Should Christians embrace evolution ?

[Catholic_Johnny]

Well, sir -

You’re right, we do have common ground, much common ground, I would say. Except, for our view of the Popes. I sense that you’re well read and informed about each of the Popes. I can neither claim nor match that. But, my return to the Church was during Pope John Paul II’s administration, and he has had a great influence on me. A good influence.
I wonder if the two latter Popes have phrased themselves to appear in contradiction to Pope Pius XII, when they really aren’t? So far, to my knowledge, what I have read as quotes from the two latter Popes does not support evolution. I think they merely recognize that Darwinism exists, without justifying it, from the little I’ve read about the two…

Thank you, sir, for your military service. My dad was 29 year USAF and retired CW04, God rest him. I really appreciate you’re being over there with your comrades and will pray for your and their safe return.

(My formal address is not meant as aloof, but as respect because I’m sure that your rank outranks me when I was in. I cherish your salutation and am glad to be your brother in Christ.)

Don, you are very kind, and I appreciate your gentleness. Please don’t call me sir - I am not worthy of that title and we are peers and brothers.

JP II did much good in the world and was a delightfully engaging Pontiff. I believe he loved the Lord with all his heart and his legacy will be one of glory. My issue is that JP II really propelled the Church in the direction of Vatican II which is being interpreted in many ways by many people far beyond the legitimate bounds of that Council.

One need not become an expert on the Popes but you will do well to acquaint yourself with a few seminal Encyclicals that are quoted often here. Humani Generis by Pius XII deals with Human Origins and establishes the doctrine of monogenism - that all men come from Adam and Eve and not many first parents. Pascendi Dominici Gregis by St. Pius X condemns the errors of modernism which deny the divinity of Jesus, the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, prophecy, miracles, etc… I strongly recommend you read Pascendi or at least read about it.

Divino Afflante Spiritu by Pius XII treats the limitations and permissions of Catholic exegetes (those that study the Bible) which modernists have egregiously transgressed by wanton libertinism and by it have shredded our Sacred Scriptures (The Jerome Biblical Commentary is a monument to this work of satan - stay away from it). Providentissimus Deus by Blessed Leo XIII establishes the authenticity and trustworthiness of our Bible and especially Genesis 1-3.

These Popes stand on the shoulders of nearly two millenia of Church Teaching and many Popes before them. There is no deviation in their unbroken defense of the Magisterium. Since Vatican II many Catholics have embraced modernism as though it were being promulgated by the Popes themselves - when in fact, that position is indefensible. What our contemporary Pontiffs have frequently done is to tolerate the subversive activity or even tacitly support it. This year Pope Benedict actually quoted Teillard de Chardin in a homily - very, very troubling as his writings are rejected by the Church as dangerous and heterodox.

1962 : A decree of the Holy Office dated 30th June, under the authority of Pope John XX III. warned that “. . . it is obvious that in philosophical and theological matters, the said works (de Chardin’s) are replete with ambiguities or rather with serious errors which offend Catholic doctrine. That is why … the Rev. Fathers of the Holy Office urge all Ordinaries, Superiors, and Rectors … to effectively protect, especially the minds of the young, against the dangers of the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and his followers”. (AAS, 6 Aug 1962).

His errors?

Indeed, the post-Vatican II global revolution is drenched in Teilhardian evolutionism. He is to this day (2009) — as one of his admirers described him — “the priest who haunts the Catholic world”.
The central problem in all this is not Teilhard but Evolutionism … a rejection of the belief in the historical reality of Genesis, including (and especially) rejection of the existence of Adam and Eve. Utter theological devastation!
Indeed, if Adam and Eve did not exist, then there is no such thing as Original Sin. With no Original Sin, there is no need to be redeemed from it. If no need for a Redeemer, then no need for Jesus Christ (Second Person of the Blessed Trinity) to become man and die on the Cross for our sins.
Final consequence of Teilhardian evolutionism: if there is no such thing as the Sacrifice of the Cross, then there is no such thing as the Sacrifice of the Mass (the core of Catholicism). A “memorial meal” will do nicely. Evolutionism, including (and especially) the “theistic” variety, divorces such a believer from the Catholic Faith. We’re talking eternal salvation here!

SEE: attached PDF

So Don, these are not small matters, they consumed the attention of many Popes between 1864 and 1958 and the church has been slouching towards the syncretism of evolutionism and Catholicism ever since with disastrous consequences - the churches in Europe that embraced this error are all but dead and Europe itself is losing its population. One might say they have darwinized themselves.

Thanks for your service to our great nation as well, Don! God’s blessings!

Johnny

 

[donsnow]

Don, you are very kind, and I appreciate your gentleness. Please don’t call me sir - I am not worthy of that title and we are peers and brothers.

JP II did much good in the world and was a delightfully engaging Pontiff. I believe he loved the Lord with all his heart and his legacy will be one of glory. My issue is that JP II really propelled the Church in the direction of Vatican II which is being interpreted in many ways by many people far beyond the legitimate bounds of that Council.

One need not become an expert on the Popes but you will do well to acquaint yourself with a few seminal Encyclicals that are quoted often here. Humani Generis by Pius XII deals with Human Origins and establishes the doctrine of monogenism - that all men come from Adam and Eve and not many first parents. Pascendi Dominici Gregis by St. Pius X condemns the errors of modernism which deny the divinity of Jesus, the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, prophecy, miracles, etc… I strongly recommend you read Pascendi or at least read about it.

Divino Afflante Spiritu by Pius XII treats the limitations and permissions of Catholic exegetes (those that study the Bible) which modernists have egregiously transgressed by wanton libertinism and by it have shredded our Sacred Scriptures (The Jerome Biblical Commentary is a monument to this work of satan - stay away from it). Providentissimus Deus by Blessed Leo XIII establishes the authenticity and trustworthiness of our Bible and especially Genesis 1-3.

These Popes stand on the shoulders of nearly two millenia of Church Teaching and many Popes before them. There is no deviation in their unbroken defense of the Magisterium. Since Vatican II many Catholics have embraced modernism as though it were being promulgated by the Popes themselves - when in fact, that position is indefensible. What our contemporary Pontiffs have frequently done is to tolerate the subversive activity or even tacitly support it. This year Pope Benedict actually quoted Teillard de Chardin in a homily - very, very troubling as his writings are rejected by the Church as dangerous and heterodox.

His errors?

SEE: attached PDF

So Don, these are not small matters, they consumed the attention of many Popes between 1864 and 1958 and the church has been slouching towards the syncretism of evolutionism and Catholicism ever since with disastrous consequences - the churches in Europe that embraced this error are all but dead and Europe itself is losing its population. One might say they have darwinized themselves.

Thanks for your service to our great nation as well, Don! God’s blessings!

Johnny

Dear Brother Johnny -

Dear God, I’m too late. I got out of bed and came back online to correct my first reply to you. I should have put “…theory of…” in front of every mention of evolution.

I will check out your PDF tomorrow, as I’m going back to bed. I don’t believe in evolution.
As you noted, pagan Greek philosophers first came up with it in the second or third century, BC.
Johnny, I’m too tired to responsibly post, right now. Is it morning where you are? Have a good day. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Your brother in Christ,
Don

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

Dear Brother Johnny -

Dear God, I’m too late. I got out of bed and came back online to correct my first reply to you. I should have put “…theory of…” in front of every mention of evolution.

I will check out your PDF tomorrow, as I’m going back to bed. I don’t believe in evolution.
As you noted, pagan Greek philosophers first came up with it in the second or third century, BC.
Johnny, I’m too tired to responsibly post, right now. Is it morning where you are? Have a good day. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Your brother in Christ,
Don

LOL, don’t worry about it Don. Your remarks are pretty clear to me and you are just affording it the benefit of the doubt. Sleep well, my dear brother. Tomorrow is another day when the Mercies of the Lord will be new again.

Yes, its 1:30 pm here in Korea! Sweet dreams…

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnastasia - I’ve been to a couple of Spanish Masses here at different times. I could still follow what was happening, even though I don’t speak Spanish.
Yeah, I like it being the same church in different languages. Do you speak all those languages?

I speak French, English, some German, and a bit of Spanish, but no Basque (we have family in the Pyrenees). I read Latin and that helps a bit with understanding Italian, although I don’t speak the language. I very much enjoyed hearing the Mass in Italian at St. Peters, although I had to go through a phalanx of metal detectors and screeners to get into the Vatican.

 

[StAnastasia]

By pinnacle - I mean “purpose of” (in a sort of non-technical, easygoing way.) I believe that God created mankind as his children, and created the universe as a place for us to live and worship. I thought that was a basic teaching of Genesis. It seems you are waiting on scientific evidence to determine whether or not man is the pinnacle of creation. So if other beings are found to exist in the universe, what scientific test can you apply that would help you determine if they, or us, or both are the pinnacle of creation? I’m using target in the opposite sense of “God didn’t know what would happen in advance.” In your mind, when God started the evolution “engine”, did he want it to produce “man” as man actually came to be? Or was his target rather "any intelligent self reflective consciousness (to use your words) that happened to evolve?.

1. I don’t believe we can conclude that the purpose for the existence of a hundred-billion-hundred-billion stars in the universe is so that we can have a place to live. Naturally human will assume that the universe is all about them, because we are the only rational species we know.
2. No scientific evidence or test could “determine whether or not man is the pinnacle of creation.”
3. I don’t know what God wanted to produce when God created. I’m not God. But if monotheist religious traditions can be believed, they seem to testify to the importance of rational response to God.

 

[Fran65]

Believing and asserting that women are part of ‘mankind’ as referred to by Jesus and that women, as human beings are more important than plants and animals has nothing to do with ‘radical feminism’ and everything to do with the basic humanity of women in the eyes of God.

 

[StAnastasia]

Believing and asserting that women are part of ‘mankind’ as referred to by Jesus and that women, as human beings are more important than plants and animals has nothing to do with ‘radical feminism’ and everything to do with the basic humanity of women in the eyes of God.

Fran, at the university where I earned my Ph.D., the board of regents would not approve a thesis or dissertation that included sex-exclusive terms like “mankind” or God as “He.” They made an exception in my case, as my dissertation was on natural theology and I had on the title page the quotation “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (I was no required to change it to read “The fool has said in his or her heart,…”) The justification was this this was an historical quotation from the Bible.

StAnastasia

 

[buffalo]

Fran, at the university where I earned my Ph.D., the board of regents would not approve a thesis or dissertation that included sex-exclusive terms like “mankind” or God as “He.” They made an exception in my case, as my dissertation was on natural theology and I had on the title page the quotation “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (I was no required to change it to read “The fool has said in his or her heart,…”) The justification was this this was an historical quotation from the Bible.

StAnastasia

If this university was worth its salt it would know that in the English language mankind and man are inclusive terms. Seems like an agenda going on there.

 

[StAnastasia]

In the English language mankind and man are inclusive terms.

Not to culturally sensitive and enlightened people.

 

[buffalo]

Not to culturally sensitive and enlightened people.

So we do not speak English anymore? Or you just don’t know the language very well?

 

[edwest2]

Not to culturally sensitive and enlightened people.

And here is another example of elitist, exclusionary thought. The same sort of thinking that appears on TV news when they refer to an “upscale” neighborhood.

“culturally sensitive” means exclusionary. Respect is due all people but the imposition of other rules is unnecessary. I have worked in the media for over 25 years and we tell all of our authors that “he” must be used as the appropriate convention in any manuscripts.

“enlightened people” implies that there are other, unenlightened people. This sort of thinking is tied to a false view of reality and the ideology of modernity, even though the modern is constantly becoming the past. This sort of thinking creates what I call “the calendar myth.” It assumes that somehow, once the calendar changed from the 20th to the 21st Century, that wisdom, knowledge or enlightenment poured into certain people’s heads. This never happened.

My fellow Catholics should realize that the ‘human condition’ that embraces the idea that this life is all there is wants, desperately, for all to embrace a non-God existence supported by some vaguely scientific ideas. That is why some put in so much time and effort here. I was reading an article at a secular site that talked about the Church’s view and the difficulties raised by Cardinal Schoenborn’s 2005 New York Times article. They bemoaned the problem this created, especially after what they called, so much hard work had been done. They are obviously working hard to convince the Church’s heirarchy to accept evolution in the same manner as lobbyists to government. It won’t work.

Peace,
Ed

 

[donsnow]

1. I don’t believe we can conclude that the purpose for the existence of a hundred-billion-hundred-billion stars in the universe is so that we can have a place to live. Naturally human will assume that the universe is all about them, because we are the only rational species we know.
2. No scientific evidence or test could “determine whether or not man is the pinnacle of creation.”
3. I don’t know what God wanted to produce when God created. I’m not God. But if monotheist religious traditions can be believed, they seem to testify to the importance of rational response to God.

Excuse me, ma’am,

Since I have reference to a work of science which I think responds to your #1 and #2 points, my conscience obliges me to step in, here. I’m an amateur astronomer ans so I was attracted to and read what I thought was an astronomical book.
John Gribbon and Martin Ree in their book Cosmic Coincidences (Bantaam Books, New York, NY) devoted the book to one thesis. They contended that if any of the values of electromagnetism, gravity, and weak and strong nuclear forces were different, that humankind could not exist. Now, this argues two things: 1. Either the universe was created for mankind or 2. Mankind was created by the universe. I, of course, favor the first argument.

It is with that deliberately chosen first argument that I approach your first point. I believe that the universe was made for us as a place to live, and Gibbon and Ree provide the evidence and proof.

I also submit that their book does present evidence and proof that we are the pinnacle of physical Creation.

Since I believe the monotheistic religion of Christ in the Holy Trinity, then of course, I think they encourage both rational and emotional response to God’s love.

Just my two cents worth.

 

[donsnow]

LOL, don’t worry about it Don. Your remarks are pretty clear to me and you are just affording it the benefit of the doubt. Sleep well, my dear brother. Tomorrow is another day when the Mercies of the Lord will be new again.

Yes, its 1:30 pm here in Korea! Sweet dreams…

Dear Catholic Johnny :tiphat: -

Thank you. I much more readily understand the information in your PDF when I’m well rested. . Say, I can’t remember the source of the quote about Pope Benedict XVI supporting evolution. Was it secular or Church? In either event, could it have been Modernist or Postmodern people lying about what our Pope said? Like they lied about Pope Paul VI? That thought came to me.

Yep, you’re right…whether weakness or strength, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. That’s why I read St. Anastasia’s post about the title of her thesis as a problem she stated out of, not that she approved of the PC stand.

Anyway, it’s lunch time. And, since I have only the one land-line (I like it that way for both my modem and telephone, I’m going off-line while I eat. 'Back later.

 

[ricmat]

Believing and asserting that women are part of ‘mankind’ as referred to by Jesus and that women, as human beings are more important than plants and animals has nothing to do with ‘radical feminism’ and everything to do with the basic humanity of women in the eyes of God.

Fran, EVERYBODY I know (and I’m on the conservative side of the fence) believes in the equal dignity and humanity of women and men.

Where we part ways is that the radical feminist agenda insists not just that men and women have equal human dignity before God, but that men and women are actually the same. With the only differences being due to “cultural conditioning”. That is not teaching of the Church. It is not even the teaching of science.

I’m not sure where you were coming from on your quote above, so I apologize if I’ve gone down a totally different path here…

 

[Gift_from_God]

Well, the Bible says man was made from dirt (I’m not saying anything, just saying) and I ultimately think it depends on which type of evolution you mean. For example, the big bang is possible (it was theorized by a priest). My friend once suggested that when God said “Let there be light” that could** have meant big bang.

 

[ricmat]

Fran, at the university where I earned my Ph.D., the board of regents would not approve a thesis or dissertation that included sex-exclusive terms like “mankind” or God as “He.” They made an exception in my case, as my dissertation was on natural theology and I had on the title page the quotation “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (I was no required to change it to read “The fool has said in his or her heart,…”) The justification was this this was an historical quotation from the Bible.

StAnastasia

Wow, you got a PhD. We are all impressed, as we always are when you mention it (always in passing, of course).

Just out of curiosity, was this a Catholic University that you went to?

I assumed that you were referring to a PhD in Theology (or something closely related), but perhaps it was in “Women’s Studies” instead?

Oh wait…from the sounds of it, “Women” was probably a forbidden word as well since it implies a derivation from “men.” Did they have a “Vocabulary Czar” to keep all of it straight?

 

[ricmat]

Well, the Bible says man was made from dirt (I’m not saying anything, just saying) and I ultimately think it depends on which type of evolution you mean. For example, the big bang is possible (it was theorized by a priest). My friend once suggested that when God said “Let there be light” that could have meant big bang.

Yes, man was made from dirt. And women was made from a much more sophisticated entity than dirt (the side of man). I wonder why they are complaining about this?

If you look at the details of the big bang (at least the current theory), there was a period of a few hundred thousand years during which the universe was an incredibly hot fireball - so hot and dense that no energy could escape. But as it cooled, it finally reached the point at which energy could “escape” and not be immediately recaptured. It is interesting to note that the energy which first escaped was “light energy” as opposed to “heat energy” or “X-Ray” or “Microwave” or “Gamma ray” energy. Light is only a very small portion of the energy spectrum.

So at the beginning of the universe, light was the first energy which would have been observed (if we had been there to watch).

Yes, indeed. Let there be light. Pretty nifty, eh?

 

[ricmat]

They contended that if any of the values of electromagnetism, gravity, and weak and strong nuclear forces were different, that humankind could not exist. Now, this argues two things: 1. Either the universe was created for mankind or 2. Mankind was created by the universe. I, of course, favor the first argument.

Privileged Planet is a good book on this subject, as is A Meaningful World.

One example that sticks in my mind is the force of gravity. Imagine that you had a long enough tape measure marked in inches and stretched it the 14 billion light years from one side of the universe to the other. If the force of gravity is marked on one of the inch indicators, and it were to have varied by only one inch in either direction, our universe would not have come into existence.

All the fundamental forces of nature have that same level of “fine tuning.” That’s one heck of a design!

BTW - “Fine Tuning” is NOT as Fr. Geoge Coyne imagines it - as a cook adding salt to some soup in a repeated fashion so as to eventually get it right. It’s actually exactly the opposite, setting the absolutely correct parameters in the first place.

 

[donsnow]

Not to culturally sensitive and enlightened people.

I wonder if all of that isn’t merely what I call a cultural opinion (doesn’t receive as much weight as Biblical and some scientific teachings):tiphat:.

 

[donsnow]

Dear Catholic Johnny :tiphat: -

Thank you. I much more readily understand the information in your PDF when I’m well rested. . Say, I can’t remember the source of the quote about Pope Benedict XVI supporting evolution. Was it secular or Church? In either event, could it have been Modernist or Postmodern people lying about what our Pope said? Like they lied about Pope Paul VI? That thought came to me.

Yep, you’re right…whether weakness or strength, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. That’s why I read St. Anastasia’s post about the title of her thesis as a problem she stayed out of, not that she approved of the PC stand.

Anyway, it’s lunch time. And, since I have only the one land-line (I like it that way ) for both my modem and telephone, I’m going off-line while I eat. 'Back later.