The burden of proof is on believers to prove God exists (according to atheist philosphers)

[Glassjester]

That’s not correct. There wasn’t a single male ancestor. It’s like saying that you and your children and their children are descended from a common male ancestor, being your great great grandfather. You are descended from 16 individual people, not one specific one.

And the Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) is not a specific person. It changes as different genealogical lines die out and becomes more recent. So there never was one person who could be called Mitochondrial Eve in any case.

Again, I understand.

I, too, can read Wikipedia

So what part of that contradicts Catholic doctrine?
Feel free to be specific. The catechism is online and free.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The burden of proof is on believers to prove God not exist.

No such proof exists, nor can it exist.

Atheists do not even pretend to offer such proof.

Whereas theists attempt to offer such proof.

The proof they offer may not convince atheists.

That is because atheists are generally victims of scientism, and scientism has the ingrained bias of disallowing any proof that is not empirical.

So the atheist argument against God is a vicious circle.

There is no proof against God because such proof would have to be empirical, but the very nature of God disallows empirical proof that atheists require to be convinced.

 

[Bradski]

So what part of that contradicts Catholic doctrine?
Feel free to be specific. The catechism is online and free.

That we are descended from two specific people. Unless you want to treat it as allegory - and the Catechism does use what might be classed as poetic license when it comes to A and E.

I have no problem with those who wish to treat it as such.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

That we are descended from two specific people. Unless you want to treat it as allegory - and the Catechism does use what might be classed as poetic license when it comes to A and E.

I have no problem with those who wish to treat it as such.

I see nothing odd about God creating two perfect people from which humanity owes its ancestry. Your goofy theory of many people arising at once and waiting eons for some beneficial mutation to turn them into humans is the odd idea!!

 

[PRmerger]

I see nothing odd about God creating two perfect people from which humanity owes its ancestry. Your goofy theory of many people arising at once and waiting eons for some beneficial mutation to turn them into humans is the odd idea!!

I’ve never thought about it this way–but, yes, that’s what would need to happen in order for Bradski’s theory to be true.

 

[PRmerger]

As the science stands now, there is no reason to believe humans descended from two individuals. Such a bottleneck would definitely show up in DNA. It doesn’t. The human population, at it’s smallest, was around a few thousand. That was 70.000/75.000 years ago, long after homo sapiens had already appeared on the scene. The causes are still being debated, but the fact is that humans were nearly wiped out. Scientific articles are easily found through a bit of googling.

My answer to your second question would be our brain, although you can argue that is a physical aspect too. The brain has made all the difference.

This is astonishing to hear someone embrace such an idea.

That would mean that at some point in history there were 0 humans, and then, magically, there were a thousand.

How could this even be a thing?

 

[inocente]

Not sure we completely align on where “there” gets us, though. That would mean there still appears to be some straw mixed in with at least one of our versions of “there.” Which, in itself, is not such a bad thing. Even straw has its proper place – i.e., has utility in keeping sentient beasts alive if they are starving and for making bricks to construct shelters against the storms.

“I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw”.

So, you think Thomas meant “I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like keeping sentient beasts alive if they are starving and for making bricks to construct shelters against the storms”.



Hark, the cognitive dissonant angels sing.

But hang on, wait. If you listen carefully you will hear. There’s a natural mystic flowing through the air. youtube.com/watch?v=PWoDSGfSu6o

 

[Bradski]

I see nothing odd about God creating two perfect people from which humanity owes its ancestry. Your goofy theory of many people arising at once and waiting eons for some beneficial mutation to turn them into humans is the odd idea!!

But many people didn’t arise at once. Our ancestors didn’t wait aeons for a mutation to change us into human. There never was a specific point where anyone became human. And there were no two single humans from whom we are descended.

If you think that each of those statements is wrong then you are debating from a position of ignorance. I’m not sure how you can justify arguing against something that you show every indication of not understanding.

 

[inocente]

No amount of biochemical knowledge will explain the human traits you describe above. They are of a different order. An understanding of the workings of our material constituents, will not reach that dimension that contains them, the spiritual. The wholeness that is a human being, the meaning of our existence, the moral order that defines our actions cannot be grasped using explanations that pertain to physical processes.

And no amount of knowledge of offset lithography will explain all the books printed using offset lithography. They are of a different order.

The general idea, that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, a.k.a. synergy, is used in the philosophical and scientific notion of emergence. For instance, biology has new properties not found in the underlying chemistry, but explicable as emerging from the chemistry.

This explains different orders, and there is a working assumption that it can reach the dimension which explains the traits you here label spiritual. Anyone who claims it can’t would have a burden of proof that everyone should give up trying.

 

[Rau]

…I criticize the credibility of the gospel of Luke because it is not consistent with what we know about astronomy. Saying that the darkness was the result of a miracle does not solve the problem.

This is only a problem for one who believes Science ought ultimately be able to explain all. An atheist perhaps.

 

[inocente]

I think physics is tending more towards the realization that none of its findings exist without the presence of a rational mind, which not only is required to make sense of nature, but actually transforms what is being observed by its act of searching.

Sounds like geocentrism on steroids. Man isn’t just center of everything, man creates everything. Including, presumably, God, otherwise the presence of the rational mind of God would have done the trick already.

Can’t wait for the movie, a madcap frolic in which a galaxy one billion light-years away doesn’t exist until the hero happens to look in its direction. The entire galaxy pops into existence a billion years after the light started traveling from the non-existent galaxy. A blockbuster indeed.

 

[inocente]

I thought evolution is based on mutation, which is usually a very detrimental thing.

Nope, no cigar. But the moderator has banned discussion, so you’ll have to go elsewhere for an explanation.

 

[Aloysium]

One humanity, beginning with one individual was created, his physical structure moulded by God, perhaps in an instant, or over a period of billions of revolutions around the sun. And, from that one person, made two, at the beginning, came all humanity. Science will find the truth, but looking at the record of what was and assuming things have always been what they are, it will continue to get it wrong. The universe no more is centred on matter than there exists a firmament revolving around the earth.

 

[Aloysium]

Sounds like geocentrism on steroids. Man isn’t just center of everything, man creates everything. Including, presumably, God, otherwise the presence of the rational mind of God would have done the trick already.

Can’t wait for the movie, a madcap frolic in which a galaxy one billion light-years away doesn’t exist until the hero happens to look in its direction. The entire galaxy pops into existence a billion years after the light started traveling from the non-existent galaxy. A blockbuster indeed.

There a play that takes place in churches everywhere around this time; in a little more than three weeks actually. It happens every year and speaks about the very Centre of time and space. It isn’t the physical centre, because that is everywhere, but the point where God entered creation as part of it in us. You are welcome to attend.

As to the nature of physics as our intellectual connection to that dimension of the universe, and how the rational soul is integral to its workings, I’m not going to bother. This isn’t a science forum. What’s the point? Another fruitless discussion.

 

[inocente]

There a play that takes place in churches everywhere around this time; in a little more than three weeks actually. It happens every year and speaks about the very Centre of time and space. It isn’t the physical centre, because that is everywhere, but the point where God entered creation as part of it in us. You are welcome to attend.

As to the nature of physics as our intellectual connection to that dimension of the universe, and how the rational soul is integral to its workings, I’m not going to bother. This isn’t a science forum. What’s the point? Another fruitless discussion.

We have our own plays here, and of course epiphany is Three Kings Day, so children get two sets of presents. Agreed that interpretations of quantum physics are fruitless.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Nope, no cigar. But the moderator has banned discussion, so you’ll have to go elsewhere for an explanation.

I don’t want to argue evolution anyway. It is a stupid unproven system created by a guy whose motivation was to eat his way through the species.

 

[Peter_Plato]

“I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw”.

So, you think Thomas meant “I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like keeping sentient beasts alive if they are starving and for making bricks to construct shelters against the storms”.



Hark, the cognitive dissonant angels sing.

But hang on, wait. If you listen carefully you will hear. There’s a natural mystic flowing through the air. youtube.com/watch?v=PWoDSGfSu6o

As usual, CS Lewis hits the nail on the head regarding this issue when he compares all the “writings” of Christians – the straw, if you like – to maps made by those who have trodden the ground – i.e., have had the direct experience of God.

Some of us have to rely on that straw since it makes excellent bedding to keep us warm in the night and even serves as food for we sentient beasts who are not “cognitive dissonant angels singing,” but tone deaf and possibly in danger of fading away.

Certainly, having direct experience of God makes all the theology and philosophy, by comparison, to seem as straw, but to those who are not having a direct experience and need to be led to the possibility of a beatific vision, all those writings, those maps, the “science,” if you like, of God, become crucial while we wander in the desert, trying to find our way while not having any experience of God.

You may want to watch the first seven minutes or so of this video to better understand the point:

youtu.be/_RAsb3lv968

 

[Peter_Plato]

Sounds like geocentrism on steroids. Man isn’t just center of everything, man creates everything. Including, presumably, God, otherwise the presence of the rational mind of God would have done the trick already.

So you don’t think God created the rational mind of man, along with everything else?

 

[Peter_Plato]

That’s not correct. There wasn’t a single male ancestor. It’s like saying that you and your children and their children are descended from a common male ancestor, being your great great grandfather. You are descended from 16 individual people, not one specific one.

And the Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) is not a specific person. It changes as different genealogical lines die out and becomes more recent. So there never was one person who could be called Mitochondrial Eve in any case.

Except that you are ignoring the fact that every human being does, in fact, descend from two specific ancestors at every point in the genealogical line. Isn’t that why genealogy is so popular? Each specific ancestor can be identified, named and portrayed.

While it may be true that genealogical charts widen out as we go backwards in time, if we look at humanity as a whole, the charts narrow as we go back in time with fewer and fewer numbers showing up with each step backward.

It still would appear that specifically human traits would need to arise from one male and one female at some distant time in the past. The difficulty comes from specifying what those traits are that make us determinably human. The science is still very much muddled on that, I would think. Which is why it cannot commit to a number less than a few thousand. So the problem isn’t so much with whether Genesis has it essentially correct, but with a science that is still too imprecise and fuzzy when it tries to look back that far.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But many people didn’t arise at once. Our ancestors didn’t wait aeons for a mutation to change us into human. There never was a specific point where anyone became human. And there were no two single humans from whom we are descended.

And you know this for a fact because you were present at the Creation?