Do "most Christians" really accept evolution?

[Radically Rethinking]

Sorry if this is a little long, but this is a question I've been thinking about for months and is pretty much the reason I signed up here.

One argument I see quite often, coming from atheists and evolution-accepting Christians, is "most Christians are evolutionists," or "the majority of Christians are evolutionists," or "the VAST majority of Christians are evolutionists," or even "only a teeny-tiny minority of Christians believe in creationism." But is it really as simple as that?

I suppose if we just look at raw membership statistics, the majority would accept evolution. There are supposed to be 2 billion Christians in the world, half of them (1 billion) are Catholic, and Catholics have no problem with evolution. Add the mainline Protestants and that's more than half, i.e. the majority. But...

If the majority of Christians accept evolution, they certainly are a silent majority. Most of the big names in apologetics are creationists: Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, Norman Geisler, Ravi Zacharias, and on the internet Greg Koukl, JP Holding and Glenn Miller. Look at most general Christian websites: ChristianAnswers, one of the biggest Christian websites, available in a multitude of languages, pushes YECism, as do RBC ministries, bible dot com, Bible Questions Answered (a.k.a. "Got Questions"), and many others. If creationists are only a "teeny-tiny minority," then why are creationists the proverbial "face" of Christianity? Why isn't creationism considered a "fringe" belief like snake-handling?

I have a hunch about this (I'd say "theory" but that word has been misused enough). We all know that a good deal of those 2 billion Christians are really just "nominal" Christians, "cultural" Christians, "C&E" Christians, and such; people who live wholly secular lives, rarely attend church services, and may or may not believe in God, but when a pollster asks them what religion they are, they respond with "Christian" (or "Catholic" or "Lutheran" or whatever) because they were baptized in that church as a child and can't think of any other way of answering. Then there are "serious" Christians, the ones who regularly attend church, try to live "Godly" lives, spread the gospel to others, etc. I believe that if you ignore all the cultural and nominal Christians and only focus on the serious ones, you will find that most of them are creationists. And if this isn't true about all Christians, it's probably true about Protestants.

Over here in the USA, half the population is creationist and we just happen to be known for being more religious than other Western countries. I do sense a trend forming here; looking at 2007's Pew Research poll, it seems that traditional Protestants (Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) which include the "mainline" churches, are declining like a piano falling from a skyscraper, while fundamentalist megachurches are swelling. You probably already know which of those two groups have most of the creationists. As for the Catholics, they're also in quite a bit of a decline, shown by the hard time they're having just trying to get people to become priests.

Over in Europe, most people identify as being part of some Christian denomination and almost none of them have a problem with evolution. But as I'm sure everyone here is aware, most European Christians could be described as little more than nominal Christians.

So am I on to something here? Or has living in America and being raised in a YEC church given me a flawed perspective on the issue? I think someone really needs to do a survey on this, a survey of Christians that correlates acceptance of evolution with, say, church attendance.

One more thing to add: just this morning I found out about a new poll that Pew just did on acceptance of evolution among various religious groups in the USA. (it's near the top of scienceblogs dot com slash dispatches right now) Apparently only 58% of American Catholics and 51% of American mainline Protestants accept evolution, so I guess statements like "Catholics don't have a problem with evolution" aren't always true.

[Nogbad]

Sorry if this is a little long, but this is a question I've been thinking about for months and is pretty much the reason I signed up here.

One argument I see quite often, coming from atheists and evolution-accepting Christians, is "most Christians are evolutionists," or "the majority of Christians are evolutionists," or "the VAST majority of Christians are evolutionists," or even "only a teeny-tiny minority of Christians believe in creationism." But is it really as simple as that?

I suppose if we just look at raw membership statistics, the majority would accept evolution. There are supposed to be 2 billion Christians in the world, half of them (1 billion) are Catholic, and Catholics have no problem with evolution. Add the mainline Protestants and that's more than half, i.e. the majority. But...

If the majority of Christians accept evolution, they certainly are a silent majority. Most of the big names in apologetics are creationists: Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, Norman Geisler, Ravi Zacharias, and on the internet Greg Koukl, JP Holding and Glenn Miller. Look at most general Christian websites: ChristianAnswers, one of the biggest Christian websites, available in a multitude of languages, pushes YECism, as do RBC ministries, bible dot com, Bible Questions Answered (a.k.a. "Got Questions"), and many others. If creationists are only a "teeny-tiny minority," then why are creationists the proverbial "face" of Christianity? Why isn't creationism considered a "fringe" belief like snake-handling?

I have a hunch about this (I'd say "theory" but that word has been misused enough). We all know that a good deal of those 2 billion Christians are really just "nominal" Christians, "cultural" Christians, "C&E" Christians, and such; people who live wholly secular lives, rarely attend church services, and may or may not believe in God, but when a pollster asks them what religion they are, they respond with "Christian" (or "Catholic" or "Lutheran" or whatever) because they were baptized in that church as a child and can't think of any other way of answering. Then there are "serious" Christians, the ones who regularly attend church, try to live "Godly" lives, spread the gospel to others, etc. I believe that if you ignore all the cultural and nominal Christians and only focus on the serious ones, you will find that most of them are creationists. And if this isn't true about all Christians, it's probably true about Protestants.

Over here in the USA, half the population is creationist and we just happen to be known for being more religious than other Western countries. I do sense a trend forming here; looking at 2007's Pew Research poll, it seems that traditional Protestants (Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) which include the "mainline" churches, are declining like a piano falling from a skyscraper, while fundamentalist megachurches are swelling. You probably already know which of those two groups have most of the creationists. As for the Catholics, they're also in quite a bit of a decline, shown by the hard time they're having just trying to get people to become priests.

Over in Europe, most people identify as being part of some Christian denomination and almost none of them have a problem with evolution. But as I'm sure everyone here is aware, most European Christians could be described as little more than nominal Christians.

So am I on to something here? Or has living in America and being raised in a YEC church given me a flawed perspective on the issue? I think someone really needs to do a survey on this, a survey of Christians that correlates acceptance of evolution with, say, church attendance.

One more thing to add: just this morning I found out about a new poll that Pew just did on acceptance of evolution among various religious groups in the USA. (it's near the top of scienceblogs dot com slash dispatches right now) Apparently only 58% of American Catholics and 51% of American mainline Protestants accept evolution, so I guess statements like "Catholics don't have a problem with evolution" aren't always true.


There seems to be a slight tendency in your argument to dismiss those who do accept evolution as being something less than Christian. Your religion your judgement call I guess.

However, might it not be the case that the bulk of the the 2 billion that are classed as Christian just don't see it as much of an issue. Literal interpretation of the Bible is largely the preserve of certain Protestant sects. It is not nearly as important to Catholics, Orthodox and Anglican churches. Consequently the whole yec argument doesn't even register on the Richter scale of issues that matter to them. In this sense the milieux that influences you does set your agenda. It is important to the broadcasters and religous apologists that you listen you. I unsurprisingly have never heard of them.

I did type a fuller reply earlier but the board conspired against me. I apologise to the techs who will apparently get an email for each time it told me the board is busy :(

[a_unique_person]

I was brought up a Catholic, and there was never any question about evolution being true. The Catholic church moves slowly, but it's been around a lot longer than most other christian churches, so it has had more time to face up to basic scientific facts.

[Radically Rethinking]

Let's hope this gets in before the site breaks again...

There seems to be a slight tendency in your argument to dismiss those who do accept evolution as being something less than Christian. Your religion your judgement call I guess.

However, might it not be the case that the bulk of the the 2 billion that are classed as Christian just don't see it as much of an issue. Literal interpretation of the Bible is largely the preserve of certain Protestant sects. It is not nearly as important to Catholics, Orthodox and Anglican churches. Consequently the whole yec argument doesn't even register on the Richter scale of issues that matter to them. In this sense the milieux that influences you does set your agenda. It is important to the broadcasters and religous apologists that you listen you. I unsurprisingly have never heard of them.


Well, I wouldn't call them "less than Christian" of course. I think we can all agree that Christianity encompasses a pretty wide range of takes on certain issues. I just get the impression that the denominations that are OK with evolution are the ones where a good deal of the members aren't particularly religious.

I used to believe in creationism. First young-earth, then old-earth, then not at all. But back then I was always looking for apologetics resources and it seemed nearly every website I found was on the creationist side (which, at the time, was what I was looking for). It's not hard to find a general Christian website that has "answers to tough questions" on it, and one of the questions is "isn't the earth really millions of years old?" and they assure us that it isn't. When you live in a country that is saturated with creationism, it's really hard to believe people who say "it's only a teeny tiny minority."

[Questioninggeller]

First off, polls mean nothing. Anyone who uses polls to make a claim of fact is using the argumentum ad populum fallacy. The evidence is there whether creationists accept it is besides the point. (I've never heard a scientist say, "I accept evolution and Christians do too because many other Christians accept it.")

Secondly, I think the reason why evolution isn't widely accepted is the problem with the education system/science instruction. Whether you blame this on teachers or local school boards who fail to instruct the students due to their own ignorance/agenda or a larger issue is up for debate. However, that many creationists don't understand what they reject is very clear.

Thirdly, you seem interested in classifying "Christians" in a strange way (dividing by country claiming others are more "serious"). Is a German Christian not equal to a American Christian? Is a Muslim creationist (who prays 5 times a day) less "serious" about religion than Christians who pray once a day?

You seem to want to define a "serious Christian" as fundamentalist. If you do, then yes a majority of "real/serious Christians" don't accept evolution. If so, then that's not much of a point of the poll.

So am I on to something here? Or has living in America and being raised in a YEC church given me a flawed perspective on the issue? I think someone really needs to do a survey on this, a survey of Christians that correlates acceptance of evolution with, say, church attendance.


So those who attend church more often are more "Christian" than others? I wonder why you're so interested in Christian creationists in the U.S. because Muslim creationists and Hindu creationists worship, in some cases, more than Christians. Does that make them more "serious" about religion?

Yes, I think "being raised in a YEC church" in the U.S. has shaped your perspective in this.

[Radically Rethinking]

Thirdly, you seem interested in classifying "Christians" in a strange way (dividing by country claiming others are more "serious"). Is a German Christian not equal to a American Christian?

No, difference in nationality doesn't make one Christian not equal to another. The point I was trying to make was that Europe seems to have a much lower level of religiosity compared to the USA.

You seem to want to define a "serious Christian" as fundamentalist.

That's not quite what I was getting at. There are, of course, serious Christians in all denominations, from fundamentalist to liberal and everywhere in between. It's just that--and this is just from my own meandering experience which could easily be wrong--I think the fundamentalist denominations have more serious members than the mainline and liberal ones.

My own experience is this: the year before last, when I still considered myself a serious Christian, I often went to the "General Protestant" service at the Offutt Base Chapel (yes, I'm in the Air Force). The service was conducted by a variety of mainline and conservative Protestant chaplains who alternated by week, from denominations such as Evangelical Lutheran, Missouri Synod Lutheran (what I grew up in), Presbyterian USA, Nazarene, Southern Baptist, etc. After a while I started to notice that, aside from the children and teenagers who came with their parents, I was usually the youngest one in there. That is, I was the only one without any grey hair who actively decided to go to that church service. Later, I found out that most of the other young, single Airmen (maybe not most, but most of the ones who attended any church) had been going to the Bellevue Christian Center--an Assemblies of God megachurch.

So those who attend church more often are more "Christian" than others? I wonder why you're so interested in Christian creationists in the U.S. because Muslim creationists and Hindu creationists worship, in some cases, more than Christians. Does that make them more "serious" about religion?

No, I don't think that going to church makes someone more Christian, I was just using that as one way of measuring religiosity.

Maybe I should just shut up and lurk more...:o

[Wowbagger]

I think almost all religious folks, even fundamentalist ones, accept small changes in life forms over time (what they call "micro-evolution"). Some even believe God created the Universe through the Big Bang and Evolution (which are often considered the same thing, to fundamentalists).

A lot of Christians have a problem with recognizing a few things, I will now list. However, I do not have enough statistics to know if it is "most" of them or not:

* That the mechanism for small changes ("micro-evolution") is exactly the same for developing what appear to us as large changes ("macro-evolution"). And that, yes, micro-evolution is powerful enough to bring about such changes, and there is no reason for it to violate any laws of physics while doing so.

* Their understanding of Evolution is a Strawman distortion, concocted by folks with virtually no scientific training; and NOT really a reflection of how actual scientists view biological evolution. (This also applies to their use of certain scientific vocabulary words.)

* That Intelligent Design and other attempts to sell Creationism as a "Science" have yet to develop any actual scientific innovations. In fact, Evolution is always changing the face of Creationism, rather than vice-versa, because the Evolution Scientists are always the ones finding new facts about life.

* There does NOT need to be a conflict between belief in God, and acceptance of the facts about Evolution. Even if most Christians do not accept evolution, we can tell that many millions of them do. So, it is not like it is impossible to resolve this conflict in the mind.
Many fundamentalists fight evolution because they see it as an alternative "creation story" that conflicts with their own. But, it does not have to be seen that way. Most scientists certainly do not see it that way.

Etc.

What is really interesting is that as time marches on, it seems religious folks are more and more prone to accept evolutionary facts. Though, they might not always recognize them as such.

For example: "Front-Loaded Design" basically accepts almost all of the facts that have now been discovered through Evo/Devo research. But, instead of recognizing it as a refinement of Evolutionary theory, they take the findings and say: "Yeah, well God specifically designed them to be front-loaded in order achieve all of those development goals. Therefore, he is an even more intelligent designer than we thought!" Of course, the joke is on them, because the new facts were found through examining evolutionary concepts, that would never have been presumed through Creationist ones.

[Blue Mountain]

The statement "Most Christians believe in evolution" depends heavily on the definition of "Christian." It can be as broad as "In Western countries you're liable to be classified as a Christian by default" (something non-believers take exception to) to the evangelical definition of "A person who has accepted Jesus as Lord and has not strayed from the path, hallelujah!" (something many conventional denominations take exception to).

About the only real way to answer the question would be to see a breakdown of belief in evolution on the basis of a person's self-declared religious association (or lack thereof), perhaps coupled with a self-assessment of that person's level of religiosity. I'm not sufficiently motivated to search for such a poll, but I would be surprised if none has ever been done.

[temporalillusion]

Interesting thread, because I've said this myself more than once.

First off, polls mean nothing. Anyone who uses polls to make a claim of fact is using the argumentum ad populum fallacy. The evidence is there whether creationists accept it is besides the point.

This is true, though I never use the "most Christians" statement in relation to the the validity of evolution.

I typically use it to try to determine the "why" of why a person is rejecting evolution. So many times evolution is conflated with atheism, and the person will say something along the lines of "I don't believe in evolution because I'm a Christian". So I point out that most Christians accept evolution, to remove that point and try to dig down to the root cause (which usually has nothing to do with evidence or science or anything like that).

[MG1962]

I was brought up a Catholic, and there was never any question about evolution being true. The Catholic church moves slowly, but it's been around a lot longer than most other christian churches, so it has had more time to face up to basic scientific facts.

As was I - given Catholics are the largest Christian sect. Is also larger than all the other sects combined. I believe the statistical conclussion is yes. The majority of Christians believe in Evolution.

[Azure]

I think they do.

You hear more about those that don't though.

[Radically Rethinking]

The statement "Most Christians believe in evolution" depends heavily on the definition of "Christian." It can be as broad as "In Western countries you're liable to be classified as a Christian by default" (something non-believers take exception to) to the evangelical definition of "A person who has accepted Jesus as Lord and has not strayed from the path, hallelujah!" (something many conventional denominations take exception to).

About the only real way to answer the question would be to see a breakdown of belief in evolution on the basis of a person's self-declared religious association (or lack thereof), perhaps coupled with a self-assessment of that person's level of religiosity. I'm not sufficiently motivated to search for such a poll, but I would be surprised if none has ever been done.

This is pretty much the point I wanted to get across in the OP.

[maddog]

As was I - given Catholics are the largest Christian sect. Is also larger than all the other sects combined. I believe the statistical conclussion is yes. The majority of Christians believe in Evolution.

Me also. I tend to think that most Catholics and Episcopalians / Anglicans are pro-evolution. The idea of God as creator still carries in the sense of "God created the world / universe; perhaps it was through the Big Bang or otherwise, but it was still God's doing"

The Catholic Church has long accepted that the Big Bang theory does NOT conflict with church doctrine. The Catholic Church does NOT support a "literalist interpretation" (whatever that means) of the Bible, nor the "young earth" stuff.

[ponderingturtle]

Well this hinges on two definitions. How do you define christian. and when is someone accepting evoltution.

Now there is likely little benefit in argueing that catholics are not christians, but that is a way christians are defined. So we need to go with something like self identified christians, which might get fuzzy around the edges as group X identifies themselves as christian but have little incommon with most other who identify themselves that way.

Then there is when does a belief in the intervention of god reach a level that gets in the way of accepting evolution. If you accept evolution but add there was one person who was the first human with a soul does that change someone accepting evolution or not? If you believe that god guided the process as you believe god guides all processes does that cover accepting evolution?

As for catholics, how strongly does what the church says and what individuals believe correlate? I remember being at a lecture were a catholic monseignor defined god as the mystery in the universe. This seemed to be rather heretical as it was not the father, son and holy ghost definition that his church states it believes in.

You can say that catholics reject antisemitism, and the church does that, but it does not seem to be hard to find individual catholics who are antisemetic.

[westprog]

One argument I see quite often, coming from atheists and evolution-accepting Christians, is "most Christians are evolutionists," or "the majority of Christians are evolutionists," or "the VAST majority of Christians are evolutionists," or even "only a teeny-tiny minority of Christians believe in creationism." But is it really as simple as that?


Yes. The USA is not the world.

[quarky]

Jesus is the evolved man, no?

[shadron]

Me also. I tend to think that most Catholics and Episcopalians / Anglicans are pro-evolution. The idea of God as creator still carries in the sense of "God created the world / universe; perhaps it was through the Big Bang or otherwise, but it was still God's doing"

The Catholic Church has long accepted that the Big Bang theory does NOT conflict with church doctrine. The Catholic Church does NOT support a "literalist interpretation" (whatever that means) of the Bible, nor the "young earth" stuff.

I think, in he first place, that the vast majority of Christians have never, ever thought about evolution, and it's for damned sure that only a tiny fraction can define it in such a way that a biologist would recognize the result. The closest that most have come is watching The Bible: In the Beginning... and/or The Ten Commandments.

When I was a young Catholic, in a parochial school where they didn't teach science explicitly, but had great respect for it, I did study science on my own, and I specifically asked in several venues about evolution. The response I got, summed, was that as long as there existed a point in human evolution where god could embue a soul into the human race (whatever that meant) that they were cool with it. That came not only from local clergy but from Impramatured books. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprimatur)

It is telling that the most vociferous argument against the Big Bang Theory from Hoyle, Gold and their crowd was that Gamow was trying to bring creationism (long before Morris, Gish et al.) into science by overthrowing uniformitarianism. We've since seen that uniformitarianism is a false assumption. Latter day creationists don't seem to see The Big Bang as their strategy anymore; it appears that it was ahead of their time.

As was I - given Catholics are the largest Christian sect. Is also larger than all the other sects combined. I believe the statistical conclusion is yes. The majority of Christians believe in Evolution.

I think, in addition, that most Jews, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Congregationalists and other non-evangelical protestants would also concur. That leaves Baptists, Church of God and Pentecostal churches. Unfortunately, many Christians, as mentioned above, are confused about their own church's teachings, and confuse a Bible-orientation (which is one of the things that differs Catholics from Protestants) with Bible literacy, and the evangelical PR has convinced them that they must be on the YEC side.

[Ocelot]

I think someone really needs to do a survey on this, a survey of Christians that correlates acceptance of evolution with, say, church attendance.

You're absolutely right, all the wild theorizing in the world can only make a hypothesis sound plausible. It's no replacement for actually asking people what they believe and how often they attend church.

You'll be glad to know that this has been done.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21811/American-Beliefs-Evolution-vs-Bibles-Explanation-Human-Origins.aspx

[ponderingturtle]

Yes. The USA is not the world.

Yes and no. The developed world is not the world as well.

But it would seem that at least by this (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=581) poll 54% of the american populace to not believe in human evolution.

That does not seem likely to be limited to evangelicals and has to include many people who would identify themselves as more main stream religions.

[shadron]

Unfortunately, many Christians, as mentioned above, are confused about their own church's teachings, and confuse a Bible-orientation (which is one of the things that differs Catholics from Protestants) with Bible literacy, and the evangelical PR has convinced them that they must be on the YEC side.

Oops, I meant "Bible literality", not literacy. Extreme literality.

[godless dave]

Radically Rethinking, all the creationist apologists you listed sell almost all of their books and do almost all of their lectures in the United States. Worldwide, most Christians accept evolution. In the US, I doubt it's even a majority of Christians.

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

I can't say if most do or don't. I can say with a degree of certainty that many Christians from third world nations either don't accept evolution or haven't heard enough about it to arrive to a conclusion if they've heard of it at all.

Now as for the cultural lag in the US. I suspect this is due in part to the parents. Schools can educate as much as they want, if a child is told by their parents that something is this way that child is gonna believe it. A common statement given to every member of my family before we went off to school when we were young. Before each of us started learning some basic science concerning nature in school our parents would review what was in that book and if they found something that didn't like (typically stuff about evolution) they told us to study it and get all the answers right on questions about it but don't believe it. It was only until I got into high school that I stopped believing in Christianity but it was still years later before I finally figured out that there is something to this evolution business. I sort of bought into it before that but those were the years I drifted into Satanism and I only believed it as a means of pissing off my parents.

I don't have any hard data to back that conclusion up but if someone managed to find hard data proving that true I wouldn't hardly be surprised.

[westprog]

Yes and no. The developed world is not the world as well.



I'm sure that there are plenty of people who don't know anything about evolution, and plenty who don't care one way or the other - but creationists outside the USA seem to be a minority.

The influence of US money in the Third World on education is a concern, of course.

[ponderingturtle]

I'm sure that there are plenty of people who don't know anything about evolution, and plenty who don't care one way or the other - but creationists outside the USA seem to be a minority.


The most commonly cited poll showed that creationism is quite popular in Turkey, more than in the US, and it was just Europe and Japan. I don't know if people have polled south america or africa to see what percentage of christians there believe what about creationism vs evolution.

[joobz]

hitchens made a great argument, which may be a reason for the reluctance that some have in accepting evolution.

He said that by current estimates, modern humans emerged on the scene somewhere between 45,000-200,000 years ago. If we assume that humans (as we are today)have been around for 100,000 years, that would mean that it took god 98,000 years of our existence before he decided to intervene with his son. Why so long?

[ponderingturtle]

hitchens made a great argument, which may be a reason for the reluctance that some have in accepting evolution.

He said that by current estimates, modern humans emerged on the scene somewhere between 45,000-200,000 years ago. If we assume that humans (as we are today)have been around for 100,000 years, that would mean that it took god 98,000 years of our existence before he decided to intervene with his son. Why so long?

And it is better when it is only 2/3 of the total history of humanity?

[westprog]

The most commonly cited poll showed that creationism is quite popular in Turkey, more than in the US, and it was just Europe and Japan. I don't know if people have polled south america or africa to see what percentage of christians there believe what about creationism vs evolution.

I'm not sure what the position is in the Muslim world. Literal adherance to the the Koran is more of a requirement to Muslims than Bible literalism to Christians.

[cj.23]

Creationism is very uncommon as i understand it outside North America - Dispensationalism practically unknown. You ever met a Rappture believing frenchman, dane or german? I haven't. The USA is the land of bizarre heresy - well with Canada. They gave us fundamentalism, literalism, creationism, and all kinds of other silliness!

cj x

[ponderingturtle]

I found an interesting poll

It seems that 31% of american catholics do not accept evolution and 32% of mainstream christians.

link (http://people-press.org/report/254/religion-a-strength-and-weakness-for-both-parties)

Creationism is not limited to non-mainstream religions, it just might go against their religions teachings.

[joobz]

And it is better when it is only 2/3 of the total history of humanity?
No, but at least with the young earth view, god was always to around to goof with things.

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Dispensationalism practically unknown. You ever met a Rappture believing frenchman, dane or german? I haven't. The USA is the land of bizarre heresy - well with Canada. They gave us fundamentalism, literalism, creationism, and all kinds of other silliness!

cj x

And it's my understanding that many Phd holding theologians generally don't hold dsipensationalism or the rapture in high regard either.

[linusrichard]

Is there an inverse correlation between religiosity and tendency to believe in evolution? It seems very likely, yes.

Does the percentage of Christians who accept evolution depend on what you define as a Christian? Of course it does.

Is it the case that, the higher you raise the bar in terms of how religious you need to be to be considered a Christian, the smaller percentage of Christians will accept evolution? It seems necessarily so, yes.

"Most Christians accept evolution" (or its opposite) is only a useful statement if you have a reasonable definition of "Christian." You can define it so loosely that it's surely going to be true, or so strictly that it's surely going to be false, but either way, you're not saying anything useful. As a non-Christian, my working definition of "Christian" is something along the lines of: believes in God, believes Jesus Christ was God and the Son of God and the Messiah, believes that Christ died so that our sins may be forgiven, and believes in the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God. I'm not claiming this is a perfect definition, but it seems pretty workable.

Under this definition, do most Christians accept evolution? I would guess "probably."

[Blackadder]

Maybe I should just shut up and lurk more...:o

Negative!

I enjoyed your post and think your line of thought is meaningful.

[Blackadder]

Creationism is very uncommon as i understand it outside North America - Dispensationalism practically unknown. You ever met a Rappture believing frenchman, dane or german? I haven't. The USA is the land of bizarre heresy - well with Canada. They gave us fundamentalism, literalism, creationism, and all kinds of other silliness!

cj x

It is spreading under evangelicals in Europe. At least in countries such as Holland, Denmark, Germany, UK. One reason is that they turn to Anglo-Saxon preachers because english is the language everybody knows. when you organize a large christian meeting with international speakers english is what is spoken. (Often with somebody translating) So naturally the beliefs of the speakers is spread among the audience and some of them are creationists.

In Holland, just now this week we have some creationists nuts publishing and spreading a creationist flyer among each and every household in the Netherlands. Although they get ridiculed in 95% of the media, it still shows that this minority is active.

[ponderingturtle]

Under this definition, do most Christians accept evolution? I would guess "probably."


Does believing evolution was guided count as accepting evolution or not?

[Mercutio]

Anyone have any numbers on % of believers and non-believers who actually understand evolution?

First, "most christians" would be a more meaningful concept if we had a baseline to compare with, and secondly, acceptance or non-acceptance may depend on more than just religious beliefs.

I know of at least one study that looked at Australian med school students, and found most of them "accepted" evolution, even though their understanding of it was Lamarkian. This did not change much through their years in med school.

[ponderingturtle]

Anyone have any numbers on % of believers and non-believers who actually understand evolution?


Probably not, it is easier to poll beliefs than poll with tests attached to get degree of understanding.

[Radically Rethinking]

Well, this is turning out to be interesting so far. I have to admit though, my brain's a little slow in arguments like this. That is, when I finally come up with a good response to something, the topic is usually dead and buried. So, if this thread keeps going for a few more days, I'll be able to add something really good.