Did cavemen really exist? have souls?

[Ghosty]

I recall hearing that 3-dimensional eyesight is “learned” (or something along those lines.)

Do you have any references for this? I ask because you might have misunderstood, espescially if it was in the context of art. Three-dimensional technique in art is most definately learned, and is in fact extremely sophisticated. Utilizing 3-D perspective in 2-D drawing is difficult to even comprehend, and to some degree requires a special “wiring” of the brain. Of course, the whole point of it is that it tricks the mind into reading 3-D perspective where there is none, implying that 3-D vision is not something that’s learned.

Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever being taught to view in 3-D

3-D viewing is actually inherent to having two sources of (name removed by moderator)ut wired to one processor, I believe. Remove one, and you remove 3-D viewing. You can practice by covering one eye; everything ends up looking like an Eastern Icon. Even moving only shifts the “icon”. Only our knowledge of actual depth allows our brains to gauge some degree of 3-D understanding when viewing with one eye. If you were blind-folded and then dropped into an unfamiliar non-Euclidian environment, only to have a single eye freed from the blind-fold, you wouldn’t know WHAT was going on. You’d almost be better off closing the free eye and moving around by touch.

Peace and God bless!

 

[forthright]

thistle:

Not quite right. All living humans today can be traced back to one woman in Africa about 200,000 years ago. This can be traced through mitochondrial DNA which is passed down through the mother so everyone (male and female) inherits this from their mother. However, this does not mean she was the only woman alive at that time, nor does it mean there were no women before her (there were going back millions of years). It simply means that hers is the only line that survived until today.

The mitochondrial DNA perspective was an answer in This Rock (catholic.com/thisrock/1994/9401qq.asp), then it was subequently rebutted (catholic.com/thisrock/1994/9406ltrs.asp).

The rejection states: “YOUR answer about a “mitochondrial Eve” “Quick Questions,” January 1994] is out of date. The claim that a common ancestor had been discovered was reported in *Newsweek *on January 11, 1989. It was a cover story. On March 2, 1992, *Newsweek *reported that the theorist had been mistaken.”

I have not done any research on this, but taking these people’s words for it, the mitochondrial DNA argument was unknowingly flawed when it was first reported.

Of course, I believe in the existence of Adam and Eve as our first parents, I just think we should be careful about using out-of-date arguments.

 

[vern_humphrey]

deb1:

Maybe I am wrong, but I read somewhere that the reason that predators have their eyes in the front of their heads is because it gives them the advantage of seeing in 3-d. So, I would surmise, perhaps incorrectly, that our ability to see in 3-d is not learned.

Animals that live in trees tend to have 3-D vision, too. When you’re fifty feet above the ground and jumping from branch to branch, you don’t want to misjudge the distance.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

 

[Richard_Hurtz]

PhilVaz:

UK << Yes, cavemen. Did they really exist? What’s the proof? If they did exist, what were they? Humans? Human-Apes? Did they have souls? >>

Yes they existed. The evidence is skulls, bone fragments, and complete skeletons (Lucy, etc). The Australopithecine hominids date to around 3-4 million years ago, to Cro-Magnon (homo sapiens, our species) date to 50,000 - 150,000 years ago. Adam/Eve according to Genesis would date to around 4000-5000 B.C. since Genesis 4 talks about cities, sophisticated farming, iron tools, and musical instruments which didn’t exist until the Upper Paleolithic period (about 10,000 years ago). So that places Adam/Eve around 4000-5000 B.C taking Genesis literally. My contributions on this subject are

Adam, Eve, and the Hominid Fossil Record (from Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, etc)

and Adam was a Neanderthal (one Catholic physicist’s opinion)

Phil P

Phil,

I would like you to consider the following and attempt to explain how your evolutionary leanings can be intergrated with the following Catholic teachings.

Third Council of Carthage
CANON CIX.

That Adam was not created by God subject to death.

THAT whosoever says that Adam, the first man, was created mortal, so that whether he had sinned or not, he would have died in body – that is, he would have gone forth of the body, not because his sin merited this, but by natural necessity, let him be anathema.

This Council was approved by Pope St. Zozimus

2nd Council of Orange (529 AD)

CANON 1. If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was “changed for the worse” through the offense of Adam’s sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20); and, “Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?” (Rom. 6:16); and, “For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (2 Pet. 2:19).

CANON 2. If anyone asserts that Adam’s sin affected him alone and not his descendants also, or at least if he declares that it is only the death of the body which is the punishment for sin, and not also that sin, which is the death of the soul, passed through one man to the whole human race, he does injustice to God and contradicts the Apostle, who says, “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” (Rom. 5:12).

This Council was approved by Pope Boniface II

These Councilar Pronouncements ratified by Popes delineate and define Catholic teaching - Man was created IMMORTAL (i.e. not predestined to physical death).

The error used to be that only physical death resulted from the Fall, today it has become that only spiritual death is the result of the Fall. These Councils proclaimed that it is BOTH.

Evolutionary theory is outside the defined teaching of the Catholic Church.

Blessings,
Richard

 

[vern_humphrey]

Richard_Hurtz:

Phil,

I would like you to consider the following and attempt to explain how your evolutionary leanings can be intergrated with the following Catholic teachings.

We are Catholics, not Fundamentalists. The Church does not require us to reject science.

 

[PhilVaz]

RichHurtz << Third Council of Carthage CANON CIX. That Adam was not created by God subject to death. THAT whosoever says that Adam, the first man, was created mortal … >>

Yes, I’ve admitted all along that is a strong theological objection to the evolution of man. Dennis Bonnette (Catholic philosopher, author of Origin of the Human Species) deals with this quoted in the other thread. You can believe, by faith, that Adam/Eve were real, they were the first real human beings since they had both body and soul, and this couple was created (or infused) by God at some point in the past with bodily immortality. But science can’t say anything to that since it doesn’t speak to miracles.

If you check back with all the creation-evolution threads we’ve had in here (let’s see, by my calculations that would be about 500 threads by now, each with 500,000 posts), these same theological objections do tend to crop up. So I am slowly building an arsenal of pro-Christian pro-Catholic pro-evolution articles dealing with some of them.

As pointed out many times, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI seem to have no problem with evolutionary science including human evolution, while understanding the limitations of science. Science doesn’t speak to souls, or immortality, or miracles in general. See also Cardinal Schonborn’s first catechetical lecture in a new series on creation and evolution where he clears up his New York Times commentary a bit. Of course this too is now nicely formatted on my site.

Ludwig Ott’s Fundmentals of Catholic Dogma states:

“The doctrine of evolution based on the theistic conception of the world, which traces matter and life to God’s causality and assumes that organic being, developed from originally created seed-powers (St. Augustine) or from stem-forms (doctrine of descent), according to God’s plan, is compatible with the doctrine of Revelation. However, as regards man, a special creation by God is demanded, which must extend at least to the spiritual soul [creatio hominis peculiaris Denz 2123]. Individual Fathers, especially St. Augustine, accepted a certain development of living creatures…”

“The question of the descent of the human body from the animal kingdom first appeared under the influence of the modern theory of evolution. The Biblical text does not exclude this theory. Just as in the account of the creation of the world, one can, in the account of the creation of man, distinguish between the per se inspired religious truth that man, both body and soul, was created by God, and the per accidens inspired, stark anthropomorphistic representation of the mode and manner of the Creation. While the fact of the creation of man by God in the literal sense must be closely adhered to, in the question as to the mode and manner of the formation of the human body, an interpretation which diverges from the strict literal sense, is, on weighty grounds, permissible.” (Ott, pages 93-94, 95)

This was originally published in the 1950s. The weighty grounds are the modern discoveries of the hominid fossils to the genetics evidence. Outlined in detail in those books I listed above.

Phil P

 

[Trelow]

Ghosty:

Do you have any references for this? I ask because you might have misunderstood, espescially if it was in the context of art. Three-dimensional technique in art is most definately learned, and is in fact extremely sophisticated. Utilizing 3-D perspective in 2-D drawing is difficult to even comprehend, and to some degree requires a special “wiring” of the brain. Of course, the whole point of it is that it tricks the mind into reading 3-D perspective where there is none, implying that 3-D vision is not something that’s learned.

Aye, we didn’t figgure that out intill the 14th century.

A few souls hither and tither got close around the 2nd century.But they couldn’t quite grasp it, and we have VERY few examples, two if I remember correctly.

 

[Trelow]

Evolution is too far fetched for me to have any faith in it. Takes more faith to be an Evolutionist than a Creationist says I.

 

[BioCatholic]

My opinion:

Adam and eve were probably the first homo-like beings who took on a self-consciousness. they had 2 children, to which they passed the genes that coded for a superior brain that allowed for rational thought. the bible says that cain went to other lands, and took a wife. probably would have been another similar homo-like being, just with lower cognitive capacity.

cain posessed the genes given by adam and eve. because these traits were superior, and they would be passed to his children, and be selected for. and here we all are.

moderan man IS NOT decended from neanderthals. we literally out competed and killed off neanderthals. we do however, share a common ancestor.

i really think that they were really just the first two individuals of modern man (50-60000 years ago) that could have very high cognitive processes. once having the ability for rational thought, they then chose to disobey God. this decision could have affected the outcome of the children that they had, meaning that events unfolded where the children they produced carried genes that ultimately werent best for the species. (hence a short lifespan)

say they HAD NOT disoberyed God, most likely they would have had a set of DIFFERENT children because they wouldnt have been kicked out, and these children might have had a set of really amazing genes, say genes that help prevent cancer ect. ultimately, it was up to them what choices they made, any of which would have different outcomes.

instead, we got stuck with a terrible immunue system, an even worse mitosis regulatory pathway, awful cancer prevention mechanisms, and a self-destructive nature.

 

[rwoehmke]

snowman10:

Out of curiosity, do you still believe God created us, maybe theist evolution? Im not really bothered by the fact that God created mankind, in his image, and then His creation grew and matured. As long as we understand God created us using his own freewill and was uninhibited in doing so, no rules are being broken. Also when it says God created us in his own image, does that mean we look like he does, i.e. mirror image or does it mean what he wanted us to look like, i.e. imagination?dxu

We are in the image and likeness of God in that we, unlike any other creatures, were created with intellect and will. God is spirit so our physical bodies would hardly be in his image and likeness.
Also it is very misleading to try to place the time line of man with the early world line in the bible. There is an obvious disjoint and Adam, by definition the first man, would have existed a lot earlier than 6000 years ago. One needs to keep in mind that the “science” in the Bible was written long before modern science developed.

 

[vern_humphrey]

rwoehmke:

We are in the image and likeness of God in that we, unlike any other creatures, were created with intellect and will. God is spirit so our physical bodies would hardly be in his image and likeness.
Also it is very misleading to try to place the time line of man with the early world line in the bible. There is an obvious disjoint and Adam, by definition the first man, would have existed a lot earlier than 6000 years ago. One needs to keep in mind that the “science” in the Bible was written long before modern science developed.

If Genesis were meant to be a comprehensive scientific description of the origin of the universe, no one in those days could understand it. It would have failed in its purpose.

So we would have the paradox of an inspired, inerrant author completely failing to get his message across.