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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Why are you apologizing?
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Right on.
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tonyrey
Guest
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Ed has a point. Scientism and atheism as collaborators are always in campaign mode.
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grannymh
Guest
I am cannot speak for all religious leaders and for all protocols of religion. Nonetheless, for years, the Catholic Church has directly opposed a particular scientific theory which of itself interferes with a couple of Catholic doctrines.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Well, I was speaking more about this discussion board, and from what I understood (I may be wrong), Ed was too.Ed has a point. Scientism and atheism as collaborators are always in campaign mode.
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Bradski
Guest
But they do terrorise lambs. Terror is part of the design. If you weren’t scared of being eaten, you are easy prey.
If you design a system whereby one animal has to kill another to survive, you have to programme in sheer terror so that the one to be eaten has all the incentive it needs to avoid the fate.
Terror and fear are built into the system. Do you think He could have done it better?
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edwest2
Guest
Very well said. This desire to have thread after thread on Catholic Answers about this topic begs the question - Why? If religious leaders and their comments are viewed correctly by scientists and Christians then there should be no problems, no further discussions. But that is obviously not the case. It boils down, here, to a clash between scientific knowledge as the only sources of knowledge and the Christian understanding that some scientific knowledge plus knowledge revealed to God has the greatest value. It is the whole answer. But, the campaign continues: “We’re right and you’re wrong.” “Science trumps all religious claims.” We, as Christians, must defend the truth - daily if need be. The distorted idea that a man’s life ends in nothing and that he came from nothing can never be accepted. Free will does not mean anyone can convince Christians, however subtly, to believe in the the ‘nothing to nothing’ idea. But the efforts to do so continue.
Ed
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edwest2
Guest
“tooth and nail”? Really? There are non-Catholics and people of other belief/unbelief systems here, why is that? To tell Catholics “you’re wrong” on a regular basis? Why bother? Pope Benedict himself referred to Creation as “an intelligent project.” I think he fully understood that we don’t have The God Who Did Nothing.
Best,
Ed
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tonyrey
Guest
Design does not apply to every detail of life on earth. Conflict, interference and competition are inevitable in a world where countless living organisms are pursuing different goals. No attempt has ever been made to describe a** feasible** earthly Utopia because every intelligent person realises it is nothing but an infantile fantasy…
To think animals constantly live in a state of sheer terror reveals gross ignorance of what life in a natural environment is really like…
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grannymh
Guest
Because I was too dumb to realize that I should have put my understanding of natural law into easy simple questions of ten words or less when I was replying to a nuance in post 952. No big deal. Carry on.Why are you apologizing?
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tonyrey
Guest
It is only scientists who reject Design in nature as incompatible with Catholic belief who defend their thesis tooth and nail because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain. They prefer to believe science explains every aspect of life on earth right down to the last detail because it diminishes the role of God in everyday affairs and exalts their professional status in their quest for a Theory of Everything. The scope of religion has to be whittled down at all costs lest it dares to invade their sacred territory…
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Pope calls for protection of environment, says creation-evolution debate is ‘absurdity’
(Link Catholic news Agency)
Lorenzago di Cadore, Jul 26, 2007 / 09:52 am (CNA).- The debate between creationism and evolution is an “absurdity” since evolution can coexist with faith, said Pope Benedict XVI this week while vacationing in the mountains of northern Italy.
While there is much scientific proof to support evolution, the theory cannot exclude a role by God, he said according to MSNBC News.
“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the Pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
However, evolution does not answer all of the great philosophical questions, he said, including: Where does everything come from?
The Pope’s comments came during a question and answer session with a group of 400 priests, deacons, and seminarians from the region where he is vacationing.
To which I say:
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Al_Moritz
Guest
As usual, false dichotomy between evolution and design. As remedy, see Pope Benedict’s remarks above.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Evolution is God’s Design, see also the Pope’s comments above.
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edwest2
Guest
This does appear to be the case. This results in knowledge obtained by men means any knowledge given to us by God can be discarded. That’s too bad but it appears to be the goal.
Ed
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edwest2
Guest
Scientific claims trump any religious claim, including the involvement of a supernatural being. That is secular dogma.
Ed
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edwest2
Guest
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger:
"Monod nonetheless finds the possibility for evolution in the fact that in the very propagation of the project there can be mistakes in the act of transmission. Because nature is conservative, these mistakes, once having come into existence, are carried on. Such mistakes can add up, and from the adding up of mistakes something new can arise. Now an astonishing conclusion follows: It was in this way that the whole world of living creatures, and human beings themselves, came into existence. We are the product of “haphazard mistakes.” [5]
“What response shall we make to this view? It is the affair of the natural sciences to explain how the tree of life in particular continues to grow and how new branches shoot out from it. This is not a matter for faith. But we must have the audacity to say that the great projects of the living creation are not the products of chance and error. Nor are they the products of a selective process to which divine predicates can be attributed in illogical, unscientific, and even mythic fashion. The great projects of the living creation point to a creating Reason and show us a creating Intelligence, and they do so more luminously and radiantly today than ever before. Thus we can say today with a new certitude and joyousness that the human being is indeed a divine project, which only the creating Intelligence was strong and great and audacious enough to conceive of. Human beings are not a mistake but something willed; they are the fruit of love. They can disclose in themselves, in the bold project that they are, the language of the creating Intelligence that speaks to them and that moves them to say: Yes, Father, you have willed me.”
From the Catechism:
"295 We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom.141 It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom and goodness: "For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."142 Therefore the Psalmist exclaims: “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all”; and "The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.“14”
Peace,
Ed
"Monod nonetheless finds the possibility for evolution in the fact that in the very propagation of the project there can be mistakes in the act of transmission. Because nature is conservative, these mistakes, once having come into existence, are carried on. Such mistakes can add up, and from the adding up of mistakes something new can arise. Now an astonishing conclusion follows: It was in this way that the whole world of living creatures, and human beings themselves, came into existence. We are the product of “haphazard mistakes.” [5]
“What response shall we make to this view? It is the affair of the natural sciences to explain how the tree of life in particular continues to grow and how new branches shoot out from it. This is not a matter for faith. But we must have the audacity to say that the great projects of the living creation are not the products of chance and error. Nor are they the products of a selective process to which divine predicates can be attributed in illogical, unscientific, and even mythic fashion. The great projects of the living creation point to a creating Reason and show us a creating Intelligence, and they do so more luminously and radiantly today than ever before. Thus we can say today with a new certitude and joyousness that the human being is indeed a divine project, which only the creating Intelligence was strong and great and audacious enough to conceive of. Human beings are not a mistake but something willed; they are the fruit of love. They can disclose in themselves, in the bold project that they are, the language of the creating Intelligence that speaks to them and that moves them to say: Yes, Father, you have willed me.”
From the Catechism:
"295 We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom.141 It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom and goodness: "For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."142 Therefore the Psalmist exclaims: “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all”; and "The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.“14”
Peace,
Ed
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Al_Moritz
Guest
But only among secular dummies, including some scientists, who don’t know where the proper limits of science are.
In a 1998 statement titled Teaching about Evolution and Science, the American National Academy of Sciences said:
“At the root of the apparent conflict between some religions and evolution is a misunderstanding of the critical difference between religious and scientific ways of knowing. Religions and science answer different questions about the world …] Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.”
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Who am I, Bradski, that I should venture an opinion about what God could have done better?
I am far too preoccupied with what I could have done better to concern myself with what God does.
You presume far too much about the reach of human minds.
“To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.” - Lao Tsu
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