Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

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setarcos said:
One aspect is chronology.
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I disagree. Genesis has birds (Day 5) before land animals (Day 6). That is the reverse of the correct chronology.
setarcos said:
In this case man definitely was created from something other than the advanced life forms then in existence.
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Again, I disagree. God said, “Let the earth bring forth…” so the land animals were from the earth. Later God forms man from the earth. Since animals are also earth, we can say earth → animals → man, with the soul added last. God formed man from earth, but the particular piece of earth He used was a land animal derived from the earth.

You may not agree with that interpretation, but it is a possible interpretation.

rossum
 
IWantGod said:
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DetectiveNiko:
If you look at today’s atheism, a lot of it is caused because they claim that the church is against science and evolution and bla bla bla.
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I think some Christians are also to blame such as those who claim that the theory of Evolution does conflict with the faith. They themselves present a cause for doubt among Christians and provide a weapon for atheists to wield.
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Yes, even St. Pope ll John paul
 
Rau said:
It seems you fear is that certain theories imply (or require) no God
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I don’t have such fear by any means. I only fear those in power pushing their non-working theories onto our children and leading them down the wrong paths. A total waste of energies just on economics only not to say the feeling of being duped at the end of the road when you realise that those scientists already knew that it was a futile exercise for a long time. Education is not free nor cheap for many. Research is not free nor cheap either. Scientific research on origins of life and SETI have pretty much come to the conclusion that life is very improbable just by natural processes alone and have defocus pretty much on it. Not many publications out there for the last 2 decades or so. The theories of Carl Sagan painted that it was easy to find other earths or lifeforms and plenty of them. Taxpayers have funded such projects for years with nothing to show for. Those monies could be better spent elsewhere. If science teaches truth, I’m all for it. For centuries the Church was the leading source of science knowledge and teaching.

I just don’t support the teaching of bogus theories, that’s all. Those textbooks must be revamped.
 
setarcos said:
Can someone tell me how we can rectify evolution with genesis’s description of the creation of man?

According to genesis God created evolutionarily advanced species and then created man not from them…presumably as an evolutionary developement, but from dirt. This would be an evolutionary monumental back pedalling and seem to violate its procosses as currently understood. How is it that a more advanced species can develope not from the advanced species already in existence but from premordial dirt ? If this dont violate evolution I dont know what would.
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You are co-mingling the 2 accounts of Genesis. The first account didn’t mention “dirt”. I don’t see a timing problem with the first. Animals/beasts were created before man.

The second account didn’t mention the chronology of animal creation at all. You are reading a literal meaning of dirt meaning silicon dust?. The Church never teaches that was the biological significance of that. Others would quote a very cosmological slant and call it stardust which may well be true in fact. Planets are all formed from stardust.
 
I didn’t say I doubt it, I said I’m not sold on it.

The fact is that the vast, vast majority of people don’t know how we “know” the Earth revolves around the sun, buuuuuut just like with most things these days, knowing why a thing is true is unimportant.

If you believe the right things then you are called smart, even If you don’t know any of the mechanics or reasons behind your belief. If you don’t automatically believe the popular consensus then you are ignorant and dumb, even if you know more about the subject than most people. Evolution, climate change, heliocentrism, quantum mechanics, Fruedian/Yungian psychology, etc… All of them are the same in that respect.

And any time I am required to believe something that isn’t part of the Faith, I start to get suspicious. I get even more suspicious when I do a little research and find out that all the CONCLUSIVE evidence is really thin.
 
ericc said:
I don’t have such fear by any means. I only fear those in power pushing their non-working theories onto our children and leading them down the wrong paths.
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Which path(s) is that?
 
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Evolution only pushes God away from creation if you make it. Me, for example, it brings me greater awe of what He made.

Quick question: What’s your religious background? A lot of what you’re saying gives me vibes of Evangelical Fundamentalist theology. Your voiced concern on what the magesterium and popes have said in regards to evolution is the source of one of those vibes. Catholics should know the Church has teaching authority and is guided by the Holy Spirit so with statements from Pope Pius XII, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Francis all saying evolution is not in contradiction to the faith so long as you hold the Church’s truth up, we can rest assured that God’s truth is being protected in His Church. (And I’m guessing Pope Benedict XIV said something on it, though I haven’t searched into that.)

In addition, going back to Humani Generis by Pope Pius XII, there are not as many truths necessitated to be held literally true in Genesis’ early chapters dealing with Creation and The Fall as you claim. Again, a reason why I ask your religious background because your statements do appear to have Fundamentalist influence. (Side note, if you haven’t already, Humani Generis is a brief and interesting read.)

I don’t really care if you continue to think evolution is nonsense after this discussion, doesn’t affect my convictions, but I do have some hope that you’ll at least see it does not contradict the faith.
 
For me, “I’m not sold on” sounds no different than “I doubt” so I’m wondering if you might be able to elaborate on your usage of that so I have a better frame of reference as to your frame of reference for any further discussion.
 
No, I guess you’re right when you say they are the same. If we keep it at “have doubts about” rather than a solid “disbelieve”. I don’t disbelieve in thr thing, I just have some doubts about it. So fair point.
 
Rau said:
Which path(s) is that?
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The path of bogus theories? For example, I was lead to believe in the 70s that embryos all look alike. That was in my biology text book. Later I found that Haeckel’s drawings have been known to be a fraud for a long time. And yet they still teach them as fact until public opinion force these drawings to be relabeled not as fact but as something educational. Yeah right.

Look at Haldane’s Dilemma. Mathematically proven that evolution won’t be moving so fast to reflect reality on the ground. Really really inconvenient to trumpet that. Any research to debunk that theory? Who in the right scientific mind would want to do that while knowing if proven true, the house of cards will collapse with a loud clash? Some verbal rebuttals claiming formula wrong blah blah blah. So easy to redo the formula plug in the proper calculations and test the results. But no, nothing significant of this sort has been reported. If it is so easy to prove Haldane wrong, there would be a rush for “peer review” to validate his results. Or is there something in there that is better to let sleeping dog lie?
 
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mVitus said:
Evolution only pushes God away from creation if you make it. Me, for example, it brings me greater awe of what He made.
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What if evolution is an err ?
Evolution…
“ericc said:
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Rau:
Which path(s) is that?
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The path of bogus theories? For example, I was lead to believe in the 70s that embryos all look alike. That was in my biology text book. Later I found that Haeckel’s drawings have been known to be a fraud for a long time. And yet they still teach them as fact until public opinion force these drawings to be relabeled not as fact but as something educational. Yeah right.

Look at Haldane’s Dilemma. Mathematically proven that evolution won’t be moving so fast to reflect reality on the ground. Really really inconvenient to trumpet that. Any research to debunk that theory? Who in the right scientific mind would want to do that while knowing if proven true, the house of cards will collapse with a loud clash? Some verbal rebuttals claiming formula wrong blah blah blah. So easy to redo the formula plug in the proper calculations and test the results. But no, nothing significant of this sort has been reported. If it is so easy to prove Haldane wrong, there would be a rush for “peer review” to validate his results. Or is there something in there that is better to let sleeping dog lie?
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The Emperor’s New Clothes
 
Church_Militant said:
It’s just a theory and so it contradicts nothing. That’s the way theories work and since it’s never been proven it’s not a big deal.
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It is a fact also. There is a billion years of fossil evidence to show that it is a fact.
A great deal of creationist rhetoric garbles this distinction and tries to insists that uncertainties in the explanation are proof that the thing being explained doesn’t exist which is bad logic. The theory furthermore, has proven itself solidly in practice —it does a solid job of explaining things for which competing theories have to resort to ad hoc handwaving—and it forms the beating heart of life sciences. John Michael Greer
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Do you have a theory that better explains the facts?
 
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If millions of years of evolution is the truth, why does God indicate in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:8-11 that it took a few days? Why the deception?
 
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It does matter how God created because if millions of years of evolution is true, then the Old and New Testaments are so full of primitive superstitions they are rendered worthless. For example, if Adam and Eve weren’t real people then all references to them are based on ignorant fairy tales. Why would anyone place their trust in a so-called Holy Book that is riddled with myths abd falsehoods?

Jesus referred to Adam, so this Jesus must be clueless as the apostles who spoke of Adam as a real person.

The Scriptures aren’t a myth - evolution is.
 
Glark said:
If millions of years of evolution is the truth, why does God indicate in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:8-11 that it took a few days? Why the deception?
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2 Peter 3:8 “But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

You could also usefully search Genesis for the evening of the seventh day.

If you believe that God made the world, then the evidence of the world is as much from God as is the word of God in the Bible. Why do you reject the evidence of the world that God made?

rossum
 
Glark said:
For example, if Adam and Eve weren’t real people then all references to them are based on ignorant fairy tales.
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Science shows that Adam and Eve did exist, since there are couples in the past from whom all living humans are descended. Any of the ancestors of the MRCA are ancestors of the entire human population. That gives you plenty of candidates to choose from for the first couple to be given souls.

rossum
 
Glark said:
f millions of years of evolution is the truth, why does God indicate in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:8-11 that it took a few days? Why the deception?
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What deception?

Do Catholics believe in evolution?
For the biblical literalist, the theory of evolution is problematic because it appears to contradict the stories found in the earliest chapters of Genesis. But is literalism the best approach to understanding scripture? The Catechism of the Catholic Church discourages literalism when it encourages believers to recognize the various literary genres found in the Bible.
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