Genesis v Evolution

[edwest2]

How did matter and energy come into being?

God bless,
Ed

 

[drpmjhess]

How did matter and energy come into being? God bless,
Ed

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

“Through Him all things were made.”

Petrus

 

[edwest2]

Uh, and the scientific answer please? There’s a peer reviewed paper stating this?

God bless,
Ed

 

[drpmjhess]

Uh, and the scientific answer please? There’s a peer reviewed paper stating this? God bless,Ed

Yes – Council of Jerusalem, Council of Nicaea, Council of Ephesus, etc.

Petrus

 

[edwest2]

So I was right. There is no secular scientific paper stating this.

God bless,
Ed

 

[SpiritMeadow]

So I was right. There is no secular scientific paper stating this.

God bless,
Ed

If you are asking what was before the “Big Bang” I think scientists have some possible senarios, but at this time indicate they have no really testable ideas. This is not unusual, the fringes of all science disciplines would reach a point where no futher theories can reasonably be made. As we continue to learn things some of these outer reaches move further out, some remain stuck for a long time. I don’t particularly see you point.

 

[edwest2]

Do you believe matter and energy are eternal?

God bless,
Ed

 

[Montie_Claunch]

I found this video. A documentary against Evolution. I thought ya’ll might be interested.
evolution.no.googlepages.com/evolutionfactorbelief.htm

 

[cyberjacques]

Those who believe that science and God are in disagreement understand neither.

You can quote me on that.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Do you believe matter and energy are eternal?

God bless,
Ed

I believe God is eternal. I have no particular scientific knowledge that would give me an opinion on matter (matter and energy are essentially the same aren;t they? Matter is just energy converted to visible substance correct?) and energy being eternal.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Those who believe that science and God are in disagreement understand neither.

You can quote me on that.

of course you are most correct, and perfectly in line with statements from the Vatican since the 1950’s.

 

[drpmjhess]

So I was right. There is no secular scientific paper stating this. God bless,Ed

Ed, you never said you were looking for a secular paper. You simply asked “how did matter and energy come into being?” This is susceptible of two answers: (1) As a Catholic I believe that God is indeed the source of everything, including matter and energy – God’s creative origination would be my theological answer. (2) Science continues to seek answers about the universe, and physicists and cosmologists will no doubt continue to look backward beyond the primitive conditions just after the Big Bang, and to develop theories about what were the conditions before it.

Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

Do you believe matter and energy are eternal? God bless, Ed

Ed, that depend on what you mean by “eternal.” Standard Big Bang cosmology follows the logic that the four dimensions of space and time (and the other six dimensions that collapsed early in the history of the cosmos) were a result of the Big Bang. Before that there was no space-time., although perhaps there was state in which all energy and matter existed “in potentia”; perhaps a previous universe had gravitationally collapsed by some previous universe. But even if matter and energy are eternal in this sense, they still denped for their being upon God; they are ontologically contingent

Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

I found this video. A documentary against Evolution. I thought ya’ll might be interested.
evolution.no.googlepages.com/evolutionfactorbelief.htm

Monti Claunch, thanks for the referral, but this video is complete rubbish. It was rubbish even when it was made, based on the paleonotolgoical knowledge of the 1970s. Scientific knowledge marches inexorably forward, and the clueless narrator (despite his lovely British accent!) has no idea what he is talking about when he says that there are no fossil sequences. We have rich arrays of fossil evidence for the evolution of horses, of whales from terrestrial carnivores (mesonychid - ambulocetus - rhodocetus - basilosaurus), to the evolution of human beings.

The appeal to dissenters no more damages evolutionary theory than the Flat Earth Society damages belief in the sphericity of the earth.

 

[hecd2]

Monti Claunch, thanks for the referral, but this video is complete rubbish. It was rubbish even when it was made, based on the paleonotolgoical knowledge of the 1970s. Scientific knowledge marches inexorably forward, and the clueless narrator (despite his lovely British accent!) has no idea what he is talking about when he says that there are no fossil sequences. We have rich arrays of fossil evidence for the evolution of horses, of whales from terrestrial carnivores (mesonychid - ambulocetus - rhodocetus - basilosaurus), to the evolution of human beings.

The appeal to dissenters no more damages evolutionary theory than the Flat Earth Society damages belief in the sphericity of the earth.

The gentleman in question is Peter Wilders. He, like the other contributors to the video, is a mainstay of the Catholic YEC movement, the Kolbe Center, whose core members also include Robert ‘Geocentrist’ Sungenis and Guy ‘I’ve revolutionised geology’ Berthault. Peter turned up on this board three months ago in order to puff Guy’s claims that he has, single-handedly, overturned the basis for geology and, with it, geological methods of dating events and fossils. Peter scuttled away after a few posts when he found that there were some people on the board who know considerably more geology than he does (including our very own professional geologist - Tim, take a bow) who pointed out very clearly the gaping flaws in his assertions.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

“provided we do not lose sight of certain fixed points.” That would be God.

Scientists speak as laymen about God? And what other than science informs the unbeliever that God does not exist?

God bless,
Ed

That makes no sense, at all. How can the sciences, that study the universe - which (from a monotheistic POV) is created - possibly say that there is no God ? God is not in the universe - He so far exceeds it, that it is nothing whatever in comparison with Him. Even to say that is to rate it too highly. God is God - what He has created, is not competent to say that He does not exist.​

It is certainly not science that is unbelieving - it is sinful & damaged man who is unbelieving.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Ex Nihilo, that is a fine book. You might also enjoy Ken Miller’s “Finding Darwin’s God” and Marty Hewlett’s “Can You Believe in God and Evolution? a Guide for the Perplexed”

I’m preparing to deliver a lecture tomorrow night – in a fairly redneck community – on the theme “Can I both believe in God and accept evolution?” The organizer (a high school biology teacher) suggested I wear a kevlar vest.

Prayerfully yours
Petrus

Can a scientist “present evidence for belief” ?​

To talk about what is in the world, is not the same as to talk about God.

William James says it better than I could:

• In the middle of the century just past, Mayne Reid was the great writer of books of out-of-door adventure. He was forever extolling the hunters and field-observers of living animals’ habits, and keeping up a fire of invective against the ‘closet-naturalists,’ as he called them, the collectors and classifiers, and handlers of skeletons and skins. When I was a boy, I used to think that a closet-naturalist must be the vilest type of wretch under the sun. But surely the systematic theologians are the closet-naturalists of the deity, even in Captain Mayne Reid’s sense. What is their deduction of metaphysical attributes but a shuffling and matching of pedantic dictionary-adjectives, aloof from morals, aloof from human needs, something that might be worked out from the mere word ‘God’ by one of those logical machines of wood and brass which recent ingenuity has contrived as well as by a man of flesh and blood. They have the trail of the serpent over them. One feels that in the theologians’ hands, they are only a set of titles obtained by a mechanical manipulation of synonyms; verbality has stepped into the place of vision, professionalism into that of life. Instead of bread we have a stone; instead of a fish, a serpent. Did such a conglomeration of abstract terms give really the gist of our knowledge of the deity, schools of theology might indeed continue to flourish, but religion, vital religion, would have taken its flight from this world. What keeps religion going is something else than abstract definitions and systems of concatenated adjectives, and something different from faculties of theology and their professors. All these things are after-effects, secondary accretions upon those phenomena of vital conversation with the unseen divine, of which I have shown you so many instances, renewing themselves in saecula saeculorum in the lives of humble private men.
  psywww.com/psyrelig/james/james13.htm#430

God is not the world - far from it ! So can a scientist use the latter to commend the former ?

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

Can a scientist “present evidence for belief” ?​

To talk about what is in the world, is not the same as to talk about God.

I disagree to some extent.

I see your point, but science is involved in the study of Scriptures for example. Theology, in the classical sense, is a science. Likewise, science can be used to confirm the accuracy of history involved in the Scriptural record too, with Biblical archeology being a good example of this.

Both these things do lead one toward God when engaged correctly.

God is not the world - far from it ! So can a scientist use the latter to commend the former ?

Perhaps we should look to the Scrptures…
Wisdom 13:1-9:

Anyone who does not know God is simply foolish. Such people look at the good things around them and still fail to see the living God. They have studied the things he made, but they have not recognized the one who made them.

Instead, they suppose that the gods who rule the world are fire or wind or storm of the circling stars or rushing water or the heavenly bodies. People were so delighted with the beauty of these things that they thought they must be gods, but they should have realized that these things have a master and that he is much greater than all of them, for he is the creator of beauty, and he created them.

Since people are amazed at the power of these things, and how they behave, they ought to learn from them that their maker is far more powerful. When we are learning about how vast and beautiful the creation is, we are learning about the Creator at the same time.

But maybe we are too harsh with these people. After all, they may have really wanted to find God, but couldn’t. Surrounded by God’s works, they keep on looking at them, until they are finally convinced that because the things they see are so beautiful, they must be gods.

But still, these people really have no excuse.

If they had enough intelligence to speculate about the nature of the universe, why did they never find the Lord of all things?

Romans 1:20 seems to repeat this same thought, albeit more forcefully…

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

It seems to me that if his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen – being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse – then this seems to indicate that some of God’s very nature is not necessarilly precluded from the realm of science. At the very least, it seems to indicate that God’s creation acts akin to a mirror which reflects the glory of her creator, albeit imperfectly like viewing through a darkended mirror as Paul alludes.
1 Corinthians 13:12:

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Consequently, since God did indeed create the universe supernaturally ex nihilo, it remains that the very nature of Nature is borne along a supernatural substrate created by God, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, who sustains all things. In short, nature itself bears the stamp of the supernatural.

So while I agree that God himself in heaven cannot be scrutinized per se by scientific investigation into the natural realm, it does remain consistent that within Catholic theology one can perceive the signature or language of God within his creation, thereby directly leading one toward communiucaiton with the creator in a way that is inferior to his Divine Revelation we experience in the Church.

 

[wildleafblower]

his lovely British accent.

I couldn’t help but giggle when you wrote this, Petrus. It’s a nice ice breaker. Sometimes little comments like this soften the tension during debates. Makes me think of how much I love men with accents often forgetting I have an accent of my own. Gee, I’m really fond of southern drawls, “Yes, Ma’am, can I help you, Ma’am”. Last time I was in Georgia, I was Ma’am’d to the point of being swept off my feet, figuratively speaking. Those gents sure know how to woo a woman and make her Of course, these days when traveling I take my tape recorder and ask ever so kindly if the person wouldn’t mind me capturing their voice. LOL! The Brits bring to mind a soft spoken appeal~

Thanks for the prayers regarding my Wisdom Tooth. I really believe in the power of prayer. And the laughing gas helped too. I didn’t experience any pain during or after the extraction.

It seems I do need to reply to several other folks on this topic. . . .

 

[wildleafblower]

The following message is response to freesoulhope msg.548, Mr. Ex Nihilo msg.549, drpmjhess (Petrus) msg. 550 & 557, Orogeny (Tim) msg.555, SpiritMeadow msg. 560, cyberjacques msg. 569 who have a problem to some extent with my following statement:

The theory of evolution is science. Science isn’t compatible with God. [msg. 547]

Here is my response in support of my statement msg. 547.Science isn’t compatible with God. The Theory of Evolution is ‘science’. And faith is ‘an encounter with the living God’ which has been announced by a religious institution:

On December 25, 2005 BENEDICTUS PP. XVI stated, "Faith by its specific nature is an encounter with the living God—an encounter opening up new horizons extending beyond the sphere of reason. But it is also a purifying force for reason itself. From God’s standpoint, faith liberates reason from its blind spots and therefore helps it to be ever more fully itself. Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly. This is where Catholic social doctrine has its place: it has no intention of giving the Church power over the State. Even less is it an attempt to impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to faith. Its aim is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just.
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html

Based on the entirety of my statement above, faith isn’t compatible with science that is why it isn’t taught in public schools because the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is a separation of Church and State.

(I had a similar discussion long ago with Steve Anderson in mgs. 240.)

The End.