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O
Orogeny
Guest
You need to study up a bit on what natural selection is. There is nothing random about it nor is it up to chance.
Natural selection is only one part of the puzzle. If there weren’t changes (genetic mutation for example), the selective force would not favor any particular group over another.
The part that I think you are referring to is random mutation.
To answer your question directly, nothing happens without God. What is random to us is not to God. Our lack of understanding in no way limits God.
Peace
Tim
E
edwest2
Guest
I have a problem with the random mutation part because information theory is against it. And, it has been shown that most mutations are detrimental or neutral. It has not been shown that on the macro level, a land dwelling creature can turn into a sea dwelling creature. Finally, in order for the single mutation to survive, it has to be heritable. And the macro organism has to survive fire, flood, drought, disease and getting eaten, which lessens the odds of it getting passed along as well.
I am not against natural selection as such, but there has been a statement from Pope John Paul II about design in nature (not the political ID in current contention) and Cardinal Schoenborn wrote an article in the New York Times titled Finding Design in Nature. I believe there is design in nature but that the discussion has become too political to discuss properly.
God bless,
Ed
B
buffalo
Guest
Again the question - Did God know what man would look like?
O
Orogeny
Guest
You are just a bit quicker than I am! See my post #101.
Namesake is right.
Peace
Tim
O
Orogeny
Guest
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strugglingalong
Guest
So what appears to everyone else, to every scientist, as random is in fact God at work? I find that difficult. So when a scientist calls it random, you say it is God at work which makes God out to be random?
I’m not provoking. I’m just asking about what I see as a problem.
Pax Christi tecum.
N
Namesake
Guest
Most scientists have no problem with people who choose to believe in some sort of design. The problems arise when design is mandated in science curricula. Believe all you want but keep it within the confines of religion. Design is not science.
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Namesake
Guest
That’s why I asked about the concept of god as seen by Einstein and Hawking. They also mention God in their writing but they did not mean the God of Abraham.
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buffalo
Guest
What are the implications of this?
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PhilVaz
Guest
Ed << Tell me. Do you think it’s possible God formed the earth in one day and had it cool down? If the earth is billions of years old, why do we still have short half-life elements? >>
Anything is possible with God, but I do not think God would leave so much evidence of an old earth, from astronomy, geology, and physics, when the earth is actually very young. That is deception. The earth was “hot” at the beginning, and the cooling down process took hundreds of millions of years (standard view), or it might have cooled quickly. I get a little nervous trying to answer this stuff off the top of my head without researching, but it is my understanding that there are NO naturally occurring short-term half-life radioactive elements. The short ones that are found were generated by human beings (scientists in the lab, or factories, etc).
Listing of Persistent Nuclides by Half-Life
From Dalrymple (page 377), also Kenneth Miller (page 71) ]
Nuclide—Half-Life—Found in Nature? (yes or no)
232Th 1.40 x 10^10 yes
238U 4.47 x 10^9 yes
40K 1.25 x 10^9 yes
235U 7.04 x 10^8 yes
244Pu 8.2 x 10^7 yes
146Sm 7.0 x 10^7 no
205Pb 3.0 x 10^7 no
247Cm 1.6 x 10^7 no
182Hf 9 x 10^6 no
107Pd 7 x 10^6 no
135Cs 3.0 x 10^6 no
As seen above, every nuclide with a half-life less than 80 million years (8.0 x 10^7) is missing from our region of the solar system, and every nuclide with a half-life greater than 80 million years is present. That means the solar system is much older than 80 million years, since the shorter-lived nuclides have simply decayed themselves out of existence. Since a nuclide becomes undetectable after about 10 to 20 half-lives (Dalrymple, page 378), multiplying 80 million times 10 (or 20) gives us about 800 million years (or 1.6 billion years). The earth must be at least that old since these nuclides have disappeared from nature.
There are laboratory or human generated short-term half-life elements. Those are not “naturally occurring” or “persistent nuclides” found in nature but generated by scientists, chemists, factories, etc. That is my understanding.
Phil P
Anything is possible with God, but I do not think God would leave so much evidence of an old earth, from astronomy, geology, and physics, when the earth is actually very young. That is deception. The earth was “hot” at the beginning, and the cooling down process took hundreds of millions of years (standard view), or it might have cooled quickly. I get a little nervous trying to answer this stuff off the top of my head without researching, but it is my understanding that there are NO naturally occurring short-term half-life radioactive elements. The short ones that are found were generated by human beings (scientists in the lab, or factories, etc).
Listing of Persistent Nuclides by Half-Life
From Dalrymple (page 377), also Kenneth Miller (page 71) ]
Nuclide—Half-Life—Found in Nature? (yes or no)
232Th 1.40 x 10^10 yes
238U 4.47 x 10^9 yes
40K 1.25 x 10^9 yes
235U 7.04 x 10^8 yes
244Pu 8.2 x 10^7 yes
146Sm 7.0 x 10^7 no
205Pb 3.0 x 10^7 no
247Cm 1.6 x 10^7 no
182Hf 9 x 10^6 no
107Pd 7 x 10^6 no
135Cs 3.0 x 10^6 no
As seen above, every nuclide with a half-life less than 80 million years (8.0 x 10^7) is missing from our region of the solar system, and every nuclide with a half-life greater than 80 million years is present. That means the solar system is much older than 80 million years, since the shorter-lived nuclides have simply decayed themselves out of existence. Since a nuclide becomes undetectable after about 10 to 20 half-lives (Dalrymple, page 378), multiplying 80 million times 10 (or 20) gives us about 800 million years (or 1.6 billion years). The earth must be at least that old since these nuclides have disappeared from nature.
There are laboratory or human generated short-term half-life elements. Those are not “naturally occurring” or “persistent nuclides” found in nature but generated by scientists, chemists, factories, etc. That is my understanding.
Phil P
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JRKH
Guest
:bigyikes: 
:banghead:
:yawn: :yawn:
Two and a half pages since I checked in a couple of hours ago.
My My how we love details.
To all who feel the need to argue back ad forth about evolution and the age of the universe and tha validity of the scientific method and the likelyhood of miracles and the way the Vatican investigates ad nauseum…
At the end of the day, just how will all of this keyslapping tit-for-tat, advance your own spirituality? The Whole thing is just so much hot-air on both sides.
=============
For the record,
I do believe that the earth is billions of solar cycles old.
I believe evolutionary theory is, in the main, correct.
I believe the Scientific method is valid.
I believe in God
I believe in Jesus Christ
I believe in His Church
I believe that are faith journey is made up of moving closer to Christ.
I believe that all this arguing over details is counterproductive to Salvation.
End of Rant.
Peace
James
:banghead:
:yawn: :yawn:
Two and a half pages since I checked in a couple of hours ago.
My My how we love details.
To all who feel the need to argue back ad forth about evolution and the age of the universe and tha validity of the scientific method and the likelyhood of miracles and the way the Vatican investigates ad nauseum…
At the end of the day, just how will all of this keyslapping tit-for-tat, advance your own spirituality? The Whole thing is just so much hot-air on both sides.
=============
For the record,
I do believe that the earth is billions of solar cycles old.
I believe evolutionary theory is, in the main, correct.
I believe the Scientific method is valid.
I believe in God
I believe in Jesus Christ
I believe in His Church
I believe that are faith journey is made up of moving closer to Christ.
I believe that all this arguing over details is counterproductive to Salvation.
End of Rant.
Peace
James
B
buffalo
Guest
Ahhhh - solar cycles.:bigyikes:
:banghead:
:yawn: :yawn:
Two and a half pages since I checked in a couple of hours ago.
My My how we love details.
To all who feel the need to argue back ad forth about evolution and the age of the universe and tha validity of the scientific method and the likelyhood of miracles and the way the Vatican investigates ad nauseum…
At the end of the day, just how will all of this keyslapping tit-for-tat, advance your own spirituality? The Whole thing is just so much hot-air on both sides.
=============
For the record,
I do believe that the earth is billions of solar cycles old.
I believe evolutionary theory is, in the main, correct.
I believe the Scientific method is valid.
I believe in God
I believe in Jesus Christ
I believe in His Church
I believe that are faith journey is made up of moving closer to Christ.
I believe that all this arguing over details is counterproductive to Salvation.
End of Rant.
Peace
James
Do you believe Eve came from Adam, initially possessed bodily immortality and had preternatural gifts?
O
Orogeny
Guest
Yes.
Do you understand the Trinity? Really? Why, then, is it hard to accept that what appears to be random to us isn’t to God.
By the way, nothing can be random to God.
Good, because that is the way I was taking your questions!
Peace
Tim
S
strugglingalong
Guest
Yes and some of us also think natural selection is counterproductive to Salvation.
Pax Christi tecum.
M
masterjedi747
Guest
Sorry, Ed, real life doesn’t work like a business contract.
Not to mention the fact that there’s a lot of things that don’t go into a biology textbook.
If someone leaves God out of a math textbook, that doesn’t mean they are denying His existence. If someone leaves God out of a physics or chemistry textbook, that doesn’t mean they don’t recognize that He created the universe. If someone leaves God out of a biology textbook, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily denying the role that His Divine Providence plays in producing “random” mutations and guiding natural selection.
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” – Charles Robert Darwin, On The Origin of Species
I said the fusion of modern science and orthodox philosophy… not the uneducated intellectual ramblings of people who know half of story, but miserably fail to acknowledge the existence of the man’s God-given rational/spiritual soul.
Yes. But that’s no excuse for “throwing the baby out with the bath water”, as the phrase goes.
O
Orogeny
Guest
An acknowledgement that nothing is a surprise to God? That He is omniscient.
Peace
Tim
E
edwest2
Guest
And that is the core of the issue. “The stone the builders rejected has become head of the corner.” Or the cornerstone.
Yes, I have a friend who fears belief. He’s afraid he might wake up one day and… I don’t know… do something that might get him labeled a religious nut. He might tell people that there is a real Living God and they might look at him funny. He might tell them a real Jesus Christ actually did die for their sins and they would look at him funny or shun him. I understand that.
What should we base our lives on? Only what science tells us? Sounds good. Religion is for what? Ceremony? A place to hold a wedding? Some feel good traditions? How does it affect your life?
Speaking for myself, there is something else there. It is discovered by hearing and then it is sought out. Doesn’t sound reasonable? I understand that. But God put a soul into each human being. We each carry a fragment of the divine. We each get to choose, freely, what to do with that knowledge.
I have another friend who I grew up with and who went to the same Catholic school. A few years ago, I asked him, Do you believe in God? His reply? I believe in evolution. Not too long after, I spoke to him again. He had changed his mind. He told me the living cell was too complex to form on its own.
I hope you understand that on a Catholic forum the focus should be more on God and the knowledge given by God.
God bless,
Ed
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strugglingalong
Guest
There is nothing random by the Most Holy Trinity. Nothing about it sounds or appears random to me. It is in fact quite ordered: the Father begets His Son in love and their love is the Holy Ghost. What am I missing that appears random about it that is similar to natural selection?
Pax Christi tecum.
J
JRKH
Guest
- Status