Just scrolling some Reddit and some US’s news and I am amazed to see people defending Creationism.

At school we learnt about it but regarding the history of the Darwinian evolution, so it was alongside the Lamarck’s giraffes.

42 comments

  1. I don’t think so, it is a fairly rare interpretation, only really common among certain small groups of Catholic, Baptists and Pentecostal groups, and even within those groups, it isn’t universal. All the major Danish Christian communities, even the most conservative of them, present an allegorical reading; Hell, when reading what theologians and such write on the issue, increasingly it seems that the allegorical reading is combined with Philo’s argument, saying that the act of creation is constant and on-going.

    Creationism isn’t taught _as such_, like how “people back then believed that the Earth is flat” isn’t taught as such. It may be mentioned in _Kristendomskundskab_(Primary-school subject teaching the Christian teachings) or in _Religion_(Gymnasial subject discussing religions and religiousity) as _a_ reading of the Bible, but then it would be combined with the discussion of the literal vs. allegorical reading, and a discussion about how the Bible is to be read as being true on different levels, at the same time.

  3. I don’t know anyone that believes in creationism and in school (even in religion class) it was only ever taught as a myth.

  5. Not taught in schools, I don’t even think churches push it as a reality these days. Never met a creationist, *certainly* not a young earther. Science is taught in science class, so evolution all the way.

  6. In the UK I was taught about it from a religious context.
    Like it was always presented as “this is how Christians believe the world came to be”

    I think we learned about evolution properly when we were older but the theory of evolution was always a part of culture growing up. I’m 26 for context

    I know people that believe in a kind of amalgamation of darwinism and creationism and people that believe just darwinism.
    I don’t think I know anyone who solely believes in creationism.

  7. Nope, it was never taught as a valid theory in school.

    In university we talked about it in philosophy of science and knowledge management/psychology courses.

    However, there were some creationists at a public talk about Creationism at my uni. As far as I could tell they were Spätaussiedler/Wolga Germans from one of those old school free churches.

    And I met some of those US mormon missionaries that brought up the topic of creationism. That usually doesn’t go well here.

  8. We have a religion subject in high school and there its taught. Only one student activelly believed it and got in a fight with the biology professor.

    I also have a semi devout friend who doesnt believe in evolution. He never specifies creationism since he isnt really pushy with his beliefs but i doubt theres a third theory.

  10. My grandfather always scoffs when someone on tv mentions something that happened millions of years ago, but that’s it I think.

    I only went to Christian schools when I was a kid and I don’t remember creationism ever being brought up (although we also only very quickly glanced over the theory of evolution). When I still went to church and catechesis, I vaguely remember the church councillor saying we should just take the creation story in general as a metaphor.

  11. I know some people from Hungary who do. They have been influenced a lot by American evangelicalism. I also know women from a Catholic sect and I would assume they believe they also in Creationism.

  12. I went to a Catholic Grammar School run by nuns, and even in religion classes we only ever discussed creationism as an attempt of people 3000 years ago trying to explain things they couldn’t explain otherwise.

    I don’t know anyone who believes in creationism, even very pious and convinced believers reject creationism as “truth”, but see it rather as a metaphor.

    The general consensus is that the holy scripture has to be interpreted in order to make sense, otherwise you’d end up with contradicting statements and then you’d have to pick the ones that fit your reading better, which again is a poor form of interpretation.

  14. Yes, I have met one or two. I think my biology teacher was one, although I think he realised he’d be the laughing stock of the school if he said it publicly and so instead he just taught us about natural selection in the briefest and most cursory way possible.

    I also had a private German tutor back when I was in primary school in Germany who believed the Bible completely literally. As an 8 year old I liked trolling her about it. There was one exercise where she gave me a children’s encyclopedia and asked me to find an entry to talk about in the next lesson, so I deliberately picked the entry about evolution. She then tried to rebut every argument made in the encyclopedia, disowned the encyclopedia and I got to keep it, although she also decided to give me a couple of creationist booklets at the same time.

    She used to say things like “Oh rubbish, how can I be a monkey, where’s my tail?” and “If we’ve evolved from monkeys, how come monkeys aren’t extinct” and the saddest part was, even as an 8 year old I could easily answer those questions.

    It’s not taught in schools though, at least, not as fact or as a valid scientific theory.

  15. No one I know believes in it. I went to a christian school and even there it wasn’t taught. Creationism was taught in it’s religious and historisch context, but no one acted like it’s real.

  16. Well i thought it was normal for schools to teach creationism, but by reading the comments of this post i think i was wrong. I don’t believe in it personally but school books here certainly have it, and in some cases professors may be very insistent on teaching it.

  17. Not really. I suppose older people withou much of an education simply never heard of it, and that may include members of the clergy.

    Every <50 religious person I know, priests included, believe in evolution and science in general. I think they somewhat sensibly use the god explanation to everything that is yet unexplained, and take the Bible as moral/ethical book rather than scientific. The ones that don’t don’t try to convince anyone else. That would be seriously frowned upon.

    Religion in Portugal is mostly pragmatic. It’s mostly institutional/organised psychological help, and on the macro level they stay out of politics and science.

  18. I have never heard of anyone believing in that. It is taught in religion class as a part of what happened according to the bible, not as a fact. If somebody actually thought that had really happened they would be considered more or less mentally handicapped.

  19. I went to a catholic school untill I was 16 , and even there nobody (that I know) believes in creationism

  20. No one I know believes in this, but I do live close to the Dutch biblebelt where there really are people who believe something like this. And there are also schools here where evolution is not taught in biology.

  21. Never met any, I only heard about that on Reddit. We are not a very religious country though and conspiracy theories french people buy in tend to not be linked with religion.

  22. Well creationism isn’t even a theory, and I don’t mean it doesn’t qualify for the standards of a theory. It doesn’t, but my point is that it’s a collection of several beliefs that propose an intentional moment of creation by a supernatural entity. It comes in various degrees too. Christian Young Earth Creationism is very present in the US and in many places with a large non-Lutheran Protestant populace, but everyone outside the cults of Independent Churches (Freikirchen as they’re called here) thinks it’s ridiculous, even other creationists. Old Earth Creationism with discrete creation events is held by some Catholics and most Muslims, but even in Religious Studies in school it’s briefly mentioned at most. However what’s very common is some degree of theistic evolution, anything between “God pulled the trigger but life developed on its own” and “God directly guides evolution towards a specific goal” may even be taught by some biology teachers. Most won’t but it’s not unheard of.

  23. In Denmark they teach it on the same level as buddhism, islam, hinduism etc. It’s taught in “religion” class, where we learn about the religions, their history and sometimes meaning for society etc. So it’s taught with regards to it effect on society, both olden days and modern times.

  24. It’s never though at school.

    I was in a christian school and one day in high school the new young priest told us it was not the truth but more an “image” and that the Darwinian evolution was a fact.

    (the old priest never talked about it so I don’t know what was his opinion).

  25. Most schools in the Netherlands have a christian denomination. Depending on the school and the religiosity of the area it can be a sensitive topic. I remember having a geography book where someone had scratched with a pen through all the paragraphs about evolution. The teacher herself <a dedicated christian> noted that the book only touches upon the theory of evolution and that others might feel differently about this theory.

    From time to time, the media reports that some schools teach things about creationism, gender roles, and sexuality that are actually contrary to the national curriculum. Liberal politicians then call again for all schools to be converted into public schools where religion plays no role, but it actually has no chance because Christian parties are almost always needed to form majorities in the fragmented Dutch political landscape. For these parties, limiting the constitutional freedom of education is an absolute no-go. The current Minister for Primary and Secondary Education is himself an Orthodox Protestant and he used to run an Orthodox Protestant secondary school.

  26. I had religion in primary school and Creationism was only mentioned as a myth and theory that was used by people that didn’t know how else to explain it. All I have ever studied was Evolution.

    I don’t think I have ever met a person that believes in Creationism.

  27. No. Even my christian friends believe in evolution. Not really, at my school we were taught in second grade that according to christian believe God created Adam and Eve. Then in third grade we were learning about evolution with dinosaurs and everything. I think first in eight grade we were thought evolution.

  28. It is not taught in schools and I don’t think it ever was in Romania. Certainly when I went to school the creation myths were taught in world religion class but biology class only teaches evolution.

  29. Catholic school here.

    Our religious teachers would find the idea ridiculous.

    Only time Genesis came up was when learning about creation myths from Christianity as well as other religions.

    A Muslim brought it up in Geography class while studying geological time periods(Jurassic, Pleistoceen, etc.) but he got ignored.

  30. In our biology textbook creationism is presented in 1 short paragraph saying that it is a theory requiring absolute belief and can’t be put to test scientifically.

  31. Our religion teacher spoke of it, he said not to take it literally, that it was mostly a story to teach us a lesson or something

  32. Nope, noone. It isn’t taught, but it is mantioned in the way that “it exists, people used to belive in this, but they don’t now, because it doesn’t make sense”. I have never met even a single creationist in person xd

  34. You mean that we are living in a simulation, that is created by some sort of being?

    More than you can imagine.

    That this world is real and was made a few thousand years ago? Far fewer.

  35. My time to shine. I wasn’t born in the village I grew up in but moved there with my parents at age six. There are a couple more specific villages like this: In my case in the Westerwald region, but I also heard from some in Baden-Württemberg and possibly the Sauerland. The people in this village – from the great-grandparents down to the kids my age – are lovely neighbours, honest workers, open and welcoming, and radical fundamentalists who indeed believe the world was created 6000 years ago in six days.

    Structurally, they’re run-of-the-mill Lutherans – don’t expect some fringe sect. In fact there’s also a free church (freikirchliche Gemeinde) in the same village who are regarded as sectarian weirdos by “my” creationist weirdos.

  36. No to both of these questions. I don’t think even my grandma, who went to mass every Sunday, believed that.

  37. Austria can be quite conservative and I had catholic religion lessons i school which I don’t think is a good thing, but creationism is absolutely not part of the “public church” (or however that’s called), be it catholic or protestant. Until I was a teenager I didn’t think anyone in Europe would believe in creation, however, I seem to kinda be a magnet for these people and have had 3 friends that do believe in it (one being an adventist, and two being evangelical christians). two of them really smart tech/science people as well. weird.

    edit, I actually know 4 people like this, one is from Switzerland though. I still thinks it’s very rare in Austria, but I don’t know the statistics.

  38. I know some people who believe in it. Evolution is taught in schools, but they don’t care about that.

    One of these people is my classmate. When we were learning about evolution in biology class he just wrote in his excercise book with big letters: “HUMANS ARE NOT AMINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (exclaimation marks included).

    There is no helping these people…

  40. The Dutch minister of education, Arie Slob.

    In some strict protestant schools creationism (or Biblical creation) is taught, however evolution is a part of the required curriculum so as long as the school is state-funded (which means practically all primary and secondary schools in the Netherlands) they have to teach evolution.

    “Scientific” creationism is hardly a thing here though.

  41. I’ve been around some very catholic people (including a priest) and I’ve never met anyone who took creationism literally.

    They all talk of interpreting the texts, or how it was the best way for people of the time to understand, and some just say that the old texts have no historical value but are purely philosophical&life… which sounds heretical now that I think about it.

  42. Public school science teacher for 22 years now in the US. Creationism in my classroom? That’s a big fuck no.

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