Science & Religion

[StAnastasia]

By the way, thank you, StAnastasia, for your consistently thoughtful and sensible posts, which are a breath of fresh air on this thread. I sometimes feel like I’m reading one of those debates among the characters on the Big Bang Theory TV show, where they argue about whether Green Lantern could beat the Flash, or how Superman cleans his uniform.

A lot if the discussion on CAF is by people who think theology is a dead exercise in simply transmitting the “deposit faith.” Some of that discussion resembles arguing about the precise dimensions of the Yellow Brick Road. I tell my graduate students that “theology is a living dialogue between a faith tradition and the culture in which it is embedded, including the scientific culture. Once that dialogue ceases, theology ceases to be a living dialogue, and becomes the dead relic of a once-living tradition,” essentially irrelevant to the culture.

Some Catholics are content to argue about this dead relic and live in sequestered enclaves within a society they regard as going to hell. Some atheists are happy to see conservative religious traditions shut up harmlessly in the “gated communities” of churches, so long as they do not influence society. However, as someone who values the vitality of both theology and scientific culture, I endeavor to help keep this dialogue going. For my pains, I’m called a “stupid theist” by atheist scientists, and the AntiChrist or a heretic by conservative Christians. I am amused by all such verbal insults, and wear them as badges of honor.

StAnastasia

 

[Elizabeth502]

A lot if the discussion on CAF is by people who think theology is a dead exercise in simply transmitting the “deposit faith.” Some of that discussion resembles arguing about the precise dimensions of the Yellow Brick Road. I tell my graduate students that “theology is a living dialogue between a faith tradition and the culture in which it is embedded, including the scientific culture. Once that dialogue ceases, theology ceases to be a living dialogue, and becomes the dead relic of a once-living tradition,” essentially irrelevant to the culture.

Is it your position that the moral doctrines outlined in the Catechism are “dead relics?”

Does the Church’s moral theology include moral absolutes that are not subject to redefinition by the scientific community or by secular society in general?

Do you understand that The Deposit of Faith is not a ‘scientific’ collection, per se, nor pretends to be?

As someone who values the vitality of both theology and scientific culture, I endeavor to help keep this dialogue going.

Do you have any concept whatsoever that outside your own intellectual circles there exists a vibrant, albeit not ‘collectivized’ as such, community of well-read Catholics who don’t fit into your either/or paradigm? That there is such a thing as a faithful Catholic who both adheres to the moral absolutes of her Church’s Tradition, yet appreciates the value of scientific advancement to the health and survival of the human race? And respects the scientific mind as one of the countless gifts of and from God? Do you understand yet that your mind is not necessarily superior to the minds of those who are able to keep both science and orthodox religious beliefs in balance? It’s not an insult; it’s a genuine question…because I don’t know if you realize that it is sometimes implied by your posts that traditional Catholics are somehow incapable of understanding the dynamic between science and religion, while not compromising that deposit of faith? (Or that they do not value it?)

 

[SGWessells]

I don’t claim to understand the nature of ultimate reality but the hypothesis that reasoning is the product of neuronal impulses is self-destructive. It amounts to believing that neuronal impulses understand and explain themselves…

It’s a bit more involved than that; for one thing, no one understands himself perfectly. But self-understanding neuronal impulses are no more of a stretch, to my mind, than a God composed of nothing physical being able to create and move physical matter out of nothing. If you an swallow that, nothing should be too strange to believe. Did not Tertullian say, “credo quia absurdam”?

The fact that you state that you love your wife implies that you believe in the reality of love. Do you believe it is made of matter and causes material neurotransmitters to move?

I believe love doesn’t occur in us without them. Emotions are more complicated, since they interact with other psychological factors, experiences, temperament, and genetic predispositions. I am not so extreme a reductionist as the convenience of your position would induce you to believe.

 

[SGWessells]

Charlemagne II wrote: "The fact of the matter is that there is no law of nature that says we have to exist. According to evolution, we might not have ever existed except for fortuitous combinations of atoms and molecules. Then again, I suppose if you found a watch on the ground and examined its works, you would say it only appears to be designed. It actually came together by a fortuitous combination of atoms and molecules … and the evolutionary law of the survival of the fittest atoms and molecules best combined to produce a watch. "

Thank you, William Paley. Unfortunately, the watch analogy, despite being quoted obsessively by design proponents (can’t you folks come up with anything original?) either does not apply, or begs the question. The only way the design of a watch, which we know to be deliberately manufactured to tell time, compares with life, is if life was just as self-evidently designed with equal deliberation, and the purpose for which it was made was equally self-evident from the product (i.e. life) itself. But this is the very thing you are trying to prove, so you can’t just assume it as a premise.
You are correct in saying that there is no law of nature that says we have to exist. I fail to see why that proves your design inference. Isn’t the main complaint of religious opponents of evolution that it happens “by chance” and means life has no plan or purpose? If that is not the case, the ground of your opposition disappears. Since it is the case, what is your objection? And doesn’t your religion say God created us freely? If that is correct, no law could have compelled God to create us, so I fail to see why the lack of such a law is a defect in anything.
There is a lot more to evolution, however, than the “fortuitous combination of atoms and molecules.” There is the far from fortuitous law of natural selection, the observed fact of frequent genetic duplication and subsequent adaptation of genetic duplicates to other functions, the occasional miscopying of genes which results in morphological changes which are then tested by their environment, the unanswered questions of design, such as how almost all the marsupials ended up in Australia (did they vote to migrate there after the Flood? And how did they get there? Build a raft?), and so forth.

Well yes, of course, if you were God, you could have done a better job!

Not me; I am no engineer. But an engineer could. However, this objection also begs the question. If evolution did the job, then the many design flaws in various bodies, such as the laryngeal nerve that takes a detour around your aorta instead of going straight to the larynx, or the vestigial hip and hind leg bones in whales, which evolved from land animals, are the sort of thing we would expect. But from the premise of an infinitely wise and powerful creator, they are inexplicable, unless God’s design thoughts, like all his others, are as high above ours as the heavens are above the earth. But if they were, we could not infer from the order and precision of nature that God designed it, since these conform to our merely earth-level ideas of good design. You can’t have it both ways…

 

[SGWessells]

Elizabeth502 wrote: “Does the Church’s moral theology include moral absolutes that are not subject to redefinition by the scientific community or by secular society in general?”

Not subject according to whom? To those, obviously, who cling to them despite advances in science which falsify, or even reverse, their moral goodness. Thus the moral absolute that condom use is objectively evil contributes to the spread of AIDS and starvation exacerbated by overpoplation in Africa. By definition, those who cling to moral absolutes regardless of any conceivable discovery which could render them either morally neutral or even harmful would qualify as “dead relics” at times in a gruesomely literal sense.

 

[buffalo]

Charlemagne II wrote: “The same problem exists in biology. It will never be possible to prove how abiogenesis happened. We know it did happen, but science will never be able to prove that it happened as a random combination of atoms and molecules. Those who say life was intelligently designed simply have the upper hand. Life looks like it was intelligently designed. It does not look at all as though it came about by sheer accident.”

How would you know? “Looks like” hardly qualifies as rigorous scientific analysis. There is a natural mountain formation in New Hampshire, featured on that state’s quarter, which looks vaguely like a human profile. I suppose that is evidence enough for you to conclude that somebody must have carved it, and to rank it with Mt. Rushmore.
Furthermore, evolution is not a process that happens solely “by sheer accident.” Natural selection is strictly lawful and operates by an absolute law: adapt or die. Genetic mutations can happen by accident, but they still have to survive afterward. What happens is that change is both gradual and incremental, which means each change does not start from scratch, but builds on what has changed before, just as a builder building a house does not tear down on Tuesday what he built on Monday and start from scratch, but adds to it until, over time, the whole house is built. In this way, over millions of years, structures which seem so complex and interdependent that they seem designed have nevertheless evolved with no blueprint, teleological predetermined plan, or final cause. We know this because we can trace in their morphological and genetic history the evolutionary steps which led to their current features, which often, for that reason, show imperfections and inefficiencies which a competent designer god would have avoided. Read Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker for copious examples.

We now know natural selection is a conservative process not a creative one. The fossil record shows abrupt appearance, stasis with limited variation within.

 

[buffalo]

It would require a constant miracle. Without ears, eyes, nose, mouth and skin there would be no hearing, sight, smell, taste or touch. And without neurons to carry those sensations to a brain, and without a brain to process them, there could no experiencing of the world. Without a brain and neuron connections there could be no consciousness as we know it. God could of course sustain a person in existence, but not in any way that even remotely resembles ordinary physical experience, unless is were a parlor trick, a perfect simulacrum.

 

[buffalo]

Not a great argument to make on CAF, where Catholics visibly disagree daily on anything and everything (which to me is good and healthy anyway).

There is a difference, Protestants are all over the place because there is no Magisterium to protect the deposit of faith. Catholics on the other hand make a choice just not to believe.

 

[buffalo]

A lot if the discussion on CAF is by people who think theology is a dead exercise in simply transmitting the “deposit faith.” Some of that discussion resembles arguing about the precise dimensions of the Yellow Brick Road. I tell my graduate students that “theology is a living dialogue between a faith tradition and the culture in which it is embedded, including the scientific culture. Once that dialogue ceases, theology ceases to be a living dialogue, and becomes the dead relic of a once-living tradition,” essentially irrelevant to the culture.

Some Catholics are content to argue about this dead relic and live in sequestered enclaves within a society they regard as going to hell. Some atheists are happy to see conservative religious traditions shut up harmlessly in the “gated communities” of churches, so long as they do not influence society. However, as someone who values the vitality of both theology and scientific culture, I endeavor to help keep this dialogue going. For my pains, I’m called a “stupid theist” by atheist scientists, and the AntiChrist or a heretic by conservative Christians. I am amused by all such verbal insults, and wear them as badges of honor.

StAnastasia

Like the US constitution is a living document?

You are dead wrong here. The truth does not change to the fads of moderns.

Your claim then is that half truths are more irrelevant to the culture. Well we have that right now and one can easily see the results - the culture of death.

 

[buffalo]

Charlemagne II wrote: "The fact of the matter is that there is no law of nature that says we have to exist. According to evolution, we might not have ever existed except for fortuitous combinations of atoms and molecules. Then again, I suppose if you found a watch on the ground and examined its works, you would say it only appears to be designed. It actually came together by a fortuitous combination of atoms and molecules … and the evolutionary law of the survival of the fittest atoms and molecules best combined to produce a watch. "

Thank you, William Paley. Unfortunately, the watch analogy, despite being quoted obsessively by design proponents (can’t you folks come up with anything original?) either does not apply, or begs the question. The only way the design of a watch, which we know to be deliberately manufactured to tell time, compares with life, is if life was just as self-evidently designed with equal deliberation, and the purpose for which it was made was equally self-evident from the product (i.e. life) itself. But this is the very thing you are trying to prove, so you can’t just assume it as a premise.
You are correct in saying that there is no law of nature that says we have to exist. I fail to see why that proves your design inference. Isn’t the main complaint of religious opponents of evolution that it happens “by chance” and means life has no plan or purpose? If that is not the case, the ground of your opposition disappears. Since it is the case, what is your objection? And doesn’t your religion say God created us freely? If that is correct, no law could have compelled God to create us, so I fail to see why the lack of such a law is a defect in anything.
There is a lot more to evolution, however, than the “fortuitous combination of atoms and molecules.” There is the far from fortuitous law of natural selection, the observed fact of frequent genetic duplication and subsequent adaptation of genetic duplicates to other functions, the occasional miscopying of genes which results in morphological changes which are then tested by their environment, the unanswered questions of design, such as how almost all the marsupials ended up in Australia (did they vote to migrate there after the Flood? And how did they get there? Build a raft?), and so forth.

Not me; I am no engineer. But an engineer could. However, this objection also begs the question. If evolution did the job, then the many design flaws in various bodies, such as the laryngeal nerve that takes a detour around your aorta instead of going straight to the larynx, or the vestigial hip and hind leg bones in whales, which evolved from land animals, are the sort of thing we would expect. But from the premise of an infinitely wise and powerful creator, they are inexplicable, unless God’s design thoughts, like all his others, are as high above ours as the heavens are above the earth. But if they were, we could not infer from the order and precision of nature that God designed it, since these conform to our merely earth-level ideas of good design. You can’t have it both ways…

Your entire argument falls when natural selection is taken away.

Vestigial features have been debunked.

It is time to start thinking common design using building blocks.

 

[StAnastasia]

Is it your position that the moral doctrines outlined in the Catechism are “dead relics?”

No.

Does the Church’s moral theology include moral absolutes that are not subject to redefinition by the scientific community or by secular society in general?

Yes.

 

[StAnastasia]

Your entire argument falls when natural selection is taken away.

Then why do biologists assume natural selection?

Vestigial features have been debunked.

False.

It is time to start thinking common design using building blocks.

“Intelligent Design” has no scientific value.

 

[StAnastasia]

We now know natural selection is a conservative process not a creative one. The fossil record shows abrupt appearance, stasis with limited variation within.

False.

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnastasia;8470967:

Huh? The immortal soul after death will not be able to fully experience God?

It depends on what you mean by “experience.” Sensory experience will be out without senses. Cognition requires a brain. If cognition were possible without a brain, rocks and buildings might be able to think. Some think they do, but I don’t. The risen Jesus had a body with a brain.

 

[StAnastasia]

Like the US constitution is a living document?

Correct.

You are dead wrong here.

 

[buffalo]

Then why do biologists assume natural selection?

False.

“Intelligent Design” has no scientific value.

Because they thought it to be true. Many now know better, the rest will soon understand.

Give me three vestigial features you believe in.

ID has tremendous scientific value unless you are one who has their head in the sand.

 

[buffalo]

buffalo;8472351:

It depends on what you mean by “experience.” Sensory experience will be out without senses. Cognition requires a brain. If cognition were possible without a brain, rocks and buildings might be able to think. Some think they do, but I don’t. The risen Jesus had a body with a brain.

So the immortal soul will not recognize God?

 

[StAnastasia]

It is time to start thinking common design using building blocks.

"When DNA acts like a mechanical clock
Very specific genes, known as “Hox,” are involved in this process. Responsible for the formation of limbs and the spinal column, they have a remarkable characteristic. “Hox genes are situated one exactly after the other on the DNA strand, in four groups. First the neck, then the thorax, then the lumbar, and so on,” explains Duboule. “This unique arrangement inevitably had to play a role.”

"The Hox clock is a demonstration of the extraordinary complexity of evolution. One notable property of the mechanism is its extreme stability, explains Duboule. “Circadian or menstrual clocks involve complex chemistry. They can thus adapt to changing contexts, but in a general sense are fairly imprecise. The mechanism that we have discovered must be infinitely more stable and precise. Even the smallest change would end up leading to the emergence of a new species.”

actu.epfl.ch/news/from-whales-to-earthworms-the-mechanism-that-gives/

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnastasia;8472433:

So the immortal soul will not recognize God?

Not by any means that we could express. If it happens, it’s ineffable.

 

[StAnastasia]

Because they thought it to be true. Many now know better, the rest will soon understand. ID has tremendous scientific value unless you are one who has their head in the sand.

I’m leaving for a Catholic science and religion conference (non-ID). I’ll pick this up when I return in a week.