Evolution is contradictory?

[Aloysium]

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[angel12]

There are better ways to understand how the world is and came to be.

Not when it comes to evolution. We need science.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

There are better ways to understand how the world is and came to be.

Not when it comes to evolution. We need science.

I don’t know exactly what you are trying to say.

My point has to do with how we interpret data. We can take the same scientific facts, buried within the theory of evolution as if they were one and the same, and order them in such a way that a completely different picture, one of creation, appears. The same basic facts, a different story altogether.

Not wanting to dredge up an analogy that got totally twisted by naysayers here, but perhaps making it clearer, it might make sense to you. The science behind evolution can be understood as similar to that which described the motion of the lights in the sky. The same science, their calculated tragectories, which allowed us the possibility of determining their position at any time, did not change. What did change was the frame of reference. Where it was automatically and unconsciously assumed that the observer was at the centre of the change, the planets exhibited the weird paths that gave them the name “wanderers”. When the frame of reference was shifted to an imagined observer outside the system, we were able to conceptualize how the planets revolved around the sun.

In a similar manner, focussing on matter, on the properties of a fallen world, we obtain a certain picture of how it “evolved”. The same genetics and physiology, statistical equations, and fossil record seen under a different light, the “Light of the world”, everything is different. Randomness and necessity, the pillars of evolutionary theory can be then understood to be the mechanisms of death rather than the source of the diversity of living forms. It is all about creation, the bringing forth of all this wonder.

Think God, and how He has done this rather than basing your story on today’s false assumptions. Examine the science, which is actually a difficult exercise, from the frame of reference that is your relationship with God. Evolution will disolve away as reality shines through.

 

[o_mlly]

Some Christians do treat it as a science book: “The earth is 6,000 years old.” and “There was a world-wide flood about 4,500 years ago that killed most animal and human life.”

That interpretation of Genesis is rightly criticised by both Christian and atheist scientists.

Catholics do not believe in “verbal inerrancy” because we do not believe God was directly and specially involved in the choice of every single word in the text’s original language or in every subsequent interpretation of that language to another.

Catholics believe the Holy Spirit directly enlightened the minds of the authors of Genesis. This divine inspiration put Truth into the authors’ minds. Their human task was to find their prophetic voice and wrap into words the Truth given to them. The Truth in their story is, therefore, substantive (beneath the form of the text), infallible and eternal.

 

[rossum]

The same genetics and physiology, statistical equations, and fossil record seen under a different light, the “Light of the world”,

Which “Light of the World”? Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, the Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu, Guru Nanak, Baha’u’llah?

If you want to import your “Light of the World” into science, you need to have scientific evidence to support your particular light and to reject all the other potential lights.

By all means argue theology, but please do not make the mistake of importing theology into science. Science owes its success in part to limiting itself to the material world and by eschewing speculations as to how many angels can fit onto the head of a pin.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

Which “Light of the World”?

Jesus, the only one who said He was the Light of the world. Clearly, reference was being made to the Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. Although you don’t know whom I am talking about, you do know what I meant.

After all this time on Catholic Forums, it should also be clear that the Truth reveals itself, and cannot be taken, a teaching not unfamiliar to Buddhism.

My aim in this regard would not be by any means to import the infinite ocean that is the Word of God into the flask that is science, but rather to bring science to its natural place in the order that is our individual and collective relationships with the world, one another and with God.

 

[Cruciferi]

I believe in the Big Bang Theory. But that doesn’t mean I believe life originated from some primordial pool. In my opinion, creating the Universe and creating life are two separate actions.

Wherever Eden is, I don’t believe it’s here. Elijah and Enoch were translated to a place that is definitely not Earth.

Where Is Heaven? Not a Place? Philosophy

What Fr. Ryland is suggesting flies in the face of credible sources. His opinion doesn’t equal fact. Ecclesiasticus 44:16 (Douay-Rheims) Henoch pleased God, and was translated into paradise, that he may give repentance to the nations. Malachi 4:5 See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, Liber 4, Cap. 30 The disciples of the Apostles say that they (Enoch and Elijah) whose living bodies were taken up fro…

 

[rossum]

My aim in this regard would not be by any means to import the infinite ocean that is the Word of God into the flask that is science, but rather to bring science to its natural place in the order that is our individual and collective relationships with the world, one another and with God.

A laudable, but difficult, task. Are you proposing to convert every Hindu scientist to Catholicism? Every Protestant scientist to Catholicism? You have set yourself a very large task here, one which the Church has not been able to complete in 2,000 years of trying.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Not when it comes to evolution. We need science.

Yet it is not empirical, that is observable, repeatable and predictable. Evolution is philosophy.

 

[buffalo]

The Magician’s Twin - CS Lewis
A powerful must see video:

The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism

The Similarity Between Science and Magic

1. Science as religion
2. Science as credulity
3. Science as power

Evolution is an alternative religion

 

[STT]

I don’t think that science can tell that there was not minor intervention form God in evolution. I don’t understand why a God who is so powerful cannot create something which works and evolves on its own.

 

[Aloysium]

Most relevant to this dialogue, would be:

Romans 14:1-12 - Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:
“ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’ ”
So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

There is also:

Philippians 2: 5-11 - For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.

It’s not up to me to do more than to pass on to others what I see.

 

[Aloysium]

so powerful cannot create something which works and evolves on its own

We’re not discussing hypotheticals. It’s about what has happened and will continue to happen. It’s also not a matter of God’s power, but His will.

We may be said to “evolve” on our own. Ours’ is a journey through time that through our choices, fixes for eternity, who we are.

Our coming into being having a free will that enables us to become Christ-like, defines us as persons. We each possess to different degrees, the capacity to perceive/feel/know/act in relation to what is other to our self. Each of us is an expression of one humanity that had a beginning in an original human couple, through whom we fell. Our creation is not the transformation of one kind of being into another but rather the coming into being of something new, bearing a likeness to lesser forms in terms of our psychophysiological structure, but not derived from them.

 

[STT]

You need a hypothetical to start a discussion.

 

[Aloysium]

You need a hypothetical to start a discussion.

It’s interesting that you pulled this out of my post.

Your reply seems beside the point but can lead us in an interesting direction.

I’d say that to start a discussion one needs a truth:

• that God is all powerful is one such statement.
• the existence of human free will is another.
• yet another would be that events happen in a highly structured way that are understandable, predictable and repeatable.

Going back to your original post, the example given of something that works and evolves on its own is the person. This is possible because we are each a causal agent.

Chemicals are not causal agents; what they do is interact in accordance to the principles that define them.
Matter in itself cannot evolve because it is not in its nature.

 

[STT]

It’s interesting that you pulled this out of my post.

Your reply seems beside the point but can lead us in an interesting direction.

I’d say that to start a discussion one needs a truth:

• that God is all powerful is one such statement.
• the existence of human free will is another.
• yet another would be that events happen in a highly structured way that are understandable, predictable and repeatable.

Going back to your original post, the example given of something that works and evolves on its own is the person. This is possible because we are each a causal agent.

Chemicals are not causal agents; what they do is interact in accordance to the principles that define them.
Matter in itself cannot evolve because it is not in its nature.

That said, there are pantheists who would not truly believe in the reality of chemicals, understanding them as artifacts of our manipulations of matter, which is ultimately a form taken by eternal being. Evolution in this light seems to them reasonable as the process by which a supreme identity, discovers or invents itself.

Free will like consciousness can be the manifestation of how neuron in brain are wired. How could you refute that. We know the emergence as important concept which describes how reality is, like water is liquid, it could be ice too, etc. How could you refute this?

 

[Aloysium]

Free will like consciousness can be the manifestation of how neuron in brain are wired.

Free will is an attribute of our spirit which expresses itself utilizing the pretty much infinitely complex structure of our nervous system. Keep hacking away at the brain, as does Alzheimer’s, something I am well familiar with, what one observes is a diminished capacity to organize ideas and intent. The person tries but there’s nothing there in the mind-brain unity reponsible for that activity.

Consciousness is more complicated than you appear to appreciate. It actually involves the content as well as the process by which sensory, cognitive and behavioural connections are made between the self and what is other to it.

 

[STT]

Free will is an attribute of our spirit which expresses itself utilizing the pretty much infinitely complex structure of our nervous system. Keep hacking away at the brain, as does Alzheimer’s, something I am well familiar with, what one observes is a diminished capacity to organize ideas and intent. The person tries but there’s nothing there in the mind-brain unity reponsible for that activity.

Consciousness is more complicated than you appear to appreciate. It actually involves the content as well as the process by which sensory, cognitive and behavioural connections are made between the self and what is other to it.

Do you know what emergence mean in context of science?

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

Free will is an attribute of our spirit which expresses itself utilizing the pretty much infinitely complex structure of our nervous system. Keep hacking away at the brain, as does Alzheimer’s, something I am well familiar with, what one observes is a diminished capacity to organize ideas and intent. The person tries but there’s nothing there in the mind-brain unity reponsible for that activity.

Consciousness is more complicated than you appear to appreciate. It actually involves the content as well as the process by which sensory, cognitive and behavioural connections are made between the self and what is other to it.

Do you know what emergence mean in context of science?

Yes, and it is pseudoscience.

 

[STT]

That is no correct. We could explain why water for example behaves differently under different circumstances.