My main contention is and will stand that catholicism like all other mythologies is simply just that, a mythology.
- The first man was created by God. (De fide.)
Well we understand there was no “first man” individguals can continue to deny the process of evolution, but it is widely accepted by the scientific community. Sure there are many holes and unknowns but we are on our way to constructively figuring it out. In few hundred years the theory may make some great changes to major parts of it. But the general idea will remain the same. So again this whole idea of god creating an adam is based purely on myth, a story written thousands of years ago, taken as fact.
- The whole human race stems from one single human pair. (Sent. certa.)
This is from my basic understanding of genetics near impossible, the negative effects of incest on genetics are understood by most people. The first generations out of the hypothetical adam and eve would be deformed and would have found surviving very difficult. And then theres all the incest. There is also no evidence to support this hypothesis. Also what time frame would this setting have?
- Man consists of two essential parts–a material body and a spiritual soul. (De fide.)
- The rational soul is per se the essential form of the body. (De fide.)
- Every human being possesses an individual soul. (De fide.)
- Every individual soul was immediately created out of nothing by God. (Sent. Certa.)
- A creature has the capacity to receive supernatural gifts. (Sent. communis.)
- The Supernatural presupposes Nature. (Sent communis.)
- God has conferred on man a supernatural Destiny. (De fide.)
- Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace. (De fide.)
- The donum rectitudinis or integritatis in the narrower sense, i.e., the freedom from irregular desire. (Sent. fidei proxima.)
- The donum immortalitatis, i.e., bodily immortality. (De fide.)
- The donum impassibilitatis, i.e., the freedom from suffering. (Sent. communis.)
- The donum scientiae, i.e., a knowledge of natural and supernatural truths infused by God. (Sent. communis.)
- Adam received sanctifying grace not merely for himself, but for all his posterity. (Sent. certa.)
All of this above. Comes merely from either some ancient theologin postiulating on thoughts that were the assumed truth of the time, they really took for granted that genisis was a literal truth. For which there is no way to observe or understand such things like “recieved sanctifying grace” but such statements were made (I don’t understand how) and accepeted (I understand how).
Seriously these people were just making up fables. And I mean at the time these were reasonably acceptable hypothesi. Where does all this knowledge come from? And what good has it done us?
The human race has not benefited from this folklore, and thats all it is. It has benefited from understanding atoms, understanding that desiese is not some curse sent by god but is caused by bacteria. Accepting the statemtns above and adding them to things like how does lighting occur “god did it”, why do people get sick and die “god did it”, how does it rain “god did it”.
These things in the past were assumed to be the work of god, but as the sciences and our acedemic ventures have progressed, we have come to understand these real reasons of why and how. If we had remained ignorant in the face of reelgion. Merely accepting such statemetns, taking the word of relegious leaders as gospel we would still be living in the dark ages.
I admit at a time we did need relgion, the world was scary, and maybe my statement above was a bit harsh. I’m sure in the past relegion did do alot of good in controling large populations. But we already have social structures in place now that function better than relegion. christiopher hitches out lines what i’m going to say in a good analogy. “In the dark the best person to lead you is a blind man. But in the light it is the person that can see that should be your guide.”
Anyway what I’m trying to say and I am rambling a bit outside the point.
The stem of all these beliefs 1-15 comes not from an understanding nor from observation or experminetnation or any real way to understad something. But more from statements made by those long ago to explain the wolrd they live in, and as you make up somehting you have to make up a countless other things to contiually explain the mistakes made previoulsy. Because it would be bad to admit you were wrong.
