Can science prove the world is over 4 billion yrs. old?

[HOLY_POOH_FAN]

Genesis has a theology of CEATION! Its account is clear that there is ONE GOD,He made all of this and it is GOOD. The Hebrew People came from BABYLON and brought their creation and conflict and other stories with them. They were also sujrronded by other peoples who saw the world as evil, a bad god made it to spite a good god, and there were multiple gods. Genesis corrects and teaches all that. It does so with science that iis inaccurate today, plants which need photosynthesis growing before the Sun is created etc but its essential theology is intact. That is all its authors and GOD cared about.

 

[Dan_Daly]

It does so with science that iis inaccurate today, plants which need photosynthesis growing before the Sun is created etc

The “accurate” science of today teaches that man evolved from hydrogen gas. Nothing problematic there I guess.

I don’t mean to be too sarcastic, but I do mean to make my point. Folks point at Genesis and say that they can’t believe it because it requires too much faith and doesn’t all make sense.

Well guess what- evolutionary theory, the big bang, etc- they all require lots of faith as well and don’t make sense.

I think most people have a hard time with Genesis, not because the scientific problems are any greater than the big bang theory- because they are not. Most people simply have a hard time, because it is a minority view, and people don’t like being unpopular.

Pax.

 

[HOLY_POOH_FAN]

Thanks for the citations from Pope Pius X11 dan Daly. You will notice that he uses cautious language. Biblical scholarship was developed to a certain point in 1947 and has moved on since. There were 20 K clay tablets found in 1850 CE/AD in Iraq, where the Hebrew ancestor Abram came from “Ur of the Chaldees” and they caused firece debate in the religious scientific world. The extreme German Protestant School dismissed the whole Bible harrative as nonsense. That creation story has Ea making man out of blood and mud. The Genesis story has GOD making Adam, technically Mud Man, made of breath, spirit and chemicals, “mud.” That we are one human family is correct BUT that we came from one man is not. That is why the Pope said it cannot be seen how, because he was presuming one couPle and one sin. There are two creation of humans accounts in Genesis - the mud-breath which borrowed from the Babylon story. The second says God says let us make man in our image and likeness, no mud but “male and female He made them.” There is room then for seeing Humankind as Adam-Eve which means each of us is born into the human family where we can choose Obedience JESUS or refusal to be created humans, ADAM-EVE whose disobedience showed they wanted to be as gods as the Snake suggested.
Where did CAIN get his wife if he went to the LAND OF NOD in exile, and found her, if they were all sons and daughters of the same couple? Obvious question! Took the bus ahead of him/ Then there is incestuous marriage ? Then there is Seth who shows us later.

 

[Dan_Daly]

That we are one human family is correct BUT that we came from one man is not. That is why the Pope said it cannot be seen how, because he was presuming one couPle and one sin. There are two creation of humans accounts in Genesis - the mud-breath which borrowed from the Babylon story. The second says God says let us make man in our image and likeness, no mud but “male and female He made them.” There is room then for seeing Humankind as Adam-Eve which means each of us is born into the human family where we can choose Obedience JESUS or refusal to be created humans, ADAM-EVE whose disobedience showed they wanted to be as gods as the Snake suggested.
Where did CAIN get his wife if he went to the LAND OF NOD in exile, and found her, if they were all sons and daughters of the same couple? Obvious question! Took the bus ahead of him/ Then there is incestuous marriage ? Then there is Seth who shows us later.

We did come from one man and one woman. As I showed in the citation, it is Church teaching, and polygenism- the belief in more then one original couple- is heresy.

There is nothing exclusive about being made in God’s image and being made from mud. God most certainly has the power to make man both out of mud and in His image and likeness.

Cain’s wife was his sister. That the Bible mentions Cain and Able first of all children from Adam and Eve does not necessarily mean they were the first children- only that they have an important role in salvation history. So Cain married his sister. As I’ve shown, belief in one original couple- Adam and Eve- is church teaching. So it naturally follows that unless God wanted mankind to die out after the 2nd generation- which He clearly did not- brothers and sisters would mate. This is contrary to the current law of the Church, but there are many examples of the law changing as God revealed himself more fully to His people- instead of the animal sacrifices of the Hebrews, we have the Mass for example. Likewise, incest is not permitted by God now, but was at the beginning of human history.

Pax and God Bless.

 

[buffalo]

Dan, you’re going to have quite an uphill battle trying to convince hundreds of thousands of scientists – and hundreds of millions of university-educated people – that your theory is cogent. And you will have to convince them despite the total lack of scientific evidence supporting your creation story. Fortunately, Roman Catholics are not compelled to accept your story; Pope Benedict certainly doesn’t.

StAnastasia

Don’t worry Dan. Paradigms take a while to fall. Continue to search for the truth, hopefully those thousands of scientists and university educated people will too.

 

[antonivs]

Don’t worry Dan. Paradigms take a while to fall…

Yes, especially when they are supported by the facts.

 

[StAnastasia]

As far as evidence for the biblical account of creation, as Catholics we should start with the best source of evidence- God’s word in both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

Dan, there is no scientific evidence that the universe is less than 13.7 billion years old, or that the earth is less than 4.5 billion years old, or that Homo sapiens does not share common ancestry with our great ape cousins and all the rest of life on earth. There is also no genetic evidence that the number of humans ever dropped below 3,000 breeding pairs.

You can say what you like about Genesis, but from a scientific point of view, you are whistling in the dark. The Genesis account of creation is no more scientific than is the Native American Earth Diver myth, in which muskrat dives to the bottom of the water to bring up mud in its paws to form the earth.

You may of course believe what you wish – some think the moon to be made of green cheese – but your adherance to a mythical six-day creation a few thousand years ago is as irrelevant to the scientifically educated world as is the belief in green-cheesism.

StAnastasia

 

[buffalo]

Thanks for the citations from Pope Pius X11 dan Daly. You will notice that he uses cautious language. Biblical scholarship was developed to a certain point in 1947 and has moved on since. There were 20 K clay tablets found in 1850 CE/AD in Iraq, where the Hebrew ancestor Abram came from “Ur of the Chaldees” and they caused firece debate in the religious scientific world. The extreme German Protestant School dismissed the whole Bible harrative as nonsense. That creation story has Ea making man out of blood and mud. The Genesis story has GOD making Adam, technically Mud Man, made of breath, spirit and chemicals, “mud.” That we are one human family is correct BUT that we came from one man is not. That is why the Pope said it cannot be seen how, because he was presuming one couPle and one sin. There are two creation of humans accounts in Genesis - the mud-breath which borrowed from the Babylon story. The second says God says let us make man in our image and likeness, no mud but “male and female He made them.” There is room then for seeing Humankind as Adam-Eve which means each of us is born into the human family where we can choose Obedience JESUS or refusal to be created humans, ADAM-EVE whose disobedience showed they wanted to be as gods as the Snake suggested.
Where did CAIN get his wife if he went to the LAND OF NOD in exile, and found her, if they were all sons and daughters of the same couple? Obvious question! Took the bus ahead of him/ Then there is incestuous marriage ? Then there is Seth who shows us later.

The two Creation accounts are complementary. Gen 1 speaks of the order of creation, the other the importance of man.

According to Jubilees Cain married his twin sister Avan. Yes indeed there was brother and sister relations at the beginning. This is not intrinsically evil, but parent to child is.

 

[buffalo]

Dan, there is no scientific evidence that the universe is less than 13.7 billion years old, or that the earth is less than 4.5 billion years old, or that Homo sapiens does not share common ancestry with our great ape cousins and all the rest of life on earth. There is also no genetic evidence that the number of humans ever dropped below 3,000 breeding pairs.

You can say what you like about Genesis, but from a scientific point of view, you are whistling in the dark. The Genesis account of creation is no more scientific than is the Native American Earth Diver myth, in which muskrat dives to the bottom of the water to bring up mud in its paws to form the earth.

You may of course believe what you wish – some think the moon to be made of green cheese – but your adherance to a mythical six-day creation a few thousand years ago is as irrelevant to the scientifically educated world as is the belief in green-cheesism.

StAnastasia

Is it your claim that science (reasoned by limited humans) trumps Revelation?

 

[StAnastasia]

Don’t worry Dan. Paradigms take a while to fall. Continue to search for the truth, hopefully those thousands of scientists and university educated people will too.

Those “thousands of scientists and university educated people” (many of then Catholic) continue to search for the truth. That’s why the theory of evolution has only been strengthened year after year since 1859. That’s why Big Bang cosmology has undergone challenges, testing, and revision. That’s why the theory of plate tectonics has become ever more cogent since its proposal in the 1960s.

 

[StAnastasia]

Is it your claim that science (reasoned by limited humans) trumps Revelation?

What do you mean by “trumps”?

 

[inocente]

Yes indeed there was brother and sister relations at the beginning. This is not intrinsically evil, but parent to child is.

Say it plain, Adam and Eve’s children would have had to have sex with each other to stop the human race going extinct, whereas the scientific account doesn’t need any form of incest and so is a darn sight more moral and wholesome than Genesis.

Is it standard Catholic teaching that brother-sister incest isn’t evil or is that just your own view?

 

[StAnastasia]

Is it standard Catholic teaching that brother-sister incest isn’t evil or is that just your own view?

Buffalo makes stuff up when it is convenient to his argument. But I wouldn’t worry – his views are confined to obscure corners of the Internet. His insistence on a literal Adam and Eve will not hamper the ongoing work of geneticists the world over. They will never know of his discontent with genetic science.

 

[StAnastasia]

We did come from one man and one woman. As I showed in the citation, it is Church teaching, and polygenism- the belief in more then one original couple- is heresy.

Not true. There is no genetic evidence that humanity was ever reduced to a single breeding pair. This is called an “extreme genetic bottleneck,” which – if it had occurred – would have left an indelible signature in the human genome. There is no such signature. The evidence points to a population that never fell significantly below 3,000 breeding pairs in the last several hundred thousand years.

You can of course reject this, but you reject genetic science in doing so. You can also adhere to a literal reading of the “Noah’s Flood” myth, but in so doing you reject the conclusions of the sciences of geology, hydrology, biology, and physics.

I choose (with popes, bishops, and priests) to emphasize the spiritual and theological truths of these texts, rather than forcing upon them a woodenly literal reading.

StAnastasia

 

[buffalo]

Say it plain, Adam and Eve’s children would have had to have sex with each other to stop the human race going extinct, whereas the scientific account doesn’t need any form of incest and so is a darn sight more moral and wholesome than Genesis.

Is it standard Catholic teaching that brother-sister incest isn’t evil or is that just your own view?

God is the judge of morals. So you really cannot make the case that the science position is superior morally.

Incest between brother and sister is not intrinsically evil. Incest between parent and child is intrinsically evil.

Consanguinity (in Canon Law)

…Because of the acknowledged derivation of the human race from the common progenitors, Adam and Eve, it is difficult to accept the opinion of some theologians that the marriage of brother and sister is against the law of nature; otherwise the propagation of the human race would have begun by violation of the natural law. It is readily understood that, considering the freedom of intercourse between such persons, some effort would soon be made (in the interest of the social welfare) to prevent early corruption within the close family circle by placing a bar to the hope of marriage. Hence among all peoples there has arisen a natural repugnance to the marriage of brother and sister.

 

[Lui]

You may of course believe what you wish – some think the moon to be made of green cheese – but your adherance to a mythical six-day creation a few thousand years ago is as irrelevant to the scientifically educated world as is the belief in green-cheesism.

 

[buffalo]

Not true. There is no genetic evidence that humanity was ever reduced to a single breeding pair. This is called an “extreme genetic bottleneck,” which – if it had occurred – would have left an indelible signature in the human genome. There is no such signature. The evidence points to a population that never fell significantly below 3,000 breeding pairs in the last several hundred thousand years.

You can of course reject this, but you reject genetic science in doing so. You can also adhere to a literal reading of the “Noah’s Flood” myth, but in so doing you reject the conclusions of the sciences of geology, hydrology, biology, and physics.

I choose (with popes, bishops, and priests) to emphasize the spiritual and theological truths of these texts, rather than forcing upon them a woodenly literal reading.

StAnastasia

Then there are individuals among us without original sin? How can I tell?

http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/p102.htm
Does Science Allow for a Literal Adam and Eve?

…Nonetheless, careful reading of your posts suggests to me that your conclusion about the scientific concensus is not based on the question of effective population size, but rather on other aspects of specific genes. Regarding effective population size, you affirm that in the last million years the concensus has been that it has been about 10,000, while Tenesa puts it at 7,500 in 2007. The important point of this is that when the genome in general is considered, the long-term effective population size of either 7,500 or 10,000 is consistent with the possibility of a bottleneck of just two individuals within the past 10,000 generations or so. For example, in Wen-Hsiung Li’s widely-used textbook, * Molecular Evolution*, he states (pp. 46-47): “The effective population size can also be much reduced due to long-term variations in the population size, which in turn are caused by such factors as environmental catastrophes, cyclical modes of reproduction, and local extinction and recolonization events. For example, the long-term effective population size in a species for a period of n generations is given by:
Ne = n/(1/N1 + 1/N2 + … + !/Nn)
where Ni is the population size of the ith generation. In other words, Ne equals the harmonic mean of the Ni values, and consequently it is close to the smallest value of Ni than to the largest one. Similarly if a population goes through a bottleneck, the effective population size is greatly reduced.”
My biology contacts tell me that if one uses the formula above for the effective population size, then a population which starts with 2 individuals and expands within ten generations to 10,000 individuals and then remained constant would have an effective population size of about 6,000. If it expanded quickly from 2 to 100,000, the effective population size would be about 12,000. Thus, with the uncertainties involved, a bottleneck of two is easily compatible with the effective population size of about 10,000 today.

and

Alec,
Well, I expected a very detailed and strong response from you, and you did not disappoint me! Unfortunately, I think we are beginning to go over the same ground. What I see developing in comments on this thread are three positions:

1. 
   *]Divine revelation trumps certain present claims of natural science. Specifically, this occurs when a claim made on behalf of natural science crosses the epistemic boundary between natural science and theology. A prime example would be a natural scientific challenge to the Catholic Church’s definitive teaching that Adam and Eve actually existed as the two first true human parents of the entire human race.
   *]Certain evolutionary theories appear to trump the truth of divine revelation.
   *]Some deny that divine revelation requires belief in the literal reality of Adam and Eve.
   **There is no doubt that Catholic teaching demands the literal reality of Adam and Eve, as has been superbly [ documented elsewhere](http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/p100.htm). **You appear to place primary emphasis upon natural science in determining whether belief in a literal Adam and Eve is warranted, but you also mention #3. While #3 has been brought up in other posts, the key issue remains the reality of Adam and Eve as "*our first parents*" (cf. Catechism paragraphs 359, 375-377, 379, 388, 390-392, etc).

 

[rossum]

Then there are individuals among us without original sin? How can I tell?

Ask Mary?

There is no scientific problem with us all being descended from a single couple. There is a huge scientific problem with us all being descended only from a single couple.

As to Genesis. Here is a story with the hero called “Man” and his wife called “Life”. They live in an enchanted garden with two magic trees and a talking animal. It is an allegory. You aren’t meant to take it literally.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Ask Mary?

There is no scientific problem with us all being descended from a single couple. There is a huge scientific problem with us all being descended only from a single couple.

As to Genesis. Here is a story with the hero called “Man” and his wife called “Life”. They live in an enchanted garden with two magic trees and a talking animal. It is an allegory. You aren’t meant to take it literally.

rossum

Then you have to convince the Catholic Church to undo the following:

1. 
   *] The first man was created by God. (De fide.)
   *] The whole human race stems from one single human pair. (Sent. certa.)
   *] Man consists of two essential parts–a material body and a spiritual soul. (De fide.)
   *] The rational soul is per se the essential form of the body. (De fide.)
   *] Every human being possesses an individual soul. (De fide.)
   *] Every individual soul was immediately created out of nothing by God. (Sent. Certa.)
   *] A creature has the capacity to receive supernatural gifts. (Sent. communis.)
   *] The Supernatural presupposes Nature. (Sent communis.)
   *] God has conferred on man a supernatural Destiny. (De fide.)
   *] Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace. (De fide.)
   *] The donum rectitudinis or integritatis in the narrower sense, i.e., the freedom from irregular desire. (Sent. fidei proxima.)
   *] The donum immortalitatis, i.e.,bodily immortality. (De fide.)
   *] The donum impassibilitatis, i.e., the freedom from suffering. (Sent. communis.)
   *] The donum scientiae, i.e., a knowledge of natural and supernatural truths infused by God. (Sent. communis.)
   *] Adam received sanctifying grace not merely for himself, but for all his posterity. (Sent. certa.)
   *] Our first parents in paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment. (De fide.)
   *] Through the sin our first parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God. (De fide.)
   *] Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil. (De fide.) D788.
   *] Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation, but by descent. (De fide.)
   *] Original Sin consists in the deprivation of grace caused by the free act of sin committed by the head of the race. (Sent. communis.)
   *] Original sin is transmitted by natural generation. (De fide.)
   *] In the state of original sin man is deprived of sanctifying grace and all that this implies, as well as of the preternatural gifts of integrity. (De fide in regard to Sanctifying Grace and the Donum Immortalitatus. D788 et seq.)
   *] Souls who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God. (De fide.)

 

[StAnastasia]

Then you have to convince the Catholic Church to undo the following:

No, you don’t need to undo these.

*] The first man was created by God. (De fide.)
*] The whole human race stems from one single human pair. (Sent. certa.)