| Greetings!
Welcome to our March 2009 newsletter. Thank you for all that you do to pray for and support our ministry.
Please contact us for any further information you require, including requests for booking speakers at your church or organisation.
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Four out of Five Reject Creationism?
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 The newspapers have once again been reporting opinion polls
on whether people believe creation or evolution. Both the Guardian and the
Daily Telegraph did so using the headline that I have used - but without the
question mark.
To be honest, it would not surprise me if 80% of the public
believed evolution - except that I would have suspected that the figure would
be higher. Indeed, surely the surprise is that 20% are at least open to
creationism, in a society where it is presumed that only 5% of the population
are evangelical Christians. However, the statistics in the report are open to
considerable interpretation.
The report in question is Faith and Darwin: Harmony, Conflict or Confusion, by Caroline
Lawes, and published by the liberal Christian think tank, Theos (http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/mainnav/reports.aspx).
This is part of a series of reports, funded by the Templeton Foundation, under
the heading Rescuing Darwin. It is
salutary to note that the organisation believes that Darwin needs rescuing!
In fact, a closer look at the statistics reveals two
startling observations: that the theory of evolution really is in serious trouble
and that the report uses some peculiar definitions, in order to attempt to
bolster the position of evolution. The latter is significant, because these
reports are not unbiased. This can be seen throughout the report, and is
typified by Lawes decision to personify a Young Earth Creationist as "Grandma",
as if a creationist is necessarily elderly (perhaps senile?) and female. In
view of this bias, I think it is legitimate for us likewise to cherry-pick a
number of statistics.
For example, on page 29, the chart paints a different picture
from the headline. The chart suggests that over 30% think that Young earth
Creationism is at least probably true. Over 50% believe that Intelligent Design
is at least probably true. As usual, the statistics on page 29 of the report
can easily be used to support an atheistic evolutionist position, whereas the
bias of the report towards accepting theistic evolution is evident.
The confusion behind the statistics can be seen from a table
on page 63 which suggests that 11% of 'hard-core' creationists believe that
evolution is established beyond reasonable doubt! Membership of Lawes'
'hard-core' creationist group is achieved by answering a question on her
questionnaire to suggest that creationism is definitely or probably true. To be
fair, Lawes acknowledges the contradiction, but this would seem to invalidate
the conclusions drawn from the statistics. Similar confusion can be seen in the
analysis that 9% of atheistic evolutionists believe that evolution has been
disproved, and 10% believe it has little evidence to support it! The idea that
19% of atheistic evolutionists actually don't really believe their theory is
startling. Imagine a Christian publication using a similar headline - "One in
Five atheists believe Evolution is Wrong!". However, it would clearly be
nonsense for me to use the statistics in this way - just as it was nonsense for
the Guardian and Telegraph to use the statistics in the way that they did.
So the numbers in this report are inconclusive,
to say the least. But 200 years after Darwin's birth, and 150 years after the
publication of the Origin of Species,
evolution remains as unconvincing to the British public as ever.
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Volunteers Needed?
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If you live within easy reach of Leicester, have you
considered volunteering to help AiG? We have a small number of people who come
into the offices regularly to help and we are very grateful to them for all
their hard work. We could really do with some more volunteers, who would be
Christians and members or regular attenders at a bible-believing church.
Perhaps you could help us one day a month, or maybe one day a week.
If you would like to find out about the various
ways in which volunteers can help the ministry of Answers in Genesis, please contact us at the office, or reply to
this email, changing the subject line to "Volunteers".
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Appeal
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Last month, we asked you to help us with publication costs for our new biographical book of Charles Darwin. We needed £2000. So far, we have received about £1500 for this. We are very grateful to you for your generosity. If there is anyone else who would like to contribute towards the remaining £500, please get in touch with us at the offices in Leicester, and mark your donation 'Darwin book'.
We have been contacted by a ministry in Albania that would like to dub our Darwin biography film into Albanian. We have given them full permission to do this, and to distribute the resulting film. It would be wonderful if any of you could consider contributing towards the costs that the Albanian ministry will have. If you are able to give for that purpose, please mark your donation 'Albanian ministry'.
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Thank you so much for reading this newsletter. May God bless you in all that you do for Him. Please keep praying.
 Sincerely,
Paul Taylor
Senior Speaker / Head of Media
Answers in Genesis (UK/Europe)
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Check out these important resources
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