Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

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Glark said:
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rossum:
Of course. All devils, animals, humans and gods go through rebirth. Neanderthals were no exception
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I would like to be rebirthed as some kind of vegetable. A cauliflower would be nice. Can this be arranged?
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That might be ontologically impossible.
 
Glark said:
I guess God could have snapped his fingers and caused a (perceived) Big Bang and then moved all the bits and pieces into place.
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Over 15 bill years? Rather like what we’ve concluded from scientific observation and the laws of physics?
 
Rau said:
Over 15 bill years? Rather like what we’ve concluded from scientific observation and the laws of physics?
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While the universe was cooling, God busied himself with designing all the critters, large and small … and other essential stuff.
 
Techno2000 said:
Well… there would be no joy for Glark if he got eaten.
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True, but God would put me in a special garden and instruct everyone (including the bugs) that they are free to eat every vegetable in the garden - except the cauliflower called Glark.
 
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Glark said:
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Aloysium:
The Centre of this all is perfect relationality - Love.
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As far as I know, in no religions other than ones inspired by the Bible are humans told that God loves them and that “God is love”.
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Jesus Christ is the revelation of God’s love for us. The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, constitutes a dialogue between Mankind and God. Inspired by the Holy Spirit it tells us of the Word of God, present in the Garden, in the Flood, with Abraham and Isaac as they climbed the mountain, with Moses and the Passover, prophesied by Isaiah, in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through the works of the Apostles. We hear God’s word and through our individual and collective contemplation, prayers and charitable works, through the mass and sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, we engage in that dialogue, thereby transforming ourselves into love. Becoming Christ-like, through our actions, choosing to become children of God, we enter into communion within the Trinity, an offer we declined when we were first brought into being as one humanity.
 
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Glark said:
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Techno2000:
Well… there would be no joy for Glark if he got eaten.
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True, but God would put me in a special garden and instruct everyone (including the bugs) that they are free to eat every vegetable in the garden - except the cauliflower called Glark.
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(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
Rau said:
But what was the initial state created? Big Bang like, with natural processes following, or all the stars and planets “snapped” into place. You see, the latter would be at odds with observation, but the former not.
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As an aside, God creates from eternity. The beginning and everything that followed is caused by the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which lies at the centre of creation. Just because we become through our actions and must therefore have a fixed past and a future of possibilities, until our death when we become who we are, does not mean creation does likewise. Actually there is no true present in the physical world; it is all a symphony of trajectories, following the Law of Thermodynamics, brought into being and permitted in every moment by God, in accordance with His will.
 
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Aloysium said:
As an aside, God creates from eternity.
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Noted (as an aside). Glark is not speaking of metaphysics but of actual historical events which he asserts differ dramatically from what human enquiry, observation and reason judges. Glark asserts: All life on earth snapped into existence 5778 years ago. Earth might be a few billion years old, but it existed prior to the sun. These assertions are in no way necessary for the belief in God you, I, the Catholic Church and others profess.
 
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Glark said:
Also, Jesus was comparing Jonah’s “three days and three nights in the belly of the whale” to the three days and three nights Jesus would spend in the belly of the earth between his death and resurrection. It’s unlikely he would liken his death and resurrection to a fairy tale.

Anyways, why doubt the story of Jonah, when any miracle in the Bible is just as incredible? Why should being in the belly of a whale for three days be any harder to believe than a virgin birth or a dead man being resurrected and walking through walls?
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Actually, Jonah was dead for three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. That is why Jesus used Jonah as the sign of his Resurrection.

Jonah prayed from the belly of Sheol: “…out of the belly of Sheol I cried,…” Sheol is the realm of the dead in ancient Judaism. Jonah was dead and raised from the dead.
 
rossum said:
Of course. All devils, animals, humans and gods go through rebirth. Neanderthals were no exception.

rossum
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I would suppose that Buddhism would be even more difficult to reconcile with evolution if this were the case. Or is reincarnation a matter of natural selection and random mutation? If not, what is the mechanism by which these beings are “assigned” their new existential condition? No design, just chance? Or is there some overall purpose or mechanism by which all these sequential reincarnations occur?
 
Glark said:
Huh? What “insults”?

Is it my imagination, or are you a tad sensitive?
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Again with the insults. You don’t actually think before you speak do you? It’s all about you being right isn’t it? It doesn’t matter if you trash talk people by calling them Evo-Catholics which souds suspiciously like evil Catholics. You don’t know what i believe about evolution yet that doesn’t stop you from insulting me and Darwinists at the same time. Or insuading that ‘my’ Jesus is a liar. Apparently, you have to be this way to convince yourself you are right. So everyone who doesn’t think like you is a villian in your mind. You forget that you are interacting with actual people and not just ideas.

The problem with saying that you have to accept a literal interpretation of Genesis is it sends most people packing for the nearest exist. Trying to pit science against religion. Therefore for you to evangelize anyone you have to convince them that Astronomy is wrong, geology is wrong, biology is wrong, etc, all because your interpretation of some ancient book is correct. Do you know how that sounds to the unbeliever? Regardless of what you say the Church permits people to accept the scientific evidence. Because it has learned from its own mistakes. The question is will you learn from yours?
 
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HarryStotle said:
I would suppose that Buddhism would be even more difficult to reconcile with evolution if this were the case.
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Why? Evolution is to do with physical bodies; what reincarnates is not the physical body but one of the four non-physical components of a living being.
If not, what is the mechanism by which these beings are “assigned” their new existential condition?
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The mechanism is karma. You arrive where you are supposed to arrive and are reborn/rehatched/re-whatever at your next destination.

rossum
 
rossum said:
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HarryStotle:
I would suppose that Buddhism would be even more difficult to reconcile with evolution if this were the case.
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Why? Evolution is to do with physical bodies; what reincarnates is not the physical body but one of the four non-physical components of a living being.
If not, what is the mechanism by which these beings are “assigned” their new existential condition?
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The mechanism is karma. You arrive where you are supposed to arrive and are reborn/rehatched/re-whatever at your next destination.

rossum
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So, four billion years ago, when life first got started, evolution said…“LET THERE BE REBIRTH” and this is how rebirth came to be?
 
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Read what trusted Church sources say. You are leaning on your own understanding and not listening.
Read what the Church’s bishops and respected theologians say about Genesis, evolution, and Jonah. The information is out there, it’s on you to read it.
 
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rossum said:
The mechanism is karma. You arrive where you are supposed to arrive and are reborn/rehatched/re-whatever at your next destination.

rossum
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So these are two completely separate tracks (material and spiritual) that just happen to coincide when you are “reborn/rehatched/re-whatever at your next destination?” No purpose or intent on the part of a designer or creator, just mere ‘it happens to be that way’ because… …karma happens for no real or apparent reason?
 
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HarryStotle said:
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rossum:
The mechanism is karma. You arrive where you are supposed to arrive and are reborn/rehatched/re-whatever at your next destination.

rossum
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So these are two completely separate tracks (material and spiritual) that just happen to coincide when you are “reborn/rehatched/re-whatever at your next destination?” No purpose or intent on the part of a designer or creator, just mere ‘it happens to be that way’ because… …karma happens for no real or apparent reason?
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Right, it seems evolution is very crafty, in that it also produced organisms that have to be reborn/rehatched.
 
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jcm2017 said:
I’m referring to the dome described in Genesis.
Since you are espousing a rigidly literal translation of scripture, you must believe there is a dome up there.
Do you?
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I am not clear what your notion of a “rigidly literal translation of Scripture” implies regarding what should or should not be accepted. I would think this parsing ought to be a theological and metaphysical process rather than a literary or linguistic one.

How the “dome” in the heavens is to be understood relates to how it was intended to be understood by the author. If we wish to apply some kind of rigorous materialist orthodoxy to Scripture, then it becomes pretty much an outlandish breach of this orthodoxy to claim the eternal, omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent Creator of all became a man at some point in history and walked among human beings. That he rose from the dead is also problematic regarding materialistic orthodoxy. It isn’t clear to me where and how a “rigidly literal translation of scripture” is to be understood and applied absent a sound theology and metaphysic. A strictly materialistic orthodoxy applies its own criteria and parameters regarding what counts as a “rigidly literal translation of scripture.”

Which “rigidly literal translation of scripture” are you in favour of, the fundamentalist or the materialist? If neither, then it seems necessary to define the criteria for translation of Scripture beyond the rigidly literal so that we don’t fall into some hidden ill-defined literalist trap.
 
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