Creationism

What is creationism?

The belief in a world created by a creator is called creationism (Latin creatio = creation). The term encompasses several different currents and views, all more or less the same: man was created by a higher power (a Creator / God). At the same time, the roots of the creationist conception lie well before the date of creation of the Bible, Koran and Torah. Already treatises of the Greek philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, postulated in different forms the existence of a creator God.
The following are some of the most popular directions of creationism:

Short-term creationism

Supporters of short-term creationism, also known as boy-earth creationism, believe in a creation of earth and man that dates back no more than 10,000 years. They base their beliefs on the content of Genesis. The statements about the creation are literally interpreted: God created earth and man in six days.
In scientific contradiction, the idea of ​​the young earth comes in particular with regard to radiometric dating methods, with the help of which organic material can be arranged temporally. The extinction of dinosaurs is scientifically problematic explained by short-term creationists, namely by the great flood. Accordingly, humans and dinosaurs even lived side by side. Clearly paleontological findings can not support these assumptions, as fossils of dinosaurs and homo sapiens have never been found in the same layer of rock.

Long-term creationism

In contrast to short-term creationism, followers of long-term creationism largely recognize the scientific findings from paleontology and archaeological age determination. The earth is therefore several million years old within the framework of this belief. How then life was created by a Creator is assumed in various ways:

According to the concordance hypothesis, the six-day creation from Genesis is not literally interpreted, but estimated for the individual days a period of many millions of years. By contrast, followers of the theory of gaps proceed from a creation on an already geologically old earth. Between the first day on which God created the earth and the sixth day on which God created man, so are several billion years.

The most complex theory among long-term creationists is creation on installments. Here it is assumed that God repeatedly intervenes in the creation over the entire period. Species die out and are replaced by God through a new creation through other species.

All these views have one thing in common: they try to incorporate the scientific findings from geology and paleontology, in order to reconcile the age of the earth (4.5 billion years) with the creation story. In particular, many scientific findings, i.a. the development of living beings, which are simply "rebuilt" or "built in" by the long-term creationists. All living beings are, so to speak, invariably given by a determinism given by God.

Neo-creationism

Neo-creationism in particular includes the concept of intelligent design. At its core is the assumption that all living things must be "designed" by an intelligent designer because they are too complex in appearance to develop through evolution.

The main argument is usually the so-called non-reducible complexity of the organs. It is argued that certain organs could not have developed without a higher power, because on the one hand the individual components are not reducible to less developed organs (eg the flagellum in bacteria), and on the other hand the interaction of the individual components (eg in the human eye ) represent a self-contained system. But this way of thinking turns out to be wrong: within evolution, complex systems (like the eye) do not emerge by themselves, but develop from subcomponents that previously had a different function, both to the flagellum and to the eye true.

Because of the supposition of a supernatural being, the concept of intelligent design is considered pseudo-science. A scientific examination of the arguments is not possible.

Summary

Creationism (Latin creatio = creation) encompasses several different faiths that trace life on earth back to the existence of a creative God.