What is the Church's teaching on evolution?

[marciadietrich]

Hello Adam,

First, thank you for your thoughts on this.

amarischuk:

The simple solution is the radical reduction in the understanding of infallibility whithin the Church in general. This posses no intellectual problems …

By radically reducing the scope of infallibility, a Catholic who cannot abandon the dictates of his scientific knowledge, can still remain intellectually coherent and a Catholic,

Personally, I do still have a problem here. I converted precisely because I was looking for the source of truth in regard to Christian faith and practice, for the authority to say what is truth and necessary to believe. Something that was going to be the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

So if the Church is so way off base that we have to change the understanding of infallibility and abandon or wholesale modify beliefs that were held as doctrinal, then why be Catholic at all? At this point in my life, why be Christian at all? I might as well be an intellectually consistent agnostic or atheist. I suppose I could just enjoy the ceremony of the faith and the people, but intellectually I can’t see taking the path you outline.

I can see how these issues make a person veer either towards ultratraditionalism, liberalism or out of the faith altogether.

Marcia

 

[hecd2]

Philthy:

Thanks Marcia for your (name removed by moderator)ut. I don’t think you fully understand what I stated in my original post so I’ll try and re-explain. What if there was an established population of pre-human life forms with mixed genetic make up through multiple generations. Then God steps in and gives a male a human soul and a female is also given a human soul. And all humans descend from these two. Is that irreconcilable with the scientific evidence? And BTW, I saw a PBS documentary on the origin of human life which followed specific charateristics of human blood DNA analysis which did implicate that all current human populations could be traced back to Africa - is there something indicating that no, we came from a variety of continents?

Dear Phil

Marcia put the case well, although there are one or two points there that I will clarify in a subsequent post. Here is the evidence:
Analysis of common alleles in highly polymorphic loci in human and chimpanzee indicate no severe bottleneck below 10,000 individuals since the divergence of human and chimpanzee lineages.

This is supported by:

1. analysis of the major histocompatibility complex - specifically the human leucocyte antigen - DRB1:
   Ayala, ‘The myth of Eve, Molecular biology and human origins’, Science 270, 1930 - 1936
2. Beta-globin:
   Harding et al, ‘Archaic African and Asian lineages in the genetic ancestry of modern humans’, Am J Hum Genet 60, 772 - 789
3. Apolipoprotein C II:
   Xiong et al, ‘No severe bottleneck during human evolution; evidence from two apolipoprotein C II alleles’, Am J Hum Genet 48, 383 -389

Rogers and Jorde, ‘Genetic evidence on the origin of modern humans’, Hum Biol 67, 1 - 36, show that a modest bottleneck of 10,000 individuals is consistent with the data.

This minimum population size of 10,000 individuals throughout hominid history is also supported by mitochondrial genetic diversity:
Takahata, ‘Allelic genealogy and human evolution’, Mol Biol Evol 10, 2 - 22;

By Y-chromosome data:
Hammer, ’ A recent common ancestry for human Y-chromosomes’, Nature 378, 376 - 378

By nuclear DNA:
Takahata et al, ‘Diversion time and population size in the lineage leading to modern humans’, Theor Popul Biol 48, 198 - 221

At its absolute simplest, if we consider a highly polymorphic locus like DRB-1 in the Human Leucocyte Antigen complex we find 58 human alleles. By carrying out analyses of the pan-speciific alleles we can determine the likely coalescence dates of alleles, by derivation of a phylogenetic tree from pan-specific divergence of individual alleles. That indicates that all 58 alleles persisted through the last 500,000 years of human evolution. The 58 alleles coalesce to 44 lineages by 1.7 Myr BP and to 21 lineages by 6 Myr BP (the apptroximate date of divergence of human and chimpanzee ancestors). Since anatomically modern humans emerge at 125,000 years BP and culturally modern humans at 60,000 years BP, and the human lineage polymorphism at this locus is 58 alleles during this period, this puts a mathematically logical lower limit on the minimum human populatrion size during culturally modern human existence of 29 individuals which in itself destroys the concept of monogeny.

Formal population genetics demands a much larger population than 29 individuals for the maintenanence of 58 alleles in a situation of neutral drift and balanced evolution (where heterozygosity has more fitness than any homozygosity), and the conclusion from these quantitative evolutionary analyses is that the minimum human population bottlemneck was around 10,000 individuals.

All of this evidence refutes the possibility that humans derive genetically from two individuals within the last 6 million years.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Philthy:

As for the second contention that life arose spontaneously from non-life: sounds to me like science has hit a brick wall. The word spontaneous doesn’t truly belong in the realm of science. When a scientist says something is spontaneous, that means that science is unable to access the knowledge that is required for understanding it. If the process that produced life is inaccessible to science, how will science describe the process? By using a word like “spontaneous” - what does it even mean when you think about it? I’m equally comfortable saying God did it.

Phil

Dear Phil,

The word spontaneous is used in many many places in science. I understand why you say what you do - nevertheless the use of spontaneous is perfectly valid.

Let me take a physical example. Light (electromagnetic radiation) commonly arises from the relaxation of an atom or molecule from an excited state - this relaxation is accompanied by the emission of a photon. Now then, there are two classes of radiation: spontaneous and stimulated. Spontaneous emission of radiation requires the excitation of the atom or molecule in the first place for example by heating it, but the actual relaxation of an individual atom is indeterminate - we can’t say for sure when that atom will fall to a lower energy state and emit a photon. Light produced by these spontaneous, stochastic and thermal sources is what we normally encounter.

However some atoms have a thing called a metastable state - an excited state that is stable - atoms in this state do not spontaneously relax and emit photons or do so only very rarely. However they do relax and emit a photon when stimulated to do so by absorption and re-emission of a photon with the same energy represented by the energy gap between the metastable and the ground state. This event yields two photons with the same energy and wavelength. Put all this in a tuned resonant cavity and the result is light that has very different properties from everyday spontaneously emitted light - laser light in fact (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), that is monochromatic, spatially and temporally coherent, and narrowly divergent.

There is also the entire concept of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking, fundamental to early cosmology, represented by the Lagrangian, which describes a system starting in a high symmetry state with many possible vacuum states described by the potential term of the Lagrangian. Once the system falls from the high to the low potential the symmetry is spontaneously broken.

Having said all that, ‘spontaneous’ generation of life from non-living matter is not the key point. The question is whether natural processes or miracles accomplished this.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

marciadietrich:

The problem is that at no time were there just two people from which all people today descend. The mitochondrial “Eve” and Y-chromosome “Adam” are sort of mathmatical backtracking based on looking at certain features in cells/chromosomes of people today and backtracking. But these were not Adam and Eve of the Bible. The M-Eve and Y-Adam did not live at the same time, they lived tens of thousands of years apart (I think it might be 80,000 years apart, would have to check).

Also, they would both been part of a greater population and their ancestor would also be ancestors to us all. We all also descend from M-Eve’s mom and grandmother and Y-Adam’s dad and grandfather, etc. so as populations shift the M-Eve and Y-Adam could be different people, in the past it might have been Y-Adam’s grandfather.

Alec has said no evidence for a bottleneck of 2 people, that it may have been thousands of people and never down to 2 people . Evolution and genetics says we do NOT descend from a single couple but from a population and evolution occurs in populations over time. Evolution says no way we descend from one couple, not unless (and maybe not even then) if we go back before what would be modern type hominids. Creatures we clearly would not deem as being people either by appearance or any other standard.

Dear Marcia,

This is a very good description of the situation. I’d just like to make the point that there is nothing in evolution or genetics per se that disallows a bottleneck of two individuals. Indeed a founder population of an entire species can be, in principle, at a minimum, a single pregnant female. It is not evolutionary theory primarily that shows that humans did not pass through the bottleneck of a literal Adam and Eve, but human and other primate genomic data. See my more detailed post above.

There have been experiments done which attempt to recreate the primordial atmosphere, throw in some electric shock and you get chemicals to put out some amino acids which are the building blocks of life. But no real way to explain even if that is true how you get from there to life, because amino acids are simply the sub parts of proteins. So I drink them in my protein shake in the morning and I don’t expect it would be easy to make that organize into a living being.

There are other points I’ve mentioned in this and other threads. There definately are points of conflict.

Marcia

You are, I think, describing the Miller-Urey experiment. Since then there have been many more sophisticated experiments and observations, including the observation of amino acids in meteorites, the generation of (mildly) chiral (handed) organic molecules under the influence of polarised light in deep space, the demonstration of self-replicating molecules, the demonstration of natural selection acting on such molecules, and many complex theories and experiments on chemical and bio-chemical pathways, and a detailed understanding of what would constitute an RNA world.

And with all of this, very little real progress has been made. We have no idea what precise (no idea what approximate!) chemical and biochemical pathways generated life. This science has been obstinately unyielding - for a good summary read Simon Conway Morris’s ‘Life’s Solution’. Yet we know it must have happened because life obviously exists.

The forum below represents a very serious summary of the ongoing science. This is by far the best web resource on this subject:

groups.yahoo.com/group/Abiogenesis_Chemical_Evolution/

Alec

 

[hecd2]

marciadietrich:
Personally, I do still have a problem here. I converted precisely because I was looking for the source of truth in regard to Christian faith and practice, for the authority to say what is truth and necessary to believe. Something that was going to be the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

So if the Church is so way off base that we have to change the understanding of infallibility and abandon or wholesale modify beliefs that were held as doctrinal, then why be Catholic at all? At this point in my life, why be Christian at all? I might as well be an intellectually consistent agnostic or atheist. I suppose I could just enjoy the ceremony of the faith and the people, but intellectually I can’t see taking the path you outline.

I can see how these issues make a person veer either towards ultratraditionalism, liberalism or out of the faith altogether.

Marcia
Dear Marcia,

I am probably the last person who should be seeking to offer you spritual comfort, given my own disbelief, but I look at it this way: there are many reasons why one might doubt, but of these reasons those based on science carry little weight. Belief is ultimately based on the gift of faith which transcends reason. Faith is not a thing based on law and reason.

There are too many wonderful scientists who are also devout Catholics or sincere believers in other branches of christianity for me to claim that there is a fundamental conflict between science and faith. I might as well say that reason and science destroy the basis of poetry or music as claim that faith is undermined by molecular biology. So, you might have to understand some truths as more figurative than literal. Why does that matter? It seems to me that you are undergoing something of a Dark Night, for which try this:

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings"

An anthem for scientists and catholics alike

Alec
‘…nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things’

 

[ISABUS]

I know there is a time and place for everything ~ The death of loved ones. I ask for your prayers. Prayers for a dear friend of mine and his wife who died today. Her name is Yvette Abbatucci. May she rest in peace.

with Love,

Mary

 

[marciadietrich]

hecd2:

Dear Marcia,

I am probably the last person who should be seeking to offer you spritual comfort, given my own disbelief, but I look at it this way: there are many reasons why one might doubt, but of these reasons those based on science carry little weight. Belief is ultimately based on the gift of faith which transcends reason. Faith is not a thing based on law and reason.

Dear Alec,

As always thank you for your contribution here and for your kind thoughts for me. I’m just having some mental anguish and don’t have any immediate plans to give up faith. Faith is both a gift and an act of will. I will to believe. I pray for faith.

So, you might have to understand some truths as more figurative than literal. Why does that matter?

It matters in that there is a point if too much is figurative (or myth) rather than an absolute truth (not necessarily literal, but truth) then what aspect of the faith isn’t open for revision? If so many things are figurative then likely Jesus was just a guy, he probably never was resurrected or ascended. There probably isn’t any heaven other than if we can eek out a good life here and now and how we treat others, and death is a finality for us. If Jesus wasn’t resurrected then Jesus was not a firstfruit of that, if Mary just died and was never assumed, then there is no resurrection of the body for us in the last days. Catholicism is set up in a way that rejecting part, in particular teaching authority, causes a questioning of every other doctrine and belief. Everything is interrelated and meshed together with the authority to teach holds it all in place. At least that is how I look at it.

Marcia

 

[marciadietrich]

ISABUS:

I know there is a time and place for everything ~ The death of loved ones. I ask for your prayers. Prayers for a dear friend of mine and his wife who died today. Her name is Yvette Abbatucci. May she rest in peace.

with Love,

Mary

Mary, sorry to hear about the death of your friend. I pray that she rests in peace in the arms of our Lord. Prayers also for her husband and all her friends and family.

Marcia

 

[ISABUS]

marciadietrich:

Mary, sorry to hear about the death of your friend. I pray that she rests in peace in the arms of our Lord. Prayers also for her husband and all her friends and family.

Marcia

Dearest Marcia,

Thank you for opening your heart in prayer to the Abbatucci family. May the blessing of your prayers unfold and spill forth into your own life as well.

I can internalize the pain this family is experiencing since death has always played a major role in my life. I lost my parents at an early age and have sat at many a deathbed. I knew without a doubt that Providence was no mere accident because the wisdom I gained through my experiences gave me insight into God’s reasoning behind every event that took place in my life. I’ve always discovered a precious, rare flower from each experience. I truly felt Christ present at all times for he placed within my mind the mystery and beauty that would assuredly bloom. After 40 + years I now have a spiritual bouquet of flowers that never cease to bloom! Praise the Lord! I embrace him daily with renewed faith. AMEN, its all about LOVE!

Your mental anguish will pass. Remember you are on the right path. I’m asking Jesus to pray for you. I promise you that soon you will be leaping and skiping over the hills ~

with Love, Peace, and great JOY
Mary

 

[Matt16_18]

marciadietrich:

Catholicism is set up in a way that rejecting part, in particular teaching authority, causes a questioning of every other doctrine and belief. Everything is interrelated and meshed together with the authority to teach holds it all in place.

 

[ISABUS]

PhilVaz:

On second thought, I want to see a little more debate on the whole “Adam/Eve is a myth” vs. “Adam/Eve were a literal historical couple” debate. Isabus and Matt16 please go to the mat now, its your turn.
Phil P

Phil, it’s plain to see that Matt16 has forfeited the match. I win by default!!! Yippee, Adam/Eve is a myth.

 

[ISABUS]

PhilVaz:

And did God directly and specially create the recently discovered 3 foot tall Homo Hobbitus of Indonesia or was that evolution?

Give me a minute and let me think … Evolution! Am I unique and modern? Yes, indeedy.

Wondering if there’s the slightest chance possible that my mom was a hominin and my dad a H. sapien? This would explain my pixie nature and why elves keep showing up in my backyard.

Great article Phil. A joy to read.

Isabus

 

[ISABUS]

hecd2:

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings"

An anthem for scientists and catholics alike

Alec

You know this is one of my all time favorite poems by Gerard Manly Hopkins ~ Alec. Very inspirational and filled with volumes of truth. I can sense Hopkins spirit softly resonating against the curled pitch of night and day. A real treat to read. Gratefully thankful ~

Alec, it’s obvious to me that you are attracted to the truths that bind this poem together. Therefore, you agree there could be a Holy Ghost. God too! Well, will miracles never cease to amaze me. Wonderful News! Wonderful news…

A real tickle to the heart ~

Mary

 

[PhilVaz]

Isabus << Yippee, Adam/Eve is a myth. >>

Well, not so fast. I think its clear the Church allows virtually all the early Genesis account to be figurative, but the existence of two folks who we trace back to, I think that may be dogma. I’m looking for a few good books on this, commentaries on Genesis, on the creation-evolution issue, etc.

They might not have been literally “named” Adam and Eve (which seem to be symbolical names), but maybe Bob and Sue , and the Catechism seems to teach we trace ourselves back to these two fully human persons (with body and soul). But there is much that is figurative or symbolical in Genesis. See the whole section on “our first parents” and original sin and the Fall (355 - 421)

For example, para 375

1. The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice”…

But yeah, I’ll agree there probably wasn’t a talking snake. Part of that symbolism of biblical language. But Bob and Sue may be dogma.

Phil P

 

[ISABUS]

Mary wearing easy attire purple:

PhilVaz:

Isabus << Yippee, Adam/Eve is a myth. >>

Well, not so fast. I think its clear the Church allows virtually all the early Genesis account to be figurative, but the existence of two folks who we trace back to, I think that may be dogma. I’m looking for a few good books on this, commentaries on Genesis, on the creation-evolution issue, etc.

How about the original “first” two souls instead of two folks?

They might not have been literally “named” Adam and Eve (which seem to be symbolical names), but maybe Bob and Sue , and the Catechism seems to teach we trace ourselves back to these two fully human persons (with body and soul). But there is much that is figurative or symbolical in Genesis. See the whole section on “our first parents” and original sin and the Fall (355 - 421)

Bob and Sue. Cute! I like. As you must already know as a poet I am very familiar with figerative language. #355-421 are located under Paragraph 6. MAN. The word “man” is often used to signify mankind.

359 is the real kicker for me. If you refer to my thread # 227​

I asked you, “I was wondering since Adam was Jesus from the beginning, how could Adam have sinned? Christ was the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

#360 seems to thread back to “mankind”: "Because of its common origin the human race forms a unity, for “from one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth”. Phil, couldn’t we call that a species? H. Sapiens ? or a member of our genus?

Yes, are first parents Adam and Eve meaning the first two souls created by God were in an “original state of holiness” until they entered a physical form. Doesn’t the human body die to some extent throughout each day. Aren’t thousands of cells dying within the body? Isn’t a physical body in an ongoing state of decay? The** sin** of it all !!! I think that may be real baby we are looking for. What do you think? Possible? Let me put it this way, we have the stain of sin the moment our soul enters our body. Stain of sin…original in orgin, our parents. Something like that. You fix it up. You can see where I’m going with this. It’s late and I’m getting tired so it’s a fast think here on my part.

1. The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice”…

Yes, I agree. Our first parents Adam and Eve, meaning the first two souls created by God, were in an “original state of holiness” until they entered a physical form. The stain of sin resulted at the moment it entered the physical body. Doesn’t the human body die to some extent throughout each day. Aren’t thousands of cells dying within the body? Isn’t a physical body in an ongoing state of decay?

But yeah, I’ll agree there probably wasn’t a talking snake. Part of that symbolism of biblical language. But Bob and Sue may be dogma.

I think the catechism tells the story fine and dandy. It’s a matter of interpreting it correctly. I’m by no means perfect.

Phil P

Mary

 

[Steve_Andersen]

BTW there is a really good story on Evolution in this month’s National Geographic.

In it they remind the readers that multiple Papal pronouncements have stated that it is not incompatible with Church beliefs.

 

[ISABUS]

Steve Andersen:

BTW there is a really good story on Evolution in this month’s National Geographic.

In it they remind the readers that multiple Papal pronouncements have stated that it is not incompatible with Church beliefs.

Thanks Steve for reminding me about the November 2004 article in National Geographic, WAS DARWIN WRONG? I’ve had it sitting on my desk buried under some papers and wanted to share a few passages from this article with the group.

On page 6 of National Geographic, “Only 37 percent of polled Americans were satisfied with allowing room for both God and Darwin – that is, divine initiative to get things started, evolution as the creative means. (This view, according to more than one papal pronouncement, is compatible with Roman Catholic dogma.) Still fewer Americans, only 12 percent, believed that humans evolved from other life-forms without any involvement of a god.”

Page 6, "Why are there so many antievolutionists? Scriptural literalism can only be part of the answer. The American public certainly includes a large segment of scriptural literalists–but not that large, not 44 percent. Creationist proselytizers and political activists, working hard to interfere with the teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools, are another part. Honest confusion and ignorance, among millions of adult Americans, must be still another. Many people have never taken a biology course that dealt with evolution nor read a book in which the theory was lucidly explained. . .

“Evolution is both a beautiful concept and an important one, more crucial nowadays to human welfare, to medical science, and to our understanding of the world than ever before. It’s also deeply persuasive – a theory you can take to the bank. The essential points are slightly more complicated than most people assume, but not so complicated that they can’t be comprehended by any attentive person. Furthermore, the supporting evidence is abundant, various, ever increasing, solidly interconnected, and easily available in museums, popular books, textbooks, and a mountainous accumulation of peer-reviewed scientific studies. No one needs to, and no one should, accept evolution merely as a matter of faith.”

I love what was written on Page 9, “As an undergraduate at Cambridge, he [Darwin] had studied halfheartedly toward becoming a clergyman himself, before he discovered his real vocation as a scientist. Later, having established a good but conventional reputation in natural history, he spent 22 years secretly gathering evidence and pondering arguements --both for and against his theory–because he didn’t want to flame out in a burst of unpersuasive notoriety. He may have delayed, too, because of his anxiety about announcing a theory that seemed to challenge conventional religious beliefs — in particular, the Christian beliefs of his wife, Emma. Darwin himself quietly renounced Christianity during his middle age, and later described himself as an agnostic. He continued to believe in a distant, impersonal deity of some sort, a greater entity that had set the universe and its laws into motion, but not in a personal God who had chosen humanity as a specially favored species. Darwin avoided flaunting his lack of religious faith, at least partly in deference to Emma [his wife]. And she prayed for his soul.”

What a sweet, loving couple! They were considerate of each other though there most likely were feathers flying from time to time.

National Geographic provides a wonderful website for the reader "HOW DO YOU ILLUSTRATE EVOLUTION?

www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/0411

Thanks again Steve for bringing this to our attention ~

Mary

 

[ISABUS]

This url provides a fantastic audio on Evolution for anyone who is interested ~

pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/

M.

 

[Matt16_18]

PhilVaz:

… the existence of two folks who we trace back to, I think that may be dogma …

It is dogma.

God is not the author of death. That is dogma too.

 

[J.W.B]

Well, acordding to St. Ann Catherine, the Saint who is the star of the book “The Doloruas Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” Claimed she saw Adam and Eve in her visions. I personally do believe they existed and human beings with the “soul” are all desendents of them. As for evolution, I tend to believe in it more than a six day creation. Evolution is “God’s unseen awesome creation in action.” It doesn’t make Him the author of death. Creation is in a state of journeying as is the Christian. C.S. Lewis in his book “Mere Christianity” gives a beautiful comparision to evolution and the journeying Christian.

It’s possible that there were “creatures” in the days of Adam and Eve that had the body forms of humans, yet not the “spirits” of humans which make us human. If this sounds funny or odd to any, then you may be suprised to know some jews before the time of Christ, and after, along within the middle ages believed this because of the original Biblical language. I have a very interesting book called “The Science of God” (though I forget the author at this moment, yet he is a old earth scientist as well as a Christian) that deals with these topics. Very interesting.

I see no problem with evolution. The Bible is God’s word. Yet men of their own free will and actions wrote it. They were not being roboticly controled by a higher power. That’s how science would show it, yet at the same time it was God speaking through them what He wanted to say. God says it was Him who formed Jeremiah in the womb, yet science would show that it was the natural egg and sperm that formed Jeremiah. Yet God was behind the process. What about when you are lost in the forest and are hungry? You pray that God would help you and feed you and suddenly, two hours later, someone finds you and gives you food. Were they being roboticly controled or was God behind it? No, they were acting on their normal conscience and free will, yet God was behind it. You thank the people and you also thank God for answering you.

It seems like a controdiction in terms, yet we cannot understand God. He is beautiful and it is common sense that He created the universe. It is impossible for it to just “happen,” at least that’s how I see it.

God give you peace.