How did it come to be there are different races of people

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What is Catholic teaching on how it came to be there are so many different races of people coming from the population bottleneck of Noah and his family?
 
“Race” is a human construct. There is only the human race. We may have many differences, such as culture, religion, ethnicity, but the one commonality we have is the singular race, which is mankind.
 
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I agree “race” is not a clear scientific boundary, but surely you agree an Australian aboriginal and a Scandinavian are vastly different; and there must be some account as to how these vast differences arose from a Catholic perspective.
 
We can see that different types of animals adapt themselves to their surroundings.
 
KevinK said:
What alternative does that leave?
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well if you are not bound to a literal interpretation, does that only leave 2 alternatives?

Believe it literally, or

Do not believe it literally, but spiritually, as an explanation for the events of Salvation History that may not be fully understood until they are laid out for us on the last day.
 
It leaves open the likelihood that all humanity didn’t just come from Noah and his family but also from some humanity that continued to exist in other parts of the world, like Africa, the Far East, and North America, that were not devastated by a great flood. History indicates that there may very well have been a “great flood”…in the Black Sea region, not over the whole planet Earth.
 
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That can be a tricky road to follow because how can you reliably separate historical literal events in the O.T. from those that are just “spiritually true”? Not even the Church decrees on most of this leaving it up to individual to believe what they want about a literal or figurative Noah etc.
 
The Bible says Noah and family were the ONLY people God did not drown. Are you disputing this?
 
KevinK said:
Not even the Church decrees on most of this leaving it up to individual to believe what they want about a literal or figurative Noah
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Not sure what you mean about “decrees”…however, if you are looking for a dogmatic or doctrinal statement by the Church mandating believe in the literal events or even person of Noah, you will not find one.

Its an example of the Church (and excuse my crassness, because I don’t mean it offensively) that “its not a hill worth dying on”.

I believe God created everything from nothing, as the Church expects, but I do not believe that the first two humans were a coupled definitive named “Adam” and “Eve”, nor do I believe that such detail makes a difference in the dogmatic belief that we all evolved from one set of created, and not born, human beings.
 
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I don’t take the flood story 100 percent literally.
It is permissible for me to not take it literally under Church teaching.
Why is this a big deal to you?
 
The creation story is just there to illustrate that we were made in Gods image and from day one we rebelled against him. Evolution/adaptation is the reason people look slightly different to each other
 
DNA research has shown that all humans living today of all races have one common ancestral mother. DNA science put to rest the atheistic Darwinian claim that all races evolved independently from one another. Polygenesis was the theory that human races are of different origins, and was always touted as a means to discredit the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Modern scientific views no longer accept polygenesis as a viable theory, with the monogenic “Out of Africa” theory being the most widely accepted models for human origins.

Climate, foods, cultures and practices all have contributed to race development over thousands of years and many many generations.

Just look how your complexion changes by merely getting a tan after 20 minutes. Compound tens of thousands of years and the different ingredients in foods, climate and environments that can affect the human body.
 
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No, they are not vastly different. All non-African peoples are very closely related with only minute differences. Skin colour isn’t a big deal genetically.
There are greater genetic differences between distinct African tribes than there is between Europeans and Asians.

The idea of lumping all Africans together as “the black” race is amusing as Africa has more genetic diversity than the rest of humanity.
 
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KevinK said:
Australian aboriginal and a Scandinavian are vastly different
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No they’re not genetically. They both trace to a common ancestor. The skin color is an adaption to climate. Dark skin protects against harsh sunlight while light skin maximizes the absorption of relatively scarce sunlight.
 
One could argue that the only reason we don’t all look the same is because of adaptability. My ancient ancestors’ DNA allowed them to absorb enough sunlight to survive and pass those traits down to me.
 
Scandinavians get most of their vitamin Ds by spending time outdoors. We would be badly burned and get skin cancer without sun protection lotion and clothes if we lived in a warmer and more sunny climate. Lots of people burn their skin when going on holiday in warmer climates. Spending 30 minutes in the sun/day during the Summer months in Scandinavia has the vitamin D last until February/March the next year.

Medical doctors have found that people with dark skin have severe difficulties getting enough vitamin D when they move to Scandinavia. They would need to drink something like 80 glasses of milk/day, which is impossible, and have to take vitamin D pills instead during the winter season.

Asian people were first in Siberia and when the last ice age came their eyelids got smaller or they would have frozen their eyelids and damaged their eyes.

Seems like normal adaptations needed in order for the human being to live in different places on planet Earth. Pretty cool!
 
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