Translation:  I actually do personally lean away from accepted scientific facts based on empirical evidence, critical thinking skills and rationality. 

And, no you don’t get any points because you “don’t think schools should be teaching that in a science classroom.”

If you people weren’t so dangerous to young minds, your feeble attempt at convincing those of us living in the reality-based world that you are one of the “reasonable believers” would be hilarious. 

For example simply look at genesis: notice how plants were created before our sun was – how can anyone think this is fact when photosynthesis is as clear as gravity now but was magic back then.

Creationism as a concept existed long before the movement you’re talking about, long before Scopes. The Catholic Church is creationist, but does not believe the world was created in six days, or that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.  The Anglican Church is creationist, but doesn’t believe in the six day, thousand years old thing.  Hinduism has it’s own creation myths (though they don’t agree on any particular one). Those are current religions who are not part of the movement. But there are many others over time, from the Norse to the Greeks to the Mayans to the etc., etc., etc., etc.

Diversity of thought, of ideology, of belief are all anathema to these people. They need things to be binary — good v. evil, black v. white, Creation v. Evolution, etc. — in order to maintain their world view of being the good side standing with God against the evil.

Ensuring that they do not own the word “creationism” means they have to face that there are other ideas on how creation, that they don’t get that binary view, that they are being challenged on all sides. It means not only Evolutionists are competing for their minds, but also all the other types of thoughts for how existence came to be.

That makes them weaker and less authoritative to their followers and converts.  And that’s why I don’t let them — or us — grant them the power to define our vocabulary.

Those people are wrong about everything so why would you let them decide what the definition of creationism is?  Why give them the power?

Here are links to some extremely varied sources, some crowd-sourced, some academic, some odd.

Wikipedia, but some people don’t like it as a real source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism

So I’ll bring one from the right, Conservapedia: http://www.conservapedia.com/Creationism

Don’t want crowd sourced? Here’s Standford University’s philosophy department: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creationism/

And another source: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wic.html

And a dictionary definition from Merriam Webster: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creationism

Your personal definition is not the one used by the Creationist movement who wishes to wedge themselves into public, secular schools. Your opinion is misinformed, the definition in place runs counter.

This is 100% untrue. Creationism necessarily implies biblical literalism. One can believe in God’s creation and evolution, but Creationists are fully against science.

Are you shitting us?

No teacher will be allowed to do this, certainly not in the schools that publish this trash.

That’s a polite way to say it.

http://www.damninteresting.com/the-unfortunate-sex-life-of-the-banana/

Still, I’m skeptical of authorities who try to hide knowledge of any kind. Nolan’s Batman, Starfleet’s Prime Directive, Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

If they didn’t know right from wrong before, then how would they know that it’s evil to ignore God’s warning? What good is a warning given to people who don’t know the difference between good and evil?

The Bible makes straightforward statements about God creating Earth, and about what Heaven is like. It seems fair to interpret the Bible literally or metaphorically, but I don’t see anything on either side demanding that some of it *must* be taken literally or some of it must be taken metaphorically. (Except that some parts taken literally contradict other parts.)

I have also met a biologist who was a devout Christian, and I gleaned a little bit more of the mindset from her. In a nutshell: cognitive dissonance in the extreme. She seemed accepting of my explanation of what I was researching at the time, which happens to be something contentious to young earth creationists involving things on a millions-and-billions-of-years scale, but I was also hopelessly, unrequitedly in love with her and was suffering from some cognitive dissonance of my own there so I may have misinterpreted any disagreements she may have had ;)

My personal experience aside, I too have read of geologists and biologists specifically like the ones you describe. As good as their work within their specific sub-fields may be, I find myself unable to respect them and if I was studying something similar I would be loathe to cite their work. If they have that level of cognitive dissonance going, I really don’t trust their ability as a scientist.

Oh well that’s depressing, BoingBoing kills the gif.
Well, here it is https://dl.dropbox.com/u/88376310/woosh.gif