science and faith

[antroji]

@ Cassini: wow… thanks…

 

[phoenixrrt62]

The book sounds interesting, I probably need to check it out…I seem to be at a mental block at the moment, and I just can’t read much of anything…personal reasons…but, anyhow…thank you.

As to the discussion, I am fascinated by the argument for and against a divine creation, and (for me, anyhow) it keeps coming back to this:

There has to be a leap of faith somewhere along the continuum…just has to be. Science cannot disprove or prove the existence of a god.

Now MY block? I can’t make that leap. I cannot let go of that control…hum…make sense? I’m not very good at explaining myself…

I have to look into MY soul, I suppose, to understand the WHY of it…why am I so stubborn that I refuse to believe? Why do I have to have proof…

But then again…well…kind of silly to believe in a something you cannot see, taste, smell, touch or hear, and along with this? Man makes so many rules as to HOW we have to follow this God, and if’n you do it THIS way as opposed to THAT way, you are wrong…so many rules…so many divisions…ahhhh, I don’t even know anymore…

I’ll just bow out now…before my brain explodes, thank you

 

[Charlemagne_II]

cassini

*So clever was the Devil that for centuries, not only lay people, scholars, philosophers and scientists today, but the popes themselves, think and boast of the great legacy of science given to the world by Christianity when in fact Lucifer is falling around laughing at Catholics trying to adjust Catholic theology and even dogmas to keep up with the paganism he planted back in Europe in 1543. *

So you think all of modern science is really the devil’s invention, even down to the discovery of the Big Bang by a Catholic priest? What is diabolical about the Big Bang? It affirms the theological fact of Creation in Genesis.

You haven’t made your case; you’ve only made allegations. Please carry on!

 

[Charlemagne_II]

phoenix

But then again…well…kind of silly to believe in a something you cannot see, taste, smell, touch or hear, and along with this? Man makes so many rules as to HOW we have to follow this God, and if’n you do it THIS way as opposed to THAT way, you are wrong…so many rules…so many divisions…ahhhh, I don’t even know anymore…

You may have noticed that any great accomplishment in life requires great exertion.

Throwing in the towel is no solution, but rather acknowledgment that it’s easier to quit, and even a good deal easier to believe that there is no God and no set of rules we really should follow except the ones we like.

 

[Abu]

cassini
I could not find one single scientific discovery that can be attributed to Copernicus….Catholics trying to adjust Catholic theology and even dogmas to keep up with the paganism.

Perhaps you could explain why you call yourself “catholic” as doctrine and dogma don’t change. The small “c” seems fitting, as Christ gave His Church His authority to bind and loose, protected against the “gates of hell”. We regret that you have such a poor idea of both reason and faith.

 

[cassini]

cassini

*So clever was the Devil that for centuries, not only lay people, scholars, philosophers and scientists today, but the popes themselves, think and boast of the great legacy of science given to the world by Christianity when in fact Lucifer is falling around laughing at Catholics trying to adjust Catholic theology and even dogmas to keep up with the paganism he planted back in Europe in 1543. *

So you think all of modern science is really the devil’s invention, even down to the discovery of the Big Bang by a Catholic priest? What is diabolical about the Big Bang? It affirms the theological fact of Creation in Genesis.

You haven’t made your case; you’ve only made allegations. Please carry on!

No it does not Charlemagne, it is a theory based on an interpretation of red-shifts made by Hubble. If the truth of Catholic theology is made dependent on a scientific theory - as it has in the eyes of popes since Pope Pius XII - then what happens if the theory is proven to be nonsense as so often happens in science? It will place the theology of the Church in the nonsense category, will it not?

As regards the Big Bang theory. I could quote a few pages of objections by physicists to Hubble’s interpretation of light-shifts of stars. One of these contradictory theories could some day turn out to be correct and thus the basis for a Big Bang false.

Why even Copernicus had his theory for an expanding universe (the Big Bang theory) He stated in his book one of* De Revolutionibus* that if the universe of Ptolemy were rotating, its momentum would cause it to expand. So far no one has ever proved Copernicus wrong in this logic either. In other words, I could say that the expanding universe theory proves the universe is rotating every 24 hours, which it doesn’t of course. Its just a theory.

The Creation of the world is a dogma of the Catholic faith. All one needs to do as a Catholic is believe it happened that way. It is a faith, not a science. If it is true faith, science will never be able to prove it is otherwise. So far it has not falsified it. My faith remains untouched.

 

[cassini]

Perhaps you could explain why you call yourself “catholic” as doctrine and dogma don’t change. The small “c” seems fitting, as Christ gave His Church His authority to bind and loose, protected against the “gates of hell”. We regret that you have such a poor idea of both reason and faith.

I call myself a Catholic because I am a Catholic, born into the Catholic world of the 1940s, educated by the Holy Ghost Fathers in the 1950s, and remain faithful to those dogmas and doctrines I learned. The Catholic faith only makes sense according to a literal understanding of Genesis. Millions of Catholic children were theologians by the age of 10 in those days, as we all learned the traditional cathechism off by heart. The simplicity of the literal with the theological could be understood without having to write books trying to explain Original Sin and the need for the Redemption as understood in an evolutionary scenario such as I find with the nonsense written by one Joseph Ratzinger in his book ‘IN THE BEGINNING.’

Catholics born from the 1960s on have been deprived of the Catholic faith as understood and enjoyed for centuries. Once the Church tolerated pagan science since 1741, the doctrines and dogmas have been readjusted so much to comply to an evolutionary scenario that they have lost their credibility. This is turn has resulted in a modern Protestant Church, just as Pope Pius X predicted in his Pascendi. Today, Catholic children come out of Catholic schools knowing NOTHING about their faith.

Let us see then who retains loyalty to Catholic dogma.

I still believe that OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THERE IS NO SALVATION.

How many Catholics today would hold this dogma? You Abu?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

cassini

No it does not Charlemagne, it is a theory based on an interpretation of red-shifts made by Hubble.* If the truth of Catholic theology is made dependent on a scientific theory - as it has in the eyes of popes since Pope Pius XII -** then what happens if the theory is proven to be nonsense as so often happens in science? It will place the theology of the Church in the nonsense category, will it not?*

This is not true. No pope ever said Catholic theology is dependent on scientific theory. If one did, who was it? All Pius said is that science (especially the Big Bang) is consistent with the teaching of the Church. If science ever found to the contrary, that the universe never was created with a burst of light, that would not invalidate Genesis the least bit. We know the universe was created, no matter what science says. If science discovered that the universe was never created at all (with or without a Big Bang) it would be difficult to see how such proof would be forthcoming. Can you even begin to imagine from what source such evidence would come? One would have to have lived an eternity to prove that the universe is eternal … in itself an absurd notion.

But no doubt atheists will continue anxiously looking for an uncreated universe.

I still believe that OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THERE IS NO SALVATION.

So Moses is in Hell?

 

[cassini]

cassini

No it does not Charlemagne, it is a theory based on an interpretation of red-shifts made by Hubble.* If the truth of Catholic theology is made dependent on a scientific theory - as it has in the eyes of popes since Pope Pius XII -*** then what happens if the theory is proven to be nonsense as so often happens in science? It will place the theology of the Church in the nonsense category, will it not?

This is not true. No pope ever said Catholic theology is dependent on scientific theory. If one did, who was it? All Pius said is that science (especially the Big Bang) is consistent with the teaching of the Church. If science ever found to the contrary, that the universe never was created with a burst of light, that would not invalidate Genesis the least bit. We know the universe was created, no matter what science says. If science discovered that the universe was never created at all (with or without a Big Bang) it would be difficult to see how such proof would be forthcoming. Can you even begin to imagine from what source such evidence would come? One would have to have lived an eternity to prove that the universe is eternal … in itself an absurd notion.

But no doubt atheists will continue anxiously looking for an uncreated universe.

I still believe that OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THERE IS NO SALVATION.

So Moses is in Hell?

If the Church today has its dogmas that do not need science to affirm, why did Ratzinger feel the need to publish a book trying to make the dogmas on Adam and Eve and original sin comply with modern science? The Big Bang is the mother of all evolutionary theories. Why did Pope Pius XII feel he had to use the Big Bang to affirm creation ex nihilo? How many scientists see the Big Bang as a proof for creation ex nihilo? You know some scientists prefer the steady state theory for an infinite universe. This means a pope favoured a scientific theory because it can be made comply with the dogma on Creation. Why do you think he needed to do this?

Science is a discipline that operates outside of any religious influences. There was a time natural philosophy adhered to theology. Today both in Church and State would laugh at that notion. Thus science is now Godless. So why would any pope have anything to do with modern science? Picking and chosing bits that could be used to confirm dogmas will convince nobody but those who believe anyway. Tell me why millions who believe in the Big Bang are still atheists, no matter what Pope Pius XII said.

Anyway Charlemagne, I am not at odds with you, just pointing out another way of looking at the subject.
On the No Salvation dogma, this shows me you certainly are Catholic if you did not backtrack with the ‘Moses in hell’ question. Do you not think Moses was taken into heaven by Jesus AFTER the foundation of the Church?

 

[Anselm33]

No it does not Charlemagne, it is a theory based on an interpretation of red-shifts made by Hubble. If the truth of Catholic theology is made dependent on a scientific theory - as it has in the eyes of popes since Pope Pius XII - then what happens if the theory is proven to be nonsense as so often happens in science? It will place the theology of the Church in the nonsense category, will it not?

The shepherds of our faith, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have acknowledged that faith has nothing to fear from science, and that science, indeed, enriches our faith. JPII said we should proceed “on the two wings of faith and reason”, and in his encyclical “Fides et Ratio” (sp?) called for us to shun fideism. He convened conferences at Castello Monte Gondalfo (sp?)(the proceedings are published) on topics involving the interface between science, philosophy and religion. Pope Benedict XVI has addressed this issue and in an address honoring St. Albertus Magnus, the patron saint of scientists,said:
“

Saint Albert the Great reminds us that between science and faith there is friendship, and that men of science can undertake, through their vocation to the study of nature, a genuine and fascinating journey of sanctity

.”
(see: catholicexchange.com/2010/03/31/128812/
I will concede that scientific laws change as new research is found; there is no more phlogiston, there is no more ether. Nevertheless, we approach the truth asymptotically with steps forward, and some backward. The findings of science, like works of art and music can point to God, even though they neither “prove” nor “disprove” His existence. And as the psalmist said, “THE HEAVENS DECLARE THE GLORY OF GOD”.

 

[Anselm33]

You know some scientists prefer the steady state theory for an infinite universe.

 

[Tuno]

Despite my conviction that God IS, the “anthropic coincidences” are nothing more, imho, than anthropomorphism itself. Can’t justify God in your own image? Simple: make the Universe in your own image and blame it on God.

If you wish to delve into the nature of Creation, and believe that you yourself are the image and likeness of God, then embark on a very serious journey of self inquiry. Perhaps you will find that looking “within” is looking “without.”

Hey! That is funny!

 

[Abu]

cassini
the doctrines and dogmas have been readjusted so much to comply to an evolutionary scenario that they have lost their credibility.

Same tune but no facts.

 

[buffalo]

Despite my conviction that God IS, the “anthropic coincidences” are nothing more, imho, than anthropomorphism itself. Can’t justify God in your own image? Simple: make the Universe in your own image and blame it on God.

If you wish to delve into the nature of Creation, and believe that you yourself are the image and likeness of God, then embark on a very serious journey of self inquiry. Perhaps you will find that looking “within” is looking “without.”

Hey! That is funny!

Anthropic coincidences - 10 to the 137th power. These are scientific calculations.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

cassini

*Do you not think Moses was taken into heaven by Jesus AFTER the foundation of the Church? *

Moses was not a Catholic. At the heart of the Catholic Nicene creed is the doctrine of the Trinity. Moses had not the foggiest notion of the Trinity. You say, “OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THERE IS NO SALVATION.” Does this apply to all who lived before Jesus and the founding of his Catholic Church?

Now if you had said that anyone who rejects Christ is not saved, I would be with you.

Anyway, Pius XII did not have to announce his enthusiasm for the Big Bang theory. And I’m sure that he did not regard that theory as vital to Catholic thought, though he must have felt at last science was going to have to serious question the existence of an uncreated universe. After all, that was the single thought that comforted atheists for centuries … a thought now blasted by evidence quite to the contrary.

 

[cassini]

The shepherds of our faith, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have acknowledged that faith has nothing to fear from science, and that science, indeed, enriches our faith. JPII said we should proceed “on the two wings of faith and reason”, and in his encyclical “Fides et Ratio” (sp?) called for us to shun fideism. He convened conferences at Castello Monte Gondalfo (sp?)(the proceedings are published) on topics involving the interface between science, philosophy and religion. Pope Benedict XVI has addressed this issue and in an address honoring St. Albertus Magnus, the patron saint of scientists,said:
“.”
(see: catholicexchange.com/2010/03/31/128812/
I will concede that scientific laws change as new research is found; there is no more phlogiston, there is no more ether. Nevertheless, we approach the truth asymptotically with steps forward, and some backward. The findings of science, like works of art and music can point to God, even though they neither “prove” nor “disprove” His existence. And as the psalmist said, “THE HEAVENS DECLARE THE GLORY OF GOD”.

Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI are the last two popes of the hundreds that have occupied the Chair of Peter I would put forward to teach me the relationship between faith and science.

One banning order however prevents me from putting forward the most cojent reason why.
A second banning order prevents me from presenting the second most cojent reason why.
This leaves only room for:

Fides et Ratio

1. This truth, which God reveals to us in Jesus Christ, is not opposed to the truths which philosophy perceives. On the contrary, the two modes of knowledge lead to truth in all its fullness. The unity of truth is a fundamental premise of human reasoning, as the principle of non-contradiction makes clear. Revelation renders this unity certain, showing that the God of creation is also the God of salvation history. It is the one and the same God who establishes and guarantees the intelligibility and reasonableness of the natural order of things upon which scientists confidently depend,(29)

Here Pope John Paul II reiterates the obvious, true faith and true science cannot contradict each other. But what happens when one or the other contradicts? How does GOD protect the TRUTH?

Now read the reference

(29) “[Galileo] declared explicitly that the two truths, of faith and of science, can never contradict each other, ‘Sacred Scripture and the natural world proceeding equally from the divine Word, the first as dictated by the Holy Spirit, the second as a very faithful executor of the commands of God’, as he wrote in his letter to Father Benedetto Castelli on 21 December 1613. The Second Vatican Council says the same thing, even adopting similar language in its teaching: ‘Methodical research, in all realms of knowledge, if it respects… moral norms, will never be genuinely opposed to faith: the reality of the world and of faith have their origin in the same God’ (Gaudium et Spes, 36). Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions”: John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (10 November 1979): Insegnamenti, II, 2 (1979), 1111-1112.

Pope John Paul II here clearly states that in this case God, THE FATHER, JESUS CHRIST, and THE HOLY GHOST was with the suspected heretic Galileo and NOT with Pope Paul V, Urban VII and Alexander VII.

Now I thought god was supposed to be with popes of his Church and not with declared suspected heretics in matters of ‘faith and science’. Indeed, I know God was with the popes and not Galileo and John Paul and Benedict XVI cannot teach me otherwise.

 

[futurtheologian]

Okay I don’t understand why people keep trying to prove the existence of God. I mean I am sure there are worse things to do with your time, and I doubt it is a sin unless you are in doubt of God. Yet, if you accept that God is omnipotent and infinite, then would you not understand that we cannot fully understand God except for what God has revealed to us? There are two types of revelation: general and special. General is consciousness and nature; special is what someone receives directly from God, as in the Stigmata St. Francis received or when someone receives divine messages from Christ. Why waste time proving God to others when you can be helping others? That is the question. Don’t you guys know the quote “I know that i know nothing?”

Also

God is not in the realm of assertive proof. If that is where you are contending, you have lost the battle, as you are plowing the wrong field, unless you are just in it for the exercise. As for the “new” scientific reasons some use as “proof,” they may say at the very most that there are certain wondrous aspects of the Universe that have elicited in them feelings definable in their context as “faith.” Those wonders do not of themselves prove God any more than new scientific insights of past ages are proofs for us now. Do you believe (there’s that pesky word) that the horizons we now scientifically bump against and use for “proof” are anywhere near where we will be in even a decade? A hundred years? and yet Wonder itself is a gateway to discovery. What, besides intellection, might one turn that light on?

Quote makes a lot of sense and harbors on what I was thinking when I first saw this. If it helps you to believe in God then that is great; but once you find whatever you consider proof, then you should definitely just believe and have faith.

“Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry”–Padre Pio

 

[cassini]

cassini;6984835:

which scientists please? when, and what references? are you referring to the multiverse theory? That’s not a steady state theory and it’s not provable (even in principle) but it is favored by some scientists because it negates the fine-tuning in physical laws and constants necessary for us to be here (the anthropic coincidences).

The heretical Sterady-State theory shared by Bondi (1984) and Hoyle (1980), the one that IMAGINED a universe that exists for an infinite time and is of infinite extent and did not have any major changes in its general begavour. Thanks though for demonstrating the state of modern SCIENCE *ah la *PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES who dictate to modern popes how to construct their ‘teaching’ on the relationship between faith and science these days. Can you even imagine the scholastic popes trying to come to terms with Big Bang, Stedy-State, and Multiverse theories, all of which are the imaginings of scientists with ‘no need for that Creator hypothesis’.

 

[cassini]

Same tune but no facts.

Ever read ‘In the Beginning’? Well there is one heap of nonsense for a start.

 

[Anselm33]

Anselm33;6984871:

The heretical Sterady-State theory shared by Bondi (1984) and Hoyle (1980), the one that IMAGINED a universe that exists for an infinite time and is of infinite extent and did not have any major changes in its general begavour. Thanks though for demonstrating the state of modern SCIENCE *ah la *

PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES who dictate to modern popes how to construct their ‘teaching’ on the relationship between faith and science these days. Can you even imagine the scholastic popes trying to come to terms with Big Bang, Stedy-State, and Multiverse theories, all of which are the imaginings of scientists with ‘no need for that Creator hypothesis’.
I’m not sure how much theology you know; St. Thomas Aquinas considered the possibility of an eternal universe, again created by God who is eternal. I know from your remarks that you are ignorant of science. You appear to know nothing of what Galileo proposed, his faith, or the ecclesiastic politics at the time he was put under house arrest.
You don’t seem to know much about science either. The steady-state theory has been disproved for some 50 years, and the person who originated it, Fred Hoyle, abandoned it. I would sooner put my trust in the shepherds of the Church, Vicars ordained by God, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, than your opinions. I ask, do you believe in a flat earth, young earth creationism, and a geocentric universe? .
And I will add, you will find many, many eminent scientists who bring the Big Bang theory as a sign, not proof, of a creator: Polkinghorne, Dyson, Hoyle, Sandage, Jastrow,Penzias
(Nobel Prize winners among them). I suggest that you read some literature that will perhaps increase your understanding and broaden your perspective:
“God and the Astronomers” by Jastrow;
“Quarks, Chaos and Christianity” by Polkinghorne
“In the Beginning” by Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)
Unless you say something sensible in your future posts I will not respond further.