Can I stay Catholic and not believe in a literal Adam and Eve?

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I was just trying to put an example, it doesn’t matter what you put in.
The opinions of people don’t influence what is true and what is not.
 
I didn’t know there was another thread so I will make my reply brief.

Just try and do some research on the holes in evolution. I think you will find some interesting articles. Some things that led me away from evolution was the discovery of dinosaur tissue, that could stretch and still had blood on it. It is impossible for tissue to last millions of years. At most, it would last 10,000. That is just one of the many discrepancies I found.
 
misstherese said:
I should have said young earth. St. Augustine believes in a young earth, not necessarily a completely literal interpretation.
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That’s fine, but the assent to a scientific theory isn’t binding on Catholics… 😉
 
I don’t see what I said wrong. I was trying to say that down syndrome wasn’t frequent before (middle ages for example) compared to today. This is because there are more people and logically , more chances for genetics fail. ( Do please correct me if I am wrong, I don’t want to end up looking smug or something :confused: )
 
ErraticFaith said:
Genesis isn’t literal, unless you believe the contrary to be true.
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Hold on a second… that’s too broad a generalization. Do you mean “the creation accounts in Genesis aren’t literal”?

That might be true, but the Church doesn’t require you to believe or to reject these accounts as historically literal.
ErraticFaith said:
From my perspective no, you can’t consider yourself Catholic (or Christian, for that matter) if you don’t believe in a literal Adam and Eve. But since I seem to have a habit of offending every moderator on this board by using the Truth, I suppose I better say this is my opinion.
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LOL…!

A literal “first two truly human parents” or literal “Adam and Eve”? (After all, if you look at the Septuagint, you won’t find her called ‘Eve’ in the creation story… 😉 )
Original sin is integral to Jesus and his mission on earth.
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Precisely. 👍
 
I would like to add my own puzzlement to Adam and Eve and the Church. So, Christ brings the new Adam and Virgin Mary the new Eve. We don’t believe in reincarnation not even as restricted to human form only (Hinduism that claims returning on Earth passes through all species, so to believe one human can be reborn as human again is not entirely hindu).
Ok, so then what happened to the real Adam and the real Eve, our protoparents? What does the Church say? Where is this couple after Christ’s resurrection? Heaven or Hell? If they are in Heaven how come we don’t pray for their intercession?
 
More complicated that the incarnation - the most central doctrine of the Christian Gospel?
 
Adam and Eve are in heaven and we do pray for their intercession. There are some 10 000 formally recognized saints… the average Catholic doesn’t invoke all 10 000!
Adam and Eve died and went to Hades, the abode of the dead. When Christ died and descended to Hades he opened the gates to heaven as He rose and led the righteous dead, including our First Parents, to heaven. Their optional memorial is on December 24, one day before we celebrate the Second Adam’s birth.
 
I have seen more for than against but I will consider it ( Though I think most of it is fundamentalists with fake evidence which has happened before )
 
Ah, I didn’t know this. ☺️☺️☺️ Cool. I will pray to them this year. Ask them to give me knowledge about my doubts.
 
twf said:
More complicated that the incarnation - the most central doctrine of the Christian Gospel?
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Well the incernation had a purpose, if you believe in original sin that is.

Adam and Eve to be just randomly given a soul among the rest humans seems kinda purposeless.
 
Upon further inspection, the random soul giving might make more sense now, if we assume that God used evolution as a process to make humans fit for life, and then later distinguished them from animals when they were ready enough. Though it still seems a bit problematic to me, can’t tell why.
 
Check out “an Ancient Homily” for Holy Saturday. The author is unknown but we pray this text during the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday. It includes a dialogue between Christ and Adam in Hades.
 
Mary888 said:
I would like to add my own puzzlement to Adam and Eve and the Church. So, Christ brings the new Adam and Virgin Mary the new Eve.
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Correct. They aren’t literally “Adam and Eve” – that is, they aren’t the same persons – but they are spiritually a “New Adam” and a “New Eve”.
Ok, so then what happened to the real Adam and the real Eve, our protoparents? What does the Church say? Where is this couple after Christ’s resurrection? Heaven or Hell?
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We don’t know. God hasn’t revealed it, and the Church hasn’t defined it.
If they are in Heaven how come we don’t pray for their intercession?
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Because we don’t know for sure where they are. We hope that they are in heaven.
 
Now, I know Jews might say Adam was a spiritual Adam and not physical as in biological in the sense that we think of it at first.

I suppose it depends on how you mean literal.

The Church is really broad on the subject of Creation and you can believe a lot of different stuff about it.

I might think it’s more like Eden was a perfect abode, but human sin brought down all the world into what we have now, possibly including evolution. I don’t think that’s against the rules.

My point is, I think you need to believe in the first parents, but that doesn’t necessarily mean in a strictly biological sense, as long as you remain orthodox in terms of the human soul and original sin and all
 
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You didn’t say anything wrong. I was just emphasizing that science can only
attempt to understand the past by assuming the data we have today is
reflective of the past and that the patterns we see today can be extended
to the past. It’s the same problem that occurs when trying to predict the
future.
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DetectiveNiko
December 10

I don’t see what I said wrong. I was trying to say that down syndrome
wasn’t frequent before (middle ages for example) compared to today. This is
because there are more people and logically , more chances for genetics
fail. ( Do please correct me if I am wrong, I don’t want to end up looking
smug or something <
https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/p...atholic/images/emoji/twitter/confused.png?v=5>
)
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Mavzylor
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