Reconciliation of Christianity and Science?

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jomoco said:
Hi Barb,

I wish I could speak with the absolute conviction that you appear to have, but in all honesty I can’t on many subjects.

Many millions of good honest and devout Catholics believe their popes to be infallible. And while I can respect and even honor and admire their convictions on that belief, I can’t share it because the very well documented historical facts prove otherwise in terms of Copernicus and Galileo being right on the matter of heliocentricity, and the pope of that era being wrong. Pragmatic fellow that I am, I stand with Copernicus and hard science, and truth on that particular matter. Further it confirms my heartfelt belief that all men born of woman are inherently flawed and fallible regardless of how exalted their office or station in life may be.

Imagine how brave Copernicus was to fly in the face of popular and accepted beliefs at the risk of his life simply because he honestly believed he had the truth on his side.

Anyway Barb, I’m happy that we seem to agree on two matters, and two out of three aint bad.

Thanks for your consideration of my unusual thread ma-lady.

Respectfully,

jomoco
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jomoco, this article addresses your misunderstandings of Galileo and infallibility:

catholic.com/library/Galileo_Controversy.asp
 
I understand the principle in this forum as using the Bible as a science book per se. Here’s the thing, Jesus did not just show up and preach seek and ye shall find, this was a part of His teaching, but not the culmination of it. Also, the object He was preaching about finding was the Kingdom of Heaven…which “Is not of this world”. It seems that this whole Genesis project you have concocted, although creative and perhaps worthwhile, is not the Tree of Life nor should really be compared to it. You are creating an idea, nowhere supported in scripture, that the Kingdom is of a worldly substance, and that we should strive to create it. It’s already been created by Christ himself, and we are to seek entrance into it by faith and works through His Grace in the here and now. Science is a great thing and you should continue working on the project and let us know the results, however even if you create some way in which we can prolong life, I assure you all will die eventually. You say you believe in a loving Christian God, however your examples and thoughts clearly contradict this fact and point to a more deistic God. You say things like “I have never heard back from him” and “It’s a waste of time to wait for Christ to return”. Yet, the scriptures confirm both things. So, either take the Scriptures fully for what they are, or leave them out of your ‘humanistic and deistic experiments’ which do not represent what God is really all about.

It seems you have taken the Albert Eintstein approach assuming the the Kingdom of God is nothing but a worldly organization made up of truth seekers. This is heresy.

Also, how could a loving God cause sin to occur? This would make God a sinner. He allowed for free will on the part of the serpent and on the part of the person. The serpent chose evil first, and then caused the person to follow in accordance. The cause of this sin then does not originate with God, but rather the individual chooser. God did not create the devil evil, he chose it. He did not create us sinners, we chose it. Love does not desire to ‘make’ the person love him against their will, but rather wants him or her to choose Love freely, or else Love loses all meaning. The result of evil is simply the abuse of God given freedom, thus originating only from the creation, not creator. Forced obedience, even with a great reward, lacks love. Chosen obedience is love. Thus, we needed choice so that love could exist; For God is love.
 
jomoco said:
Hello Don,

On the matter of whether or not God set up Adam and Eve to fall? My reading of Genesis led me to understand that God and God alone made the earth, heavens, oceans and every animal, fish, reptile, insect, in short everything on the planet including Adam and Eve along with every tree, bush and fern.

Now if God made everything and not just some of the things, then cold logic indicates to me that it had to be a set up. In other words that serpent according to Genesis was made by God for a reason. That reason was to tempt His own creations that He Himself had made to fall, setting off the long chain of events that have led to our present poor flawed world of today.

Now as I previously stated, I’m of the opinion that everything has gone exactly as God intended right from the get go, to provide contrast to how glorious His kingdom to come will be compared to our present pathetically flawed state of being presently in the world around us so depressingly today. You see it’s the woeful lack of both truth and love in our world right now that’s ruining us. It’s truth that God can and will win the coming battle with, and love that will sustain his coming kingdom, in my humble pragmatic opinion.

We’ll just have to disagree concerning homosexuals, in that I truly love my brother, flaws and all. He is one of the most intelligent, honorable and patriotic men I have ever known.
He too is not only a creation of God, but loved by Him too in my opinion Don, flawed though it may be.

I can certainly respect your views, and hope that we can respectfully disagree with each other on these admittedly very important matters.

Best regards,

jomoco
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Hi, jomoco,

Thank you, for your consideration of my opinions.

Although, I think you glossed over the information that God created all His angels to worship and serve Him. It was neither God’s will nor His fault that Lucifer, unflawed and with no excuse of character defect, deemed himself to judge our Creator and judged how our Creator put man above angels in Divine regard. Very simply, Lucifer must have thought he knew better than God, to have led the revolt against God. So, in my mind, it was Lucifer, not God, who brought evil into Creation.
And, Satan still successfully tempts people all the way up to our time, to think they know better than God.

Since the salvation of your brother relies upon his conceding he’s a sinner in need of God’s redemption, just like anybody else, I can’t agree to disagree with you.

But, I won’t badger you nor belabor my position.

God loves you,
Don
 
donsnow said:
Hi, jomoco,

Thank you, for your consideration of my opinions.

Although, I think you glossed over the information that God created all His angels to worship and serve Him. It was neither God’s will nor His fault that Lucifer, unflawed and with no excuse of character defect, deemed himself to judge our Creator and judged how our Creator put man above angels in Divine regard. Very simply, Lucifer must have thought he knew better than God, to have led the revolt against God. So, in my mind, it was Lucifer, not God, who brought evil into Creation.
And, Satan still successfully tempts people all the way up to our time, to think they know better than God.

Since the salvation of your brother relies upon his conceding he’s a sinner in need of God’s redemption, just like anybody else, I can’t agree to disagree with you.

But, I won’t badger you nor belabor my position.

God loves you,
Don
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Hi Don,

Now flawed and very fallible fellow that I am, I may very well have missed or misread one of the chapters in Genesis prior to 3:22 wherein God speaks of Lucifer hanging around in the Garden of Eden and possessing one of God’s serpents. And I certainly stand ready to have that verse of Genesis pointed out to me to clear up my misconceptions on Genesis.

Thanks Don,

jomoco
 
jomoco said:
Hi Don,

Now flawed and very fallible fellow that I am, I may very well have missed or misread one of the chapters in Genesis prior to 3:22 wherein God speaks of Lucifer hanging around in the Garden of Eden and possessing one of God’s serpents. And I certainly stand ready to have that verse of Genesis pointed out to me to clear up my misconceptions on Genesis.

Thanks Don,

jomoco
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Hi, jomoco,

There are no verses in Genesis, but further on in both OT and NT, there are verses describing Lucifer’s fall. I can’t remember any verse anywhere stating that Lucifer hung out in the Garden of Eden. However, I’m sure that there is traditional accounts which explain that a name for Satan is Lucifer. And, it’s common knowledge that the snake and dragon are symbols for the devil.

God loves you,
Don
 
donsnow said:
Hi, jomoco,

There are no verses in Genesis, but further on in both OT and NT, there are verses describing Lucifer’s fall. I can’t remember any verse anywhere stating that Lucifer hung out in the Garden of Eden. However, I’m sure that there is traditional accounts which explain that a name for Satan is Lucifer. And, it’s common knowledge that the snake and dragon are symbols for the devil.

God loves you,
Don
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Thanks for your forthright honesty Don, it’s very refreshing in today’s world where the truth has such little and illusory value.

Best regards,

jomoco
 
jomoco said:
While I appreciate your attempt to help me out here FCEGM, I respectfully disagree.

What was John Paul apologising for in 1992 my friend?

freethought.mbdojo.com/galileo.html

pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/jan-june00/apology_3-13.html

Respectfully,

jomoco
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Bl. John Paul’s apology had nothing to do with the doctrine of infallibility, though some, not understanding the doctrine, try to make it so. The article I recommended speaks to that issue:
. . .*Although three of the ten cardinals who judged Galileo refused to sign the verdict, his works were eventually condemned. Anti-Catholics often assert that his conviction and later rehabilitation somehow disproves the doctrine of papal infallibility, but this is not the case, for the pope never tried to make an infallible ruling concerning Galileo’s views.
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The Church has never claimed ordinary tribunals, such as the one that judged Galileo, to be infallible. Church tribunals have disciplinary and juridical authority only; neither they nor their decisions are infallible.
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No ecumenical council met concerning Galileo, and the pope was not at the center of the discussions, which were handled by the Holy Office. When the Holy Office finished its work, Urban VIII ratified its verdict, but did not attempt to engage infallibility.
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Three conditions must be met for a pope to exercise the charism of infallibility: (1) he must speak in his official capacity as the successor of Peter; (2) he must speak on a matter of faith or morals; and (3) he must solemnly define the doctrine as one that must be held by all the faithful.
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In Galileo’s case, the second and third conditions were not present, and possibly not even the first. Catholic theology has never claimed that a mere papal ratification of a tribunal decree is an exercise of infallibility. It is a straw man argument to represent the Catholic Church as having infallibly defined a scientific theory that turned out to be false. The strongest claim that can be made is that the Church of Galileo’s day issued a non-infallible disciplinary ruling concerning a scientist who was advocating a new and still-unproved theory and demanding that the Church change its understanding of Scripture to fit his*.
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The late Holy Father’s reasons for addressing the Galileo affair are presented in this article which also gives a more thorough presentation on the history of it:

catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0005.html

Since you are a scientist, you might find the works of Fr. Stanley Jaki, priest and physicist of interest:

columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/jaki/cv96.html

religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=76
 
FCEGM said:
Bl. John Paul’s apology had nothing to do with the doctrine of infallibility, though some, not understanding the doctrine, try to make it so. The article I recommended speaks to that issue:

The late Holy Father’s reasons for addressing the Galileo affair are presented in this article which also gives a more thorough presentation on the history of it:

catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0005.html

Since you are a scientist, you might find the works of Fr. Stanley Jaki, priest and physicist of interest:

columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/jaki/cv96.html

Hi FCEGM,

I am by no means a scientist, and if I gave anyone that impression I sincerely apologise.

I am an amateur at many things, but an expert at nothing, particularly religious matters.

There’s nothing to be gained through my offending the many good Catholics here at this website who truly believe their Popes throughout history have been and still are infallible.

It’s simply my amateur opinion that no man born of woman has ever been infallible throughout our entire history period. Like I said I’m a pragmatic fellow who looks at things from an objective point of view. I do believe in a Christian God. I also see Jesus as the greatest man in history hands down without a doubt. My beef is that so very few people emulate Him in any true sense. Jesus never once walked around with any gold or fancy raiment on lording His greatness over anybody at all, according to my reading of the bible
He left that sort of thing to the romans and pharisees.

Furthermore second third and fourth hand accounts of Jesus’ life, especially after Constantine and Nicea, deciding whose account of Jesus’ life became canon to the church and whose didn’t, in such primitive macho circumstances over 1600 years ago, is hardly anything a pragmatic fellow like me can feel absolutely about knowing human nature and its frailties as I like to think I do.

I do believe enough of his life was portrayed accurately enough though to give a fairly good description of the fine fellow He was, and that He died for the conviction of His beliefs.

Truth and truth alone is a hard standard for any man or woman to keep. Perhaps God has a plan for us to meet that standard by wroughting change in the brains of mankind so that any lie is readily apparent to all. The only reason anyone lies or deceives is because they think they have a good chance of getting away with it. If knowledge of God can change mankind in a tangible sense to the point that lying becomes impossible to get away with, it is my opinion that the world would be a heckuva lot better place than it is currently, from an objective, tangible and touchable point of view.

I may indeed be a fool, but there are sections of the New Testament Bible that exhort us to be fools for the Lord’s sake. Perhaps I’m one of those fools?

Best regards to all,

jomoco
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I don’t know why, but for some reason I feel that everyone wants the Bible to open itself up and reveal its secrets as being hidden pseudo science. Maybe this is a dawning of a new religion - I’ll pass on joining.

“Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,” Heb 9:27

I don’t understand how you could promote Scriptural interpretation by means of denouncing Scripture. Again, your theory is cool and all, I won’t knock it. But just because your idea was inspired by reading scripture, does not make it a part of, or an accurate interpretation of such scripture.
Perhaps God has a plan for us to meet that standard by wroughting change in the brains of mankind so that any lie is readily apparent to all
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He doesn’t have to change our brains, we have to return the love. I think the Holy Spirit will take care of us so that we will be able to spot lies as soon as we gather up enough faith, love, and trust in God to merit and want it.

Papal Infallibility is a grain of salt compared to the Truth that Jesus was fully God in human form. I wouldn’t expect you to believe infallibility, but denying Jesus as the Christ followed by promotion of deep Biblical revelation seems a bit, well, wrong. I would never doubt that God has his plans and works constantly through any and all that He so desires, but this whole experiments seems just that; an experiment - however brilliant or creative of one at that.
I may indeed be a fool, but there are sections of the New Testament Bible that exhort us to be fools for the Lord’s sake. Perhaps I’m one of those fools?
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I believe He calls us all to be such ‘fools’ in the eyes of the world. So yes, He most definitely is calling you to become one. I think your premise is off in the fact that you believe a human scientific study will be the means by which we gain eternal life. I’ll stick with God’s plan of eternal life gained through faith in Christ. Besides, who wants to live on Earth forever anyway? - at least in its current state. Besides, overcrowded anyone?
-Perhaps accepting that God took care of making sure the proper Cannon was used is the first step to becoming one of these ‘fools’? It’s about faith, not raw science.
no man born of woman
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what about the men nor born of women? 😛
 
The old and new testament bibles take on new meaning to me when read with Gen 7 in mind. From the Genesis fruits of the tree of life, to Roman’s speaking of grafting new limbs onto trees, to Corinthians’ stating that the body is the temple of the holy ghost/spirit, to Revelations 22 speaking to the river of life that bares its fruit 12 times a year. All these parables to me seem completely allegorical in that they use a known example of something commonly understood to describe something hidden that is of great and even revelatory importance that comes from God and not of man.

For me all it took was Genesis 3:22 to set my mind to wondering what exactly constituted the fruits of the tree of life that was there in the garden to partake of by simply putting forth a hand?

There’s a logic and symmetry to the Gen 7 theory in that it uses the fruits of both man and woman to arrive at a product designed by God whose brilliance as a master designer will be indisputable should Gen 7 prove itself viable scientifically. No worth could be attributable to mankind, it would all go to God, our designer, whose plans for us have for too long been seen through a glass darkly, vaguely.

I invite you to read these 114 sayings of Jesus bearing Gen 7 in mind and see if they have new meaning?

earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/

Best regards,

jomoco
 
jomoco said:
The old and new testament bibles take on new meaning to me when read with Gen 7 in mind. From the Genesis fruits of the tree of life, to Roman’s speaking of grafting new limbs onto trees, to Corinthians’ stating that the body is the temple of the holy ghost/spirit, to Revelations 22 speaking to the river of life that bares its fruit 12 times a year. All these parables to me seem completely allegorical in that they use a known example of something commonly understood to describe something hidden that is of great and even revelatory importance that comes from God and not of man.

For me all it took was Genesis 3:22 to set my mind to wondering what exactly constituted the fruits of the tree of life that was there in the garden to partake of by simply putting forth a hand?

There’s a logic and symmetry to the Gen 7 theory in that it uses the fruits of both man and woman to arrive at a product designed by God whose brilliance as a master designer will be indisputable should Gen 7 prove itself viable scientifically. No worth could be attributable to mankind, it would all go to God, our designer, whose plans for us have for too long been seen through a glass darkly, vaguely.

I invite you to read these 114 sayings of Jesus bearing Gen 7 in mind and see if they have new meaning?

earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/

Best regards,

jomoco
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Hi, jomoco,

The rereading of Genesis 7 I found refreshing.

I went to your link, and the title of the page, “…Gospel of Thomas” brought me to a screeching halt. I am old, and fallible and weak and yet imperfect. I do not have time to study writings outside of the canon, when it comes to religion. I have yet to finish my reading and study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition.

In my low estate of education, I do believe that I must “go with what I have”, and try to live that with my understanding of Catholic teaching during my life with Christ on this earth.

Since I’m not sure of your premise that you are trying to present, there’s no sense in my discussing it.

God loves you,
Don
 
donsnow said:
Hi, jomoco,

The rereading of Genesis 7 I found refreshing.

I went to your link, and the title of the page, “…Gospel of Thomas” brought me to a screeching halt. I am old, and fallible and weak and yet imperfect. I do not have time to study writings outside of the canon, when it comes to religion. I have yet to finish my reading and study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition.

In my low estate of education, I do believe that I must “go with what I have”, and try to live that with my understanding of Catholic teaching during my life with Christ on this earth.

Since I’m not sure of your premise that you are trying to present, there’s no sense in my discussing it.

God loves you,
Don
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Hi Don,

I must confess to being very curious about why 114 parables or sayings of Jesus, the majority of them found in the books of the new testament, should bring you to a “screeching halt?” Is it because they are considered outside the canons of the RCC determined at Nicea by Constantine etc?

I’m also a bit bewildered that despite Jesus’ exhorting us to seek and find, indeed to seek until you find, there seem to be a few folks here who consider my modern day seeking to find answers to biblical mysteries as yet unresolved somehow heretical. Why is that? Are we to wait around like passive sheep grazing until the answers to our myriad problems float down from the clouds at some unknown obscure point in the future?

If Jesus Himself encourages us to seek until we find, why would anyone obeying Him be considered a heretic? I find that a bit bizarre myself.

I would very much appreciate you Don, or anyone else here explaining these seemingly contradictory aspects of modern Christianity to me if possible.

Respectfully,

jomoco
 
jomoco said:
Hi Barb,

I wish I could speak with the absolute conviction that you appear to have, but in all honesty I can’t on many subjects.

Many millions of good honest and devout Catholics believe their popes to be infallible. And while I can respect and even honor and admire their convictions on that belief, I can’t share it because the very well documented historical facts prove otherwise in terms of Copernicus and Galileo being right on the matter of heliocentricity, and the pope of that era being wrong. Pragmatic fellow that I am, I stand with Copernicus and hard science, and truth on that particular matter. Further it confirms my heartfelt belief that all men born of woman are inherently flawed and fallible regardless of how exalted their office or station in life may be.

Imagine how brave Copernicus was to fly in the face of popular and accepted beliefs at the risk of his life simply because he honestly believed he had the truth on his side.

Anyway Barb, I’m happy that we seem to agree on two matters, and two out of three aint bad.

Thanks for your consideration of my unusual thread ma-lady.

Respectfully,

jomoco
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Respectfully, I think many do not know what happened between the Church and Galileo. For some, he has become a secular saint, which is inappropriate. People who wish to understand the relationship between Copernicus (Nikolai Kopernik) and the Church should look beyond often repeated misconceptions.

catholic.com/library/Galileo_Controversy.asp

Sometimes, things get lodged in the popular imagination that have little to do with the facts of the matter.

Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
Respectfully, I think many do not know what happened between the Church and Galileo. For some, he has become a secular saint, which is inappropriate. People who wish to understand the relationship between Copernicus (Nikolai Kopernik) and the Church should look beyond often repeated misconceptions.

catholic.com/library/Galileo_Controversy.asp

Sometimes, things get lodged in the popular imagination that have little to do with the facts of the matter.

Peace,
Ed
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Hi Ed,

Thanks for the link. I just read all of it, and it pretty much confirms my thoughts on the subject. I appreciate how convenient it was, and still is to blame the underlings of the RCC for the Galileo travesty in an attempt to keep the Popes involved with the matter blameless, and therefore somehow still infallible. However in my opinion, had those Popes truly been infallible they would have known the truth and acted on it to keep their church from making the mistake of forcing Galileo to recant the truth. The whole matter only serves to highlight mankinds fallibility throughout our entire history to this present day. Dissembling and nitpicking the mistakes of underlings, three of which did not concur with the error, is hardly indicative of having an infallible Pope at the helm of the RCC in my admitted flawed opinion.

I appreciate your help though. And respect your opinions on the matter.

Best regards,

jomoco
 
In my reading of the same article, Galileo was running around yelling, “I proved it! I proved it!” and he had not indeed proved it. The Church was being appropriately cautious before all of the facts were in. I think it was reasonable as far as scientific matters go. Part 7 of the following document explains this clearly.

its.caltech.edu/~nmcenter/sci-cp/sci-9211.html

Blessed Pope John Paul II started an inquiry that resulted in these conclusions.

Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
In my reading of the same article, Galileo was running around yelling, “I proved it! I proved it!” and he had not indeed proved it. The Church was being appropriately cautious before all of the facts were in. I think it was reasonable as far as scientific matters go. Part 7 of the following document explains this clearly.

its.caltech.edu/~nmcenter/sci-cp/sci-9211.html

Blessed Pope John Paul II started an inquiry that resulted in these conclusions.

Peace,
Ed
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Excellent link Ed, thank you very much.

While it does not change my opinion on the Galileo affair, it does give me great hope to learn that the RCC believes as I most certainly do, that Christianity and science can indeed be reconciled with one another!

I very much appreciate your bringing this good news to my attention Ed.

Sincerely,

jomoco
 
Why is the Gospel of Thomas something you place a greater emphasis on, and belief in, than the current Bible?
 
jonathanjlinn said:
Why is the Gospel of Thomas something you place a greater emphasis on, and belief in, than the current Bible?
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I do not place a greater emphasis on the Gospel of Thomas than I do either the old or new testaments. The only reason I place any emphasis at all on G of T is that it’s basically a listing of 114 sayings or parables of Jesus, who in my opinion was the finest man who has ever lived.

Simply because the RCC has deemed it somehow heretical, is to me just another instance of the RCC making yet another mistake. Most of the parables in G of T can be found in the new testament anyway.

It’s very strange to me the way Jesus was such a humble exemplary fellow who never got all puffed up on himself, dragging around gold and fine raimants and symbols of high office, yet the RCC’s officials parade around in enough gold and such that if they fell into a pool of water they’d sink like a stone. Where do they get the idea that any of that is called for when Jesus Himself spurned such pomp and trappings?

Respectfull of Jesus,

jomoco
 
jomoco said:
I do not place a greater emphasis on the Gospel of Thomas than I do either the old or new testaments. The only reason I place any emphasis at all on G of T is that it’s basically a listing of 114 sayings or parables of Jesus, who in my opinion was the finest man who has ever lived.

Simply because the RCC has deemed it somehow heretical, is to me just another instance of the RCC making yet another mistake. Most of the parables in G of T can be found in the new testament anyway.

It’s very strange to me the way Jesus was such a humble exemplary fellow who never got all puffed up on himself, dragging around gold and fine raimants and symbols of high office, yet the RCC’s officials parade around in enough gold and such that if they fell into a pool of water they’d sink like a stone. Where do they get the idea that any of that is called for when Jesus Himself spurned such pomp and trappings?

Respectfull of Jesus,

jomoco
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As Jesus said, in the Canonical Bible, that He is the “Way, the Truth and the Life” and not merely having the way, nor merely having the truth or the life, and also saying that “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth”, it would seem that if Jesus is a mere “humble, exemplary fellow” then He took upon Himself the most arrogant of positions making Himself equal to God.

If, as the Catholic Church claims, Jesus is truly God in being the Second Person of the Trinity, then He is worthy of all that the Church does with God’s Creation in order to worship Him as by that authority He passed on the “Keys to the Kingdom” with power to “bind and loose”.

It is a huge problem today that people look for that which they want to see in the Bible and not to be led by the text. What do we want to find when we look at Genesis? Eternal life or everlasting life? The difference between “seeking to find” what we want and “seeking and finding” that which is there are huge and the stakes are equally huge. The grace to live eternally as a child of God is in the “seeking and finding”.
 
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