Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

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rossum said:
Darwin deliberately avoided almost all mention of the evolution of Homo sapiens in ‘Origin’ because he knew that it would cause …
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Either you read minds or knew Darwin and had his confidence. Either way, you admit Darwin believed human beings evolved and are fully explained by evolution.

Apparently, neither you or I will be convinced by the other’s arguments. But, as this is the Philosophy forum, evolution theories that suspend the principle of sufficient reason must be at least suspect, if not immediately dismissed as irrational. The notion that one can get more from less is nonsense, that is, opposed to common sense.

And, since this is a Catholic apologetical site, we dismiss all evolution theories claiming that their particular theory of evolution fully explains the human being.
 
Aloysium said:
It is by no means better to side with what is not true because it keeps the club of Catholism going. Evolution doesn’t cut it. I find most young people with whom I’ve discussed my views extremely interested. It is easier face to face actually because the questions are more readily addressed. With crotchety old guys set in their ways, closed to new ideas, it’s not so smooth. They like to argue rather than listen and strive for understanding.
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In my experience, it’s the younger generations that are questioning the staus quo. Hence these threads. You must live on anotber planet.
 
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The status quo for those perhaps born around the middle of the last century. Maybe I’m just an interesting guy in real life, who likes to make people who can, think.
 
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o_mlly said:
And, since this is a Catholic apologetical site, we dismiss all evolution theories claiming that their particular theory of evolution fully explains the human being.
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It can be both, you know, as most Christian theologians do accept the basic ToE as long as it’s understood God was behind it all. Catholicism also allows for it and, as a matter of fact, one of our greatest physical anthropologists was Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who was the world’s greatest expert on Homo erectus. He got into trouble with the Vatican but it wasn’t over that.

Again, the ToE does not in any way refute divine creation, and let me recommend to all here an excellent book, imo, entitled “The Image of the Unseen God: Catholicity,Science, and Our Living Understanding of God” by Fr. Thomas Hosinski C.S.C., as found in Orbis Books. The first half of the book goes into various aspects of scientific research, such as the ToE, quantum mechanics, cosmology, etc., which he covers very well, and then the latter half of the book he gets into Catholic theology and how they can be meshed.
 
On a Catholic forum I need to point out that we are not animals like any other. The Church tells us this. Jesus Christ tells us this.
 
And you aren’t. Nor is our conversationalist. We do indeed fall under the umbrella of biological “animal,” but that does not forsake our endowed souls or relationship to God.
 
o_mlly said:
Either you read minds or knew Darwin and had his confidence
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False dichotomy. Darwin wrote letters to his friends, and I have read excerpts from those letters where he says it.
o_mlly said:
And, since this is a Catholic apologetical site, we dismiss all evolution theories claiming that their particular theory of evolution fully explains the human being.
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And since I am Buddhist, I know that evolution can only explain one of the five constituent parts of a human being: the physical form (rupa). Evolution does not explain the other four: vedana, samjna, samskara, vijnana.

rossum
 
buss0042 said:
We do indeed fall under the umbrella of biological “animal,” but that does not forsake our endowed souls or relationship to God.
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We do share with animals, the physical attributes that allow us to participate in the world: incorporating what is material other to us into the formation of our own bodies, thereby allowing us to live, develop, grow, reproduce and interact with our environment. Psychologically we share the capacities to perceive, feel and act. These commonalities make us truly no more animals than the fact that we are made of the elements of the universe makes us atoms, or gravity, or electromagnetism. You can conceptualize our reality as such in the exploration of who and what we are, but our ultimate reality lies in our spirit, which is eternal and has a free will, allowing for our capacity to give of ourselves and through the graces given by the Holy Spirit, thereby know God. The idea that we are animals is illusory and one among others that constitute the illusion of evolution.
 
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That almost seems like a Gnostic view. We are spirit, yes, but we are also body. Hylomorphic dualism, as aquinas puts in. Our body falls under the umbrella of what is considered an animal, namely a multicellular eukaryotic organic organism. Now, certainly we aren’t like any other animal, because we do have spirits. But “animal” doesn’t refer to dogs and cats in the typical way one might imagine.

But you would have a hard time finding a definition of “animal” that includes every living animal on this planet but doesn’t arbitrarily exclude humans.

Are we merely animals? Absolutely not, and no-one here would claim such a thing. Our spirits are eternal, but our bodies fall under the rather large umbrella of “animal.”
 
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To repeat again and again and again, the basic ToE does not in any way refute God as Creator. The massive amount of evidence on the evolution of life is far more substantial than any objectively-derived evidence for God, but yet most of us here, including yours truly, accept God’s existence but do so based on faith.

As I mentioned, I believe on this thread, that I taught an Intro to Anthro course for around 30 years, usually having two sections each semester, so let me tell you what I experienced. At the beginning of each semester I had students fill out a confidential survey on their beliefs about evolution, and the choices were “believe”, “don’t believe”, and “don’t know/unsure”. Generally speaking, the results were usually pretty much a relatively-equal three-way split.

At the end of the course, I asked the same question in another confidential survey, and the results were that only one person in 30 years with all those courses I taught said they didn’t believe in evolution. Now either the evidence is so overwhelming that they accepted it, or I’m the world’s greatest salesman, and let me tell ya that it ain’t the latter.

BTW, in the 2nd week of the course, I brought in a Baptist minister/deacon from a nearby church to give their arguments against evolution, and I did so without debate or trying to upstage them. Matter of fact, the one deacon and I became good friends.
 
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Metis1 said:
At the end of the course, I asked the same question in another confidential survey, and the results were that only one person in 30 years with all those courses I taught said they didn’t believe in evolution.
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That is impressive.
 
Well done.

I’m not sure what else to say, so I’ll say it again: Well done.
 
Metis1 said:
To repeat again and again and again, the basic ToE does not in any way refute God as Creator. …
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Please define what you mean by “basic ToE”. It’s apparent that the fanatical evolutionists believe one thing, scientists another and philosophers a third.

The faithful in the religion of evolutionism believe that the entire universe is matter-in-development and consciously deny the existence of a spiritual or supernatural reality; all phenomena – scientific, historical, economic, and social – are explainable in exclusively material terms.

The biological scientist believes evolution is a process whereby organisms change with the passage of time so that descendants differ from their ancestors.

The pagan philosopher believes evolution is as a one-way irreversible process in time, which in its course generates novelty, diversity, and higher levels of organization.

A Catholic can give qualified assent only to evolution in the scientific sense and most certainly not to the religion of evolutionism.
 
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Excellent. Then there is virtually no problem as everyone I know just believes in the theory of evolution and not the religion of evolutionism.

Who would have guessed we’ve been arguing about nothing at all this whole time, right? 😂
 
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o_mlly said:
The faithful in the religion of evolutionism…
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So, you think to criticise science by making it out to be a religion. That means that you consider religion inferior to science; only inferior science is like a religion. Real science is therefore better than a religion.

That is a very strange position for a religious person to take.

rossum
 
rossum said:
So, you think to criticise science by making it out to be a religion. That means that you consider religion inferior to science; only inferior science is like a religion. Real science is therefore better than a religion.

That is a very strange position for a religious person to take.
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My religion is called Catholicism. The suffix “ism” refers to a set of attitudes usually identifying an ideology or world view. That is the reason the science is called “biology” and not called “biologism.”
 
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