Catholic View on Evolution

  • Thread starter Thread starter scameter18
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Your Professor is absolutely right. The mousetrap analogy is perfect. Evolutionists ask us to imagine something happens in the real world but they cannot prove it.

We are asked to imagine, for example, in the case of the flagellum, that through means unknown, parts just floating around just happen to attach themselves to cells in ways that are functional. Then how does the cell code for this new addition in its DNA when it reproduces itself?

This has nothing to do with the origin of life but of fictional scenarios that are not reproducible by experiment.

Peace,
Ed
 
liquidpele said:
And what part does cancer play? muscular sclerosis? Parasitic worms in your brain? Birth defects? Miscarriages?
Click to expand...
Could you design a universe in which nothing ever goes wrong? Please supply your blueprint. 🙂
 
liquidpele said:
And what part does Cancer play? muscular sclarosis? Parasitic worms in your brain? Birth defects? Miscarriages?
Click to expand...
how can we know? if we knew what G-d did we could well see them in the greater scheme of things, but as we lack all the relevant information, we cant draw valid conclusions about the morality or purpose of those things, however we can know that G-d is omnibenevolent as a maximal quality inferred from the maximal state of being, so we know that they are for the greatest good, whether we would like to accept that or not.
 
warpspeedpetey said:
how can we know? if we knew what G-d did we could well see them in the greater scheme of things, but as we lack all the relevant information, we cant draw valid conclusions about the morality or purpose of those things, however we can know that G-d is omnibenevolent as a maximal quality inferred from the maximal state of being, so we know that they are for the greatest good, whether we would like to accept that or not.
Click to expand...
I’m curious how you can say that we can’t know one thing, but then attribute things like omnibenevolent to God as if that was somehow understandable or knowable. It seems like you’re just building off of the assumption that you’re right in your beliefs about God’s nature.

In short, why do you think that God has to control every single aspect of the world? The notion seems very fairytalish to me.
 
edwest2 said:
Your Professor is absolutely right. The mousetrap analogy is perfect. Evolutionists ask us to imagine something happens in the real world but they cannot prove it.

We are asked to imagine, for example, in the case of the flagellum, that through means unknown, parts just floating around just happen to attach themselves to cells in ways that are functional. Then how does the cell code for this new addition in its DNA when it reproduces itself?

This has nothing to do with the origin of life but of fictional scenarios that are not reproducible by experiment.

Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
Wow. If you have no background in the topic, perhaps you should just not post. Watch this as a quick primer since you seem to need it.

youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8

It’s not anti-religious, it just tries to clear up misconceptions.
 
liquidpele said:
I’m curious how you can say that we can’t know one thing, but then attribute things like omnibenevolent to God as if that was somehow understandable or knowable. It seems like you’re just building off of the assumption that you’re right in your beliefs about God’s nature.

In short, why do you think that God has to control every single aspect of the world? The notion seems very fairytalish to me.
Click to expand...
the omnis are all inferred from the maximal state of being. perfect being means then not to lack, a lack of any maximal quality would be a lack, the being then would not be maximal or perfect.
 
warpspeedpetey said:
the omnis are all inferred from the maximal state of being. perfect being means then not to lack, a lack of any maximal quality would be a lack, the being then would not be maximal or perfect.
Click to expand...
Okay, and since we can’t fathom something that is “perfect” why do you assume God would want to specifically cause things like Cancer?
 
liquidpele said:
I’m curious how you can say that we can’t know one thing, but then attribute things like omnibenevolent to God as if that was somehow understandable or knowable. It seems like you’re just building off of the assumption that you’re right in your beliefs about God’s nature.

In short, why do you think that God has to control every single aspect of the world? The notion seems very fairytalish to me.
Click to expand...
The laws that make the universe live and move and have their being, the logos, exist in God. At every moment these laws are what make reality what it is. All those equations that physicists and other scientists use to describe how the universe is are partial representations of the logos. If those laws were to suddenly disappear, the universe would stop working, and indeed would also likely disappear.

It is in this sense that God at every moment is supporting the universe. Everything unfolds according to the nature of it’s being, the essence of which exists in the divine.

As for why there is cancer, that is another discussion with several old threads around. You might search for something like “the problem of evil” or “suffering.”
 
Bluegoat said:
The laws that make the universe live and move and have their being, the logos, exist in God. At every moment these laws are what make reality what it is. All those equations that physicists and other scientists use to describe how the universe is are partial representations of the logos. If those laws were to suddenly disappear, the universe would stop working, and indeed would also likely disappear.

It is in this sense that God at every moment is supporting the universe. Everything unfolds according to the nature of it’s being, the essence of which exists in the divine.

As for why there is cancer, that is another discussion with several old threads around. You might search for something like “the problem of evil” or “suffering.”
Click to expand...
Okay. So you’ve essentially said that God is a set of formulas?

As for “the problem of evil”, lets not avoid the fact that either God made it or he doesn’t control every little aspect of everything. You can’t have it both ways.
 
liquidpele said:
Wow. If you have no background in the topic, perhaps you should just not post. Watch this as a quick primer since you seem to need it.

youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8

It’s not anti-religious, it just tries to clear up misconceptions.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the youtube link. It was a poorly done propaganda piece. It preys upon the gullibility of the viewer to simply accept, as a given, that evolution can do certain things.

First of all, the random switching of amino acids can have dire consequences for an organism. Second, there is no explanation of how evolution can gradually perform all of the physiological changes to produce lungs from gills. Finally, the human eye is not just an eyeball, but two eyeballs that just happen to be set at the correct distance apart to create binocular vision. Then there is the optic nerve. Then there is the connection point in the brain for the optic nerve.

Selective breeding is the worst possible example for any form of evolution. It clearly shows that:
A) The animals used already have the capability to interbreed.
B) You can take a branch from an apple tree and attach it to a pear tree and it will stay alive because both already have the capability to do so. Otherwise, it would dry up and fall off.

No, I’ve seen too many pieces like this where the narrator misses important steps but assures the viewer that “trust me” it all got from there to here. It just did.

Evolution is not a reasonable theory because the probability of it occurring as advertised in biology texts is virtually zero. It cannot be observed, and, no, I don’t count bacteria or viruses as “evolving” in that after literally millions and billions live and die, they remain, and will always remain, bacteria and viruses. I’m tired of having my trust abused.

Just like scientists who like to say that a planet with water and amino acids has “the building blocks of life.” And they have yet to put water and amino acids together in the lab and make life. It’s simple, right?

Peace,
Ed
 
liquidpele said:
Okay. So you’ve essentially said that God is a set of formulas?

As for “the problem of evil”, lets not avoid the fact that either God made it or he doesn’t control every little aspect of everything. You can’t have it both ways.
Click to expand...
I think to say that God is a set of formulas is a very reductive way of putting it. Even if we took a non-Christian view where we don’t consider revelation, that would still be taking our partial understanding of certain things about God and saying that is all there is. And even when a scientist talks about a formula, it is only a representation or description of something else. Look at a formula on a page - it describes something, but it doesn’t actually cause anything to happen, or move anything, or have fire or life. Those properties belong to what the formula is trying to describe.

And if God was a formula, he wouldn’t be a set - he’d be One.

Philosophy also tells us the Divine is more than we can imagine or understand.

And as Christians, we believe God has given us some more specific information than that - that he is a person. Which is indeed more than philosophy can understand.

However, one might get some good traction on what Christianity is about by thinking of the Logos, or Word, as a kind of living formula. It’s a metaphor or model that is helpful for many modern people who have trouble with some of the medieval and earlier metaphors that are used. It makes sense to people who are comfortable with the sciences, and perhaps uncomfortable with the whole touchy-feely Jesus idea that we often are presented. (Not that Christianity can forget Jesus, but some do have more difficulty relating to that initially.)

Evil - according to Christianity, or at least the non-Calvinist types, God leaves a good deal of freedom in the system to allow rational beings real choices. They can choose between a variety of goods, like pie or cake, or they can choose evil, by which I mean untruth. So certainly God sustains a system that gives real freedom for the possibility of untruth or perhaps better sayless-truth to manifest itself in some ways. If you are interested in how a system based on immutable laws sustaining it at every instant can contain freedom at all, there are, I am told, some very interesting things going on in mathematics and physics that relate to that topic.
 
edwest2 said:
“diversity of opinion” doesn’t mean anything regarding Catholic teaching. Christ did not appear to offer his opinion and God speaking through the prophets was not offering opinions in a ‘take it leave it’ fashion either.

Here is the point of the conflict, and the point of the intersection:

Science cannot, we are told, say anything about the supernatural. It is beyond human capabilities and instrumentation to examine it in a scientific way. I have also been told that science is silent about the supernatural.

But people post here and use science to say this or that about the Bible. And use science to say this or that about creation. Don’t you realize:

A) There are no peer reviewed papers to make any sort of link between science and the supernatural?

B) What you think God did or didn’t do cannot be demonstrated in any scientific way?

I do not believe God was the kick-starter who simply got the ball rolling and let “evolution” take it from there. There is no evidence for this in Scripture. None. In fact, the Church tells us in Communion and Stewardship, No God, No Evolution. If it happened, it could not have occurred without God’s direct causal action.

Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
I agree that God’s actions cannont be absolutely, scientifically proven. However, we can know with reasonable certitude what God did through fittinness/science and divine revelation, both of which its origin in the creative Reason or Logos, Christ. For example, historical evidence presents the Resurrection as the most reasonable explanation for the empty tomb… the evidence demands God’s action here.

I also agree… No God, No Evolution… for all scientific processes find their existence, source, and origin in God.
I also agree that there is no evidence for evolution in the Bible; neither is their evidence that the world was created in 6 24-hour days.

I make this assertion because Genesis is not to be necessarily taken a science textbook. This is a position backed up by most Catholics today. The big debates tend to come over scientific evidence.

We must interpret Genesis in the way which reconciles scientific evidence with the approved-by-the-Church legitimate diversity of opinion on man’s physical origins. The Church permits theistic evolution, intelligent design, creationism, and others.

We can use science to say this or that about parts of the Bible which can be taken allegorically, for “truth cannot contradict truth.” Most things we accept to be true are not religious truths conveyed in the Bible… Thus, it is unwise to argue that “There is no evidence for evolution in Scripture” and conclude that it is therefore not true. That 2+2=4 is not stated in the Bible, yet it is still true. A true interpretation of Genesis permits evolution as a tenable theory for the origins of man’s body.

I believe that the scientific evidence confirms this “tenable theory” as reliable science, to be believed with the reasonablility of other scientific theories.

You could possibly argue that altough humans share most of their dna with chimps, have vestigial structure, atavisms (like a rare human tail), junk dna, and witness a natural archeological progression from simple to complex organisms, it is merely part of a much-interving divine plan of God, conducted in such a way as to mimic evolution. It is true that science cannot disprove any miracle. However, the intelligibility of nature presents this evidence in such a way that it is fitting that evolution brought about the human body without necessitating direct divine intervention along the way.

Again, the human soul necessitates divine action here… no debate on the Church’s teaching there.
 
“We must interpret Genesis…”? No, we don’t must interpret Genesis to accomodate science.

Thanks to the New Atheists, a gulf has been placed between the religious and the anti-theists. Just read the comments below the PZ Myers’ youtube interview. Among them: “science should concede nothing to religion.”

God has never had anything to do with this. As reggieM posted, the Freedom From Religion Foundation wants people to “evolve beyond belief,” to worship the mind of man. “Man is the measure of all things.” “Man invents himself.”

No, science has zero to say about the supernatural. Zip.

So I recommend not posting here about changing any interpretation of the Bible but looking to what the Church has established. Evolution has become the idol of the age, the new circumcision and the worship of the God of Nothing who makes everything and is nothing.

Read the encyclical Humani Generis.

Peace,
Ed
 
I do not discount that some form of evolution is possible. I just think the idea that life as we know it could come about completely by accident with no divine assistance is frankly absurd. And the evidence is on my side, despite the jargon on a lot of scientists.
 
edwest2 said:
Thank you for the youtube link. It was a poorly done propaganda piece. It preys upon the gullibility of the viewer to simply accept, as a given, that evolution can do certain things.

First of all, the random switching of amino acids can have dire consequences for an organism. Second, there is no explanation of how evolution can gradually perform all of the physiological changes to produce lungs from gills. Finally, the human eye is not just an eyeball, but two eyeballs that just happen to be set at the correct distance apart to create binocular vision. Then there is the optic nerve. Then there is the connection point in the brain for the optic nerve.

Selective breeding is the worst possible example for any form of evolution. It clearly shows that:
A) The animals used already have the capability to interbreed.
B) You can take a branch from an apple tree and attach it to a pear tree and it will stay alive because both already have the capability to do so. Otherwise, it would dry up and fall off.

No, I’ve seen too many pieces like this where the narrator misses important steps but assures the viewer that “trust me” it all got from there to here. It just did.

Evolution is not a reasonable theory because the probability of it occurring as advertised in biology texts is virtually zero. It cannot be observed, and, no, I don’t count bacteria or viruses as “evolving” in that after literally millions and billions live and die, they remain, and will always remain, bacteria and viruses. I’m tired of having my trust abused.

Just like scientists who like to say that a planet with water and amino acids has “the building blocks of life.” And they have yet to put water and amino acids together in the lab and make life. It’s simple, right?

Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
I use that video to point out to people that evolution is FACT, even if you don’t think it’s how we all evolved into our current state. Race horses, Dogs, and many other animals have been adjusted through evolution by using artificial selection. In short, evolution simply means that animals change and adjust over time. The video is not a course on evolution, you’d need to take some biology courses if you want all the gritty details - your expectations of the video were a little high methinks.

You don’t want to accept that we evolved from simple organisms? You don’t want to understand the evolution of the eye? Fine, that’s your business however silly I think you are. But to claim that evolution as an idea is impossible is to deny current reality.
 
Bluegoat said:
Evil - according to Christianity, or at least the non-Calvinist types, God leaves a good deal of freedom in the system to allow rational beings real choices. They can choose between a variety of goods, like pie or cake, or they can choose evil, by which I mean untruth. So certainly God sustains a system that gives real freedom for the possibility of untruth or perhaps better sayless-truth to manifest itself in some ways. If you are interested in how a system based on immutable laws sustaining it at every instant can contain freedom at all, there are, I am told, some very interesting things going on in mathematics and physics that relate to that topic.
Click to expand...
So you’re saying here that God* doesn’t *control every aspect of everything, which was the whole argument I was arguing against. Can we agree on this finally?
 
liquidpele said:
So you’re saying here that God* doesn’t *control every aspect of everything, which was the whole argument I was arguing against. Can we agree on this finally?
Click to expand...
Well, it really depends on what you mean by control. For example, a Calvinist would say, yes, indeed, God controls each thing directly. That is why they also deny free will.

On the other hand, a more traditional view would say perhaps that God upholds or supports each aspect of reality. So your free will only exists at each moment because God wills it to exist. That is what is usually meant when people are talking about God being involved in every moment of creation, which I believe is how the subject came up. However, he does not impose upon your freedom (or at least not usually), so in that sense he doesn’t control it.

On the other-other hand, he does know what you will do with your freedom, because God exists outside of time, and sees all time in a single “moment”. So from that perspective, God could, if he wanted to, arrange reality around free will, without especially interfering in the course of reality, which is a concept that is widely misunderstood and causes a lot of confusion.
 
Bluegoat said:
Well, it really depends on what you mean by control. For example, a Calvinist would say, yes, indeed, God controls each thing directly. That is why they also deny free will.

On the other hand, a more traditional view would say perhaps that God upholds or supports each aspect of reality. So your free will only exists at each moment because God wills it to exist. That is what is usually meant when people are talking about God being involved in every moment of creation, which I believe is how the subject came up. However, he does not impose upon your freedom (or at least not usually), so in that sense he doesn’t control it.

On the other-other hand, he does know what you will do with your freedom, because God exists outside of time, and sees all time in a single “moment”. So from that perspective, God could, if he wanted to, arrange reality around free will, without especially interfering in the course of reality, which is a concept that is widely misunderstood and causes a lot of confusion.
Click to expand...
That’s a lot of dancing to explain your beliefs. To each his own I guess. At least you seem to have thought about such things.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top