Is Creationism infuenced by American history

[QED]

I think one of the main reasons we have so many creationist in United States (it almost only exist there), is because of the lack of time conept americans seem to have. Do not missunderstand me now, i am not Bashing americans in that sense, it simple is that they think 100 years is aloot, so ofcourse 6000 years would be mind boggling for them, and millions of years cant be possible, no, we refuse to accept, wight?.

Legend has it that some American tourists visiting Buckingham Palace were overheard musing on why the Palace had been built so close to Heathrow airport (the flight lanes are pretty much overhead and rather spoil the stately plot). I'm not sure if this story is indeed true however I have seen claims that that the US has the oldest democracy in the world. Given that the Icelandic Althing dates from the year 930 and the English Parliament dates from 1265, I think such claims do betray a perspective of history that is quite different on other continents. Perhaps this might make a good topic for a new debate?

EDIT> This discussion got sparked-off in the Human Evolution debate where is was not particularly appropriate. Seeing as it drew a couple of follow-up replies I've split them off to this new topic.

There are some very broad generalisations being put about in what follows so I hope nobody takes their contribution to the discussion too seriously. However, it has been suggested before on these forums that the relatively short history of the United States might have an influence on the views of those Biblical Fundamentalists who hold to a young Earth as per Usher's chronology. So perhaps we could debate whether this might explain the predominance of this type of thinking in the US.

[Chimp]

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

The term fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that in various combinations:

* exalts the nation and party above the individual, with the state apparatus being supreme.
* stresses loyalty to a single leader, and submission to a single nationalistic culture.
* engages in economic totalitarianism through the creation of a Corporatist State, where the divergent economic and social interests of different races and classes are combined with the interests of the State.

Scrot,
While I agree that there are admirable aspects of any country...even Sweden
The Scandinavian countries have the benefit of a fairly homogenous
population on which to try their experiment in government. The US, by
contrast, has almost no homogeneity. Even the "white" population is divided
by immigrant status, ethnicity, economics and religion.

[Cathar1950]

Every one loves their country unless they are just ashamed or alienated.
This country(USA) sure has it's problems. Like most people feel, I love my country. No matter what country your in, at least you hope and wish.
But all countrys make mistakes and are not perfect. It is interesting to see some people in this country that don't think that way. They believe this country is right. God is on it's side unless there is some one you don't like or want something from. There is a weird almost anti-science current. We with all our freedoms(life style and culture) seem to argue over some of the dumbest stuff and ignore some of the most obvious. If you want to attack religion in the USA infringing on your rights you attack Christians. No one else is going to infringe unless your in a theocracy . So I would say yes it is an American(USA) problem the Protestants created over many decades(1700's and 1800's) with all of it's awakings, revivals and myths. This coupled with consumer consciousness and mass marketing every nutty idea can have it's day.

[Cathar1950]

ST88 wrote:

No. I believe that would be called a plutocracy, which is very close to what we have in the U.S.

Thanks I was wondering what we were called I saw it once.
The thing is we have the ability to destroy the planet combined with many who hold the belief that God will save them when Jesus returns in our lifetime. Thus no vision of the future or real plans, Just the accumulation of wealth and power.

[Scrotum]

Scrot,
While I agree that there are admirable aspects of any country...even Sweden
The Scandinavian countries have the benefit of a fairly homogenous
population on which to try their experiment in government. The US, by
contrast, has almost no homogeneity. Even the "white" population is divided
by immigrant status, ethnicity, economics and religion.

I was just waiting for this one. Ok First thing, the homogenous statement is purely racist, which is interesting, but you get away from that because thats naother topic, but unfortunate for you, you are wrong.

Per Capitya (head), Sweden let in more foreigners then United States. I cant find the figures now, ut if you really need them, i can try to dig them up later. Sweden is not homogenous anymore. A Massive amount of muslims now inhabit the country. so this constant ringing note your always singing does not work. 40 years ago you would have been right, but not anymore.

You are indeed correct that you are diveded in Educational groups, and white, blacks and so forth, but you have chosen this system, so you cant use it as an excuse.

Every one loves their country unless they are just ashamed or alienated.

This musty be one of the most stupid.. SORRY, i mean, None intelligent comments i ever seen. WHY should everyone love their country? FOR WHAT REASON?


Why do you love chockolate icecream? Because it taste good.

Why do you like sex? Because it feels good.


Why do you love your country? Erh.. Because i am born there?

THATS NOT A REASON, cheeses.. to use your argument about being born in a country, should make you love it, is like me saying that you should love gummi bears, because your father owns a Gummy bear factory. See the similarity here? There is no reason for you to like gummi bears if you dont like the taste. Just because your father owns a factory doesnt make you love them automatically.


I do not love my country.. or Countries.. or whatever, i an born in Sweden, So? I dont live there. I live in Iceland, or erh, i actually live in Holland, but it doesnt matter. I dont love no country, i look at countries objectivly. I know Sweden is a great country because of the system it has, good education, lack of poverty and so forth. United States would be an awseome country if it followed Canada´s way. Imagine it, Socialistic U.S.. THAT would be nice, good education, open to foreigners, infuelnces, acceptance, wow, i mean, it would be great, then i would see the U.S as a good and decent country, now its rubbish.

[QED]

OK fellas, this topic has gotten off to a really wobbly start. The subject of the debate is whether Creationism is influenced by American history. I'm interested to find out more about this as I don't know much about the religious composition of the early settler communities. Is it so that they were mainly Protestant?

[Scrotum]

Well, this notion that people went to the americas (continent) for "fleeing religious persucution" is just american idnoctrination. The main theme of things come from the ship mayflower with the Puritans, which, incidentally where Creationists.

Most people went to the americas to try their luck elsewhere. Europe was the Central of the world. So obviously we have huge amount of people, poverty and problems there. The americas where newfound land, and a chance to try out different things.

Most people would have been "Protestant" or similar denomination. Christian they all where, as Islam did not have any efect on Europe, and it was more or less only European settlers.

[micatala]

Well, this notion that people went to the americas (continent) for "fleeing religious persucution" is just american idnoctrination. The main theme of things come from the ship mayflower with the Puritans, which, incidentally where Creationists.

Most people went to the americas to try their luck elsewhere. Europe was the Central of the world. So obviously we have huge amount of people, poverty and problems there. The americas where newfound land, and a chance to try out different things.

Most people would have been "Protestant" or similar denomination. Christian they all where, as Islam did not have any efect on Europe, and it was more or less only European settlers.

I think you are oversimplifying the history here.

People came to the Americas for a whole variety of reasons. It is fairly well-documented that quite a number, not just the Mayflower passengers, came here for religious reasons. Most were Protestants, but Maryland was originally settled mostly by Catholics.

Some came to make their fortunes, some came to get out of prison. Some came simply to see if they could get their own land.

[Jose]

Indeed, people have come to the Americas for many reasons. But, back to the topic of the thread:

A quick Google finds various discussions of the history of fundamentalism. One of them puts it this way:

The term `fundamentalism' has its origin in a series of pamphlets published between 1910 and 1915. Entitled "The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth," these booklets were authored by leading evangelical churchmen and were circulated free of charge among clergymen and seminarians. By and large, fundamentalism was a response to the loss of influence traditional revivalism experienced in America during the early years of the twentieth century. This loss of influence, coupled with the liberalizing trends of German biblical criticism and the encroachment of Darwinian theories about the origin of the universe, prompted a response by conservative churchmen. The result was the pamphlets. In 1920, a journalist and Baptist layman named Curtis Lee Laws appropriated the term `fundamentalist' as a designation for those who were ready "to do battle royal for the Fundamentals."

It seems that the biblical literalism grew out of Southern Baptist traditions, which themselves grew out of Protestant traditions, in response to "threats" similar to those that exist today. The True Believers felt a loss of power, and saw Bad Things happening in society, which they attributed to the teaching of evolution. Some of those pamphlets had illustrations that showed how bad evolution was, since it led to licentious hedonism and "feminism."

I'm not sure how this relates to US history overall, except insofar as we developed a concentration of a particular religious type who felt threatened by evolution. Regrettably, we seem not to have made evolution more understandable in the intervening century, or made it more clear that it really has no impact on religion.

Perhaps, though, we suffer from another feature: the anti-intellectual, anti-science mindset. "We don't need no book-learning" used to be a pretty common sentiment. That may have been true a few years ago when we were still clearing land for farms and struggling to get enough food. Now that the world is wildly different, we still have a great many small towns that are fairly isolated, and in which the old traditions seem as if they should still be valid. Primarily in California and the Boston-Washington corridor, where population density is higher and diversity is greater, its very clear that these old traditions don't hold any more. So, we get the clash between those who see no reason to change and those who see no way not to.

[QED]

Thanks Jose, that seems like a good summing-up of the situation. It'll be interesting to see if anyone disagrees with your assessments. I always have a mental picture of North America as being up until quite recently an "empty continent". It's always seemed odd that there are no relics of past civilizations dotted about as there are in South America, Europe and Asia. This has led me to wonder if it makes it easier to believe in the truncated version of history supplied by the Old Testament.

[Cathar1950]

They are doing a thing on NBC Nightline tonight on the rise of evangelicals. 8:00 pm central.
Look out world. It looks like a lot of media tricks to entertain the folks in the pews. It is mostly an American phenomena but they have a tendency to spread with a little marketing.