Dinosaurs and the Flood

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I am quite sure of it, as have been at least the last five Popes. The Church has embraced evolution for at least that time, and an old earth for much longer. The Church has always understood that Scripture has allegorical elements (and, yes, Augustine understood that, too). Every Catholic school child knows this. It seems like only internet denizens do not.
 
Dude, the Church has said an old earth and evolution are perfectly compatible with the Faith. I’d trust that over a perception of what the Church teaches.
 
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What the Catholic kids are taught is what the Church teaches. If you disagree with the Church that is your prerogative, but you can’t in good faith come to a Catholic forum and say that you know better than the Church what the Church teaches.
 
With respect, based on your comments here that is not accurate. I will trust the Church, the Pope, the Catechism and other Church documents to say with authority what the Church teaches, not the musings of folks on the internet.
 
Yeah but notice I’m not the one claiming to know better than the Church. A good principle is that if your thought disagrees with Church teaching a good place to look is inside oneself for the reason why.
 
The Church permits us to believe in a young earth, as many of the Saints believed. The Church permits us to reject evolutionary theory and believe in Creation. We are, actually required to believe that God created human souls, from nothing. We also profess that God created all things visible and invisible - God is the first cause, Creator. We are permitted to believe in the 7 day creation of Genesis. There are many commentaries from the Fathers of the Church on this.
Just because scholars say something does not mean it is true. God can reveal to souls what He did at the beginning of the world. We must believe that. If that happened, what God revealed would be more true and accurate than anything science could discover by looking at archeological evidence, since God is the originator and knows all of history - and we do not know it.
 
Well, it seems like the goalposts are moving. You admit that the Church accepts evolution and an old earth, apparently, but are now merely arguing that you are free to disagree with science.

Yes, the Church “allows” you to reject pretty much any erroneous scientific belief that you want, including believing that humans rode dinosaurs, that the sky is really a dome holding back the ocean with doors to throw out the hail and snow, or that the earth is flat. But the Church does not teach that there is any theological reason to hold to those scientific errors.
 
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The liturgy of the Church is authoritative and is generally thought to be an expression of the infallible magisterium.
 
Most of the theology of the Church would support young earth. It’s only the most recent theological speculations that propose old earth evolutionism. And those speculations are fraught with problems, logically and Scripturally.
 
We can look at someone like Teilhard de Chardin as a proponent of evolutionism. He is a modern-day Catholic scholar. Many Catholics today follow his ideas.
 
What the Catholic kids are taught is what the Church teaches. If you disagree with the Church that is your prerogative, but you can’t in good faith come to a Catholic forum and say that you know better than the Church what the Church teaches.
Still waiting for a magisterial document that reverses centuries of teaching and an explanation of where was the Holy Spirit during all this time.
 
We can look at someone like Teilhard de Chardin as a proponent of evolutionism. He is a modern-day Catholic scholar. Many Catholics today follow his ideas.
Indeed. He was instrumental in trying to “modernize” church teaching.
 
You admit that the Church accepts evolution and an old earth, apparently, but are now merely arguing that you are free to disagree with science.
Once again the church and everyone accepts micro-evolution. Macro is the issue.
 
Still waiting for a magisterial document that reverses centuries of teaching and an explanation of where was the Holy Spirit during all this time.
LOL, still waiting for any actual evidence that your own personal view is the long teaching of the Church, as opposed to what is being taught by the bishops and the Pope.
 
Once again the church and everyone accepts micro-evolution. Macro is the issue.
Yes, yes, you have been pushing this false dichotomy and promoting your own personal theory on the forum for many years. The Church’s views on evolution are clear, and available to anyone who wants to see them. Anyone that really wants to know what the Church teaches should refer to Church documents.
 
Indeed. He was instrumental in trying to “modernize” church teaching.
I think we can measure various views from him. If we actually read what Teilhard was saying, and understand what he believed (mostly what he did not believe or accept in the authority of the Church) we can see what “scientific religion” is all about. Teilhard and his followers were so powerful, that Pope Pius XII could not name him (I wish he had) in his denunciation of Teilhard’s ideas. The “modernization” you speak of has had massively destructive consequences. Some accept that as a fact, others oppose it. For me, I find the effects of Teilhardism to be irrefutable. But many people are frightened to think that modern science could be incorrect, and they are frightened to oppose the academics and scholars, who claim authority even over the Holy Scripture. Many are unwilling to place Faith in the first place of knowledge and understanding, with science, archeology and rationality as only secondary assistants. Those who place the Catholic tradition first, are considered “radical” (or crazy or ridiculous or insane) by those who are afraid of what the secular world might think.
 
Can you produce one that says they’re not? Or do the views of several popes, one of them a Saint, not matter to you?
 
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