Science & Religion

[inocente]

The difference is that I believe Catholic teaching that human nature, in itself, is an unique unification of both the material world and the spiritual world.

From what you say the spiritual world must either be a barren void or else totally alien since it can’t contain animals, rivers, music, math, etc. belonging to the material world.

Could you comment on where these two worlds are in relation to each other and when God created the one relative to the other?

In other words, I do not look at a human person and say – what a wonderful golden eagle sub-species you are!

Unlikely anyone else would either, but otherwise you lost me big time there.

 

[rinnie]

But science will be able to close some gaps. If you pick the wrong gap to put your God in, then science may close the gap and squeeze your God out. Gods like Thor or Zeus were in the gap called, “Why do thunder and lightning happen?” That gap closed, and now those gods have nowhere to go. If you put your God into a gap then you might find yourself worshiping a shrinking God. Do you really want that? Are you willing to trust the existence of God to your ideas about what science will, and will not, do in future? That seems to me to be a very shaky foundation on which to base your faith.

“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we do not know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Letters and Papers from Prison”

rossum

Not always. Many of times we can also find God in unsolved problems. We find God in the CHURCH and the Church is a MYSTERY. God is a Mystery.

But like any mystery God reveals himself with clues and paths that we should follow. All we have to do is the work and lots of prayer.

The biggest Mystery is how God takes on the true body and blood in the Eucharist. Science cannot nor will ever be able to explain or define the Eucharist. That is why God and Science will not always go hand in hand.

Because God reveals to us what he wants us to know, and there is much we will never understand. But it is the childlike trust that will help lead us into heaven.

To a Christian God just does. No need for God to be explained or explain himself. We trust in him to do that when he says, not us.

 

[Lui]

The possibility of Adam exists. One is free to accept it or not accept it.

Thanks for your explanation but I can’t believe in Adam. It is basically IMPOSSIBLE for me to believe this story,

It’s far harder to believe human beings are produced by purposeless events!

Why are there just two options for you: either believe human beings are produced by purposeless events or they are the product of a thousand year old mystical story? There are thousands of mystical stories you can pick and choose from. There might be a million other explanations we just haven’t found out about. Obviously there are laws of nature which no one denies. Nature works like a swiss watch but to believe humans specifically are a divine species from millions of species that existed, descended from a couple who disobeyed God is just one in a million theories.
Maybe there is an explanation we will never find out or maybe science will actually solve this puzzle one day. Until then I can only believe what my mind wants to accept.

John Paul II did not believe in evolution by Chance…

I never said that he nor I claim this. That’s your assumption that anyone who doesn’t believe in the Adam and Eve story as historical fact must be an atheist who believes in evolution by chance. Again, there are a million options.

 

[Lui]

Give me your best argument against long ages.

I’m not 5 anymore.

 

[buffalo]

I’m not 5 anymore.

Now I am definitely convinced. You are using an argument from incredulity.

Very scientific indeed. :nope:

 

[Wardog]

So you’re saying God lacked the intelligence to give you the extra limbs you want?

I guess that would be one way to look at it. If I wanted to be difficult and obtuse.
I prefer to think that God created us this way for a reason. He has not shared that reason with me yet, but so far it is working out pretty good.
But you have me stumped on why he provided male pattern baldness.

 

[Wardog]

Then JPII was spot on the button as only those who don’t have a clue could think for one moment evolution happens purely by chance .

My old dog was named Chance, and even he didn’t appear to believe he caused evolution. He wasn’t given to circular arguments, although at times he admittedly chased his tail.

We may be talking past one another here. I posted a paragraph from PBS.
Evolution is not considered random, but the (name removed by moderator)uts on which it works are (or at least may be). I would add to this paragraph that the randomness also depends on the context of the local environment. A genetic variation may thrive in the desert, but fail in the arctic.
I am not sure why it is so important to define evolution as not being random, when the (name removed by moderator)uts are.
From PBS.ORG
Is evolution a random process?
Evolution is not a random process. The genetic variation on which natural selection acts may occur randomly, but natural selection itself is not random at all. The survival and reproductive success of an individual is directly related to the ways its inherited traits function in the context of its local environment. Whether or not an individual survives and reproduces depends on whether it has genes that produce traits that are well adapted to its environment.

 

[Lui]

Now I am definitely convinced. You are using an argument from incredulity.

Very scientific indeed. :nope:

I’m not going to get sucked up in your YEC discussions. When I was 8 my next door neighbor tried to convince me Santa is real. I didn’t even believe in Santa when I was 3. I couldn’t believe another 8 year old actually believes in Santa. We had a huge argument. It ended with him saying that he will still believe in Santa when he is in college. I should check if he’s on Facebook and ask if he stills believes in Santa

What I learned is that it is hopeless to have these discussions. For me your beliefs have no more credibility than the beliefs of a kid.

 

[Wardog]

Thanks for your explanation but I can’t believe in Adam. It is basically IMPOSSIBLE for me to believe this story,

.

Can you believe the Human Genome Project?
If we can all descend from a single common female from 140,000 years ago, is it that farfetched that we all descended from Adam & Eve however long ago they lived? Because 20 years ago I would have doubted that I would ever read the first line of this paragraph.
Quote:
DNA studies indicate that all modern humans share a common female ancestor who lived in Africa about 140,000 years ago, and all men share a common male ancestor who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago. These were not the only humans who lived in these eras, and the human genome still contains many genetic traits of their contemporaries. Humanity’s most recent common ancestors are identifiable because their lineages have survived by chance in the special pieces of DNA that are passed down the gender lines nearly unaltered from one generation to the next. These ancestors are part of a growing body of fossil and DNA evidence indicating that modern humans arose in sub-Saharan Africa and began migrating, starting about 65,000 years ago, to populate first southern Asia, China, Java, and later Europe. Each of us living today has DNA that contains the story of our ancient ancestors’ journeys.

 

[tonyrey]

Evolution is not a random process.

 

[buffalo]

I’m not going to get sucked up in your YEC discussions. When I was 8 my next door neighbor tried to convince me Santa is real. I didn’t even believe in Santa when I was 3. I couldn’t believe another 8 year old actually believes in Santa. We had a huge argument. It ended with him saying that he will still believe in Santa when he is in college. I should check if he’s on Facebook and ask if he stills believes in Santa

What I learned is that it is hopeless to have these discussions. For me your beliefs have no more credibility than the beliefs of a kid.

You are aware of a fellow called St Nicholas? Yes?

All I need is your best scientific argument against long ages.

 

[tonyrey]

It’s far harder to believe human beings are produced by purposeless events!

For educated people Design or non-Design are the two main contenders…

There are thousands of mystical stories you can pick and choose from.

Indeed. I reject the one about mystical matter…

There might be a million other explanations we just haven’t found out about.

A desperate appeal to… ignorance!

Obviously there are laws of nature which no one denies.

Which do not explain themselves…

Nature works like a swiss watch but to believe humans specifically are a divine species from millions of species that existed…

No one believes human beings are divine. We believe all species have a divine origin.
.

…descended from a couple who disobeyed God…

A superior explanation to one that doesn’t explain the colossal amount of evil in the world.

…is just one in a million theories.

Do you believe **every **theory is false?

Maybe there is an explanation we will never find out or maybe science will actually solve this puzzle one day. Until then I can only believe what my mind wants to accept.

Precisely! Wishful thinking of the highest order…

John Paul II did not believe in evolution by Chance…

*…

I never said that he nor I claim this. That’s your assumption that anyone who doesn’t believe in the Adam and Eve story as historical fact must be an atheist who believes in evolution by chance. Again, there are a million options.

What is **your **version of events?

 

[inocente]

But you have me stumped on why he provided male pattern baldness.

No laughing matter. I reckon it was to inspire the following passage in Kings, which in turn no doubt inspired Douglas Adams and his Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything - 42.

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. - biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Kings%202:23-24%20&version=NIV

God works in mysterious ways.

I am not sure why it is so important to define evolution as not being random, when the (name removed by moderator)uts are.

Because it’s wrong to say it’s random (and usually only said by those who think political slogans define truth). It’s no more random than everything else that’s subject to the physical law, unless we want to say God plans absolutely everything so precisely that free will is impossible.

 

[Lui]

Precisely! Wishful thinking of the highest order…

Thanks for just summing up your faith

 

[SGWessells]

It is quite logical. The first individual whom we could call Homo sapiens had parents who belonged to some Homo species or other.

Regarding the morality of it, Catholic tradition is not opposed to it Homo sapiens having evolved from pre-existing species into which God breathed His image and likeness. Perhaps Baptists have another opinion?

You can’t pick and choose which words of a Bible verse must be taken literally and which you can ignore. Genesis says Adam was created out of the dust of the ground, to which he would return, not from “some homo species or other.” When he died, did his body return to that of “some homo species or other”? If you take the “made in God’s image” part literally, you’re stuck with the dust of the earth part, unless you have a good reason for the distinction. I’m glad I don’t have to think of one.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

SGW

**Other religions have risen and prospered equally rapidly: Mormonism, for example, or Scientology, or the Cargo Cult. Rapid dissemination is not necessarily evidence of truth, only of popularity. **

Rapid popularity is sometimes evidence of truth.

 

[SGWessells]

You study bones of early hominids but not 560 million skeletons of early hominids. If the conditions are right to preserve one skeleton they are right to preserve all skeletons, surely.

The conditions necessary to preserve any fossil are rare; you have to have a certain type of soil and climate condition, a certain type of death, a burial sudden enough that predators didn’t feast on the bones, a steady climate dry enough to preserve them and isolated from the destructive forces of nature and history. The really amazing thing is that we have as many bones as we have. And you know what else is amazing? None of them are found where the trilobites or T-rexes are. They are exactly at the chronological level they ought to be to conform with evolutionary predictions.

 

[Ahimsa]

You can’t pick and choose which words of a Bible verse must be taken literally and which you can ignore.

Why not? The Bible makes no such restriction.

 

[tonyrey]

Thanks for just summing up your faith

You are the one who admitted:***

Until then I can only believe what my mind wants

• to accept. *
  

     :thumbsup:

 

[Lui]

****You are the one who admitted:********

Yes, and I can’t accept absurd stories as factual history:thumbsup: I can’t just believe in what I consider as complete ignorance just for the sake of believing.