Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part Three

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Aloysium said:
We are not a species of animal, although sharing a similar physical form.
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St. Thomas Aquinas, the preeminent Doctor of the Church and Theologian begs to differ. According to him, we are “rational animals”. Sorry 🙂

Also science begs to differ as well, we are a species of homo sapiens sapiens. Yes, two sapiens. That is an animal classification according to our non spiritual physical makeup.
 
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The Church is right about everything else except for this then? Bastions of truth about Morality and Faith , but yet lowly and suicidal lemmings when it comes to evolution. Perhaps it is the other way around and those who oppose evolution are the lemmings who follow groupthink in opposing even the Church.
 
The problem is the theory is only useful for promoting atheism. Shared features only means the designer used similar body plans for animals. God, used in any context where He did nothing, is just a word, along with any other gods. The Biology textbook is all that’s required. Even though Catholics know it is incomplete. The word God can be discarded at any time.
 
benjamin1973 said:
That’s the thing-- if scientists are so wrong, it would have to be because God is a trickster.
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The only trick that is being played is by our minds.

Science is a relationship between ourselves and the natural world.
It is actually a very bad, user sort of relationship like a brutal master to his slave.

We construct world views that connect us to reality.
I see Hubble images in the night sky; a blue dome, gazing out at the Mediterranean.

As to clear blue days, I get nagged about putting sunscreen because of ugly oldman bumps that appear randomly on my scalp, the result of changes in what the genome tells my skin to do. The idea that lions, and zebras, and giraffes and whales, and snakes and we ourselves are the result of random mutations, I would say, most certainly suggests a trickster. And, that necessity (aka natural selection) is the deciding factor behind the diversity seen in nature, including plant life, animals with their instinctive behaviour, and the reality human existence is pure illusion; the magician distracts the audience with visions of molecules, and they miss the slight of hand, gullibly believing what he says.

Scientists following that route have no one to blame but themselves.
 
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Aloysium said:
he idea that lions, and zebras, and giraffes and whales, and snakes and we ourselves are the result of random mutations, I would say, most certainly suggests a trickster. And, that necessity (aka natural selection) is the deciding factor behind the diversity seen in nature, including plant life, animals with their instinctive behaviour, and the reality human existence is pure illusion
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I think this “random / order” thing is the false dichotomy that not only is used by atheists, but by people of faith. The fact is there is order and chaos or randomness in our Universe, in creation, even in the realm of math and numbers. If we believe God created everything, we also should come to the necessary conclusion that He created random things too.

Random is not anti-God or proof of Godlessness, far from it. God is the God of randomness as well as of order. At times our intellect sees only randomness, but in reality it is ordered in away beyond our intellect’s ability to see it being in any order.

Natural selection is also compatible with God’s plan, why not? Natural selection can be God’s creation as well.
 
edwest211 said:
The problem is the theory is only useful for promoting atheism. Shared features only means the designer used similar body plans for animals. God, used in any context where He did nothing, is just a word, along with any other gods. The Biology textbook is all that’s required. Even though Catholics know it is incomplete. The word God can be discarded at any time.
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Would you have the Biology textbook teach philosophy or religion? Those are outside its purview.

Knives are useful for the evil of stabbing people, but they are designed to cut non-human things. Cars are meant to get people around, but they also can take lives.

The theory isn’t intrinsically purposed for any specific ideology or philosophy, even if popular culture tries to say it does.
 
Techno2000 said:
There seems to be very few of us who don’t believe in Darwinism .
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Darwinism usually refers strictly to biological evolution, but creationists have appropriated it to refer to the origin of life, and it has even been applied to concepts of cosmic evolution, both of which have no connection to Darwin’s work.
 
edwest211 said:
The problem is the theory is only useful for promoting atheism.
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It is only given that power when YECs promote the idea that evolution is in conflict with religion. If the YECs would drop that stance, the atheists would not be able to use evolution as a wedge to drive people from God.
The word God can be discarded at any time.
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No, not at any time. And not discarded. Just set aside. For example, when you are playing baseball and want to determine if someone is out or safe at home plate, the word “God” does not enter into the decision. That’s because the rules of baseball make no mention of God. It does not mean that baseball is useful for promoting atheism. Similarly the rules of science are based on physical evidence.
 
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LeafByNiggle said:
For example, when you are playing baseball and want to determine if someone is out or safe at home plate, the word “God” does not enter into the decision. That’s because the rules of baseball make no mention of God. It does not mean that baseball is useful for promoting atheism. Similarly the rules of science are based on physical evidence.
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Great example, thanks @LeafByNiggle!

I found this interesting article on my news feed. Appearently, evolution in British people happened in the last 10,000 years, originally they were as dark skinned as any person living near the equator!

www.foxnews.com

DNA From 'Cheddar Man' reveals surprise about early Brits

Think of a stereotypical Brit and you may imagine a pale cast member from Downton Abbey.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
 
The Biology textbook is a secular ‘religious’ book. Just ask Richard Dawkins.
 
edwest211 said:
The Biology textbook is a secular ‘religious’ book. Just ask Richard Dawkins.
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And you believe what Dawkins tell you? Is he right about everything else as well?

There is no mention of God in Pythagoras’ Theorem; does that mean Tru-Christians™ cannot accept Pythagoras, who after all was a heathen non-Christian who worshipped pagan gods.

rossum
 
anon65111186 said:
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Aloysium:
We are not a species of animal, although sharing a similar physical form.
Click to expand...
St. Thomas Aquinas, the preeminent Doctor of the Church and Theologian begs to differ. According to him, we are “rational animals”. Sorry 🙂

Also science begs to differ as well, we are a species of homo sapiens sapiens. Yes, two sapiens. That is an animal classification according to our non spiritual physical makeup.
Click to expand...
The short of it is that the word animal is derived from the Latin anima - soul.

We are described as having a rational soul. Philosophers love the definition. I tend toward the idea that we have a soul that can love, and therefore involves the capacity to know the good with a free will to give ourselves over to it.

My use of “animal” was intended to address organisms which perceive their environment, feel about and act within it on an instinctive basis, those that have a sensitive soul which allows them to perceive, imagine and act. It is of a different order than the vegetative soul of plants, although it includes those basic capacities of life, for development, growth and reproduction.

We are not animals in that sense, but a new and different creation:

“There exists, therefore, an operation of the soul which so far exceeds the corporeal nature that it is not even performed by any corporeal organ; and such is the operation of the ‘rational soul.’” (Q. 78, Art. 1)

We are as different from those creatures with sensitive souls as they are to those with vegetative souls.

Homo sapiens is a human invention, a category we use to group ourselves with other forms of life. It is not synonymous with mankind.
 
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You keep saying this, and I keep correcting you. I’ll try it again, and undoubtedly you will ignore me again.

“Use” is determined by a goal: an act is useful which serves a goal. If your goal is to maintain a literal Biblical world view, then evolution is less than useful-- it is harmful. If your goal is to draw interesting connections among animal species, either the multitude alive today or those throughout history, then evolution is infinitely more useful than Biblical accounts like that found in Genesis.
 
If the goal is to understand the nature of life and ourselves as expressions of life, how does the theory of evolution bring us any closer to the truth? The scientific evidence points towards creation.
 
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Let’s get away from Biblical accounts. Animals alive today - how does evolution apply to studying them? It doesn’t. Long before the current theory, people studied animals and learned their behaviors. The theory hasn’t added anything to that. Can we study them in greater detail in real life, now? Yes, but that’s only recording observations. Evolution has nothing to add to that. If we find two identical birds that can’t mate, even though they live on the same continent, we record that. The end.

Yes, animals lived and died in the past. We only have their skeletal remains, and sometimes, a bit more. We observe, do some testing. The end.

quote “… evolution is infinitely more useful …” End quote/ – How so?
 
edwest211 said:
Let’s get away from Biblical accounts. Animals alive today - how does evolution apply to studying them? It doesn’t.
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Are you sure you are qualified to know what the practical applications are of a particular theory? What if I asked you how the theory of Maxwell’s equations applies to the study of radio waves? Could you do it? If not, would I be justified in saying that Maxwell’s equations have no practical use? Of course not. Only an expert in the field of electromagnetic radiation is qualified to say if Maxwell is of any use. Similarly, only an expert in genetic biology is qualified to say if evolutionary theory is of any use. By the way, this is a real field with real experts, so don’t try to say it is so simple that anyone could do it.
 
EVOLUTION – Genetic Novelty/Genomic Variations by RNA Networks and Viruses

For more than half a century it has been accepted that new genetic information is mostly derived from random‚ error-based’ events. Now it is recognized that errors cannot explain genetic novelty and complexity.

Empirical evidence establishes the crucial role of non-random genetic content editors such as viruses and RNA-networks to create genetic novelty, complex regulatory control, inheritance vectors, genetic identity, immunity, new sequence space, evolution of complex organisms and evolutionary transitions.

http://www.rna-networks.at/about/
 
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anon65111186 said:
God can reveal to us if He wills, but also as in His words, “ask, and it will be given to you”. Who is asking God to explain his every move? We are seeking to know God, after all, that is our purpose on earth, to know, love and serve God.

That’s the joy of learning! - Asking and finding answers, which lead to more questions.

Science works exactly the same way. If scientists said, let’s not ask questions, it just leads to more questions, we would have been a lot worse off today
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Romans 11:33-35
“O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him?”
 
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