CORRECTION:Mary, do you understand the difference between the terms “human” and “person”? Humans are members of the species Homo sapiens. “Persons” are begins possessed of self-reflective intelligence and capable of moral and spiritual response, or potentially possessed of these qualities.
You’re touting this as a reason for doubting Darwin?Has anyone heard of Dr. Eric Planka? I saw the most chilling viedo on u-tube and I hope everyone will take time to watch it.
Each of us in on his or her own, in that journey. He can lead, but you must follow. And no one can do that for you.Well,maybe you believe you are on your own, but I believe God is leading us into His Truth, slowly but surely and someday faith and reason—
That is the world we must make our way in. Whether you approve of it, or not, is not going to change His way one iota.And the terrible plague of ungoing competition and the ‘survival of the fittest’ will be over.
I am glad you added the "potentially possessed of these qualities. I have to think about the definitions. I can see the difference you are making between human …would you be saying some humans are not persons though? I can see that the definition of ‘persons’ goes beyond humans.CORRECTION:
Humans are members of the species Homo sapiens. “Persons” are beings possessed of self-reflective intelligence and capable of moral and spiritual response, or potentially possessed of these qualities.
Petrus
But Christ will change it someday. And we can live in His Kingdom while we are here, not entering into the kind of negative competition that would hurt others.Each of us in on his or her own, in that journey. He can lead, but you must follow. And no one can do that for you.
Mary:
I am not on my own. I have a guardian angel for one. And a community of believers, some of whose prayers I am indebted to.
But yes, I know that I do have the freedom to respond to grace or not.
That is the world we must make our way in. Whether you approve of it, or not, is not going to change His way one iota.
Orangutans, for example, are much more evolved. We are a relatively primitive primate in almost everything but neotony. I hope you don’t think “evolved”=“better.”What species are you referring to when you make this statement?
Sorry, you’re wrong. The church recognizes that evolutionary theory is consistent with our faith. It says that any theory that denies the providence of God is not acceptable. However, no theory used in science does that.You should modify this statement because the church does not teach that materialistic evolution is consistent with out faith simply because it does not recognize the guidance of God.
Doesn’t matter. Her opinion is diametrically opposed to Darwin’s on this matter. And he gets to decide what he thinks.If you had read her whole review you would have seen she thinks of Darwin as a heroic person.
I pointed out the quote in which Darwin says it is an evil to let people die. You and reggie said you disagree with that. Are you now telling me that you agree with Darwin that it is evil to let people die?A far as the quote you keep bringing up and misrepresenting-- Reggie and I never said that it was a good thing to let people die.
Let’s take a look…Quite the contrary, we pointed out that Darwin was saying thatto keep them alive was a ‘necessary evil’,
How you can think that the preservation of all human life is not kind or compassionate is a mystery to me.Your interpretation of the quote as kind and compassionate does not make sense to me
Blood libel is a false accusation of the slaughter of innocents for ideological reasons, often ritualistic or superstitious. And that’s precisely what Stein did. And he will eventually have to account to God for it.Definition of libel. — A libel is public and malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, …
No question about it. He lied. There were no scientists pushing his family into the gas chambers. As you learned, Darwin denounced such things as evil, and later Darwinists showed that it was not workable even if it was not evil.Ben Stein is presenting a point of view. You may disagree with his point of view but it is a huge leap to say he purposefully and maliciously lied about things.
Sorry, vague accusations won’t work, either. You learned that Darwin and Darwinism gave no support to such things, and in fact rejected them. Stein knew this, or should have. The law doesn’t say “don’t commit false witness unless you don’t know for sure.”Even during this discussion we have unearthed enough information on the eugenics movement to see that there is some reason to believe that it came out of the influence that Darwin’s theories had on social philosophies and on the scientific community of that time period…
I cannot think of any human beings of whom I would withhold the title “person.” However, I can think of human tissue from which I would withhold it, such as teratomas. But teratomas and parasitic twins present us with a big penumbra of personhood. Is a parasitic twin a potential person who will never enjoy conscious personhood except eschatologically? Possibly. Is a tetatoma – that is merely a mass of unorganized tissue such as skin, hair, teeth – a person? Probably not. What is the staus of the 50% of all conceptions that end in natural and spontaneous abortion because the genetic status of the conceptus is so disorganized as render its development to personhood impossible? Are all these failed persons who will enjoy heaven eschatolgoically? Interesting questions, these!I am glad you added the "potentially possessed of these qualities. I have to think about the definitions. I can see the difference you are making between human …would you be saying some humans are not persons though? I can see that the definition of ‘persons’ goes beyond humans.
I’m working on this one, The Barbarian. The problem is too literal an adherence to an philosophical position of “all-humans-and-only-humans-have-immortal-souls.” Biologically that simply doesn’t wash any more with what we know of genetics and embryology. In the cases of both “two bodies and one head” and “two heads and one body” we begin with two conceptions that later fused. So if the soul comes with conception, we’ve got two persons. But then every conception that gets washed out with miscarriage – up to 50% – is a person, and we have billions upon billions of persons who have never lived more than a few hours or days. Maybe we could live with that theologically, but then why only humans?Petrus, perhaps you have read Stephen Gould’s musings on personhood, and how to decide in the case of various sorts of abnormal human births.
He cites cases of two conjoined bodies with one head, vs. two heads and shoulders on one body. It seems we would generally say the one with two heads was two people, but would have difficulty with the other. But this is merely because there are two functioning brains. And the soul is not, according to the Church, a mere epiphenomenon of the nervous system.
If you have some better theological insight on this, I’d be pleased to hear it.
Could you direct me to some reading on the problem? It seems to me a crucial theological question; one for which we should have a reasonable answer.I’m working on this one, The Barbarian. The problem is too literal an adherence to an philosophical position of “all-humans-and-only-humans-have-immortal-souls.” Biologically that simply doesn’t wash any more with what we know of genetics and embryology. In the cases of both “two bodies and one head” and “two heads and one body” we begin with two conceptions that later fused. So if the soul comes with conception, we’ve got two persons. But then every conception that gets washed out with miscarriage – up to 50% – is a person, and we have billions upon billions of persons who have never lived more than a few hours or days. Maybe we could live with that theologically, but then why only humans?
I’ll snoop around to see who’s written on it. I don’t have a theological problem with the evolution of soulishness, any more than I do with any evolutionary history of the human body. Then again, I’m not a dualist, but a Catholic psychosomatic unitarian (not to be confused with a Unitarian!)Could you direct me to some reading on the problem? It seems to me a crucial theological question; one for which we should have a reasonable answer.
I know a little about the Pianka hoax. You see, Pianka was giving a talk warning people that the ebola virus has the potential to kill off 90 percent of the world. He thinks it will, but does not think that is a good thing. Indeed, he called for efforts to stop it.
However, he then added something that he should have realized would be purposely misconstrued by those seeking publicity.
QUOTE]
Mary:
What about anyone thinking they might do the planet a favor with a little biological warfare? That is why his statements were and are
totally irresponsible and reprehensable.
Perhaps you feel the articles about Pianka were totally false. It seems to me they were corraborated by fellow scientists, even his supporters who agreed with what he was saying.They didn’t want outside people knowing about the speech to begin with, calling people outside the science community the ‘unconverted’. When I was at the Planned Parenthood 'Parent Education Meeting" they did the same thing, threw reporters out and turned off all video equipment in the room. I know they will do that.
I could also see from his website that he does hold those views about the world population and though he doesn’t advocate for letting ebols loose he would welcome it.
This from Pianka’s own website so judge for yourself:What nobody wants to hear, but everyone needs to know
by Eric R. Pianka
"I have two grandchildren and I want them to inherit a stable Earth. But I fear for them. Humans have overpopulated the Earth and in the process have created an ideal nutritional substrate on which bacteria and viruses (microbes) will grow and prosper. We are behaving like bacteria growing on an agar plate, flourishing until natural limits are reached or until another microbe colonizes and takes over, using them as their resource. In addition to our extremely high population density, we are social and mobile, exactly the conditions that favor growth and spread of pathogenic (disease-causing) microbes. I believe it is only a matter of time until microbes once again assert control over our population, since we are unwilling to control it ourselves. This idea has been espoused by ecologists for at least four decades and is nothing new. People just don’t want to hear it.
Population crashes caused by disease have happened many times in the past. In the 1330s bubonic plague killed one third of the people in Europe’s crowded cities. Smallpox and measles decimated Native Americans when Europeans transported them to the new world. HIV is a relatively new disease wreaking havoc in Africa and Asia. Another population crash is inevitable, but the next one will probably be world-wide.
People think unrealistically because they have lost touch with the natural world. Many people today do not really know where and how our food is produced, and on what our life support systems are based. As we continue paving over natural habitats, many think that we can disrupt and despoil the environment indefinitely. We have already taken half of this planet’s land surface. Per capita shares of all the things that really matter (air, food, soil, and water) are continuously falling. Our economic system is based on the principle of a chain letter: growth, growth, and more growth. Such runaway growth only expands a bubble that cannot be sustained in a finite world. We are running out of virtually everything from oil, food and land to clean air and water. "
…But we have a false sense of security if we think that science can respond quickly enough to minimize threats from emerging diseases. Microbes have such short lifecycles that they can evolve exceedingly fast, much faster than we can respond to them. Many bacteria have evolved resistance to most antibiotics, and viruses are resistant to just about anything. Defense always lags behind offense. …Many people believe that Earth and all its resources exist solely for human benefit and consumption, this is anthropocentrism. We should allow the millions of other denizens of this Earth some space to live – they evolved here just as we did and have a right to this planet, too.
I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us…"
uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/Everybody.html
I believe that says it all…perhaps he is not advocating letting ebola loose on purpose, but he is saying it would be better off for the planet if most of us died off. The guy even looks like Darwin, which is really scary. And if Darwin’s writing could be mis-interpreted byt others and used the wrong way, what could happen with this guys writings. As a scientist he is being totally irresponsible. He deserves the grief he received.
In Christ,
MaryJohnZ
I’ll snoop around to see who’s written on it. I don’t have a theological problem with the evolution of soulishness, any more than I do with any evolutionary history of the human body. Then again, I’m not a dualist, but a Catholic psychosomatic unitarian (not to be confused with a Unitarian!)
No. In fact, he said that he didn’t want it to happen. Mims added that to the story, later.What about anyone thinking they might do the planet a favor with a little biological warfare? That is why his statements were
Sorry, Pianka is the final authority as to what he thinks.Perhaps you feel the articles about Pianka were totally false.
C’mon Mary. You know he didn’t say that. He said it would be better if there were fewer humans. He didn’t say he wanted us to die. The truth matters. And right now, it doesn’t seem to matter much to you.I believe that says it all…perhaps he is not advocating letting ebola loose on purpose, but he is saying it would be better off for the planet if most of us died off.
Don’t see that.The guy even looks like Darwin,
The reason it is, is that you’ve made Darwin into your personal boogyman.which is really scary.
He’s not responsible for morons. Besides, the evidence is that Mims was malicious, not stupid.And if Darwin’s writing could be mis-interpreted byt others and used the wrong way, what could happen with this guys writings.
So because some creationist lied about what he said, he deserves death threats? :nope:He deserves the grief he received.