Three main belief systems: In North America, beliefs regarding the origins of the origins of species of plant and

animal life mostly fall into three general categories. Starting with the most popular: Creation science: God created the universe during 6 consecutive 24 hour days less than 10,000 years ago, precisely as a one of the literal interpretations of the Biblical book of Genesis would indicate. All of the various species of plants and animals that currently exist (and that once existed but are now extinct) on earth are descendants of the original life forms that God created during the single week of creation. This is the most popular belief system among the general public. It is the least popular among earth and biological scientists. Over 99% of such scientists believe that a literal translation of Genesis does not represent reality, and thus that creation science is false. Theistic evolution view: The universe is about 14 billion years old. The earth's crust developed about 4.5 billion years ago. God created the first cell, and then used evolution as a tool to guide his development of each new species. God steered evolution to eventually produce human beings. Scientific view: Evolution was driven by blind, unguided natural forces with a goal. If God exists, he played no part in the processes. If all life were to be wiped off of the face of the Earth not that remote a possibility with the Earth's current levels of religious hatred and supply of nuclear weapons -- and life were to start over, there is absolutely no certainty that intelligent beings would evolve. If they did, there is no certainty that they would look much like homo sapiens. Those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible attempt to follow eternal Biblical truths. However, they seem to have great difficulty in settling on a single understanding of the origins and development of plant and animal species. They have ended up with many different conflicting theories which cannot be harmonized. Meanwhile, the scientific community has arrived at a consensus in the theory of evolution. As new evidence is found, some details of the evolution of species are occasionally modified. Yet supporters of naturalistic evolution long ago reached a consensus on the overall evolutionary process. Rejection of evolution in favor of creation:

In North America, the vast majority of scientific creationists, and almost all of the creation science organizations, are Christian. They believe that God created all life forms, the world, and the rest of the universe. Most believe that this happened fewer than ten thousand years ago. This belief in a new and created universe is common among fundamentalists and other Evangelical Christians, because it is the only theory that is compatible with conservative Christians' belief in:

God's inspiration of the authors of the Bible. The inerrancy of the Bible. Each passage in the Bible is viewed as being without error, wherever it discusses theological, historical, spiritual, scientific or other matters. Reliance on the literal interpretation of the Bible, except when a symbolic meaning is obviously intended by the author.

The concept that species evolved naturally or that God used evolutionary processes to create new species is abhorrent to many conservative Christians. Evolution implies that countless trillions of animals have attacked each other, suffered and died over billions of years in order to bring the earth to its present state. Many feel that God would not have developed such an inhumane and inefficient method. Some creation scientists attempt to harmonize Genesis with the findings of earth and biological scientists. This

is doomed to failure, mainly because the Bible's order of creation does not agree with that of the fossil record and thus with the theory of evolution.

Other creation science interpretations of Genesis: Other interpretations of the first three chapters of Genesis that broadly fit into the scientific creation theory are:

Indefinite-age theory: (a.k.a. Old Earth creationism) The six days in Genesis were not 24 hours long. Rather, they were extremely long intervals of time. They do not assign a specific length to any of the Genesis "days", but believe that God created the earth and its life forms in the sequence specified in Genesis, over an interval of time lasting billions of years. They accept various scientific observations and measurements which indicate that the earth has been in existence for billions of years. They believe that God created various "kinds" of animals and that no new species have been developed since creation. Revelatory-device theory: The author(s) of Genesis used "days" as a literary technique to organize his description of creation similar to a playwright organizing a play into six acts. Revelatory-day theory: Perhaps God showed Moses the sequence of events that made up creation -- something like a TV documentary. Perhaps God took 6 days to complete the demonstration. Moses, in writing the first chapters of Genesis was describing the illustration, not the original creation. Biblical reality theory: God created the universe (earth, moon, stars, etc) over a three day period, over 10 billion years ago. God also created various forms of life on earth and at other locations throughout the universe. Various species lived and died since, producing the fossil record. Dinosaurs, for example, all died off about 65 million years ago. After the most recent ice-age, God created humans and modem animals about 10,000 years ago. Intermittent day theory: Each of the days refer to 24 hour intervals. But they are separated by intervals of unknown length. "That is, the days are "normal." and consecutive, but not contiguous." "Days of divine fiat" theory: God took six consecutive 24 hour days to command the universe into existence. But the orders took an unknown period of time to be actually fulfilled. Expanding time theory: Gerald Schroeder, an Israeli physicist, suggests that the first day of creation is 24 hours long, when viewed from the "beginning of time perspective" from the perspective of the "big bang." It lasted eight billion years from our perspective. Each of the remaining five days lasted half as previous day: four billion, two billion, one billion, half billion, quarter billion. This adds up 15.75 billion years, which agrees closely with modern "big bang" cosmology. Replicated earth-theory: Mike Schuler has developed a novel theory of origins, and has begun a web site to explain this and other scientific puzzles. 9 He believes that God created an original earth. He spent billions of years trying every possible genetic code, to see what types of life would result. Most of the species were useless. God created a mass extinction event whenever the world filled up with such unneeded species. At the end of this great experiment, he was ready to create humans in the image of God. So he created an exact copy of that original earth in perfect detail, down to the atomic level. This took him only six days, as Genesis states.

Theistic Evolution Models:

These accept that biological evolution happened, but insist that God had a major role to play in the process:

Theistic evolution: This is similar to naturalistic evolution. The universe is believed to be about 14 billion years old; the earth is over 4 billion years old. However, most theistic evolutionists believe that God created the first one-celled animal. Species developed from that source in increasing complexity as observed by science. Followers of this belief system state that new species evolve by natural processes. Progressive creationists: agree in an old earth, as do theistic evolutionists. However, they deny that natural processes can produce new species by themselves. Thus, without Gods intervention, a species cannot evolve into a more complex life form. Some believe that God alters the DNA of an existing species in order to develop each new type of animal; others believe that God starts from scratch whenever he creates a new species. They believe that: The universe originated about 14 billion years ago, at the "Big Bang." After creating the universe, God controlled the development of the stars; created planets; created species of life over billions of years on earth; allowed other species to go extinct. Noah's Flood was a local event. Radiometric dating methods are accurate. Pre-humans lived tens of thousands of years ago. About ten to 25 thousand years ago. God replaced them with Adam and Eve. Unlike previous human-like species, they had souls and thus could attain heaven or hell after death.

Naturalistic Evolution Model:

This model accepts that biological evolution happened; and that it was caused by purely natural forces, without a specific goal in mind, and without any input from a supernatural being: Naturalistic evolution (a.k.a. atheistic evolution" "naturalistic evolution," "the theory of evolution," or simply "evolution"): This is a belief that attempts to explain development of all living species from the first living cell to the present diversity of plant and animal species. Evolution proceeded in response to natural processes, without intervention from God or other deities. Evolution happened blindly without a goal. The universe started in a "big bang," - a natural phenomenon, not involving God in any way. The coalescence of the earth, the development of its crust, the appearance of life in the form of a singlecelled life form and the development of new species through evolution are all viewed as having proceeded strictly by blind natural processes. A minority of scientists believe that species evolved more or less at a regular rate over the past few billions of years. Most believe, on the basis of the fossil record, that species evolved through a process of "punctuated equilibrium". A given species continued to live for long periods of time with few changes. A small group became isolated from the main group and was subjected to different environmental pressures. A new species evolved from the old very quickly in evolutionary time. The term "atheistic evolution" is really a misnomer, because belief in evolution is not limited to Atheists. Agnostics, Deists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others can and do believe in the existence of both a supreme being (or beings) and naturalistic evolution. That is, an individual may believe in God. and simultaneously hold the belief that one or more supreme beings had no involvement in either driving or guiding evolution.