How does our belief in Adam & Eve explain race?

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We understand that all of us come from one pair of parents - Adam & Eve. I could understand how languages developed, but how does this belief explain how we ended up with so many races and colour?
 
Firstly, The Adam and Eve story was just a story written symbolically to basically tell us God created everything and us. the writers of Genesis did not have the technology or knowledge that we have now so they wrote to a people that had simplistic views of the world.

Secondly, the Genesis story was to convey the our first human ancestors Adam and Eve had the first human soul as we do made by God. we call our first human parents Adam and Eve. this is not to say that there weren’t humanoids before these two

The reason we have different race is because when our ancestors populated the world they went to different geographic areas. The people that went north (i.e. Europe) gradually lost the dark pigment in their skin because the sun isn’t out as frequently as in the south places. The furthur you move north the less time you have sunlight in the winter months as well. Since our ancestors weren’t bombarded by the sun as often our skin and hair gradually lightened to what it is today. The different skin colours we have is in correlation on where their ancestors finally settled. More sun the darker your hair and skin colour, the less sun light hair and skin colours.

Hair colour and skin colour changes to better suit the enivronment that our human ancestors lived in. Another example is the emergence of blue eyes, people with blue eyes tend to see better in low light then those of darker eyes.

The body is an amazing thing and will change in accordance to what environment you live in. Just remember that God created all things and I believe since God doesn’t work in our time, He created the world and its plants and organisms over millions of years (symbolically 7 days). Remember also that God created the HUMAN soul and we are made in His image, and that Adam and Eve were the first true humans and they did something to lose God’s favour which is symbolically written with that “something” as being a fruit in Genesis. I don’t know what Adam and Eve did to make us lose favour with God for the human race but, I know it happened and it was big.
 
Whether you believe that Genesis is literal or symbolic, the difference in race just show how spectacular God designed us all. Our slight physical differences helped our ancestor’s cope with different environments. That is pretty cool when you think about it, isn’t it?
 
What it teaches us is that the concept of race concerning humans is really misplaced but then you probably knew that already. Organ donation really shows how shared our genetics are, while certain genes are more prevalent in one area you could take someone from Scandinavia and a match as far as organ donation might come from China or Africa or anyplace.

As for skin color, well that’s just different levels of melanin, except for redheads, that’s a different melanin. So if skin color was yoru criteria, you would have the redhead race and then the other races much closer together. For some reason, no one ever seems to do that though.

Anyway, sking color is very important. It’s due both to the damage from the sun and to vitamin D deficiency. We are just coming out of the winter, if you don’t drink lots of milk or take vitamin D supplements (the milk is artificially enriched too) and if you don’t spend some time out in the sunlight regularly exposing more of your skin than just your face and hands, you are almost certainly vitamin D defiicient. A recent study found something like 60% deficient here in the US during winter.

Here’s the thing, if you are say dark skinned, you need 3 to 5 times more sun. Something very few get. And most adults of African origin cannot drink milk since they are lactose intolerant.

Health effect are severe, depression, rickets and so on.

So there is a very strong selective pressure agaisnt dark skin in northern climes.

In southern climes the opposite occurs with the too light sking burning and having lots of other problems too.

But in any case, the concept of race is really misplaced concerning humans,

JJ
 
Accdepting a belief about Adam and Eve does not teach us about race, except that it teaches us about the human race and our common parentage. Accepting a belief does not necessarily mean understanding all the implications-- just willingness to believe and to trust God. some look to the story of Noah’s sons for understanding of the development of races and peoples, but someone more scholarly than I would have to address that to you.
 
Skin color and different racial features are adaptations to climate and geography. Adam and Eve have no bearing on it.
 
Fox said:
Firstly, The Adam and Eve story was just a story written symbolically to basically tell us God created everything and us. the writers of Genesis did not have the technology or knowledge that we have now so they wrote to a people that had simplistic views of the world.

Secondly, the Genesis story was to convey the our first human ancestors Adam and Eve had the first human soul as we do made by God. we call our first human parents Adam and Eve. this is not to say that there weren’t humanoids before these two
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Catholic Dogma:

** The Doctrine of Revelation Regarding Man or “Christian Anthropology” **
Code: 
       [LIST=1]
*] The first man was created by God. (De fide.)
*] The whole human race stems from one single human pair. (Sent. certa.)
*] Man consists of two essential parts–a material body and a spiritual soul. (De fide.)
*] The rational soul is per se the essential form of the body. (De fide.)
*] Every human being possesses an individual soul. (De fide.)
*] Every individual soul was immediately created out of nothing by God. (Sent. Certa.)
*] A creature has the capacity to receive supernatural gifts. (Sent. communis.)
*] The Supernatural presupposes Nature. (Sent communis.)
*] God has conferred on man a supernatural Destiny. (De fide.)
*] Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace. (De fide.)
*] The donum rectitudinis or integritatis in the narrower sense, i.e., the freedom from irregular desire. (Sent. fidei proxima.)
*] The donum immortalitatis, i.e., bodily immortality. (De fide.)
*] The donum impassibilitatis, i.e., the freedom from suffering. (Sent. communis.)
*] The donum scientiae, i.e., a knowledge of natural and supernatural truths infused by God. (Sent. communis.)
*] Adam received sanctifying grace not merely for himself, but for all his posterity. (Sent. certa.)
*] Our first parents in paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment. (De fide.)
*] Through the sin our first parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God. (De fide.)
*] Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil. (De fide.) D788.
*] Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation, but by descent. (De fide.)
*] Original Sin consists in the deprivation of grace caused by the free act of sin committed by the head of the race. (Sent. communis.)
*] Original sin is transmitted by natural generation. (De fide.)
*] In the state of original sin man is deprived of sanctifying grace and all that this implies, as well as of the preternatural gifts of integrity. (De fide in regard to Sanctifying Grace and the Donum Immortalitatus. D788 et seq.)
*] Souls who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God. (De fide.)
 
Another major issue between science and creationism, is science has shown that there are no biological human races. Race is just a cultural construct, with no objective meaning at all.
 
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