Lots of activity in this thread while I was gone, and I think Photon has made some very valuable points in my defence (thanks, Photon). Admittedly, I don't know that many Americans personally, and I would never make the claim that Americans are dumb. The evidence shows that Americans are more religious than Canadians, and it is hard to argue with that assumption. Any numbers that I mentioned (and disputed by Displaced Flames Fan) came from polls, and I referenced the source of those polls. I used American poll results because they are easier to find. The numbers are not mine; they come from polling firms whose job is to take polls and report data.
One question, Displaced - what part of the US do you live in? The north and especially New England are notoriously less literalist, and they call parts of the south "the Bible belt" for a reason. In my last trip to the US, I heard radio shows that rejected evolution, and that specifically mentioned the age of earth at 6000 years. I hasten to point out that I didn't listen to Christian stations for much of the trip, but I heard people talking about a young earth. Anecdotal evidence, I admit. I just wanted to point out that you don't have to look very far to find the viewpoint that the earth is 6000 years old.
As for ID - it is part of a
wedge strategy to introduce creationism into public schools.
Someone - and I can't remember who - argued with my claim that the bible states the earth is 6000 years old. I'll concede that point, although many people who have read the bible a lot more than me have come to the conclusion that the earth is 6000 years old based on biblical chronology. The bible does claim that the earth existed for 5 days before humans came along. Unless you wish to say that "day" refers to an unspecified amount of time, as "in the day of". In which case, the earth had vegetation for an unspecified amount of time before the sun was created. Another explanation is that it is a metaphor, trying to explain in simple terms to a simple audience how things happened. So how is it any different than any of the other creation stories out there?
The bible gets authority because it is believed to be the word of God. You need a theed said the following regarding geocentrism:
Again, the bible isn't in those passages trying to be a science textbook. The writers of those verses only knew what they could observe at the time, they didn't know that the earth "moved."
If the bible is the word of God, then the author would know that the earth is not fixed in place but does indeed move. If the bible is not the word of God, and is actually the work of men, then should we not look to a more recent book to explain how things are?