The Lang Report has been inundated with comments on the articles we published on Governor Sarah Palin’s religiosity and her views on and . The comments ran the gamut from stereotypical debates between the two schools of thought to how those views might impact her candidacy to be the next vice president of the United States.

One thing for certain is that the subject is a lightning rod for controversy and passionate discourse. It is unfortunate that sometimes emotions run high and the debate becomes personal with and derogatory statements are made. In other words, people get pissed off and attack the messenger and lose sight of the message.

For those reasons and the edification of our readers we are going to define the debate beginning with what creationism and evolution is.

People tend to think of all Creationists as being of one mind and all evolutionists of another when in fact they both refer to a wide range of beliefs. It is unfair and self-defeating to pigeonhole either one.

Another thing that is important to note is that the differences between the various types of creationism are not minor and many times are mutually exclusive, and often their differences are as great as their differences with evolution. Many creationists disagree as much with other creationists as they do with evolutionists.

The intent of this article is not to confuse or create greater division amongst the various belief systems that have been expressed in the comments made by our Readers. So, we will try to keep this a simple as possible and provide definitions and links to to other sites for the more inquisitive.

We begin…..

Creationism and Evolution are not really contradictory and most positions held by believers eventually merge somewhere along the line as illustrated in the lost below. Notice that the closer to the middle you get the more commonality there is between the two factions.

• CREATION
  • Flat Earthers
  • Geocentrists
  • Young Earth Creationists
    • (Omphalos)
  • Old Earth Creationists
    • (Gap Creationism)
    • (Day-Age Creationism)
    • (Progressive Creationism)
    • (Intelligent Design Creationism)
  • Evolutionary Creationists
  • Theistic Evolutionists
  • Methodological Materialistic Evolutionists
  • Philosophical Materialistic Evolutionists
• EVOLUTION

Flat Earthers believe that the earth is flat and is covered by a solid dome or firmament. Waters above the firmament were the source of Noah's flood. This belief is based on a literal reading of the Bible, such as references to the "four corners of the earth" and the "circle of the earth." Few people hold this extreme view, but some do.

Geocentrists accept a spherical earth but deny that the sun is the center of the solar system or that the earth moves. As with flat-earth views, the water of Noah's flood came from above a solid firmament. The basis for their belief is a literal reading of the Bible. Both flat-earthers and geocentrists reflect the cosmological views of ancient Hebrews. Geocentrism is not common today, but one geocentrist (Tom Willis) was instrumental in revising the Kansas elementary school curriculum to remove references to evolution, earth history, and science methodology.

Young Earth Creationists (YEC) is probably the most influential brand of creationism today and claim a literal interpretation of the Bible as a basis for their beliefs. They believe that the earth is 6000 to 10,000 years old, that all life was created in six literal days, that death and decay came as a result of Adam & Eve's Fall, and that geology must be interpreted in terms of Noah's Flood. However, they accept a spherical earth and heliocentric solar system. Young-Earth Creationists popularized the modern movement of scientific creationism by taking the ideas of George McCready Price, a Seventh Day Adventist, and publishing them in The Genesis Flood.

The Omphalos argument, first expounded in 1857 in a book of that name by Philip Henry Gosse, argues that the universe was created young but with the appearance of age, indeed that an appearance of age is necessary. The position is sometimes satirized by suggesting that the universe was created last week with only an appearance of older history.

Old-Earth Creationists accept the evidence for an ancient earth but still believe that life was specially created by God, and they still base their beliefs on the Bible. There are a few different ways of accommodating their religion with science.

Gap Creationism (also known as Restitution Creationism) takes the view that there was a long temporal gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, with God recreating the world in 6 days after the gap. This allows both an ancient earth and a Biblical special creation.

Day-age creationists interpret each day of creation as a long period of time, even thousands or millions of years. They see a parallel between the order of events presented in Genesis 1 and the order accepted by mainstream science. Day-Age Creationism was more popular than Gap Creationism in the 19th and and early 20th centuries.

Progressive Creationism is the most common Old-Earth Creationism view today. It accepts most of modern physical science, even viewing the Big Bang as evidence of the creative power of God, but rejects much of modern biology. Progressive Creationists generally believe that God created "kinds" of organisms sequentially, in the order seen in the fossil record, but say that the newer kinds are specially created, not genetically related to older kinds.

Intelligent Design Creationism descended from William Paley's argument that God's design could be seen in life. Modern IDC still makes appeals to the complexity of life and so varies little from the substance of Paley's argument, but the arguments have become far more technical, delving into microbiology and mathematical logic.

NOTE: Intelligent Design Creationism is used today as an umbrella anti-evolution position under which creationists of all flavors may unite in an attack on scientific methodology in general. A common tenet of IDC is that all beliefs about evolution equate to philosophical materialism.

It is a this point that we begin to see a “middle point” where Creationism and moves towards embracing some of the attributes of Evolution

Evolutionary Creationism claims the Father, Son and Holy Spirit created the universe and life through an evolutionary process. This position fully embraces both the religious beliefs of conservative Christianity and the scientific theories of cosmological, geological and biological evolution believing that Adam was not the first biological human but the first spiritually aware one.

Theistic Evolution says that God creates through evolution. Theistic Evolutionists vary in beliefs about how much God intervenes in the process.This means that there are many “degrees” of belief with Theistic Evolution.In general, it accepts most or all of modern science, but it invokes God for some things outside the realm of science, such as the creation of the human soul. This position is promoted by the Pope and taught at mainline Protestant seminaries.

Materialistic Evolution differs from Theistic Evolution in saying that God does not actively interfere with evolution. It is not necessarily atheistic, though; many Materialistic Evolutionists believe that God created evolution, for example. Materialistic evolution may be divided into methodological and philosophical materialism. Methodological materialism limits itself to describing the natural world with natural causes; it says nothing at all about the supernatural, neither affirming nor denying its existence or its role in life.

Philosophical materialism says that the supernatural does not exist. It says that not only is evolution a natural process, but so is everything else.Materialism is the oldest philosophical tradition in Western civilization. The ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus argued that ultimate reality consisted of invisible and indivisible bits of free-falling matter called atoms randomly colliding in the void.

EVOLUTION: Most people seem to be quite confused about precise definitions of biological evolution. This has certainly proved true in the content of the comments received by The Lang Report. .

Firstly, what exactly do biologists mean when they say that they have observed evolution or that humans and chimps have evolved from a common ancestor?

Biological Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations, OR put another way, evolution is the process of change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next.

We also should make the distinction between biological evolution and the common definitions of evolution found outside of the scientific community. Unfortunately it is common for non-scientists to enter into a discussion about evolution with such a definition in mind. This often leads to fruitless debate since the experts are thinking about evolution from a different perspective. When someone claims that they don't believe in evolution they cannot be referring to an acceptable scientific definition of evolution because that would be denying something which is easy to demonstrate. It would be like saying that they don't believe in gravity!

Alas, we can now see why there are always clashes which begins as a spirited discussion and often ends in a hostile argument….or worse! Breaking it down as we did it is easier to see that we are comparing apples and oranges.

Creationism, for the most part, is a belief system based on any number of the scenarios illustrated above. Biological Evolution is a scientific term whcih as stated above can be demonstrated. Creationism can not!

One more thing I would like to add concerns the injecting of the “big bang theory” into the creationism/evolution debate. I have seen more than a few comments throwing this term into the mix.

Yes, it does have something to do with the origin of the universe however its use into this debate will only serve to “muddy” the dicussion causing even more confusion and and anger.

This article was not written in an attempt to sway anyone one way or the other as that would only fuel the fire. Its purpose was to define the verbiage being bandied about in the Comments written by our Readers so that future discussions could be based on agreed upon definitions of the terms used.

Our hope is that this will lead to intelligent discussions as opposed to the “mud slinging” we’ve witnessed thus far.

AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE:

Is Sarah Palin An Evolution-denier? - During her bid for governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin argued that creationism should be discussed alongside evolution in public school science class. Later in the same debate, she pledged not to legislate creationism if she were elected ...

Creationism, Evolution, Palin, and Evidence - Creationism and Ability to Evaluate Scientific Evidence - Or, How I Caught Myself in a Contradiction:. Also:. Should We Hold Belief in Creationism Against Candidates for Political Office? Palin on Creationism.

Let me tell you what to think, thought police - “The revelation that US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin says creationism should be taught in schools has raised few eyebrows in the US. An estimated 47% of Americans reject outright Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, ...

Judge Judy On Sarah Palin, Creationism, And A Woman's Right To Choose - @emgal86: Well said. You hit the nail on the head, exactly! scarletblogonia76.