The Adventist Origins Of Young Earth Creationism

[Roger Stanyard]

Interesting. I knew that there was a lot of philosophical baggage tied up with calvinism, but not that creationists over here come from that particular "biblical camp". We go to a small local evangelical, one of whom a geologist and close friend of dad's (not a YEC, of course.)

We did the research on this a few years back and fund that creationism in the UK was dominated by four sects/denominations:

Independent evangelical churches (many were Calvinist and were originall English Presbyterian churches).

Baptist (mostly non-Baptist Union).

Pentecostal.

Plymouth Brethren.

It was almost entirely absent from the Methodist movement and totally absent in the Roman Catholic Church. There was a spattering of Anglican creationist churches and a few Bapatist Union churches so, in effect, it was not a mainstream religious belief. (Those are the four largest denominations in Britain).

We also found creationism in the SDAs, the JWs and Messianic churches but these are very small denominations in the UK.

[Luke Tyler]

That's interesting. Did you look at R1 bt the way?

(I'm not very clued up on theology, you'll have to help me a bit here!)

[cathy]

If it helps I was raised as a catholic and attended RC schools, sent my children to RC primary and the second one is at a RC high school. I never came accross creationism at all-we were taught evolution by a nun, who taught it as one of the most important discoveries in biology (her words). My childrens introduction to the notion at primary was solely that God created the world and in year five it was specifically he created the big bang and then the science took over. In high school second child has learnt exactly the same science as non faith schools. In RE the same as well-about the Christian creationist story and the fact that some read it literally, the MAJORITY don't (including catholics) and the literalists reject the science. The other is some version is some kind of God of first cause.

I also attended a CofE church when my kids were tiny, never came across creationism. At work the RE teacher and the teachers that are Christians are NOT creationists and when some Christian group wanted to come in I overheard the deputy head (a Christian) saying as long as they don't say anything rude about Mary and AREN'T creationists and aren't fundamentallists thats ok. In short until about three years ago I didn't know it existed outside of the US-where naively I thought it was tied up with the Amish only. Even tho I was aware of the religious right there I hadn't connected them with YECism. So no it is not the religious norm as far as I can see. Or it wasn't

For what it is worth as well, my niece was a Christian and has just finished her degree at Durham. She said that in her first few weeks there people were polite but cool towards her. That only changed when they saw her free Darwin tree of life poster on her wall. Then they said oh you're not one of those sorts of Christians then she made friends. And people are starting to become more aware of creationism and less warm to Christianity because of it.

[Dagsannr]

The church my parents attend and the one I was dragged to as a kid was an ex-Brethren now free evangelical. It was fairly loose and liberal with doctrine on things like creationism and so on but I recall having talks in our youth group about such dumb concepts as a vapour canopy, baraminology and so on. I don't think these were 'official', quite unusual for a church, we were quite free so pick up whichever bits we wanted.

[Luke Tyler]

The church my parents attend and the one I was dragged to as a kid was an ex-Brethren now free evangelical. It was fairly loose and liberal with doctrine on things like creationism and so on but I recall having talks in our youth group about such dumb concepts as a vapour canopy, baraminology and so on. I don't think these were 'official', quite unusual for a church, we were quite free so pick up whichever bits we wanted.

"It is imporant that young Christians are free to talk about matters that are of importance and relevance to their youth. BARAMINOLOGY!!!"

In fact, I reprint:

I think that baraminology is the most tragically ridiculous nonsense ever dreamed up by creationists. It pretty much proclaims the message: "we can't fit in to any branch of real science, let's invent our own and not let anyone else inside". It's like a secret club for ten year olds. Any real scientist will just laugh at it. I don't think anyone who isn't a creationist would be able to talk about it whilst keeping a straight face.

[Michael]

Luke

Baraminology is no more nonsense than any other creationist argument. They are all nonsense

[Luke Tyler]

Luke

Baraminology is no more nonsense than any other creationist argument. They are all nonsense

Ah, but this is a special club!
They might as well hang notices up saying "No Girls Allowed".

[Roger Stanyard]

That's interesting. Did you look at R1 bt the way?

(I'm not very clued up on theology, you'll have to help me a bit here!)

I'm not sure what you mean by R1.

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

Luke

Baraminology is no more nonsense than any other creationist argument. They are all nonsense

Ah, but this is a special club!
They might as well hang notices up saying "No Girls Allowed".

What I find the most amusing about the "baraminologists" is that they are merely reinventing numerical taxonomy circa 1940-1980. They have (Nearly) even reinvented Discriminant Function Analysis, and cluster analysis. And, reading their "results" is a real hoot, because they have to stop themselves short before they rediscover nested hierarchies, and common descent.

[Michael]

Luke

Baraminology is no more nonsense than any other creationist argument. They are all nonsense

Ah, but this is a special club!
They might as well hang notices up saying "No Girls Allowed".

What I find the most amusing about the "baraminologists" is that they are merely reinventing numerical taxonomy circa 1940-1980. They have (Nearly) even reinvented Discriminant Function Analysis, and cluster analysis. And, reading their "results" is a real hoot, because they have to stop themselves short before they rediscover nested hierarchies, and common descent.

Don't be too unkind Gary, Paul Garner is reading what you write. He ought to reply to you here

[Luke Tyler]

What I find the most amusing about the "baraminologists" is that they are merely reinventing numerical taxonomy circa 1940-1980. They have (Nearly) even reinvented Discriminant Function Analysis, and cluster analysis. And, reading their "results" is a real hoot, because they have to stop themselves short before they rediscover nested hierarchies, and common descent.

Do they just "stop" in the middle of results? Because that would be even more funny!

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

What I find the most amusing about the "baraminologists" is that they are merely reinventing numerical taxonomy circa 1940-1980. They have (Nearly) even reinvented Discriminant Function Analysis, and cluster analysis. And, reading their "results" is a real hoot, because they have to stop themselves short before they rediscover nested hierarchies, and common descent.

Don't be too unkind Gary, Paul Garner is reading what you write. He ought to reply to you here

Mr. Garner does not seem able to reply, generally.

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

What I find the most amusing about the "baraminologists" is that they are merely reinventing numerical taxonomy circa 1940-1980. They have (Nearly) even reinvented Discriminant Function Analysis, and cluster analysis. And, reading their "results" is a real hoot, because they have to stop themselves short before they rediscover nested hierarchies, and common descent.

Do they just "stop" in the middle of results? Because that would be even more funny!

What they do is belabor the proper "cut-off" levels for analysis. Without the "proper" cut-off, then you find common descent. OH NOES!!!!! Then, there are the arguments regarding the "proper" selection of attributes, or how to employ weighting schemes. This is the identical path biological taxonomy followed (particularly in Britain) in the late 1950s to mid 1970s. I even read, and referenced, Jardine and Sibson, as well as Sneath and Sokal (1963, 1973) in my 1976 dissertation. Peter Sneath just recently died in September.

[Luke Tyler]

That's interesting. Did you look at R1 bt the way?

(I'm not very clued up on theology, you'll have to help me a bit here!)

I'm not sure what you mean by R1.

"Restoration". A kind of new charismatic movement. I don't know much about how influential they are/were, but if you trust wikipedia on this kind of thing, here's a link:

Luke Tyler's Excellent Link For Explaining R1 Churches

[Brian Jordan]

Mr. Garner does not seem able to reply, generally.

If he's the one who keeps trying to register using silly names from China and India, I'm afraid I keep deleting him!