Ben Stein: Science Leads to Killing People

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
And yes, finding evidence for evolutionary processes, but no design in nature, Darwin concluded that God created it by natural processes, not design. It’s very interesting that engineers are now learning to use evolutionary processes instead of design to solve very difficult problems. Darwin was right; God is much more capable than IDers are willing to let Him be.

Barbarian observes:
That was, as Darwin showed, faulty thinking. Homologies show that life proceeded not by a series of clever designs, but by gradual modification and reworking of existing features to new uses.

The Church teaches that there is providential design in nature.

If you use it as “intent.” However, it is a blasphemy to say that God figures things out, which is the IDer meaning of “design.”

No, it just means that God’s creative genius is greater than IDers like. A few simple rules (or maybe just one) produced all the things we see in the world today. No design, but something much greater and more powerful than design.

That is not what the Church teaches. God is personally involved in the creation and development of creatures.

The church teaches that God is the Creator, not the “designer.”

Barbarian on demoting God from Creator to designer::
Because it demeans and trivializes God’s creation. It is something much, much above that.

Natural selection demeans and trivializes God,because it renders him uninvolved in the processes of nature.

By now, you know better than that. As the Pope says, natural selection is also used by God to His purposes.

It reduces God to the level of a first cause who left nature to function on its own.

No. God is intimately involved with every aspect of nature. You’ve slipped off into deism now.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

Mary:
Well I guess the Pope’s book discussing evolution is available in English translation from Ignatious Press…here is what this reviewer writes about the content:

“An English translation of Pope Benedict’s 2006 discussion of evolution with his former students has finally come out and I recommend it to anyone who’s confused about where the Roman Catholic Church stands on this issue. It’s called Creation and Evolution and is publised by Ignatius Press in the U.S. The discussion was held in German and the original text, Schöpfung und Evolution, appeared in April 2007.”
…

" Benedict said science was too narrow to explain creation, which was not random as Darwinists insist, but has a rationality that goes back to God. He argued this on philosophical and theological grounds, not on the faith arguments that creationists use (”the Bible says so”) or the biology-based examples that ID prefers to argue that some life forms are too complex to have evolved.

This is classic Catholic teaching and it’s called theistic evolution. Benedict is not alone in advocating it either — it is accepted by most mainline Protestant churches as well. Francis Collins, the U.S. geneticist who will soon step down as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, advocated this view in his 2006 book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Sam Harris, the best-selling neo-atheist author of The End of Faith, predictably trashed it in a scathing review. But it did have a seven-week run on the New York Times bestseller list, which must mean it speaks to quite a few people."
blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/06/17/pope-benedicts-evolution-book-finally-comes-out-in-english/

So that doesn’t sound like natural selection does it?

Theistic evolution:“Theistic evolutionists argue that it is inappropriate to use Genesis as a scientific text, since it was written in a pre-scientific age and originally intended for religious instruction; as such, seemingly chronological aspects of the creation accounts should be thought of in terms of a literary framework. Theistic evolutionists may believe that creation is not literally a week long process but a process beginning in the time of Genesis and continuing through all of time, including today. This view affirms that God created the world and was the primary causation of our being, while scientific changes such as evolution are part of “creatia continua” or continuing creation which is still occurring in the never ending process of creation. Changes such as these caused by science are part of a secondary causation that changes us within the framework of the world God has created with primary causation.[clarify(incoherent)] This is one possible way of interpreting biblical scriptures, such as Genesis, that seem to be in opposition to scientific theories, such as evolution.”[4]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution

In Christ, maryJohnZ

 

[The_Barbarian]

Well I guess the Pope’s book discussing evolution is available in English translation from Ignatious Press…here is what this reviewer writes about the content:

Benedict said science was too narrow to explain creation, which was not random as Darwinists insist,

One hopes not. Darwin’s discovery was that it wasn’t random. But since we are just getting someone’s hearsay about it, it’s hard to say. My guess is that it doesn’t say what this guy thinks it does. The Pope seems to be more scientifically astute that that.

So that doesn’t sound like natural selection does it?

Natural selection isn’t random, that’s for sure. It is not clear from his statements whether Pope Benedict knows this or not, but since he has said both necessity and contingency are part of God’s purposes in the world, it really doesn’t matter.

 

[anthony022071]

[The Barbarian]

One hopes not. Darwin’s discovery was that it wasn’t random.

But Neo-Darwinians do believe in radom variation.

Natural selection isn’t random, that’s for sure. It is not clear from his statements whether Pope Benedict knows this or not, but since he has said both necessity and contingency are part of God’s purposes in the world, it really doesn’t matter.

The pope said this:
“In freely willing to create and conserve the universe, God wills to activate and to sustain in act all those secondary causes whose activity contributes to the unfolding of the natural order which he intends to produce. Through the activity of natural causes, God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation.”

And he said:
“Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided.”

So naturalistic ideas of selection and contingency are out of the question.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
One hopes not. Darwin’s discovery was that it wasn’t random.

But Neo-Darwinians do believe in radom variation.

So does the Pope. But random variation plus natural selection gives nonrandom results.

Barbarian observes:
Natural selection isn’t random, that’s for sure. It is not clear from his statements whether Pope Benedict knows this or not, but since he has said both necessity and contingency are part of God’s purposes in the world, it really doesn’t matter.

The pope said this:

“But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1).”

So naturalistic ideas of selection and contingency are out of the question.

Not if you accept what the Pope says. Obviously, he and St. Thomas Aquinas disagree with you. Only if a theory explicitly denies divine providence does it become objectionable to Catholics.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

I suppose the source for this article willtioned, but the gist of it is that hadr core Darwinists, like Dawkins are anti-Catholic in the way they explain and exopress darwinian evolution. So it seems their is a difference of opinion in the Darwin camp over what darwin meant.

Since Barabarian, you are saying that Darwin is not about chance and random development, that does not jive with this stat ment by Dawkins:

" As arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins puts it, “the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” Dawkins is said to be Britain’s number one public intellectual, and he regularly attacks the Vardy schools."

That seems to say that natural selection is a blind, random process, does it not?

The fact that this view of Darwin is contrary to the view of evolution as expressed by John Paul II seems clear in Dawkins
strong reactions and statements against the Pope:…"…note that Dawkins has described John Paul II’s views as “fundamentally” antievolutionary, and as “obscurantist, disingenuous doublethink.” Hardly what you’d expect if John Paul II were smoothing the path for Dawkins and other Darwinists."

John {Paul II said these two things:

" It is therefore clear that the truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy, which view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity. "(1986) John Paul II

(Does Darwin’s theory allow for anything other than chance or necessity? Show me where…)

• … theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person." John paul II(1996)

Isn’t that exactly what Darwin said about how the mind, conscience and rational nature of man developed from matter and animals through natural processes. And Barbarian, did you not say that you thought animals could develop a conscience like man’s if they evolved further… isn’t that using only natural process to explain something which is much deeper.

source for quotes:

arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2005/07/16/roman_catholic_church_helpingto_sink_dar

A postscript thought: Christ warned us to be wary of those that would bring death to the soul, and i had never thought ot it before because I usually think of that statement in terms of sin bringing death to the soul, but philosophically doesn’t Darwin ( or at least neo-Darwinisnts like Dawkins) do just that when they only talk about the human person from a materialistic point of view.

In Christ, maryJohnZ

 

[The_Barbarian]

I suppose the source for this article willtioned, but the gist of it is that hadr core Darwinists, like Dawkins

Dawkins does some creditable science, but he is obviously very antireligion. His views on religion are not shared by most scientists.

Since Barabarian, you are saying that Darwin is not about
chance and random development,

I said that Darwin discovered it was not random. Selective pressures determine the change in alleles to be found in any population.

that does not jive with this stat ment by Dawkins:

As arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins puts it,…

That’s a statement by someone who doesn’t like Dawkins, editing Dawkins’ statements. But even if it’s an accurate view of his religious ideas, it has nothing to do with Darwin’s theory, or Stein’s blood libel against scientists. If you’re shocked that an atheist should interpret the universe to support his religious beliefs, I don’t know what to say about that.

That seems to say that natural selection is a blind, random process, does it not?

Natural selection is a blind process. But as you know, not a random one. As God says, “time and chance happens to them all”, but that’s not where the smart money is. Darwin’s theory only says that evolution tends to increase fitness. Contingency is a fact always.

(shock expressed that a strong atheist would differ with the Pope)

Oh, my goodness!

** It is therefore clear that the truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy, which view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity. "(1986) John Paul II**

Indeed. The origin of the universe is beyond science, and science has nothing to say about it.

(Does Darwin’s theory allow for anything other than chance or necessity? Show me where…)

Natural selection. It says that in any population, those with alleles that make them tend to live long enough to survive, will tend to pass on their genes,and this accumulates over time. (modern version that includes genetic) This has been tested and confirmed.

theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person." John paul II(1996)

Indeed. They aren’t a mere epiphenomenon of matter, nor are humans mere animals. If God chose to make mind partially by natural means, why would that offend you?

Isn’t that exactly what Darwin said about how the mind,

No. He alluded, as you know, to spiritual powers beyond the ken of science.

And Barbarian, did you not say that you thought animals could develop a conscience like man’s if they evolved further…

No, but it’s not impossible. God did it once, after all. My dog, BTW, clearly expresses shame when found to have done something wrong. So that isn’t what makes us unique in God’s eyes.

isn’t that using only natural process to explain something which is much deeper.

Would have been, if he had done it. But as you know, he didn’t.

Your source, BTW, is a rather doctrinaire ID site, which is often openly hostile to science in general and Darwin in particular. If you want to find out about capitalism, it’s probably not a good idea to ask Fidel Castro.

A postscript thought: Christ warned us to be wary of those that would bring death to the soul, and i had never thought ot it before because I usually think of that statement in terms of sin bringing death to the soul, but philosophically doesn’t Darwin ( or at least neo-Darwinisnts like Dawkins) do just that when they only talk about the human person from a materialistic point of view.

Since (as you know) Darwin asserted a spiritual character to humans, that wouldn’t apply to him. For Dawkins, I think he merely thinks there is no such thing. You could ask Dawkins, and I see you already found the statement by Darwin that humans aren’t merely a materialistic phenomenon.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

( I eliminated some things becuase it is too tedious to go statement to statement and I am getting to the crux of the disaagreement, i hope, by doing so…)
Barbarian:
theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person." John paul II(1996)

Indeed. They aren’t a mere epiphenomenon of matter, nor are humans mere animals. If God chose to make mind partially by natural means, why would that offend you?
No. He alluded, as you know, to spiritual powers beyond the ken of science.
No, but it’s not impossible. God did it once, after all. My dog, BTW, clearly expresses shame when found to have done something wrong. So that isn’t what makes us unique in God’s eyes.
isn’t that using only natural process to explain something which is much deeper.
Would have been, if he had done it. But as you know, he didn’t.
Your source, BTW, is a rather doctrinaire ID site, which is often openly hostile to science in general and Darwin in particular. If you want to find out about capitalism, it’s probably not a good idea to ask Fidel Castro.

A postscript thought: Christ warned us to be wary of those that would bring death to the soul, and i had never thought ot it before because I usually think of that statement in terms of sin bringing death to the soul, but philosophically doesn’t Darwin ( or at least neo-Darwinisnts like Dawkins) do just that when they only talk about the human person from a materialistic point of view.

Since (as you know) Darwin asserted a spiritual character to humans, that wouldn’t apply to him. For Dawkins, I think he merely thinks there is no such thing. You could ask Dawkins, and I see you already found the statement by Darwin that humans aren’t merely a materialistic phenomenon.

---

MARY:
I cannot really agree completely that Darwin asserts the reality of a 'soul" at all. You say he does but then says science cannot talk about it. I say he asserts some scientists would put man in a separate category ( as the catholic Chruc does) from animals because of the nature of the human soul vs animal souls, but he then goes on to say he chooses to ‘shew’ that man’s mind can in aeveyway be explained as having evolved from animal traits. In doing this we are left feeling that there is nothing unique about the human person. We may even be led to think that a human soul is something aquired by only a few of the elite of mankind that somehow rise above their animal natures through education and philanthropy… This idea would fit in with the fact that he references Immanuel Kant who says the same thing essentially in philosophical terms…that enlightenment is earned in a sense, a something which is rational.

Now I am not very good at philosophy so perhaps I am misunderstanding what Kant is saying…but it seems he ‘morality’
the only knowable aspect of faith and everything else was a matter of speculation and could not be defined, just as Darwin said science could not talk about the soul and only wanted to talk about attaining higher social conscience or morality, that that he defined through natural process.

".In England the Agnostic School from Hamilton to Spencer drew its inspiration from the negative teaching of the “Critique of Pure Reason”. In France the Positivism of Comte and the neo-Criticism of Renouvier had a similar origin. Kant’s influence reached out beyond philosophy into various other departments of thought. In the history of the natural sciences his name is associated with that of Laplace, in the theory which accounts for the origin of the universe by a natural evolution from primitive cosmic nebula. In theology his non-dogmatic notion of religion influenced Ritschl, and his method of transforming dogmatic truth into moral inspiration finds an echo, to say the least, in the exegetical experiments of Renan and his followers.

Some philosophers and theologians have held that the objective data on which the Catholic religion is based are incapable of proof from speculative reason, but are demonstrable from practical reason, will, sentiment, or vital action. That this position is, however, dangerous, is proved by recent events. The Immanentist movement, the Vitalism of Blondel, the anti-Scholasticism of the “Annales de philosophie chretienne”, and other recent tendencies towards a non-intellectual apologetic of the Faith, have their roots in Kantism, and the condemnation they have received from ecclesiastical authority shows plainly that they have no clear title to be considered a substitute for the intellectualistic apologetic which has for its ground the realism of the Scholastics."
newadvent.org/cathen/08603a.htm

The fact that Darwin does not or refuses to talk about the soul, even though he mentions the 'Creator" in origens of Species, gives us a scientific approach that allows for the soul to be done away with. Thus anti-Catholic scientists like Dawkins have a leg to stand on.

If Darwin allowed for a soul he should have talked about it, at least given something that he saw in man that was different from animals…but he did not. And that has led to philosophies and approaches to science that do not fully recognize the dignity og man, as the Pope9s0 have talked about.

“Aristotelians and Thomists mean by the soul human thought, desire, and action that can’t be explained only or mainly by the enhancement of the prospects for the species’ survival. Arnhart, (a Darwinian) from their view, is at best ambivalent on the soul’s real existence. He generally contends that all human thought, desire, and action can be explained in terms of favoring those traits that enhance the flourishing of ours species. Even the soul itself is finally a “means” for the effective pursuit of the physical ends evolved nature has given members of our species. Today, the most obvious rejoinder to this “reductionistic” view isn’t found in the Great Books but all the evidence we have around us that human beings have the singular capability quite consciously to resist evolved nature’s pitiless, cruel, and impersonal intention for each of them.”

“Can Darwinian theory explain the rapid drop in birthrate–far below the rate of replacement–among sophisticated Americans and Western Europeans as a whole today? The Darwinian Hayek was not just wrong, he was way wrong, about the reproductive results of modern wealth, power, and freedom, about how members of our species living in the best environment ever would organize their lives. Human beings seem to be able to vote quite consciously against their replacements and for themselves. Part of our dignity and perversity is that we are able to act as individuals.”

findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0354/is_3_48/ai_n16727410

You can argue that Darwin said the human person has a soul but you can’t say that his writings did anything to uphold the dignity of the human person, body and soul, as being unique and separate from animals…

Name one thing Darwin saw in the human person that he did not see in animals?

In Christ, maryJohnZ

 

[AdvanceAlways]

Wow he really is off his rocker…wow…all I can say is wow…

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Indeed. They aren’t a mere epiphenomenon of matter, nor are humans mere animals. If God chose to make mind partially by natural means, why would that offend you?

No. He alluded, as you know, to spiritual powers beyond the ken of science.

No, but it’s not impossible. God did it once, after all. My dog, BTW, clearly expresses shame when found to have done something wrong. So that isn’t what makes us unique in God’s eyes.

isn’t that using only natural process to explain something which is much deeper.

In dogs, I don’t think it does Mary.

Barbarian observes:
Your source, BTW, is a rather doctrinaire ID site, which is often openly hostile to science in general and Darwin in particular. If you want to find out about capitalism, it’s probably not a good idea to ask Fidel Castro.

A postscript thought: Christ warned us to be wary of those that would bring death to the soul, and i had never thought ot it before because I usually think of that statement in terms of sin bringing death to the soul, but philosophically doesn’t Darwin ( or at least neo-Darwinisnts like Dawkins) do just that when they only talk about the human person from a materialistic point of view.

Barbarian observes:
Since (as you know) Darwin asserted a spiritual character to humans, that wouldn’t apply to him. For Dawkins, I think he merely thinks there is no such thing. You could ask Dawkins, and I see you already found the statement by Darwin that humans aren’t merely a materialistic phenomenon.

I cannot really agree completely that Darwin asserts the reality of a 'soul" at all. You say he does but then says science cannot talk about it.

So does the Pope. It’s a fact.

I say he asserts some scientists would put man in a separate category ( as the catholic Chruc does) from animals because of the nature of the human soul vs animal souls, but he then goes on to say he chooses to ‘shew’ that man’s mind can in aeveyway be explained as having evolved from animal traits.

Only if you redefine “mind” to exclude anything spiritual. Because, as you learned, he acknowledged man’s spirit to be outside the reach of science.

In doing this we are left feeling that there is nothing unique about the human person.

You don’t think man’s soul is unique?

We may even be led to think that a human soul is something aquired by only a few of the elite of mankind that somehow rise above their animal natures through education and philanthropy…

We know that’s false, because Darwin asserted that all men were entitled to life and liberty as opposed to all other animals which are not.

This idea would fit in with the fact that he references Immanuel Kant who says the same thing essentially in philosophical terms…that enlightenment is earned in a sense, a something which is rational.

Enlightenment is not a soul, which as you see, Darwin attributed to all humans.

(stuff about people who apparently didn’t agree with Darwin about humans having spiritual powers beyond the reach of science)

The fact that Darwin does not or refuses to talk about the soul, even though he mentions the 'Creator" in origens of Species, gives us a scientific approach that allows for the soul to be done away with.

So when I read a book, unless it talks extensively about God, the author doesn’t believe in souls? What a daffy idea. Since Darwin attributes creation of life to God, and attributes to humans a spiritual state not found in other animals, your argument is clearly wrong.

If Darwin allowed for a soul he should have talked about it, at least given something that he saw in man that was different from animals…

That’s what’s got you dancing around, trying to prove he didn’t. Darwin said that explicitly in the quote you offered.

You can argue that Darwin said the human person has a soul but you can’t say that his writings did anything to uphold the dignity of the human person, body and soul, as being unique and separate from animals…

Two things primarily. He asserted a spiritual aspect to humans that is not found in other animals, and he asserted an intrinsic right to life and liberty not found in other animals.

Name one thing Darwin saw in the human person that he did not see in animals?

That’s two things. Two really important things, including one that your guy Luther didn’t accept.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

In doing this we are left feeling that there is nothing unique about the human person.

You don’t think man’s soul is unique?

---

Barbarian, You know that is NOT what I meant. what I meant was that Darwin, by saying “Well, we can’t talk about the soul because you can not know it through the senses…” allowed for a view of the world that could interpret the soul from mechanistic means,* even if he himself did not mean that*…so now you have people interpreting everything about our personalities from inheritance and genetics and nothing beyond that. The world of grace, God and the Spirit become akin to myth down that road.
Now it might have been better for all of us if Darwin had acknowledge the science of Theology as the place to go to learn about the soul, but he did not even mention that! Perhaps an ommission that has left us gnawing as it were at the bare bones of materialism… And has reduced the definition of personhood to functionality more than Presence, the ability to be the living house for God in the world…

Barbarian observes:
Since (as you know) Darwin asserted a spiritual character to humans, that wouldn’t apply to him. For Dawkins, I think he merely thinks there is no such thing. You could ask Dawkins, and I see you already found the statement by Darwin that humans aren’t merely a materialistic phenomenon.

mary:
Well, I would hardly call it a statement to that end, he just says science cannot talk about the 'soul. Like Immanuel Kant who said the things of the spiritual realm were basically unknowable to the rational mind, and therefore created a cavern between the world of the Spirit and the world of the flesh…rather than forging a way to integrate the spirit and flesh. Now it seems scientists are just saying spirit and flesh are integrated and explainable through the flesh, and are not really acknowledging those situations and events which show God can intervene, can even infuse knowledge or bypass limitations of nature… thus making the reality of the soul and the Spiritual real equally as important as the reality of the flesh… I am sure I am not expressing this well, but I know that the secularist view of the human person does not allow for the immortality of the soul, and all that means…

barbarian asserts that Darwin argued:
Two things primarily. He asserted a spiritual aspect to humans that is not found in other animals, and he asserted an intrinsic right to life and liberty not found in other animals.

mary:
If he asserted a spiritual aspect to humans that made them different from animals why does he say humans are not different from animals enough to be in a different class, because humans are only different from animals in “degree”… Sounds like you are attributing something to darwin which he did not say when you say he said humans were different in their spiritual aspect.
Why do you think he said all humans had equal right to life and liberty? He said that “selection” was the energy that ran evolution and that 'selection" was based on some qualities being more desirable thatn others and that is hardly a basis for establishing equality.

"So what did Darwin say specifically about human biodiversity? In “The Descent of Man,” he wrote, “… the various races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each other – as in the texture of hair, the relative proportions of all parts of the body, the capacity of the lungs, the form and capacity of the skull, and even the convolutions of the brain. But it would be an endless task to specify the numerous points of difference. The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotions, but partly in their intellectual faculties. Everyone who has had the opportunity of comparison must have been struck by the contrast between the taciturn, even morose aborigines of South America and the light-hearted, talkative negroes.”

Darwin wouldn’t be surprised to learn which race had invented rap music.

The true nature of Darwinism is not merely an academic question. For we are moving, with alarming rapidity, from the Age of Darwin the Scientist to the Age of Galton the Inventor. Sir Francis Galton was Darwin’s even more ingenious half-cousin. (Their common grandparent was, not surprisingly, the brilliant Erasmus Darwin.) While Darwin was the hedgehog with one great idea, selection, Galton was the fox with innumerable notions large and small. Galton has as much claim as anybody to being the father of statistics, the dog whistle, fingerprinting, the systematic study of human variation, and the best way to cut a cake so it won’t go stale. Darwin, however, inspired Galton to devise one enormous idea glittering with promise and ominous with danger: eugenics. That’s the attempt to create a better human race by augmenting the slow and uncertain processes of natural and sexual selection with artificial selection.

Humans have always lusted for favoured genes for their future children. (Trust me on this one, because I know – I was turned down for a lot of dates.) Today, however, researchers are learning how to turbocharge evolution in laboratories all over the world."
isteve.com/Darwin-EnemiesonLeft.htm

mary:
So that brings us round circle…Darwin, eugenics, modern day science and the search for the perfect test tube baby, PP programs that target poor people, because being poor is probably
a trait that some people are genetically prone too, and that brings up that ugly letter to Blill Clinton asking him to OK RU 486 and
get it into the hands of PP so they could target poor people because our country would never go further as a society until everyone was middle class or more well offf, and then there is the whole thing with sperm banks of DNA from selected individuals, etc. etc…

All of that is hardly about all people being equally valuable and desirable and equally cherished.

So we come back to science and Galton and eugenics…

Whether ot not you can say it all came directly from Darwin, or maybe you can say it came indirectly from Darwin because of his sin of ommission, not really pointing to the higher science of Theology for giving the human person full worth and dignity.
He did not even acknowledge that higher science, only said the science he knew could not talk of the soul. The chasm he opened up, without providing the bridge to cross it (science of theology), left all of us without the defense that acknowledging those things could have left us with, that the soul can be studied as well…only in another forum, and with other means…

We can twist, turn, go down the same paths over and over, but we always come out to the same point, don’t we, eugenics, and a secular view point that have hurt all of us…

In Chrsit, maryJohnZ

 

[The_Barbarian]

In doing this we are left feeling that there is nothing unique about the human person.

Barbarian asks:
You don’t think man’s soul is unique?

Barbarian, You know that is NOT what I meant.

Perhaps not. But that’s what you said. If you think Darwin’s attribution of a spirtitual dimension to man that is lacking in animals does not say there is something unique about humans, I’d have to say you were completely off base.

what I meant was that Darwin, by saying “Well, we can’t talk about the soul because you can not know it through the senses…” allowed for a view of the world that could interpret the soul from mechanistic means

No, that’s saying we can’t interpret it from mechanistic means.

Barbarian observes:
Two things primarily. He asserted a spiritual aspect to humans that is not found in other animals, and he asserted an intrinsic right to life and liberty not found in other animals.

If he asserted a spiritual aspect to humans that made them different from animals why does he say humans are not different from animals enough to be in a different class, because humans are only different from animals in “degree”…

Because our physical selves are animals. We are not merely animals, however. As Darwin said, we have a spiritual side that other animals do not.

Sounds like you are attributing something to darwin which he did not say when you say he said humans were different in their spiritual aspect.

That’s what he said, Mary. You don’t want to accept that he said
it, but he did.

Why do you think he said all humans had equal right to life and liberty?

Probably because he knew humans had a spiritual aspect that other animals did not.

He said that “selection” was the energy that ran evolution and that 'selection" was based on some qualities being more desirable thatn others and that is hardly a basis for establishing equality.

Right. Darwin’s notion that all humans were entitled to life and liberty was based in that spiritual side, not in their individual abilities. In this respect, he is in close agreement with Abraham Lincoln, who said the same thing.

Darwin wouldn’t be surprised to learn which race had invented rap music.

Probably not. But he still thought they were entitled to life and freedom. Precisely because he didn’t think mere ability was the basis for human dignity.

**The true nature of Darwinism is not merely an academic question. For we are moving, with alarming rapidity, from the Age of Darwin the Scientist to the Age of Galton the Inventor. **

Horsefeathers. Biology is the cutting edge of science these days. Even more than the digital revolution.

(other silly and unsupported stuff about Darwin and Galton)

So that brings us round circle…Darwin, eugenics, modern day science and the search for the perfect test tube baby, PP programs that target poor people, because being poor is probably a trait that some people are genetically prone too

As you know, Darwinists shot that one down a long time ago. And if you check, Darwinists like Stephen Gould were the most effective debunkers of the racist crud found in The Bell Curve.

(Various anti-Darwinian ideas expressed)

All of that is hardly about all people being equally valuable and desirable and equally cherished.

True. Which is why Darwin denounced such ideas, saying that it would be evil to even let the weak perish. And why Darwinians have been the most outspoken opponents of racism.

Whether ot not you can say it all came directly from Darwin,

We can say opposition to it came directly from Darwin and his followers. But your people often promoted it, Mary.

We can twist, turn, go down the same paths over and over, but we always come out to the same point, don’t we,

Yep. Stein blamed the Holocaust on the very people who most opposed it, and who destroyed any scientific justification for it. His excuses for the Nazis so angered Jews that the Anti-Defamation League publicly denounced him and his lies.

To get even with the people he hates, he trivialized the deaths of millions of people and made excuses for the people who did it.

And you’re supporting him, Mary. Can you face God and justify that?

 

[MaryJohnZ]

Yep. Stein blamed the Holocaust on the very people who most opposed it, and who destroyed any scientific justification for it. His excuses for the Nazis so angered Jews that the Anti-Defamation League publicly denounced him and his lies.

To get even with the people he hates, he trivialized the deaths of millions of people and made excuses for the people who did it.

And you’re supporting him, Mary. Can you face God and justify that?

---

Stein blamed the holocaust on Darwinian ethics that were part of the eugenics movement. You can argue if you wish whether those ethics would rightly come from what Darwin said or if Darwin’s ideas were twisted inorder to get to those ethics, but there are plenty of historical facts to show that the links are there…rightly or wrongly.

I want to point out that Darwin, by accepting the concepts of recapitulation and saying people and animals only differed in degree, not in traits, openned the door to a view of the human person which was not akin to the former traditional view which said man was the crown of creation, a view that John Paul the II wrote about and spoke about often. After looking at the huge number of quotes from John Paul II on this subject, and concerning the book of Genesis, I am struck with how much this holy man was concerned with how the human person and human nature was being wrongly defined by the present world view, and during this discussion I have come more to the conclusion that much of that view comes out of a scientific tendency to explain all things from a materialistic view only.

I would say John Paul II was working hard during his Papacy to try to re-establish the idea that the human person has a worth that is immeasurable and is linked to the Divine image that marks mankind, and flows from the Maker, to the point that the Son of God, Himself, became incarnate taking on the form of the human person…

But does Darwin really say all men are equal and each person is as equally worthy of life as every other person?

These are his words from Descent of Man, Chapter 5, where he considers how civilizations can progress or regress by the nature of the people making up that civilization:

"If the various checks specified in the two last paragraphs, and perhaps others as yet unknown, do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde, as has too often occurred in the history of the world. We must remember that progress is no invariable rule. It is very difficult to say why one civilised nation rises, becomes more powerful, and spreads more widely, than another; or why the same nation progresses more quickly at one time than at another. We can only say that it depends on an increase in the actual number of the population, on the number of men endowed with high intellectual and moral faculties, as well as on their standard of excellence. "

ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL FACULTIES. DURING PRIMEVAL AND CIVILISED TIMES.
human-nature.com/darwin/descent/chap5.htm

I don’t think that is really saying he felt all men equal.

He talks about the development of conscience as a by-product of the desire to be held in esteem by other people. This is part of the social conscience that man develops, and is not defined in any other way."We may therefore conclude that primeval man, at a very remote period, was influenced by the praise and blame of his fellows. It is obvious, that the members of the same tribe would approve of conduct which appeared to them to be for the general good, and would reprobate that which appeared evil. To do good unto others- to do unto others as ye would they should do unto you- is the foundation-stone of morality. It is, therefore, hardly possible to exaggerate the importance during rude times of the love of praise and the dread of blame.

All Darwin does is explain the human personality in terms of
social instincts and materialism. Darwin does not say the fact that man has a ‘soul’ is what differentiates man from animals, rather he says the greatest differenece between man and other anuimals is that he can be self reflective…
"A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives- of approving of some and disapproving of others; and the fact that man is the one being who certainly deserves this designation, is the greatest of all distinctions between him and the lower animals.

Notice that Darwin does not count the ability of man to reflect upon God and to be UNITED with God, as the highest ability of man…

Instead the final definition given to man by Darwin is just like the serpent in the Garden for we are told that man has become like a ‘god’ (a moral being) and that he, himself, is a the ‘moral being’ capable of approving of what is right or wrong in his own judgement. ( sounds like the old fruit offered by the serpent to me)

No wonder John Paul II wanted to stress man as the crown of creation and the image of God,…everything he wrote on creation and Genesis up to the Theology of the Body was aimed at stressing how much the physical and spiritual nature of man made him different from any other animal. John Paul the Ii and the church has tried to draw us upward to our higher calling while darwin and science leaves us in the dust.

from Genesis:

"Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

if we follow Darwin we end up back with the fuit of the serpent, if we follow the Church and John Paul II we find man as the image of God and the higher calling. Ben Stein is right to say Darwinian ethic has led to death.

I just cannot see how it leads anywhere else…

In Chrsit, maryJohnZ

 

[The_Barbarian]

Stein blamed the holocaust on Darwinian ethics that were part of the eugenics movement.

As you know, Darwin condemned such ideas, and Darwinians later showed them to be scientifically invalid. One of Stein’s more egregious lies was to pretend that these ideas came from Darwin. As you also learned, most of Hitler’s ideas came from Martin Luther, who advocated a large part of what became the “Final Solution.”

You can argue if you wish whether those ethics would rightly come from what Darwin said or if Darwin’s ideas were twisted inorder to get to those ethics, but there are plenty of historical facts to show that the links are there…rightly or wrongly.

That was another of his lies. You know this. Why repeat them here? In fact, Hitler already had the plan for the Holocaust in Luther’s rant and proposed program against the Jews.

I want to point out that Darwin, by accepting the concepts of recapitulation and saying people and animals only differed in degree, not in traits,

Your own Darwin quote showed that he asserted an essential difference between humans and other animals. Everyone saw it, Mary.

But does Darwin really say all men are equal and each person is as equally worthy of life as every other person?

Yes. Like Lincoln, he thought some groups of people were more intelligent and capable than others, but also like Lincoln, he thought that this had nothing to do with a person’s intrinsic worth.

So do I. The least of us, is as precious to God as the best of us.

I don’t think that is really saying he felt all men equal.

It would be absurd to assert that all men were equal in ability. It is perfectly rational to assert, as Darwin did, that all men were equal in having rights to life and liberty.

Darwin does not say the fact that man has a ‘soul’ is what differentiates man from animals, rather he says the greatest differenece between man and other anuimals is that he can be self reflective…

Your own quote from Darwin shows that he recognized a spiritual aspect to man that distinguished him from other animals. That seems like an important difference to me.

Instead the final definition given to man by Darwin is just like the serpent in the Garden for we are told that man has become like a ‘god’ (a moral being) and that he, himself, is a the ‘moral being’ capable of approving of what is right or wrong in his own judgement. ( sounds like the old fruit offered by the serpent to me)

The serpent, in a remarkably perceptive passage, deceived by telling the truth. God later confirms that what the serpent said was literally true:

Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil

Ben Stein is right to say Darwinian ethic has led to death.

As you learned, ignoring the Darwinian ethic led to the Holocaust. Stein will have much to explain when he stands before his Maker. Darwin said that to even allow the least of humans to die was an overwhelming evil. The Nazis and others Stein is making excuses for, murdered many people they considered “defective.” Darwinians showed that classical eugenics had no scientific validity. If Hitler and other rightwing politicians in America had heeded these findings, many would not have been sterilized.

By attacking Darwin and his followers, you are justifying the culture of death, Mary.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

Your own quote from Darwin shows that he recognized a spiritual aspect to man that distinguished him from other animals. That seems like an important difference to me.

Mary:Quote:
Instead the final definition given to man by Darwin is just like the serpent in the Garden for we are told that man has become like a ‘god’ (a moral being) and that he, himself, is a the ‘moral being’ capable of approving of what is right or wrong in his own judgement. ( sounds like the old fruit offered by the serpent to me)
Barbarian:
The serpent, in a remarkably perceptive passage, deceived by telling the truth. God later confirms that what the serpent said was literally true:

Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil

WOAH…now let’s just stop right here. This seems to be a key point in difference between a Catholic view of man and what a Darwinian view leads to. it also seems to be interesting to me that you are so easily willing to say that this passage from Genesis is God agreeing that Adam, through ‘knowledge’ becomes like ‘god’, fully capable of knowing good from evil.
That seems to me to be a bit of idolatry aimed at ‘knowledge’ for one thing, something which lines up with Kant who viewed the rational mind and its ability to practice ‘morality’ as being the only
redeeming path for mankind. Similarily Darwin shows that the human conscience is formed by social pressures, experiences, ability to reflect leading more and more to a type of enlightened being from the animal state. Your immediate response to Genesis 3:22 is that God is merely confirming that what Satan told man is true, he is now ‘like’ one of us, knowing good from evil.

I looked up this passage from Genesis which seems to confer on man an exulted status only to find that most commentaries on this passage assess it from the point of view that God is speaking
not in confirmation of a truth but rather to confirm what Adam and Eve already know, that they are not at all like God. There decision to follow the ‘voice’ and ‘message’ of the temptor in the garden has led their eyes to be open to see how far from being gods they really are. Their sin of disobedience, of trusting in their own counsel over the counsel they had received not to eat the fruit
has brought about a desire to ‘hide’ and ‘shame’. The glory they had formerly enjoyed in their innocence was now stripped from them.

Interestingly, Paul resounds this theme in his own writings when he warns against false preachers who would misinterpret the bible and scripture and declare that they, themselves, separate from the Church, can interpret infallibly because they have God’s Spirit and in their pride believe that means they have the right to declare the meaning of scripture, a right only given to the Pope and the Magesterium under the Pope.This was part of the Protestant reformation as we all know: individual interpretation of the bible. it is the same fruit, that all can eat and know what is right and wrong on an equal basis.

In Eve’s willingness to listen to the serpent we see the beginning of a sin, for Eve is accepting a message from a creature that has a ‘different message’, a “new gospel”. (see 2Corinthians 11:2,3) “…as the serpent seduced Eve by his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted, and fall from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh, preacheth another Christ, whom we have not preached; or if you receive another Spirit, whom you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not received; you might well bear with him.) And the serpent said to the woman“ No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day so ever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 2:4,5

The serpent is “preaching” another gospel to Eve. He is offering her another “spirit”, and it is a spirit that will bring division and death when Adam also accepts that false gospel.

Interestingly the wikipedia article on tyhe “tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” says that the name can sometimes be interpreted as the 'Tree of Conscience". ".In the Book of Genesis, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (and occasionally translated as the Tree of Conscience, Hebrew: עֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע, Etz haDaat tov V’ra) was a tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9) from which God directly forbade Adam (Eve having not yet been created) to eat (Genesis 2:17). A serpent later tempted Eve, who was aware of the prohibition, to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (Genesis 3:1-6

So with each individual as the arbitrara of conscience rather than the universal Word of God we end up with people willing to say
some social policies like Genocide or abortion or euthanasia are actually ‘good’, and justify those evils according to their individual rational minds rather than being humble enough to submit to the moral authority God established on earth. From one evil comes many eviles…it happened in the Garden of Eden and it still happens today.

Darwin represents another Gospel, another view of the human person which is incompatible with Catholic teaching and universal truth. First it tears man away from his being created in the Divine image by saying even his morals and conscience are only matters of evolving animal attributes and then it places man on a false throne saying iman is above animals based on man’s ability to ‘know’ right and wrong in their individual conscience through aquired knowldge. But we all know that true Knowldge and Wisdom come only from God’s Holy Spirit through living a life of worship, prayer and obedience to God’s Law.

I looked up the concept of ‘apple’ in the Jewish encyclipedia since it is a concept that is related to the idea of the first sin (although i know the specific fruit is not mentioned in Genesis), and found this interesting commentary:
“Why has God been likened to the apple-tree? Just as the apple offers its beauty to the eye without any cost, and has a delicious taste and perfume, so God’s law (His mouth) is most sweet. He is altogether lovely.”

Since science cannot talk of God,or God;s Law then why does Darwin talk about morality to begin with, if not to tear it from the root of God’s tree. perhaps that is the crux of the matter, science has tried to say it can’t talk about some things and then justified talking about those same things under the guise of natural causes. Secular Progressives fo this all the time by saying they can’t talk about morality or religion and then setting that up as religion: the individual conscience.

In Christ, MaryJohnZ

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
The serpent, in a remarkably perceptive passage, deceived by telling the truth. God later confirms that what the serpent said was literally true:

Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil

WOAH…now let’s just stop right here. This seems to be a key point in difference between a Catholic view of man and what a Darwinian view leads to. it also seems to be interesting to me that you are so easily willing to say that this passage from Genesis is God agreeing that Adam, through ‘knowledge’ becomes like ‘god’, fully capable of knowing good from evil.

That’s what God says. Very plainly.

That seems to me to be a bit of idolatry aimed at ‘knowledge’ for one thing,

God cannot be guilty of idolatry, Mary.

Your immediate response to Genesis 3:22 is that God is merely confirming that what Satan told man is true, he is now ‘like’ one of us, knowing good from evil.

That’s what God says.

I looked up this passage from Genesis which seems to confer on man an exulted status only to find that most commentaries on this passage assess it from the point of view that God is speaking
not in confirmation of a truth but rather to confirm what Adam and Eve already know, that they are not at all like God.

How do you construe these words of God:

Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil

To mean “Adam is not at all like us?”

And the serpent said to the woman“ No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day so ever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 2:4,5

And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons.
Genesis 3:6,7

The serpent is “preaching” another gospel to Eve. He is offering her another “spirit”, and it is a spirit that will bring division and death when Adam also accepts that false gospel.

Yep. He misled them by telling them half the truth. Before the Fall, they were innocent as animals, not knowing good and evil. After they ate, they were moral beings, knowing good and evil, but being weak, were unable to be truly good. So they were in the most miserable of circumstances, being like God in knowing good and evil, but unable to be good, and therefore were shut off from fellowship with Him.

That is the purpose of Jesus, and His death and resurrection.

Darwin represents another Gospel, another view of the human person which is incompatible with Catholic teaching and universal truth.

I notice that Cardinal Scheonborn has in his recent “clarification”, made clear that this is not the case. Darwin’s assertion of a spiritual dimension to humans that makes them different is entirely compatible with Catholic doctrine.

Since science cannot talk of God,or God;s Law then why does Darwin talk about morality to begin with, if not to tear it from the root of God’s tree.

One can speak of morals without speaking of God. If God used nature to give us our natural morality, why does that offend you?

**Unlike the things of the mere material world he can vary his action, act, or abstain from action, as he pleases. Yet he is not a lawless being in an ordered universe. In the very constitution of his nature, he too has a law laid down for him, reflecting that ordination and direction of all things, which is the eternal law. The rule, then, which God has prescribed for our conduct, is found in our nature itself. **
Catholic Encyclopedia

It’s called “natural law” for a reason. We cannot be invincibly ignorant of natural law, because it is given to us in our very constitution.

perhaps that is the crux of the matter, science has tried to say it can’t talk about some things and then justified talking about those same things under the guise of natural causes.

Turns out that much of our nature is natural. That part, we can talk about. But as Pope John Paul II wrote, man’s mind is not a mere epiphenomenon of matter. It has a spiritual dimension that science can’t approach. Which, BTW, is also what Darwin said.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
The serpent, in a remarkably perceptive passage, deceived by telling the truth. God later confirms that what the serpent said was literally true:

Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil

WOAH…now let’s just stop right here. This seems to be a key point in difference between a Catholic view of man and what a Darwinian view leads to. it also seems to be interesting to me that you are so easily willing to say that this passage from Genesis is God agreeing that Adam, through ‘knowledge’ becomes like ‘god’, fully capable of knowing good from evil.

That’s what God says. Very plainly.

That seems to me to be a bit of idolatry aimed at ‘knowledge’ for one thing,

God cannot be guilty of idolatry, Mary.

Your immediate response to Genesis 3:22 is that God is merely confirming that what Satan told man is true, he is now ‘like’ one of us, knowing good from evil.

That’s what God says.

I looked up this passage from Genesis which seems to confer on man an exulted status only to find that most commentaries on this passage assess it from the point of view that God is speaking
not in confirmation of a truth but rather to confirm what Adam and Eve already know, that they are not at all like God.

How do you construe these words of God:

Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil

To mean “Adam is not at all like us?”

And the serpent said to the woman“ No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day so ever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 2:4,5

And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons.
Genesis 3:6,7

The serpent is “preaching” another gospel to Eve. He is offering her another “spirit”, and it is a spirit that will bring division and death when Adam also accepts that false gospel.

Yep. He misled them by telling them half the truth. Before the Fall, they were innocent as animals, not knowing good and evil. After they ate, they were moral beings, knowing good and evil, but being weak, were unable to be truly good. So they were in the most miserable of circumstances, being like God in knowing good and evil, but unable to be good, and therefore were shut off from fellowship with Him.

That is the purpose of Jesus, and His death and resurrection.

Darwin represents another Gospel, another view of the human person which is incompatible with Catholic teaching and universal truth.

I notice that Cardinal Scheonborn has in his recent “clarification”, made clear that this is not the case. Darwin’s assertion of a spiritual dimension to humans that makes them different is entirely compatible with Catholic doctrine.

Since science cannot talk of God,or God;s Law then why does Darwin talk about morality to begin with, if not to tear it from the root of God’s tree.

One can speak of morals without speaking of God. If God used nature to give us our natural morality, why does that offend you?

**Unlike the things of the mere material world he can vary his action, act, or abstain from action, as he pleases. Yet he is not a lawless being in an ordered universe. In the very constitution of his nature, he too has a law laid down for him, reflecting that ordination and direction of all things, which is the eternal law. The rule, then, which God has prescribed for our conduct, is found in our nature itself. **
Catholic Encyclopedia

It’s called “natural law” for a reason. We cannot be invincibly ignorant of natural law, because it is given to us in our very constitution.

perhaps that is the crux of the matter, science has tried to say it can’t talk about some things and then justified talking about those same things under the guise of natural causes.

Turns out that much of our nature is natural. That part, we can talk about and investigate in science. But as Pope John Paul II wrote, man’s mind is not a mere epiphenomenon of matter. It has a spiritual dimension that science can’t approach. Which, BTW, is also what Darwin said.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

"Unlike the things of the mere material world he can vary his action, act, or abstain from action, as he pleases. Yet he is not a lawless being in an ordered universe. In the very constitution of his nature, he too has a law laid down for him, reflecting that ordination and direction of all things, which is the eternal law. The rule, then, which God has prescribed for our conduct, is found in our nature itself. "
Catholic Encyclopedia

So then why are you against the idea of a “Design” to nature. The very quote you provide indicates the sense that the universed is “ordered”. You wrote in your posts to Anrthony that Darwin’s Theory was not based on a sense of 'Randomness", isn’t that exactly what the Intelligent Design is pointing out through observable phenomena.

“… The physical laws of the universe fall within very narrow ranges in order for life (or even matter) to exist, suggesting design (the evidence supporting this statement will be presented in part 2). If true, then the observational evidence actually leans toward the existence of God, contradicting strong atheism. The prospect of finding a naturalistic cause for the origin of the universe is bleak at best, since the laws of physics indicate that we will never be able escape the bounds of our universe to even attempt to look for the cause of the universe.”
godandscience.org/apologetics/atheismintro.html

As to the verse in Genesis which we were discussing,
mary said:
Darwin represents another Gospel, another view of the human person which is incompatible with Catholic teaching and universal truth.
Barbarians said:
I notice that Cardinal Scheonborn has in his recent “clarification”, made clear that this is not the case. Darwin’s assertion of a spiritual dimension to humans that makes them different is entirely compatible with Catholic doctrine.

Mary: I looked up articles on the internet about Schoeonbom’s 'clarification" and he says that the Church’s teachings are indeed compatible with evolution and even says Darwin’s work is valuable and yet also says that science cannot talk about things which are unobservable and immeasurable.
That does not preclude Intelligent Design as that is mainly about different patterns found in nature. Schoenbom did condemen 'neo-Darwinism, which is the stuff out of which the eugenics movement came is it not?
From this website:The Ignatius Press Blog
insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2005/10/cardinal_schoen.html

"). The Cardinal condemned “neo-Darwinism”, not evolution in general, in his New York Times piece. I figured that out by reading the piece. Yes, it was that simple.

2). More complicated is the Cardinal’s criticism of what he calls the “neo-Darwinian” attempt to “to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” This is what the fuss was mostly about among scientists.

3). Keeping it real and simple (even real simple): The Catholic Church still believes in God and still (gasp!) teaches that God created all things. This is, it is hard to deny, a form of Creationism.

4). There are a number of forms of “creationism,” but most folks in the MSM seem blissfully unaware of this fact, just as they seem to think that all Christians are Bible-thumping morons who flunked out of the third grade.

5). Intelligent Design is not synonymous with the belief in a literal 7-day creation, nor even with an ardent, evangelical Christianity. As one of its key proponents, William A. Dembski, writes in his book Intelligent Design (IVP, 1999): “Within biology, intelligent design is a theory of biological origins and development. Its fundamental claim is that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable. … Intelligent design properly formulated is a theory of information. Within such a theory, information becomes a reliable indicator of intelligent causation as well as a proper object for scientific investigation. Intelligent design thereby becomes a theory for detecting and measuring information, explaining its origin and tracing its flow. Intelligent design is therefore not the study of intelligent causes per se but of informational pathways induced by intelligent causes. As a result, intelligent design presupposes neither a creator nor miracles. Intelligent design is theologically minimalist.” (pp. 106-7; emphasis added).

Dembski, for the record, has a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also has degrees in theology and psychology. I’ll bet my Miles Davis collection and a case of Coke that he’s smarter than most journalists, who apparently never bother to read what proponents of Intelligent Design actually write: “Hey, why bother taking Christian scientists at their word when their critics can conveniently skew what they are saying?” Yeah, why bother?

6). As Dembski openly states, Intelligent Design is a theory. Darwinian evolution is a theory. But the first is almost always condemned as some form of Fundamentalist silliness, while the latter is touted as proven fact. Go figure.

---

If ‘knowledge’ is what makes us like God, then why be fearful of something like Intelligent design which can add to that knowledge. You have brought up the point that Intelligent Design has been used by some people with far out views about the origins of life, not even Christian vies, but I have also shown that Darwin can be used by people with far out views, extreme secular progressives, atheists and baby killers like Margaret Sangar and Planned Parenthood…so, all that shows is that we need to acknowledge the place of science as being subbordinate to the place of Theology, the Queen of Sciences.

I found this website interesting because it had an article on it that
pointing out the fallicy in atheism, in fundamental creationism, while maintaining evolution as a theory, it alos says ID has something to add. In the end the writer is trying to strike a balance
called 'Theistic Evolution. he points out that most people don’t know this view is available. it was the same one that benedict seems to be pointing to. And perhaps it can serve as a bridge between your Darwin vies and my feelings that Darwin lacks something that ID can give, a sway of linkinh science to theology.

here is an excerpt from the site:

"God’s gift of futurity to the physical world makes room for evolution by providing openness to change and self-organization. On the other hand, God’s eschatological future embodies an aim, namely, the harmony and benefit of all God’s creatures. Neither alpha nor omega belong to chance, even if much of what happens in between does.

In the meantime, we share a concern with ID, namely, the emergence of complex wholes. We are holists. According to holistic or emergentist thinking, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Evolutionary history has witnessed the emergence of living creatures, which as organisms constitute wholes that reorganize and give new meaning to the chemical parts that make them up. No organism can be reduced to its chemical components and retain its identity as a living creature.

We observe that new wholes transform past parts. Integration into new, more comprehensive unities preserve while renewing what came before. This holistic complexification process is nonlinear. Adding a new whole changes an entire situation in a significant way. The degree of transformative effect renders redemption possible. Can we learn something theologically here? By analogy, might we apply what we have observed as emergent holism to God’s eschatological promises? Might emergentist thinking cast new light on how we interpret the Bible?
counterbalance.org/

---

I liked the fact that he does show that Darwin has been used to prop up the ahteistic view of creation while not fully taking ID as a complete answer. He gives Darwin his due, and Barbarian, you would be happy to see he even seems to support your view that Darwin was merely agnostic, not fully atheistic… I invite you to read the article and perhaps we can find this as a mid-ground.
counterbalance.org/
I had not heard of 'Tehistic Evolution" before this discussion and I look forward to hearing more about it after Benedict’s book is circulated. Hopefully the secular progressive crowd won’t kill it…

In Christ, mary JohnZ

 

[MaryJohnZ]

I would also like to post the view of the creation of Adam from the Jewish Encyclopedia because I found ti very beautiful and It is important to recall how much Divine Love went into the creation of
Adam and Eve, our first parents. Thinking of them simply as primitive ape-like beings always seems to erase that sense of Love and Awe. So here it is from a more spiritual point of view:

"There are, however, two points of view regarding man’s nature presented in the two Biblical stories of man’s creation; and they are brought out more forcibly in the Haggadah, and still more so in the older Hellenistic literature. “Both worlds, heaven and earth, were to have a share in man’s creation; hence the host of angels were consulted by the Lord when He said, ‘Let us make man’” (Gen. i. 26, Gen. R. viii.). But the old haggadists loved especially to dwell on the glory of God’s first-created before his fall. He was “like one of the angels” (Slavonic Book of Enoch, xxx. 11; compare Christian Book of Adam, i. 10; also Papias in Gen. R. xxi.; Pirḳe R. El. xii.; Ex. R. xxxii.; Targ. Yer. Gen. iii. 22). “His body reached from earth to heaven [or from one end of the world to the other] before sin caused him to sink” (Ḥag. 12a, Sanh. 38b; compare also Philo, “Creation of the World,” ed. Mangey, i. 33, 47). “He was of extreme beauty and sunlike brightness” (B. B. 58a). “His skin was a bright garment, shining like his nails; when he sinned this brightness vanished, and he appeared naked” (Targ. Yer. Gen. iii. 7; Gen. R. xi.; Adam and Eve, xxxvii.). When God said: “Let us make man in our image,” the angels in heaven, filled with jealousy, said: “What is man that Thou thinkest of him? A creature full of falsehood, hatred, and strife!” But Love pleaded in his favor; and the Lord spoke: “Let truth spring forth from the earth!” (Gen. R. viii.; Midr. Teh. viii.). Far older, and blended with Babylonian mythology (Isa. xiv. 12), is the story preserved in Adam and Eve, the Slavonic Book of Enoch, xxxi. 3-6 (compare Bereshit Rabbati, ed. Epstein, p. 17; Pirḳe R. El. xiii.; Chronicle of Jerahmeel, xxii.; and Koran, sura ii. 34; xv. 30), according to which all the angels were commanded by Michael the archangel to pay homage to the image of God; whereupon all bowed before Adam except Satan, who, in punishment for his rebelliousness, was hurled from his heavenly heights to the depth of the abyss, while his vacant throne was reserved for Adam, to be given to him at the time of the future resurrection. Henceforth, Satan became the enemy of man, appearing to him in the guise of an angel of light to seduce him (compare II Cor. xi. 14). A somewhat modified midrashic legend (Gen. R. viii.) relates that the angels were so filled with wonder and awe at the sight of Adam, the image of God, that they wanted to pay homage to him and cry “Holy!” But the Lord caused sleep to fall upon him so that he lay like a corpse, and the Lord said: “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?” (Isa. ii. 22). Another version (Pirḳe R. El. xi.; Tan., Peḳude, 3) is that all other creatures, marveling at Adam’s greatness, prostrated themselves before him, taking him to be their creator; whereon he pointed upward to God, exclaiming: “The Lord reigneth, He is clothed with majesty!” (Ps. xciii. 1). Still, the Book of Wisdom (ii. 23, 24) seems to allude to the older legend when saying, “God created man for immortality, but through the envy of Satan death entered the world” (compare Josephus, “Ant.” i. 1, § 4; Ab. R. N. i.; Gen. R. xviii., where the serpent is represented as moved by jealousy).
jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=758&letter=A#1865

maybe science can’t talk about that, but I still feel that Darwin perhaps went too far when he talked about the creation of man’s conscience as being totally materialistic in nature. I think he was getting beyond science when he went in that direction… At the last Carmelite meeting I attended ( I am third order) the carmelite Priest said that we need to approach knowledge from a point of view which is ‘awe’ in order to grow and that the attitude of ‘curiousity’ is what leads to trouble.

In Christ, MaryJohnZ

 

[The_Barbarian]

(Barbarian observes the grandeur of God’s creation)

So then why are you against the idea of a “Design” to nature.

Because it is blasphemous to attributed imperfection to God. He is no mere demiurge who must figure things out. He is the Creator. As you have seen, His ways such as evolution are so much better than design that engineers have begun to copy evolutionary processes to solve problems that can’t be solved by design. It is an insult to God to demote Him to mere “designer.”

The very quote you provide indicates the sense that the universed is “ordered”. You wrote in your posts to Anrthony that Darwin’s Theory was not based on a sense of 'Randomness", isn’t that exactly what the Intelligent Design is pointing out through observable phenomena.

No. It’s bringing God down to a level that creationists are comfortable with. There’s a political aspect to it, also. Since the courts have repeatedly ruled out the possibility of creationism being taught in public schools, “intelligent design” was conceived as a way of sneaking God into schools in disguise. But to do that, they had to diminish Him severely in the process.

"… The physical laws of the universe fall within very narrow ranges in order for life (or even matter) to exist, suggesting design

No. Only creation. God did not figure out creation. He is God.

Darwin represents another Gospel, another view of the human person which is incompatible with Catholic teaching and universal truth.

Barbarians observes:
I notice that Cardinal Scheonborn has in his recent “clarification”, made clear that this is not the case. Darwin’s assertion of a spiritual dimension to humans that makes them different is entirely compatible with Catholic doctrine.

I looked up articles on the internet about Schoeonbom’s 'clarification" and he says that the Church’s teachings are indeed compatible with evolution and even says Darwin’s work is valuable and yet also says that science cannot talk about things which are unobservable and immeasurable.

Exactly what Darwin said. So much for “another Gospel.”

That does not preclude Intelligent Design as that is mainly about different patterns found in nature.

God rules out ID, because He plainly says He is the Creator.

Schoenbom did condemen 'neo-Darwinism,

Rather, he condemned any form that denies divine providence. If he did not, then he is at odds with the teaching of the Church.

which is the stuff out of which the eugenics movement came is it not?

As you learned earlier, the Darwinians convincingly debunked classical eugenics. So no, it’s not. Darwin himself condemned eugenic ideas.

"). The Cardinal condemned “neo-Darwinism”, not evolution in general, in his New York Times piece.

I hope not. If so, he is claiming genetics has nothing to do with evolution. That’s what neo-Darwinism is; the addition of genetics to Darwin’s theory. I doubt if the Cardinal is that ignorant.

Following the development, from about 1937 to 1950, of the modern evolutionary synthesis, now generally referred to as the synthetic view of evolution or the modern synthesis, the term neo-Darwinian has been used by some to refer to modern evolutionary theory.[5] However, such usage has been described as incorrect;[1][2] with Ernst Mayr writing in 1984:

"...the term neo-Darwinism for the synthetic theory is wrong, because the term neo-Darwinism was coined by Romanes in 1895 as a designation of Weismann's theory."'[6]

Despite this, publications such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica,[7][8] use this term to refer to current evolutionary theory. This term is also used in the scientific literature, with the academic publishers Blackwell Publishing referring to “neo-Darwinism as practised today”,[9] and some figures in the study of Evolution like Richard Dawkins[10] and Stephen Jay Gould,[11] using the term in their writings and lectures.
Wikipedia on Neo-Darwinism

The Catholic Church still believes in God and still (gasp!) teaches that God created all things. This is, it is hard to deny, a form of Creationism.

That is theism. “Creationism” in the accepted use, is that God created everything pretty much as it is today,and that evolution is false. Clearly the Cardinal is not a creationist.

Intelligent Design is not synonymous with the belief in a literal 7-day creation, nor even with an ardent, evangelical Christianity. As one of its key proponents, William A. Dembski,

An ardent fundmentalist, BTW.

writes in his book Intelligent Design (IVP, 1999): "Within biology, intelligent design is a theory of biological origins and development. Its fundamental claim is that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable. …

Unfortunately, Dembski’s hypothesis hit the wall when he was unable to make the “explanitory filter” work. He is proposing to explain a phenomenon that no one can show to exist.

Intelligent design properly formulated is a theory of information.

Unfortunately, information theory doesn’t support Dembski’s doctrines. For example, the Shannon equation clearly shows that new information arises spontaneously by mutation in a population. Would you like me to show you the numbers?

As a result, intelligent design presupposes neither a creator nor miracles. Intelligent design is theologically minimalist."

Well, let’s take a look. From the Discovery Institute (Dembski is a fellow of the Institute):

**Governing Goals

* To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.**

Wedge Document, supposedly “secret memo” From the Discovery Institute.

Unfortunately, some dimbulb sent it to Kinko’s (or equivalent) to be copied, with a large “Secret” tag on it. Of course someone made a copy for himself, and the cat was out of the bag.

I’ll bet my Miles Davis collection and a case of Coke that he’s smarter than most journalists,

I don’t think so. He was dumb enough to turn on the one guy protecting him from the faculty at Baylor University, when they wanted to distance themselves from his plans to establish an ID center there. He would have been OK if he could have just kept his mouth shut. As a result, his plans came to nothing. Not such a bright guy, um?

Intelligent Design is a theory.

Theories must be testable. And there’s no test for God. Indeed, it would be blasphemous to devise such a test.

Darwinian evolution is a theory.

In the scientific sense; a well-tested idea or body of ideas, supported by evidence. Everything ID is not.

But the first is almost always condemned as some form of Fundamentalist silliness, while the latter is touted as proven fact. Go figure.

Indeed.

If ‘knowledge’ is what makes us like God, then why be fearful of something like Intelligent design which can add to that knowledge. You have brought up the point that Intelligent Design has been used by some people with far out views about the origins of life, not even Christian vies,

In fact, it’s the official doctrine of the Moonies.

but I have also shown that Darwin can be used by people with far out views, extreme secular progressives, atheists and baby killers like Margaret Sangar and Planned Parenthood…so

,

You tried, but as you know, Darwinians debunked classical eugenics. Your argument remains false, however many times you try it.

ID is the sworn enemy of theistic evolution. Theistic evolution is a religious belief, that God used evolution to create the diversity of life. Kenneth Miller, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Francisco Ayala are theistic evolutionists.

These are the enemies for Dembski and Wells. Indeed, Jonathan Wells believes he has a mission from God (Rev. Myung Moon, who considers himself an improvement on Jesus) to “destroy evolution.” These are the founders of ID, and remain as Senior Fellows of the Discovery Institute.

Theistic evolution is precisely what they hate with a passion. There can be no compromise for them, because evolution and the Catholic conception of creation is the enemy.