Evolution is contradictory?

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

Putting God at the centre of how everything came to be, a very different picture presents itself, filled with beauty, power and truth, revealing His glory.

One doesn’t need to dismantle evolution to do that.

Present your case then as to how God did all this.

To speak of “fish population changes over time giving rise to amphibians, giving rise to reptiles, giving rise to warm-blooded reptiles, giving rise to mammals”, doesn’t need God at all.

Tell us where He is the central figure that He is as Creator.

 

[mVitus]

Present your case then as to how God did all this.

To speak of “fish population changes over time giving rise to amphibians, giving rise to reptiles, giving rise to warm-blooded reptiles, giving rise to mammals”, doesn’t need God at all.

Tell us where He is the central figure that He is as Creator.

Who is the source of all causes? Who is the source of existence?

The formation of mountains is easily explained through plate tectonics. (Or volcanic activity like in Hawaii.) That makes them no less the work of God.
My ability for posting this is explained via how electronics work. But God is still necessary for existence.

I can split “how” and “why” and “who” to analyze a certain part. In that post, I focused on how. It’s perfectly valid for someone to say the ball fell because it rolled off the table. A person can also say that the ball fell because gravity drew it to the ground after it rolled off the table and no longer experienced the resistance that had been holding it up. You can add in conservation of energy, the events leading up to the rolling, and even mention that it’s all according to the way God set things. But none of that invalidates the accuracy of the first statement. And to nitpick draws away from profitable discussion.

 

[EdwardJP]

Tell your friend to check out Father Spitzer. He’s awesome when it comes to understanding how faith and science coexist.

 

[mVitus]

This is the website you’re thinking about, right?

Magis Center | Science, Reason, and Faith

 

[EdwardJP]

Yes. Father Spitzer is amazing.

 

[o_mlly]

As I said, this attitude to God puzzles me.

We call this attitude, “Divine Providence.” We presuppose that the type of play we are in is a Romance; not a Tragedy.

One ought not judge the play before the final act. But without faith, it’s hard to know that we’re in a Romance before that final act. As Sam says to Frodo, “I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?” Wait for it. Watch the story evolve to its end; then judge the play.

 

[rossum]

As a self-proclaimed Buddhist, you should be aware that all suffering, in the words of your faith, stems from ignorance and craving.

From ignorance, hatred and craving.

I’m not sure how you get around your stated belief, it could be a joke, that there is no absolute truth.

Are your senses absolutely perfect? Do you never see a mirage? Since our sensory (name removed by moderator)uts are imperfect, then our internal models of the world are also necessarily imperfect. Whatever we think is the truth is at best a provisional or imperfect truth, since we ourselves are imperfect. In order to ascertain absolute truth we need an absolutely reliable source of knowledge, and neither our senses nor our brain are such sources. Nor is scripture such a source; all religions have denominations with differing interpretations of their scriptures.

What we possess in our free will is the capacity to participate in our creation.

What God possesses is omniscience. He knew exactly what was going to happen, yet He did nothing to prepare for it or mitigate it. Buddhists make their own worlds to live in, through karma, so we are to blame for our own troubles. Christians see things differently, and I fail to understand how a good, loving God allows malaria, gangrene and HIV is the world He made.

I know that I am imperfect, so I have no problem with the world I formed around me being imperfect. But for an allegedly perfect being to make an imperfect world is a big problem.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

So, His inability to create a universe that was not fail-safe and did not anticipate a foreseen problem shows His “glory”? A designer who does not anticipate a foreseen problem, or design in fail-safe mechanisms, is hardly a glorious designer.

As I said, this attitude to God puzzles me.

We are now getting in to the freewill issue.

 

[Aloysium]

My ability for posting this is explained via how electronics work. But God is still necessary for existence.

Your ability to post has to do with your possession of a human spirit and an intact nervous system.

Since I don’t think many people actually read my longer posts, I’m going to leave it that evolution offers a rather simplistic explanation, a nonexplanation actually, for the existence of our brain, so necessary to express what is in our soul.

Talking about tectonics and how balls fall and roll of the table misses the point that there is more than just matter to life, for example my cat, which is a totally different being than an orchid at the window, and as different from that living form, as I am to it.

Evolution doesn’t cut it. Creation is anything but random and that a creature’s having lived to procreate, rather than being the key to diversity, is merely an incomplete version of the fact that everything exists as itself and as part of something larger; with respect to plants and animals, it is the environment they create.

 

[Aloysium]

In order to ascertain absolute truth we need an absolutely reliable source of knowledge, and neither our senses nor our brain are such sources. Nor is scripture such a source; all religions have denominations with differing interpretations of their scriptures.

The Truth is revealed; to most Buddhists it is realized. Intuit is another word people use.

I’ve offered my unsolicited advice before. Listen to the silence.

What God possesses is omniscience. He knew exactly what was going to happen, yet He did nothing to prepare for it or mitigate it.

Scripture is the Word of God, revealed throughout and in the person of Jesus Christ. It describes and is the dialogue between God and each of us, as individuals and collectively as His Holy Church.

I fail to understand how a good, loving God allows malaria, gangrene and HIV is the world He made.

That’s the problem.

The world is perfect given what is the Truth that is Love. Once you see it, you see it is everywhere.

 

[bobperk]

Fr. Spitzer is good when speaking about love and suffering. In terms of reconciling faith and science, he gives too much credit to science and kicks traditional beliefs to the curb.

 

[mVitus]

Your ability to post has to do with your possession of a human spirit and an intact nervous system.

Again, such an answer serves to nitpick rather than advance understanding. I could further point out that my ability to post depends on God’s continuous sustaining of existence. But that doesn’t advance our practical understanding of how things work. Just because we don’t mention every single thing that goes into something doesn’t mean our understanding isn’t complete.

I could tell you what I did today. And you would be able to understand it without knowing my entire life story even though all those have led up to today and who I am.

Since I don’t think many people actually read my longer posts, I’m going to leave it that evolution offers a rather simplistic explanation, a nonexplanation actually, for the existence of our brain, so necessary to express what is in our soul.

 

[mVitus]

Continued.

Ironically, given what I just said, I’m about to post a long story. I was at the library a while ago while checking out the next book in a series I’m reading. While there I stopped by the religion section and took a look at the books in the Catholic section. (There’s actually a pretty nice selection if I may say so.) One book that caught my eye was Rodney Stark’s Bearing False Witness which corrects erroneous statements on Catholic history. I popped it open and read what he said about the so called “dark ages.” Towards the end, he mentioned how historians often say (not exact quote) “this or that invention allowed Europe to get ahead.” But he asked “well why did Europe get this or that invention?” And in his opinion, Christianity was the root of why Europe became the world leader. Christian thought was superior to other philosophies of the world in how it interacted with knowledge. When comparing Christianity and Islam on Aristotle, Muslims read Aristotle and took him as the authority. And when issues with science and Aristotalean philosophy came up, they looked at how Aristotle had to be right and the science wrong. Christians on the other hand took Aristotle and others not as the ultimate authority in philosophy, but as a spring board. When issues came up in Aristotalean philosophy, Christians said “well he was wrong, now let’s see what we can learn” and therefore advanced knowledge and understanding by not holding to philosophical ideas that contradicted reason.

Taking that to this thread, you often seem to start with the philosophy and try reconciling the science with it. That leads to a view that gets so up in the clouds that it doesn’t help understanding. We can’t measure philosophical substances. If science adopted your view, we would stagnate. But if we do what Christians (especially Catholics) have done and say, “Okay we have more knowledge now, let’s build on this.” we advance understanding. Our understanding of the physical world enhances our understanding of the non-physical. We can look at it again and ask, “Now why would God do it this way?” and then come back to our philosophy enhancing our appreciation for the physical.

In evolution’s case, it is my opinion that understanding the physical allows us to gain understanding on how God created us. Then we ask why Genesis has 6 days. It must use figurative language. What does that figurative language reveal? That God is awesome. That He loves us. That He made the world to be good and for us to be with Him, the only god, an almighty god, and a loving god. Because God is amazing. And if he’s that awesome, what does that tell us about evolution? That God worked through it and even though it seems impossible to us, he started everything knowing it would create us. Because His work is that awe inspiring.

In other words, we had what we needed to have from Genesis before. But by further exploring our physical world it left us asking questions that led us not only to what we needed, but that and even more.

 

[rossum]

We are now getting in to the freewill issue.

Malaria has free will? The HIV virus has free will? Is it beyond an omnipotent God to create a universe that contains free will and does not contain the malaria parasite.

Humans have been able to eliminate smallpox from the world. Is God so powerless that He cannot do something similar?

rossum

 

[o_mlly]

Is it beyond an omnipotent God to create a universe that contains free will and does not contain the malaria parasite.

Humans have been able to eliminate smallpox from the world. Is God so powerless that He cannot do something similar?

Is it beyond an omnipotent God to create a universe that contains free will and an immortal soul/body? No. He did just that.

Is it beyond a creature with free will to reject God’s friendship? No. Death of the body is the effect (but not the soul).

Malaria is but one of many secondary causes of death of the body; the effect of rejecting God’s friendship. What real good would be achieved by eliminating malaria only to die from HIV or some more painful event? We will die; the question is but how.

We believe all goodness comes from God. If smallpox is eliminated and if that is good then God is the primary cause.

 

[Aloysium]

such an answer serves to nitpick rather than advance understanding

In order to help with communication so that people don’t merely talk at each other, I will offer some feedback. On the this side of the judgemental divide, this comment is does not advance understanding at all. What it does do is offer insight about the author. Unfortunately, what comes across is the converse of the comment, that one is dealing with unclear and imprecise thinking.

In evolution’s case, it is my opinion that understanding the physical allows us to gain understanding on how God created us. Then we ask why Genesis has 6 days. It must use figurative language. What does that figurative language reveal? That God is awesome. That He loves us.

There is no disagreement as to science’s potential to reveal the nature of God and how we came to be. It is the weaving of that data into the weird fabric that is evolution that’s the issue. The genetics and research into the fossil record do reveal His power and glory. There is no contradiction between the actual science and the faith. In fact, it is the mind staggering complexity, the awesomeness of this miracle that includes ourselves that fuels such alternatives as Intelligent Design. At issue is the incompatability of the secular mythos and creation.

Among the various objections to evolution is that our existence did not happen randomly and did not asise as a result of necessity, as is its unverifiable claim. To this point, an argument in favour of theistic evolution should address how chemical events, by their own capacities under the selective environmental pressures, came to play in the creation of, for example, the human brain (I’ve asked this before and had no reply.) necessary for the expression of our spirit, let alone the intricacies of the human mind.

In opposition to the belief of evolution, I’m going to suggest that we were created perfect, with no abnormal genes, and that the accumulation of such has happened in time since the fall. This fits with reality as it is acknowledge by all of us whenever we put on sunscreen, lead aprons when undergoing radiograhic imagining, and avoid toxins like nicotine. Random changes of the genome are bad. There are built-in genetic and epigentic mechanisms, created with the first organism of its kind, whereby we can explain the diversity present in life on earth.

 

[rossum]

I’m going to suggest that we were created perfect, with no abnormal genes, and that the accumulation of such has happened in time since the fall.

You would need to show scientists an example of a sequenced “perfect” genome to convince them of this. If you make a claim about something physical, like a DNA molecule, then expect to be asked to provide physical evidence to support your claim.

You will also be asked to provide physical evidence of the date of the Fall; a sheep’s bones with tooth marks from a lion for example would help limit the date. You may be aware that we have fossil dinosaur bones with tooth marks from carnivorous predators on them.

Random changes of the genome are bad.

This is incorrect. The majority of random changes are neutral, neither good nor bad. A majority of the non-neutral changes are deleterious, but a minority are beneficial. Two examples in humans are HbC, which resists malaria and Apo AI-Milano which reduces heart attacks.

Beneficial mutations are rare, but they do happen.

rossum

 

[PickyPicky]

In opposition to the belief of evolution, I’m going to suggest that we were created perfect, with no abnormal genes, and that the accumulation of such has happened in time since the fall

Interesting. Do you suggest the same for all living creatures, or is there a different pathway for the non-human ones?

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

In opposition to the belief of evolution, I’m going to suggest that we were created perfect, with no abnormal genes, and that the accumulation of such has happened in time since the fall

Interesting. Do you suggest the same for all living creatures, or is there a different pathway for the non-human ones?

Why not? That would be Eden.

The summary of my take on this would be:

What we have is creation emerging from eternity. Time is secondary to causality.

The world is the way it is because we as one humanity committed an original sin upon our creation. As the crown of creation, the means by which everything is brought into communion with its Creator, through sin, we altered the course of everything

The first of each kind of living being emerges into its particular now as itself, from an eternal Now, at whatever point this occurs in the timeline of the universe. Because of sin, it is corrupted and in successive generations one sees a deterioration of the genome onward.

The creation of new kinds of things and organisms ended with that of mankind. Since then we see variations in what has bee created as an expression of what they are, like what we see in different breeds of domesticated animals.

 

[rossum]

Time is secondary to causality.

I disagree. In causality the cause comes before the effect. If the cause does not yet exist then it cannot have had any effects. In the absence of time we cannot tell “before”, which depends on the existence of time. If there is no “before” then we cannot distinguish between cause and effect. Causality requires time; in the absence of time causality is meaningless.

rossum