Thanks, that’s helpful. So, your statement has more to do with the knowability of truth (epistemology) than the nature of truth in itself, yes? I don’t want to sidetrack this thread, so I’ll just recommend a book that might interact with such paradoxical thinking: Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted In Mid-Air (Baker, 1998).
Your homework for today.
Both bird and mammal are already well defined terns. You would do well to study first before coming up with quick replies that show your lack of knowledge in this area. “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”
Anonymous_1 said:
No, it is perfectly serious. All six are based on the tree of common descent and the first three also include the theoretical prediction that there is no horizontal transfer between the different branches of the tree. Number 1 for instance rules out animals like a pegasus with mixed mammalian and bird characteristics. Number 3 follows from the prediction that birds derived from Archosaurs; Archaeopteryx is just such an example. The number of predictions could be multiplied many times.rossum:
This is a joke right?
You repeatedly use the term "materialist evolutionists,’ as though there were such things as “immaterialist evolutionists.” All scientists are "materialists,’ in the sense that all scientific inquiry is restricted to the material world. I am a Christian theist (Catholic) but, when it comes to my scientific views, I am definitely a “materialist evolutionist.” I in no way deny God’s creative activity, but recognize that such providential causes are beyond and outside of the proper limits of the natural sciences. Therefore, while I affirm divine creation (design), I do not impose upon it the inadequate and imprecise term “science.”
You might want to qualify your statement. The natural sciences do not hold that “everything that happens” can be explained in material terms, only that “every material thing” may be explained in the context of natural causes and effects.
But what ID has done is to take theological convictions and apply them to science. Nearly everything you appeal to here—the Kalam argument, Aquinas’ theistic proofs, human knowledge of God from the created order (natural theology)—all of this is religio-philosophy, not science.
I would certainly say that it is not “a legitimate scientific alternative” to Neo-Darwinism. Please consider the central and inherent error in your conclusion: You object that modern science “fails to take into account our creator,” yet this is precisely what genuine “science” (as opposed to pseudo-science) *cannot *do. Why not? Because science is, by its very nature, self-restricted to the forms and functions of the natural world, while our Creator—however real and involved in his creation—is a supernatural being, and thus exists beyond and outside of nature.
First, I don’t agree that “that all scientific inquiry is restricted to the material world.” Mathematics is not restricted to the material world. An inquiry into the workings of nature that is completely devoid of the need to use mathematics is science in what sense?
But The Church rejects exactly that darwinism you mention here. But darwinism is not the same as Evolution, darwinism is a philosophical posiiton based on Evolution.
I would say that instead of random, there are contingent events. Evolution is such a contingent event and this is perfectly compatible with God’s providence. As St. Thomas tells us. “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow; but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the plan of divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.”
Well darwinism is atheistic philosophy, I rather just say Evolution when refering to the theory of Evolution and Theistic Evolution when refering to my acceptance of Evolution as a means of God creating the diversity of life on earth.
Do you agree then, that Darwinism should not be taught in public schools as fact since Darwinism is really nothing more than a religious/philosophical position that is accepted by some men as a matter of faith?
Deists could also claim to be “theistic evolutionists”, and I wouldn’t want Deism taught as fact either.
Didn’t Christ death on the cross bring about the forgiveness of sin? Doesn’t death bring us to eternal glory(those that go to heaven)?
Here are a few quotes from the Holy Week Liturgies of Latin Rite Catholics that you might want to reflect on if you think that Death is God’s little buddy
eath and life have contended in that combat stupendeous: the Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.
I think you are mixing the scientific theory of Evolution with philosophical naturalism/evolutionism, which is what atheists profess. The two are different things, one is science and belongs in science class and the other is not and like ID it does not belongs in science class. Neither Theistic Evolution nor atheistic Evolution should be taught in science class, it does not belongs there. Evolution thru Natural Selection and Random Mutations is science and belongs in science class.
Sure, I agree. That however has nothing to do with Evolution.
Evolution is simply descent with modification, it simply says that organisn change over time. I am unsure as to what you see in Evolution as being irreconciliable with Catholicism.
This is incorrect. It is not a dogma of the faith that no physical death existed before The Fall.
I am not sure why you see it that way, people die, others are born and so is the way nature is set up, death is part of God’s design. If we didn’t die, then would not the earth overpopulate? Didn’t God himself set the limit of our lifespans to 120 years? I don’t think that death is evil and I don’t think that the death introduced by the fall is really death per se. Sure Adam and Eve had the posibility of not dying (this is what The Church teaches), but death per se has been part of God’s creation from the begining.
Yes but you do not seem to understand what I am saying. Do you not see that thru Christ’s death there came life? Do you not see that thru our death we are united with God? If death is such a bad thing, then why is it used as means to fultfill God’s divine plan?Here are a few quotes from the Holy Week Liturgies of Latin Rite Catholics that you might want to reflect on if you think that Death is God’s little buddy
This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death.
Let us proclaim the mystery of faith: … Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life.
I disagree. To posit an evolutionary process that is dependent on meaningless random mutations is to make a theological assertion about that process.
I strongly disagree that the Catholic teaches that death was part of God’s creation from the beginning. Please show me any evidence that you have that supports this novel theological innovation!
I didn’t say that, I said that The Church has not defined as a matter of faith that there was no death before The Fall. To make things easier here is a list of the dogmas that are related to the effects of The Fall, Taken from Dr. Ott Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.
Mathematics is not science. Science may use the results of mathematics, but the arbiter of any scientific theory is an ensemble of observations of nature. Mathematics, as a set of logical structures, is not so bound.
Uh oh. I’m not trying to be cheeky, but the Catholic Church would have a big problem with any modern electronic devices, as well as modern explanations for electromagnetism and light emission/absorption (and so on) because of a fundamental theological dissatisfaction with quantum mechanics.
Well, the obvious answer is that God set up the rules of quantum mechanics to work the way they do (pure randomness) or else the Universe could not exist. QM governs, for example, the reaction rates of hydrogen nuclei fusing in the center of stars. Should this rate be but a little different, and no stars (including our own) would shine, no elements beyond hydrogen would be generated.
Why would the Catholic Church have a problem with quantum mechanics? Classical mechanics posits a physical universe that sits “out there”, unaffected by observers, which is really a universe where God is superfluous. Quantum mechanics changes that paradigm.”We have to cross out that old word “observer” and replace it with a new word “participator”. In some strange sense the quantum principle tells us that we are dealing with a participatory universe”.
Define what you mean by “pure randomness”. No physical process is purely random. For example, the radioactive decay of Uranium 238 is said to be a random process, yet there is a well-defined probability distribution that predicts the half life of a given quantity of U 238. If the radioactive decay of U 238 was really a matter of pure randomness, it would be impossible to talk about the half life of 100 grams of U 238, since a purely random decay of U 238 would produce a half life that cannot be predicted. Since good science is all about making predictions based on observations, a process that was indeed purely random would be, by definition, outside the scope of science.