What do religious people think of fossils?

Answer 1

Fossils are hardly a subject of everyday discussion among most people, religious or otherwise. When most religious people do think about fossils they accept that there are experts who understand them and that they are evidence of creatures who lived long ago. The majority of religious people around the world accept that the world is ancient and that species evolved according to natural selection, so they see fossils as fitting into this.

There are some religious people who do not accept the age of the earth, nor that species evolved over time. These people, often known as 'creationists', may accept that fossils are evidence of creatures that no longer live, but insist that they lived much more recently than science tells us. To explain the extinction of so many creatures, they say they must have died during the biblical Flood, or shortly afterwards. To explain the evidence of the great age of the fossils, some creationists say that the fundamental laws of nature changed just at the time of the biblical Flood. These views can not be held by persons with a sound understanding of science, but to creationists science is secondary to belief.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 2

The existence of fossils is no problem for religious people. The process of fossilization is well-known and can occur quickly under the right conditions. In schools, students are not told certain things, such as the fact that there are thousands of fossils of ordinary humans, ordinary apes, and many other species. On the contrary, the fossils provide evidence against evolution, as seen in this link:

What_are_some_proofs_offered_by_Creationists

And see also:

http://judaism.answers.com/jewish-philosophy/can-you-prove-that-god-exists

http://www.allaboutscience.org/intelligent-design.htm

http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/sci-ev/sci_vs_ev_26.htm