Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

[Glark]

A point worth making.

 

[Glark]

What is scientific evidence to you? You have a blanket rejection on ANYTHING that suggests any type of life existed on earth before 5778 years ago. Not because you find the evidence flawed, but because it is at odds with a personal belief you have - one your Church does not require you to hold.

Huh? I was talking about abiogenesis.

 

[Rau]

Huh? I was talking about abiogenesis.

And I remarked on the irony of you remarking on the absence of scientific evidence - as though scientific evidence is something you consider objectively.

 

[rossum]

God doesn’t come from anywhere, because he’s life itself.

And a cosmologist will tell you that the multiverse doesn’t come from anywhere, because there was no “where” before the Big Bang. As I said, both camps start with an unexplained initiator: God or the multiverse/whatever.

rossum

 

[rossum]

What a pity there is no scientific evidence that suggests that is even remotely possible. It defies the laws of mathmatical probability, for starters.

Probability? Probability is a number. Show us your calculations that led you to a specific value of probability. Without the calculations then you have nothing.

You should be aware that I have calculated a limit on the probability of God existing. It is out there on the internet if you want to search for it.

rossum

 

[Benadam]

Thanks Ed. I appreciate your response.
Of course it isn’t Church teaching but it doesn’t violate it either. If it does I pray some one let me know.

All of them as one-Man—>. literal Adam and Eve.

The concept the Church doesn’t teach I know you told me, is the ‘all of them as one’ or one person being an entire people as one. An entire people as one person. But Scripture reveals this phenomenon.

Compare the history of Samaria and the life of the Samaritan woman.
Samaria at that time had had five vassal kings in it’s history and the one it had when Jesus and the woman talked was also from another nation.

The woman’s life events mirrored the history of Samaria. The woman’s life experience was the life experience of the whole nation. That being so, I think she knew the nation in a way that no other Samaritan could. She was living it in her own life as one person. In a real sense she was Samaria. I think Jesus knew that and could draw from what he knew about Samaria’s history, if He wanted, to tell her everything she had done. Which in it’s self is something unique to this particular story. Scripture doesn’t describe Jesus doing that elsewhere.

John 4-28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!

Jesus even acknowledges her as an archetype calling her Woman. The only other person He gave that title to was His Blessed Mother.

John 4- 20
“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem

Take note of the pattern of life as revealed in her history of husbands.

John 4 16
“I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.

Then look at the pattern in the book of Revelation.

Rev 17-10
The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth: 10 and [j]they are seven kings; the five are fallen, the one is, the other is not yet come;
This pattern reaches back to the beginning of salvation history. To Genesis.

That she was well known and highly respected is seen in how many people believed in Jesus on account of her testimony. They believed because she did.

John 4-39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.”

 

[Glark]

And I remarked on the irony of you remarking on the absence of scientific evidence - as though scientific evidence is something you consider objectively.

Fiirstly, does anyone consider scientific evidence objectively?

Secondly, abiogenesis science is going nowhere - it’s like a bunch of earthworms trying to figure out how man split the atom. My religion is Catholicism, not Scientism - God is unlimited, science is very limited.

 

[rossum]

Secondly, abiogenesis science is going nowhere

Classic God-of-the gaps. A very dangerous position to take. Science works to close gaps, so your God has to get smaller to still fit in the gap. Do you want your God to shrink?

rossum

 

[Glark]

Probability? Probability is a number. Show us your calculations that led you to a specific value of probability. Without the calculations then you have nothing.

I beg to differ.

I don’t have to calculate the probability of a meteor hitting my house every day for a year to know that that is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

I don’t have to calculate the probability of a monkey building a computer to know that that is impossible.

I don’t have to calculate the probability of me winning Wimbeldon next year to know that that is impossible.

You should be aware that I have calculated a limit on the probability of God existing. It is out there on the internet if you want to search for it.

In that case, Rau, I won’t be taking you on viz-a-viz the technicalities of mathematical probability! Thanks for the warning!
Although, with respect, I would say that, while an interesting thought, trying to calculate the limit on the probability of God existing is an exercise in futility - too many uncertainties.

 

[Rau]

Science works to close gaps, so your God has to get smaller to still fit in the gap. Do you want your God to shrink?

This is what I find so bizarre. Imagine putting God wherever one lacks understanding. In order to hold to a literal interpretation of a text that the teachers of one’s faith do not say must be read literally. And to what end?

 

[Glark]

Classic God-of-the gaps. A very dangerous position to take. Science works to close gaps, so your God has to get smaller to still fit in the gap. Do you want your God to shrink?

Call it what you like, but there is no getting away from the fact that in order for scientists to prove that all life on earth arose by chance from inanimate matter, they will have to do just that - produce life from inanimate matter. But not only that, they will have to produce life that also produces viable offspring. The chances of humans doing that are ZERO.
Anything less than this outcome amounts to mere theorising, which is worthless and proves NOTHING. (Not that that will stop atheist evolutionists believing in magic - that scientific impossibilities are somehow possible.)

 

[Glark]

This is what I find so bizarre. Imagine putting God wherever one lacks understanding. In order to hold to a literal interpretation of a text that the teachers of one’s faith do not say must be read literally. And to what end?

I can ask you the same question: What is the point of accepting a theory of life’s origins that cannot ever be tested and is utterly useless in any applied sense?

(I asked NiceAtheist this question but didn’t get an answer.)

 

[Glark]

In Genesis 1, God describes how He created various creatures “according to their kinds”. Theistic evolutionists believe that these original creatures evolved and gave rise to very different creatures that are NOT according to the original “kinds”. If that is so, then it seems very odd to me that the Lord would bother mentioning that He created creatures “according to their kinds”.

On the other hand, if the creatures the Lord originally created DIDN’T evolve beyond the bounds of the original “kinds”, then it makes sense to me for the Lord to mention that He created them “according to their kinds”.

 

[IWantGod]

I have zero respect whatsoever for the authority of your personal interpretation of scripture, that is certainly correct! And no i am not an atheist. I am a Rational Catholic.

 

[rossum]

I don’t have to calculate the probability of a monkey building a computer to know that that is impossible.

Erm… I know for a fact that it is possible for a catarrhine primate to build a computer.

Oh yes, and scientists do calculate probabilities like the chance of being hit by a meteor.

If you want to convince scientists then, yes, you do need to calculate probabilities. And yes, you will need to study some chemistry in order to do so. In chemistry, H2O is a lot more probable than HO2. Ignoring chemistry will get you a false result. GIGO.

rossum

 

[rossum]

This is what I find so bizarre. Imagine putting God wherever one lacks understanding. In order to hold to a literal interpretation of a text that the teachers of one’s faith do not say must be read literally. And to what end?

“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we do not know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Letters and Papers from Prison”

rossum

 

[IWantGod]

If that is so, then it seems very odd to me that the Lord would bother mentioning that He created creatures “according to their kinds”.

The author of genesis wrote that. What tenet of the Catholic faith said that the lord wrote that as a scientific fact and therefore we must take it literally?

 

[Rau]

What is the point of accepting a theory of life’s origins that cannot ever be tested and is utterly useless in any applied sense?

Because it is credible in many details, it explains a great deal and studying the universe is in satisfaction of our God given curiosity using our God given intelligence.

 

[Techno2000]

[No message]

 

[rossum]

Archaeopterxy was not a (modern) bird. It was probably not even directly ancestral to modern birds, it was a side-branch that went extinct.

It is however an excellent transitional fossil, as predicted by Darwin:

                    Feathers Flight   Bony Tail   Teeth
                    -------- ------   ---------   ------
Dinosaurs              No       No      Yes        Yes
Feathered Dinos       Yes       No      Yes        Yes
Archaeopteryx         Yes      Yes      Yes        Yes
Early Birds           Yes      Yes       No        Yes
Modern Birds          Yes      Yes       No         No

rossum