Myths and fairy tales ?

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What difference would it make to our faith if instead of trashing science as do the Young Earth Creationists, we listened intently to what scientists tell us about the world?..Therefore, unless we are willing to throw out all known science, the passage that death came into the world through the action of one hominid must be interpreted through the categories of theological symbolism.

StAnastasia
You answered yourself. If we listened intently to evolutionists (I think that is what you meant by “what scientists tell us about the world”) it would distort the doctrine of original sin. Why did we need to be redeemed from a theological symbol?
 
You are implying that the human soul “evolved” from a lower animal. In Humani Generis, this view is condemned in paragraph 36. It says that the Teaching Authority “does not forbid that…research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter–for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.”
How am I implying that?
 
Evolution is accepted by virtually all working biologists as the most cogent explanation for the diversity of life on earth. Rejecting this comprehensive theory – especially in favor of the prescientific creation story of an ancient desert tribe – would be an irrational rejection of science.

StAnastasia
As I’ve said before, there is a reason for evolution being preferred-- the idea that God should be separated from everything else, including science. With the theory of evolution, it doesn’t matter what you believe about God, or if you believe in Him at all. What is irrational about rejecting a theory preferred mainly because of this bias?

What is not “cogent” and “comprehensive” about creation?

That “prescientific creation story of an ancient desert tribe” is the inspired Word of God.
 
What do you mean?
You said that the passage about death coming into the world through the action of one “hominid” should be seen as “theological symbolism”. If Adam’s sin was a theological symbol, rather than a reality, why did we need to be redeemed from it?
 
I’m Catholic, former Protestant, with a couple of disagreements with Catholic doctrine.

When you’ve got from a culture which places it’s emphasis on the Bible, rather than tradition, then simply changing to “Catholic” does not change one’s whole outlook.

I’m sympathetic to Creationism, for a number of reasons. I may well be wrong, but one thing that evolution believing Christians never do is to propose the origin of sin, of which man alone is guilty. Where’s the dividing line between his supposed innocent animal ancestors and his guilt?

That sin is a reality is not in dispute. Five minutes honest introspection and a glance at today’s news will show unavoidable evidence of that fact. We are the only species which routinely engages in mass murder of its own kind.

If we “evolved” where did this schizophrenic, self-destructive morality come from? Why the human race above all?
Hi Bob,
Okay nicely put, but what are your disagreements? Briefly, please.
But all Church’s/ congregations/ assemblies have Traditions… When you join them and they instruct in their ‘interpretation of Scripture,’ they are teaching you their Tradition, they just don’t call it Tradition. Christianity is not a religion of the Book alone, it is a live/ living organism of God’s living Word.
God bless,
john :highprayer:
 
Evolution is accepted by virtually all working biologists as the most cogent explanation for the diversity of life on earth. Rejecting this comprehensive theory – especially in favor of the prescientific creation story of an ancient desert tribe – would be an irrational rejection of science.

StAnastasia
Hello,
Wow, this is a generalization if I ever heard of one, “Evolution is accepted virtually by all working biologists.” How many of these ‘all working’
and not agreeing with these biologists is an irrational rejection of science?
Evolution is not science, its a version of a story attempting to answer the question of how we got here.
God bless,
John:highprayer:
 
You said that the passage about death coming into the world through the action of one “hominid” should be seen as “theological symbolism”. If Adam’s sin was a theological symbol, rather than a reality, why did we need to be redeemed from it?
If it is mere symbolism, why does The Father Almighty send His Son to die on the Cross, Btw not symbolically but his life, death and Resurrection was witnessed by thousands.

If it is symbolism than scripture is incorrect,

Jerusalem Bible: Psa 144:3 “Yahweh, what is a human being for you to notice, a child of Adam for you to think about?”

Sirach/ Eccleisasticus 49:16, " Shem and Seth were the most honoured of men, but above every living creature is Adam.

Commentary NASB Catholic study Bible, Oxford U. Press): The Patriarch here mentioned were glorious because of their spirit of religion, i.e. their profound reverance for God and obedience to him. The splendor of adam, moreover was due to his direct origin from God."

Once we start saying well okay, there may have been no Adam… we might as well surrender next Cain, Abel, Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and any other archetype of Christ as made up characters to teach theological symbols… become baptists and symbolize the Eucharist as well.

Douay Catechism:
catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/catechism/douay.htm

Q. What is original sin?
A. It is a privation of original justice, which we inherit from our
first parent Adam, being all by course of nature, conceived and born in that
privation or original sin.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Rom. 5. 12.
“Therefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so unto all men death did pass, in whom all have sinned.”
Q. What are the effects of original sin?
A. Concupiscence, ignorance, evil inclination, proneness to sin,
sickness, and death.
Q. How is original sin taken away?
A. By holy baptism.

Have a great weekend,
God bless,
john :highprayer:
 
How is rejecting one theory (that even you said is not proven) in favor of another equivalent to denying science?
How about if one scientist disagrees with another scientist which ones science is wrong? If Thomas Edison didn’t believe in evolution, does that mean we oughtn’t believe in electricity?

Here’s a scientific conclusion I could live with based on A recent genetic study of human genes:
accuracyingenesis.com/adam.html
Code:
 A recent genetic study of human genes related to the brain concluded that possibly there appeared a "microcephalin variant (that) could have arisen anywhere from 14,000 to 60,000 years ago" and an "ASPM variant ranged from 500 to 14,000 years" ago and "roughly correlating with the development of written language, spread of agriculture and development of cities" (see more)
Now if one assumes that the “microcephalin variant could have arisen anywhere from 14,000 to 60,000 years ago”, possibly could correspond to the “Big Bang” or “Fortuitous Mutation” that Richard G. Klein refers to in his book “The Dawn of Human Culture” and says occurred about 50,000 years ago. Then, what about the “ASPM variant ranged from 500 to 14,000 years” ago and “roughly correlating with the development of written language, spread of agriculture and development of cities” as proposed.

The Bible repeatedly says that Adam and his immediate offspring were farmers

Genesis 2:15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and too keep it…

…More recent studies conducted by Melinda A Zeder and Brian Hesse (Science 287 (2000) 2254-57) place the initial domestication of goats to the Zargos Mountains at about 10,000 years ago. In more recent studies they have adjusted the dates slightly and now place domestication of sheep and goats at 11,000 years ago, pigs at 10,500, and cattle at 10,000. “The earlier dates mean that animals were domesticated at much the same time as crop plants, and bear on the issue of how this ensemble of new agricultural species – the farming package known as the Neolithic revolution – spread from the Near East to Europe.” And Manfred Heun’s (Science 278 (1997) 1312-14) studies indicate that large scale wheat cultivation began from 8,000 to 9,000 years ago near the Karacadag Mountains. Both areas are very near where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers come close together. …

…Conclusion:

We have summarized some of the data that seems to indicate that there was a cultural shift for humans that was brought on by the development of the farming society possibly allowed by the ASPM gene variant as early as 14,000 years ago. By examining the available archaeological data on the development of this farming community and comparing it to the Biblical Genesis description of Adam and his descendants we have attempted to demonstrate how this data provides us with an approximate time line for the Biblical Adam, the first man by Biblical definition, a farmer. Thus by farming man demonstrates his ability to;

… let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:26
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. Gen 1:29

I guess all those evolution scientist will be asking the above genetic scientists to remove their credentials from the pool.

God bless,
John :highprayer:
 
Evolution is accepted by virtually all working biologists as the most cogent explanation for the diversity of life on earth. Rejecting this comprehensive theory – especially in favor of the prescientific creation story of an ancient desert tribe – would be an irrational rejection of science.

StAnastasia
rejecting it would be denying God as author plus being a liar and the inerrancy of Scripture and the Church and, therefore, no longer a Catholic as self excommunicated - twinc
 
rejecting it would be denying God as author plus being a liar and the inerrancy of Scripture and the Church and, therefore, no longer a Catholic as self excommunicated - twinc
btw imho God is not a liar nor a God of confusion - so the confusion lies not with God but with the confused- twinc
 
Weren’t the threads on evolution banned at one time? I say BRING BACK THE BAN! They become soooo boring and tedious after awhile! One side says that creationism is the sign of a Righteous" believer.The other side says evolution is a not a theological proposition but a scientific one.All I know is the Church has said nothing either way dogmatic about believing in evolution -why not leave it at that?.Armchair theologians,scientist, biblical scholars are unimportant-what the church say is what determines what is important.Since there is no ban or interdict on evolutionary theories and since several popes have acknowledged evolution-why is it used by some people as a determinate of who a “good” Catholic is and what a “good” Catholic should believe?I find that rather despicable. Only God can determine who is truly righteous.
 
Rejecting this comprehensive theory – especially in favor of the prescientific creation story of an ancient desert tribe – would be an irrational rejection of science.

StAnastasia
It’s that particular prescientific ancient desert tribe through which God incarnated into the world. It’s that particular prescientific ancient desert tribe that eventually gave us most of what we (most of us anyway) believe as Catholics.

You accept teachings of the Church only when they have been “verified” by the scientific magesterium. That is a very dangerous path.

Are you up to speed on the whole scientific man made global warming hoax? If you still have faith in that, stay tuned, it gets worse and worse every day. There is much there in common with the other scientific theory you respect so much (BTW - isn’t that subject still banned?)
 
Weren’t the threads on evolution banned at one time? I say BRING BACK THE BAN! They become soooo boring and tedious after awhile! One side says that creationism is the sign of a Righteous" believer.The other side says evolution is a not a theological proposition but a scientific one.All I know is the Church has said nothing either way dogmatic about believing in evolution -why not leave it at that?.Armchair theologians,scientist, biblical scholars are unimportant-what the church say is what determines what is important.Since there is no ban or interdict on evolutionary theories and since several popes have acknowledged evolution-why is it used by some people as a determinate of who a “good” Catholic is and what a “good” Catholic should believe?I find that rather despicable. Only God can determine who is truly righteous.
Juliamajor, I think part of the problem is the low level of science education in the United States. I gave a talk at a conference on Evolution at Notre Dame University last autumn, and had a nice conversation with Josef Zycinski, Archbishop of Lublin in Poland. He was a professional scientist before he was ordained priest and then bishop. He has written a great book entitled God and Evolution (2006) (I highly recommend this), and expressed surprise to me at the huge amount of scientific ignorance in the US, especially with respect to evolutionary biology. It seems to make no difference with people on CAF that the two most recent popes and most educated Catholics accept evolution.

But in the end it matters not one whit what they think. The world’s biologists are not about to jettison 150 years of research and testing of evolution; the world’s geologists are not likely to replace 200 years of research in geology with a nomadic tale of a worldwide flood, and the world’s physicists and astronomers are not about to exchange what we know about the cosmos for the ancient cosmogonic myth of one tribal group. And educated Catholics are not about to jettison their faith and stop going to Mass just because some people tell them modern science is incompatible with their literal reading of scripture!

StAnastasia
 
It’s that particular prescientific ancient desert tribe that eventually gave us most of what we (most of us anyway) believe as Catholics.
I would add Greeks and Romans, but you’re right.
 
rejecting it would be denying God as author plus being a liar and the inerrancy of Scripture and the Church and, therefore, no longer a Catholic as self excommunicated - twinc
Twinc, can you please use punctuation? It would help make your meaning clear.
 
Hello, Wow, this is a generalization if I ever heard of one, “Evolution is accepted virtually by all working biologists.”
You’re right. It’s parallel to “gravity is accepted by virtually all working physicists,” or “plate tectonics is accepted by virtually all working geologists,” or “stellar formation from nebular accretion discs is accepted by virtually all working astronomers.”

StAnastasia
 
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