Oh ok then.There are none in the Catholic Deposit of Faith.
However, a bit of common sense and a wide knowledge of Catholic doctrines will demonstrate why large humanizing populations are not the same as a single population of two fully-complete human progenitors of humankind. As for “Cladistics” and Francisco J. Ayala, Google has a variety of information sources.
Hans,We all know that granny is inconvincible and that she has all “the differences between scientific explorations in the material/physical world and the Catholic Deposit of faith” at her fingertips.
She leans on her retired philosophy professor Dr Dennis Bonnette, who’s understanding of biology puts to shame whatever these newfangled scientists can come up with.
Bonnette’s “Philosophical Impossibility of Darwinian Evolution” destroys all of modern biology with one fell swoop. According to him Theistic Evolution contradicts Catholic doctrine. Obviously this exciting news hasn’t reached Pope Francis yet.
We also know that granny, as always, will have the last word.
There is only a prohibition by the Pope in his encyclical Humani Generis against holding positions which endorse polygenism, because it is not known how polygenistic theories can be reconciled with salvation history and what we know from revelation about the propagation of original sin.Is it acceptable for a Catholic to believe in a genetic Adam and Eve, which were not our first parents, but common human ancestors to all mankind. Since we would have inherited Original Sin from our first common parents, it would be in compliance to the Catholic faith, correct? Even if they did not mate with one another?
nature.com/news/genetic-adam-and-eve-did-not-live-too-far-apart-in-time-1.13478
pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/evolution/our-genetic-adam-and-eve/
Huh?!Humani Generis is quite clear. There were no other first parents. The soul does not exist from a scientific viewpoint. It cannot be located or studied.
Ed
There is no scientific basis for these statements. The human being as mechanism is the only explanation which scientists can study. The current thinking is that the human body is a bag of chemicals with a biological system that responds to outside stimuli, reproduces, or not, and dies. There are no supernatural elements involved. Any strange or not fully understood behaviors or interactions must fall under under mechanistic explanations only.Huh?!
That could only be true if the spiritual soul were passive, like a recording device, but took no part in shaping what a person is.
Anything which can affect, shape, or mold matter – can be studied.
The Spiritual soul can’t be dissected, perhaps – as it’s immaterial – but if the ‘will’ of the soul affects the electrons of the brain, then yes – the interface can be studied – and thus the spirit can be studied indirectly, and perhaps even detected by seeing how electrons behave differently when a spirit is involved, from when one is not involved.
I doubt it will happen anytime soon… but in principle, the spirit can be studied to a limited degree.
This is the revised first page on Dr. Bonnette’s website.Hans,
You’ve been wildly accusing people of things without any substantiating quotes.
I don’t have Dr. Bonnette’s book, but just doing a Google search – I found an article where he says: “Still, new data might favor theistic evolution by offering adequate natural explanations for these presently inexplicable discontinuities.”
drbonnette.com/articles/10/evolution-micro-macro-books/
So – I seriously doubt what you are saying about him is true; But because of you tone, I’d like to remind you that Its a form of calumny to misrepresent what people say esp. by removing qualifiers from people statements and intentionally trying to make them sound as if they hold an extreme position that they in fact do not hold. It’s clear that Dr. Bonnette believes some form of theistic Evolution might be vindicated in the future, and so is not likely to be disliked by Pope Francis at all…!
The last time I checked (and I’m a EE) electrons themselves are in fact, just as invisible as the spirit.There is no scientific basis for these statements. The human being as mechanism is the only explanation which scientists can study. The current thinking is that the human body is a bag of chemicals with a biological system that responds to outside stimuli, reproduces, or not, and dies. There are no supernatural elements involved. Any strange or not fully understood behaviors or interactions must fall under under mechanistic explanations only.
Electrons can be studied, the soul is spirit. It is not a visible thing which can be studied. A single electron can be accelerated in a particle accelerator but the soul cannot. Science cannot compare the two since the soul cannot be detected. There are no peer reviewed papers on the human soul. Neurology only concerns itself with visible and electronically detectable activity in the brain.
Ed
Science is purposely self-limiting. Atoms have been imaged and sub-atomic particles have been discovered. I can’t predict the future but can speak to only what science can and does know now. Quantum effects are still poorly understood. The human mind, and its function, is still poorly understood. No one knows if a human mind can be built or its equivalent - just devices that can mimic human behavior only because humans have built them.The last time I checked (and I’m a EE) electrons themselves are in fact, just as invisible as the spirit.
Electrons can be ‘felt’ but not ‘seen’; Note, also: We can’t put distant stars (or distant dark matter) into particle accelerators, either – but we can study the effects of these bodies on light and gravity which is received in a telescope. etc. and we know dark matter exists… We just need the right test to detect the effects of the thing we want to examine. We do NOT need to be able to manipulate the thing itself we wish to examine, we only need to be able to differentiate it’s effects from non-effects.
Ed, Do you really believe there is such a thing as a human spirit which affects the body, causing its form and guiding it’s decisions or not ? Is it real or not ?
Or do you believe in the multiverse, where every person does everything good and evil – just in a myriad of alternate universes such as the television show “sliders”; so that one version of you goes to heaven, and the other’s to hell ? In a multiverse everyone goes to heaven and hell, for everyone does every sin – and every virtue…
Or what other possibility is there ?
Science can say things about belief, though science is not superior to belief. The bible through archaeology, and many scientific disciplines is enhanced – and belief enlightened. So: I don’t know when the spirit will be detected; but I do know that if the spirit guides quantum mechanics quantitatively more than the other way around; the spirit eventually will be detected.
I see two hypothesis for how the spirit is related to the body and forms the body.
If the spirit is entwined with quantum mechaincal effects, then we will see artificial minds that have ‘spirit’ qualities for sure because they can be built, (Either accidentally or on purpose – unless God defends his turf actively and conspicuously). Otherwise – If it is not a quantum mechanical effect, we will only see machines that pretend to have the equivalent of a human mind, but are defective in various ways. (I’m purposely ignoring cyborgs… which are humans with a lot of prosthetics…)
Either way, Science likely won’t answer the ultimate question of the afterlife – but it can answer some questions about the relationship between spirit and body in more detail than we have now.