Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

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Physically speaking i don’t think God did design Adam. I think his physical body is the outcome of secondary causes.
 
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That secondary cause being evolution, I assume. Is this evolution directed by God or is it a blind, aimless, random process? (Christian scientists such as Dobzhansky and Kenneth Miller claim the latter.)
 
From the perspective of science, blind, aimless, and random mutation just means that physical objects move and act according to their natures. In other-words their movement and behavior is natural as opposed to being like puppets on a string moved by the hand of God toward a specific goal. Gone are the days of Zeus; that worldview is dead. God is involved in the process but not in the same sense that intelligent design theorist would have us believe. God creates things for a purpose but science cannot know that purpose…
 
Rau said:
AFAIK, science would presume polygenism because that would be what one would judge more likely.
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Science has shown polygenism. Science does not “presume” unless it absolutely has to. Analysis of the genetic variation in the overall human population, together with known mutation rates and other data can give us minimum population estimates for the past. The smallest I have seen for the human (as opposed to pre-human) population is between 10,000 and 20,000 breeding pairs, around 70,000 years ago.

What science does not show is how many of those humans (if any) had souls. Souls do not fossilise and cannot be matched to a specific DNA sequence, so they are outside science. All, some or none of that early population may have had souls. That is not a question science can answer. Science has answered the question on population size.

rossum
 
If anyone is an evo-denier, they are rejecting the most important theory in the Universe! Or something.

Ed 🙂
 
Careful, you’re making sense and refusing to bow before the god of Scientism.

Ed
 
Does it make you wonder if this discussion is really about science but about a belief system based on science which could care less about about what Catholics believe, except to get more converts for Scientism?
 
Glark said:
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niceatheist:
Heard this where exactly? Can you provide a citation?
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Please forgive my ignorance (I’m only a creation literalist, after all) about supplying links, but I refer you to an article at evolutionnews.org, “Do all lLife Forms Fall into a Nested Hierarchy?”.

And please think about this: Where it says in Genesis 1 that God created creatures “according to their kinds”, it could very well be referring to nested hierarchies.
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I’m not seeing any article to that effect. And the problem with invoking God is that there would be no observation incompatible with the claim He did it. Have every kingdom of life, or heck every species, use a different heredity mechanism would be equally compatible with the claim as the twin-nested hierarchy.

Do you understand the fundamental problem with invoking God? Science works by finding testable explanations, but if the explanation your invoking is compatible with any possible observation, your explanation cease to have any utility at all. Thus the aphorism “Invoking God explains everything, and thus explains nothing.”

This isn’t to say God didn’t use evolution, and indeed even I, an atheist, see no incompatibility between God and the Big Bang or God and abiogenesis or God and evolution. I can see some logical problems of the “Can God create a stone so big he cannot move it” variety, but that’s a different topic really. At the end of the day, science is agnostic on the existence of God. It cannot prove or falsify God’s existence, or God’s hand in any process, and that’s fine, because that’s not science’s job.
 
Matthew 10: 28-30 - Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
 
Glark said:
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Bradskii:
I try not to post on anything where I have limited knowledge. Except where the discussion is likely to lead me to a greater understanding of the matter at hand. You would do well to follow that principle. Because all you are doing, all you have been doing, is exhibiting your ignorance of the subject matter.

Now that in itself is not a problem. I am ignorant of many things. It’s one of the reasons I post on the philosophy section of the forum. I get to learn about attitudes that others have about matters I consider important and it prompts me to search for information.
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Oh, I get it … since I don’t accept evolution, I must be ignorant of that particular sphere of (so-called) science.
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Not at all. There are very many people indeed who understand it extremely well and yet prefer to accept a biblical version of creation. But you show every indication of not even understanding the basics. You are arguing from a position of ignorance.

I’m not sure if you know that and don’t care, which shows a lack of respect for those discussing it with you or do know it and are determined to remain in that position.

I’m not sure which is worse.
 
  1. Evolution only talks about how life on Earth became so diverse, adapted to the environments, and complex. Evolution says absolutely nothing about how life started on Earth.
  2. There are pre-Cambrian fossils. However, the rate of change in organisms was small during that period with almost, if not all, organisms being simple single celled organisms. Good luck finding fossils of single-celled organisms that are buried deep. There have been some found, but they’re rare.
  3. I’d take another lesson if I was you because every single biology class I’ve ever taken or taught (I’m a science teacher) teaches that the “cherished” experiment was faulty and did not prove anything like they originally thought. I don’t know anyone who still takes that experiment seriously.
  4. No “evolutionists” have ever claimed that the complexity of life we see today, which you give by the odds of all the proteins fitting together to create human DNA occurred instantaneously by chance. The whole point of evolution is that it took billions and billions of years for simple molecules to become more and more complex. Even at a tiny rate of change over a long enough time, there will be a massive change from what you had originally.
I can’t tell if you’re trolling people or if you simply read a couple articles on some creationist website and started spewing random numbers and facts you’ve heard. Either way, I’d recommend you do some reading up on the theory of evolution because you clearly have some misconceptions.
 
Keep in mind it is only a theory that has no real evidence to support it. A transition species has NEVER been found. Like it says in the Book of Genesis: “Each to it’s own kind.”. The theory of natural selection is more plausible.

Here is a point to ponder: Every ancient culture has dragon lore. The word dinosaur was only invented in 1890. But, for evolution to be true, dragons/dinosaurs had to become extinct millions of years ago…
 
RoseofMary1 said:
Keep in mind it is only a theory that has no real evidence to support it. A transition species has NEVER been found. Like it says in the Book of Genesis: “Each to it’s own kind.”. The theory of natural selection is more plausible.
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You are being lied to by creationist websites here. There is a great deal of evidence for evolution all the way from bacteria evolving resistance to antibiotics to the evolution of lactase persistence in some modern humans. Do not believe creationist websites that lie to you.
Here is a point to ponder: Every ancient culture has dragon lore. The word dinosaur was only invented in 1890. But, for evolution to be true, dragons/dinosaurs had to become extinct millions of years ago…
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Here is a point to ponder; we find fossil bones and fossil footprints today. Ancient people also found fossil bones and fossil footprints. In the past, the Chinese called fossils “dragon bones”. It has been suggested that the Native American Thunderbird was the result of seeing dinosaur tracks – some dinosaur tracks look like the tracks of a very large bird. The Arabian Roc probably had a similar origin.

rossum
 
No, in fact the Book of Genesis describes a kind of stages of development of the world in its creation that can be compared to evolution. (By the way, archeologists have discovered that the Tyranosaurus Rex had feathers.)
 
You are being lied to by atheist scientists. The whole theory revolves around species transitioning into other species. This is in direct contradiction to the Bible that says God created everything according to its own kind. Darwinists have even gone so far as to fudge bones together to fashion transitional myths, but those have all been debunked by legitimate scientists.

Ancient cultures have stories of living dragons. There were even pictures of dragons on cathedrals. There are pictures of dragons/dinosaurs on Egyptian ruins. The Thunderbird legends were not that long ago, and were of living creatures that lived up high and came on the thunderstorms, because they needed the wind for their large wing span. The legends come with warnings about being killed by these fierce creatures.
 
Yes, God made this, then that, but the point is that God made them by his word., and it says many times that he made them “each to its own kind.” Darwin wanted to cut God out of the picture and claimed things just happened to evolve randomly.
 
Science is a human activity. Its highest expression is to be found in contemplation of God’s creation, revealing His glory. In this world however, it is about economics, politics, social position and power. In this particular milieu where we here are meeting on an Internet forum, it provides a sort of social glue that binds people together in more or less common visions of the world. We form a belief system within a community of like-minded individuals who support the trust we have in our shared knowledge. Science is an aspect of a very powerful social force which brings us together and alternatively can result in grievous harm being done to one another when we disagree.

This all rests on our being relational in nature; it is fundamental to who we are that we connect to the world. We do so through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts and our actions. We obviously will get upset when our foundations in reality are shaken, if for example we go blind, or are faced with unrequited love, find ourselves disconnected from reality, or powerless in making our contribution. Intellectually and emotionally, it is difficult to confront the abyss that is the depth of our ignorance, our potential disconnect from reality, our finiteness, the nonbeing that surrounds us. Our salvation is to be found in the living Truth itself, transcending our thoughts, which in comparison to that Bread, are so much straw.

The question of our beginnings is of crucial importance because it tells us who we are, why we are, where we are headed, and that understanding will influence what we do and ultimately who we become. The Theory of Evolution as it is taught and generally portrayed in the media. may lead us to go beyond its limited scope, to contemplate science’s discoveries which speak to the immensity of this universe and God’s infinite power. As it is presented, it is wrong, with its focus on what is material and for the most part trivial and beside the point, its assumption that we were not created beginning with one man and one woman, that it is merely the inherent properties of matter that lead to the existence our bodies and more importantly ourselves, the separation from and the setting in opposition of the person and all life, to the environment with which it is all one as manifestations of physical being. It ignores the soul, be it vegetative, animal with its instinctive modes of experience and behavior, or human, that which allows for our capacity to do science, create art, music and literature, to know and express good and evil, and ultimately to give ourselves to what is other
 
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