How long has man been here? What are your thoughts?

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organdy said:
Evolution isn’t about “improvement”, per se, it’s about how populations are shaped by their environments and it explains adaptations and speciation. “Knowing” about light has nothing to do with it - individuals don’t evolve, for one… and it’s not a conscious process any more than your mother sat down and decided to form you in her womb from a combination of her and you father’s DNA.

Evolution is such a fascinating process and such a satisfying thing to learn about that it just makes me sad when people miss out - at first glance it can seem nuts, but there are answers to all of your questions and the way that life works on our little planet is just awe inspiring to me.

Now that’s something we can both agree on!

Thanks for starting such an interesting discussion…
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My dear friend

I’m glad you find the subject interesting. I have looked at evolution for a good while and simply reject it. I understand the church leaves the question open but my theory is a common one and allowed. Based on what I’ve learnt and my weeny little bit of knowledge of God I think my account isn’t bad and there has never been any evolution in our world. If the pope says otherwise I’ll change but I think evolution is going to die someday, maybe soon too. There is a lot of confusion with terminology and definitions. I recommend to any who disagree with me to read intelligent creationists refuting evolution so you understand the whole picture. I’m going to sleep tonight in the sure knowledge that the earth is my mother and not an ape.

God bless you:thumbsup:🙂
John
 
My dear friends

Another theory since evolution is so popular.
We are in paradise still. The same paradise Adam and Eve lived in before original sin. As a result of sin we lost paradise. We have an altered perception and can’t see we’re still in paradise now. All the natural disasters, sickness, suffering, death, violence and all the evils of sin and not living in harmony with nature have seriously damaged our world. But we are in paradise - a perfect world. That’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s a perfect world even if we don’t know it. Everything in our world is perfect even if we can’t perceive it anymore. God created a perfect world that does not need any evolution. Perhaps part of our attraction to evolution is that we see a horrible mess of a world and believe it must improve because it’s not so great now, In reality we are in the garden of Eden but we have messed it up a bit and cannot see it. Our eyes and minds and souls are fogged up by sin and we cannot see our paradise as it is.What do you think?

God bless you:thumbsup:🙂
John
 
redhen said:
The Roman Catholic biology professor Ken Miller has an excellent book on this topic;
amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

He gave expert testimony in the Dover area school district trial (against Intelligent Design). Here’s a short, insightful video about some of that evidence, namely, human chromosome number two.

youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk&feature=channel_page
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My dear friend, Thx. i’ll look at it later. God bless:thumbsup::). John
 
My dear friends

I think God does everything with infinite perfection and evolution is lacking in perfection therefore false. I think man and all creatures in our world and our entire world were blissfully perfect when created. our sin has altered our perception and we can’t see the wonderful paradise we’re in. We are a mess and have messed up our world a little but this does not mean we must evolve. The mess is due to sin and not living in harmony with nature. I think the idea we have to be evolving possibly is influenced at least subconsciously by the notion that all is imperfect and must improve. As said I think our pereception has been seriously altered by sin. we are still in paradise.

God bless all:thumbsup:🙂
John
 
My dear friends

I’ve been thinking again. Please stop you say?😃

I think if we never sinned we would fear none of our fellow creatures be they animals, birds, insects, sea creatures and all. And none of them would see us as a threat and fear us or harm us. They would see us as perfectly natural and in harmony with nature. As well as all already said. It would be a blissful existence here. But we lost that. Perhaps we do need to believe in evolution a bit to get us through the day. We need to think it must all get better. I think it’s a perfect world and all perfect creatures but we messed it up a bit as said. Evolution is imperfect in my opinion. The account of mans creation in Genesis shows Gods perfection and is accurate in my opinion.

God bless all:thumbsup:🙂
John
 

Over 100,000 years AFAIK - which would IIRC include Homo sapiens sapiens (= us), & H. Neanderthalensis, & H. erectus & Co.​

Not nit-picking, but the poll didn’t specify whether H. sapiens sapiens alone was meant, or whether the others were included.

FWIW, if *H. Neanderthalensis *(for example) was endowed with moral responsibility, he would - presumably - count as a man; even though this could imply a difference between what counts as man for theology, & what counts as man for palaeo-anthropology. :cool: So, if early man was (say) physiologically incapable of speech, but had a moral sense of some kind: is he man or not ? Maybe different answers would be given, depending on whether he were looked at from a theological or a palaeo-anthropological POV. 🤷
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

Over 100,000 years AFAIK - which would IIRC include Homo sapiens sapiens (= us), & H. Neanderthalensis, & H. erectus & Co.​

Not nit-picking, but the poll didn’t specify whether H. sapiens sapiens alone was meant, or whether the others were included.

FWIW, if *H. Neanderthalensis *(for example) was endowed with moral responsibility, he would - presumably - count as a man; even though this could imply a difference between what counts as man for theology, & what counts as man for palaeo-anthropology. :cool: So, if early man was (say) physiologically incapable of speech, but had a moral sense of some kind: is he man or not ? Maybe different answers would be given, depending on whether he were looked at from a theological or a palaeo-anthropological POV. 🤷
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Your answer most pleases me. Like I have said in a prior statement, I am dedicating my academic life to the study of biological anthropology and I find your statement and evocation of questions something to be considered. On a personal note, I would consider the definition of man not to be limited to H. Sapiens, but to the first in the lineage to have had the ability to love another. For all love descends from God.

On another tangent, I don’t see how God being perfect concludes that evolution is imperfect. I would like to have explained how evolution is seen as imperfect. I don’t believe evolution because it helps me get through the day no more than I believe in God for any such similar reason. The thing that makes evolution so wonderful is that it shows how the universe, programmed by the author of all matter, works indeed so perfectly. All the natural laws of physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, astronomy, biology(including evolution) abid without error to these natural laws which descend from a divine order. Unbreakable laws which the agents of evolution and all other agents of natural laws can be depended on and learned of with such concreteness because of their innate perfection. Gravity is constant by law, heat is conducted by the laws, the universe works through laws. And though the products of evolution have been a diversity of organisms across the millenniums, the very thing that makes it constant is that life indeed is always changing form. Just because Man has understood these things does not merit them to be only be inventions of man, it has only merely been long observed and understood by Man, and any error in misunderstanding is his not nature or its laws. As far as terminology being confusing, I’ve never been confused by it. You can call a rose a daisy but its is what it is none the less.

And we are indeed part of the ape family, just as much as all creatures share an ancestry. We have just been gifted with a soul, but biologically speaking, even if throwing out the idea of evolution and the earth just started yesterday, we are related to apes and all other primates and that is a fact.

And I think very differently as to what will finally be realized officially over time. It was only in 1992 that the Catholic Church Via Pope John Paul II issued a declaration saying the church’s denunciation of Galileo was a tragic error. The church condemned Galileo in the 17th century for supporting Nicholas Copernicus’ discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe. Which we all know today that the Earth as well as the rest of the planets in this galaxy and, as well as in all other galaxies, that we revolve around the sun. As clearly as this is seen today do I believe that evolution will be too. Lets just thank God no one is being killed or condemned by the church for it today. It has already started with the Pope stating that evolution can no longer only be considered a hypothesis. All in its time.

I go to sleep with peace in this respect, knowing that the universe is in perfect tune by a higher order.

Peace be with your soul, no matter its origin it belongs to Him. After all, what matters is what we do with our lives.

Melissa
 
John_Russell_Jr said:
My dear friend

I am upset when if a scientist wants to believe and teach creationism in a university he is shunned and unemployed quickly because of his faith. If scientists will seek truth genuinely and openly and accept it when found and be humble enough to accept there may be a God and creator then I’ll be happier. i know there are many scientists who are religious. A small % of these are probably openly religious and stand by their faith like everywhere. Science is about searching for truth and this is good. It should do it properly.

I’ve been on pro life rallies and seen the look on the scientists and doctors faces as we protest against their death convention. I know not all are abortionist but how can you call yourself a man of science when you are full of such lies as to say its only blubber or its for the greater good. And to look at me like I’m a loony when their so proud and arrogant they can’t see because they refuse to see or just don’t care about the slaughter of the unborn. Is this why doctors dropped their oath? So they could kill? I’m going off track here. I know there are good ones too.

I know there are good scientists and we need them. They need humility though. Humility is to live in the truth and science is about truth so it should be natural for them.

You have a bit of my take o it here. Thx for your (name removed by moderator)ut.

God bless
John
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Thanks for this great thread!

We all need humility. We should also be careful about typecasting all scientists. I think it is a tad uncharitable to assume that the pro-abortion doctors/scientists you reference are typical of all doctors or all scientists. I have relatives who are doctors and scientists. Two of my aunts were women religious who ran a large urban hospital. From what I’ve seen doctors and scientists are no better or worse than the rest of us.

Scientists are human beings–flawed, subject to original sin just like the rest of us. Science is like any field of human endeavor–there are fashions, false dogmas, unwritten rules, etc. I completely agree that when scientists shun those who think differently–be it on intelligent design, abortion, global warming, etc.–they are not acting as good scientists. (Obviously not all arguments are created equal not all positions deserve to be treated as such and that’s not arrogance. But reasonable arguments deserve a fair hearing.)

What you are describing is NOT science but the culture of science–that is the cultural norms and values that are fashionable among many scientists. But to be fair, these same norms and values are widespread in our society. We live in a materialist culture in which the value of things is judged in material terms. I teach history and it is very hard to get my students to view ancient and medieval religion as something other than an exercise in political or economic power and hard for me to explain why faith mattered so much to people in the past without resort to that kind of language. So scientists should not be singled out for what is reflex to so many of us.

One of the strongest pro-life arguments is that the scientific consensus in biology is that life begins at conception. This is established science. Remember, John Paul II described faith and reason as two wings of truth–they work together.

Incidentally you might be interested in looking at the website for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences which might help repair a little of your view of science:

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdscien/

Please also recall that most of what you read/see/hear in the media about science is distorted and usually wrong. (A friend who is now a Ph.D. in veternary science was fond of telling me that he never heard a single TV news report on a scientific discovery that was completely correct.)

God bless,
JB
 
Just wanted to add another resource; “The American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) is a fellowship of men and women in science and disciplines that relate to science who share a common fidelity to the Word of God and a commitment to integrity in the practice of science.”

asa3.org/

They have some interesting anthropology and archeology articles in the Resource section.
 
Dear recent posters one and all

I’ll read your posts more thoroughly tomorrow. It’s near 3am now here. Happy feast days to you. this day is a great day for me being a Fatima devotee. Yesty was a great day for my parish too being a Sacred heart parish. My priest would be concerned that my mind wandered off onto my theories here during mass last night. i may be an angel because i still followed the prayers??? Humans can only give their full attention to one thing at a time is the point. I’ve been thinking and I think I can answer some of your questions but it’s just my theory I’ll use in the end. i think I can tie my understanding of the big bang, the equilibrium in our world and how this affects us and the animals and our world, St Francis of assissi, my thoughts on Gods perfection and how this affects creation and us and more. So watch out:D

God bless you all:thumbsup:🙂
John
 
My dear friends

I’m still thinking of points so will post when the ideas dry up. If anyone wants to talk about anything remotely relevant on here feel free.

God bless:thumbsup:🙂
John
 
Common sense tells you that it couldn’t be much longer than since the first written records. How would it be possible for people to live for thousands, or tens of thousands of years, and never figure out how to write?

There are written languages all over the world. It is natural for people to wish to record incidents in their lives. Thinking that humans lives in caves for thousands of years is just plain ridiculous. It is natural to learn and to seek new ways to improve our living standard.
 
I said that I don’t know and I don’t think it matters, other than to our curiosity (and pride?). Now, it is helpful meeting people where they are and knowing the anthropological details so we can understand various attitudes, but beyond that I don’t think we’re ethically/morally developed enough to handle. Besides, there are so many factors (in health, for instance) that we don’t have a clue about, and probably because they are not conducive to the scientific method as we know it. I’ve worked in health care for years and seen so many things that are not explainable by science. I’m not against science, but it often leads to pride and away from our union with Him, at least for now.
 
My dear friends
Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut. I have some arguments against evolution and will pen them soon. Just a lot happening lately.
God bless:thumbsup:🙂
John
 
Hi John,

As others stated, thanks for starting this thread… it’s seemed to stay the course much better than other threads which get quite heated and move away from the topic at hand.

Regarding your thoughts on evolution, I think an important thing to remember is that it is not a magical process, but rather a description of what is going on. I even struggle to call it a theory, rather than just an observation… one that I don’t quite understand all of the opposition to.

When a new being is created, we know that it is made up of the genetic material of its parent(s). If organism1 and organism2 reproduced asexually and organism1 had a trait that helped it to survive (ex. an immunity to something), then its lineage would have a greater chance of surviving than organism2’s offspring. Once organism2’s lineage dies off, the trait found in organism1 will now exist within all of the species, and the species is said to have changed (or evolved).

A very simple (and recent) example of this is the peppered moths. There used to be both light and dark versions in the UK, but during the industrial revolution, their environment changed. Soot began to cover the trees, making it easier for the dark moths to hide from predators… thus a greater chance to survive. Now the light coloured moths are quite rare and, if they become extinct, then future generations of people will look back at it and say that the moths evolved from multiple colours to a single one.

If you can agree with the principles of evolution in the simple steps, then it only makes sense to agree with it on a larger scale (i.e. thousands or millions of years). If you only look at the macro-scale, then it’s much more difficult to understand all the forces at work.
 
My dear friends one and all

many thanks for your posts and (name removed by moderator)ut. Here are some observations I make below. I have not incl. the ton of scientific arguments you can learn that show evolution is false. I think a lot of people are confused as to what evolution really is. I am not a scholar and my points are more suited to the person with faith or interested in getting faith at least. I suggest getting video’s , books etc from the pro creationism and pro intelligent design groups to see the overwhelming scientific proof and arguments that evolution is false. Here are a few points-
If you take a non religious view everything in our universe is not improving but is destined to corrupt or disappear or become extinct. But thanks to God humans are elevated above nature and become supernatural and we don’t go the way of the rest of nature now. We are immortal beings unlike everything else. Nothing is evolving to get to some utopian state. Everything must go eventually. Our whole universe is going to go when our Lord returns. This concept that life evolves presupposes that life must evolve. Everything is perfect already. There is no need for evolution at all. I’ll provide some links for other posts of mine that may shed light on this subject too – at the bottom.
The only other beings outside of our universe are angels and angels do not evolve. I think we can learn from looking at beings apart from the ones we know on our planet to learn. God created them perfect right from the beginning and that seems to be the most perfect mode of creation God always uses.
St Francis of Assissi was in tune with the equilibrium and this caused natures unusual response. Gods perfect sacrifice must have perfect results and this means our loss of paradise must be repaired but obviously not many have seen this. St Francis showed us we can get paradise back. Animals pick up a vibe from the equilibrium and this tells them we’re unnatural etc and scares them. We are in paradise even if we can’t see it and have lost the friendship of our fellow creatures. The vibe often warns our fellow creatures of harm from us and other harms of a natural kind because they are in perfect tune with the equilibrium. You need to read my theory on the equilibrium in the links at the bottom. The point being we are in a blissfully perfect paradise right now but can’t see it. The theory of the equilibrium offers answers for our miserable lot which may make us want to believe it must get better – hence evolution.
The evolution of the soul is imperfect. To say we received a million different new souls along the path of evolution is imperfect. The more perfect mode of creation is to just do it once and for all. The fact that God created man first and not man and woman at the same time is further evidence for creationism. You may say God only changed the soul 6 times etc but it’s still less perfect than doing it once only. One is the most perfect number. Souls do not evolve so when did man get an immortal soul? At what point had the soul evolved enough to require immortality? It makes no sense to say man evolved.
God created man knowing he would be rebellious and in a way devolve into a being less than at the beginning. See links at bottom for explaination that explains this point.
There is no evidence of any evolution. You need to talk about real evolution and not natural selection, adaptation etc.
The big bang started from something super compressed the size of a peanut.The peanut did not have the ingredients of a soul. Life must be miraculously created by a direct intervention from God because of this. This is why we find no planets with any life let alone as much as ours. Life did not evolve or the universe would be teeming with life.
Humans have always been the same. The oldest history book the bible shows this. It shows no change in us at all. Simplified stories that are more easily memorized for passing down does not mean people maybe 100,000 yrs ago were different. They weren’t. There is no evidence of man evolving anywhere.
Just because we find the subject of evolution interesting does not mean it’s true. New Age spirituality is fascinating to millions but also false and satanic, more satanic the more involved you get. All that glitters is not gold my friends.
We don’t use our whole brain because we lost the preternatural gifts with original sin. We are not catching up to our advanced evolved brain as some think.
All living things have souls. Souls do not evolve at all. As said one is the perfect number. It is more perfect to create once than many times to achieve the same result. God does everything infinitely perfectly. Evolution is an imperfect system of creation.
I strongly recommend looking into the scientific arguments against evolution too. There very compelling and truthful. We have been lied to about evolution. Teachers are not allowed to teach creationism, nor universities – except Christian ones etc. You cannot get a degree that incl. an honest study of creationism or intelligent design. Hence we have been hood winked with evolution.
About equilibrium ( a work in progress ) forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=325589&highlight=equilibrium
Good points on creation and its perfection forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=349354&highlight=equilibrium
About the perfect creation of man forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=348859

God bless all:thumbsup:🙂
John
 
Hi John,

First, thanks for the links at the end of your post. I’m going to read through them in hopes of better understanding your point of view.
John_Russell_Jr said:
There is no evidence of any evolution. You need to talk about real evolution and not natural selection, adaptation etc.
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Natural selection, adaptation, etc. are the elements of evolution. Evolution isn’t something separate from these, but rather is the combination of these elements working together. As long as you agree that the the environment is changing (i.e. weather, species becoming extinct, land shifting, etc.), then you have to agree that some variations in a species will be more apt to survive than others. Thus, if the less able variations of a species die out and the fitter ones continue to thrive, then that is, by definition, evolution.
John_Russell_Jr said:
Humans have always been the same. The oldest history book the bible shows this. It shows no change in us at all. Simplified stories that are more easily memorized for passing down does not mean people maybe 100,000 yrs ago were different. They weren’t. There is no evidence of man evolving anywhere.
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I’m not saying I disagree with you, but you cannot use the Bible as proof that humans were the same 100,000 years ago. The Bible doesn’t describe humans to the detail required to compare the two. That’s obviously not proof that humans were different, but it also is not proof that humans were the same.
John_Russell_Jr said:
I strongly recommend looking into the scientific arguments against evolution too. There very compelling and truthful. We have been lied to about evolution.
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Are these the links you posted at the end of your thread or are there others? I’m very curious to read through them. If they’re the ones from the end of your post, I’ll be keenly reading them shortly. Thanks again.
 
akoso said:
Hi John,

First, thanks for the links at the end of your post. I’m going to read through them in hopes of better understanding your point of view.

Natural selection, adaptation, etc. are the elements of evolution. Evolution isn’t something separate from these, but rather is the combination of these elements working together. As long as you agree that the the environment is changing (i.e. weather, species becoming extinct, land shifting, etc.), then you have to agree that some variations in a species will be more apt to survive than others. Thus, if the less able variations of a species die out and the fitter ones continue to thrive, then that is, by definition, evolution.

I’m not saying I disagree with you, but you cannot use the Bible as proof that humans were the same 100,000 years ago. The Bible doesn’t describe humans to the detail required to compare the two. That’s obviously not proof that humans were different, but it also is not proof that humans were the same.

Are these the links you posted at the end of your thread or are there others? I’m very curious to read through them. If they’re the ones from the end of your post, I’ll be keenly reading them shortly. Thanks again.
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My dear friend

the links are the ones at the bottom. The best argument against evolution apart from scientific evidence as it stands is that God created an infinitely perfect and beautiful creation that does not need to evolve. Eventually science may start to see this. Darwin shows species changing to completely new species and it’s not adaptation or natural selection he’s talking about. There’s a lot of confusion about the meaning of the word evolution i think. Happy reading.

God bless:thumbsup:🙂
John

P.S. i think evolution is an insult to the creator because your saying His creation is not perfect. No guilt if you don’t know though.
 
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