Creationism in the US: from Ussher to the faith business

American creationism, from Bishop Ussher to the faith business

Imagine a country with NASA and, at the same time, 40% of its population convinced that the world was created in seven days. It's not a dystopia: it's the United States, where young-Earth creationism is a political and economic product. The date of creation, October 23, 4004 BC, wasn't invented by some Texas televangelist, but by Anglican Bishop James Ussher in the 17th century.

From a footnote to dogma

Ussher didn't create a dogma, but a marginal note in the Bibles of his time. That reading aid became divine literalism. Serious theologians of the 18th and 19th centuries laughed at his calculations, but the damage was done. In the 20th century, Henry Morris and the Institute for Creation Research sold it as "alternative science": marketing with fake bibliography.

Intelligent design and cultural control

Creationism is the tip of the iceberg. "Intelligent design" lost in the courts and disguised itself as "critical debate." The result: part of the population distrusts science as much as politics and the media. They vote as a bloc and swallow whatever the pastor says.

Geologists with a Bible

William Buckland and Adam Sedgwick, Anglican clergymen, accepted an Earth millions of years old because the rocks were slapping them in the face, but they choked on Darwin. What mattered to them wasn't the age, but the status of human beings: if species transform, "made in the image and likeness of God" goes down the drain.

The most jarring thing is the profitability. A country with NASA sustains a 40% creationist population. The business has a date: October 23, 4004 BC.