(February 17, 2024 at 8:54 am)neil Wrote:(February 17, 2024 at 8:29 am)Belacqua Wrote: I'm sure there are plenty of people like that in the world. People get in their insulated zones and believe all kinds of crazy things.
I just meant to say that on this forum, I don't think we've had any creationists for a while now.
Years ago Amazon had discussion forums, and the religion section was particularly active. There was a wide variety of people who posted there, including creationists. The evolution/creation thread was always active.
The most articulate and well-informed guy who argued consistently against the creationists was a Presbyterian nuclear scientist. He really knew his stuff.
I understood that you meant on this forum & I agree that there are plenty more people outside the US who reject evolution.
I mainly focus on what's happening here in the US since this is where I live; perhaps there's also some bias on my part in the form of affinity for the US, since it's the only nation with a Bill of Rights (as well as amendments for abolishing slavery and race/color/women's suffrage), particularly the first clause of the 1st Amendment - which is specifically freedom from religion & separation of church and state, as well as freedom of speech and of the press in the other 1st A. clauses. Supposedly some other countries have the same (I personally have my doubts about that), but there are definitely many countries that do not. I wouldn't trust political & religious data from foreign sources (not that I do trust domestic sources LOL), whether it's Russia, Red China, the British Empire, any theocratic nations, etc.
Here in Japan the constitution gives us freedom of expression (Article 19) and freedom of religion (Article 20). Of course the Americans had a hand in drafting the laws -- the Americans were here because of some big deal in the 1940s, I forget what.
Historically there was some opposition to evolution as it's currently understood. As far as I know, people didn't oppose the idea of new species emerging, but they did think that the Buddhist laws of karma, etc., ruled out the kind of natural selection that Darwin described. In other words, the way in which things evolved would be somewhat guided by karmic principles.
That was mostly among the Nichiren Buddhists, as I understand it. These days the vast majority of people are only religious in a ceremonial sense, so I doubt that dogma interferes with high school science much at all.
