Oh, and even a Biblical literalist has to realize that the Bible itself says that a day “is as” a thousand years. To take it literally is obviously a mistake. I consider myself to be both a creationist and a scientist. They are not at odds. To me science is no more than our attempts to discover to the mechanics and details of the methods chosen for our existence.

I do think the person on the View meant it – she had three chances at the question and did not change her answer. On another blog I wrote “she went home and heard about 200 times that she was not smarter than a fifth grader and reconsidered her future on television. Then she reconsidered the shape of the earth.”

Who sponsers “The View”? Exxon-Mobil? Halliburton?

The explicit 24 hour day creationists you identify are more explicitly labeled as Young Earth Creationists, or YECs, denoting their adherance to the literal 7 day translation and the belief that the Earth is only about 10,000 years old (give or take a couple thousand, depending upon the individual).

A slightly more relaxed version of Creationist is an Old Earth Creationist, who allows that the “days” of the Bible might have been vague periods rather than literal days. However, they still believe in a literal Creation event, and in humanity’s independent creation from animals, and God’s direct activity.

There are some religious believers who, as you say, are ready to accept the scientific evidence about the age of the Earth and the origin methods, plus the heritage and development of life on Earth. However, they also think that God was involved in the process – directing it, guiding it, setting it in motion, etc. They identify the idea of “Creation” as being God driven, so they mistakenly identify themselves as “Creationists”. This is unfortunate, because they then get upset at criticisms that are not directed at them that they take personally because of the misunderstanding.

The term is an unfortunate choice because it conflates two issues into one label and thus feeds the “Religion vs. Science” mentality that many people are prone to.

When looking at the origins of life on Earth, there are two different basic schemes for life forms to have followed. One scheme says that life forms were created in essentially their modern form, that each was independently and perhaps instantaneously formed in that state, and that the forms of life are basically unchanging over time – in other words, a rabbit is a rabbit is a rabbit and has always been a rabbit from the day rabbits arrived magically on the Earth. The other scheme says that life forms share common ancestry, that they diversify and change over time, and that the variety of species today may be significantly different from their ancestors of the not-too-distant past.

The first scheme is labeled “Creationism” out of a reference to the biblical creation story. The second is labeled “Evolution” out of recognition concept of transformation over time. Scientifically, we can analyze which is more consistent with the data collected from all forms of biological science. Clearly transformation over time and common ancestry are much better supported than non-changing forms from independent origins.

The second issue caught up in the labels is the question of whether or not God exists. The “Creationist” label is connected to the assertion that “God did it”, and thus is taken by some to mean that the opposing position means “It was not God”. Also, some prominent defenders of the science of Evolution used the speculative implications of the science to argue that God was not required, and therefore the science disproved God. That is an unfair projection of philosophical implications from a scientific topic.

There are plenty of theists who accept the science of common ancestry and change over time but place God as the source. Evolution is God’s method to them. Ergo, no disproof.

When Phil uses the term on this blog, he appears to be arguing against the literalist types of religious believers who reject the sciences of geology and astronomy for the age of Earth, and the sciences of biology with regards to how species diversified and change over time (i.e. Evolution). He is not refering to theists in general, or the people who accept science but also hold religious beliefs.

HOWEVER, it’s distinctly possible most of those members considered the society a joke. When I was at university (late 1970s early 1980s), the society was sending out a rather neat membership certificate. It was quite a giggle to have one posted in your room. As I recall, membership was US$5, which wasn’t too much even in those days, and well within the budget of improverished undergraduates. Certainly none of my fellow students who had one (I never bothered) believed for even a moment in a flat earth. They just liked having a certificate on the wall that said(? implied?) they did. I’ve always assumed a fair number of those 3000+ members were in it for the laughs, albeit I would not be surprised if Mr Johnson was sufficiently deluded that he never grasped that.

Unfortunately, both for Mr Johnson and the society, his home, which also served as the society’s headquarters, burnt down in 1995, destroying all the records. Apparently a very small number of people joined (or re-joined?) afterwards, but as far as I can tell, the fire basically ended the society. Whether or not it exists now, years after Mr Johnson’s death, is unclear.

Whilst checking some of the details, I discovered that apparently Mr Johnson did not begin the society. Exactly when or who started it is unclear (sources conflict), albeit it apparently was the real deal (i.e., they really did believed the Earth is flat!). Mr Johnson became president of the society in 1971.

One particularly amusing thing was Mr Johnson lived (at least until the fire) very close to Edwards AFB.

I haven’t been able to find an image/scan of the certificate, but did find this (unfortunately undated) allegedly verbatim copy of one the society’s brochures:

http://tafkac.org/science/flat_earth_society_flyer.html

(And hey, my memory was cooking! That indicates the cerficate was US$5, albeit that was extra over the membership fee.)

PS .. this is not a hostile question but a real inquiry. If its been asked before, kindly point me to the right article for reference. Thanks ;p

Am I correct in this line of reasoning? I ask as I know some people that believe in ‘creation’, or at least are humble enough to leave room for the idea, but at the same time, are extremely passionate about accurate science and wouldn’t conceive of even trying to make their religious beliefs go against clear scientific theory. Case in point, the people I know embrace the idea of the big bang, billions of years to form the universe etc, and see no reason why ‘creative days’ cant be long periods of time. After all a ‘day’, in the dictionary is defined as ‘a period of time’.

I have often had passionate discussions with these people and to date haven’t found anything they say about their belief in creation to be at odds with current scientific theory.

My real question is, if these people are religious, but at the same time see no reason to argue with science, are they ‘creationists’ ? Does the ‘ist’ or ‘ism’ part at the end of the word denote precisely what sort of people you

It’s bullsh.. Plain and simple. Time to move on.

It’s a hard-won philosophical tenet of mine that I now refuse to ever KNOW anything.

‘Know’, or ‘be certain of’? The two are not equivalent, and it only muddies the waters to conflate them.

Thanks, added it to my TOREAD list.

He’s a smart kid, but he’s not particularly a prodigy. So, no, there’s no excuse for being an idiot just because you’re a mom and have to figure out how to feed your kid and keep him safe. Puh-lease!

By the way, he also told me I was wrong when I drew him a picture of our galaxy to show where we are because he looked it up in one of his books and I apparently drew it with 5 ‘arms’ instead of 4, and we are not as close to the edge as I said we were. Sigh … so proud!

There is a short story by Philip José Farmer called “Sail on! Sail on!” where Farmer attempts to create a flat world scenario and actually make it internally consistent. It is in the anthology “Backdrop of Stars” (Edited by Harry Harrison, ISBN 450 02269 2) along with an explanation of the story by Farmer himself. The explanation is almost as long as the story. Highly recommended reading.

1. Every modern “flat Earth society” I have ever seen have always been a bit of a lark.

2. Widespread belief in a flat Earth hasn’t existed since the BC years. Even very few in the Christian church opposed the idea.

The idea that people thought the Earth was flat until Columbus was started by Washington Irving in his book “The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus” published the the early 1800s.

3. The whole “it’s not really a sphere but an oblate spheroid wossname” is really just pedantry. It’s one of the things that turns people OFF to science and math, folks, to be blunt.

>>> with an infinite number of shades of gray.

Well, ideology and politics tend to reduce that number somewhat.