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buffalo
Guest
When it is not empirical, that is observable, repeatable and predictable? OK…
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B
buffalo
Guest
What? It cannot let the “divine foot in the door”.
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Gorgias
Guest
Scientism says that. I agree that scientism is mistaken.
Evolution doesn’t say that. (Those who wrap a scientist cloak around the theory of evolution say that, though. Their error is scientism, not evolution.)
Heck, saying “evolution is atheist philosophy” is like saying “calculus is the devil!”
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buffalo
Guest
It is. Atheism needs evolution.
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edwest
Guest
Thank you very much.
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edwest
Guest
That is the core issue.
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CzechMan
Guest
I think the problem with many Christians rejecting the scientific discoveries proving evolution is they want to believe that everything in the first chapters of Genesis is literally true. They don’t want to think the stories could be instead symbolic stories, not to be taken literally. Some people even claim that everything in the Bible is to be taken literally, nothing is just symbolic. Though they can then have a trouble explaining for example how come the prostitute called Babylon the Great in the book of Revelation is also called a city in that book. No woman can be literally a city. And certainly the Catholic church does not teach taking everything in the Bible literally. For example it teaches there will be no literal millennium, a period of exactly one thousand years during which saints will reign and Satan will be bound, instead it teaches that is a wrong interpretation of Rev. 20, the millennium started in the first century, it is not literally 1000 years.
Concerning science, Christianity has been through conflicts between literal interpretation and science always. If I take the Bible literally, I can prove the earth is flat. Already in the second century, as we can see from the writings of Ante-Nicene Fathers, this was discussed, some of the Catholic theologians taught the earth is flat, others disagreed, accepted the scientific findings, that it is round. Well, later the church as a whole accepted the earth is round. Though still they believed the earth is at the center of the universe, it does not move, the sun for example goes around it. And certainly when you take some verses literally, you can prove that is what the Bible teaches. I have seen such verses. Well, then one day Copernicus provided some evidence that the earth moves around the sun, then Galileo proved it using scientific evidence, especially his evidence from his telescope, and at first most Christians had a hard time accepting it. Luther for example rejected it. Well, nowadays few Christians still feel the earth does not move, the sun and stars etc. go around it, though there are Christian websites that are claiming that is true. And even fewer Christians believe the earth is flat, even though nowadays this belief seems to be becoming more common, there are Christian web sites that claim that, and try to provide scientific evidence, and sometimes also evidence from the Bible. Well, they can provide all kinds of scientific evidence, but it is scientifically disproven. They are fighting science. They claim there is a conspiracy of scientists trying to prove the Bible is not true.
Similarly those who claim evolution, or at least macroevolution is false. I have read about so much scientific evidence, that it is clear, macroevolution is a fact, it has been happening for billions of years, and it continues. But they are fighting science. They claim there is a conspiracy of scientists trying to prove the Bible is not true. Even though there are plenty of Christian and Jewish biologists and geologists and other scientists who know the evidence for macroevolution is true, and still they believe the Bible is true, including the book of Genesis.
Concerning science, Christianity has been through conflicts between literal interpretation and science always. If I take the Bible literally, I can prove the earth is flat. Already in the second century, as we can see from the writings of Ante-Nicene Fathers, this was discussed, some of the Catholic theologians taught the earth is flat, others disagreed, accepted the scientific findings, that it is round. Well, later the church as a whole accepted the earth is round. Though still they believed the earth is at the center of the universe, it does not move, the sun for example goes around it. And certainly when you take some verses literally, you can prove that is what the Bible teaches. I have seen such verses. Well, then one day Copernicus provided some evidence that the earth moves around the sun, then Galileo proved it using scientific evidence, especially his evidence from his telescope, and at first most Christians had a hard time accepting it. Luther for example rejected it. Well, nowadays few Christians still feel the earth does not move, the sun and stars etc. go around it, though there are Christian websites that are claiming that is true. And even fewer Christians believe the earth is flat, even though nowadays this belief seems to be becoming more common, there are Christian web sites that claim that, and try to provide scientific evidence, and sometimes also evidence from the Bible. Well, they can provide all kinds of scientific evidence, but it is scientifically disproven. They are fighting science. They claim there is a conspiracy of scientists trying to prove the Bible is not true.
Similarly those who claim evolution, or at least macroevolution is false. I have read about so much scientific evidence, that it is clear, macroevolution is a fact, it has been happening for billions of years, and it continues. But they are fighting science. They claim there is a conspiracy of scientists trying to prove the Bible is not true. Even though there are plenty of Christian and Jewish biologists and geologists and other scientists who know the evidence for macroevolution is true, and still they believe the Bible is true, including the book of Genesis.
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edwest
Guest
Humani Generis:
In the book, Benedict reflected on a 1996 comment of his predecessor, John Paul II, who said that Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution were sound, as long as they took into account that creation was the work of God, and that Darwin’s theory of evolution was “more than a hypothesis.”
“The pope (John Paul) had his reasons for saying this,” Benedict said. “But it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.”
Benedict added that the immense time span that evolution covers made it impossible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to finally verify or disprove the theory.
“We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory,” he said.
- If anyone examines the state of affairs outside the Christian fold, he will easily discover the principle trends that not a few learned men are following. Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution, which has not been fully proved even in the domain of natural sciences, explains the origin of all things, and audaciously support the monistic and pantheistic opinion that the world is in continual evolution. Communists gladly subscribe to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism.
- In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents.
- To return, however, to the new opinions mentioned above, a number of things are proposed or suggested by some even against the divine authorship of Sacred Scripture. For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council’s definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters. They even wrongly speak of a human sense of the Scriptures, beneath which a divine sense, which they say is the only infallible meaning, lies hidden. In interpreting Scripture, they will take no account of the analogy of faith and the Tradition of the Church. Thus they judge the doctrine of the Fathers and of the Teaching Church by the norm of Holy Scripture, interpreted by the purely human reason of exegetes, instead of explaining Holy Scripture according to the mind of the Church which Christ Our Lord has appointed guardian and interpreter of the whole deposit of divinely revealed truth.
In the book, Benedict reflected on a 1996 comment of his predecessor, John Paul II, who said that Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution were sound, as long as they took into account that creation was the work of God, and that Darwin’s theory of evolution was “more than a hypothesis.”
“The pope (John Paul) had his reasons for saying this,” Benedict said. “But it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.”
Benedict added that the immense time span that evolution covers made it impossible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to finally verify or disprove the theory.
“We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory,” he said.
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