Religion and science

Religion and science

1. Creationism

   • young Earth - created 6,000-10,000 years ago
     • Fundamentalists - take biblical text literally
     • Omphalism - god made it appear that the earth developed thrugh an evolutionary process
       • scientific facts are all accepted bu thought of as what god wants us to see
   • Old earth - accept scientific evidence of Earth being 4.5 billion years old
     • Are liberal and do not take all of the bible literally
     • Day age creationism
     • Gap creationism
     • progressive creationism
   • Criticisms
     • many types of creationism - many of whom cannot agree even among themseleves - suggests weakness in their ideas

2. Reasons as to why Christians would reject evolutionary theory

   • 1. The theory of evolution seems to challenge the role of god as a creator of life as seen in Genisis
   • 2. Challenges the status of humans as the pinnacle of creation
   • 3.The age of the Earth can be calculated from biblical references - for example, interpreting the days of creation from genesis 1
   • 4. The geology of the Earth can be explained by flood catastrophes such as the story of Noah in genesis 6-9
   • 5. Animals on earth descend from those that Noah took in to the Ark
   • 6. The theory looks over clear signs of design

3. Darwinism

   • challenges the young earth concept
   • evolution suggests humans are not a special in terms of their creation
   • if Adam and Eve are not real people and ' the fall' is not true - then Jesus' role on earth was unnecessary
   • Role of God as a designer are challenged - creation is just chance and the wonders of our world are not attributable to him
   • Evolution suggests that the bible is inaccurate - god's word is threatened
   • support
     • Frederick Temple - bible is not a scientific document
     • Teildhard de Chardin - evolution is divinely willed
   • criticism
     • hume and mill would question how we could accept the traditional views on god if accept scientific evidnece

4. Intelligent design

   • idea of the world being designed goes all the way back to Aristotle
   • Behe in 'Darwin's Black Box' claims that a biological structure that would failed to function if one of its parts were removed can be thought of as something irreducibly complex- evolution could not occur as the structure could not function untill fully assembled
   • Behe- argument of design through complex and intricate natural systems
     • example of he five smallest bones in the ear - if any one of these parts are taken away or modifies, we'd lose our ability to hear - this intricacy must point to intelligent design
   • a posteriori
   • avoids reference to scripture or anything that is derived from religious belief