Creation vs. Evolution poll II

  • Thread starter Thread starter Melchior
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
If I ever have the opportunity to teach a general science course in a university, I would ask the students to write a paper defending whichever view they supported - evolution or creationism of whatever variety, and then grade them on how well they applied the principles of scientific inquiry to the question (whichever side they take). So it should be possible to get an “A” no matter which side you fall on, as long as you can defend your position appropriately. Major points off for misappropriation of the second law of thermodynamics.
 
Edwin Taraba:
The Bible and the Catholic Church teach that all men and women have descended from two parents, Adam and Eve. The Bible and the Catholic Church teach that there was no death prior to the fall of original sin. If these are true then evolution is not.
Click to expand...
Great summary! 🙂 11 years after Darwin’s origin of Species - the Church nailed this one down by quoting the Lateran IV council:
Vatican Council I (1870): DS 13002
[The act of creation in itself, and in opposition to modern errors, and the effect of creation]. This sole true God by His goodness and “omnipotent power,” not to increase His own beatitude, and not to add to, but to manifest His perfection by blessings which He bestows on creatures, with most free volition, “immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; an then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body” [Lateran Council IV].

Personally, I can’t wait until the Vatican Council Reforms are implemented… the First Vatican Council that is.
 
40.png
edrazz:
Vatican Council I (1870): DS 13002
[The act of creation in itself, and in opposition to modern
Click to expand...

errors, and the effect of creation]. This sole true God by His goodness and “omnipotent power,” not to increase His own beatitude, and not to add to, but to manifest His perfection by blessings which He bestows on creatures, with most free volition, “immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; an then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body” [Lateran Council IV].

… and then with a mischievious grin 😃 on his face planted evidence to the contrary … :confused:
 
Oolon Colluphid:
As Kylie might have sung, “You should be so lucky…”

No longer. The other thread’s closed. This one may have served its original purpose too, but the mods might like to allow it to continue as a way of corralling these discussions.
Click to expand...
Well, since they unfortunately closed the most active of the threads let me reiterate the points which our creationist friends have yet to address:
  1. Despite the assertion that there are intractable problems with evolutionary biology, these problems have not been explicitly identified.
  2. Data supporting the assertion that these “problems” are in fact problems, have not been provided.
  3. No data supporting any alternative model to that of evolution have been presented.
  4. Despite repeated claims, no one has yet shown in explicit terms how and why abiogenesis is a nomological deductive statement underlying the evolutionary historical-narrative explanation for the diversity of life and the origin of morphological novelties.
Vindex Urvogel
 
40.png
Melchior:
Theistic evolution is extremely problematic for the Christian as even Bertand Russell pointed out. It destroys the Gospel.
Click to expand...
How does theistic evolution destroy the gospel?
 
Edwin Taraba:
The Bible and the Catholic Church teach that all men and women have descended from two parents, Adam and Eve. The Bible and the Catholic Church teach that there was no death prior to the fall of original sin. If these are true then evolution is not.
Click to expand...
The first and last paragraphs of my posted message were somehow deleted. The entirety of my message as originally posted by me is as follows:

I enjoyed reading the various attacks on my commentary from both the Heathen Wiccan, the one calling himself a sociopath and also a few Catholics. Thank you for your responses. The fact is none of us can prove through science nor can we know for sure the processes by which God made man because we were not there to observe it. Science only has some pieces of the puzzle - data from which we must draw interpretations having no force other than opinion and guesswork. Our scientists cannot create man from nothing nor can they create lower life forms and evolve man from those lower life forms. I base my faith and opinions on the data most likely to turn out to be correct – the Bible and the Catholic Church.

The Bible and the Catholic Church teach that all men and women have descended from two parents, Adam and Eve. The Bible and the Catholic Church teach that there was no death prior to the fall of original sin. If these are true then evolution is not. You cannot prove through science that these historical events did not happen. You would do much better to direct your efforts at collecting data that supports these truths. There is an abundance of data that does support them. These truths are more likely to remain true until the end of time than any interpretations or guesswork concocted by those who wish the Bible were not true. The ideas opposing the bible are held up as true for a few years until the next batch of guesswork changes it all. The ideas opposing the bible are championed by Wiccans, atheists and agnostics. When you jump on their bandwagon you travel on thin ice.

The process of mutation and natural selection is what evolution theory was based on. That made sense so long as we did not know much about the processes of life at the molecular level. Behe has shown that the process of mutation and natural selection could not have built life forms. Evolution theory has had its foundation removed and no one, including Behe, has yet to come forth with anything to replace it that makes any sense. I include Behe amongst the list of creationist literature because he has disintegrated evolution’s foundation and he probably will go down in history as having done so.
 
40.png
edrazz:
Great summary! 🙂 11 years after Darwin’s origin of Species - the Church nailed this one down by quoting the Lateran IV council:
Vatican Council I (1870): DS 13002
[The act of creation in itself, and in opposition to modern
Click to expand...

errors, and the effect of creation]. This sole true God by His goodness and “omnipotent power,” not to increase His own beatitude, and not to add to, but to manifest His perfection by blessings which He bestows on creatures, with most free volition, “immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; an then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body” [Lateran Council IV].

Personally, I can’t wait until the Vatican Council Reforms are implemented… the First Vatican Council that is.
Thanks edrazz. Very good information. Also thanks for the links to the International Catholic Conference on Creation.
 
40.png
petra:
How does theistic evolution destroy the gospel?
Click to expand...
Evolution theory, theistic or not, claims that millions of years of death were required to develop human beings. It also treats Adam and Eve as “alegory” ie not real people or real historical events. The Gospel claims we all decended from one man and woman. Evolution theory, both theistic and atheistic, claims millions of beings developed over millions of years. Which one out of the millions was Adam? And if god breathed a soul into one ape-like life form to create the first man, what happended to all the decendants of the other soul-less ape-like homo sapiens that had to have been around at that time? It does not add up. And it blows away the concept of original sin and blows away the whole mission of Jesus Christ which was to save us from the fall of Adam and Eve.
As per Romans Chapter 5:

12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned–

17 If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. 19* For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous. 20* Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21* so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
Edwin Taraba:
Evolution theory, theistic or not, claims that millions of years of death were required to develop human beings. It also treats Adam and Eve as “alegory” ie not real people or real historical events. The Gospel claims we all decended from one man and woman. Evolution theory, both theistic and atheistic, claims millions of beings developed over millions of years. Which one out of the millions was Adam? And if god breathed a soul into one ape-like life form to create the first man, what happended to all the decendants of the other soul-less ape-like homo sapiens that had to have been around at that time? It does not add up. And it blows away the concept of original sin and blows away the whole mission of Jesus Christ which was to save us from the fall of Adam and Eve.
As per Romans Chapter 5:

12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned–

17 If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. 19* For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous. 20* Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21* so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Click to expand...
My goodness, Edwin. After reading what you have written here, and what His Holiness has written here, I would almost be forced to conclude that you are claiming to be a greater expert in Scriptural exegesis than the Pope himself. Both John Paul II and Pius XII have stated that there is no inherent, necessary conflict between evolutionary theory and Church teaching. I’m unclear as to why it’s such a big issue for you, when it isn’t such a big issue for the Vatican.
 
Neither.

I believe in directed evolution, where the Creator, i.e. God, used evolutionary change to bring about the species. Some small amount of random evolution but a lot of periods of rapid (on the evolutionary scale) evolution of species.
 
Random or spontaneous evolution is caused by radiation and other environmental factors. God can cause these factors to cause evolution, but can also leave them to run on their own.

Scientifically, there is enough evidence out there to lead us to believe that purely random evolution would not have lead to development of human beings.
 
Does anybody here believe God just could have created without precedent the highest order of animals - humans at his whim?

In other words just inserted Man at the time he wanted, despite what happening on earth at that time?

From the CCC:
**“IN THE IMAGE OF GOD” **

[356](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/356.htm’)😉 Of all visible creatures only man is “able to know and love his creator”.219 He is “the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake”,220 and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:

[357](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/357.htm’)😉 Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.

[358](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/358.htm’)😉 God created everything for man,222 but man in turn was created to serve and love God and to offer all creation back to him:
369 Man and woman have been created, which is to say, *willed *by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. “Being man” or “being woman” is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator.240 Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity “in the image of God”. In their “being-man” and “being-woman”, they reflect the Creator’s wisdom and goodness.
[371](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/371.htm’)😉 God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him."242 None of the animals can be man’s partner.243 The woman God “fashions” from the man’s rib and brings to him elicits on the man’s part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."244 Man discovers woman as another “I”, sharing the same humanity.
 
** IV. MAN IN PARADISE **

374 The first man was not only created good, but was also established in friendship with his Creator and in harmony with himself and with the creation around him, **in a state that would be surpassed only by the glory of the new creation in Christ. **

375 The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice”.250 This grace of original holiness was “to share in. . .divine life”.251

376 By the radiance of this grace all dimensions of man’s life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die.252 The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman,253 and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called “original justice”.
 
I have to believe in Creation and I couldn’t consider myself a Christian if I did otherwise…

And in my own personal research, I have found more evidence to support creation than evolution. I will not go into this though as I have seen this go off to an unresolved tangent.
 
I frequently hear people argue that evolution and Christianity are compatible. Using what I think is the most basic description of the theory of evolution, I cannot see how this can be true:

To describe my concern I will give what I understand to be the definition of biological evolution: The theory of evolution is a proposition that all organisms are wholly ascribable to the combined effects of random variation (mutation), as a result of the operation of undirected accidents that result in the survival of organisms most suited to survive in the contemporary environment. In short, evolution is the theory that different species came about by means of natural selection. Hopefully this is a definition that is not widely be disputed.

That having been said, Christians believe that God created mankind, male and female, because it says this in the Bible. Some herein try to reconcile Christianity and evolution by arguing that perhaps God used evolution to accomplish the creation with which He is credited by Christians.

My objection is that biological evolution asserts that the changes are “random” and “undirected.” Biological evolution ultimately attempts to trace our origins back to very simple organisms, and asserts that all modern species are decendents of that original living organism.

If this is correct, then the Christian would have to say that God must have created the life in that first organism, and then He used evolution to bring about mankind. The problem with this is that the theory of evolution says the changes were random and undirected. If the changes were random and undirected, then this necessarily means God is removed from the equation. By this logic, God would not have created mankind male and female, but only created the first living organism, which eventually led to mankind by a random and undirected means, which of course contradicts the Bible.

I therefore cannot see how Christianity and Evolution are compatible.
 
It is possible that God used directed Evolution (non-random) to create our physical bodies. Our souls can only be the result of creation from nothing.
 
T.A.Stobie:
It is possible that God used directed Evolution (non-random) to create our physical bodies. Our souls can only be the result of creation from nothing.
Click to expand...
Yep. But directed evolution is not the theory of evolution, as I understand it.
 
Chris W:
Yep. But directed evolution is not the theory of evolution, as I understand it.
Click to expand...
It depends who you talk to about evolution. That is why I try to distinquish the two positions by using random or spontaneous evolution and directed evolution. They both include new species coming from existing ones which is basically the definition of evolution.

You also have to watch when you say creation as well. Some interpret it as 7 earth day creation; others as a Being bringing beings into existance from nothing.

Our modern society is very bad at clearly defining what they mean by words and I have seen people in strong disagreement agree on a phrase and mean totally opposite things by it. Sad, but true.

Many in the hedonist movement do it deliberately in terms they use. A good example is Pro-Choice when they mean Pro-Choice to Kill Children in the Womb.
 
Good point. The reason I said what I said is that I just came from another evolution thread, where I think you would find strong objections by the evolutionists, if you proposed that evolution depended on the guidance of God.

If guided evolution was being taught, I would be much quieter about the subject.

In Peace,
Chris W
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top