two questions about evolution as I consider leaving the church

[fhansen]

In the right conditions natural processes should be able to create life very easily. We know it happened on at least one planet. It’s pretty darn crazy to pretend the first life appeared magically, especially in the 21st century when science is rapidly solving so many problems.

Sure, nothing to it. I could do it in my backyard. My kids chemistry set, a little energy plus some time for things to stew and poof, DNA- one of the simplest projects I’ve run into. Personally I think it’s a pipe dream to think science will answer every last question but I’d love to get to that last one-and humankind will never stop looking; that’s a part of our make up.
Bob, I think the reasons for a person wanting to know about God or the deity/deities or philosophy of any religion has more to do with immediate questions concerning human angst and “where did I come from, why am I here, and where am I going”. And if there’s something “more” to man-if he is a spiritual being and if there is a god who happens to be the creator then a merciful thing for that god to do would be to provide a means of filling in the gaps for sentient beings such as us. And while these may not be important questions to you, they are for many and may someday be for you as well. Creationists on the extreme right are a fringe group. But to think that a scientists’ faith in God would somehow interfere with his own interest in or pursuit of answers to the questions that science poses flies in the face of history. In fact, such a scientist should have an even keener interest in unlocking the mysteries of the universe-the mind of God so to speak. But for those who can’t grasp or are not so interested in these matters there are still questions that need answers now.

 

[JRKH]

I have two questions about evolution that I need answered, and my future in the Church depends on how they are answered.

I have not read through the responses so far, so please forgive if I repeat things already discussed.

1. If we accept evolution as many Catholics do, then how is it possible for God to create through evolution when evolution is a “random” process? Artificial selection (the breeding of plants and animals) works because farmers and breeders control whom each animal mates with and thus with types of offspring are created. Natural selection is random, God does not choose mates for animals in nature or for humans, and God (at least I have never heard that he does) does not shuffle human genes during the sex/fertilization act to produce the different alelle frequencies of offspring. My problem is: if evolution is random…and God is not random…then how do the two mix exactly?

1. Even if all God did was get the ball rolling with a Big Bang, we can still accept that everything was created by God. He created the Laws by which all things function.
2. Science produces the “random selection” theory based on the particular viewpoint of man. By that I mean that, from our perspective the selection is random. However, that may not be how God sees it.
3. Much of what we know and understand about our world and about God is based on this “man centered” perspective. Our human wills do not necessarily corrospond with our divine wills (our souls) and since we are talking about the physical world and how it “evolves” our first instinct is to see things from our human, “physical” perspective.
4. The best way (I have found) to understand all of this is to accept what science teaches that can be objectively proven to may satisfaction, (Such as evolution) and accept that God is behind all of these things working in ways that science cannot fathom because it has no way to measure the actions of the spirit.

1. If we accept that humans evolved through lower animals from the ultimate source of pond scum, then that means God simply waited for 14 billion years for us to arrive on the scene. This raises some interesting questions the main one I have is what does God intend to evolve from human beings? Once evolution is accepted it cannot remain a past event…what next? A secondary question as to the reality of original sin enters here as well. How can there be separation from God; i.e. original sin, if we are evolved animals?

I actually started another thread about the very idea that spiritual growth towards union with God is part of a natural evolutinary process. Science can explain many why’s and hows of things, but it cannot explain the “EBW” (Essiential Beginnings Why) of why acids turned into bacteria, or cells or whatever. Nor can they explain the EBC of why cells began cooperating to the extent of becoming multicelled animals. These things, these “EBW’s” belong in the realm of spirit which science cannot measure.
For many years now I have held that, No matter how much science knows, they will always have to ask why, and in that “why” is God.

I would appreciate any answers that address these two questions of mine because it seems to me that if evolution is true, then several things about God would have to be true, and the picture of God here seems to be a different one from the God I thought I knew in the Church.

Remember that God is not definable, describable, or quantifiable. Any description of God we can come up with, any ideas of His power, how He works or what His intentions are in a given situation, can only be seen from our puny human perspective.
Science may find answers to certain hows and whys, but science cannot disprove God if we, in our faith, don’t let them.

I hope this helps some

James

 

[The_Barbarian]

Darwin’s great discovery was that evolution wasn’t random. But even if it was, the Pope acknowledges that God can use randomness to serve His purposes as much as anything else.

It’s a non-issue as far as science and Catholicism go.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Call me crazy, but the evidence for evolution is so flimzy.

Not crazy. Ignorant. It’s what you don’t know that gets you.

For one, there are gaps in the archeological layers. life just seems to show up at different times, instantly.

Where there are gaps in the sediments, yes. But there are always places and populations that show gradual and continuous change. Would you like to learn about some of them?

If evolution were true, we would see a gradual fossil record of ever changing species.

Right. Horses for example. Would you like to go through the changes in the line that led to modern horses?

There is no evidence of the ever changing ape man. NONE
they have a couple of deformed skulls that could be anomalies. we have deformed humans alive now.

Actually, there are hundreds of fossils of hominin transitionals.

We have africans who have monkey like structures.

Ahh… one of those guys. So tell us about these African monkey-like structures.

Who says they have to have been monkeys.

No one but the KKK. Do you honestly think that science says that?

No other science could get away with that level of evidence. But because it attempts to embarrass the Church and attempts to dicredit Christ, then it is givin Carte Blanche.

Since the guys who discovered the way it works were Christians, I don’t think anyone with any sense will buy your story.

Second, If evolution turns out to be true, God is the Author of the physical world and the spiritual world, they will not contradict eachother.

And they don’t.

Have you ever looked at the complexity of the human eye I mean, the level of molecular and cellular complexity for each and every component is baffling.

In the late 40s, scientists showed how eyes evolved in various phyla, by showing the stages that existed in living member of those phyla. No one who understands biology is surprised that eyes evolved. Would you like to learn more about it?

The molecular and cellular difference between each cell in your body, all muscles, organs, bones, etc… And they all work in concert, each doing its own thing to keep us alive. With an electrical current from no where, keeping us going. no metal no wires. Wow, and the brain and our conscienceness, and ability to reason and solve.Wow

Pretty complicated stuff
Not the simpple stuff darwin talked about

Maybe you should read his book and learn. It’s a lot more complicated in the details than you were told.

 

[Gizmo]

I think I skimmed all the posts - my eyes are going buggy with dryness. If I might recommend “Truth Cannot Contradict Truth” which is something that John Paul II said in 1996 on evolution. It is not too long and I think answers some questions.

Address of Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (October 22, 1996)

Excerpted from the October 30 issue of the English edition of L’Osservatore Romano.

 

[buffalo]

Eric Hyom, if you want to stick God before the Big Bang that’s fine with me. That’s the only gap your god of the gaps can safely hide in. However, what’s the point of sticking God anywhere? If some question has not been answered yet, it’s better to say the natural explanation is unknown and leave it at that. If you invent God, instead of solving a problem, you just create a new problem, where did the god come from. Invoking magic to solve unanswerable questions is pointless.

You talked about artificial selection. It has been estimated that humans have been breeding cows for 8,000 years. Compare that to almost 4 billion years of natural selection and it’s easy to see how in that vast amount of time so many creatures could have evolved.

You said “Evolution is a cosy theory and likes to start from established life.”

Yes, evolution needs life to evolve from. Like I said earlier, there is still no consensus on how the first living cells appeared, however I wouldn’t call that a very safe place for the god of the gaps to hide in. Life is just chemistry. In the right conditions natural processes should be able to create life very easily. We know it happened on at least one planet. It’s pretty darn crazy to pretend the first life appeared magically, especially in the 21st century when science is rapidly solving so many problems.

I don’t know much about it, but I have heard a few ideas scientists have about how life began. Life could have arose near a volcano under the sea, and this process could still be going on today. Another idea is when the solar system was very young countless comets were crashing into earth and those comets could have contained organic matter that helped life begin here.

Did I talk anyone into throwing out God yet? Probably not. Sometimes a young person is willing to throw out ancient myths. Older people don’t change their minds so easily.

fhansen said “Humans may look kind of weak and scrawny and hairless and all compared to some animals but come to think of it I wouldn’t want humans to look any other way-I especially like the way the opposite sex looks and might be pretty perturbed over any major changes there.”

We agree about that!

Let’s examine the God of the gaps. There will always be at leat one gap or we would be God.

 

[jmcrae]

jmcrae, the same DNA analysis that is used for paternity testing in humans is used to test for evolutionary relationships. Our courts and even creationists accept the results of paternity testing. Creationists don’t understand the exact same method has shown beyond any doubt we are closely related to the other Great Apes.

And Picasso’s Blue period is closely related to his Rose period - they have everything in common except the colour - but they are not the same set of paintings. In fact, the only thing any of them have in common is that they were all created by the same artist.

I went to a natural history museum in Denver one time, and it was the strangest thing; there was a mineral rock next to a technical photograph of the human brain, and for a fleeting second I thought, “These two things were made by the same artist,” until I realized I was in a natural history museum and they were not art pieces; they were samples from the natural world - and then I realized I was right the first time.

Mineral rocks and human brains have a common design when viewed from a certain perspective, but nobody is ever going to convince me that they are related via DNA. Their commonalities are due to the fact that they were created by the same Person.

 

[The_Barbarian]

DNA affinity can be used to show relationships, even to differentiating between a father and an uncle, so we know it works.

Anyone who equates that kind of similarity to an assumed similarity between a rock and brains…

Maybe in his case. But not otherwise.

 

[IvanKaramozov]

fhansen, you can only make wild guesses about God. Meanwhile, thanks to the hard work of tens of thousands of scientists we know many facts about the history of life. Facts are more interesting than wild guesses, and reality is much more interesting than fantasies. Accepting facts that have evidence is more rewarding than making guesses and pretending those guesses are correct.

To me the creationists who do nothing except say “God did it” are very lazy compared to the scientists who work hard to make scientific discoveries

I noticed no creationist has ever described how God made creatures. I imagine a sky fairy with a magic wand who dreams up disgusting creatures like cockroaches and rats, says a few magic words, and poof, vermin appears.

I don’t believe in the sky fairy or what Christians call God, but I noticed some Christians who accept evolution think it’s insulting to God to believe He would waste his time creating millions of different species. Biologists have figured out the diversity of life can be explained by natural processes. The creationists believe God is dumb enough to waste His time doing what nature can do by itself.

I noticed the more people know about science, they less likely they are to believe in a supernatural magician. This 1998 survey of the National Academy of Sciences is interesting: “Leading scientists still reject God” tinyurl.com/2jgm4

I read a survey on this subject a few years ago, I beleive it’s results showed mathematicians being the most atheistic of all scientists.

Now, your contention is that there is some sort of causal role in knoledge of the sciences and disbeleif, I would certainly cede that there exists a corelation, however your assertion of causality seems dubious in light of the fact that the most highest occurences of atheism are not amongst the natural scientists such as phycists or biologists, but amongst mathematicians.

What exactly, about knoledge of mathematics, I wonder, would make one prone to be an atheist, and even moreso than a cosmologist or neuroscientist? Do mathemaicians wake and see, "oh hell, Russell found a syntatical paradox in set theory! Well, that’s it, there is no God "?

I doubt it. a simple survey really isin’t much to base such a far sweeping assertion on, what other explinations could there be? Well, I might suggust that perhapse the psychology of an individual that would lead one to a field might have be corelated with traits that would more so or less so predispose one to religious beleif?

When you think of Bertrand Russell’s definition of pure mathematics I think this shows why this might be the case, and simmilar peoples would would have a psychological tendency towards a given science would also be more or less likely to accecpt the idea of faith.

Now, as to your more general comments, it is certianly interesting that you choose to so aragontly and brashly dismiss such personal belifs as religous faith, reducing them to absurdity with condescending comparisons to “faries” and other instances of Dawkins mimicking.

I say this because your trite dismissals seem odd when considered next to the weakness of your case. You say beleiving 'x" seems insulting to their god, yet do not say why, inclination after inclination all put forth as a sloppy “pileing on” of empty retoric, not that simply giving an intuitive guess is somehow wrong, it is just ironic when it comes from someone who claims to put such high emphasis on evidence and strict adherence to scientific methodology. You actually put it quite nicely

“Facts are more interesting than wild guesses, and reality is much more interesting than fantasies. Accepting facts that have evidence is more rewarding than making guesses and pretending those guesses are correct.”

 

[SamDash]

As many have noted, I fail to see how the answers to these questions have anything to do with the Church or your future in it.

I am a Catholic because the Catholic Church is the Church established by Christ himself.

That will never change, regardless of what “many Catholics” may or may not believe. What the Church teaches is the only thing that matters, and the since Church has no position on evolution, it can hardly have a position in conflict with yours.

 

[Gizmo]

As many have noted, I fail to see how the answers to these questions have anything to do with the Church or your future in it.

I am a Catholic because the Catholic Church is the Church established by Christ himself.

That will never change, regardless of what “many Catholics” may or may not believe. What the Church teaches is the only thing that matters, and the since Church has no position on evolution, it can hardly have a position in conflict with yours.

This is an excerpt from what John Paul II said in regards to evolution. Considering the references to the Church that he makes in the document I would say that the Church has a position on evolution.

*5. The Church’s magisterium is directly concerned with the question of evolution, for it involves the conception of man: Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gn 1:27-29). The conciliar constitution Gaudium et Spes has magnificently explained this doctrine, which is pivotal to Christian thought. It recalled that man is “the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake” (No. 24). In other terms, the human individual cannot be subordinated as a pure means or a pure instrument, either to the species or to society; he has value per se. He is a person.

Pius XII stressed this essential point: If the human body take its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God (“animas enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere iubei”; “Humani Generis,” 36). Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person.*

If you would like to read the whole thing, click here

 

[The_Barbarian]

Most notably, in that document, the Pope said:

"In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points…Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. [Aujourdhui, près dun demi-siècle après la parution de l’encyclique, de nouvelles connaissances conduisent à reconnaitre dans la théorie de l’évolution plus qu’une hypothèse.] It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory".

Pope Benedict XVI has himself enlarged on this statement by acknowledging that evolution and even common descent of all living things is virtually certain.

He has also stated that any scientist who denies God’s role in evolution has strayed from the proper path of science. Quite rightly so; as you might have noticed, scientists here have told you precisely that. Science can’t deal with the supernatural, and the Pope was entirely correct to say so.

 

[fhansen]

I don’t know if it’s been mentioned but the Churchs position on evolution is only that polygenism, the idea that humans don’t have a common lineage traceable to a single pair of parents, is excluded as a possible theory.

 

[The_Barbarian]

As you see, it is also that evolution is not incompatible with Christian belief.

The statements from the Popes approving evolution, are not endorsements of evolution per se, but rather explicit teaching that the theory is not in conflict with our faith.

And that’s the way it should be.

 

[elt1956]

I thought the phrase was “could be.” Depending on which form of the evolutionary theory we are talking about, along with a host of other factors.

That’s right where I get stuck. Isn’t the body the form of the soul? So how could God give Adam a different kind of soul than other animals of the same kind?

You know I have never thought of the body as being the “form” of the soul. I have thought that the fact that humans were created in God’s image meant since God is a spirit, unknowable, unseeable etc. it is only our souls,which are also unknowable and unseeable, (except to God), that are created in God’s image.

 

[Hastrman]

That’s right where I get stuck. Isn’t the body the form of the soul? So how could God give Adam a different kind of soul than other animals of the same kind?

No, the soul is the form of the body–well, technically , the pneuma or atmos is the morphos of the soma–not to be confused with sarx, which is what the body becomes when the soul leaves it. See, “form” is formal cause: that which makes a thing what it is. When the body dies, it ceases to be what it is and becomes something else.

God gave Adam a different kind of soul because he gave tigers different souls from turtles and ducks different souls from aardwolves: because they’re different things. Adam’s soul, however, was radically different in making him rational.

 

[Pete_1]

I have two questions about evolution that I need answered, and my future in the Church depends on how they are answered.

1. If we accept evolution as many Catholics do, then how is it possible for God to create through evolution when evolution is a “random” process? Artificial selection (the breeding of plants and animals) works because farmers and breeders control whom each animal mates with and thus with types of offspring are created. Natural selection is random, God does not choose mates for animals in nature or for humans, and God (at least I have never heard that he does) does not shuffle human genes during the sex/fertilization act to produce the different alelle frequencies of offspring. My problem is: if evolution is random…and God is not random…then how do the two mix exactly?
2. If we accept that humans evolved through lower animals from the ultimate source of pond scum, then that means God simply waited for 14 billion years for us to arrive on the scene. This raises some interesting questions the main one I have is what does God intend to evolve from human beings? Once evolution is accepted it cannot remain a past event…what next? A secondary question as to the reality of original sin enters here as well. How can there be separation from God; i.e. original sin, if we are evolved animals?

I would appreciate any answers that address these two questions of mine because it seems to me that if evolution is true, then several things about God would have to be true, and the picture of God here seems to be a different one from the God I thought I knew in the Church.

I read something that was said by the pope (I think) that said that it was beyond the means of science to prove that evolution is random and not in some way guided by God. I will try find the article.

Also this may help

vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html

 

[elt1956]

I read something that was said by the pope (I think) that said that it was beyond the means of science to prove that evolution is random and not in some way guided by God. I will try find the article.

Also this may help

vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html

It is my understanding that nature is not random, so how could evolution be random?

 

[Pete_1]

It is my understanding that nature is not random, so how could evolution be random?

Maybe I am wrong but I believe scientists claim that genetic mutations are random, but genes are ‘selected’ by natural factors. E.g genes for a thicker coat would be more beneficial in cold temperatures so animals with those genes would be more likley to survive.

Some claim this is enitre process is **unguided **(maybe random was the wrong word) but the church says that science cannot prove this (I may be wrong) and states that evolution was guided by God (if it is in fact true)

 

[elt1956]

Maybe I am wrong but I believe scientists claim that genetic mutations are random, but genes are ‘selected’ by natural factors. E.g genes for a thicker coat would be more beneficial in cold temperatures so animals with those genes would be more likley to survive.

Some claim this is enitre process is **unguided **(maybe random was the wrong word) but the church says that science cannot prove this (I may be wrong) and states that evolution was guided by God.

Okay. Don’t mean to argue here, just questioning. If nature drives toward survival, doesn’t that mean it is being is being guided by a greater power, God? Yes, I think you are right, the Church did say Science cannot prove nature is random. We all have our little limitations, don’t we?:yup: