Pope Francis: ‘Evolution … is not inconsistent with the notion of creation’

[truetofaith]

Isn’t this news in the category of “non news”?

We (that is, we Catholics) came up with the Big Bank theory. That was Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître’s idea. He was a Jesuit and an academic.

He also first proposed what’s called Hubble’s Law

As for evolution, Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck anyone? Another Catholic who was in there even prior to Darwin.

What this story really demonstrates is two things:

1. What G. K. Chesterton already noted, when confronted with a question about evolution. We are “Catholics”, i.e, universal, and we’re not part of the American fundamentalist Christian denominations that reject such things. We shouldn’t be confused with them and we are pioneers in science ourselves.
2. American Catholics who get strongly wrapped up in the contrary view are really basically adopting a Protestant fundamentalist set of concepts.
3. The Press can’t tell the difference between Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, or “Evangelical Free” Christians. Or any other religion. A headline tomorrow that would state “Einstein Jewish! Jews approve of math!” would make just bout as much sense and be as relevant as what we’re now seeing in the press.

I love that : Catholic Church has the BIG BANK Theory! Keep the money rolling in!

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Evo is a philosophy as it is not empirical. We are trying to reconstruct what happened in the past one time and cannot recreate it.

Evolution is an alternative religion

If evolution is a philosophy or a religion, so is geology, archeology and history.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

So I am not sure what you are arguing. Mainstream science consensus denies design and purpose in evo. What you are agreeing to isn’t evo by today’s thinking. It is ID.

What you are arguing against, then, is a misrepresentation of evolution. In it’s simplest form, it does not deny the role of God in creation, and you have not been able to show otherwise. Please, no more strawman arguments. If you are going to argue against evolution, argue against its core claims, not against what some atheist had tried to turn it into.

 

[tomarin]

It is now known natural selection is a conservative process not a creative one. Mutations are mostly deleterious. In addition, our DNA programming actively fights mutations through several iterations. Even so, humans are devolving 1-5% per generation.

What does this mean exactly? What does a “devolved” human (or any organism) look like?

 

[Ed_Silvia]

Actually we have no detailed information on how God created the angels. Anyway there is no law saying God has to do things the same way every time. Even Jesus healed in different ways. Sometimes He spat on the ground to make mud. Sometimes He said “Get up, pick up your bed and go home.” And sometimes it was from someone touching his cloak.

Yes, you are correct and I believe God created Adam & then when he slept Eve. It’s the creation story He wants me to believe.

From my childhood to now I’ve had a beleaf the Bible is truly God’s inspired Word and feel an obligation to keep it. I would be fearful to disperse doubt on it.

 

[ialsop]

19 pages later, nobody has changed sides…

 

[wmp46]

Genesis Adam was created from the dust of the earth by God’s action; Adam is a sign for mankind
Bignami Professor told Italian news agency Adnkronos that pseudo creationist are now buried. . “We are the direct descendants from the Big Bang that created the universe. Evolution came from creation.”
Pope Benedict said something interpreting Genesis creation story that it is a type of myth, not the kind of myth we understand. As soon as Francis said this Darwinist come out and say a thinking knowledgeable Catholic now cannot deny we come from apes.
We have inner laws or logic that are tied to our creation
Francis said the beginning of the world was not “a work of chaos” but created from a principle of love. He said sometimes competing beliefs in creation and evolution could co-exist.
It seems science that works from a theory of chaos is contradictory to Francis a principle of love. Evolution in my mind the stronger gene, DNA, survives and the useless is discarded does not sound like a principle of love.

 

[wmp46]

Genesis Adam was created from the dust of the earth by God’s action; Adam is a sign for mankind
Bignami Professor told Italian news agency Adnkronos that pseudo creationist are now buried. . “We are the direct descendants from the Big Bang that created the universe. Evolution came from creation.”
Pope Benedict said something interpreting Genesis creation story that it is a type of myth, not the kind of myth we understand. As soon as Francis said this Darwinist come out and say a thinking knowledgeable Catholic now cannot deny we come from apes.
We have inner laws or logic that are tied to our creation
Francis said the beginning of the world was not “a work of chaos” but created from a principle of love. He said sometimes competing beliefs in creation and evolution could co-exist.
It seems science that works from a theory of chaos is contradictory to Francis a principle of love. Evolution in my mind the stronger gene, DNA, survives and the useless is discarded does not sound like a principle of love.

 

[Monkey1976]

Yes, you are correct and I believe God created Adam & then when he slept Eve. It’s the creation story He wants me to believe.

From my childhood to now I’ve had a beleaf the Bible is truly God’s inspired Word and feel an obligation to keep it. I would be fearful to disperse doubt on it.

There is nothing in evolution - as a properly understood science - that contradicts the creation of Adam and Eve as our first parents. All it does is reveal how Adam was “formed from the dust of the earth”. Deep-time genetic studies - the same ones that show how our evolution has progressed - are moving closer and closer to showing that we are all descended from one man (“Y-chromosome Adam”) and one woman (“Mitochondrial Eve”). The only discrepancy is the timelines, but those are moving closer and closer to showing the two as contemporaries.

 

[buffalo]

No, God has the foresight. The fact that God knew what Adam was going to look like is no problem at all for evolution. God also knew who would win the 1994 World Series. But that did not mean it wasn’t a real game.

The question is did Adam look as God planned?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The question is did Adam look as God planned?

That question has already been answered in the affirmative, the subsequent question of “So what?” has gone unanswered by you. You did say “Then evolution has foresight”, as if that were some sort of answer, but as I just showed, it does no damage to evolution.

 

[buffalo]

We have already debunked this kind of thinking earlier in the thread. But one thing I have learned is that creationists like you never are willing to learn anything but stick to their pre-conceived ideology. Debating is futile. I’ve learned that the hard way.

This has not been debunked. It is you who are sticking to a preconceived (a priori) ideology.

Even the top evos are acknowledging the modern synthesis is kaput. Why don’t you know this?

 

[pnewton]

If the Pope thinks God didn’t create life and the world the way it says he did in Genesis because God is not a magician or wizard, then what does he think about the hundreds of other miracles that were performed in the Bible that defy laws of science.

What he said was that evolution is not inconsistent with Genesis, not that it happened one way or another. I do not expect anyone to switch sides, but we should at least be clear as to what the Holy Father did and did not say.

God can also give gifts, yet one can use the analogy that He is not a slot machine that we drop a prayer in and pull the lever. This is the way analogies work.

As Genesis has two creation stories and I do not believe we have two worlds that were created one on top of another, I do not know why a less than literal understanding causes such consternation.

 

[buffalo]

If evolution is a philosophy or a religion, so is geology, archeology and history.

Indeed. That is the point.

 

[buffalo]

What you are arguing against, then, is a misrepresentation of evolution. In it’s simplest form, it does not deny the role of God in creation, and you have not been able to show otherwise. Please, no more strawman arguments. If you are going to argue against evolution, argue against its core claims, not against what some atheist had tried to turn it into.

For years I have argued against its core claims using modern science findings and papers.

What is evolution’s simplest form?

 

[buffalo]

What does this mean exactly? What does a “devolved” human (or any organism) look like?

Simply put - us - we are less than Adam and Eve, the prototypical humans.

 

[Jon_S_1]

For years I have argued against its core claims using modern science findings and papers.

What is evolution’s simplest form?

Wait you just said all branches of science are religions. So you use other religions to prove your points??

How odd.

 

[buffalo]

Yes.

 

[buffalo]

Wait you just said all branches of science are religions. So you use other religions to prove your points??

How odd.

Empirical science is observable, repeatable and predictable.

Others, such as ID and Evo definitely fall into philosophy.

 

[pepipop]

Yes.

Not forgetting to place Grandma and Grandpa Ape somewhere in the family tree - and/or the totally unknown, still undiscovered, ‘common ancestor’.