Where have I stated ye creationism should be taught in Catholic schools?
Do you mean “empirical”?
Gary, you need to understand that creation and evolution are not mutually exclusive, any more than shape and color are exclusive. A ball can be both red and spherical; a Christian can believe both that the universe is created by God and that it unfolds through evolution. Every Catholic – including me – is a creationist in the sense that she or he believes that God is creator of the world; that the world is ontologically dependent upon God. This in no way contradicts the scientific understanding that the diversity of species has arisen as a result of evolutionary processes.
Well, you are a theologian, and I am not, but it seems to me that putting the Popol Vuh and Earth Diver myths on the same level as Genesis is contradictory to Church teaching, by minimizing the role of Biblical revelation. This might be an acceptable compromise in a public school, but it strikes me as very strange that it would occur in a Catholic school. This sort of teaching would seem to contradict item 5 below.
Perhaps this is not your intent (and short posts obviously do not tell the whole story), but many of your posts seem to contain items contrary to 5 above.
Quite to the contrary, ricmat: revelation comes in many forms, and children should be exposed to the ways in which God has spoken to many different peoples around the world, not just to one nomadic tribe in one corner. If you read the Popol Vuh carefully you will see some remarkable parallels with the Genesis story, such as creation through Word, and creation by a plural Godhead. Children are fascinated to learn about the similarities and differences between different tribes’ experiences of God.
If not, and if you realize that teaching science is not a threat to faith, then I don’t see a problem. As the Church teaches, truth cannot contradict truth.
This is incorrect. Can you show any evidence of “many people losing their faith” because of it? In fact, a study of creation as literally written is worthwhile. It is no more dangerous than studying other parts of the Bible.
It is not possible to observe evolution happening. Breeding dogs simply uses the existing genetic material in different combinations. If an Asian person has children with a Caucasian person, what is that?
College students regularly observe it in labs. We have observed the evolution of new species, and of irreducibly complex new features.
Ed, no one who knows anything about it, considers “Asian” and “Caucasian” people to be different species or even races. There are no biological human races today. It has nothing whatever to do with evolution.
It’s called “mutation.”
It is called “conjugation.” It’s a form of recombination. For example, in a certain place, some bacteria evolved a new enzyme that allowed them to metabolize nylon. Later, some of these spread (by conjugation) the plasmid with the new gene to other species of bacteria. Lateral gene transfer is quite common in prokaryotes, but much rarer in eukaryotes. Mutation produced the new gene, and natural selection spread it rapidly.
Petrus,
Sorry, Petrus, but that is a terrible analogy. Something can have multiple characteristics but it can only have one origin. Life was either created by God or in is the result of random mutations acted on by natural selection. The latter view does not need God and trying to introduce God into evolution amounts to putting lipstick on a pig.
I submit that is where part of the problem lies. They get a constant does of empirical science but a limited dose of the others. I believe the default position becomes “if I cannot prove it I will not believe it.”
God created everything. Everything.
It’s quite true. I have listened to many college students, who were told that creationism was Christian belief, only to learn that it couldn’t possibly be true. Many of them assumed that if creationism was false, then Christianity was false, too.
Yes.
YE creationism is man’s attempt to revise God’s word. It’s not a good idea. And as you see, it is also destructive to faith.
It is always dangerous to add one’s own ideas to Scripture. There are some forms of OE creationism that are not contrary to Scripture, but the “life ex nihilo” doctrine of YE creationism is directly contrary to Genesis.
Was that directed at me?
That may very well be what you believe but it is not what the theory of evolution states. The theory of evolution does not require God.God created everything. Everything.
Natural selection is how each successive generation is created – by the laws of nature established at or before the beginning of time by God. It is only “random” inasmuch as we poor mortal humans cannot predict it.
Is there any such thing as randomness? If I throw dice, do the faces come up completely randomly? Or does God “make” the dice come up in a particular sequence by a divine decree at that moment? Or do the dice fall where they do by a combination of the mass and density of the dice, their starting position, the arc of throw, the spin of the dice, atmosphereic factors, etc etc, according to all the laws of physics as determined by the Creator at the moment of creation?
I have absolutely no problem with evolution or creation. I think that God set all of Creation in motion, and “decreed” (if you will) all the natural laws which govern how all of creation interacts. I also think He sticks His finger in every so often, just to say, “Booga booga.”
I think the only true randomness in the Universe is human free will – the gift of God that allows us to diverge from His laws.
Of course, I could be completely wrong. God knows, but He ain’t telling me.
Neither plumbing nor science state anything at all about God. They can neither support nor deny God, because they are not able to test the supernatural.
Not at all true. See http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/ma...naturalhistorymag.com/1105/1105_feature3.html
Silly, silly, silly…