Only in America??

Actually LD, there is nothing about separation of church and state in the Constitution.

It's only true that the phrase "separation of church and state" does not exist in the Constitution.  It comes from Jefferson's letter interpreting it that way.  And there can be no doubt that he was right.  Article VI states "...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States".  The First Amendment also says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

What's even more telling is what is NOT included.  Religious leaders at the time of the writing of the Constitution complained bitterly at the exclusion of God and Christianity but lost that battle to the Founding Fathers.  It was later that religous references crept into government.  The phrase "In God We Trust" was added to coinage as a compromise to the religious zealots who claimed that the US Civil War had started because God was not included in the Constitution.  The phrase "Under God" was added to The Pledge Of Allegiance as a poke at the "atheist" U.S.S.R. in the 1950's during the Cold War.

There can be no doubt that the framers intentionally wanted religion separated from governance.  And mostly, I think, for the benefit of the various religions.

This is a great thread.

You can always say "Oh, I've met substantially more than that" to which I say, yeah? how many?
You would have had to of met nearly a thousand random Americans to make the judgment, and since you can only meet Americans that are in China, in an education role, you can't even say you've met a random selection of them.

I personally have met and worked with a great deal of Americans, most of which are very open minded and hold a variety of views on many subjects. Some however have whacked out ideas and theories on certain subjects, not that this isnt true for most countries, its just that the USA gets most of the news coverage. CV, i can fully understand your point of view, you are feeling that americans are being bashed here, and maybe that is true a little, but then again with the title of this thread what did you expect.  
It is also your right to defend this, but you can not possibly deny that the USA has a reasonably large and very vocal percentage of people that do believe in creationism. I am not saying this is a true representation, but it is a very vocal one. The rest of the worlds opinion unfortunately is based on what they hear, so if those that believe in a 6000 year history are the ones making all the noise then you can not blame other people for believing this to be a view held by your countrymen. The best you can hope for is to continue with exactly what you are doing and try to persuade the rest of us that those views are actually truly a minority, and try to educate your young with a slightly more scientific point of view.

But please the rest of you keep this thread going, without getting agro at each other, most threads here that touch on religion end up getting closed down, and rightly so, because it is a very touchy subject but this is making great reading

@Local: While our views on God couldn't be more far apart, I want you to know (and for what's it's worth) that I have more respect for your POV's than even some of my so-called Christian friends.

Your critical thinking skills are impressive.
 

This is a great thread.

but you can not possibly deny that the USA has a reasonably large and very vocal percentage of people that do believe in creationism.

While your tact is appreciated, I can see that you have completely missed what I have been saying (which seems to be the narrative here).

For the umteenth time: you cannot equate Creationism with Young Earth theory. They are not the same thing. Please, please, please educate yourself on what Creationism *really* is.

This is a good start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism

I'll quote and comment:

Creationism refers to the religious belief[1] that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in some form by a supernatural being or beings, commonly a single deity. However the term is more commonly used to refer to religiously motivated rejection of natural biological processes, in particular evolution, as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth (the creation-evolution controversy).

I agree with that except I would add the word errounously in place of "more commonly" in the second sentence.

Without going into too much detail, I believe that God used an evolution-like process to create all things, and it has been my experience that the majority of Americans that believe in a God, believe that as well.

@LE:
with all due respect (and I mean that sincerely), your experiences in this matter, about this particular subject, are not as valid as mine, any more than my opinions or experiences with Australian atheists (agnostics?) are equal with yours.
It really seems hubris of you to compare them.

If your arguments are true, then I can say my opinions and experiences about what it is like to be a woman or a minority are just as valid as yours because I have been around women all of my life, and I worked for a non-profit org counseling Somali immigrants for several years.

I may be able to sympathize, or even empathize with them, but I will never really know unless I lived as them. The same goes for you.
To even start to understand something you need to be able to look at it without bias, which, based on your past statements, I don;t think you would be able to do.

Agian, no offense, I respect your opinions, I just think most of the people in this thread are not capable of looking at it without bias.

Keep in mind I am not trying to convince you that God exists, I would never do that. My bias towards the existence of God has nothing to do with my point--which is, once more, that Creationism does not have to equal Young Earth theory, and that I have a better position to determine how many American Christians believe in Young Earth theory than non-Americans or even American non-Christians.
It isn't ego, it's just plain common sense.
 

Stats about Australian religious affiliation tell me that 70+% of people will answer the census question stating that they are, in one form or another, Christians.

16% will state that they are "not further defined (2,927,139); Agnosticism (8801); Atheism (7496); Humanism (4075); Rationalism (1380)."

So with only 8801 agnostics we still elected an agnostic PM, and a 'post-Christian' PM.  

So I don't think it is the percentage of Christians or non-Christians that is relevant in Australia in electing leaders.  Very few of our leaders have had photo shoots entering or leaving church.  Most Australians wouldn't care (or know) if the PM went to church or not. I'm not sure, given the media coverage and the stressing of religion that current and previous US Presidents have done, is the same in the US.

Approx 26% of Aussies will identify on census forms that they are Catholic - but we have only had one PM (Keating), since James Scullin in 1932,  who was practicing Catholic.  Which didn't stop him from divorcing his wife, and 'coming out' after he lost an election.

I think in Oz there is a tendency to distrust people who are 'too churchy' - as one PM stated - we won because we didn't play a heavy morals ticket.

The likelihood of us electing a PM or deputy-PM who is openly stating that the world is 6000 years old is very low. Partly because we have a lesser interest in religious affiliation of our pollies and are more likely to vote along party lines than religion lines, partly because we would see such statements to be pretty uneducated.

Obama did push his "Christian creds' pretty thoroughly to combat the "Hussein" name - which of course led to problems with his relationship with a radical minister.

Barack Obama is stepping up his effort to correct the misconception that he's a Muslim now that the presidential campaign has hit the Bible Belt.

At a rally to kick off a weeklong campaign for the South Carolina primary, Obama tried to set the record straight from an attack circulating widely on the Internet that is designed to play into prejudices against Muslims and fears of terrorism.

"I've been to the same church _ the same Christian church _ for almost 20 years," Obama said, stressing the word Christian and drawing cheers from the faithful in reply.

Assoc. Press Jan 21, 2008.  Newsweek also covered his beliefs in depth - as a cover story!

I suppose what causes a fair bit of the problem isn't so much the number of Americans that we have met who state that they believe in creationism or the young earth myth, but more than the publicity a number of them in high places, positions of influence and power, gain. Especially when leaders and maybe a fair percentage of people in that country see themselves as "Leader of the Western World". And when people in those positions say this stuff out loud then it does create a resonance around the world.  A sort of "can these people be trusted with the 'button'?" type stuff.  Again, consider how safe you would feel if leaders (Presidents, aspiring V-Ps, Senators, heads of Boards of Education etc) in other countries stated that their creation myths were to be seen as 'reasonable alternatives' to scientifically supported theories.

 

CCV - I would expect the experiences of those of us on this board, working across China, some coming from the USA, some from Canada, some from Oz etc would be pretty broad.  Therefore if several people say "We have met a number of people from the USA who firmly believe that in either/both creationism or the earth is 6000 years old", then that would be indicative of a couple of things. 

• it could indicate that based on the sampling here, a fairly high percentage of USAnians believe this, or;
• that people with those beliefs are more likely to come here for a particular purpose, less concerned with teaching.

   
Either of these hypotheses could be true - both are based on the experiences people on this board have had.

Your logic regarding understanding Somalis is slightly flawed.  I would expect that having had a fair amount of contact with them, if you listened to their stories, talked to them about their lives etc, then you would have a much greater understanding of them than many others.  I feel I have a greater understanding of sex offenders than many others because I have spent 11 years working with them, written a thesis on them, done a  lot of research into them.  But, this does not mean that I have to be a sex offender to have any understanding or to make any statements about them or judgments.  if this were so, no-one would be able to work as a counsellor, no-one could have an opinion on anything other than what they had themselves been.

And men have been making rules for, statements about, prescriptions for women since the beginning of time - without having been them. 

Broad experience and depth of experience are two different things altogether.

Again, unless you've met around a thousand randomly selected Americans you can't say the ones you've met are representative of an entire nation.

It's really hard for me to accept that you are basing your opinion of an entire nation and culture on the (comparatively) few you have met. Especially since you have a background in science.
You can't use all the combined experiences from the Canadian, UK and Australian people here to form a rational conclusion. That's multiple imputation, as you have no way of knowing whether or not others experiences are true, and that's plain old unprincipled reasoning.
 

Seems that there are about 10 different kinds of "Christian" Creationists, one of which is the "Young Earth" mob.
Here is a list.
http://manhhoang.org/browse.php?u=Oi8vZW4ud2lraXBlZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpL0NyZWF0aW9uaXNt&b=13#Young_Earth_creationism

For the umteenth time: you cannot equate Creationism with Young Earth theory.

Seems like you can!

The Creation Museum is a museum that presents an account of the origins of the universe, life, mankind, and man's early history according to a literal reading of the Book of Genesis. Its exhibits reject universal common descent, along with most other central tenets of evolution, and assert that the Earth and all of its life forms were created 6000 years ago over a six-day period. In particular, exhibits promote the claim that humans and dinosaurs once coexisted, and dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark.

@George: Do you honestly think that everyone that believes in some form of Creationism believes the Earth is 6000 years old?

I can't be bothered to respond any longer.  I never said all the people I met were from USA.  Canadians live next door.  They send their children to the USA for 'religious' education.

CCV stop assuming that everyone on this board is 'USA bashing'. 

I will when people stop making ridiculous generalizations about them. 

I never said all the people I met were from USA.

here is exactly what you said:

I know there are several colleges that teach 'preachers' in the USA near Canada where the children of these colleagues were sending their children.

I do not believe as they do, but I have met in the last 30 years sufficient numbers of these people to know that it is a widespread belief.

Who are the "they" that you do not believe that same as? It has to be the "colleges that teach 'preachers' in the USA near Canada". If you were not talking about Americans specifically, then who were you talking about?

I like soup.

Again, unless you've met around a thousand randomly selected Americans you can't say the ones you've met are representative of an entire nation.

Especially since you have a background in science.

I think probably I have met a thousand Americans over my time - but I wouldn't assume that they are randomly selected.  They may come from all walks of life, but they do have a propensity to travel, which would take them out of 'randomly selected'.  I'm assuming that in each of the cities you have lived in you deliberately chose the church you attended, that it was not 'randomly selected'.  Therefore your churches would have espoused the same belief in whichever town you happened to be in.  You cannot also claim to have met a broad (or in depth) set of randomly chosen believers.

BUT... you did not read my post correctly.  I proposed two mutually exclusive hypotheses based on observation.  These hypotheses are then open for testing for validity.  This is in fact standard scientific process. Our statements are that we have met such people, and at a scientifically significant percentage of them HERE, proves that they DO exist.

Further, I earlier noted that it was not so much the number of people that we had individually or collectively met that espoused either/both the creationist myth or the young earth myth but the number of people - presumably popularly elected - IN HIGH PLACES who gained publicity, who espouse this view, that gave rise to the concept of USA as 'unusual' in this regard.  Combine that with the high percentage polled who state they believe in creationism, PLUS the high percentage who state they 'don't know', then you can see why there is cause for concern.  Unless you are now arguing that the polls are incorrect.

Let's try another poll:

Do you believe that 'Mbombo and his sore stomach vomited twice to create first, the earth, water and sky; second to create living creatures'(Bakuba mythology)

a) yes
b) no
c) don't know.

If you get a high percentage of Bakubas answering a or c you are going to be concerned about stability of leadership and the level of education of the Bakuba people.

I understand that there is a difference between those who believe in creationism and those that believe in 'young earth'.  There is a difference between those who believe in the Bible as the LITERAL word of God, and those, eg the Catholic Church (22% of the pop.) who believe in a more allegorical reading.

However, the problem with stating that the Bible is allegorical then means that you cannot state with any conviction it is the actual word of God and as such should be obeyed.  It then comes down to interpretation by an individual - the Pope or your neighbourhood pastor - which bits he thinks are true and which bits he thinks are allegorical.   So - dismiss creationism, it's an allegory.  But - keep patriarchal attitudes based on cultural beliefs that are a couple of thousand years old ...

Very messy.

ccv - we are not per se attacking the USA, or its people (some of my bes... ), but as concerned world citizens we have a right and obligation to be concerned about a country that has the military might (and is quite happy to use it) and financial might to have significant impact on the world, including our own countries.  If this country is significantly influenced by crazies, then we have an even worse scenario than Al Qaeda waiting for us in the future.


Minestrone, Borscht or Bouillabaisse? 

One quick question: is it your belief that people that believe in a God created universe are unstable, dangerous people?

My understanding is that people who reject a scientifically provable theory in favour of a myth could have the propensity to make decisions based on that and other myths.  This is not a viable option for a world with a huge number of armaments, a rapidly deteriorating climate/pollution problem, increasing numbers of refugees, starvation, continuing war and civil strife.

Take the mythical beliefs out of these scenarios, and some of them will disappear entirely, others will come back to what they actually are - haves v have nots; economic/water other causes.  Then, with the myths gone, we can actually start dealing intelligently with the real issues.