Culture and Religion

A world view where the guide for society is based on human nature,
 not on ancient scriptures.  Home  or Topic Groups

Creationism

Creationism is the belief in the Bible as the literal truth from God and that interpretation takes precedence over science, including the story of creation in the Bible, ignoring evolution. This belief in that ancient story is in contrast to observed evolution as found after scientific investigations.
I was born and raised Catholic in a world view based on the Bible as the guide for society. The interpretation of ancient scriptures is not a stable foundation for society. A stable foundation is one based on our understanding of human nature, learned via scientific investigation. Human beings have a social nature that is the true foundation for defining society. The site content is intended to flesh out this world view based on our human nature, with new topics filling in gaps, but hopefully written in a way another reader might find it interesting. There are many references in the site to religions. Few are willing to question their sense of self.
This web site is about our human nature and how the social forces of culture and religion can bring people together for cooperative success or can divide people for persecution and suffering.

Culture defines the social forces within a community involving its conventions for behavior, ranging from food preparation techniques, to forms of entertainment that keep the community together like music or dancing, to dating rituals, and so on.

Religion defines how the community members interpret their role in the universe, with this belief system based on the local culture so different religions rise out of different cultures. Similarly when members of one religion convert members of a foreign culture often the resulting religion in that area is affected by the host culture.
Each culture must deal with unexplainable catastrophic events. If the culture cannot accept the chaos of nature then the religion can impose order on the chaos by assigning responsibility for these events on an invisible supernatural deity. This deity will be given characteristics as needed by that culture, resulting in its mythology to help define the deity. The Abrahamic religions had the Egyptian pharaoh as a model, an authoritarian leader. Polytheistic religions are comfortable with distributed responsibility. Many Chinese religions arose from cultures that are comfortable with the chaos oaf nature so there was no need for a supreme deity, which is lacking in these religions. The success of a religion requires the local culture to believe in this interpretation.

Creationism assumes the religion is always correct even when later scientific understanding of events should cause doubt about that religious certainty.

These pages are about the mixing of science and religion.
The date shown in parentheses is the date that page was last changed.

Teaching creation or evolution. What does it say for our culture that religious beliefs are presented at the same time as scientific theories? (04/06/2003)

Attitudes in Science and Religion. I find that many social and cultural conflicts are based in religious beliefs. Religious perspectives are skewing scientific practices. (03/09/2003)

Does Life Reveal an Intelligent Design? I often hear this claim but it presumes complexity requires its design. The statistical chances for any one team to win the annual NCAA basketball championship are very small but when one team finally wins did that difficult outcome require design (also known as a fix)? The rules of the game determine the winner, just like the rules of biology, chemistry and physics determine the life forms that succeed. Does the intricate detail of a snowflake, a crystal that forms a unique pattern each time, require God's hand or is each formed by a natural process? (12/11/2004)

Wanting to Teach Intelligent Design What is behind this push by politicians and religious leaders for our teachers to teach Intelligent Design in science class? (11/05/2006)

Genesis and the Origin of Man  Is Genesis the real story of the origin of man or did man evolve? (01/18/2014)

Evolution by Success Not Design Evolution is successful adaptation by successive generations; life on Earth has no design . (05/09/2009)

Here is the list of topics in this Creationism Topic Group.
All Topic Groups are available by selecting More TG.
All topics in the site are in the Site Map, where each Topic Group has its topics indented below it.

Ctrl + for zoom in;  Ctrl - for zoom out ;  Ctrl 0 for no zoom;
triple-tap for zoom to fit;  pinch for zoom change;  pinched for no zoom