Four in 10 Americans believe God created earth 10,000 years ago

June 07, 2014 04:02 pm | Updated 04:02 pm IST - Washington

This image provided by NASA and posted to Twitpic by astronaut Douglas Wheelock on Oct. 31, 2010 shows a night view of the Nile River winding up through the Egyptian desert toward the Mediterranean as seen from the International Space Station.

This image provided by NASA and posted to Twitpic by astronaut Douglas Wheelock on Oct. 31, 2010 shows a night view of the Nile River winding up through the Egyptian desert toward the Mediterranean as seen from the International Space Station.

This may come as a shock to you but nearly 40 per cent U.S. citizens reject the evolution theory and believe that God created earth around 10,000 years ago.

According to a new Gallup poll, four in 10 Americans believe God created earth and anatomically modern humans around 10,000 years ago.

About half of Americans believe humans evolved over millions of years, with most of those people saying that God guided the process.

Religious, less educated, and older respondents were likelier to espouse a young earth creationist view — that life was created some 6,000 to 10,000 years ago — according to Gallup’s “Values and Beliefs Survey”.

“Though the per centage of people who believe in creationism has changed little over the decades, the per centage of people who believe humans evolved without God has more than doubled,” the poll suggested.

As part of the survey, Gallup called a random sample of 1,028 landline and cellphone users.

About 42 per cent espoused the creationist view presented whereas 31 per cent said God guided the evolutionary process. Just 19 per cent said they believe evolution operated without God being involved.

A 2013 Pew survey showed that about 80 per cent of Americans believe in miracles and three—quarters believe in the virgin birth of Jesus.

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