What is creationism? How does it differ from the theory of evolution?

Question

What is creationism? How does it differ from the theory of evolution?

Answer 1

Simply stated, a creationist is one who rejects scientific explanations for the origin of life and the universe, preferring a hypothesis of supernatural creation by God. The majority of creationists in the United States are fundamentalist Christian Protestants, but there are creationists of other denominations as well.



There are many different varieties of creationists, some of which are the following:

Flat-Earthers: The most extreme position on the creationist spectrum, flat-earthers insist on a word-for-word literal reading of the biblical book of Genesis or other scripture, leading them to believe that the earth is a flat plane covered by a domelike solid “firmament.” Though there are very few of them today, they still exist.



Geocentrists: Another extreme position occupied by a small minority of creationists, geocentrists accept the sphericity of the Earth but believe that it occupies a fixed, motionless position in space, with the sun and the other planets orbiting around it – the pre-Galilean view, in other words.

Young-Earth Creationists: The most popular and politically active faction of creationism today, young-earth creationists (or YECs for short) also occupy a very extreme position on the creationist spectrum. They accept a spherical Earth rotating around the sun, but read the rest of the Book of Genesis literally, resulting in a belief that the Earth, along with the rest of the universe, was supernaturally created by God in six 24-hour days approximately 6000 years ago. Typically they also believe that the fall from Eden and Noah’s global flood were real, historical events, and that any evolution occurring today is nothing more than the result of degenerative mutations occurring as a consequence of sin.



Old-Earth Creationists: Old-earth creationists typically accept the scientific consensus for the age of the Earth and the universe, but reject evolution as YECs do, believing that life was the special creation of God. How they harmonize this belief with the Genesis account varies, though OECs frequently also take the position that the Noachian flood was a local event, not a global one.

Day/Age Creationists: A form of old-earth creationism, Day/Age creationists believe that each of the six days of creation in the Book of Genesis represents a period of thousands or millions of years.

Gap Creationists: Also a form of old-earth creationism, gap creationists believe that there was a long time lapse between the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis, with a six-day recreation of the world occurring after the gap.



Progressive Creationists: Another form of old-earth creationism and a more liberal position on the creationist spectrum, progressive creationists accept that both the Earth and life are ancient. However, they hold that there were several independent, sequential creation events, with new life forms being brought into being consistent with the order seen in the fossil record. Many of history’s great geologists who lived prior to Darwin were progressive creationists.



Intelligent Design Creationists: Employing a modern version of an old creationist argument, intelligent design creationists (IDers for short) hold that evidence of God’s design can be seen in the complexity of life and the “fine-tuning” of physical constants of the universe to support life. Typically, IDers believe that ordinary evolutionary explanations break down at some level, leaving supernatural intervention as the only plausible explanation for the complexity and information content of living organisms. IDers vary on how much of evolutionary theory they accept; some are young-earth creationists, while others accept common descent of all living things...

Answer 2

Creationism is simply an explanation of everything based upon a literal interpretation of the creation stories in Genesis. Despite what the other poster claimed, it is NOT a theory, since it has no supporting evidence that is independent of the aforementioned, minority, literal interpretation of the Bible.



Overall, the fundamental difference between creationism and the theory of evolution is that the latter is a scientific theory, overwhelmingly supported by ALL available evidence, whereas the former is a religious/faith-based belief.



There are a couple of key specific differences--1) the scope of each idea--the theory of evolution ONLY addresses the diversity of life, i.e. it only attempts to explain how life diversified AFTER it began--this is a critical difference--the T of E does NOT attempt to provide an explanation for the ORIGIN of all life. In contrast, creationism claims to answer EVERYTHING, including not only life's diversity, but also it's orgin, as well as the origins of earth and the entire universe itself. 2) Biologists publish their work in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, which means that the only work being published is that which has been critically reviewed by other scientists. In contrast, creationists typically self-publish their writings as books, pamphlets, etc., and these are not targeted toward the scientific community, but instead to the lay public, especially members of the religious right, politicians, school board members, etc. Thus, the latter work is not subject to peer review by the scientific community, and it's scientific merit is nonexistent. 3) Because creationism has no scientific support, the so-called "controversey" between it and the scientific theory of evolution is not based on a clash over scientific differences. Rather, the root of the issue is political and cultural, and has more to do with the fundamentalists' larger goal of transforming the U.S. into a fundamentalist Christian theocracy (sometimes termed "dominionism").

Answer 3

The simple explanation is that creationism is the belief that life was created by God, as described in Genesis of the Bible. There are a few different "flavors" of creationism. Old earth creationism holds that the events in Genesis were spread out over millions or billions of years, and that all life was created by God, but the universe and the earth are about as old as the evidence says. Young earth creationism takes a much more literal approach - the earth and universe formed over 6 24-hour days, life was created as-is, 6000 years ago, and that significant change is fundamentally impossible. There are, of course, a wide range of beliefs, but those are the two main camps. Like Ted said, the issue is being driven by fundamentalist (and I'd say extremist) Christian groups in the US. The debate over evolution vs creationism in the classroom isn't about science... it's about politics, ideology, and imposing an official state religion on students.



Evolution describes the changes in existing life over time. Nothing more, and nothing less. Unlike creationism, it doesn't explain the origin of the universe, or the origin of earth, nor is it intended to provide greater meaning or a moral framework. It's not inherently atheistic or anti-God. Like all science, it doesn't make claims about God one way or the other. It is a conclusion drawn from 150 years of evidence, and the work of tens of thousands of scientists.

Answer 4

Strictly speaking you should compare Creationism to the General Theory of Evolution as defined by Kerkut. "All the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form." This avoids the issue of whether or not evolution includes abiogenesis.



And for Creationism let's assume we are talking about Young Earth Creationists. There is a middle or compromise position that believes in an initial creation that provided the starting conditions for evolution, called Theistic Evolution.



Evolutionists believe that life arose naturally from non-living matter and that this has been the common ancestor of of all the life forms that have existed. The first "life" form was a heritable replicator perhaps similar to a bacteria, and through information adding mutations this has acquired multicellularity, specialised organs, etc. and developed into complex life forms such as us. This process is assumed to have taken billions of years.



Christian Young Earth Creationists believe that the Bible contains a historical record of the life on earth starting from the creation of all life in their current Kinds (not species) including mankind. This took place about 4100BC (give or take a few hundred). The earth was subject to a global flood about 2500BC in which the higher animals were preserved on Noah's Ark. All the life we see today are descendents of the original created kinds. (date of flood corrected)

Answer 5

It's basically the idea that the history of the universe follows the story of Genesis in the bible. instead of a long drown out process with many different things going on, creationisms suggests that this Deity just existed and poof'd everything into existence over a 6 day period.

Answer 6

I have actually spent 3 hours answering a similar question, but I can't post it because its too long. So, please email me so I can send my answer to you. I take a very different approach to this question, and ultimately show that there is fundamentally no difference. The only controversy happens when people misunderstand Creationism and evolution. When understood correctly, there is no difference. You know you misunderstand Creationism when you think that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. And you also know you misunderstand evolution when you think Humans came from apes. So, once again, email me so I can send you my answer.

Answer 7

there's a much bigger difficulty. It is composed of the full situation approximately Adam, Eve, the Snake, the Tree of wisdom and the unique Sin. If there is not any Adam, No tree , On Apple, no unique Sin. Then there is not any choose for customary Salvation and subsequently no choose for Jesus to be Crucified. If Evolution is sweet, and it style of feels love it is, then faith collapses lower back. and due to this you spot faith combating Evolution so difficult. Even to the ridiculous degree of attempting to grow to be technology. creationists p.c. to make a faux distinction between micro and macro evolution yet macro evolution is micro evolution. they're the comparable same technique.

Answer 8

Creationism is the belief that God (or a god) created everything.

Answer 9

Creationism is the (correct) theory that that world and all life was created around 6000 years ago by God, rather than evolved from rocks, or whatever. There's more to it than that but thats the basics of it.