Creationism vs Scientism
We are a people who like to deny the existence of a grey area when engaging in debate. You must be pro-abortion or anti-abortion, pro-gay marriage or anti-gay marriage, republican or democrat, etc. This is no different when it comes to the religion and science. When I started school, the teaching of Creationism in school as part of the science curriculum was par for the course. As atheism gained popularity, debate sprung up over creationism being taught as part of the science curriculum and in some school settings being taught at all. The opposing view has always been a combination of the Big Bang Theory and Evolutionism. Evolution has slowly become debatable among many scholars in the science community, so for the purpose of this piece I will refer to the general idea as Scientism.
Creationism is essentially the idea that God or a higher spiritual being created the Earth and all of the living things on it. There are various Creationism stories throughout the world based on culture and religion. There are also many levels of interpretation ranging from strict to loose. In the United States, the most popular Creation theory is that God created the Earth and all living things in six days and rested on the seventh day. This is the Christian version of the Creation theory.
Scientism is the general idea that the Earth and all living things can be explained through science and logic. The Big Bang Theory argues that the universe and all things in it started from one point that exploded and created other elements: atoms, neutrons, etc. The existence of humans is explained through the evolution theory which builds upon the idea that cells mutated to adapt to it's surroundings.
Unfortunately, this is where the general public and I tend to part ways. I believe in a combination of both of these ideas. I was raised Protestant Christian. I am not afraid to say that. I believe that there is a higher power and I believe the Bible teaches love, faith, acceptance, and goodwill. I would not be considered a devout Christian in most circles because I don't tend to buy into many other religious concepts. I also tend to believe that many religions have the same basic concepts. But I digress.
For the sake of this piece, we'll focus on the Christian version of the Creation theory versus Scientism.
On the first day, God created light and dark. (Scientism: Recombination)
On the second day, God separated the water and sky. (Scientism: Re-ionization)
On the third day, God made land and plants. (Evolution)
On the fourth day, God made the moon, sun, and stars. (Scientism: Re-ionization)
On the fifth day, God made fish and birds. (Evolution)
On the sixth day, God made the remaining animals and humans. (Evolution)
I tend to view the Bible in very loose terms because often times it is written in parables. I don't believe that the world as we know it was created in six literal days. I believe that this terminology is figurative (representative) of large periods of time and I would argue that it essentially aligns with the ideas of the Big Bang theory and Evolutionism as shown above. Scientifically, there is an extremely dense and hot point that randomly and rapidly expands. What we see is complex recombination and re-ionization of atoms and neutrons over a very long period of time. These cells become more complex over time eventually leading to more complex beings. This is essentially what we see explained in Christian Creationism as shown above. This leads me to believe that both schools of thought are correct.
At this point, atheists would generally want me to abandon the idea of a higher power because the creation of the universe and living beings can be explained through science. However, my question to atheists would be: What explains the existence of the hot dense point floating through space that sparked the Big Bang?
