It does occur to me that the new Catechism of the Catholic Church puts planetary physics and other sciences in their rightful place in the grand scheme of life. The human being is seen as the pinnacle of creation, far above all else. The paragraphs which describe the relationship of the real Adam with God are marvelous beyond words.
The CCC’s competence ends with theology, specifically terrestrial theology. If creation includes the whole universe in your perspective, we have no evidence that humans are the “pinnacle” of evolution of all the 300 billion billion star systems in the universe.
It is not a silly argument. Albert Einstein once said that “Science without religion is blind, Religion without science is lame”. You can’t have one without the other because God gave us science by making us free thinkers and curious creatures. Scientifically we have proven things to be millions of years old and they weren’t a “trick” by god either. To believe that the world is only a couple of thousands of years old is silly when we can trace human history back at least fifty thousand years when you consider ancient egyptians and other ancient societies.
I have never been the quickest nor the brightest, but there are times when I have been able to cut through the balderdash to the essentials. I need to go back through the miles of posts to one of your questions. This morning the answer, which you may not like, came to me regardless.
Rsiewell, you will have to show evidence to convince me that Egyptian civilization dates back earlier than about 5500 BCE. However, archaeology takes us to 7600 BCE in China, well before the YEC chronology begins. Paleontology takes us back at least to the Cambrian explosion (540 million years BP), geology to three or four billion years, and astronomy to 13.715 billion years before present. You are right that logic brings us to an ancient earth. For Catholics and other theists who have brought their cerebelli with them to Church, Theistic Evolution is a natural fit.
Is the answer “forty-two”? If it is, we need to wait ten million years to find out what the question is.
may D. Adams RIP…
If terrestial theology deals with the earth, would you please be so kind as to list its tenets.
Science cannot study miracles. Science cannot reinterpret the work of God.
What is truth and what group on origins is lying? I really don’t think anyone is “lying.” I think it’s a matter of how data is interpretated, ignoring the anomalies and a lack of cash flow to complete the necessary research.
Sooooooooo I’ll just consider the above source and proceed to show that radio active decay is a useless tool for claims that we could have descended from a common ancestor over millions and billions of years.
When I first read the part in bold, I took it at face value as a simple declarative sentence. However, this morning I realized that there is a serious implied question which is being asked by many people.
What the above means is that an enviromental condition in the past could have altered radio decay “constants”. So it stands to reason that other decay method half lives may not be constants either.What is truth and what group on origins is lying? I really don’t think anyone is “lying.” I think it’s a matter of how data is interpretated, ignoring the anomalies and a lack of cash flow to complete the necessary research.
Dr. Marie Claire van Oosterwyck tried to demonstrate the uselessness of radio active decay methods for chronology studies when she ran a university lab in Belgiuim in 1975. She tried to explain by laboratory experiments to some leadilng Darwinian chronologists just why these methods were useless but lost her lab directorship as a result and her career was destroyed.
So here we are in 2010 and she is being vindicated. Because of computer problems this morning I’ll quickly give this reference for cavitation which can happen in rapidly moving waters and return with other pertinent references when time permits.
CERN Courier
Jun 8, 2009
Ultrasonic cavitation of water speeds up thorium decay
It is a common belief that radioactive decay rates are unchanged by external conditions, despite many examples of small shifts (particularly involving external pressure and K-capture decays) being well documented and understood. However, Fabio Cardone of the Institute per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati in Rome and colleagues have shown a dramatic increase – by a factor of 10,000 – in the decay rate of thorium-228 in water as a result of ultrasonic cavitation. Exactly what the physics is and whether or not this sort of effect can be scaled up into a technology for nuclear waste treatment remain open issues.
Further reading
F Cardone, R Mignani and A Petrucci 2009 Phys. Lett. A 373 1956.
Thank you for the references, they will allow me to correct my estimates for the age of the Earth. Since the half life of Thorium-228 is two years I shall be sure to reduce all such estimates made from decay chains in which Th-228 participates by two years.CERN Courier
Jun 8, 2009
Ultrasonic cavitation of water speeds up thorium decay
It is a common belief that radioactive decay rates are unchanged by external conditions, despite many examples of small shifts (particularly involving external pressure and K-capture decays) being well documented and understood. However, Fabio Cardone of the Institute per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati in Rome and colleagues have shown a dramatic increase – by a factor of 10,000 – in the decay rate of thorium-228 in water as a result of ultrasonic cavitation. Exactly what the physics is and whether or not this sort of effect can be scaled up into a technology for nuclear waste treatment remain open issues.
Further reading
F Cardone, R Mignani and A Petrucci 2009 Phys. Lett. A 373 1956.
The question I have about this one is why aren’t nuclear wastes disposed of in this fashion in stead of buring such wastes. Anyone got any answers?What the above means is that an enviromental condition in the past could have altered radio decay “constants”. So it stands to reason that other decay method half lives may not be constants either.
So is science just now finding such environmental conditions? The answer is no. Other such conditions have been known for many years BUT apparently ignored when it comes to earth chronology measuring. Below this paragraph are two such references for radio decay methods in the ionized or plasma state where there is a tremendous change far exceeding that of cavitation for other methods of chronology. So how can we claim we who study the science of today trump the faith of our church fathers? They had faith and were good theologians and when possible they even put their scientific observations in writing like St. john Damacene when he wrote that dragons alias dinosaurs were very much alive in his day.
creationism.org/crimea/engl/al1.htm
- Bosch,F. et al, Observation of bound-state b- decay of fully ionized 187 Re,Physical Review Letters 77(26)5190-5193, 1886
- Takahashi, K. et al., Bound-state beta decay of highly ionized atoms, Physical Review C36(4)1522–1527, 1987.
"Two souls held hostage inside blue-tinted holy water were auctioned off for almost $2,000 this week. Who are they? Her house’s previous tenants, but that didn’t stop her from making tidy little profit out of their imprisoned spirits. Avie Woodbury from Christchurch, New Zealand finally sold her two souls at auction this week for a surprising sum. She explained that the ghosts were captured from her house, which was haunted, naturally.
Terrestrial theology is theology done from the perspective of Earth, as opposed to the perspective on theology that would obtain on other planets in the universe. Naturally we only know about terrestrial theology, although novels have been done about mission s to other planets (e.g., Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow). I assume extraterrestrial theology would deal with God, sin, redemption, eschatology, and the problem of evil. Depending on the chemistry of the planet and the intelligent life form, I suppose you could have ammonia baptism rather than water baptism, although perhaps the theology would be similar.
(1) Even if time could change, I don’t know that you could get a 6,000 year old earth to appear 13.7 billion years old.
Right. So my question – since you restrict “immortal souls” to humans – is how the soul is related to human DNA. Does anything with human DNA – including teratomas and parasitic twins – have an immortal soul?
I’ll answer (2): the point would be to foster Biblical and intellectual complacency.