Creationism is the belief that the universe was created in the way that religious books or creation myths describe. The Christian creation myth, expressed in Genesis, says that God created everything. Other religions have different creation myths. People who believe in these are called creationists.
Creationism is the belief that the world was created in the way that is described by a religious text. For instance, the Book of Genesis claims that Elohim created the world as known by humans through dividing and ordering of the world when it was chaotic. However, the second account of creation in the same book presents a slightly different mode and chronology for creation.
Creationism was a mainstream view for thousands of years. Many writers, like Augustine of Hippo, said that God created the world.
19th-centuryFundamentalistProtestants founded one theory of creation (young earth creationism) as it is known today. These fundamentalists opposed new scientific theories about geology and evolution. However many Christians accept much of modern science while still believing the universe was created by God.
Creationists do not believe that all of today's living things came about from simple organisms changing or evolving slowly over time. They believe that life was created much as it is today, and that one form of life cannot change into another.
In response, biologists and paleontologists say that fossils are different from the life we see today, and can be put into order to show changes over time.
Christian Creationism
Creationists point to the perfection of Earth's size, shape, and distance as designed by God, and Earth's imperfections as proofs that the Earth is dirtied by humans' sin.
The term creationism can be used with more than one meaning.
Sometimes creationism means that God created life and evolution did not happen.
Other times creationism means that God created everything, but this could have happened long ago, and theistic evolution may have happened.
Young Earth Creationism says that Noah's flood is important to creationism. They argue that "the first buried fossils of each group are complete and complex (complicated), strong support for the biblical concept (idea) that each kind of life was created well designed to multiply after its own kind." However, others argue that fossils appear in layers called strata. If earth's animals drowned in the flood, scientists think their fossils would be mixed together. Young Earth Creationists say this happened because of the Noahic Flood, and point to fossils of animals that died quickly.
Young Earth Creationists also point to:
Fossils that were buried quickly, as in Lagerstätten. One fossil Young Earth Creationists cite shows that one fish was eating another fish when it was buried.
Polystrate fossils (fossils that go through multiple rock layers). Young Earth Creationists say this can't happen if the rock layers were formed slowly.
Bent rock layers (rock layers that are bent in a way that Young Earth Creationists say can not happen over millions of years).
Old Earth Creationism
Other creationists believe God created everything between 13,000 and 14,000 million years ago. This is called Old Earth Creationism.
There are many different ways that these creationists interpret the book of Genesis and the scientific evidence about the earth's history. Several liberal movements within Islam generally accept the scientific positions on the age of the earth, the age of the universe and evolution. Islam also has its own form of Theistic evolution, which says the Qu'ran supports mainstream scientific analysis of the origin of the universe.
"Do the disbelievers not realize that the heavens and earth were ˹once˺ one mass then We split them apart? And We created from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?"[Quran21:30]
"Then He turned towards the heaven when it was ˹still like˺ smoke, saying to it and to the earth, ‘Submit, willingly or unwillingly.’ They both responded, ‘We submit willingly.’"[Quran41:11]
"We built the universe with ˹great˺ might, and We are certainly expanding ˹it˺."[Quran51:47]
"On that Day We will roll up the heavens like a scroll of writings. Just as We produced the first creation, ˹so˺ shall We reproduce it. That is a promise binding on Us. We truly uphold ˹Our promises˺!"[Quran21:104]
Baha'i creationism
The Bahá'í Faith considers the creation narratives in previous Abrahamic religions to be symbolic and not literal. Bahá'í Faith also accepts that the Earth is ancient. Baha'ullah existed at the same time as Charles Darwin, so was aware of Darwin's works.
Scientific criticism
In the United States, some religious communities have pushed schools to include supernatural explanations of the origins of life and the universe in their lessons. Evolution was not included in school textbooks until the 1960s. In 1987, the United States Supreme Court acknowledged that creationism is not scientific, and should not be taught in public schools.
Islamic creationism says that Allah created the universe (including humanity) just as written in the Qur'an. Currently, Islam takes religious texts literally.
Many scholars say that Genesis is a corrupted version of God's message. There is also a creation myth in the Qu'ran, but it is more vague than Genesis. This allows for more interpretation.
But there is also a growing movement of Islamic creationism. Like the movement in Christianity, Islamic creationists are concerned that the findings of evolutionary theory might contradict what is written in the Qu'ran. Some Muslims, like Adnan Oktar, have argued that one species cannot develop from a different species.
Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham Leading scientists still reject God in Nature, Vol. 394, No. 6691 (1998), p.313. Online at Freethought-web.orgArchived 2009-08-04 at the Wayback Machine
