Science, religion and our shared future

[edwest2]

With all due respect, have you looked at any of it? Do you know that a primarily atheist sponsored group called Rally for Reason decided to protest outside of the Creation Museum? Rights are the first thing mentioned regarding presenting alternative views but Rally for Reason just decided that this museum was, what? Going to convince some people that dinosaurs and man lived side by side? I watched Rally supporters making vague comments about terrible consequences related to people going into the Museum on youtube. What are these people afraid of? What exactly will happen if some people believe men and dinosaurs did live together? They’ll forget how to drive, or operate machinery, or do accounting or answer phones? They’ll forget how to work?

I’ve seen man-made depictions of dinosaurs on metal, on ancient pottery and a mosaic. Again, I must ask, what will be the specific terrible consequence of believing those depictions do, in fact, show accurately rendered dinosaurs and were clearly made by men circa the last 4,000 years?

I’m open to this information and take some of it on face value, while I reject some of it as vague and inconclusive.

Evolution, on the other hand, relies on random mutations and so-called natural selection. The code in DNA is statistically impossible regarding any kind of self-assembly.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Mike_BioProf]

With all due respect, have you looked at any of it? … What exactly will happen if some people believe men and dinosaurs did live together? They’ll forget how to drive, or operate machinery, or do accounting or answer phones? They’ll forget how to work?

I’ve seen man-made depictions of dinosaurs on metal, on ancient pottery and a mosaic. Again, I must ask, what will be the specific terrible consequence of believing those depictions do, in fact, show accurately rendered dinosaurs and were clearly made by men circa the last 4,000 years?

Peace,
Ed

I am somewhat familiar with the evidence of man-dinosaur co-existence (Ica stones, stone carvings, fossilized footprints, etc). Moreover, I am very familiar with all of the other evidence of the history of life on earth (comparative anatomy, the fossil record, molecular data, geology, etc.). I teach evolutionary biology. I have been studying, researching, and teaching evolution my entire adult life. If humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time*, that means we got everything else wrong; that the combined research and knowledge of thousands of scientists over the last century was completely wrong; that we have completely misunderstood geology, paleontology, chemistry, molecular biology, and so on. When deciding on the best explanation for data, we have to rely on the combined weight of all evidence. To throw out the past three centuries of knowledge because someone drew a dragon on a pot is, as I said in my original post, “ridiculous”.

Having said that… yeah, those depictions of ‘dinosaurs’ are pretty cool and interesting. I’d like to know what they were drawing. What was the motivation of those ancients? Were they drawing gods? mythical creatures? part of some ritual? poorly drawn lizards? Maybe the archaeologists can answer that.

What’s the harm? Well, what is the harm in teaching kids in a high school science class that the moon is made of green cheese? Probably none. As you say, it won’t stop them from driving, operating machinery, or answering a phone. So why don’t we? Well, I guess we as a society have decided that the best way to educate our young people is to start off by providing them with our best explanations of the natural world. We then teach them the process of science… how we look at evidence and make conclusions, how to evaluate new evidence and new theories, how to test new theories, and so on. If we do a good job, some of them will go on to make new discoveries, develop an even better understanding of the natural world, come up with breakthroughs that make this world a better place.

Even if evolutionary theory never resulted in any practical applications, I believe we still have an obligation to teach what is the best, most accepted, explanations of the natural world. But of course, there are important implications. Evolutionary theory forms the basis of all biological sciences. It explains how HIV/AIDS progresses, how cancer cells develop resistance to chemotherapy drugs, how antibiotic resistance develops, how the malarial parasite evades our immune system, just to mention a few. The next generation of scientists and doctors have a lot of work to do; let’s give them the best tools we got to help them on their way.

*Actually, if it were to be discovered that a dinosaur species were alive until the present day, or the last few thousand years, co-existing with humans, it would not overturn our evolutionary understanding of life. It would just mean that somehow we remarkably avoided finding evidence for it, kind of like when they found the coelocanth in 1938. However, the converse (if we found evidence of humans living 100 million years ago alongside dinosaurs) would upset everything we think we know, and overturn everything we think we knew about vertebrate evolution.

Sorry for such a long post. Ed, I certainly don’t expect to convince you to accept evolution. It is a complex theory with complex data, hard enough to do in a semester long course, and certainly not the kind of thing that can be adequately discussed in an online forum.

Mike

 

[edwest2]

I am somewhat familiar with the evidence of man-dinosaur co-existence (Ica stones, stone carvings, fossilized footprints, etc). Moreover, I am very familiar with all of the other evidence of the history of life on earth (comparative anatomy, the fossil record, molecular data, geology, etc.). I teach evolutionary biology. I have been studying, researching, and teaching evolution my entire adult life. If humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time*, that means we got everything else wrong; that the combined research and knowledge of thousands of scientists over the last century was completely wrong; that we have completely misunderstood geology, paleontology, chemistry, molecular biology, and so on. When deciding on the best explanation for data, we have to rely on the combined weight of all evidence. To throw out the past three centuries of knowledge because someone drew a dragon on a pot is, as I said in my original post, “ridiculous”.

Having said that… yeah, those depictions of ‘dinosaurs’ are pretty cool and interesting. I’d like to know what they were drawing. What was the motivation of those ancients? Were they drawing gods? mythical creatures? part of some ritual? poorly drawn lizards? Maybe the archaeologists can answer that.

What’s the harm? Well, what is the harm in teaching kids in a high school science class that the moon is made of green cheese? Probably none. As you say, it won’t stop them from driving, operating machinery, or answering a phone. So why don’t we? Well, I guess we as a society have decided that the best way to educate our young people is to start off by providing them with our best explanations of the natural world. We then teach them the process of science… how we look at evidence and make conclusions, how to evaluate new evidence and new theories, how to test new theories, and so on. If we do a good job, some of them will go on to make new discoveries, develop an even better understanding of the natural world, come up with breakthroughs that make this world a better place.

Even if evolutionary theory never resulted in any practical applications, I believe we still have an obligation to teach what is the best, most accepted, explanations of the natural world. But of course, there are important implications. Evolutionary theory forms the basis of all biological sciences. It explains how HIV/AIDS progresses, how cancer cells develop resistance to chemotherapy drugs, how antibiotic resistance develops, how the malarial parasite evades our immune system, just to mention a few. The next generation of scientists and doctors have a lot of work to do; let’s give them the best tools we got to help them on their way.

*Actually, if it were to be discovered that a dinosaur species were alive until the present day, or the last few thousand years, co-existing with humans, it would not overturn our evolutionary understanding of life. It would just mean that somehow we remarkably avoided finding evidence for it, kind of like when they found the coelocanth in 1938. However, the converse (if we found evidence of humans living 100 million years ago alongside dinosaurs) would upset everything we think we know, and overturn everything we think we knew about vertebrate evolution.

Sorry for such a long post. Ed, I certainly don’t expect to convince you to accept evolution. It is a complex theory with complex data, hard enough to do in a semester long course, and certainly not the kind of thing that can be adequately discussed in an online forum.

Mike

Thank you Mike for your detailed answer. You are confusing two things.

1. I am only concerned about evolution as it regards dead, ancient organisms.
2. It is false to state that evolution applies to living things. That’s a whole other matter. Bioinformatics concerns the built-in mechanism that allows different species of bacteria to exchange various bits of genetic material and how viruses have the built-in ability to mutate, but once again, it’s built-in. Then scientists tabulate statistical data and look for clues as to likely trends.

The whole Scope’s Monkey Trial scenario involved old, dead things and the idea that men and apes shared a common ancestor. That is what this debate has always been about.

On occasion, I run across non sequeturs like “how can bacteria eat nylon, which is a synthetic material”? Not long ago, scientists extracted bacteria from dirt in Canada. They found bacteria that were already resistant to natural and synthetic antibiotics.

I’ve spent a lot of years studying the history of technology. You’d be amazed at the number of priests and the occasional monk who made big contributions to science. I don’t believe evolutionary theory underpins modern biology. I think it is the dogmatic filter through which all data must flow. Data that exists outside of those parameters is simply rejected as anomolous. As a teacher (and I’ve been in that role myself), I think you’d be aware that education does not just occur in the classroom but through the outside media as well.

Right now, based on my research, it is to the advantage of the atheist, pagan and hedonistic influences out there to have young people believe they are just accidents or just animals or just biological robots.

Peace,
Ed

 

[WillieWonka]

Natural science follows the scientific method.

1. Observe a natural phenomenon.
2. Formulate a hypothesis explaining that observation.
3. Design an experiment to test the hypothesis.
4. Detemine if the hypothesis correctly predicts the results of the experiment.

If the experiment does confirm the hypothesis, it is repeated and replicated by others. Then additional experiments are devised to test other predictions of the hypothesis. If all these experiments confirm the hypothesis, then the hypothesis becomes a scientific theory. (Note the use of the word “theory” is very different that its use in general conversation.)

So, can anyone tell us a scientific theory that is at odds with Christianity? I’m asking for a scientific theory that resulted from the scientific method outlined above. I am not asking for a hypothesis. Nor am I asking for a speculation, or a scientist’s personal opinion.

(Note: if a hypothesis cannot be tested by experiment, then it cannot become a scientific theory and remains outside the realm of natural science.)

 

[edwest2]

It’s written down in the textbooks:

I did a little research and I think we can prove quite easily that mainstream evolution does not support the evidence of intelligent design in nature at all. Evolution is defined as a blind, undirected process built mainly on randomness. There is no plan or purpose for evolution – this contradicts the claim that “everything is designed” and that there is design to be found in nature.

We can see this in current biology textbooks:

“[E]volution works without either plan or purpose — Evolution is random and undirected.”
(Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine (1st ed., Prentice Hall, 1991), pg. 658; (3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1995), pg. 658; (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998), pg. 658; emphasis in original.)

“Humans represent just one tiny, largely fortuitous, and late-arising twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life.”
(Stephen J Gould quoted in Biology, by Peter H Raven & George B Johnson (5th ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pg 15; (6th ed., McGraw Hill, 2000), pg. 16.)

“By coupling **undirected, purposeless **variation to the **blind, uncaring **process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.”
(Evolutionary Biology, by Douglas J. Futuyma (3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc., 1998), p. 5.)

“Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that **matter is the stuff of all existence **and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.”
(Biology: Discovering Life by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st ed., D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; (2nd ed… D.C. Heath and Co., 1994), p. 161; emphases in original.)

“Adopting this view of the world means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also the view that the living world is constantly evolving, and that evolutionary change occurs without any goals.’ The idea that **evolution is not directed **towards a final goal state has been more difficult for many people to accept than the process of evolution itself.”
(Life: The Science of Biology by William K. Purves, David Sadava, Gordon H. Orians, & H. Craig Keller, (6th ed., Sinauer; W.H. Freeman and Co., 2001), pg. 3.)

“The ‘blind’ watchmaker is natural selection. **Natural selection is totally blind **to the future. “**Humans are fundamentally not exceptional **because we came from the same evolutionary source as every other species. It is natural selection of selfish genes that has given us our bodies and brains “Natural selection is a bewilderingly simple idea. And yet what it explains is the whole of life, the diversity of life, the apparent design of life.”
(Richard Dawkins quoted in *Biology *by Neil A. Campbell, Jane B. Reese. & Lawrence G. Mitchell (5th ed., Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), pgs. 412-413.)

“Of course, no species has 'chosen’ a strategy. Rather, its ancestors ‘little by little, generation after generation’ merely wandered into a successful way of life through the action of random evolutionary forces. Once pointed in a certain direction, a line of evolution survives only if the cosmic dice continues to roll in its favor. “[J]ust by chance, a wonderful diversity of life has developed during the billions of years in which organisms have been evolving on earth.
(Biology by Burton S. Guttman (1st ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pgs. 36-37.)

“It is difficult to avoid the speculation that Darwin, as has been the case with others, found the implications of his theory difficult to confront. “The real difficulty in accepting Darwins theory has always been that it seems to diminish our significance. Earlier, astronomy had made it clear that the earth is not the center of the solar universe, or even of our own solar system. Now the new biology asked us to accept the proposition that, like all other organisms, we too are the products of a random process that, as far as science can show, we are not created for any special purpose or as part of any universal design.”
(Invitation to Biology, by Helena Curtis & N. Sue Barnes(3rd ed., Worth, 1981), pgs. 474-475.)

Peace,
Ed

 

[Mike_BioProf]

Thank you Mike for your detailed answer. You are confusing two things.

1. I am only concerned about evolution as it regards dead, ancient organisms.
2. It is false to state that evolution applies to living things. That’s a whole other matter. Bioinformatics concerns the built-in mechanism that allows different species of bacteria to exchange various bits of genetic material and how viruses have the built-in ability to mutate, but once again, it’s built-in. Then scientists tabulate statistical data and look for clues as to likely trends.

The whole Scope’s Monkey Trial scenario involved old, dead things and the idea that men and apes shared a common ancestor. That is what this debate has always been about.

On occasion, I run across non sequeturs like “how can bacteria eat nylon, which is a synthetic material”? Not long ago, scientists extracted bacteria from dirt in Canada. They found bacteria that were already resistant to natural and synthetic antibiotics.

Hi Ed. I agree that I am confused. I am not sure if you are denying evolution in the past or present, or both. The evidence demonstrates that life on earth evolved; that is, that you and me, apes, monkeys, and my dog all had a common ancestor millions of years ago. I am also not sure of the bacteria examples, and what the point is. Scientists have shown exactly how bacteria found in Japan evolved the ability to eat nylon. They figured out exactly what the mutations were in a pre-existing gene that gave them this ability. Once the random mutation occurred, natural selection favored that mutation in an environment polluted by nylon. This is evolution. And last fall another group found that there are a lot of soil bacteria that are antibiotic resistant (the importance was not that they were resistant; we knew that. What was surprising was how many species and how many antibiotics in a typical soil sample). We should expect bacteria living in the natural world to have some resistance to naturally occurring antibiotics (produced by fungi or other bacteria), since they face these chemicals every day. And a lot of synthetic antibiotics are structurally similar to natural ones (that’s why they work). But that’s not really the point. Because, tomorrow, or next week, or next month scientists are going to make some new discovery that makes us say “wow, that’s weird. I can’t explain that”. But that does not disprove evolution. If we knew all the answers, science would be done. We’d all quit our jobs and go home.

I’ve spent a lot of years studying the history of technology. You’d be amazed at the number of priests and the occasional monk who made big contributions to science. I don’t believe evolutionary theory underpins modern biology. I think it is the dogmatic filter through which all data must flow. Data that exists outside of those parameters is simply rejected as anomolous. As a teacher (and I’ve been in that role myself), I think you’d be aware that education does not just occur in the classroom but through the outside media as well.

Right now, based on my research, it is to the advantage of the atheist, pagan and hedonistic influences out there to have young people believe they are just accidents or just animals or just biological robots.

Peace,
Ed

Not surprised at all at the contribution of priests, and the lay faithful.

I agree that it is to the advantage of activist atheists to have people believe they are just animals, etc. But, I also believe it is much to the advantage of the atheists to have people believe that it is “one or the other”, that you must either accept evolution or believe in God, not both. Nothing will drive people away from the Church faster. It is this false dichotomy that, in my humble opinion, is the problem.

Mike

 

[edwest2]

Hi Mike,

There is a forced dichotomy. I’m a little surprised you did not comment on the textbook quotes. If this is what kids are getting from ‘trusted’ authorities, no wonder the atheists are successful in converting some of them. No, my point is the textbooks contain the necessary and completely unscientific conclusions to convince the young they are biological robots propelled into the future by their genes.

You’re wrong about science. There is plenty of it that is done with no reference to evolution whatsoever. In the 1970s, I was given a chassis and a box full of parts. Guess what? Without the instructional diagram that came with it, I would have not successfully put all the parts in the correct places. That’s why evolution seems like nonsense to me. Without an intelligent guide to construction, I would not have built that radio in the required 30 minutes.

Evolution as a random/natural accident is totally unconvincing, as it’s portrayed in the textbooks. It is my sincere belief after studying atheist, secularist, free thinker, bright and anarchist forums that a propaganda campaign is going on to convince people that they came from nothing and will die to nothing. This was the Marxist plan in the 1920s, and schools were the place to get kids to reject all that religion and superstition. This appears to just be a rerun in the United States.

Peace,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

I agree that it is to the advantage of activist atheists to have people believe they are just animals, etc.

I’ll agree with Ed that you need to spend more time arguing against this point (which you have accepted) rather than by attacking creationism.

What evidence do you have from biology that indicates that human beings are not “just animals”? Where in any evolutionary text does it state that humans are not just animals or that there is any part of a human being that did not evolve from matter, random mutations and physical laws?
What, precisely, did God create and where is your evidence of it?

Those are the issues that will challenge you, as I see it. Pointing your guns at creationists as if they are the major problem here is a mis-direction of your skills and knowledge, in my opinion.

 

[Mike_BioProf]

I’ll agree with Ed that you need to spend more time arguing against this point (which you have accepted) rather than by attacking creationism.

Thanks Reggie. The way I see it, there are two groups trying to frame the debate into a “God OR evolution” question, where you have to choose one or the other. The two groups are the militant atheists and the fundamentalist creationists. In attacking the false dichotomy, I’ll attack both groups.

What evidence do you have from biology that indicates that human beings are not “just animals”?

Absolutely none. That comes from faith, not biology.

Where in any evolutionary text does it state that humans are not just animals or that there is any part of a human being that did not evolve from matter, random mutations and physical laws? What, precisely, did God create and where is your evidence of it?
Those are the issues that will challenge you, as I see it.

There is nothing in biology that suggests humans are anything special. There is no evidence suggestive of design or creation; nothing that requires explanation beyond standard evolutionary theory; nothing that requires the supernatural. I haven’t the foggiest idea how God created the universe, or why he chose a particular mechanism over another. Nor do I particularly care. I spend very little time worrying about these things.

Mike

 

[reggieM]

Thanks Reggie. The way I see it, there are two groups trying to frame the debate into a “God OR evolution” question, where you have to choose one or the other. The two groups are the militant atheists and the fundamentalist creationists. In attacking the false dichotomy, I’ll attack both groups.

I can understand your point, Mike – but my concern is that quite often, the argument against the false dichotomy is merely a concession to atheistic-materialism. In other words, the believer refuses to challenge any of the claims of evolutionary science (at least) and in most cases, embraces the fully materialistic explanation of the universe, nature and human life itself.
So, arguing against a false dichotomy is good. But so is arguing in favor of a true dichotomy. That is far more necessary – because otherwise, the impression is given that Catholicism has nothing to say about the claims of evolution, no matter what those claims may be now or forever in the future.

Absolutely none. That comes from faith, not biology.

Well, our faith is founded in biology. In a matter of speaking – we are biological creatures. So, as we understand faith, we understand human life. Any science which claims to explain the origin and development and nature of human life (as evolutionary theory does) has many overlaps into matters of faith.

More importantly, our faith must be based on solid evidence. Otherwise, we’ll have nothing but blind faith – a belief that is founded on absolutely no evidence at all. That is the death-knell of any Catholic faith at all, and it’s a surrender under the attacks of atheism.

There is nothing in biology that suggests humans are anything special. There is no evidence suggestive of design or creation; nothing that requires explanation beyond standard evolutionary theory; nothing that requires the supernatural.

Well, I disagree with this very strongly, but more importantly, there are other scientists who would disagree also. I realize that’s not going to convince you of anything, but I just point it out to say that I don’t accept that view.

I haven’t the foggiest idea how God created the universe, or why he chose a particular mechanism over another. Nor do I particularly care. I spend very little time worrying about these things.

I’m assuming that you’re a practicing Catholic and each Sunday you profess publicly that God is the “creator of all things”. I would think that you’d have some care about this matter since it is your professed faith. Additionally, within your own field of biology a majority of your colleagues (extremely disproportionate to their percentage of the general public) deny that God exists at all - much more that He created anything in nature. Again, if you don’t care at all about this issue and you spend little time thinking about what God has done – I’d be concerned about how you could answer the challenge I gave at the beginning (that you should focus on arguments against materialist-atheism).

Notice that my question was not “how” God created anything, but “what” He created. From your answer, it seems like you fully accept the materialist explanation of the universe – namely, that natural laws (and evolutionary processes) alone are sufficient to explain the origin and development of the universe and nature and of human life.

Ok, I think I knew that anyway so my reply here is not intended to debate that.

But my original concern stands … what kind of defense can you make at all for the Catholic faith in the face of atheistic-scientism (evolutionism)?

From what I can see so far – absolutetly none. You accept blind faith with zero evidence to support it and you don’t care at all about what the belief in God as the creator of all things means or implies. That does not sound right to me.

 

[cassini]

Natural science follows the scientific method.

1. Observe a natural phenomenon.
2. Formulate a hypothesis explaining that observation.
3. Design an experiment to test the hypothesis.
4. Detemine if the hypothesis correctly predicts the results of the experiment.

If the experiment does confirm the hypothesis, it is repeated and replicated by others. Then additional experiments are devised to test other predictions of the hypothesis. If all these experiments confirm the hypothesis, then the hypothesis becomes a scientific theory. (Note the use of the word “theory” is very different that its use in general conversation.)

So, can anyone tell us a scientific theory that is at odds with Christianity? I’m asking for a scientific theory that resulted from the scientific method outlined above. I am not asking for a hypothesis. Nor am I asking for a speculation, or a scientist’s personal opinion.

(Note: if a hypothesis cannot be tested by experiment, then it cannot become a scientific theory and remains outside the realm of natural science.)

Big Bang Theory

 

[Mike_BioProf]

Well, our faith is founded in biology. In a matter of speaking – we are biological creatures. So, as we understand faith, we understand human life. Any science which claims to explain the origin and development and nature of human life (as evolutionary theory does) has many overlaps into matters of faith.

More importantly, our faith must be based on solid evidence. Otherwise, we’ll have nothing but blind faith – a belief that is founded on absolutely no evidence at all. That is the death-knell of any Catholic faith at all, and it’s a surrender under the attacks of atheism.

Well, I guess I disagree here. Of course, I can only speak of my own faith, not others’. Modern science did not exist until about the 18th century, so somehow people managed to believe in God for centuries without evidence from biology (with the possible exception of the Apostle Thomas ). I can’t think of any possible scientific evidence that could tell me whether or not God exists. I also don’t think God works that way; that is, that He leaves little traces of his work for us to discover, a la the intelligent design folks. To take that farther, even if some scientific evidence may be construed to support the existence of God, it becomes even much harder to think of any evidence that would support Christianity over other religions. Or one version of Christianity over another.

I find it tremendously interesting to hear other’s views, and I fear that I may be misinterpreting your comments, so I ask, what is your “solid evidence”? If it is based on denying that evolution has happened, then of course I disagree. But if you are thinking more along the lines of the existence of free will, the capacity for love and mercy, then we may be much closer to being on the same page, but more of that below. Regardless, I would very much like to hear what you have to say on evidence.

I’m assuming that you’re a practicing Catholic and each Sunday you profess publicly that God is the “creator of all things”. I would think that you’d have some care about this matter since it is your professed faith. Additionally, within your own field of biology a majority of your colleagues (extremely disproportionate to their percentage of the general public) deny that God exists at all - much more that He created anything in nature. Again, if you don’t care at all about this issue and you spend little time thinking about what God has done – I’d be concerned about how you could answer the challenge I gave at the beginning (that you should focus on arguments against materialist-atheism).

You make a lot of interesting points, and I don’t think I can answer everything, but I’ll try to clarify my thoughts. First, I don’t spend much time on theology. For me, most of it falls into the categories of “not my problem” or “we are never going to find the answer so why spend time trying”. Here is what I believe. I believe that the standard secular version of evolution is true. Our biology, and all of the scientific evidence regarding life on earth, can be explained without recourse to the supernatural. This, for me, is truth. That does not mean that there is no supernatural, and of course I object to the fallacy of Dawkins that just because the evolution of our bodies can be explained without God implies that God does not exist. I believe in God, the divinity of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, my hope for eternal salvation, and so on. This is also truth. I believe God “created” the universe, and all of us. Here is where many people find themselves asking all sorts of questions: Did God create the universe out of nothing by creating the natural laws that would inevitably lead to the present? Did He add a soul to the first ‘human’ directly, or did it somehow arise according to some plan? How can free will evolve, and did God know exactly how everything was going to work out? etc. Many of my friends spend time thinking about these things. I don’t. This is what I meant when I said I don’t care. As John Paul II said, truth can not contradict truth. I don’t know exactly how we mesh our two truths, other than they are both true. I suspect we are not capable of understanding all of this, as to do so may mean fully understanding the mind of God, something I acknowledge to be impossible. So, I say it is a mystery and leave it at that. This is what is nice about being Catholic; we are okay with mysteries.

Notice that my question was not “how” God created anything, but “what” He created. From your answer, it seems like you fully accept the materialist explanation of the universe – namely, that natural laws (and evolutionary processes) alone are sufficient to explain the origin and development of the universe and nature and of human life.

But my original concern stands … what kind of defense can you make at all for the Catholic faith in the face of atheistic-scientism (evolutionism)?

From what I can see so far – absolutetly none. You accept blind faith with zero evidence to support it and you don’t care at all about what the belief in God as the creator of all things means or implies. That does not sound right to me.

There are of course, some very interesting areas of overlap between the science of human evolution and religion, so I suppose it is not like I never think about the connections. So, “what” He created… well, we have free will. We have the capacity for mercy and love, which is pretty cool. These things can be explained without referring to God, but yet I believe that God had everything to do with it.

Mike

 

[edwest2]

The Catholic Church declares that by natural (i.e. non-religious) reason alone we can detect God in nature. It is not complicated. Science, for some, however, is a new entity in the power struggle between faith and anti-theism. Right now, the anti-theists want to push religion as far away from “their” science as possible.

Peace,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

… somehow people managed to believe in God for centuries without evidence from biology (with the possible exception of the Apostle Thomas ).

That’s a very significant “exception”. St. Thomas’ proof from biology is echoed through the New Testament.

I can’t think of any possible scientific evidence that could tell me whether or not God exists.

The Apostle Thomas made a very similiar claim. But beyond that, I can’t believe that you are not able to think of a way that science could provide solid evidence for the existence of God. Einstein did not have a problem with this issue – science gave him strong evidence.

I also don’t think God works that way;

I find this to be a major contradiction, honestly. You are not interested in exploring or learning from Catholic theology but you are willing to make claims about “how God works”. On what basis did you draw this conclusion?

that is, that He leaves little traces of his work for us to discover, a la the intelligent design folks.

You’re free to hold an opinion about “how God would do it” but I would like to see some support for that – otherwise it’s just a personal assertion. Even if you claimed that you had a private revelation from God about how He created the world – I would hope that you would align it to a philosophical and theological structure.

To take that farther, even if some scientific evidence may be construed to support the existence of God, it becomes even much harder to think of any evidence that would support Christianity over other religions. Or one version of Christianity over another.

Again, Mike – you’re obviously an intelligent gentleman. I will assume that you’re familiar enough with Catholic apologetics and that you’ve personally refuted all of the arguments giving evidence about the resurrection of Christ and the divine origin of the Church. If, however, you make this claim (“its hard to think of evidence supporting Christianity”) while at the same time “having no interest in theology” – then I would call that a major problem of credibility.
We have to give an answer for the faith we profess.
Again, my concern is that you’re adhering to a blind faith – a faith with no substance in the real world and with zero evidence. You believe the resurrection not because the evidence supports it, but just because someone told you to believe it (that’s the way it sounds).

But if you are thinking more along the lines of the existence of free will,

The existence of free will refutes the “standard secular version of evolution”. This is the conflict that I think you’re trying to avoid – that is understandable, but it really can’t be done. Additionally, your faith does hang in the balance. If evolution proves that free will does not exist (which mainstream evolutionists claim has already been proven – we can ask Ed West who has been arguing with evolutionists here on CAF about this very point) then science does have quite a lot to say about the Faith.

But I’m glad you do accept the existence of free-will, which cannot be the product of matter and physical laws. This is an intelligent design argument itself. The same is true for the origin and application of morality – and yes, certainly the capacity for love and mercy as you mentioned. These cannot be the products of unintelligent, blind evolutionary processes.

There is much more evidence in nature. The rationality of the cosmos can be perceived by empirical evidence, as Einstein did. The symmetry and mathematical precision that can be found in the universe is more evidence of the same. These things cannot emerge from matter and physical laws either (again, an intelligent design argument). The origin of life requires the assembly of complex, precise genetic code (Steven Meyer’s new book illustrates this) – the earliest known organism possessed this code with a complexity which is beyond what human beings can fully comprehend. The human brain itself is an indication of intelligent design (and a refutation of evolution)

At the pinnacle of biological complexity is the human brain, the most complex structure known to exist in the universe. It contains about 100 billion neurons, each of which has connections to as many as a thousand other neurons. It dwarfs in sophistication any computer ever devised by man. And yet, this brain, with all its astonishing powers—the brain of Mozart, of Einstein, of Shakespeare—evolved from an ape brain in about 5 million years or less.

Now atheistic-evolutionists (that is, mainstream evolutionary theorists) will claim that in spite of the fact that this appears ridiculously absurd, illogical and otherwise nonsensical – that the human brain did, indeed, evolve due in response to survival pressures. But this only leads many people to conclude that such theorists are out of touch with reality.

There is other evidence. The claim that bacteria is the origin of the entire diversity that can be seen in nature is some. Bacteria exists today just fine. It continues to mutate but it does not create new life forms. “Survival advantage” alone does not provide an adequate explanation for the idea that bacteria evolved to fill the world with plants, animals and even a million species of insects.

I realize that evolutionary science offers many rebuttals to all of these points. But I think the challenge moves back to you at some point – namely, where do you draw a limit for what evolution can or has produced? If the answer is that there is no limit – then this is philosophical materialism.

… continued

 

[reggieM]

continued from previous …

I believe in God, the divinity of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, my hope for eternal salvation, and so on.

That is very good to hear. But again, my concern is that your philosophical assertion that biology can explain all aspects of life on earth without reference to the supernatural meets a contradiction with your belief in the resurrection. I would hope that you accept that other miracles have taken place as well (as the infallibly defined dogma on the Assumption teaches us) – but even if the divinity of Christ and His resurrection are the only two miracles that you accept – these are enough to prove that biology cannot fully explain the development of life on earth – and certainly not the origin and development of human life.

Did God create the universe out of nothing by creating the natural laws that would inevitably lead to the present? Did He add a soul to the first ‘human’ directly, or did it somehow arise according to some plan? How can free will evolve, and did God know exactly how everything was going to work out? etc. Many of my friends spend time thinking about these things. I don’t. This is what I meant when I said I don’t care. As John Paul II said, truth can not contradict truth. I don’t know exactly how we mesh our two truths, other than they are both true. I suspect we are not capable of understanding all of this, as to do so may mean fully understanding the mind of God, something I acknowledge to be impossible. So, I say it is a mystery and leave it at that. This is what is nice about being Catholic; we are okay with mysteries.

That may be fine in some ways (but I don’t believe that an educated person should close himself off to the teachings of the Church on creation like that) – it’s my hope that you will at least remain consistent and not profess a materialistic view of the universe in your science world and then a universe inhabited, shaped, influenced and created by God in your religious views.

So, “what” He created… well, we have free will. We have the capacity for mercy and love, which is pretty cool. These things can be explained without referring to God, but yet I believe that God had everything to do with it.

I would say that this is very good – and yes, its a solid answer to the question, but unfortunately I have to qualify that praise again because of your comment at the end …
How can free-will be explained without referring to an intelligent, non-natural cause?

 

[edwest2]

I study the history of technology. It is fascinating. But if human beings are just mechanisms then we have no purpose and our end is just food for worms. Much like bacteria, we live, we survive, or not, and die, either sooner or later.

Science seems to be the current obsession. It will heal us. It will guide us. It will provide us with new toys and weapons. It is working on Terminator type robots right now. In Japan, all that’s missing from the Honda ASIMO robot is a gun in its hand. Nanodevices are currently being developed that will allow direct and targeted delivery of cancer related drugs and other medicines.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

The paradigm here is that science is inviolate. Religion cannot touch it or inform it. It happens in a special place and is performed by men who create things. It is a place where all faiths or no faith will produce results. God’s miracles are not allowed in the lab. Or if science cannot test for it, it does not exist.

There are those who want to get rid of belief and replace it with science which means evolution which means reason which means reality. In the interface between science and religion are the things that truly make us human.

Scientist Ray Kurzweil longs for the day when a completely synthetic human being is created. Perhaps he wants his mind transferred into an artificial body. One that is immortal or replaceable. That can learn and discover forever. This would be transferal into a dead device. One that could only mimic human behavior but have no real longings or goals or real fears.

Anglican Archbisop Desmond Tutu wrote a book with a beautiful and profound title, No Future Without Forgiveness.

Within each of us is a deadly defect called Original Sin. How long will we be distracted by devices? How long will we keep telling ourselves that we can do whatever we want?

The living God does not just exist in the Church building. During his trip to America, Pope Benedict pointed out that faith is not a private matter but meant for the whole human family.

Science, which can be a reflection of the Creator’s own creative ability in man, is meant to be a servant, but some worship it and long for it as if it were a deity. And the two miracles that need to be attributed to every candidate for sainthood – does it matter that science cannot study them directly? Experts are indeed called in to examine them. To give their expert opinion as to the accuracy of the information available and the fact that no natural explanation can be found.

Our acknowledgement of the shiny object called science should be tempered by the fact that one good power outage brings us right back to the 1800s and if we don’t have batteries or candles, all of our modern devices are so many paperweights.

How often do I read scientific articles comparing men to animals? And yes, there are scientific articles exploring the evolution of religion. But, even before all the facts are in, people embrace the ideas. Loving what they think is the fact that there is no God and they have no one to answer to but themselves.

That has been the conflict for the last 150 years. The anti-theists just want Christians to accept the biology textbook. God becomes the candy coating to make the textbook go down. It’s presented here all the time and it’s very, very clear that it is not something benevolent but something malevolent. Just say yes to the biology textbook. And I’ve seen statements from atheists ready to sue any public school that brings God into the classroom, while, at the same time, accepting biology texts that draw conclusions that claim a divine plan had nothing to do with life on earth.

Science can’t demonstrate that, but, by putting it in the textbook, they are making sure the student not only gets the science but gets an anti-God worldview. That is my complaint.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Arandur]

Hey, Reggie and Ed. Back to generalized, broad-brush condemnation of “evolutionists” and not making many distinctions between the science and the materialistic philosophy, I see.

Did you read the article linked by the OP? Did you read the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or many of the scientists quoted in it?

It seems the link is yet another evidence of what I tried to show you in another thread. These ideas are quite mainstream and not just “my” personal views: that science and faith and even basic biological evolution and faith are compatible, and that science of course cannot explain all of existence, nor all of what it means to be human. I should note here that Mike never claimed otherwise (contrary to your attempt, Reggie, to mischaracterize his statement to say that evolution can explain “all aspects of life”). He said that evolution can explain our biology, the workings and biological purpose of the human body. As usual, your weaknesses seem to be over-generalization and leaping to conclusions based not on what people actually said, but on what you would prefer them to say so that you can attack them.

I would hope that the other posters on this thread would also have conveyed the common-ness of these ideas (finding biological evolution compatible with faith without making errors of materialism or scientism). Quite contrary to your demonizing of anyone who might accept as accurate many of the processes of evolution.

If someone discovers that earthquakes are caused by pressure and movement of tectonic plates and not by the direct wrath of God, he may also claim that God cannot/does not cause earthquakes, perhaps even that He does not exist. The first claim can be fact while the second is baseless foolishness; as a Believer I can accept the first and reject the second; I would be foolish to reject the first because of the falsity of the second, for that is not logical. As with the processes of earthquakes and other natural disasters, so it is with what science discovers of the processes of evolution. It is important for the Believer to draw the distinction between the discovery of a natural process and the false conclusions of foolish scientists going beyond what they have evidence for, rather than rejecting the discovery because we might be afraid of the false conclusion and also might prefer to attribute natural disasters directly to God’s wrath.

 

[Mike_BioProf]

That’s a very significant “exception”. St. Thomas’ proof from biology is echoed through the New Testament.

I was trying to be funny… referring merely and specifically to Thomas putting his hand in Jesus’ wounds as a ‘biological experiment’. But as Letterman said recently, “If you have to explain the joke, then well…”

I can’t believe that you are not able to think of a way that science could provide solid evidence for the existence of God. Einstein did not have a problem with this issue – science gave him strong evidence.

Well, the easy answer is that Einstein is smarter than me! Then again, his famous “God does not play dice” comment was referring to his disbelief in quantum physics. Turns out, he was wrong as experimental evidence supported the probabilistic Bohr-Heisenberg model.

You’re free to hold an opinion about “how God would do it” but I would like to see some support for that – otherwise it’s just a personal assertion. Even if you claimed that you had a private revelation from God about how He created the world – I would hope that you would align it to a philosophical and theological structure.

Absolutely it is “personal assertion”. I claim nothing else.

There is much more evidence in nature.

…]

Now atheistic-evolutionists (that is, mainstream evolutionary theorists) will claim that in spite of the fact that this appears ridiculously absurd, illogical and otherwise nonsensical – that the human brain did, indeed, evolve due in response to survival pressures. But this only leads many people to conclude that such theorists are out of touch with reality.

You indeed have much more evidence supporting your faith than I do, mostly resting on your refusal to accept evolution to explain the origins of diversity and complex life. I can not use any of that as evidence because it is not good evidence. I am extremely familiar with the data and interpretations of evolutionary biology, and I find them to be absolutely correct. There are no flaws in the evidence; the data are overwhelming. As such, my beliefs indeed rest much more on blind faith than yours, but if your evidence is wrong what good is it? Moreover, if the evidence is based on the perceived inability of science to explain something, what happens when tomorrow some scientist explains exactly how some major step in evolution occurred (say, bacteria to multicellular life)? Either your faith is diminished, or you knee-jerk refuse to accept the scientific conclusion no matter how good the evidence. To me, that is both bad science and bad theology. I don’t mean to sound harsh, or disrespectful. I am just trying to explain my beliefs, reiterating that this is my opinion, not grounded in any bigger theology.

This is getting long… I gotta catch my bus.