In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins

[edwest2]

Hi, Edwest,

I don’t understand you disagreement. Just what is it in my post that you are disagreeing with?

My focus is that the Catholic Church has not sided with either the Creationist or the Evolutionist models - but only to condemn the Atheistic model because it negates the role of God throughout Creation. Criticizing one God believing group at the expense of the other God believing group - with both claiming total validity as they ridicule the other - appears foolish to me. There is an entire culture of Atheistic Evolution/Materialism that is at odds with both that needs to be seriously addressed. And, that is my point. So, please, tell me about your disagreement with this.

God bless

Who am I ridiculing? Who is anyone ridiculing? I challenge what some say here about science as either totally false or totally inadequate. I’m not forcing anyone to think anything. And this is not based on “opinion,” which I consider meaningless.

Atheistic Evolution can be addressed elsewhere. It has nothing to do with Catholics except when some post here and claim, with zero scientific evidence to support them, that “your Bible is wrong, here, here and here.” This is pure opinion and carries zero factual weight.

The Church is not a Democracy. Certain things happened in the past that we are required to believe and are outside the scope of direct scientific inquiry.

Peace,
Ed

 

[grannymh]

Where in the Bible does it say how old humans are?

As far as I can tell, the only reference to the age of the human species, is that Adam is the beginning of human history. Obviously, the real question is when did the histroy of the real human, soul and body, begin.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Grannymh,

I think it would be more accurate to say; while **SOME **current eovlution theories are suggesting that humans evoloved from a group of breeding pairs.

Here is an interesting link on Catholic dogma: roman-catholic.com/Roman/Articles/Evolution.htm

God bless

In Romans 5:12-21, St. Paul affirms that Adam is the one original human person, while current eovlution theories are suggesting that humans evoloved from a group of breeding pairs.

 

[buffalo]

It can be once you pile up thousands of years and your people make contact with other cultures. You’re putting too much faith in the Ancient Hebrews. You say human reasoning is flawed, the same goes for human memory and not to mention, our tendency to use metaphors, make exaggerations, plus lack of scientific knowledge during those eras.

Not discounting them doesn’t make it a guarantee that they pass the test of scrutiny.

Either God’s truth survives or it does not. Has the Holy Spirit been sleeping?

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Edwest,

I really do not see what you have said here addresses my post or answers my questions.

I do not see any ridiule in these posts. There is disagreement - but not ridicule.

God bless

Who am I ridiculing? Who is anyone ridiculing? I challenge what some say here about science as either totally false or totally inadequate. I’m not forcing anyone to think anything. And this is not based on “opinion,” which I consider meaningless.

Atheistic Evolution can be addressed elsewhere. It has nothing to do with Catholics except when some post here and claim, with zero scientific evidence to support them, that “your Bible is wrong, here, here and here.” This is pure opinion and carries zero factual weight.

The Church is not a Democracy. Certain things happened in the past that we are required to believe and are outside the scope of direct scientific inquiry.

Peace,
Ed

 

[St_Francis]

Your understanding is still incomplete.

OK, I understand. I also was wondering, in a general way, what “opened your eyes” to your current understanding of reality?

Wrong again. The better picture would be the recovering alcoholic who wishes the drunks in the gutter were in jail for telling the world to accept their lifestyle. Why? Because they do so by making light of the recovering alchoholic’s struggle, saying recovery is all for naught, and drunkenness is justified. That there lies the false hope. I know it is false but yet these people persist in a fantasy that’s not gonna happen.

Does that really and truly make sense to you? I mean… the recovering alcoholic is looking at these guys drunk in a gutter, slurring about how great their lives are, and he doesn’t offer up thanks that he is not there with them? Instead, he is tempted enough to what they are saying that he wants them put in jail!!!

I realize that was an analogy, but as the “loser” of this conversation, I’m rather stunned.*

And I don’t understand why you think that someone, like me, is making light of your situation simply by believing something different than what you believe?

But! I have to tell you something ironic: I realized I am the opposite of you. I was baptized but not really raised Catholic, and I was searching for truth. Every time I changed schools, I looked forward to it, thinking now they will teach me the truth, the importannt stuff… I went all the way through college, more and more discouraged. With my BA, I “accepted” that this is a random, pointless, stupid life. I was, for all practical purposes, an atheist, and not one of those atheists who are naturally really nice.

Then God very gradually drew back to Him, starting with the understanding that Evolution made no sense without Him behind it and ending up in the Catholic Church.

If you understand them literally instead of reading these stories in light of Church teaching. Church teaching doesn’t support that pagan view of God tormenting mortals for offenses against them. However, literalism does.

I do not understand what you mean by “that pagan view of God tormenting mortals for offenses against them.” Against whom?

Maybe you and i have a different view of what it means to believe in the truth of the OT? I’m looking at what you are saying and it sounds to me like you mean that the stories were all totally made up to explain things, that none of any of what is recounted in the OT happened at all. Maybe I misunderstand you.

I believe that the events occurred pretty much as they are recounted, but I also know that when events are described, there is a certain amount of editing just because of our human limitations. But I don’t think a story is untrue because someone leaves out the color of someone’s dress or emphasizes the parts that make it funny. Nor would I take issue if I discovered that someone had called an animal he’d never seen before a gigantic goat when it was really a Brahmin cow.

That’s the irony. You don’t think God is like those other gods. However, the reasoning of literalists behind that belief is that God is ‘better’ than Zeus, Ra, or Baal because events in the OT show His miracles triumph over the pagan religions.

This is ridiculous. I don’t believe in those gods as gods at all! So, no, I do not think that God is better than Ba’al because God can beat him up or some such nonsense.*

It’s petty. It’s childish. It’s one of the things atheists laugh about religion.

Maybe you shouldn’t get your ideas about what Catholics think from atheist websites?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Scripture is not conflated. It is of a different level from myth.

On the contrary. There are elements that look like they’ve been borrowed from Babylonian creation stories and the concept of man molded out of dirt and clay is a trope shared by several other ancient cultures.

The problem is not with science. We all trust authentic science.

Well authentic science cannot physiologically support the existence of a sea monster with an impenetrable steel hide and intense fire breath.

To claim that one has the truth to the exclusion of all other viewpoints is arrogant and forcibly excluding these equally-valid creationist models is tyrrannical.

How is literalism equally valid when you can’t even transmute water into fish? This is the 21st century, not Ancient Greece where people though that flies were born of dead flesh.

Either God’s truth survives or it does not. Has the Holy Spirit been sleeping?

The fact is that truth need not be truth about material reality.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

OK, I understand. I also was wondering, in a general way, what “opened your eyes” to your current understanding of reality?

You can start with the simple fact that a stick lacks the chemical composition to shoot a giant fireball in response to dog-latin.

Does that really and truly make sense to you? I mean… the recovering alcoholic is looking at these guys drunk in a gutter, slurring about how great their lives are, and he doesn’t offer up thanks that he is not there with them? Instead, he is tempted enough to what they are saying that he wants them put in jail!!!

I realize that was an analogy, but as the “loser” of this conversation, I’m rather stunned.*

And I don’t understand why you think that someone, like me, is making light of your situation simply by believing something different than what you believe?

You shouldn’t be stunned. I have every right to loathe the literalist view point. First of all, I’m ‘slurring about how great their lives are’? I am not! I am both logically and emotionally ticked for the complete opposite reasons!

When pitting science against literalist delusions, science is the victor. I spent my entire life trying to make do with the limits of this world ruled by the wretched laws of science. I read about how even God chastises those who challenge Him to bend these laws. That tells me how significantly hard-wired they are into this universe. Now, I see your type proposing that the world wasn’t always like that? Are you *that eager * to trivialize my struggles? Are you all that eager to make God look like some supreme bully who changes the laws of the cosmos just to suit His own whims?

End the devil’s reign indeed.

I do not understand what you mean by “that pagan view of God tormenting mortals for offenses against them.” Against whom?

Slight typo there. By them, I mean the gods. I was referring to the classical pagan view of gods needing to be appeased in order for them to use their divine power.

Maybe you and i have a different view of what it means to believe in the truth of the OT? I’m looking at what you are saying and it sounds to me like you mean that the stories were all totally made up to explain things, that none of any of what is recounted in the OT happened at all. Maybe I misunderstand you.

I set limitations upon the OT accounts in terms of scientific laws. There are greater truths found in myths other than the frivolous details of whether or not something is actually scientifically feasible.

Oh but no, literalists insist on a fairy tale world.

But I don’t think a story is untrue because someone leaves out the color of someone’s dress or emphasizes the parts that make it funny. Nor would I take issue if I discovered that someone had called an animal he’d never seen before a gigantic goat when it was really a Brahmin cow.

Ah but then you must be prepared to admit that all the other fantastic events weren’t so fantastic after all. Maybe it was not really blood but some form of mud that poisoned Egypt’s waters. Maybe it wasn’t darkness but an eclipse. Maybe Leviathan was stood to mean the crocodile.

Like I said, you either adopt the flat literalist view point or you put yourself on the slope.

This is ridiculous. I don’t believe in those gods as gods at all! So, no, I do not think that God is better than Ba’al because God can beat him up or some such nonsense.*

You actually do if you insist on supernatural events being a sign of God’s power. Again, the entire literary premise in OT stories of God performing supposed ‘divine acts’ of providence/punishment is viewed through the lens of fallible people who were seeing similar boasts by their pagan rivals.

Maybe you shouldn’t get your ideas about what Catholics think from atheist websites?

I guess apologists shouldn’t be addressing atheist objections then. I mean, there is reeeeally no point to finding out what the opposition thinks.

 

[St_Francis]

You can start with the simple fact that a stick lacks the chemical composition to shoot a giant fireball in response to dog-latin.

Sooooo, because you can’t perform magic, God can’t perform miracles?

You shouldn’t be stunned. I have every right to loathe the literalist view point. First of all, I’m ‘slurring about how great their lives are’? I am not! I am both logically and emotionally ticked for the complete opposite reasons!

Wow, how did this happen! *You *are the recovering alcoholic, *I *am the “loser,” as you put it, the drunk in the gutter (I only made them plural because of the pronouns). You hear me stuck in the gutter sluuring about how great getting drunk and hanging out in gutters is…

[quoye]When pitting science against literalist delusions, science is the victor. I spent my entire life trying to make do with the limits of this world ruled by the wretched laws of science. I read about how even God chastises those who challenge Him to bend these laws.
This is true and not true. A mother who prays to God asking Him to perform a miracle and heal her son after the limits of medicine are reached is not doing anything wrong. But you are correct in that someone who *challenges *God will be chastised–has God not done enough to prove Himself to us that we need to challenge him?

That tells me how significantly hard-wired they are into this universe. Now, I see your type proposing that the world wasn’t always like that? Are you *that eager * to trivialize my struggles? Are you all that eager to make God look like some supreme bully who changes the laws of the cosmos just to suit His own whims?

I am suggesting that God’s relationship with man was different before the Incarnation, yes. But I take issue with you that God was acting like a bully; I would propose that He was acting like the Father of a very unruly bunch of teenagers.

Are you *that eager * to trivialize my struggles?

Do you really think that I have reached my position solely for the purpose of trivializing your position? Or do you think because you feel bad that I have no right to speak? Why do you take this so personally?

Slight typo there. By them, I mean the gods. I was referring to the classical pagan view of gods needing to be appeased in order for them to use their divine power.

I have never met, run across, or even heard of a person who calls himself Christian who believes that Ba’al was also a god or equated God with ancient deities, and I have met some whacked-out fundamentalists here in the Bible Belt.

I set limitations upon the OT accounts in terms of scientific laws.

And I believe that Gid actually can perform miracles.

There are greater truths found in myths other than the frivolous details of whether or not something is actually scientifically feasible.

If I yell my daughter a story about a little girl breaking her toys but all my daughter’s toys are unbreakable, then the story makes no sense. If the stories in the OT are all made up, they make no sense, they have no application, they contain *no *truth at all, much less some “greater truth.”

The stories in the OT are about man’s relationship with the Creator of the Universe, not men’s reltionships with other men.

Either God can suspend the laws of the universe He created or He cannot. But if He can’t then the NT, The Eucharist, all those are impossible also.

Oh but no, literalists insist on a fairy tale world.

As a person who is apparently what you call a literalist, I do not believe the OT is true in the way that each person in the OT believed it was true. There are people in the OT who believed in many gods–I don’t believe in many gods. There were people in the Bible who believed that their own god Ba’al would set the logs on fire–I don’t believe that A god Ba’al exists.

You might say that I look at the OT as a Christian, a person who understands that there is but ONE GOD, and that He showed Himself to the Jews before the Incarnation in order to prepare a place for His Incarnate Son.

Ah but then you must be prepared to admit that all the other fantastic events weren’t so fantastic after all. Maybe it was not really blood but some form of mud that poisoned Egypt’s waters. Maybe it wasn’t darkness but an eclipse. Maybe Leviathan was stood to mean the crocodile.

It may have been a crocodile, but are you saying God is *incapable *of turning the Nile into blood?

If you do not believe that God performed miracles in the OT, why do you believe He performed them in the NT?

You actually do if you insist on supernatural events being a sign of God’s power. Again, the entire literary premise in OT stories of God performing supposed ‘divine acts’ of providence/punishment is viewed through the lens of fallible people who were seeing similar boasts by their pagan rivals.

Some boys are playing and one boasts that his father can beat the fathers of the others us, even tho his father is really just a mild-mannered bookkeeper with glasses. Another boasts that his dad can beat up the dads of the others with one hand tied behind his back, altho his father is just a portly computer programmer. The last little boy laughs and says no, his dad could beat up their dads, because his dad is a specially trained commando in the army.

Does the fact that the first two boys were wrong mean that the third boy is also wrong?

I guess apologists shouldn’t be addressing atheist objections then. I mean, there is reeeeally no point to finding out what the opposition thinks.

I didn’t say that people shouldn’t read what atheists think in order to better refute them. I said that you shouldn’t get your ideas about what *Catholics *think from *atheist *sites. I see no reason for a fellow Catholic to use an atheist parody of what I think against me.

 

[St_Francis]

I disagree. There is ample evidence that if something happened, it did not occur as advertised. I’m tired of the constant, and I mean constant, debate about this. God does not need science. Jesus raised the dead, gave sight to the blind and rose, bodily, from the dead Himself.

Why the great, burning need to reconcile science with the Bible?

There can exist only one truth. If there seem to be two truths, then one or both is/are wrong.*

So the Church teaches that any *truth *about the material world is to be accepted. The Church also kind of keeps its own teachings apart *because *they do not want to inhibit scientists, to allow scientists the space to follow the path to truth. So the Church did not condemn the theory of evolution out of hand, nor did the Church entirely accept it.

Now, Christ did perform miracles, but what are miracles? They are events in which God *intervenes *in the laws of science to accomplish something out of the ordinary.

(One thing I don’t understand is the atheist argument that miracles don’t exist *because *they violate the laws of nature, but that the witnesses are so primitive and uneducated that they believed the miracle occurred–but the “P&U” witness was obviously clear enough on the laws of nature to label the event as a deviation of those laws, hence, a miracle.)

God obviously does not *need *the laws of nature in order to operate, but He has put those laws into force–they do exist.

This is why I am a Creation agnostic: God might have chosen to operate through the laws of nature He was setting up *or He could have chosen to operate in what we might call a miracle mode.

You ask, Why do people feel the urge to reconcile the Bible with science? Are you asking, why do people feel the need to demythologize the Bible, seeking natural explanations for what are clearly miracles? I can see why atheists would choose to do do that–to bolster their idea–but as for those who call themselves theists trying to explain that the “miracle” Christ performed was getting people to share their food? I can only imagine that they want to seem sophisticated and in tune with modern times.

usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-04-12-pope-evolution_N.htm

Great link, Ed, thanks for posting it! It originally took me to a generic tech page so I had to C&P it, but then I was able to see the article about the Pope’s comments on evolution

 

[grannymh]

Hi, Grannymh,

I think it would be more accurate to say; while **SOME **current eovlution theories are suggesting that humans evoloved from a group of breeding pairs.

Here is an interesting link on Catholic dogma: roman-catholic.com/Roman/Articles/Evolution.htm

God bless

I am not sure what “SOME current evolution theories” implies. I do know that if one reviews the current scientific literature from what would be considered in America as the mainstream scientific community, the only possible evolution theory is that humans evolved as a group or as a society.

Point #3. (God creates the spiritual soul directly) on the first page of your link explains why science cannot address the whole human person. To expand a bit on that point – the material/physical principle found in our world does not have the power to produce the spiritual principle. Therefore, the only theory that is left in the domain of science is that humans evolved as a group or as a society of similar decomposing anatomies.

Point #3 broadly refers to the natural evolution of the human body reaching its present state. This sounds like a very neat way to work in the concept of Darwinian evolution.
While I have not particularly studied the evolution of non-human living organisms such as plants and dogs. I rather like the idea of the flying dinosaurs evolving into the current birds in my back yard.

Yet, recent fossil discoveries do not indicate such an organized evolving process regarding the human anatomy. Instead of intermediate fossils, the fossils are being considered as relatives of the modern human anatomy and they are being compared as such regarding similarities. The basic contemporary problem is language which is based on the material/physical domain of scientists and interpreters.

Please know that I have neither read nor studied the entire link you presented. However, off line I have been working as an editor/researcher for articles covering similar sections as found in your link. Thus, I am grateful for the link since it includes some additional sources of information.

Because of what is currently happening in “human origin” research, I do not trust the result from the beginning of the article link in the OP
gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx

In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins.
Highly religious Americans most likely to believe in creationism

I would think that religious Catholics would understand that “creationism” in itself cannot account for the human origin doctrines based on the whole of Scripture. A few verses in the first three chapters of Genesis are only a beginning of the Divine Revelation dialog between God as Creator and humans as His peerless creation. In my humble opinion, it is time for Catholics to realize the split in Chrisitian doctrines which follows Adam’s free act of scorning His Creator.

Please, please note that I am not denying the possibility of a real person who, with his real spouse, founded the real human species.

By analyzing the assumptions, estimates, methods, and materials in research papers, one can recognize that the individual conclusion is reasonable. But what is not reasonable is extrapolating this conclusion to an universal exclusion. A universal conclusion that Adam and Eve are not possible is not warranted by the presented evidence.

 

[grannymh]

There can exist only one truth. If there seem to be two truths, then one or both is/are wrong.*

What is missing from this urban myth is the qualifications for what can be considered truth. Also missing is the recognition of the two domains, material and spiritual, and how they relate to material science and spiritual faith----both created by God or in another sense both given to humans by God.

I am wondering if Google, Wikipedia, and Gallup polls as in the OP*,* have now replaced sound, in depth, Catholic instruction.

 

[gcharles]

Rob is so correct. The Bible which Catholic doctrine says is the word of God says yom echad translated DAY one. What else are we going to water down. There is no empirical scientific evidence that shows speciations leap into higher species. In the sixth day God breathed life into Adam. Did we give one celled organism with names? Did our God breathed into the nose of a one celled organism? How sick is that? The wisdom of man is foolishness to God. Please send me empirical evidence of speciation. My email address is gcharles3448@yahoo.com-This is a challenge.

 

[gcharles]

Regarding the 46% who hold creationist view of human origins.

Coincidentally, I am in London studying the display “Our Place in Evolution” in the Natural History Museum. Thus, your individual link which includes “Common Structures” is very interesting because I am part way through the Museum’s display section on homologies in regard to the origin of human nature which is the topic of this thread.

Since I am using a hotel computer with a different browser, etc., than mine, I am not sure what I am doing so reading the pages 9-22 will have to wait.

Nonetheless, in general, the issues regarding bats, mice, (see illustration on link) dogs, wolves, whales, dinosaur birds, etc., do not really address the issue of human origin. In the final analysis the human body’s relationship to a bat wing is minor compared with the relationship of humans to their nearest living relatives chimps and gorilla’s depending on which scientist and which recent common ancestor one follows. The end of the line (humans and their non-human relatives) in the basic cladistic system will continue to be debated because of current genetic technology.

Please note that I used living relatives. Fossils show that humans also share some homologies with extinct human-like archaic beings. These extinct beings are also classified into different species depending on their homologies.

It is obvious that humans did not directly descend from apes. The link’s reference to common descent actually refers to a common ancestor of primates which may or may not be the most recent one regarding the human species. When one looks at human origin solely from a natural science viewpoint, there are a lot more questions than answers. For example, one should consider the purpose of the human person. Where is the human being going? Is there more to life than natural science?

 

[gcharles]

gcharles:
May I put it very clear. Disagreeing with the bible’s view of creation is a sign of the end times. People believe in scientists more than the word of God. Maybe you can claim the blood of great scientists on judgment day. Richard Dawkins even admits there is no empirical evidence for speciation evolution. Dawkins is part of the 'crucify him" crowd. T-H-I-N-K!!!

 

[tqualey]

Hi, St. Francis,

Great post

But reality is simply no match for the obvious thrills of the fantasy world that requires total focus so that all conforms.

I honestly do not see how any logical argument can be accepted when fantasy rules.

God bless

Sooooo, because you can’t perform magic, God can’t perform miracles?

Wow, how did this happen! *You *are the recovering alcoholic, *I *am the “loser,” as you put it, the drunk in the gutter (I only made them plural because of the pronouns). You hear me stuck in the gutter sluuring about how great getting drunk and hanging out in gutters is…

[quoye]When pitting science against literalist delusions, science is the victor. I spent my entire life trying to make do with the limits of this world ruled by the wretched laws of science. I read about how even God chastises those who challenge Him to bend these laws.

This is true and not true. A mother who prays to God asking Him to perform a miracle and heal her son after the limits of medicine are reached is not doing anything wrong. But you are correct in that someone who *challenges *God will be chastised–has God not done enough to prove Himself to us that we need to challenge him?

I am suggesting that God’s relationship with man was different before the Incarnation, yes. But I take issue with you that God was acting like a bully; I would propose that He was acting like the Father of a very unruly bunch of teenagers.

Do you really think that I have reached my position solely for the purpose of trivializing your position? Or do you think because you feel bad that I have no right to speak? Why do you take this so personally?

I have never met, run across, or even heard of a person who calls himself Christian who believes that Ba’al was also a god or equated God with ancient deities, and I have met some whacked-out fundamentalists here in the Bible Belt.

And I believe that Gid actually can perform miracles.

If I yell my daughter a story about a little girl breaking her toys but all my daughter’s toys are unbreakable, then the story makes no sense. If the stories in the OT are all made up, they make no sense, they have no application, they contain *no *truth at all, much less some “greater truth.”

The stories in the OT are about man’s relationship with the Creator of the Universe, not men’s reltionships with other men.

Either God can suspend the laws of the universe He created or He cannot. But if He can’t then the NT, The Eucharist, all those are impossible also.

As a person who is apparently what you call a literalist, I do not believe the OT is true in the way that each person in the OT believed it was true. There are people in the OT who believed in many gods–I don’t believe in many gods. There were people in the Bible who believed that their own god Ba’al would set the logs on fire–I don’t believe that A god Ba’al exists.

You might say that I look at the OT as a Christian, a person who understands that there is but ONE GOD, and that He showed Himself to the Jews before the Incarnation in order to prepare a place for His Incarnate Son.

It may have been a crocodile, but are you saying God is *incapable *of turning the Nile into blood?

If you do not believe that God performed miracles in the OT, why do you believe He performed them in the NT?

Some boys are playing and one boasts that his father can beat the fathers of the others us, even tho his father is really just a mild-mannered bookkeeper with glasses. Another boasts that his dad can beat up the dads of the others with one hand tied behind his back, altho his father is just a portly computer programmer. The last little boy laughs and says no, his dad could beat up their dads, because his dad is a specially trained commando in the army.

Does the fact that the first two boys were wrong mean that the third boy is also wrong?

I didn’t say that people shouldn’t read what atheists think in order to better refute them. I said that you shouldn’t get your ideas about what *Catholics *think from *atheist *sites. I see no reason for a fellow Catholic to use an atheist parody of what I think against me.

 

[grannymh]

May I put it very clear. Disagreeing with the bible’s view of creation is a sign of the end times. People believe in scientists more than the word of God. Maybe you can claim the blood of great scientists on judgment day. Richard Dawkins even admits there is no empirical evidence for speciation evolution. Dawkins is part of the 'crucify him" crowd. T-H-I-N-K!!!

I am part of the generation who learned Catholic doctrine before opening a Bible.

When it comes to creation (or creationism), there is no doubt that Catholics must first understand the Catholic teachings regarding Adam and Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, many people have learned about human nature from the cutesy children’s books where a couple eating an organic apple are smiling from behind branches with lots of leaves.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Sooooo, because you can’t perform magic, God can’t perform miracles?

Not really. I just know that supernatural phenomenon doesn’t happen so often (unlike in fantasy and mythology where they’re actually the norm).

God rarely performs miracles and mankind exaggerates anything that looks like divine intervention. Put those two together and you get a stronger case for science ruling the cosmos.

You hear me stuck in the gutter sluuring about how great getting drunk and hanging out in gutters is…

Yep and I don’t wanna hear it. Why? Because you’re wrong. Science says you’re wrong. Your fantasy doesn’t exist so stop filling people’s heads with delusions and false hopes.

This is true and not true. A mother who prays to God asking Him to perform a miracle and heal her son after the limits of medicine are reached is not doing anything wrong.

That doesn’t mean God will answer her prayer. Miracles wouldn’t be miracles if they always happened. Why do you think that is? Answer: Because of the laws in place. Only God knows the full extent that structures our universe. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t acknowledge how much we understand and face the facts even when our personal feelings wish to blind us.

But you are correct in that someone who *challenges *God will be chastised–has God not done enough to prove Himself to us that we need to challenge him?

That’s the difference between you and me. I take it further than you. I know that God is so mighty that He doesn’t need to do much to prove it. That’s another reason why miracles don’t happen so often. The person who relies too much on such physical signs and wonders is the man of the weaker faith.

The person who needs to know the world was once indeed the Chrisian version of God of War is the one with the weakest faith.

I am suggesting that God’s relationship with man was different before the Incarnation, yes. But I take issue with you that God was acting like a bully; I would propose that He was acting like the Father of a very unruly bunch of teenagers.

Thanks for posing for Atheist Strawman #4: God is an oppressive authority figure.

Like I said, you really need to see the error of making God out as Big Daddy. Zeus and Odin were the same too. (Heck, the Marvel version Odin actually does act like that! LOL!)

Do you really think that I have reached my position solely for the purpose of trivializing your position? Or do you think because you feel bad that I have no right to speak? Why do you take this so personally?

That was more to drive my point. The fact is, I have both personal and logical reasons to say that you need to dispense with the fantasy. You think I’m alone? I represent the views of countless others who have to live bitterly in accordance to a world that doesn’t allow mutant superheroes and mystical adventures. We’re grounded in reality but we hate it.

Now all of a sudden you guys show up and start spreading nonsense about how the world is the evangelical version of that fantasy. Your views are inherently demeaning towards our struggle because you make it sound like it shows that there’s no point in grounding ourselves in that reality.

I have never met, run across, or even heard of a person who calls himself Christian who believes that Ba’al was also a god or equated God with ancient deities, and I have met some whacked-out fundamentalists here in the Bible Belt.

No but you equate false gods with demons. That counts.

If I yell my daughter a story about a little girl breaking her toys but all my daughter’s toys are unbreakable, then the story makes no sense. If the stories in the OT are all made up, they make no sense, they have no application, they contain *no *truth at all, much less some “greater truth.”

This only goes to show that you have an even poorer understanding (and appreciation) of what Scripture is. We do not rely on a literal creation account or a literal Ten Plagues in order believe. The truths of those stories do not lie in them being literally true or false. Their truth transcends the trivial nitpickings of science.

Look at Aesop’s fables. I don’t need to know if animals can really talk or if a turtle can actually be faster than a hare. I simply need to see the moral of the story (such as never underestimate and look down on the skills of others).

Either God can suspend the laws of the universe He created or He cannot. But if He can’t then the NT, The Eucharist, all those are impossible also.

For the umpteenth time, I do not see God as restricted. I see God as UNWILLING to break these laws. We all know He can but there’s a stronger case (both backed by science and Church teaching) that He clearly doesn’t want to all the time.

God is challenged every day by many non-believers who don’t believe in His omnipotence. Why doesn’t He smite all of them? Why doesn’t He smite the likes of Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins? He used to do so in the OT… or did He really?

As a person who is apparently what you call a literalist, I do not believe the OT is true in the way that each person in the OT believed it was true. There are people in the OT who believed in many gods–I don’t believe in many gods. There were people in the Bible who believed that their own god Ba’al would set the logs on fire–I don’t believe that A god Ba’al exists.

No but you believe that pagans worshiped demons posing as their false gods. Again, that counts.

If you do not believe that God performed miracles in the OT, why do you believe He performed them in the NT?

God came to Moses as a friggin’, burnin’, bush.

Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. He was an actual person.

So let’s see now… unseen God that comes in the form of an inanimate object versus… God Himself come down to walk among us.

I leave you to figure out the rest.

Does the fact that the first two boys were wrong mean that the third boy is also wrong?

It’s the fact that such a discussion is even happening that a fourth boy, the one with no father, finds the concept of having one to be completely ridiculous.

I didn’t say that people shouldn’t read what atheists think in order to better refute them. I said that you shouldn’t get your ideas about what *Catholics *think from *atheist *sites. I see no reason for a fellow Catholic to use an atheist parody of what I think against me.

These parodies are the result of YOUR literalist viewpoints. Obviously the atheists are wrong about these strawmen but so are YOU because folks like YOU are posing for them!

 

[samiam1611]

I am not sure what “SOME current evolution theories” implies. I do know that if one reviews the current scientific literature from what would be considered in America as the mainstream scientific community, the only possible evolution theory is that humans evolved as a group or as a society.

Point #3. (God creates the spiritual soul directly) on the first page of your link explains why science cannot address the whole human person. To expand a bit on that point – the material/physical principle found in our world does not have the power to produce the spiritual principle. Therefore, the only theory that is left in the domain of science is that humans evolved as a group or as a society of similar decomposing anatomies.

Point #3 broadly refers to the natural evolution of the human body reaching its present state. This sounds like a very neat way to work in the concept of Darwinian evolution.
While I have not particularly studied the evolution of non-human living organisms such as plants and dogs. I rather like the idea of the flying dinosaurs evolving into the current birds in my back yard.

Yet, recent fossil discoveries do not indicate such an organized evolving process regarding the human anatomy. Instead of intermediate fossils, the fossils are being considered as relatives of the modern human anatomy and they are being compared as such regarding similarities. The basic contemporary problem is language which is based on the material/physical domain of scientists and interpreters.

Please know that I have neither read nor studied the entire link you presented. However, off line I have been working as an editor/researcher for articles covering similar sections as found in your link. Thus, I am grateful for the link since it includes some additional sources of information.

Because of what is currently happening in “human origin” research, I do not trust the result from the beginning of the article link in the OP
gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx

In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins.
Highly religious Americans most likely to believe in creationism

I would think that religious Catholics would understand that “creationism” in itself cannot account for the human origin doctrines based on the whole of Scripture. A few verses in the first three chapters of Genesis are only a beginning of the Divine Revelation dialog between God as Creator and humans as His peerless creation. In my humble opinion, it is time for Catholics to realize the split in Chrisitian doctrines which follows Adam’s free act of scorning His Creator.

Please, please note that I am not denying the possibility of a real person who, with his real spouse, founded the real human species.

By analyzing the assumptions, estimates, methods, and materials in research papers, one can recognize that the individual conclusion is reasonable. But what is not reasonable is extrapolating this conclusion to an universal exclusion. A universal conclusion that Adam and Eve are not possible is not warranted by the presented evidence.

Do you believe Adam and Eve had parents? Did they gestate for 9 months, were they born from a womb? Were they children then teenagers then adults? What were their parents like? Did they look rather human-like but not have a spiritual soul? Or…?

 

[Neildown]

@ Lost Wanderer & St. Francis:

I think you guys are too far on either side. If either of you had the truth in mind, you wouldn’t be needing to force your viewpoints on one another. FYI, nobody knows whether or not the creation story is meant to be complete fact or complete allegory.

There is proof for and against Creationism just as much as there is proof for and against Evolution. Anyone who cannot see that has their head stuck in the ground. The only difference between the two is that the latter doesn’t require God directly poofing the world into existence. I find it incredibly childish that anyone needs to debate this in the first place. Either way it goes, our Faith is still relevant because of the Church’s openness on the issue.

If one can’t fathom God being capable of simply bringing our world into existence or allowing it to develop over time, one is putting a limitation on God’s capacity. As I said, its an open issue - I know for a fact that you guys aren’t going to resolve it because neither of you have all of the facts - nor do I, or anyone else as is most likely.