Question for devout non-Christians

[JumpyTheFrog]

For those of you that are devout, practicing Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc., does your faith believe in a young or old earth? I'm especially curious if Jews view Genesis as a literal 7 day young earth creation.

 

I'm not trying to start a debate - I'm just wondering if people of other religions have to try and reconcile what their religious texts say about the age of the earth with what most scientists believe about the earth being billions of years old. (I guess I'm also wondering if these other groups accept evolution or not, too.)

[Denise in Florida]

I am not really qualified to answer your question. :001_smile: I hope you don't mind me sticking my toes in. Ignore if needed.

 

I am a Christian but my denomination does not ask us to believe in either young or old earth. We are allowed to make up our own minds about evolution/creation and about pre/post milleniallism (pretty sure I did not spell that right :glare:).

 

I do not see the great difficulty in reconciling faith and science. Faith tells me Who and Why, science tells me How. I know that many people of strong faith and good will don't agree with me. That is okay, I am not insulted by differences nor do I think their faith negates mine.

 

I hope you get a lot of well thought out, interesting responses. I hope it stays amicable and enlightening (again with the spelling arrrgh :glare:).

[Aelwydd]

I am neither Jewish nor Muslim, merely Episcopalian. However, I've done some reading on this subject, because I was curious as well. From my research, it seems that most Jews consider Genesis not to be a literal account of creation. Only the ultra orthodox take a young earth view.

 

Muslims may take either position; I have seen many argue that the Quran does not define a specific unit of time during which creation occurred. I have also read arguments by other Muslims that take a young earth position. In my anecdotal experience, Muslims would tend to favor the old earth theory.

[twoforjoy]

I have personally never met a Jewish or Muslim person, no matter how conservative, who believed in a young earth. That's not to say they don't exist, but I've never encountered one. That said, I never encountered anybody who believed in YEC before I started homeschooling--I didn't even know there was such a belief (and I was raised in a pretty devout Catholic home)--so I could just be naive, and most of the Jewish and Muslim people I know, I know from university settings, but I don't think it's common in either religion. I'm not sure how common it is in Christianity either, though, especially outside of the U.S., or in mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. (I'm an Episcopalian and neither OE or evolution pose a theological problem.)

 

I have known Muslims who didn't accept the theory of evolution, though. Well, I had a Muslim student once who wrote a paper about how they didn't accept the theory of evolution. So I'm assuming that's a view that some, though not alll, Muslims hold (I've had other Muslim students argue the opposite position in papers). I don't think it generally comes with a view in a young earth, though.

 

I've never met a Hindu or Buddhist who believed in a young earth, or heard of one doing so.

[Plaid Dad]

Buddhist scriptures reference ancient Indian units of time that, if taken literally, would make the universe vastly older than scientists know it to be. I have never met any Buddhists who take these descriptions literally or who discount modern scientific understandings of the origins of the universe, evolution, etc.

[Tohru]

Oddly, I don't think time is the same as it was when the earth was created. And we (personal family) do not think too much about how old the earth is, only how we can live here and make it a better.

[sleepymommy]

In Hinduism, there is no need to reconcile what science currently says with what our scriptures say. We believe that all of creation is in an endless cycle of birth and dissolution. There is no beginning or end, there is creation and destruction and this repeats. There are cycles.

 

Much of the current science theories are compatible to this cycle of creation.

 

 

(Nice to see you posting again Plaid Dad!)

[JumpyTheFrog]

In Hinduism...We believe that all of creation is in an endless cycle of birth and dissolution. There is no beginning or end, there is creation and destruction and this repeats. There are cycles.

 

 

So in the Hindu view, is the entire universe destroyed and recreated every cycle? Or is it more like the universe and earth stay, but life is wiped out and recreated?

 

It sounds like Hindus don't believe in time being linear the way most of the western world does? If so, would a Hindu scientist give the earth an age or would the question be silly in his or her view?

[WishboneDawn]

Another Christian. I'm Anglican and don't feel I have to reconcile evolution with the Bible. Most Christians belong to denominations where they don't have to either.

 

I am aware of some Muslim creationists but as far as I know it's an extremely small percentage. A native friend who follows her traditional beliefs feels no conflict between science and her faith.

[nono]

My husband is Taoist. He's definitely Old Earth.

[Mergath]

I'm Pagan, and we don't really have any religious texts. (Though Scott Cunningham's books are probably pretty close. :tongue_smilie:) Myself and every Pagan I've met with whom I've discussed the topic believe in the whole old Earth, evolution bit.

[Desert Strawberry]

Buddhism doesn't have a creation story that I'm aware of. like the Hindus, we believe in a cyclical universe. There doesn't seem to be much focus on it, but I would say that the concept of time is less linear, and far more vast. We believe in endless lifetimes.

[Peela]

Buddhist scriptures reference ancient Indian units of time that, if taken literally, would make the universe vastly older than scientists know it to be. I have never met any Buddhists who take these descriptions literally or who discount modern scientific understandings of the origins of the universe, evolution, etc.

 

Exactly. Science is allowed to be science- it is what it is, and I think most intelligent people don't take Science as "gospel" either. Theories change. New discoveries are made. Many people I know, however, are waiting for science to "catch up" to what is written in ancient scriptures- to discover that the age of the earth, of mankind, is significantly older than currently conceived. The way that aboriginal Australians were thought to be around for 40,000 years, then they discovered fossils dated to 60,000 years.

Many ancient scriptures of different cultures refer to very ancient civilizations that were quite advanced- then along came catastrophes that destroyed- them- or they destroyed themselves. Not very different form what is happening right now.

I am not aware of any cultures other than a certain type of modern christian, that believe in a literal very young earth.

[sleepymommy]

So in the Hindu view, is the entire universe destroyed and recreated every cycle? Or is it more like the universe and earth stay, but life is wiped out and recreated?

 

It sounds like Hindus don't believe in time being linear the way most of the western world does? If so, would a Hindu scientist give the earth an age or would the question be silly in his or her view?

 

The entire universe is cyclical, so the entire universe would expand and contract, be created and be destroyed. However, there are times when entire ancient civilizations have been destroyed, these are separate.

 

We can easily see the "linear" view and it fits fine into our view of the current Yug (Great Cycle). There are 4 Yugas, at the end of the 4 Yugas the Universe contracts/destroys then recreates. But overall, no time is not linear, it is cyclical, "History repeats itself". Time in Hinduism is massive, vastly greater than what is believed in Christianity.

 

There is not much emphasis placed on creation in our religion though, yes the knowledge is there but we are supposed to focus our attention to God and dharma. Arguing over the specifics of origin is more looked at as a waste of time. God created, how or when really does not change how we should be today.

[Negin]

For those of you that are devout, practicing Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc., does your faith believe in a young or old earth? I'm especially curious if Jews view Genesis as a literal 7 day young earth creation.

I'm not trying to start a debate - I'm just wondering if people of other religions have to try and reconcile what their religious texts say about the age of the earth with what most scientists believe about the earth being billions of years old. (I guess I'm also wondering if these other groups accept evolution or not, too.)

 

We're devout Baha'is.

Not fully sure what you mean about old and new earth, but no, we don't take everything in The Bible literally. We believe in The Bible as a holy text and respect it as such. But we also believe that much of it is not meant to be taken literally. So no, we don't believe that the earth was created in 7 days.

We also do believe in evolution, although we believe that humans have a soul, unlike other beings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism

 

The Bahá'í Faith holds the harmony of religion and science as a fundamental principle. Bahá'ís regards the biblical account of creation as symbolic, albeit important and full of symbolic meaning. Far from accepting the idea of a Young Earth, Bahá'í theology regards the Earth as ancient.

 

Humanity, Bahá'ís hold, has changed in physical form over time. Bahá'í theology holds that humanity is a species essence - an essential reality and part of God's eternal creation; as a biological species, however, humanity has gone through numerous physical changes and adaptations in time. The Bahá'í faith regards evolution (as a progress of physical form) and the act of divine creation as related processes or even as the same process viewed in different contexts. However, Bahá'í literature maintains that humanity is distinct from other parts of creation on Earth - that only mankind has a soul, and is capable of abstract thought and of spiritual development.

[Free]

For those of you that are devout, practicing Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc., does your faith believe in a young or old earth? I'm especially curious if Jews view Genesis as a literal 7 day young earth creation.

 

I'm not trying to start a debate - I'm just wondering if people of other religions have to try and reconcile what their religious texts say about the age of the earth with what most scientists believe about the earth being billions of years old. (I guess I'm also wondering if these other groups accept evolution or not, too.)

 

I am a Hindu, not very devout though. Hindus believe the universe is very very ancient. They also believe in cyclical creation and destruction of the universe, so this universe has been created and destroyed many times before and will continue to be. There are some Hindu fundamentalists who try to read modern science into ancient Hindu texts - which according to me is as bogus as the apologetics that some other religions resort to. Notwithstanding that however, most Hindus have no problem with much of modern science including evolution. We Hindus tend to believe that while science can explain much of the physical world, it has no way to explore or understand the spiritual world(s).

[Ravin]

Like many of other faiths, I see religious cosmology as symbolic, not literal. It can be applied at different levels (the individual, societies, the universe, whatever), and is about spiritual understanding, not necessarily literal, physical reality. Science is good at the latter, religion the former, and I see no contradiction or need for reconciliation between them.

[Free]

It sounds like Hindus don't believe in time being linear the way most of the western world does? If so, would a Hindu scientist give the earth an age or would the question be silly in his or her view?

 

A Hindu scientist would have to use the same scientific principles and laws known to all scientists worldwide.

 

There are "Hindu scholars" who do try to assign an age to the earth according to the scriptures, but when these views do not align with scientific views, the religious scholars feel no compulsion to correct the scientific opinions. Nor do scientists feel the need to revise their models to support religion.

[Violet Crown]

An Orthodox Jewish friend tells me that a literal understanding of the Creation account in Genesis is expected in her community; though it wasn't clear to me if this implicates a "young earth" view.