evolution

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lavazza

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Hi all,

just finished watching a program on the discovery channel. They pretty much have proven evolution. it has shaken my faith a lot. They pretty much blew Intelligent design out of the water. Any ways that we can refute this?
 
You don’t need to refute it. The Church has no problems with evolution, as long as you believe God’s behind it and that he endowed humans with rational souls.

Also, Lavazza? Great espresso 👍
 
lavazza said:
Hi all,

just finished watching a program on the discovery channel. They pretty much have proven evolution. it has shaken my faith a lot. They pretty much blew Intelligent design out of the water. Any ways that we can refute this?
Click to expand...
Why would it shake your faith? :confused:

We are taught that God created us.

Whether He did it through evolution or not is immaterial.
 
If you’re worried, I would read some of the books written by RTB (reasons to believe). You can find their site here:

www.reasons.org

They are composed by a number of christian scientists from a variety of fields (astronomy, biology, chemistry, etc…), and they present a scientifically verifiable, biblically based creation model. Their model includes support for the big bang, and reject of evolution. It is quite interesting, I highly recommend picking up some of their books.
 
mirdath. thanks, that helps. yes lavazza is great espresso. you have good taste. next time you have one at night, have a grappa with it. lol
 
It seems to be a common misconception that Science and Christianity are opposed to one another, when they are not. Proving evolution is the case does not harm the Church and its teaching. The pope himself has said this. Science cannot prove or disprove the Doctrine of the Church.

As for intelligent design, they are a little wonky to begin with. Their whole argument rests on one thing, presented by Michael Behe, called Irreducible Complexity. This means, according to them, that there are certain things found in nature that could not have evolved via small changes because if we alter the parts of, say an eye, the thing will no longer function. Long story short, their arguments are faulty. If I were you I would pay more attention to Aquinas’ Quinquae Via (the Five Ways), in the Summa Theologica. Oh, and by the by, Aquinas is not the father of the Intelligent Design argument, just in case you’ve heard that.

Don’t let your faith be shaken by big Science just because there are people out there, like Richard Dawkins, who believe that Christianity can be written away by Science. Science can only teach us about those things that we can sense. Thats it. It has no say on God, faith, or Christianity. Be strong:)
 
Thanks everyone for your help. as you know in todays world, it is very hard to keep the faith. with science making the headlines all the time. i am suprised at myself. having a catholic education, feeling like this. Was i the only person to question my faith in todays world?
 
If you want a good Catholic site that refute’s evolution check out the myriad of articles on evolution on these sites:

Catholic Apologetics International by Robert Sungenis:

catholicintl.com/

Scripture Catholic by John Salza:

scripturecatholic.com/evolution.html

These are some of the best sites that I have seen that refute evolution. As a Catholic the decision to accept evolution is up to you. The Church will not make an official statement on evolution because it does not pertain to faith and morals. There are however certain things about creation that you must accept:
  1. That God created the world and everything in it.
  2. If evolution is true, then it is guided by God
  3. All people on earth come from two original people (Adam and Eve)
I think there might be one or two more requirements but I can’t remember them off the top of my head, maybe somebody can add on to them.
 
I think most “blowins of intelligent Design out of the water” are due to biased production values rather than good arguments.

Basically there is NO PROOF of evolution through random Selection, and a lot of questions are left unanswered. The random element of species evolution is however an article of faith with the rationalist scientific establishment - and if you as much as argue against it - you receive vituperation.
 
Faith and reason cannot be oppossed for they flow from the same God.

Science by its own definition has a limited say about the universe. It is limited to the natural, and can pronounce nothing about the supernatural.

Scientific observation has to be interpreted through reason. Science is a subset of reason.

The question is how are we sure that the science is correctly interpreted?

Do not let your faith be shaken. Study metaphysics for balance. Today we have forgotten it and relegated science as supreme.
 
lavazza said:
Hi all,

just finished watching a program on the discovery channel. They pretty much have proven evolution. it has shaken my faith a lot. They pretty much blew Intelligent design out of the water. Any ways that we can refute this?
Click to expand...
Personally, I find claims of evolution childish. it teaches that chance and natural selection adds complexity to organisms. Its a silly teaching. Common sense tells exactly the opposite: chance can only destroy complexity (that actually is happening) and natural selection slows down this decay of complexity, but can’t eliminate the decay. Meaning: every new generation has more and more accumulation of genetic mutation, while Adam and Eve where two people with 100% clean genetic code. This tells common sense and young earth creationism. I choose to believe into literal story of Adam and Eve, at least it has so much more sense.

In my experience question of Evolution vs. Creationism is not a question of who has better proofs, rather it’s a question into whose proofs you decide to believe from beginning on.
 
Why can’t one believe in both? Back in the Stone Age when I took sociology in high school, we had a wonderful young priest who taught the class and we discussed the subject of evolution. He told us it was okey to believe that evolution happened, guided by God’s hand, and that there was an Adam and Eve to which he gave a soul. Don’t know if that explains it well, but I have never forgotten that. Through the years I have had many sciences classes in all kinds of science due to my majors and I still believe what he told us.
 
buffalo said:
The chart above (Fig. 1) summarizes the decline in life expectancy through out Judaeo-Anglo history. There is said to be a recovery now in progress, in modern times, a topic to be taken up in detail in the following.
Click to expand...
No, the chart above plots the reputed lifespans of specific individuals and then draws a line through that. This is not equivalent to “life expectancies” as used in modern statistical analysis. Life expectancy rates are based on averages among a group, not on the lifespan of specific individuals along a timeline.

state.nj.us/health/chs/localhealth.shtml (my emphasis added)

How to calculate life expectancy
Life expectancy is the average number of years of life remaining to a person at a particular age and is often used as a summary measure of the health status of a population. The most commonly used life expectancy measure is life expectancy at birth, the number of years a person born in a given year is expected to live. Calculation of life expectancy requires birth, death, and population data. It is recommended that there be at least 700 deaths in a given geographic area/race/sex group when calculating life expectancy. If there are fewer than 700 deaths, multiple years of data may be combined to give life expectancy for a range of years. Life expectancy does not change much from year to year and random variation can cause life expectancy to decrease slightly on occasion, therefore the overall trend is key.
 
mary_bobo said:
Why can’t one believe in both? Back in the Stone Age when I took sociology in high school, we had a wonderful young priest who taught the class and we discussed the subject of evolution. He told us it was okey to believe that evolution happened, guided by God’s hand, and that there was an Adam and Eve to which he gave a soul. Don’t know if that explains it well, but I have never forgotten that. Through the years I have had many sciences classes in all kinds of science due to my majors and I still believe what he told us.
Click to expand...
God could have created Adam and Eve and inserted them in the timeline wherever He wished, despite what may or may not have been happening on earth at the time.
 
Why do you think evolution is incompatible with the existence of God? Why not consider evolution as an example of God’s artistic handiwork?

How would you answer this statement: Evolution disproves God because…
 
Axion said:
I think most “blowins of intelligent Design out of the water” are due to biased production values rather than good arguments.

Basically there is NO PROOF of evolution through random Selection, and a lot of questions are left unanswered. The random element of species evolution is however an article of faith with the rationalist scientific establishment - and if you as much as argue against it - you receive vituperation.
Click to expand...
This indicates a misunderstanding of the process of evolution

It is not a truly random process
It is deterministic

Things like conception are far more random than evolution.

PS what is wrong with randomness?
 
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