Given the principles of evolution, natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc, do you think belief in the supernatural will die out or become a m

[rossum]

But that conflicts with Catholic teaching. Evolution cannot tell us that a human being is a modified animal. The origin of a human being cannot be explained without reference to a soul.

Evolution says nothing about a soul. A soul is immaterial, does not fossilise, does not encode itself in DNA and is outwith science. Evolution only explains the origin of the physical human body.

Every physical part of the human body is also present in a chimpanzee’s body. The proportions are different, but every part is there. A change in proportions will accomplish all that is needed on the material level. Evolution is certainly capable of changing physical proportions over time.

Pius XII stressed this essential point: If the human body take its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God (“animas enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere iubei”; “Humani Generis,” 36).

– Truth Cannot Contradict Truth

Evolution only deals with the origin of the material body. The origin of the soul I leave to Christians.

rossum

 

[reggieM]

Evolution says nothing about a soul. A soul is immaterial, does not fossilise, does not encode itself in DNA and is outwith science. Evolution only explains the origin of the physical human body.

Every physical part of the human body is also present in a chimpanzee’s body. The proportions are different, but every part is there. A change in proportions will accomplish all that is needed on the material level. Evolution is certainly capable of changing physical proportions over time.

Pius XII stressed this essential point: If the human body take its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God (“animas enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere iubei”; “Humani Generis,” 36).

– Truth Cannot Contradict Truth

Evolution only deals with the origin of the material body. The origin of the soul I leave to Christians.

rossum

It’s good to know. The soul is the origin of consciousness, rationality and the moral sensiblity in humans. So, evolution says nothing about the origin of any of those features, right? In fact, if evolution did claim to know the origin of such things via physical processes, we would rightly say that evolutionary theory is false on that point, correct?

Again, that would be quite good because when we say that human beings are non-reducible to physical changes alone, then evolutionists cannot object.

Additionally, since evolution cannot determine when a soul is present in a body, it can never say when human beings first appeared on earth. All it can say is something that looked like a human body appeared.

That is somewhat different from what all of the most significant evolutionists in the world today have to say about it (Coyne, Dawkins, Lewontin, Carroll, Myers, Pinker) so I was not aware of it.

 

[reggieM]

Just for fun, you might want to try Google Scholar for these searches:

Evolution of human morality
Evolution of human rationality
Evolution of human cognition
Evolution of human consciousness
Evolutionary origin of religion

It’s just about the origin of the human body?

 

[reggieM]

I think the rabid-atheist, Jerry Coyne knows more about evolution and about Catholicism than many of my own Catholic friends do …

1. The Catholic Church certainly does not see all of Genesis as an allegory. Church doctrine is still that all modern humans descend from Adam and Eve, the sole ancestors of humanity. Science tells us that that is wrong: that the bottleneck of the Homo sapiens lineage was around twelve thousand people, not two (Adam and Eve) or eight (Noah and his extended family). Now how Adam and Eve continue to relate to Original Sin is something for Catholic fabulists to decide. If the Church maintains, as they still do, that Adam and Eve were the only two ancestors of humanity, then they are in clear conflict with science. If they agree that Adam and Eve were made-up metaphors, then either Jesus died for that metaphor or Catholics must confect a new story about where “original sin” came from. This is a severe problem for Catholicism.

1. Before genetics definitively ruled out Adam and Eve, the one big conflict between Catholicism and evolution was the Church’s insistence that somewhere in the lineage leading to modern Homo sapiens, a soul was inserted by God. Not only that, but each new human being involves God creating a new soul.

Of course what a soul consists of isn’t defined explicitly, but its insertion is a violation of naturalistic evolution. A soul is obviously something that distinguishes us from all other species, and is presumably something connected to the possibility of an afterlife. But the statement above implies that it’s also something deeply connected with the human ability to be “conscious” and to “think,” “feel,” and “decide.”
whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/catholicism-and-theistic-evolution/

I don’t like linking to sites I consider to be evil, but Coyne is one of the most respected evolutionary biologists in the world today. What he teaches about evolution, is what evolutionary defenders are defending.
His site is called “Why Evolution is True” after all.

I’ll add that I reject evolutionary theory for reasons I’ve given already, so Coyne’s critique, while logical and correct for those who accept mainstream evolution, has nothing to do with my own view.

 

[edwest2]

It’s good to know. The soul is the origin of consciousness, rationality and the moral sensiblity in humans. So, evolution says nothing about the origin of any of those features, right? In fact, if evolution did claim to know the origin of such things via physical processes, we would rightly say that evolutionary theory is false on that point, correct?

Again, that would be quite good because when we say that human beings are non-reducible to physical changes alone, then evolutionists cannot object.

Additionally, since evolution cannot determine when a soul is present in a body, it can never say when human beings first appeared on earth. All it can say is something that looked like a human body appeared.

That is somewhat different from what all of the most significant evolutionists in the world today have to say about it (Coyne, Dawkins, Lewontin, Carroll, Myers, Pinker) so I was not aware of it.

Science cannot study the soul or anything supernatural, so that leaves mechanistic processes as the only reason human beings are the way we are. Almost like a computer, the assumption is that various accidents caused our brains to self-upgrade compared to our alleged earlier, primitive selves. But that reduces human beings to biological robots who respond to outside stimuli and react however we react.

Ed

 

[grannymh]

Evolution says nothing about a soul. A soul is immaterial, does not fossilise, does not encode itself in DNA and is outwith science. Evolution only explains the origin of the physical human body.

Every physical part of the human body is also present in a chimpanzee’s body. The proportions are different, but every part is there. A change in proportions will accomplish all that is needed on the material level. Evolution is certainly capable of changing physical proportions over time.
Pius XII stressed this essential point: If the human body take its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God (“animas enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere iubei”; “Humani Generis,” 36).

– Truth Cannot Contradict Truth
Evolution only deals with the origin of the material body. The origin of the soul I leave to Christians.

rossum

That “if” in Humani Generis is a mile wide and three miles deep.

Technically, evolution can deal with the origin of the material body. And it can use evolution theory in the medical research arena. However, basic evolution deals with large populations of indiscriminate random breeding humanizing polygenesis source material bodies (plural intended).

Looking at the groups of hominins descending from the Homo/Pan split, there is not an originating population of two.
Paragraph 37, *Humani Generis, *1950, Pope Pius XII

1. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.[12]

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Eyes, not “eye”.

So detail is important to you, you seem to have the eyes for it.

Religious texts do not generally contain a great deal of scientific detail.

Of course you are right, Jesus did not come to give a science lesson.

Eyes came first. For example, Euglena is a single-celled Eukaryote, with no brain, no nervous system and an eye-spot. It has a flagellum; does that count as a “limb”? It can detect light and orient itself accordingly.

Next came the nervous system. For example, Jellyfish have eyes and a nervous system, but no brain. They have a body and muscles, controlled by their nervous system, so you can put ‘limbs’ in there too.

That gets us roughly to a very primitive light-sensitive bilateran worm with a nervous system to control its body.

For a brain, you need to look at something like a Lancelet/Amphioxus which adds a very primitive brain to eyes, a nervous system and muscles.

Forgive me for saying this, but what you have described is no more informative than the Genesis story of creation.

Whether the eyes evolved through a few species, or hundreds or thousands seems meaningless. Nilsson and Pelger claim that in 1829 increments of 1% improvement to the spatial resolution, their model develops a fully functional camera-type eye.

If they can make this claim, then they should also be able to make a claim; as to how the nervous system, brain and the limbs evolved in 1829 increments.

You have expressed your attention to detail in the ‘eye’ missing an ‘s’. So where is all this missing information, that would complete the evolution of complete working eyes.

 

[rossum]

Whether the eyes evolved through a few species, or hundreds or thousands seems meaningless. Nilsson and Pelger claim that in 1829 increments of 1% improvement to the spatial resolution, their model develops a fully functional camera-type eye.

If they can make this claim, then they should also be able to make a claim; as to how the nervous system, brain and the limbs evolved in 1829 increments.

No, they do not have to. As I showed, eyes of different types can exist in the absence of nervous systems (Euglena) and in the absence of brains (Jellyfish). Eyes can, and do, exist independently of both. Your point fails.

Specifically for humans, we inherited our eyes, nervous systems, brains, muscles and limbs from our pre-human ancestors. Chimpanzees inherited their eyes etc. from the same original ancestor as ourselves and their systems are essentially similar to ours. All parts present in our setup are also present in the chimpanzees’ setup.

rossum

 

[grannymh]

Here is a point which could affect the basic question “do you think belief in the supernatural will die out or become a minority worldview?”

When we study the legends of ancient peoples, including shamans, we observe that human nature has an inherent sense of the supernatural. If that observation is correct, then the only way belief in the supernatural can die is when all humans die at the same time.

In addition, human nature is not a minority worldview: therefore, the universal world view which includes human nature would always have a sense of the supernatural.

When we throw in the principles of evolution, we discover the tenet that new species are formed in large populations which evolved from previous populations over time. Those who understand the Science of Human Evolution would say that the Homo/Pan split was not a population of two aka Adam and his spouse Eve.

There is the valid question – Is inherent sense of the supernatural the same as belief in the supernatural?

As we mull over the valid question “Is inherent sense of the supernatural the same as belief in the supernatural?” – Up pops another consideration. Something has to be known before its existence can be denied. We need to understand the possibility of the supernatural before we can deny that possibility. We need to recognize the possibility of pink eyed highly intelligent inhabitants of Mars before science can check living conditions on that planet. Do these inhabitants need water to drink or are they happy with home brewed beer?

Seriously, we do not need to get into a serious discussion about the existence or non-existence of God. We are simply clarifying the possibility of the supernatural. Clarifying needs a form of belief. Thus, we can say that the inherent sense of the supernatural is the same as belief in the supernatural.

 

[rossum]

The soul is the origin of consciousness, rationality and the moral sensiblity in humans.

Putting on my Buddhist hat, obviously I disagree. Souls do not exist:

“All the elements of reality are soulless.”
When one realises this by wisdom,
then one does not heed ill.
This is the Path of Purity.

– Dhammapada 20:7

Given that, then what you are telling me here is specific to some, but not all, religions. It is not part of science.

What science can tell us is that some animals have elements of consciousness – the Mirror Test – and have evidence of planning ahead for the future – Chimp who threw stones at zoo visitors showed human trait.

So, evolution says nothing about the origin of any of those features, right?

Wrong. It is you who is asserting that certain features belong to the soul. I do not make that assertion, nor does evolution. All evolution does is to say that those features exist and that we can study any material causes, both in ourselves and, potentially, in animals.

rossum

 

[inocente]

I’ll offer this:
I am resistant to lies and manipulation. I will fight against that when I see it, and I’ve seen a lot of it from defenders of evolution.
So, I take a suspicious attitude. I question the claims and then observe the response I get in return.
Evolution has won through methods of intimidation, ridicule, arrogance, group-think and eventually isolation and persecution of those who question it.

Buddy, where’s your authority to sow discord in your Church by telling all the Christians who accept evolution that we lie and manipulate?

It really doesn’t matter what you believe about evolution, unless you work in the life sciences and want to fight disease or restore habitats, etc., where you will find evolution helps you while none of the creationist alternatives help you at all.

But which knowledge you personally accept or reject is entirely up to you.

The Catholic University of America teaches evolution. Its School of Theology and Religious Studies lists lots of resources on evolution. So whatever posters on an internet forum try to tell us, all who have eyes to see know for sure that many Catholics accept evolution.

You don’t appear exactly familiar with evolution (as in your “How did the Mayfly learn how to fly and use those wings? There’s only one day to do it all”) so here’s the list again - trs.cua.edu/Science-for-Semin…-evolution.cfm

 

[inocente]

Given the principles of evolution, natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc, do you think belief in the supernatural will die out or become a minority worldview?

This was discussed by theologians, who introduced the term god-of-the-gaps to describe an apologetic which relegates God to what we don’t know, to an appeal to ignorance.

For people who look at the supernatural that way, as something being shrunk by advances in knowledge, yes it will die out. But for the rest of us, advances in knowledge just tell us more about God, it’s not something to be feared.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

No, they do not have to. As I showed, eyes of different types can exist in the absence of nervous systems (Euglena) and in the absence of brains (Jellyfish). Eyes can, and do, exist independently of both. Your point fails.

I am not disagreeing with you.

Specifically for humans, we inherited our eyes, nervous systems, brains, muscles and limbs from our pre-human ancestors. Chimpanzees inherited their eyes etc. from the same original ancestor as ourselves and their systems are essentially similar to ours. All parts present in our setup are also present in the chimpanzees’ setup.

You seem to be avoiding the detail of how this happened.

The Genesis story of creation is similar, just a catalogue of events with no detail. I can accept this lack of detail in Genesis, because God created all that is seen and unseen.

I am also interested in science and how things work. I have seen the attempts to explain the 1829 increments in eyes. Is there a similar explanation of how the 1829 increments ended up in a species with eyes, nervous system, a brain and limbs?

You seem to be content with the explanation that nature, natural selection and evolution did it, and no detail is necessary. But this does not seem like science, it sounds more like the Genesis story of creation minus the creator.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

It really doesn’t matter what you believe about evolution, unless you work in the life sciences and want to fight disease or restore habitats, etc., where you will find evolution helps you while none of the creationist alternatives help you at all.

It needs intelligent people to use the evolutionary theory in life science. In a similar way, if evolution happened, it would need God to direct it. We know that the ToE is being used to prove a God is not necessary.

 

[rossum]

You seem to be avoiding the detail of how this happened.

There is a size limit on posts here. Even listing the names of the relevant scientific papers would break that limit.

I am also interested in science and how things work. I have seen the attempts to explain the 1829 increments in eyes. Is there a similar explanation of how the 1829 increments ended up in a species with eyes, nervous system, a brain and limbs?

The number 1,829 only applies to one model for the evolution of a camera-eye. It does not, for example, apply to the evolution of a compound eye, as in insects.

For the nervous system, try this Google Scholar link for a lot more details: evolution nervous system That gives me 2.25 million hits on relevant scientific papers and books. We do have the detail, it is just that it does not generate many clicks for news websites so you have to go and look for it yourself. Google Scholar is a good way to access the original scientific papers.

You seem to be content with the explanation that nature, natural selection and evolution did it, and no detail is necessary.

The detail is necessary and it exists. The problem is compressing that detail from millions of scientific papers into a few CAF posts.

rossum

 

[grannymh]

The Catholic University of America teaches evolution. Its School of Theology and Religious Studies lists lots of resources on evolution. So whatever posters on an internet forum try to tell us, all who have eyes to see know for sure that many Catholics accept evolution.

Glad to see you.

The huge error on this thread is that we all talk about “evolution” that many Catholics accept and never ever talk about all, yes all, elements of “human evolution.”

In addition, we do not normally examine the general protocol for research papers. Nor do we consider the assumptions, some are valid at the time, that are used in research.

One of the early assumptions in paleoanthropology was that the brow ridge can be one key in determining the Homo species descending from the Homo/Pan split. Then there is the Piltdown Man which actually advanced better and stronger methods of examining finds. My favorite error occurred when people considered the “Eve Research” as proving that the Eve in Scripture is real. I was always referring to Wikipedia’s “Common Misconceptions” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

All of the above are signs of basic evolution at some point in human evolution history. Each point is part of a population. Scientists naturally consider that the above occurred as part of evolution populations evolving into new evolution populations. Even the Piltdown Man became the “hoped for” example of one population evolving into a new population.

When this thread speaks of the principles of evolution, we cannot set aside the fact that natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc. takes place in large indiscriminate random breeding polygenesis populations.

In the Catholic Church, the origin of the human species begins as a population of two fully-complete human persons.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Each human person is worthy of profound respect.

 

[Bradski]

We know that the ToE is being used to prove a God is not necessary.

No. Just that creationism is no more than a story for Sunday School children. Complete with crayons, colouring in books and wall mounted pictures of the ark complete with cutout felt animals, two by two.

As you have been told, the idea behind it is blazingly simple. So straightforward that even children can understand it. But if you want specific details of specific aspects of it, then there is a gargantuan amount of information available. Some of it quite complex.

I don’t think that it’s possible to refute something without understanding it. So maybe you should come back when you are up to speed on it. There’s no rush…

 

[Bradski]

Glad to see you.

The huge error on this thread is that we all talk about “evolution” that many Catholics accept and never ever talk about all, yes all, elements of “human evolution.”

In addition, we do not normally examine the general protocol for research papers. Nor do we consider the assumptions, some are valid at the time, that are used in research.

One of the early assumptions in paleoanthropology was that the brow ridge can be one key in determining the Homo species descending from the Homo/Pan split. Then there is the Piltdown Man which actually advanced better and stronger methods of examining finds. My favorite error occurred when people considered the “Eve Research” as proving that the Eve in Scripture is real. I was always referring to Wikipedia’s “Common Misconceptions” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

All of the above are signs of basic evolution at some point in human evolution history. Each point is part of a population. Scientists naturally consider that the above occurred as part of evolution populations evolving into new evolution populations. Even the Piltdown Man became the “hoped for” example of one population evolving into a new population.

When this thread speaks of the principles of evolution, we cannot set aside the fact that natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc. takes place in large indiscriminate random breeding humanizing populations.

In the Catholic Church, the origin of the human species begins as a population of two fully-complete human persons…

Granny. If you want to start yet another thread on Adam and Eve, then please feel free. You can ride your hobby horse there as much as you like. But continuing the equine analogy, I think you’ve beaten that horse to death already.

 

[grannymh]

Granny. If you want to start yet another thread on Adam and Eve, then please feel free. You can ride your hobby horse there as much as you like. But continuing the equine analogy, I think you’ve beaten that horse to death already.

Sometimes the fire of truth gets too hot.

 

[Vonsalza]

That’s pretty clear. All organisms have their origin in other pre-existing types due to “modifications”. Humans have their origin in non-humans and the difference between human and non-human is due to “modifications”.

So, right here - clear as day.

If you want to get a human from a non-human, all that is needed is “modification”. That’s exactly what evolution proposes. Mutations and selection caused humans to evolve from non-humans. Nothing more.

But that conflicts with Catholic teaching. Evolution cannot tell us that a human being is a modified animal. The origin of a human being cannot be explained without reference to a soul.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=14819176&postcount=125

What you’ll notice as absent from the provided definitions is any reference to the metaphysical. As such, the theory of evolution simply does not claim to do as much as you claim.

Lets not forget the lesson Galileo taught us - the bible (particularly the oldest parts of it) are not hyper-literal, legalist texts. They’re allegorical and thematic - and the references to it in the NT in no way refutes that.

You assert that one can’t believe in biological evolution and also be Catholic. I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with you as I stand behind the recent popes who also don’t hold your rigid stance.

Agree to disagree, as it were.