Belief in Creation Declines

by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

http://www.icr.org/article/10136

For generations, a large portion of Americans have believed that mankind began only thousands of years ago, not millions. A 2013 poll indicated that this next generation is finally beginning to depart from their forefathers’ creation-leaning beliefs.1 New Gallup results confirm this anti-Bible trend. Meanwhile, rhetoric about this trend reveals confusion over key issues.

The 2017 Gallup poll found that only 37 percent of Americans hold creationist views of human origins, down from 46 percent in 2012.2,3 This trend may reflect a change in generations, as younger Americans who are convinced of human evolution replace their more Bible-minded forebears. What does this trend mean?

Tom Krattenmaker from Yale Divinity School noted in USA Today that although more Americans believe in human evolution, they still identify as Christians. He wrote,

These tea leaves tell us that more people are refusing the all-or-nothing choice between faith and science and opting instead for a third way: Acceptance of the overwhelming scientific evidence for evolution while seeing a divine role in the process.4

This third way leads nowhere, since by definition evolution excludes the divine.

This perception of a divide between faith and science uses deceptive definitions of key terms. Many evolutionists like Krattenmaker define faith as believing as true that which has little or no supporting evidence. They assert that evidence demands our origins from apes and not Adam, while overlooking the fact that faith in evolution biased the way researchers interpreted that “evidence.”

*Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his M.S. in biotechnology from Stephen F. Austin State University.

Article posted on July 24, 2017.