EVOLUTION: what about this

[StAnastasia]

Now you have taken a small part of what I’ve said and ignored the rest. There is a fundamental problem in science which has corrupted the scientists. It is called scientism, and it is leading to atheism, as is the case for most leading scientists. Do not accuse me of disparaging religious people, especially when you know what I mean. Science has become corrupt. As Cardinal Schoenborn wrote of scientism, "This must be overcome."Peace,Ed

I look at the glass half full!

 

[edwest2]

So you know how God works. Good.

It seems to me that StA believes that God is just like her, and that God must also follow the rules he made for us. For her, if the Bible seems to indicate that God is not just like her, then that part of the bible must be incorrectly translated, is non literal, or is metaphorical, or is allegorical, or is a myth, or is a fiction altogether. Or so it seems to me from reading her posts.

Of course, there’s a problem with her basic premise. God is not made in our image. That’s a poor premise for determining what is literal, allegorical, etc.

This is exactly right. In the Bible, God gave the people an opportunity to repent. He sent his prophets. And Christ told us how the prophets were treated, they were stoned and killed, or they were ignored.

Once again, as I have seen elsewhere, if the topic is evolution, eventually God and the Bible are denounced. Or watered down to become myth, allegory and symbolic.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Namesake]

LOL…I should have known you’d say something like that. You just don’t get it. I guess it’s ok to say that you’re just ignorant, and willfully so.

Stupid people are by their nature, necessarily ignorant. Ignorant people are not necessarily stupid.

Just look it up. Ignorance can be fixed, stupid cannot be fixed.

 

[Namesake]

Once again, as I have seen elsewhere, if the topic is evolution, eventually God and the Bible are denounced. Or watered down to become myth, allegory and symbolic.

Well, if someone’s interpretation of the Bible is clearly refuted by scientific fact, like geocentrism, then the interpretation must change to conform to the facts. Religion simply cannot compete with science because science is objective. What is known to be true is simply true.

I will submit that science doesn’t have all the answers and likely never will. Hopefully never will! Neither does religion.

 

[edwest2]

If truth cannot contradict truth then it must flow in both directions, not just one. As I’ve seen here, the facts, as some interpret them, are not enough.

Peace,
Ed

 

[StAnastasia]

Well, if someone’s interpretation of the Bible is clearly refuted by scientific fact, like geocentrism, then the interpretation must change to conform to the facts. Religion simply cannot compete with science because science is objective. What is known to be true is simply true. I will submit that science doesn’t have all the answers and likely never will. Hopefully never will! Neither does religion.

Namesake, you are right about geocentrism. However, I think you are starting from a faulty position when you contend that “religion simply cannot compete with science because science is objective.” Religion and science have entirely different starting points, so they are not fundamentally in opposition. Faith and reason are not oppositional but complementary. Creation and evolution don’t conflict because they do not even fall in the same category: Catholics who accept evolution also necessarily accept creation.

Here is an interesting essay: http://ncseweb.org/religion/god-evolution. Excerpt:

“Like color and shape, “creation” and “evolution” do not occupy competing categories, but are complementary ways of looking at the universe. “Creation” is a philosophical concept: it is the belief that the universe depends for its existence upon something or some being outside itself. As a philosophical term “creation” is an empirically untestable belief that makes no claims about how or when the world came to be, or even whether creation was a determinate “act” or an event in time. It is a philosophical tenet compatible with the theological doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other monotheistic religions…
By contrast, “evolution” is in the scientific category. It is a statement about physical reality, not a metaphysical claim. Evolution, in its most general sense, is the inference that the universe has changed over time - that stars and galaxies and planets and living things on Earth are different now than they were in the past.”

 

[edwest2]

Creation is more than a concept. Catholics accept it as a fact. Just as Catholics accept a historical Jesus Christ. Science is only a method of doing work. God is a living reality.

Peace,
Ed

 

[StAnastasia]

Creation is more than a concept. Catholics accept it as a fact. Just as Catholics accept a historical Jesus Christ. Science is only a method of doing work. God is a living reality.Peace,Ed

Of course it’s more than a concept. But it in no way conflicts with evolution.

 

[Namesake]

Evolution, in its most general sense, is the inference that the universe has changed over time - that stars and galaxies and planets and living things on Earth are different now than they were in the past."

Evolution theory has no interest whatsoever in the universe, stars, or galaxies. The theory of evolution is confined to biology.

 

[StAnastasia]

Evolution theory has no interest whatsoever in the universe, stars, or galaxies. The theory of evolution is confined to biology.

Not true. I have a Jesuit astronomer friend who works on stellar evolution. You may be thinking of “biologcal evolution”; indeed, that term refers only to the descent of living things from common ancestors. But do you know that the word “evolution” is older and broader than this narrow biological meaning? We know now that the universe has evolved over time, that it is much different now than it was 13.71 billion years ago.

StAnastasia

 

[reggieM]

Evolution theory has no interest whatsoever in the universe, stars, or galaxies. The theory of evolution is confined to biology.

Interestingly, the National Center for Science Education disagrees with that (they produced the quote claiming that a subject of evolution is “stars and galaxies”).

Tim-Orogeny, Barbarian, Rossum and hecd2 have all argued that “evolution is only about biology”. There are all sorts of denials about abiogenesis being included in evolution also.

But here we have the most prominent voice of evolutionism claiming that evolution is about “stars and galaxies”.

The confusion and deceptions go on – evolutionists cannot even define the field that they’re trying to defend.

I note the hypocricy of StAnastasia who mocks a list of evolutionary critics because there are “few biologists” in the group.

Once again, the meaning of words and terms change to dodge the truth or to try to win some points in a debate. Perhaps the words themselves are evolving through mutations and adaptation as we write them.

 

[StAnastasia]

The confusion and deceptions go on – evolutionists cannot even define the field that they’re trying to defend.

I note the hypocricy of StAnastasia who mocks a list of evolutionary critics because there are “few biologists” in the group.

Once again, the meaning of words and terms change to dodge the truth or to try to win some points in a debate. Perhaps the words themselves are evolving through mutations and adaptation as we write them.

Where’s the deception in pointing out that the universe is evolving? And where is the hypocrisy in saying that the Discovery Insititute’s list of dissenters has few biologists?

And words do evolve in meaning: “evolve” is Latin for “to unfold” or “open out”; it can apply to language, or doctrine, of political or or scientific ideas, or human personalities, or many other things.

Think outside your box!

 

[reggieM]

Interesting. Okay, I just wanted to know how you dealt with troubling passages in the Bible, and it appears to me that your particular balm is denial.

That was a good summary. Yes, it’s denial and the creation of a fantasy religion (one that exists solely in the imagination). That’s liberal Catholicism in all of its monotony. It’s basically imitation Anglicanism-Lite, without the nice liturgies. But it’s also more insincere and hypocritical because Anglicanism can actually be reconciled with liberal-secularism while Catholicism cannot be.

I just find that interesting, and not altogether uncommon. (I recall another Catholic – this one an actual “I’ve debated so-and-so” Catholic apologist – who told me that Abraham and Sarah couldn’t have been as old as the Bible says, since humans that old can’t have children. I mean, at that point, why not say the virgin birth account is false, too, since virgins can’t have kids?)

That does follow logically but we will never get an a la carte Catholic to recognize that.

What else do you pretend didn’t happen, I wonder?

Excellent question. He/she has dispensed with all of the miracles of the Book of Genesis, so I can’t imagine many others survive.

For example, maybe Paul didn’t really say, “I do not permit a woman to teach,” or, “To avoid fornication, let each man have his own wife, and each wife her own husband”? That would be a good way to shoo in women priests and gay marriage, right?

Absolutely. St. Paul was “historically conditioned” so we really don’t have to listen to anything he said except when we agree with it.

Why do you even bother to be Catholic? That’s what I’d like to know now, if you’re willing to share.

That question has been asked quite frequently and the answer that was given was that he/she:

1. Likes his job in a Catholic school
2. Likes having a position of honor in the parish
3. Loves God (who created nothing, does nothing, cannot be “seen in the things He made”, has no revelation that can be understood without the help of dissenting theologians, and can be referred to has He/She/It.)

 

[StAnastasia]

Creation is more than a concept. Catholics accept it as a fact. Just as Catholics accept a historical Jesus Christ. Science is only a method of doing work. God is a living reality.Peace,Ed

Ed, I read further in that article I quoted you:

“Just like gravity, the theory of evolution is compatible with theism, atheism, and agnosticism. Can I accept evolution as the most compelling explanation for biological diversity, and yet also accept the idea that God works through evolution? Certainly.”

 

[StAnastasia]

That question has been asked quite frequently and the answer that was given was that he/she:

1. Likes his job in a Catholic school
2. Likes having a position of honor in the parish
3. Loves God (who created nothing, does nothing, cannot be “seen in the things He made”, has no revelation that can be understood without the help of dissenting theologians, and can be referred to has He/She/It.)

Reggie, you are a liar and a slanderer, and lying and slandering is sinful!

 

[edwest2]

Of course it’s more than a concept. But it in no way conflicts with evolution.

It does when the claim is that evolution is simply chance and selection. As Pope Benedict wrote: “We are not haphazard mistakes.”

Peace,
ED

 

[reggieM]

Where’s the deception in pointing out that the universe is evolving?

Ok, I will admit that the deception is probably not intentional because the deceivers cannot see their own inconsistencies.

And where is the hypocrisy in saying that the Discovery Insititute’s list of dissenters has few biologists?

Again, there’s no hypocrisy for people who do not have the mental capabilities to recognize their own contradictions.

And words do evolve in meaning:

Certainly – right in the middle of a sentence, or perhaps more slowly in a paragraph. Evolve is Latin for “unfold” which has something to do with taking laundered shirts out of a bag, and one bag can carry 2 grapefruits and 2 apples, but 2 + 2 = 1 is false. Therefore, there’s no question about it = “Evolution is false”.

Think outside your box!

Yes, certainly. Let’s think outside of the box of mathematics and logic and then we might make sense of evolutionary theory!

 

[reggieM]

Reggie, you are a liar and a slanderer,

I disagree with your opinion. And considering how many times you are wrong about things, I’m sure you can understand why.

lying and slandering is sinful!

Where did you come up with that idea – personal revelation, or does this happen to be something that you accept from Church teaching?

 

[reggieM]

Reggie, you are a liar and a slanderer, and lying and slandering is sinful!

On re-reading what I said it appeared that I was quoting you but that was not my intention. I was offering an interpretation of what you said, not a direct quote. The parenthetical was what I gathered elsewhere and not part of your explanation.

Additionally, you did say that you believe in miracles so it was not correct to claim that the God you believe in “does nothing”.

I apologize for that exaggeration.

 

[buffalo]

StA must be a troll.