(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

By now you may've seen the Pew Forum's graph showing the proportion of people in the US of different religious beliefs who accept evolution, but for me more interesting is their overview of different religion's official stances on evolution.

Very many Christian denominations see no contradiction between God's role as the creator of the universe and life and the scientific fact of evolution: the Catholic Church, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Episcopal Church (which explicitly rejects Creationism!), the Evangelical Lutherans... even when it comes to the group with the lowest proportion of those who accept evolution, the Mormons, the Pew Forum reports: "several high-ranking officials have suggested that Darwin's theory does not directly contradict church teachings".

This official acceptance stands in stark contrast to the widespread attitude that acceptance of the fact of evolution, and Christian belief, are mutually exclusive. I think that attitude can distort our understanding of the general public's thinking on evolution. Many Westerners believe that some combination of natural selection and divine action resulted in life and human beings, from those who believe in God but take a wholly naturalistic view of evolution, to people who accept that evolution occurs but see it as directed by God, to those who are frankly a bit puzzled by the whole thing.

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The idea that evolution is intrinsically opposed to religion seems to mostly be a Baptist thing. The lack of any hierarchy of authority, by which sensible theology can be applied to quell the charismatic and enthusiastic but stupid, is an intrinsic aspect of Baptist belief that seems to lead it into trouble.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

OTOH, the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are strongly hierarchical...

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

It's more startling to me that so many people who otherwise seem sensible reject it -- even 19% of buddhists.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I was curious about the exact question, so I grabbed the original survey from the Pew site - here's a screencap of the evolution bit:



As you can see, when it comes to the Buddhists, only 4% "completely disagree" - the other 15% only "mostly disagree", didn't know, or didn't answer. So the picture is a little better than it seems at first glance. Even in the most anti-evolution denominations, there's a substantial chunk of people who don't vehemently reject the idea; that's a lot of Americans who could be convinced by the evidence.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

The question, of course, is sloppily phrased in a way that leads people who see evolution as *part* of the explanation (which of course is all it was ever meant to be! And no, I'm not talking about "God had a hand it in too"; I mean that the theory of evolution addresses *only* the diversification of biological species, not the origins of life itself, nor the origins of DNA and the genetic code, nor the origins of sentience or morality or spirituality or haiku or sudoku...) and are precise in their answers to say "no". Of course a simple "no" isn't offered as a legitimate answer, except in the form of "completely disagree", which is likely to be read (incorrectly) as "these folks don't believe in evolution!". So folks like me, in order to indicate the nearest approximation to what we actually think, have a choice of "Mostly agree", "mostly disagree", or "don't know/refused", depending on our best guess as to how the interpreter of the data is going to construe each of those answers... =:o\

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

If a survey asked me "Do you believe in God?", I'd be so stuck on the words "believe" and "God" that I'd have to answer "don't know".

I gotta tell you, though, evolution by natural selection gives us some big clues about abiogenesis, intelligence, and morality. (Although I'd like to see a little less hot air from the evolutionary psychologists and a little more evidence.)

[klgaffney.livejournal.com]

If a survey asked me "Do you believe in God?", I'd be so stuck on the words "believe" and "God" that I'd have to answer "don't know".

yeeeah.

too many of the people that ask these sorts of questions don't recognize what they're asking. i guess to them answers like "what's to believe? i just spoke to [insert deity here] over breakfast this morning," and "that depends, what version/aspect are we talking here?" is seen as pedantic quibbling, semantics, what-have-you. it's the same with the evolution question.