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Orogeny
Guest
How about those citations or retractions, Ed? Or do you intend to continue to knowingly support a false statement as true? Is that good apologetics, Ed? Is that what the Church teaches, Ed?
Peace
Tim
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Peace
Tim
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jmcrae
Guest
There are now. (And I think I have heard of wolves interbreeding with dogs, on rare occasions.)
Okay, then - this is not really an example of “evolution” where one species has given rise to a completely different species, but rather of “adaptation” where the same animal has, over time, developed a coping mechanism for a different environment - but they could still go back to the original environment and re-adapt back to that original environment, and they can still interbreed with those who still live in the original environment.
They are not actually different species, if that is the case - they are just two different varieties of the same thing.
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Mirdath
Guest
Consider for a moment the image of a pack of schnauzers bringing down a caribou and yipping at the moon.
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buffalo
Guest
My old neighbors chihuahua had more gonads then them big old sleeping hounds. Man it was a fierce little thing.
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jmcrae
Guest
Maybe not a caribou. Maybe a small deer. But they could definitely do it, under the right circumstances. They were, after all, originally bred as hunting dogs.
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Sideline
Guest
Some breeds of dogs can breed with wolves, but some can’t. A chihuahua can’t breed with a wolf, but it can’t breed with a great dane either. Those who make these decisions decided to draw the line between wolves and dogs for the sake of ease.
I can’t tell from your posts whether you really want to understand evolution, or you would rather not understand it, so you may criticize with impunity. If you are interested in understanding how speciation really works, I’d be happy to explain it.
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newbetx
Guest
Well, lets see… Mary gave birth to God. Because God made it so. While I can accept your belief that a miracle can happen to create a species from nothing, or the dirt, God could also create a species from another. It’s up to Him. On His schedule. And who is to say that He doesn’t when you’re not looking?Everyone keeps trying to explain it to me, but my one big issue with the theory of evolution is that it seems to require that species give birth to different species.
If this is so, then why do we not see this happening today? Why do wolves not give birth to dogs today? Why do lions not give birth to cats? Why do the great apes not give birth to human children?
And if they don’t do so today, then how can we say that they most certainly did do so, at some point in the past?
It is easier for me to believe that God made a miracle than to believe that species give birth to different species than themselves, because I have seen and experienced miracles, but I am not aware of any animal ever giving birth to something that was not of the same species as itself.
If Adam and Eve were the only pair of the species then Adam would have had to father girls and boys. Assuming there is no change in our DNA from the begining of time, then Brothers marring Sisters would have to have been the rule. We know where intrabreeding leads humanity. We didn’t go there. So either God blessed our early ancestors with the multiple gene pairs (like Buffalo) so that intrabreeding would not cause us a problem and then CHANGED us to what we are today, or there were others that existed at the same time as Adam and Eve that did not have a soul and then their offspring became the Humans (with soul) as we are.
Where does the Church require me to believe the Chicken came before the egg? If it were important for us to know precisely, the Church would tell us. Since She does not, it’s not worth arguing. It’s not what is in the past that we should focus on, but what we do in the future.
Again, to me, it does not matter HOW God did it. We just need to realize that he did. And we have to stop condeming each other about our differences here. All of Chritianity needs to unite against evil. The Theory of Evolution is NOT evil. And it was not intended to suggest that no God exists. Some have twisted it that way. And I resent being called an athiest because I am a scientist. That is against Commandment 8.
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jmcrae
Guest
Perhaps so - my point is, no one has ever documented such. Whereas the Book of Genesis documents that all of the different kinds of animals were created directly by God, and then they adapted into their varieties, according to their environment.
This is most likely the cause of the different kinds of races - the various different kinds of mutations that occurred in that early period of the human race. Keep in mind that Sarah was Abraham’s half-sister. It is only over the course of generations that it has become impossible to marry within certain degrees of kindred. In the beginning, the gene pool was perfect - there were no flaws in it, yet, so it was perfectly safe for Adam and Eve (who were genetic twins) to have children, and it was perfectly safe for their children to intermarry.
Today, it would not be possible for anyone to marry his or her half-sibling, or even their second cousin. But just 200 years ago, second cousins were okay. And 4,000 years ago, in the time of Abraham, half-siblings were okay. So we see that over time, flaws are introduced into the gene pool such that we can no longer marry our near kindred, but before the flaws came about (which I think, that is, it is my opinion, that they are part of the consequences of Original Sin), they could.
Even if there were non-humans who were physically identical to human beings, we are not allowed to believe that we are descended from them. We are required by the Church to believe that our first parents were Adam and Eve, and that no human being has ever existed whose ancestors were not Adam and Eve. The belief that human beings could have existed whose ancestors were not Adam and Eve is called the Heresy of Polygenism.
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edwest2
Guest
Right now, all of the media are criticizing Christians. It’s not just a few vocal atheist authors. The basic message? Religion: bad, very bad. Science, which is used interchangeably here with evolution: Good, very good.
The way many people read those two messages is religion is evil, science is good, so there is no God, only Science. And the same people who fear a Theocracy are waiting with bated breath for the Technocracy. All hail genetics and the scientific priesthood.
God is above all.
God bless,
ED
The way many people read those two messages is religion is evil, science is good, so there is no God, only Science. And the same people who fear a Theocracy are waiting with bated breath for the Technocracy. All hail genetics and the scientific priesthood.
God is above all.
God bless,
ED
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buffalo
Guest
That is the result of scientism and not teaching our children metaphysics and philosophy. If these are marginalized from the public school system it smacks of an agenda.
If the agenda is evil we are called upon to fight it. You will know them by their fruits. So we have to ask is the current fruit spoiled rotten?
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edwest2
Guest
This is why parents home school. And, regardless of what is done in public schools, the parents should be the primary instructors to their children about God. And yes, the fruit of many is rotten because they aren’t even good role models.
And how is evolution commonly understood - as a natural process that includes God? No, of course not.
God bless,
Ed
And how is evolution commonly understood - as a natural process that includes God? No, of course not.
God bless,
Ed
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shroudie2
Guest
It’s not just scientism that is at fault, but silly positions, admittedly well intentioned, by faithful Christians. We’ve done throughout history. The world is not flat, the earth is not the center of the universe, and evolution theory, including speciation and not with human beings being an exception, is for real. Whether or not evolution is guided or purely by natural selection of random mutations is still arguable. But I have no problem with unguided natural selection. God created nature and we might suspect that he might use what he created, knowing the outcome. Natural does not imply lack of God’s providence; if anything it gives greater witness to it. I even have no problem with Dawkins’ selfish gene theory.
As for Adam and Eve, they are metaphors, as I see it, for a point in history (and perhaps not an absolute measure of time as we understand time) for the emergence of everything we are. It doesn’t matter, theologically, if there were two such distinct people. It is the start of an idea of a developing relationship between people and God that blossomed as people began to understand the world about them – something that continues today in science, philosophy and objective history.
The best thing that we can do is learn science, embrace it, understand competing theories, and see that nothing in science threatens our faith; for faith is best served by never being afraid of the truth wherever it leads.
Dan
As for Adam and Eve, they are metaphors, as I see it, for a point in history (and perhaps not an absolute measure of time as we understand time) for the emergence of everything we are. It doesn’t matter, theologically, if there were two such distinct people. It is the start of an idea of a developing relationship between people and God that blossomed as people began to understand the world about them – something that continues today in science, philosophy and objective history.
The best thing that we can do is learn science, embrace it, understand competing theories, and see that nothing in science threatens our faith; for faith is best served by never being afraid of the truth wherever it leads.
Dan
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buffalo
Guest
The Church teaches they were real people who committed a deed at the beginning of the history of man.
The account of the fall in *Genesis *3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.264 Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.265
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edwest2
Guest
Hi Dan,
That was a nice thought at the end, but people are attempting to reinterpret the Church, now, today, as if it has no established truth via revelation from God.
If you go the Library on this site, you will learn: “It is impossible to dismiss the accounts of Genesis as mere legend.”
The Church also teaches that an actual sin was freely committed by our first parents.
As a fiction writer, I find the science fiction ideas being presented here amusing but unsubstantiated. Basically, as the story goes, man was once a four-legged creature similar to a lemur and lived in trees. Then, as his genes mutated, and his brain size increased, he slowly became neurally aware of things. The fact that animals have a certain neural awareness is besides the point. Anyway, one day, man woke up and behold, his mind could grasp, I don’t know, some vague abstract thoughts. He started religions, wrote a bunch of holy books, started fighting because of it, and so the situation we find ourselves in now.
But, thanks to evolutionary psychology, evolutionary everything for that matter, we are told that there never was an invisible God, it was just our genes (we Are our genes) figuring out a way for us to survive, and now that human knowledge has increased, it’s time to wake up and behave like rational adults a la Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke. Oh, and sin, that’s just your genes. No devil, heaven or hell.
Nothing could be further from the Living God to whom we pray. And the Mass where the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. You may not believe that, but there was a real, historical Jesus, not just a guy in a book. I do pray you’ll consider that sometimes, science needs to get out of the way and call a miracle a miracle.
God bless,
Ed
That was a nice thought at the end, but people are attempting to reinterpret the Church, now, today, as if it has no established truth via revelation from God.
If you go the Library on this site, you will learn: “It is impossible to dismiss the accounts of Genesis as mere legend.”
The Church also teaches that an actual sin was freely committed by our first parents.
As a fiction writer, I find the science fiction ideas being presented here amusing but unsubstantiated. Basically, as the story goes, man was once a four-legged creature similar to a lemur and lived in trees. Then, as his genes mutated, and his brain size increased, he slowly became neurally aware of things. The fact that animals have a certain neural awareness is besides the point. Anyway, one day, man woke up and behold, his mind could grasp, I don’t know, some vague abstract thoughts. He started religions, wrote a bunch of holy books, started fighting because of it, and so the situation we find ourselves in now.
But, thanks to evolutionary psychology, evolutionary everything for that matter, we are told that there never was an invisible God, it was just our genes (we Are our genes) figuring out a way for us to survive, and now that human knowledge has increased, it’s time to wake up and behave like rational adults a la Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke. Oh, and sin, that’s just your genes. No devil, heaven or hell.
Nothing could be further from the Living God to whom we pray. And the Mass where the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. You may not believe that, but there was a real, historical Jesus, not just a guy in a book. I do pray you’ll consider that sometimes, science needs to get out of the way and call a miracle a miracle.
God bless,
Ed
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shroudie2
Guest
I have no problem calling a miracle a miracle. Science has no role in such matters. But that doesn’t mean I accept anything as a miracle. I don’t. The truth in Genesis is that God is creator and that he loves mankind and all of his creation. It is not about two people, as I see it; or common ancestry. The church does not teach us to not think or to not examine history, scripture or science objectively.
It helps to take note of what Pope Benedict XVI writes in, *Jesus of Nazareth: *“If we push [God’s entry into history] aside, Christian faith as such disappears and is recast as some other religion. So if history, if facticity in this sense, is an essential dimension of Christian faith, then faith must expose itself to the historical method – indeed, faith itself demands this.” He goes on to say, “We have to keep in mind the limit of all efforts to know the past: We can never go beyond the domain of hypothesis . . . we need to remain conscious of the limit our certainties.”
And those are wise words. The essential word is hypothesis. Adam and Eve are hypothesis. My hypothesis is different.
Dan
It helps to take note of what Pope Benedict XVI writes in, *Jesus of Nazareth: *“If we push [God’s entry into history] aside, Christian faith as such disappears and is recast as some other religion. So if history, if facticity in this sense, is an essential dimension of Christian faith, then faith must expose itself to the historical method – indeed, faith itself demands this.” He goes on to say, “We have to keep in mind the limit of all efforts to know the past: We can never go beyond the domain of hypothesis . . . we need to remain conscious of the limit our certainties.”
And those are wise words. The essential word is hypothesis. Adam and Eve are hypothesis. My hypothesis is different.
Dan
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edwest2
Guest
The Church teaches Adam and Eve were actual people.
God bless,
Ed
God bless,
Ed
O
Orogeny
Guest
Wow, you are a writer? Giving a citation for your claims ought to be second nature for you then. I’m still waiting. Of course, I predicted that you would not fess up to the fiction you have been spouting on these forums.
Peace
Tim
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shroudie2
Guest
Ed, the church, from time to time, corrects what it teaches. Cosmos, taught that the world was flat and this became church teaching. St. Isadore of Saville, disagreed. So did the Venerable Bede who described the world like a playground ball. Eventually, the church taught otherwise. Adam and Eve, as many Catholic scholars are certain, were probably not real people.
It is not essential doctrine to believe that Adam and Eve were real people, nor Noah, nor perhaps many others. These stories were written much later. They are useful, meaningful legends as far as I am concerned.
The church teaches this or that is just to easy an answer.
Dan
It is not essential doctrine to believe that Adam and Eve were real people, nor Noah, nor perhaps many others. These stories were written much later. They are useful, meaningful legends as far as I am concerned.
The church teaches this or that is just to easy an answer.
Dan
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Mr.Ex_Nihilo
Guest
I find it kind of interesting whereas at one time the claim of some was “The Devil made me do it”, now some people are saying “Our Genes make us do it.” Both views, in my opinion, smack too much of determinism-- and are are equally inaccurate but not totally wrong either.
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edwest2
Guest
What is easy about such answers? Either Catholics should accept what the Church holds to be true or just stop being Catholics. If you think these stories are legends is what you think, it’s much more important to know what the Church thinks.
My fellow Catholics, please read point 390 and 399:
vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm
God bless,
Ed
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