in creationism requires you to ignore a great number of known facts. Believing that evolution is probably true does not. That's what Nye means. And he's right.
Yes. Sometimes we find that our original postulates were incorrect. that is how science works. the part that makes science far superior is that we can adapt to that and when we form new knowledge, typically we reject older hypotheses and in the future reference them as fallacies. creationists continue to deny logic.
Creationism makes the claim that the earth is 6000 years old, science can prove with a 99.0999% accuracy that the earth is closer to 4.6 billion years old. Creationism teaches that Adam and Eve were the first people on earth, science has been able to provide evidence of evolution. Science corrects itself, creationism doesn't.
The basic timeline of a 4.6 billion year old Earth, with approximate dates:
3.6 billion years of simple cells (prokaryotes),
3.4 billion years of stromatolites demonstrating photosynthesis,
2 billion years of complex cells (eukaryotes),
1 billion years of multicellular life,
600 million years of simple animals,
570 million years of arthropods (ancestors of insects, arachnids and crustaceans),
550 million years of complex animals,
500 million years of fish and proto-amphibians,
475 million years of land plants,
400 million years of insects and seeds,
360 million years of amphibians,
300 million years of reptiles,
200 million years of mammals,
150 million years of birds,
130 million years of flowers,
65 million years since the dinosaurs died out,
2.5 million years since the appearance of the genus Homo,
200,000 years of anatomically modern humans,
25,000 years since the disappearance of Neanderthal traits from the fossil record.
13,000 years since the disappearance of Homo floresiensis from the fossil record.
Oh, Bill, I am so disappointed...as a scientist I understand science can explain a lot of things, and as a Christian I can forgive and overlook your naivete, but for the last time there is one irrefutable, indesputable point in the existance of God:
If life is a series of chemical reactions and interactions, why hasn't science been able to produce life from absolutely nothing?
Once and for all, CASE CLOSED.
Um... No, the case is not at all closed. Research on abiogenesis continues. A scientist would know that.
Scientists have been able to reproduce one of the basic building blocks for life (amino acids/ protiens) from seemingly nothing. Give it time, Boo-boo.
They said the same thing for millenia upon millenia about instant communication across large distances, flight, treating disease, moving faster than horses, and many other such things. Well we do have the internet, airplanes, modern medicine, and automobiles now. Case most certainly not closed, sir.
Also if you didn't know. Scientists have already completely created the first synthetic species of life, including a completely artificial built-from-scratch dna called xna which is stronger than dna and better for life.
@Maverick
Then how did god begin/come to be?
It is those who make the greatest effort to be dismissive of others that are the most easily dismissed.
yeah must be magic huh? poof and it appeared. sigh, your naivete is overwhelming. religeon is to keep the sheeple from going into chaos.
As an Athiest, I do agree with SOME of the stuff Mr Nye is saying. But with all the creationist slamming Nye isnt fair, he is just stating facts, and you beliefs do not contradict scientifically proven facts. You can worship whatever you please. I am fine with it. But do NOT shove it in peoples faces.
AverageJoe76 said: "Scientists have been able to reproduce one of the basic building blocks for life (amino acids/ protiens) from seemingly nothing. Give it time, Boo-boo."
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The problem with your statement is that this reproduction took outside help: The scientist.
There is NO SUCH THING AS ATHEISTIC EVOLUTION.
There is only EVOLUTION.
There are too many obnoxious Colins out there....a perfect example of the most basic and simplified brain activity.
Wrong, Colin is intelligent. Colin uses more than one book for answers and continues to seek answers with an open mind and admits to not having all the answers. Christards read one book, if they even read it, and believe they know it all, thus closing their minds to other possibilities!
The fossil record has been scientifically replicated by conditions of flooding. And it doesn't take very long for fossils to form under those conditions. Throughout the continents of the world (which I have travelled) you find the fossil record mixed with sea creatures far inland even on the top of the Grand Canyon along with dinosaurs. Everything that dies does not turn into a fossil. It takes extreme flood conditions for that to occur. Otherwise flesh decays into the dirt and that is a rather quick process. Native American artifacts support that man and dinosaur coexisted thousands of years ago on the American continent in there art work. It also recorded a great flood. There is a science on both theories from available evidence and experimentation. It takes a degree of faith to believe all of Darwn's theory such as monkeys suddenly turning into a men. Why don't we find animals in different stages of evolution today? Bottom line is man does not have the answers, we are all left an amount of guessing and faith (to include Mr. Nyle)...and then we die to find out it was all futile anyways.
You are so full of s**t it is no surprise that it has overflowed out of your mouth.
there is so little validity to this that it doesn't even ranging into pseudoscience, it's a fantasitical thing you can tell yourself to justify you unfounded fairy tales
You are an idiot.
There has been no 'science' and experimentation done on the flood myth hypothesis (call it what it is). What they've done is take legitimate science, toss out what doesn't confirm their biblical answer, and twist the remainder out of shape to try and back their already agreed upon end point.
That isn't science. Science doesn't start with a fixed goal. It starts with a question a 'possible' goal and is willing to toss out that goal and find another if the facts don't add up. Something ID and Creationism will never do.
Believe what you will, believe that there's a great science conspiracy against you (lol). While we and our children leave you and yours in the dust because we will understand and use science to better our lives.
@ big: fossils form under all sorts of situations, you are only thinking of the fossilized bones, not mummification, trapped in tree sap (aka amber), frozen in ice, etc etc etc. fossils or the preservation of evidence of other living matter happens under a lot of various conditions not just a flood.
on the "flood" thing, there isn't enough water on the whole earth to flood the whole earth, not to mention not all civilizations have a flood story, most but not all.
@Big "E"
If the flood killed everything innocent being on the planet except for those on the ark, how did it get recorded in cave drawings?
" While we and our children leave you and yours in the dust because we will understand and use science to better our lives."
Really? Enjoying power outages, radiation leaks, pesticides, smog, oil spills, jammed freeways, threat of nuclear annihilation (since the '50's), and a whole host of other "better use of science" scenarios? lol ...
I want to try some of that wooly mammoth steak that was frozen in the icepack glacier.
As soon as a person says : " I BELIEVE", this is an automatic disconnect from fact. Do you BELIEVE in gravity? For your sake I hope not, because you do not need to BELIEVE in it for it is non-refutable, it is a scientific fact, even though you can not see, hear, smell, taste it. You do feel its effects, but you don't actually feel gravity.
Beliefs are a good place to start scientific research on a theory. Once proven, a belief, a theory, becomes fact, and you never again need to say "I BELIEVE". When someone asserts beyond any doubt that a belief is indeed a fact without going through the research and replication needed to scientifically establish something as fact, they are just fooling themselves for one of two reasons: They do not have the knowledge or tools needed to proceed in a scientific manner, or they do not want to.
Creationism was created in a time when people did not have the scientific methods and tools available to define and explain the unexplainable so it was a handy way to wrap your mind around the unexplainable. Today such science is still beyond the understanding of many people, so they hang on to beliefs. Changing the mind of someone who believes in something is harder than anything else one can attempt to do. People who insist that creationism is true, and not just a belief, are more to be pitied than censured.
Glenn, creationism began with creation.
Believing is not a disconnect from fact and it is ironic that you say that. Aren't you asking others to "believe" your "facts"? Facts that are based on conjecture and theoretical analysis by great minds of only humans? Now who is really reaching? Scientists, whether they know it or not, are wonderfully attempting to figure out how He did it. I think that is awesome and amazing how we are let in on "it" more and more with every generation. But I, like many great scientists past and present, will not take God out of the equation here ,
When science makes a human without God's help and by using his own dirt he made without an element God put here..then we must talk.
Also many "tales" of the Bible have historic and physcial-evidence such as a world wide flood. Acknowledge it or not, it is true. So if backed up by science then why is my belief a departure of fact?
Final thought: Given your argument to be true. then many of your revered scientists (Issac Newton-(gravity hello) and Albert Einstein) cannot be real scientists since they "believed" and therefore must not be familiar with facts.
Your own hypothosis of the belief=fact must be flawed unless you want to brand those men lunatics.
I believe that an all powerful being, capable of creating the entire cosmos watches me have $ex to make sure I don't do anything "naughty". I am
(a) A victim of child molestation
(b) A r.ape victim trying to recover
(c) A mental patient with paranoid delusions
(d) A Christian
None of the above – you're a troll.
Should I learn what naughty means?
(e) A mental midget.
Teaching creationism to children is their only resort, because if left untaught in those younger, impressionable years, religion would be much less widespread. Religion is merely a fairytale that many people never grow out of. It's time people start taking the myths about their religious figures to be equitable in terms of power and validity to Santa Claus or the Kraken.
The fairy tale started with Darwin and the thinking that your great-great-great uncle could have been Captain Urko from the planet of the apes. Stop the godless lies our kids have to hear...
Darwin didn't even say anything close to great-great-great uncle. In fact it would take many tens of thousands of years of "greats" to get there. Regardless of whether you believe it or not, science is fact, and evolution as an explanation has held up to over 175 years of intense and rigorous criticism (both from scientists and the religious citizen) that has shaped the science behind it into a very sharp, very precise, and very accurate point. Common ancestors exist. The DNA record proves it, the fossil record supports it, and there was no deity needed for it.
The Kraken is real. Dont swim in the deep med.
To all who dislike Colin's posts – lets spam the living hockey stick out of this guy. Would anyone like to start an I Hate Colin FB page?
Typical xstian response to humour and science and rational thought. You don't believe in my loving god, you are proving something with science that goes against my literal bible understanding, so I WILL CAUSE YOU HARM.
YOU NEED TO GO TO A LIBRARY AND A LAB there little "Anti Colin" NOT FACEBOOK.
Your kind locked up Galileo for saying the earth revolved around the sun.
Hi anti. Do you dislike civil discourse? I take it that you are intolerant of real science and the truth it displays against ignorance? There is a BIG difference in belief and knowledge. Knowledge is proven, tangile, able to be grasped, looked at, studied, and found to be 'true. Belief is acceptance of what someone tells you, unconditionally, like religion. You don't have to 'study it, just accept it, ,and with that acceptance it becomes true to you, inpite of real evidence to the contrary. Once you accept belief' in the untangible, it then becomes hard to accept things that disprove that belief, you don't want to shake up the house built on sand you have as your foundation.
Seriously, you want to start an "I hate" page against someone? Can't you see that this desire of yours to abuse this Colin fellow is a result of the abuse you have been taught by your religion. I think Mr. Bill Nye has been quite diplomatic in this whole thing because he is only talking about how your beliefs impede your ability to think in a rational scientific manner, which impedes your education and lowers our test scores as a nation. You are exhibiting other effects of the abuse and neglect that you have suffered because of your religious upbringing. You only feel this way toward Colin because that's how you were taught. It's like hitler youth.
I thibnk he's pretty much spot on with his assessments of your magical sky gods. You just don't like him pointing out how silly your believes in fairies and gods are?
Nice photo Colin!
http://www.facebook.com/anty.colin
I thought the one long Colin post was hilarious and way too close to the truth. He reminded me of my last conversation with a group of roving bible pushers who just didn't want to take 'no thank you' for an answer.
Millions and millions of Catholics believe that bread and wine turns into the actual flesh and blood of a dead Jew from 2,000 years ago because:
(a) there are obvious visible changes in the condiments after the Catholic priest does his hocus pocus;
(b) tests have confirmed a divine presence in the bread and wine;
(c) now and then their god shows up and confirms this story; or
(d) their religious convictions tell them to blindly accept this completely fvcking absurd nonsense.
(e) a docrtrine of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church that seems to have appeared in the middle ages in the 11th century, and appealed to the masses. It was a hotly contested subject at the time, as is attested by extant letters and other writings. (I've read some of them, in latin).
I honestly believe that, when I think silent thoughts like, “please god, help me pass my exam tomorrow,” some invisible being is reading my mind and will intervene and alter what would otherwise be the course of history in small ways to help me. I am
(a) a delusional schizophrenic;
(b) a naïve child, too young to know that that is silly
(c) an ignorant farmer from Sudan who never had the benefit of even a fifth grade education; or
(d) your average Christian
To be fair, there is an old army saying, "There are no Atheists in foxholes"...
I don't believe, but if someone is shooting at me, I'll be praying too...
Funny! ... True.... sad
Bill Nye is too intelligent to worry about what people may think of him, by admitting that our children in the U.S. are still believing in fairytales, and that this childhood brain-washing may lead to scholastic setbacks and keeping them from competing in the sciences with the world. We forget how to rely on ourselves and solve our problems.
A few questions should help shed light on the relationship between religion and rational thought.
The completely absurd theory that all 7,000,000,000 human beings are simultaneously being supervised 24 hours a day, every day of their lives by an immortal, invisible being for the purposes of reward or punishment in the “afterlife” comes from the field of:
(a) Children’s fairytales;
(b) Medieval mythology;
(c) New age pseudo science; or
(d) Christianity
Every man has a right to his opinion,though we can say things that make absolutly no sense,this is one of those times.Do we really beleive our world is all a accident, and now we can explore this world to try to figure out our origins without the possibility there might me a intellgent mind and someone that is powerful enough to put it all together.To beleive in this would not limit our knowledge but expand it as we search out the vast wonders of our universe and the Almighty who placed us in it.My children will be taught of the Lord
And Muslims willl be taught of Allah. Hindu has too many to list. Your children will be taught of the lord that you know. If you were born in the middle east, you and your kids would already be executed for being heretics.
This morning there was a knock at my door. When I answered the door I found a well groomed, nicely dressed couple. The man spoke first:
John: "Hi! I'm John, and this is Mary."
Mary: "Hi! We're here to invite you to come kiss Hank's ass with us."
Me: "Pardon me?! What are you talking about? Who's Hank, and why would I want to kiss His ass?"
John: "If you kiss Hank's ass, He'll give you a million dollars; and if you don't, He'll kick the guts out of you."
Me: "What? Is this some sort of bizarre mob shake-down?"
John: "Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank owns this town. He can do whatever He wants, and what He wants is to give you a million dollars, but He can't until you kiss His ass."
Me: "That doesn't make any sense. Why..."
Mary: "Who are you to question Hank's gift? Don't you want a million dollars? Isn't it worth a little kiss on the ass?"
Me: "Well maybe, if it's legit, but..."
John: "Then come kiss Hank's ass with us."
Me: "Do you kiss Hank's ass often?"
Mary: "Oh yes, all the time..."
Me: "And has He given you a million dollars?"
John: "Well no. You don't actually get the money until you leave town."
Me: "So why don't you just leave town now?"
Mary: "You can't leave until Hank tells you to, or you don't get the money, and He kicks the guts
out of you."
Me: "Do you know anyone who kissed Hank's ass, left town, and got the million dollars?"
John: "My mother kissed Hank's ass for years. She left town last year, and I'm sure she got the money."
Me: "Haven't you talked to her since then?"
John: "Of course not, Hank doesn't allow it."
Me: "So what makes you think He'll actually give you the money if you've never talked to anyone who got the money?"
Mary: "Well, He gives you a little bit before you leave. Maybe you'll get a raise, maybe you'll win a small lotto, maybe you'll just find a twenty-dollar bill on the street."
Me: "What's that got to do with Hank?"
John: "Hank has certain 'connections.'"
Me: "I'm sorry, but this sounds like some sort of bizarre con game."
John: "But it's a million dollars, can you really take the chance? And remember, if you don't kiss Hank's ass He'll kick the guts out of you."
Me: "Maybe if I could see Hank, talk to Him, get the details straight from Him..."
Mary: "No one sees Hank, no one talks to Hank."
Me: "Then how do you kiss His ass?"
John: "Sometimes we just blow Him a kiss, and think of His ass. Other times we kiss Karl's ass, and he passes it on."
Me: "Who's Karl?"
Mary: "A friend of ours. He's the one who taught us all about kissing Hank's ass. All we had to do was take him out to dinner a few times."
Me: "And you just took his word for it when he said there was a Hank, that Hank wanted you to kiss His ass, and that Hank would reward you?"
John: "Oh no! Karl has a letter he got from Hank years ago explaining the whole thing. Here's a copy; see for yourself."
From the Desk of Karl
1. Kiss Hank's ass and He'll give you a million dollars when you leave town.
2. Use alcohol in moderation.
3. Kick the guts out of people who aren't like you.
4. Eat right.
5. Hank dictated this list Himself.
6. The moon is made of green cheese.
7. Everything Hank says is right.
8. Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
9. Don't use alcohol.
10. Eat your wieners on buns, no condiments.
11. Kiss Hank's ass or He'll kick the guts out of you.
Me: "This appears to be written on Karl's letterhead."
Mary: "Hank didn't have any paper."
Me: "I have a hunch that if we checked we'd find this is Karl's handwriting."
John: "Of course, Hank dictated it."
Me: "I thought you said no one gets to see Hank?"
Mary: "Not now, but years ago He would talk to some people."
Me: "I thought you said He was a philanthropist. What sort of philanthropist kicks the guts out of people just because they're different?"
Mary: "It's what Hank wants, and Hank's always right."
Me: "How do you figure that?"
Mary: "Item 7 says 'Everything Hank says is right.' That's good enough for me!"
Me: "Maybe your friend Karl just made the whole thing up."
John: "No way! Item 5 says 'Hank dictated this list himself.' Besides, item 2 says 'Use alcohol in moderation,' Item 4 says 'Eat right,' and item 8 says 'Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.' Everyone knows those things are right, so the rest must be true, too."
Me: "But 9 says 'Don't use alcohol.' which doesn't quite go with item 2, and 6 says 'The moon is made of green cheese,' which is just plain wrong."
John: "There's no contradiction between 9 and 2, 9 just clarifies 2. As far as 6 goes, you've never been to the moon, so you can't say for sure."
Me: "Scientists have pretty firmly established that the moon is made of rock..."
Mary: "But they don't know if the rock came from the Earth, or from out of space, so it could just as easily be green cheese."
Me: "I'm not really an expert, but I think the theory that the Moon was somehow 'captured' by the Earth has been discounted*. Besides, not knowing where the rock came from doesn't make it cheese."
John: "Ha! You just admitted that scientists make mistakes, but we know Hank is always right!"
Me: "We do?"
Mary: "Of course we do, Item 7 says so."
Me: "You're saying Hank's always right because the list says so, the list is right because Hank dictated it, and we know that Hank dictated it because the list says so. That's circular logic, no different than saying 'Hank's right because He says He's right.'"
John: "Now you're getting it! It's so rewarding to see someone come around to Hank's way of thinking."
Me: "But...oh, never mind.
I will be creating an anti-colin Facebook page shortly. You need a life man.
By the time I got through that I was rolling! That was one of the funniest skits I'd read in a long time and I KNOW you've PO'd a BUNCH of the biblical bunch with it. It reminded me of my last encounter with the roving bible squad.
The war in this country on science and reason is dangerous. Why science and religion can't co-exist is beyond me. If one is going to literally follow the scripture then one should not eat sausage or go five miles from their house on holy day. Read Leviticus and try to live by those laws borther. If you're going to follow the Bible in a literal sense, then do it all...don't pick and choose. Why couldn't a day in a Creator sense be a billion years? We take all this on faith anyway...so why quibble?
I have to bite my tongue to not say anything negative, all I'll say is that I agree with Bill completely and it's irresponsible to teach our children to ignore evidence based theories that are far more "evolved" than Intelligent Design. MOST IMPORTANTLY, to all the people saying Richard Dawkins believes aliens started life, go to you.tube and search for this "Richard Dawkins On Aliens, God, And The Complexity Of Life (1/2)" and then attempt to say he believes aliens created life. Once again, biting my tongue to not use far more extreme language.....
Sad, sad article. I believe God created. Exactly how he did it, exactly how long each "day" was (as in 24 hrs or as we often refer to "in that day" referring to a period of time), I don't know and am not worried about the details. I believe. Science is science and I can learn and agree with much of what it teaches. That doesn't change what happened "at the beginning".
Your book says "In the beginning" because they hadn't quite figured out how to write "About 4 1/2 billion years ago, around a young G-2 type star, an accretion disc was spinning around...."
SAD SAD COMMENT. " I don't know and am not worried about the details. I believe." .........."Science is science" Really. This is what Bill Nye is talking about, you are a victim of educational neglect or abuse by your religion. I'm not saying that some preacher assaulted you or beat you, but this is neglect, abuse, and brainwashing. Millions of victims, and horrible test scores in the USA.
If we hadn't gone into space and taken irrefutable pictures of our world from afar, there would be a hefty percentage of 'religious' people who say the world is flat and planets and sun go around us.
I thought non-Christians were suppose to be the bright ones. I assume you know the name Copernicus? Even though he was persecuted by the Church, you do know he was a Christian and believed in God, didn't you? As Copernicus said, ""[It is my] loving duty to seek the truth in all things, in so far as God has granted that to human reason." The fallacy of amateur atheists is that they do not realize how many past and present scientists believe in God (we're not talking about believing in tv preachers). It is disturbing that folks like yourself have no idea how much science has been furthered by "them there dumb Christians." Other dumb Christians? Isaac Newton, Roger Bacon, William of Ockham (Ockham's Razor,) Galileo, Robert Boyle, Lewis Pasteur, Freeman Dyson, and etc etc.
You do not have to believe in a 6,000 year old earth to be a Christian.
Edunbar, calm down. He said 'hefty percentage' not 'all christians' . Check yourdefinitions here.
But you do note an interesting bit. That many a Christian scientist was persecuted by the church.
Also, check your own confirmational bias. Yes, many scientists were christian.... in Western culture. in fact, in western culture/history, most scientist were. Western culture was inundated in christianity, so it was hardly a choice. I can as well say – most soldiers were christian, in western culture. Most farmers. Most bomb makers. most drunks, most truck drivers... See? It 'confirms' nothing. Just notes the culture that predominated, nothing more.
It also says some very sad things about the current state of things that The Church's stubbornness has made many would-be christian scientists into agnostics at best as their rational outlook forces them to leave. Whatever happened to exploring and understanding God's world? Now everything has to be carved to fit preconceived notions. Carve the corners off those square pegs!
An honest spirit of inquiry begins with the courage to confront the vast expanse of our ignorance – and that will lead any school of thought to its own limited portion of the truth. The tyranny of ignorance begins when any school of thought decides that it has achieved sole possession of the whole truth despite all evidence to the contrary. That can only lead to the prohibition of further inquiry and the rise of darkness.
Ummm, I can't tell which side of the argument you are siding on.... I just have one thing to say: Faith only has Faith, but Science has Facts and Proof...