Science & Religion

[tonyrey]

The only refuge anyone with any pretensions to rationality has is to call Genesis metaphorical. But that your church forbids you to do.

You are misinformed:

philvaz.com/apologetics/p94.htm

Another source:

CCC 283. The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of **many scientific studies **which **have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. **These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers…

    CCC 284. The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly  stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper  domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing  when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but  rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin....

 

[tonyrey]

The tree gains defensive protection and other benefits from the ants it provides a home for. To quote the Wikipedia article: “In exchange for food and shelter, ants aid the myrmecophyte in pollination, seed dispersal, gathering of essential nutrients, and/or defense.”

This is a mutual benefit, not an exclusive benefit.

“In laboratory tests, the worker ants did not survive away from the plants, and in their natural habitat they were never found anywhere else”.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmecophyte

The point is that** co-operation** in nature is more fundamental and important than conflict.

 

[grannymh]

How do you explain the urge to survive?
If design is only an appearance then intelligence is also only an appearance!

How would you prove that colours are essential for survival?
How were membranes transformed into feathers?

What bothers me about these questions is that, for the most part, they apply to non-human creatures. And when they are applied to humans, they apply only to the anatomy. For example. Recent research showed that the anatomy of people living in extremely high altitudes eventually over time adapted accordingly. End of discussion.

Because the human being is both material *and *spiritual uniquely united as one single nature, religious issues such as “creation” need to move up a notch to the real issues of human relationship to God. In my humble opinion, current faith/science movements should move from non-human organisms to the human organism to a personal God. For Catholics, this means two, sole parents of humanity, a correct understanding of Original Sin, and the need of a Savior for all people. However, in some circles, Catholicism stands alone with its beliefs.

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect.

 

[grannymh]

The key phrase is “meant to understand” - which suggests intention…

I beg to differ. “understand” is the key issue since human nature is unique with its tools of reasoning. Human nature is the same for all persons due to the fact that all persons are descendants of one couple.

 

[tonyrey]

What bothers me about these questions is that, for the most part, they apply to non-human creatures. And when they are applied to humans, they apply only to the anatomy. For example. Recent research showed that the anatomy of people living in extremely high altitudes eventually over time adapted accordingly. End of discussion.

Because the human being is both material *and *spiritual uniquely united as one single nature, religious issues such as “creation” need to move up a notch to the real issues of human relationship to God. In my humble opinion, current faith/science movements should move from non-human organisms to the human organism to a personal God. For Catholics, this means two, sole parents of humanity, a correct understanding of Original Sin, and the need of a Savior for all people. However, in some circles, Catholicism stands alone with its beliefs.

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect.

Every week in the media there are news items which give the impression that **all **human thoughts, beliefs, emotions and decisions can be explained in terms of brain activity. Such is the “intellectual” environment in which we live…

 

[tonyrey]

I beg to differ. “understand” is the key issue since human nature is unique with its tools of reasoning. Human nature is the same for all persons due to the fact that all persons are descendants of one couple.

How about “meant”?

 

[grannymh]

.
The only refuge anyone with any pretensions to rationality has is to call Genesis metaphorical. But that your church forbids you to do. Fortunately, that isn’t my problem any more.

emphasis mine

The book of Genesis has 50 chapters with many verses. To call all verses of 50 chapters metaphorical is foolish to say the least.

Catholicism teaches the Divine Revelation found in the first three chapters of Genesis. From the Catholic viewpoint, God is not metaphorical; God is real.

Having said what I could say about this topic---- being a new day, it is time for me to move on.

Best wishes to all,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Because the human being is both material *and *spiritual uniquely united as one single nature, religious issues such as “creation” need to move up a notch to the real issues of human relationship to God. In my humble opinion, current faith/science movements should move from non-human organisms to the human organism to a personal God. For Catholics, this means two, sole parents of humanity, a correct understanding of Original Sin, and the need of a Savior for all people. However, in some circles, Catholicism stands alone with its beliefs.

It is also not possible to claim to adhere to Catholic belief in every area except the creation of man, because an essential aspect of Catholicism is the uniqueness of the human soul vs. the rest of the animal kingdom. Regardless of the magnificent manner in which all of creation is in some sense the materialized Thought of God, only man’s consciousness makes possible an ongoing, mutual relationship with that creator. Even if one believed that animals also have souls (a spiritual essence in addition to material form), man is unique in his awareness of a spiritual essence and in his ability to respond (to that and with that). Human beings are radically different from the rest of the animal kingdom in that regard.

It is a core doctrine of the Church that (human) souls did not and do not evolve. To state anything else would be a pretty fundamental heresy. So regardless of how it happened, there had to have been a defining moment in which this uniquely human being began the procreation of the rest of the human race.

 

[rossum]

Hi, you quoted Darwin like this;
“…had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, …”

sounded to me like the exclusive good of another species, did not mention mutual good at all. Are you refining Darwins meaning?

Darwin said “exclusive”. That means for the exclusive good of the ants, with no good for the tree. Since both the ants and the tree gain from the arrangement, the good is not “exclusive” to the ants, so it does not meet Darwin’s criterion. Both sides gain in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

rossum

 

[SGWessells]

Which leads to the question - Is the universe intelligible?

Which leads to the question - is God intelligible? The answer I keep seeing from believers here is, yes, but only up to a point. Usually the point at which he becomes unbelievable. Then we are told to believe what is unintelligible because God is infinite and we are not. But how do we know God is infinite? It’s a mystery. Why should we believe this particular mystery? Because only an infinite being could make something from nothing and design it so perfectly. Aside from the many debatable issues raised by those assertions, if infinity is such a mystery, how do you know it is required?

 

[StAnastasia]

How would you prove that colours are essential for survival?

They’re not.

How were membranes transformed into feathers?

Birds did not evolved from flying squirrels.

 

[StAnastasia]

Is science is the **sole criterion **of being human?

Of course not.

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnastasia;8539307:

So you believe the human species is in precisely the same category as the wolf and the shark?

Biologically speaking, yes. Homo sapiens evolved according to the same environmental constraints that shaped the formation of other species. Theologically, of course, it is a different matter.

 

[StAnastasia]

Every week in the media there are news items which give the impression that **all **human thoughts, beliefs, emotions and decisions can be explained in terms of brain activity. Such is the “intellectual” environment in which we live…

And why is that a threat to you?

 

[SGWessells]

There are exceptions to ever rule.

In general pagans thought the universe to be random and unpredictable, therefore not worthy of study.

Not so. Aristotle regularly sent Alexander the Great biological specimens for study when the king was on his campaigns. Eratosthenes (2nd cent. BCE) figured out the circumference of the earth with an amazing degree of accuracy. Hipparchus, about the same time, used his own and Babylonian measurements to estimate the distance from the earth to the moon at between 59 and 67 earth radii (the correct figure is 60).
The writings of Plato and Aristotle were full of wonder at how ordered and harmonious the kosmos was. There were schools of thought in the ancient world which taught that the universe was random and unpredictable, but they were in a minority.Sir Desmond Lee, in his introduction to the Penguin edition of Plato’s Timaeus, wrote: “Plato thought that the universe was an intelligible system – we can, after all, understand it.” (1977, p. 11, emphasis his). The universal belief in astrology in the ancient world, while deplorable, certainly shows that most pagans thought the world was so predictable that their earthly fate could be predicted by the motions of the heavens.
Examples could be multiplied exhaustively, but these are enough to show that your assertion is groundless.

 

[SGWessells]

This is the original statement from post 916. “The conclusion is Peter Pan **must **exist then”

Emphasis mine.

A better way to say this, in keeping with scientific observation, is that the evidence does not warrant the leap to an universal exclusion of two founders of humanity. Therefore, there is the possibility that the two founders existed.

In other words, the conclusion cannot absolutely rule out the possibility of two founders; therefore it is possible to have two founders of the human species.

Once again, the absence of disproof of an assertion is*** not evidence in its favor.*** It gives us no positive reason either to believe that Adam and Eve existed or to discount the force of the scientific evidence showing it to be, if not absolutely impossible, exceedingly unlikely.

 

[SGWessells]

grannymh wrote: "The quality of the evidence (that God does not exist) is meager. Because, obviously, scientific evidence is limited to the material/physical world. God is spiritual. "

Which does not stop many posters from whining that science does not recognize God’s role in running the world. Well, it can’t. Get over it.

 

[SGWessells]

Quote:
Originally Posted by rossum
That requires an unambiguous definition of a “human being”.

rossum
The Catholic church would understand this to be who we call Adam and Eve, our first parents who make us all brothers with equal dignity made in the image and likeness of God.

---

That’s a definition you call unambiguous? Why then have people been debating about what it means for thousands of years?

 

[SGWessells]

What happens in real science is that the conclusion of research is limited by the evidence presented and the methods used to examine the evidence. When it comes to genetic evidence about human origin, the evidence itself is not sufficient to account for every happening, every day, every place around the world, going back into pre-history centuries. Therefore, the possibility exists that there are two, sole founders of all humanity.

Please note that the possibility of Adam and Eve’s existence is all that is needed for true belief.

So a “true belief” can be based on a mere possibility? So because science cannot exclude the possibility that invisible leprechauns infest your basement, you are perfectly reasonable if you dig it up looking for pots of gold? And you claim to stand for common sense?
Science does not have to account for every minute of every day to dismiss the possibility of a single pair of individuals being the sole parents of the human race. All it has to do is show from the current evidence that this is impossible, as rossum said in post 996.

 

[SGWessells]

That’s not the way it works. There is history about Adam.

Yep - I could. ( you do know that a bunch of places that doubters just a few years ago said were fictional have been uncovered?) Archaeology has been backing the Bible with each and every discovery.

Some say there is history about Adam, others say it is legend or myth. You have yet to prove the former, so you can’t logically just assume it to bolster your argument.

Archaeology has even more recently shown that the Bible “history” is full of holes (if you’ll pardon the expression). Many cities mentioned in Joshua, for example, including Jericho and Ai, have been excavated and show no evidence of destruction in the time period of Joshua’s conquest. Exodus numbers Israel at the time of leaving Egypt at well over a million people, including women and children, yet despite exhaustive searching for generations, not a scrap of archaeological evidence has been unearthed to confirm such a vast migration.
You need to update your research past Josh McDowell and his citations from the 1950s. Archaeology has not been idle since then.