Creation or Evolution. What do you believe?

[buffalo]

Oolon Colluphid:

I’ve mentioned previously about how easy it is to get fed up with having to say the same thing over and over… but I’ve not often had it happen in the same thread!

Buffalo, see my post 235.

Life is tough when you just can’t seem to convert others to your point of view. (It is very interesting that many unenlightened public school administrators in several states where you have had a monopoly have now decided that evolution is and will remain a theory will now teach creation also.)

It would be amazing to see your views in a year or so of studying Catholicism with the zeal you have science.

Just a thought!

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

Abiogenesis is an integral part of the Theory of Evolution. If evolutionists really deny that abiogenesis is part of the whole picture of evolution, then it brings all of evolution theory into question.

Let’s try one more.

The Big Bang is an integral part of medicine. [Because if the universe had never come into being, there’d be no earth, no life and so nothing to get sick.] If doctors really deny that the Big Bang is part of the whole picture of medicine, then it brings all of medical theory into question.

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

buffalo:

Life is tough when you just can’t seem to convert others to your point of view.

It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s pretty unusual to get creationists to admit anything at all, let alone “convert” one. I’m under no illusions here: the mind virus of faith inoculates people against competing ideas, no matter how well supported. I do this purely for the lurkers and my own mental exercise.

No, the problem is that it’d be nice if, once I’ve posted something, nobody else came along a few days later and repeated the same damned already-answered point! It’s called ‘reading the thread’.

It would be amazing to see your views in a year or so of studying Catholicism with the zeal you have science.

Firstly, most of Catholicism – most of Christianity – is not at all at odds with evolution. So it wouldn’t make any difference.

And secondly, I spent thirteen years at a Catholic school run by the de la Mennais brotherhood. So I am familiar enough with Catholicism, thanks very much.

 

[buffalo]

Oolon Colluphid:

Firstly, most of Catholicism – most of Christianity – is not at all at odds with evolution. So it wouldn’t make any difference.

And secondly, I spent thirteen years at a Catholic school run by the de la Mennais brotherhood. So I am familiar enough with Catholicism, thanks very much.

It is not part of the deposit of faith. The Catholic Church has been dealing with evolution since the beginning. It is not new to the Church

Roman Catholic Dogma

** God the Creator **

        ** The             Divine Act of Creation **

        

        ** The             Beginning or Creation of the World **

1. 
   *] All that exists outside God was, in its whole substance, produced out of nothing by God. (De fide.)
   *] The world is the work of the Divine Wisdom. (Sent. certa.)
   *] God was moved by His Goodness to create the world. (De fide.)
   *] The world created for the Glorification of God. (De fide.)
   *] The Three Divine Persons are one single, common Principle of the Creation. (De fide.)
   *] God created the world free from exterior compulsion and inner necessity. (De fide.)
   *] God was free to create this world or any other. (Sent. Certa.)
   *] God has created a good world. (De fide.)
   *] The world had a beginning in time. (De fide.)
   *] God alone created the World. (De fide.)
   *] No Creature can, as Principal Cause (causa principalis) that is, from its own power, create something out of nothing. (Sent. communis.)

 

[buffalo]

       ** The             Continuous Preservation and Governing of the World **

        

       [list=1]

*] God keeps all created things in existence. (De fide.)

*] God co-operates immediately in every act of His creatures. (Sent. communis.)

*] God through His providence, protects and guides all that He has created. (De fide.)

 

[buffalo]

The Divine Work of Creation

         ** The             Doctrine of Revelation Regarding Man or "Christian Anthropology" **

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.)

 

[Vindex_Urvogel]

Chris W:

Whether the evoutionists in this thread accept it or not, abiogenesis is evolution.

Irrelevant twaddle snipped,

Abiogenesis is an integral part of the Theory of Evolution. If evolutionists really deny that abiogenesis is part of the whole picture of evolution, then it brings all of evolution theory into question.

As I have concluded for many years, evolution requires its proponents to ignore problems, which is why some evolutionists are insisting abiogenesis is not evolution, when it clearly is. Abiogenesis is the necessary first step to all of evolution, and it is anti-God. So it is in the evolutionists best interest, while posting on a Catholic web-site, to insist they are separate, so that they can continue to argue that evolution is not anti-God.

This is really very, very, simple, Chris. Let me spell it out for you yet again. You can sit there and spout off tripe from TrueOrigins as much as you wish, and tell us how you just think abiogenesis is part of evolution because it sorta’ kinda’ is similar and makes “sense” to you that it is part of it. But when the fun arm-waving is over, we are left with one very simple, and very prerequisite method to demonstrate that abiogenesis is part of evolution. ***Explicitly show us where within the historical narrative explanation for the diversity of life and the origin of morphological novelties that we call evolutionary biology, abiogenesis is an explicitly stated nomological deductive statement comprising the chain of argumentation of which the evolutionary H-NE is formed. ***If you can do that, which you have not even remotely managed, then all’s well and we can agree that abiogenesis is a part of evolutionary theory. If you can’t, then your continued assertion that evolutionary biology is contingent upon abiogenesis is nothing less than fantastical make-believe, invented and perpetuated without the slightest shred of reality with which to substantiate the claim. If you cannot do this very simple thing, then you should at least have the honesty to retract your claim as mistaken. It is moreover incredibly ironic that you should pontificate on “ignoring problems” with evolutionary biology when you have never specifically stated what these problems are, provided data to support your assertion that they are in fact problems, never bothered to offer any data supporting an explicit alternative model for the diversity of life and the origin of morphological novelties, and generally done nothing but engage in strawmen fallacies and rhetorical flourish, while empirical data languishes on the sidelines. Until you can provide the needed confirmation that abiogenesis is an underlying N-DE of evolutionary theory (i.e., the evolutionary H-NE), you have presented nothing but your own wishful thinking in defense of that conclusion. Until you have provided data supporting your conclusions that there are problems with evolutionary biology and that an alternative model can better describe the diversity of life, you are in effect arguing nothing, instead choosing to engage in an elaborate rhetorical sham.

Vindex Urvogel

 

[Vindex_Urvogel]

Chris W:

Whether the evoutionists in this thread accept it or not, abiogenesis is evolution.

Irrelevant twaddle snipped,

Abiogenesis is an integral part of the Theory of Evolution. If evolutionists really deny that abiogenesis is part of the whole picture of evolution, then it brings all of evolution theory into question.

As I have concluded for many years, evolution requires its proponents to ignore problems, which is why some evolutionists are insisting abiogenesis is not evolution, when it clearly is. Abiogenesis is the necessary first step to all of evolution, and it is anti-God. So it is in the evolutionists best interest, while posting on a Catholic web-site, to insist they are separate, so that they can continue to argue that evolution is not anti-God.

This is really very, very, simple, Chris. Let me spell it out for you yet again. You can sit there and spout off tripe from TrueOrigins as much as you wish, and tell us how you just think abiogenesis is part of evolution because it sorta’ kinda’ is similar and makes “sense” to you that it is part of it. But when the fun arm-waving is over, we are left with one very simple, and very prerequisite method to demonstrate that abiogenesis is part of evolution. ***Explicitly show us where within the historical narrative explanation for the diversity of life and the origin of morphological novelties that we call evolutionary biology, abiogenesis is an explicitly stated nomological deductive statement comprising the chain of argumentation of which the evolutionary H-NE is formed. ***If you can do that, which you have not even remotely managed, then all’s well and we can agree that abiogenesis is a part of evolutionary theory. If you can’t, then your continued assertion that evolutionary biology is contingent upon abiogenesis is nothing less than fantastical make-believe, invented and perpetuated without the slightest shred of reality with which to substantiate the claim. If you cannot do this very simple thing, then you should at least have the honesty to retract your claim as mistaken. It is moreover incredibly ironic that you should pontificate on “ignoring problems” with evolutionary biology when you have never specifically stated what these problems are, provided data to support your assertion that they are in fact problems, never bothered to offer any data supporting an explicit alternative model for the diversity of life and the origin of morphological novelties, and generally done nothing but engage in strawmen fallacies and rhetorical flourish, while empirical data languishes on the sidelines. Until you can provide the needed confirmation that abiogenesis is an underlying N-DE of evolutionary theory (i.e., the evolutionary H-NE), you have presented nothing but your own wishful thinking in defense of that conclusion. Until you have provided data supporting your conclusions that there are problems with evolutionary biology and that an alternative model can better describe the diversity of life, you are in effect arguing nothing, instead choosing to engage in an elaborate rhetorical sham.

Vindex Urvogel

 

[mfaber]

Townsend:

I know God created Adam and Eve. They sinned, and we are all now subject to death as a result. Conventional evolution theory is not compatible with that truth.

Oh yeah, the “original sin” riff…
This may be off-topic, but since it keeps cropping up so let’s explore it a bit. ** IF the Adam/Eve story is really about original sin, then perhaps you can explain to me why the Jews don’t have any such concept as the “original sin”?** The Adam/Eve story of Genesis is a part of the Jewish canon, co-opted by Christains when they adoped the** Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the original Jewish canon as the OT . The LXX was abandoned by the Jews in 100 CE, but Christians latched onto it because it’s easier to twist the often questionable Greek to their advantage. What you don’t seem to know is that the Jews don’t have any concept of the “original sin” and regard it as a Christian corruption of the meaning of the text. What the Jews say about the Adam/Eve story…

1. Question: Do Jews believe in the doctrine of original sin?

2. Question: Isn’t it true that humans are so innately sinful that they need an outside sinless agent to redeem them from sin?

3. Question: What are the implications of the Christian doctrine of original sin?

The doctrine of the “original sin” did not take the “form” until the 5th Century CE (centuries of arguing that such a thing existed and if it existed what was the nature and consequences the “original sin”)**

History of the Original Sin
EXCERPT:
We might perhaps be compelled to leave the doctrine of original sin in this indefinite form, if a controversy on these very points had not arisen in the** fifth century** between Augustine and Pelagius. Pelagius, a British monk, and his pupil, Celestius, denied that we have lost any thing earthly by reason of Adam’s sin, or that this sin can be imputed to us, or that an original sin came into existence through Adam. On the contrary they maintained that death is an original and natural arrangement, and not in any sense a punishment of sin; that the divine image has not been lost, but that the race are to this moment born as guiltless and as truly possessed of free will as Adam was by his creation; and that we can call Adam the author of sin in our race only in view of the fact that he sinned first, and also seduced others to sin by his example; for the allurements and the imitation of bad examples are the only fountains of sin…].

Augustine, bishop of Hippo in Africa, opposed this opinion with the utmost energy, and in opposition to it taught not only that physical death results from Adam’s fall, but that the whole race thereby lost utterly both the divine image and free will; and that in their stead there now came into action a decided and resistless propensity to sin which has its seat principally in the soul and is perpetuated by ordinary generation. This original sin which shows itself in vicious desires, or the preponderance of sinful inclinations, brings down eternal damnation upon man although he may have committed no sins, and hence must also involve infants from their very birth. Original sin must thus affect the whole race because it is imputed to all men as a sin, causes them to lose the grace of God, and subjects them to the power of the devil. Hence no unbaptized person can be blessed. Original sin and death may have been imposed upon us by God as a punishment for Adam’s sin which is imputed to us. That with these views Augustine must hold that men since the fall are wholly incompetent to any good, have utterly lost free will, and are enlightened and converted only by, an act of Divine grace, was as natural as it was opposed to the common doctrine of the earlier Christian teachers.

**The concept of “original sin” is a rather late in the game interpretation of the story of Genesis by Catholic Christians (St. Augustine), as defined here:

The Catholic View**

As with a large number of doctrinal points, Christians aren’t in agreement on what constitutes “original sin”, so there’s more than just the Catholic POV:

Are Men Born Sinners?(more than one view here!)

If the Bible is the word of God and the doctrine of orginial sin is so “simple and true”, then why don’t Jews abide by the same concept and why are there different versions of the “Johnny-come-lately” doctrine in Christianity?

 

[buffalo]

mfaber:

Oh yeah, the “original sin” riff…
**
The doctrine of the “original sin” did not take the “form” until the 5th Century CE** (centuries of arguing that such a thing existed and if it existed what was the nature and consequences the “original sin”)

If the Bible is the word of God and the doctrine of orginial sin is so “simple and true”, then why don’t Jews abide by the same concept and why are there different versions of the “Johnny-come-lately” doctrine in Christianity?

Baseless also is the assertion that before St. Augustine this doctrine was unknown to the Jews and to the Christians; as we have already shown, it was taught by St. Paul. It is found in the fourth Book of Esdras, a work written by a Jew in the first century after Christ and widely read by the Christians. This book represents Adam as the author of the fall of the human race (vii, 48), as having transmitted to all his posterity the permanent infirmity, the malignity, the bad seed of sin (iii, 21, 22; iv, 30). Protestants themselves admit the doctrine of original sin in this book and others of the same period (see Sanday, “The International Critical Commentary: Romans”, 134, 137; Hastings, “A Dictionary of the Bible”, I, 841). It is therefore impossible to make St. Augustine, who is of a much later date, the inventor of original sin.

newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm

 

[Therese_Martin]

Thank you to all who have participated in the discussion. This thread is now closed.