A story by the Guardian indicates that four in five people in the UK reject creationism in its traditional form. The author writes:
The east of England may be the most godless region of the UK, according to a "belief map" published by a theology thinktank today. Almost half of adults there believe the theory of evolution makes God obsolete, and more than 80% disagree with creationism and intelligent design, which propose that humans were created by God in the past 10,000 years, and that life owes its complexity to divine intervention.
If you look at the interactive map, support for ID never gets higher than 16 percent, in Ireland. Ireland is also where the largest percentage of staunch creationists reside, 25 percent. On the other hand, it is clear that many people have no idea to what they are objecting:
The survey, which was conducted to mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, found that nearly half of the British adult population could not name the country's greatest naturalist as the author of On the Origin of Species, the 1859 book that introduced evolution through natural selection to a sceptical Victorian society.
"We don't know what it is, but we know its bad." Modern education at its finest. Interestingly, in all places except Wales, the percentage of people who think that evolution removes the need for God is larger than those who accept some form of theistic evolution.
"Interestingly, in all places except Wales, the percentage of people who think that evolution removes the need for God is larger than those who accept some form of theistic evolution."
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting way you worded that, "the need for God". For me, its not so important whether our origins demands that a God exist, it is just whether that God exists regardless. I didn't come to faith because I couldn't explain how the earth began rotating without some supernatural cause, I came to faith because I started a relationship with God in modern times.
Indeed, I get a bit annoyed (and it plays heavily on my own doubts) when Christians are arguing over fine tuning as proof of God. Is that all we have these days? Whatever happened to Holy Fire coming down form the sky and destroying idols? Supernatural plagues that demonstrate who is in charge? If I posit that God is active and available today to effect change in the world, that should be what I demonstrate or call upon God to demonstrate to an unbelieving world, not cosmological constants that we couldn't have known about until the last 30 years.
Actually, they worded it that way in the map. The last option is "Evolution removes the need for God." I agree though. I developed a love of evolutionary biology long after I became a Christian.
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