Well, yes. But non-Catholics have a pretty dim view of papal infallibility anyway.
That’s probably true. The sooner a new encyclical reverses it the better!
Not sure what you mean here. The Church does define it:
Oh. There we go. You throw out the explanation for original sin, because you don’t see the need for it. Got it.
Hmm… interesting. OK: so, we wouldn’t say that ‘free will’ causes original sin, right? I mean, without free will, there’d be no free choice to disobey God, so there’d be no sin; I get that. However, that would be like saying “life causes death”, since if I wasn’t alive, I’d never die. That doesn’t quite hold up, either.
A lot of uncomfortable guilt at Christmas Eve “seven fishes” dinners?
Well, that’s helpful for keeping a discussion productive. Let’s call a pope a ‘lunatic’ in a Catholic forum!
That’s pretty characteristic of papal writing. If it’s meant to stand the test of time, it’s unhelpful to constrain it to a particular person or movement; after all, once that movement fades away, the temptation will be to disregard the papal statement as having become irrelevant.
(BTW… “word salad”? It doesn’t seem that hard to grok, IMHO…)
That doesn’t make it untrue, however. Lots of people used to have a pretty dim view on the notion that the world wasn’t flat. We see how well that turned out…
How does this differ qualitatively from anybody else’s learning from their predecessors? The reason cheetahs have not learned to farm from their ancestors is that the ancestors never discovered how to do it in the first place. The reason they are efficient hunters, however, is most certainly because they have learned this behaviour from their parents, who learnt it from theirs, and so on. The rehabilitation of cheetahs (which happened to be the subject of the first article I found to illustrate this) and other orphaned animals can be a very tricky job precisely because they have no one to teach them how to feed. Unless they can be taught, they usually die. I’d call that quite significant…
Haha, yeah. I know I am being harsh on him for lack of systematic to the point writing. It is safe to say that I have read this encyclical more than any other. It took me a few re-re-reads to get back into the mindset. I probably last re-read it 15 years ago when I was still in daily theological and philosophical studies, and since then I have been in a completely different profession and mode of thinking. Plus, in my line of work, word salad makes your case weaker.
I think you may have missed my point. I’m not calling a pope a lunatic, nor denying that papal infallibility is a thing. Anybody who reads anything interprets it in a way peculiar to themselves. They may give it more or less respect than it deserves, or than its author intended. No doubt most of us here have every respect for all our pontiffs, but non-Catholic Christians may have less, and atheists may have none whatsoever. You and I and Allyson certainly agree in not thinking popes or their pronouncements, are worthless, but we differ in how we do, in fact, interpret the authority of Humani Generis. The point is that these are individual interpretations, not statements of the teaching of the Catholic Church as such. For that, we need either a more authoritative, or a more consensual, opinion.
The cheetah and the birds, as I understand the articles, directly experienced the behaviors that they now mimic, either by watching existing cheetahs, birds or human beings do as much.
This ^ is a mess of a definition. Not only that, but the whole thing is based on an allegory in which a ‘real’ person exists. The whole thing is just too questionable, too archaic, and there’s been too much backpedaling by the Church for me to take it as anything but a misunderstanding on the part of the Church.
More mess of definition.
Absolutely. But not only is the doctrine poorly defined, it’s not even apparent that anyone understands its defining elements. I’m sure theologians have tried to make it make sense, but there’s just no consensus on a coherent explanation.
Not for my faith, no. If you find the doctrine necessary for your faith…by all means have at it.
Well, I didn’t mean that one is necessary for the other.
Seem reasonable to interpret that a temporal condition applies to what follows in p37, i.e., “Now”
Ahh, but that’s the joy of reading bulls / encyclicals / conciliar documents / Aquinas’ Summa, isn’t it? Going backward from “what is written on the page” to “whom they’re addressing and what their arguments were in the first place” – that’s the real academic thrill, in the attempt to understand the mind of the magisterial authors!
OK, but, let’s look at that thought. First, the CCC isn’t doctrine itself, but it re-states the doctrine of the Church. (And yes, not every word in the CCC is a re-statement of doctrine, I know, but by-and-large, we find doctrine represented there.)
Take it up with the Church, who wrote the Catechism, I guess?
You are free to disagree with the stated doctrinal teaching of the Church. Yet… are you saying that you, personally, are more wise than 2000 years of teachers in the Church, who themselves (as the magisterium) are protected against teaching error?
You have an interesting definition of “lack of understanding”, then.
I’m not aware of any such incoherence among theologians. Care to provide any citations of this purported “lack of consensus”?
I’m saying I don’t have the baggage that they have to carry.
Again, if this helps you with your faith…
You just posted some upthread.
It’s more like “standing on the shoulders of giants” than “carrying the baggage of the ages”…
The alternative seems to be “I’m a Catholic, but I choose to not believe what the Church teaches”. There’s word for that approach. Hmm… what is it, again…???
That was in regards to how we understand ‘origins’, not original sin, wouldn’t you say?
“Findings” is on occasion not the right word, as a subsequent finding replaces prior findings.
This very statements admits par 37 is not infallible.
Better than I do, no doubt.
Could we change that to ‘latest man standing’?We are literally the last man standing, after taking the best of the gene adaptations from our cousins
Yes in some cases; no in others. See my example where analysis of mtDNA and nucelar DNA from a Neanderthal provided two findings that ultimately answered a question that had been debated. The second finding did not change the first finding. It is still true that there are no known mtDNA haplo groups derived from Neanderthals in modern human populations, even though that first finding was not conclusive with regards to whether modern humans interbred with Neanderthals.“Findings” is on occasion not the right word, as a subsequent finding replaces prior findings.
We certainly could. If we make it another 100,000 years we will be different from who we are now even if we never diverge into other subspecies.
I asked a question many moons ago (I think in this forum): Would you prefer to go back in time to see where we came from or ahead in time to see where we’re going.Freddy:
We certainly could. If we make it another 100,000 years we will be different from who we are now even if we never diverge into other subspecies.
There is also a book called Lone Survivors that I want to get and read. I need to read the ones I have already bought too. I am a bit of a bibliophile. lol.
