Evolution-Creation?

[Brad]

buffalo:

Brad, did you insult me somewhere?

I was trying to insult you discreetly but now you are on to me.

 

[jjwilkman]

Nikazu:

One reason you may be jeered at, CreosMary, is because you do not know what you say. When you talk about evolution being only a “theory” you’ve got to understand that in scientific jargon, theory is not used in the same was as a layman uses it in his ordinary daily dialogue.

Theory here, means a rigorously tested hypothesis, that has held up under all tests this far. I’ll admit, some of Darwin’s ideas have been proven false. Science seems to believe nowadays that life began in the deepest oceans, not in a shallow pool struck by lightning. But on the whole, Dawin’s ideas have helped science construct a valid, reliable, and predictive understanding of the past.

Now, thanks Be to God for the Catholic church, for if I was part of any other religion, I doubt I could’ve said the above without being branded as a heretic. However, you may still say that evolution, as a theory, brings up problems. And this is true. Evolutionists will be hard pressed to tell you how sex began. Going furtherback, we have unconvivincing theories attached to the development of Eukaryotic cells (you and I are Eukayotes, amoebas are prokayotes, single celled organisms). Remember, science is based on proof, and the theories which talk about sex and Eukaryotic cells are based more on speculation (at least as far as I can see). And this is where we get God coming in. I wonder if those two things are purely naturally possible in and of themselves. In fact, I doubt they are. I think God had to do something there, just as I think he had to do something again when he gave us the capacity for aesthetic experience, morality, and conscious rationality. After all, dogs may dream and whales may sing, but I see no museums of art, temples or codified laws in the kinddom animalia (except for us).

Your difficulty with death before Adam can be summed up like this. Remember, the old Christian story (laid out beautifully by the poet milton) is that the Demons fell before we did. It is quite possible that the demons had been usurping creation from its perfect order for quite some time before we appeared.

After all, what does Genesis say? We were brought in to “tend the garden”. And we do, according to traditional Christianity have authority over the beasts…

I hope this helps, but remember, it’s just my own ideas and ramblings. I love to be challenged and tested. Please, see if you can poke holes in that!

you have tweaked my tweeter. if evolution were indeed a a fact, it would, by now called the LAW of evolution. how can you explain such gigantic gaps?

also see cs lewis. it doesn’t matter how, God created man in his image. does it really matter how?? what if abraham was a monkey before his circumcision?

 

[jjwilkman]

CreosMary:

I thank you all for your interesting and insightful comments. I believe the Church has never made any concrete definations on what we are to believe in this debate…
I readsomewhere on another post that at least one Pope has said that Adam and Eve are the first humans and we all descended from those two.
To me the problem with evolution is that it is;
a/ Presented as fact in schools and documentaries and all secular media
b/ It is still not proven
c/ Why does it seem so (name removed by moderator)lausable to many that Almighty God created everything in 6 literal days; St Augustine actually tried to comprese those six days in an instant!
d/ evolution generally seeks to try and prove non-existence of God, that evreything is by chance (a lot of bloody chances to get were we are)
e/ the fruits of evolutionary thinking are valueless and lacking in the sacredness and dignity of Man and creation.
I choose to have faith and believe Genesis literally and good science has no problem with that.
God bless

i feel compelled to do this.
“my days are not the same as yours” before the earth was formed, how long was a day?

 

[CreosMary]

Brad:

I was trying to insult you discreetly but now you are on to me.

Dear Brad,
Good on you for keeping up the good fight and to also 'Buffalo" I got tired of the narrow sights of evolutionists and the lack of Faith involed in this view of life.
I KNOW that God created The Heavens and the earth in 6 literal days, why? because God is the Authour of life not man or his silly ideas
God Bless and mary protect you
And yes I am a bloke!
Br CreosMary

 

[dancus]

It might help if you remember the Church accepts Theistic Evolution. It doesn’t doubt the earths millions of years old or that evolution played a major role in the scheme of things. What it does say is that mans soul was created by God. Personally I beleive God got things started and went on to other things. That beleif is in line with the Churchs. No one in my particular branch of Science doubts there is an intellegent design. We may call it by different names depending on ones faith but we know it exists.

 

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

I’d like to throw in my (orthodox Jewish) $0.02 if I may.

First, about a “literal reading” of the Tanakh. I don’t think that any two people could agree on a “literal reading” of, say, Genesis (certainly mine, as an orthodox Jew and based on the original Hebrew, will probably differ in many particulars from that of a fundamentalist Protestant, based on the KJV); such a thing is inherently subjective and based on our own idiosyncrasies, psychological/emotional/spiritual baggage and personal it-seems-to-me’s. Thus, we should be very leery of basing beliefs and/or arguments on a “literal reading” of the scriptures. Those who do insist on a strict, narrow, “literal” interpretation of this or that section of scripture are, I believe, forcing it into a literary and spiritual strait-jacket entirely of their own devising that does no justice to the scriptures.

So, that being said, how do I, the orthodox Jew, view the Torah? Well, of course, I believe that it (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) is the literal word of God as He revealed it to Moses our Teacher. We believe that the Torah can be understood/appreciated/interpreted on any of four general levels ranging from that which is most in accord with a close reading of the (original Hebrew!!!) text, to the metaphorical, to the most rarefied and esoteric (the grasp of which is waaay beyond most of us). Who is to say which chapter and verse of Genesis is to be best understood or appreciated on which level? Moreover, our Sages say that the Torah is like a diamond with many facets, each with its own brilliance, each offering a different perspective from which to behold the wondrous jewel.

Lastly, I would humbly argue that we are grasping at trees & missing the forest. What is more important, (sterile?) debates over whether Genesis proves/supports or disproves/opposes this or that theory of creation or evolution, or whether the Flood “really happened” or discussing, studying and seeking to internalize its sublime moral, ethical and spiritual truths (such as befit the word of God)?

I heard a story that Karl Barth once gave a lecture on Genesis 3 at the University of Chicago. When it came time for the question and answer portion, a student spoke up and said “Dr. Barth, you don’t really believe snakes could talk do you?” Barth replied, “I could care less whether or not snakes could talk. What I’m interested in is what the snake said.”

BRAVO FOR DR. BARTH!!!

WELL SAID!!!

(Dr. Barth gets my point; or, rather, I get his!)

The Torah is not a cosmology/biology/geology/history text. It is God’s loving instructions on how He wants us to lead our lives.
Above, I said that one of the levels which we can understand the Torah is the metaphorical. One of the books I have at home & love to reread from time-to-time is the late Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden. In the chapter entitled, “Eden as Metaphor,” Sagan notes that so far as is known, childbirth is generally painful in only one species, us. This is due to the size of the head. He notes that God pronounced, “In pain shall you bring forth children,” to us after we had eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and gained the ability to discern between right and wrong, i.e. to make (uniquely human) abstract, moral judgements. This ability resides in the neo-cortex of our brains; it is our neo-cortices which make our brains so big (see brainsatwork.com/B2B/SB10.html), which in turn causes human childbirth to be painful. Sagan says that the fossil record, so far as it was known at the time he wrote the book, shows an explosive growth in human cranial size (i.e. an explosive growth in the size of hominid neo-cortices). Thus, it would only be when our neo-cortices began to grow/expand so much, that childbirth became especially painful. Thus, when taken metaphorically, this particular aspect of Genesis jibes very nicely with the evolutionary/fossil record. (Sagan also says that the hostility God ordains between the snake’s descendants & Eve’s is a metaphor to the eras in which reptiles & mammals contended for the domination of the earth.)

This ou.org/publications/ja/5760summer/genesis.pdf is an absolutely fascinating article entiteled Genesis, Cosmology and Evolution by Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, that I heartily recommend. It’s not short & it has to be read both slowly & more than once. But it is, I think, excellent & makes the point that those who claim that religion & science do not jibe understand neither one properly. (An html version is at 64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:dpOF347cHAIJ:www.ou.org/publications/ja/5760summer/genesis.pdf+evolution&hl=en.)

Be well!

ssv

 

[Gastro]

anawim:

A missing link would be a detailed progression from one phyla to another. A whale like creature that could live on land is still a whale in my book. That’s adaptation, or what is now-a-days called microevolution.

Microevolution is possible; Macro is not. There’s a limit to the DNA code.

A lancelet is a small worm-like creature that lives under sand and mud. It has a notochord, a precurser to the vertebrae. Some have said that they and vertebrates share a common ancester, but the lancelet would have changed considerably less than the vertebrates.

Do a quick search on google.com

Andrew

 

[kindlylight]

CreosMary:

In his book, Evolution. A Theory in Crisis,30 molecular biologist, Dr. Michael Denton – an agnostic – after a critical examination of all Darwin’s arguments, stated:

Neither the two fundamental axioms of Darwin’s macro-evolutionary theory – the concept of the continuity of nature, that is the idea of a functional continuum of all life forms linking all species together and ultimately leading back to the primeval cell, and the belief that all adaptive design of life resulted from a blind process – have been validated by one single empirical discovery or scientific advance since 1859.

Thanks CreosMary for such informative and convincing references. The absence of transitionary forms is, as Darwin himself admitted, a huge fatal flaw in his theories. Where are the half horses, half sharks, quarter humans etc etc that we should be surrounded with as we all blunder on through natural selection. The blind dogmatic faith of the evolutionist is impressive only for it’s gullibility. Imagine believing something to be in the fossil record against all the evidence that it’s not… blind faith at its worst.!

Despite a century of intensive effort on the part of evolutionary biologists, the major objections raised by Darwin’s critics such as Agazzis, Pictet, Bronn and Richard Owen have not been met. The mind must fill the large blanks that Darwin acknowledged in his letter to Asa Gray.31

Denton’s book contains a mine of information in which he not only refutes Darwinism but also rebuts the theory of “Punctuated Equilibrium” proposed by S.J. Gould et al to explain the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record.32 Denton observes (p.194) that with this admission of their absence it is unlikely that in the future evolutionists will return to the old comfortable notion that the fossils provide evidence of gradual evolutionary changes. However, there are still many die-hard Darwinists who continue to falsely claim that this notion is verified science.

Dr. David Raup, a geologist and paleontologist, has held the position of Professor of Geology at the University of Chicago, and at the time of writing a letter to the journal, Science, in 1981, was the Curator of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, which has one of the largest collection of fossils in the world. Law professor Phillip E. Johnson draws attention to Raup’s letter in his book, Darwin on Trial.33 In brief, Raup states that people outside of geology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. He puts this down to oversimplification in low level text books and to some plain wishful thinking. He said that Darwin and his advocates expected to find predictable progressions, but in general, these have not been found – yet optimism dies hard and some pure fantasy has crept into text books.

 

[John_of_Woking]

I am in the ‘not sure’ camp. I can not take the empirical sciences at their word when they present evolution as fact. I see an awful lot of work for Catholic Theology to be fully reconciled with evolution but admit that there are many truths which are supra-rational or, if rational, are only understood by the keenests of intellects. Thus when Catholic/Christian Scientists honestly and fully believe in the Theory of Evolution I am consciously or otherwise swayed in the direction of the pro-evolution camp but only tentatively and with no real vigour.

 

[kindlylight]

talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

God

Now I answered your questions, please answer mine with something other than another question.

Peace

Tim

Orogeny, are the transitions mentioned in this site the same transitory forms that Darwin said he had not found. A lot of this is technical language specific to insiders ie phyla, species, forms etc. Is there a good primer on the subject for us with as yet open minds.

 

[CreosMary]

This has been posted before but this is a great site for Creation study, it also shows that Creation study IS a Catholic concern not the province of unthinking fundamentalist pentacostals

kolbecentre.org/

God Bless and Mary protect you all
Br CreosMary

 

[Orogeny]

kindlylight:

Orogeny, are the transitions mentioned in this site the same transitory forms that Darwin said he had not found. A lot of this is technical language specific to insiders ie phyla, species, forms etc. Is there a good primer on the subject for us with as yet open minds.

Hello, kindlylight. Darwin surely didn’t know of these transitional fossils. A vast amount of fossils have been discovered since his time.

As far a a good primer, talkorigins.org is a good place to start. The terminology is technical, but I think that if you take your time, you will be able to follow the materials.

This is a good place to start with the basics of biological classification.
library.thinkquest.org/11771/english/hi/biology/taxonomy.shtml

Once you are done with that, this page on Talkorigins.com is a good place for an intro to evolutionary biology.
talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html

Peace

Tim

 

[CreosMary]

Hey Bother Tim,
you still at it!!
Just a thought…if, in a thousand years, they found my skelatal remains as a fossil, Science would think that people of our era all had big heads (extra cranial activity),
missing teeth (not needed for eating 2 minute noodles)
and floating kneecaps (this type must have walked on his knees)
Just to show up some ridicle of fossil study
Love ya’s
God Bless

 

[Orogeny]

CreosMary:

Hey Bother Tim,
you still at it!!

Hello, Creos. Yep. I tried to stay out, but I just couldn’t!

Just a thought…if, in a thousand years, they found my skelatal remains as a fossil, Science would think that people of our era all had big heads (extra cranial activity),

missing teeth (not needed for eating 2 minute noodles)
and floating kneecaps (this type must have walked on his knees)
Just to show up some ridicle of fossil study
Love ya’s
God Bless

A new species! Homo creosmariens!

Peace

Tim

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Milliardo:

Anyone has any take on this:

"Leviathan and behemoth. Have you done an exegesis of this? Besides, there are many ancient drawings that attest to this co-existence of man and dinosaurs. The Palestrina Mosaic dated AD 100 contain men hunting a dinosaur and the petroglyps of Anasazi also portray dinosaur-like creatures that have no resemblance to modern lizards.

Some pre-Incaic people carved the rock cliffs of the Marcahuasi Plateau of Peru into huge representations of lions, camels, and something resembling a STEGOSAURUS."

Now, as Catholics we should believe in the Creation, though we are also cautioned, based on scientific evidence, to not go overboard and ignore science. However, points such as the one I showed above are quite out of it, and would take a lot to even digest. Anyone who knows what refutations there are to such wild claims?

I can’t see why either need be a saurian of any kind - in fact, Barney & Co. should be kept out of the Bible IMO, along with aliens and the USA ​

Leviathan at least sounds like Lotan, a seven-headed serpent in Canaanite myth; Behemoth looks like a Hebrew equivalent - a gigantic monster of some kind, probably mythical: possibly something like a hippo, in origin ? ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Corona1500:

It it very interesting in reading the statements in regards to God’s creation of the earth, etc. These statements are based on the Bible, supposedly was sent down from God. That is a very interesting myth. I am very sad that the people that believe in the bible have not taken any time to question their faith,

You’d be surprised, by the sound of it ​

nor examine any other religions either past or present, with which the Catholic church believes the other religions are based on myths, or incorrect facts.

I seem to spend most of my time doing exactly this - and that does not do justice to the CC’s theology of other religions.​

The bible is a works of some very wonderful, colourful stories (myths), just like Greek mythology. When are people going to realize this, and quit being so like children? The Catholic church would lose all of their power and money if the bible was exposed as a grouping of myths. There was no world flood, the earth, etc. was not created in a week. Were these stories sent down from God? Was it a fax machine that sent them down to all the people? Or was it one or a small group of people who put the stories together in order to scare and control the people? Just like telling a child that if they do not go to sleep on time, then the monster in the closet will come out, there is no difference.

Maybe some detailed study of the Bible is in order.​

Why shouldn’t myths outside the Bible be pointers to Christ, and the NT the record of the fulfilment of those hopes ? Not believing other religions, does not mean they are useless or vain: they just happen not to be the religion of the people whom God chose as His own - Israel. ##

When are people going to look at the church for what it is, a way a small corrupt group of people can control the masses of the people.
I am not saying that there is not a god, as I believe that there is a god, if not maybe multiple.

To be God, means to be unique - otherwise one has a crowd of godlings, which would be finite, and non-transcendent. God is transcendent, not part of the universe, not limited by it, but incommensurable with it. This is what the later Fred Hoyle, in “The Black Cloud” - did not realise: that God is not a giant in the sky, but is pure Spirit. It is because there is but one God, that there is “room” for created beings: God’s omnipotence is what enables beings other than God to exist.​

We will never know until death.

Faith enables us to know now - without doubting It has a much longer reach than mere reason, good as that is.​

However, how silly it is that people still believe that the world and everything was made in one week. Why one week, why not less time? Is your god not that powerful that it took that much time? Seems a little bit of a long time, for someone who created everything in the Universe. By the way, how long did it take god to create the rest of it??
If there is other life out on another planet, did god create that as well?? I assume so, but they would therefore have the same bible and the same story, and know of your myths. Please question your faith and realize that the Catholic church and all other organized religions on the planet are corrupt

Trouble is, so is everyone - even atheists. It’s not clear that atheism is, unlike Catholicism, wholly benign. But then the CC does not claim to be perfect; it knows it’s made of sinners.​

BTW - see Ecclesiasticus (AKA Sirach) 18.1 ##

and are only (name removed by moderator)lace to control the minds of the people. Have you wondered why during mass, you always repeat the same statements during prayer?

Of course - so that we can mean then ever more truly. It depends which statements you mean.​

Have you ever looked into the workings of brain washing?

Yes​

They are one in the same.

If having faith is brainwashing, I wish we were all brainwashed. It doesn’t interfere with one’s morals, except to show why they need improving: which is not a quality of brainwashing​

Please, please, please realize that god is all around use and not is certain buildings that you have to pray in that the church (any religion) owns. Forgo your religions and live a good life and get away from the corruption that is only draining the good on this planet.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Corona1500:

hey buffalo,
that is a wonderful quote from someone in history, however, still nothing to do with the topic. It is wonderful to continue to quote people or books, but that still does not address the issue.
That religion is nothing but corrupt. The Catholic church wishes to continue to brainwash you, in order for you to continue to believe in them, and continue to send money. It is a religion invented by men and run by men, hence the massive corruption and attempted control of the people’s minds. The Catholic church has destroyed or attempted to destroy anything that opposite to the view of the church.

Like Plato, Aristotle, and a lot of other non-Christian authors ?​

Atheism’s own record, in countries not inhibited by religion, has not been outstanding for its moral integrity and humanity. The less said of Mao and Stalin, the countries they tyrannised over, and of many other Communist countries, the better ##

Have you not thought of who wrote the bible (both old and new testament)? It was not from God, they are a collection of stories or myths. If it was written today, it would be all it is, a work of fiction.

That is a sweeping statement which is easily made, is unsupported, and is therefore impossible to engage with: it is far too general​

 

[Donald45]

Nikazu:

…I have a friend who is a “Bible Christian” and though he’s never read Origin of Species nor Descent of Man he still condemns them both, and Darwin along with them. Furthermore, he’s convinced himself that Darwin, on his deathbed (I don’t know where he got this) renounced evolution…

This is a popular misconception about Darwin. The myth sometimes even includes the claim that he converted to Christianity on his deathbed. What’s clear from reading his writings, however, is that he in fact never entirely abandoned a belief in God’s existence, although he certainly no longer believed in His goodness (or, at least, in His direct involvement in the world). The slow and agonizing death of his precious 10-year-old daughter, Annie, was the final straw for Darwin, and he found he could no longer hold to a conventional faith in the Victorian God of his past experience. As a father myself, I can relate keenly to Darwin’s religious struggles in the face of such personal suffering.

On the Darwinian “urban myth” you described, there’s a fine book by James Moore, entitled The Darwin Legend (Baker Books, 1994). I’m not certain if it’s still in print, but I’m sure you can locate a used copy on the net.

God bless.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Donald45:

This is a popular misconception about Darwin. The myth sometimes even includes the claim that he converted to Christianity on his deathbed. What’s clear from reading his writings, however, is that he in fact never entirely abandoned a belief in God’s existence, although he certainly no longer believed in His goodness (or, at least, in His direct involvement in the world). The slow and agonizing death of his precious 10-year-old daughter, Annie, was the final straw for Darwin, and he found he could no longer hold to a conventional faith in the Victorian God of his past experience. As a father myself, I can relate keenly to Darwin’s religious struggles in the face of such personal suffering.

On the Darwinian “urban myth” you described, there’s a fine book by James Moore, entitled The Darwin Legend (Baker Books, 1994). I’m not certain if it’s still in print, but I’m sure you can locate a used copy on the net.

God bless.

That book is available from Amazon:​

##%between%

 

[CreosMary]

Orogeny:
Hello, Creos. Yep. I tried to stay out, but I just couldn’t!

A new species! Homo creosmariens!

Peace

Tim

Hah!! Good one Tim, who are you calling a homo?
By the way I wouldnt bother answering the poster ‘corona’, as they (he/she/homocoronass) are clearly anti-Christian and have been suspended already.
Keep up the discussion I do keep an Eye on it
God Bless
Br CreosMary