Evolution: Catholic High School

[CTA1967]

I have a practical suggestion for Rogerteder, since the OP concerned teaching a class: How about photocopying this thread and letting your students read it? It would certainly present a variety of views.

And probably make sure they have vision insurance.

 

[reggieM]

If God created the human body and its soul, and science ‘studies’ the physical infrastructure, how can the articulation of the body structure and existence of the soul be kept separate?

Excellent point. To try to separate body and soul is to assume that you can understand the body without recognizing the power of the soul.

To say one discipline does not or cannot speak of the other, is a ruse and a cop out!

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
“Fraudulent” indicates an intention to deceive. So it likely isn’t fraudulent. The “animating principal” as you know, is given directly by God, as opposed to the body, which is created naturally. The idea that the soul is a mere epiphenomenon of the body is, of course, an error.

Probably not more or less fraudulent than what creationists do.

’
Most creationists honestly believe the things they say. But they are led by people who are often dishonest.

But my interest is in the “non-science” which is very commonly offered as part of evolutionary theory.

Good example. Creationists often present all sorts of foolishness and present it as part of evolutionary theory.

Barbarian observes:
None of us truly understands how the soul and body interact, because it is not accessible by science, and God has chosen to let this be a mystery for us. So how much of us He has chose to do by the soul, and how much he does naturally is unclear. As you see, the Church leaves only the vaguest outline, except to make clear that the connection between the two is essential, and the soul is the ultimate source of both life and mind.

That seems consistent with Catholic teaching, as I see it. Since science cannot fully explain the human person, I will conclude that there is a great deal of non-science passed of within the scientific culture.

I never heard anyone in science suggest that the soul is part of science. That sort of thing is from the creationist culture.

 

[reggieM]

I never heard anyone in science suggest that the soul is part of science.

How do you define “the soul”?

 

[The_Barbarian]

So we are back to religion is over here and science is over there.

So Pope Benedict has written.

There would be no debate here or anywhere if the subject concerned plumbing.

Not for most of us. Our pride is not offended by the idea that God accomplishes hydraulics by natural means.

 

[edwest2]

This type of thinking is false and misleading. The Church knows the effects of the worldview of the observer on the things he observes. Pope John Paul II outlined the proper relationship between religion and science.

“Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.”

The idolatry of science is the worship of the human mind. The false absolutes include the idea that man is only another type of animal. An animal that can kill, for example, human embryos to further the cause of science.

God bless,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

It is claimed that humans are apes and the existence of human beings is due to accidental mutations and competition for survival. Therefore, some human-apes merely continue the process of weeding out the species.

---

Finland was rocked by its second school massacre in under a year today when a copycat “YouTube killer” went on a rampage in a remote western town, killing nine people at a catering and tourism college.

Auvinen had posted a “massacre manifesto” on YouTube in which he declared: **“I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit.” **

timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4808358.ece

 

[The_Catholic]

It is claimed that humans are apes and the existence of human beings is due to accidental mutations and competition for survival. Therefore, some human-apes merely continue the process of weeding out the species.

---

Finland was rocked by its second school massacre in under a year today when a copycat “YouTube killer” went on a rampage in a remote western town, killing nine people at a catering and tourism college.

Auvinen had posted a “massacre manifesto” on YouTube in which he declared: **“I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit.” **

timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4808358.ece

Killing in the name of God and religion has been done, and IS being done as we speak. It’s not the Truth, it’s us mislead sinners.

 

[redneck22]

Originally Posted by reggieM
It is claimed that humans are apes and the existence of human beings is due to accidental mutations and competition for survival. Therefore, some human-apes merely continue the process of weeding out the species.

---

Finland was rocked by its second school massacre in under a year today when a copycat “YouTube killer” went on a rampage in a remote western town, killing nine people at a catering and tourism college.

Auvinen had posted a “massacre manifesto” on YouTube in which he declared: “I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit.”

timesonline.co.uk/tol/new…cle4808358.ece

Killing in the name of God and religion has been done, and IS being done as we speak. It’s not the Truth, it’s us mislead sinners.

The difference being that killing in the name of God or Christianity is directly against the doctrine of Christianity and therefore is wrong. However **“I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit” **is the logical, natural expression of the “truth” of evolutionary philosophy.

 

[JRF]

I am going to be teaching at a Catholic High(Religion) school this September. I have a degree in Theology and History and have spent 10 years in the public school system teaching history.
This year will be my first at a Catholic school and I am very excited because I am going to be teaching Religion.

Ok here is my question. Do you think this is a good idea? When dealing with creation/evolution I was planning on presenting both sides. I was also planning on explaining what a Catholic may believe about evolution. However, I was also planning on telling the students about evolution’s “weak spots.” I think it is important to talk about the seemingly lack of transitional fossils that should be in existence if evolution is true. Ok what do you say? Is that evolution’s “achilies heal?” Let’s keep it real simple—THANKS!!

 

[JRF]

I would like to respond to your question in a general way. I just finished teaching in a Catholic H.S. for 14 years. [a second career, I am now 75 years old] My advice is: teach WHAT the Church teaches and WHY it teaches what it does. Where possible and appropriate bring in opposing views on the subject area pointing out differences and why they exist. Admit to the worts and blemishes of people in the church during our glorious past which in no way make the church that Jesus founded less His true church.

I loved every minute in the classroom. You will be challenged by the culture, other faculity members, parents who are not in full communion with the Church and non-Catholic students attending your school who are not anxious to hear that the Roman Catholic Church has the “fullness of truth” and maybe even your Administration.

You will witness the Holy Spirit guiding you everyday you are open to His grace.

Peace and blessing!

 

[The_Barbarian]

It is claimed that humans are apes and the existence of human beings is due to accidental mutations and competition for survival.

Here’s the statement of one such person:

**While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. **
bringyou.to/apologetics/p80.htm

He’s now your Pope.

Therefore, some human-apes merely continue the process of weeding out the species.

There are a number of processes, such as disease, that are still operating to select human fitness.

However one foolish and demented person has as little to do with evolution as Jim Jones has to do with Christianity; he is merely cited by dishonest people as typical of Christians or whatever.

 

[Altashheth]

.

I would just teach evolution, but refrain from the “scientific dogma” that most schools teach. (as I was taught). Teach them that it is perfectly valid to question evolution, and help them in their process in doing so. Yet, it would be a disservice to a young mind to propagate that evolution is a hoax. Evolution in fact reaffirms much of Aquinas’s Natural Law teaching. Try making connections between that.

Scientific dogma??? surely the essence of a good scientist s one whom questions? A scientist should never take anything at face value and should always look for evidence.

 

[Altashheth]

How do you define “the soul”?

I got two soles, one at the bottom of each shoe…


I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

 

[The_Catholic]

Originally Posted by reggieM
It is claimed that humans are apes and the existence of human beings is due to accidental mutations and competition for survival. Therefore, some human-apes merely continue the process of weeding out the species.

---

Finland was rocked by its second school massacre in under a year today when a copycat “YouTube killer” went on a rampage in a remote western town, killing nine people at a catering and tourism college.

Auvinen had posted a “massacre manifesto” on YouTube in which he declared: “I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit.”

timesonline.co.uk/tol/new…cle4808358.ece

The difference being that killing in the name of God or Christianity is directly against the doctrine of Christianity and therefore is wrong. However **“I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit” **is the logical, natural expression of the “truth” of evolutionary philosophy.

Yes, ATHEISTIC evolution, not theistic. So, now that one maniac has comitted murder in the name of science, we should all abandon evolutionary theory?

Killing in the name of God is against Christianity, but not all forms of religion, especially radical Islam. Yet that doesn’t maqke God evil.

 

[reggieM]

Yes, ATHEISTIC evolution, not theistic. So, now that one maniac has comitted murder in the name of science, we should all abandon evolutionary theory?

Killing in the name of God is against Christianity, but not all forms of religion, especially radical Islam. Yet that doesn’t maqke God evil.

I think if a Catholic goes into a school and kills innocent people, that is completely against the Catholic Faith. There is no support for that.

But I’m just wondering – here a person goes into the school and kills people in the name of evolution. He calls himself a “natural selector” who is “eliminating the unfit”.

That is evolutionary language, and it is actually very much in line with Darwinian theory. One species eliminates the other – kills them off – so the new species can survive. What this school-shooter was saying was a form of eugenics. He decided that some people should be killed because they’re unfit.

Yes, I agree that this is atheistic and amoral. A theistic evolutionist would have to oppose such a thing.

But I do believe that atheists could use evolutionary theory for this kind of killing and it would be perfectly consistent with what Darwinian theory teaches. Here is a person who apparently used evolutionary theory as a reason for killing innocent people. I think it’s hard to say that evolution does not support such a thing.

 

[Namesake]

But I do believe that atheists could use evolutionary theory for this kind of killing and it would be perfectly consistent with what Darwinian theory teaches. Here is a person who apparently used evolutionary theory as a reason for killing innocent people. I think it’s hard to say that evolution does not support such a thing.

The theory of evolution has nothing to say about this. The theory of evolution is about biology.

 

[reggieM]

Geneticist Richard Lewontin offered this famous quote in The New York Review. He does a very good job explaining things that seem evident to an observer like myself. It’s helpful to know that there is consistency between the philosophical structure behind evolutionary theory and the claims made for the theory.

Professor Lewontin’s comments point to what I see as blatantly obvious, and I’m grateful that he is clear and honest to say this. If more evolutionists would simply admit these things, as he has done, I would have a lot more respect for them. As it stands, when people who actually hold the same views as Richard Lewontin, adamantly deny them or conceal them (or are not aware of them) in an attempt to manipulate people – that is what causes a great deal of distrust and animosity.

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997

 

[Altashheth]

But I’m just wondering – here a person goes into the school and kills people in the name of evolution. He calls himself a “natural selector” who is “eliminating the unfit”.

That is evolutionary language, and it is actually very much in line with Darwinian theory. One species eliminates the other – kills them off – so the new species can survive. What this school-shooter was saying was a form of eugenics. He decided that some people should be killed because they’re unfit.

…

But I do believe that atheists could use evolutionary theory for this kind of killing and it would be perfectly consistent with what Darwinian theory teaches. Here is a person who apparently used evolutionary theory as a reason for killing innocent people. I think it’s hard to say that evolution does not support such a thing.

Just a second…this is not what the theory of evolution proposes at all, there is nothing in the theory about killing, the theory is about small biological differences which make surviving to reproduce more likely and hence the chance of that small biological difference being passed on to the next generation which can/does lead to the decline of one species and the progression of another.

No direct killing at all…

Unless you are taliking about a predator that has a small biological change that allows it to stalk and capture prey more easily…it that case there is probably lots of killing…

BUT if the change made the species too good at killing it would run out of food so hopefully the prey would adapt too…or our original species will be looking for a new food source

In fact the school shooter is rather a poor natural selector has he killed himself…a much stronger argument could be made about predestiny or fate using this example.

 

[reggieM]

BUT if the change made the species too good at killing it would run out of food so hopefully the prey would adapt too…or our original species will be looking for a new food source

In fact the school shooter is rather a poor natural selector has he killed himself…a much stronger argument could be made about predestiny or fate using this example.

I guess he could be killing off the competition more directly rather than just starving them out by grabbing all the food first.

Bringing human intelligence into the evolution equation provides strange results also. In this case, maybe he was thinking that he is not one of the fittest of the species either, so he tried to kill himself off. Or maybe by trying to kill himself he proved that he was not destined to survive.

Evolution is a lot like fate. Whoever survives are the survivors.