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

[Edgar]

Well, many of the numbers I described do, in fact, show up in the narrative you’re describing

“forty days and forty nights” is interesting, but I can’t see why it couldn’t be literal. And the Flood occured when Noah was “six hundred” years old. Again, this could be literal.
And you haven’t explained how other details in the Flood account are “symbolic” - eg, the use of “pitch” inside and outside of the ark; the ark being made of “gopher wood”, the ark’s roof, the dimensions of the ark.

On top of the logistical nightmare that that would be in today’s day and age (not even taking into account the infeasibility of the time), there isn’t enough water on the world to flood over every bit of land so suddenly and retreat so suddenly. Perhaps this would be possible with a great regional flood, as I would suggest is the case

I don’ believe the Flood was global, but regional - but not because I consider the Flood narrative to be “symbolic”.

But not a global one, as the text would literally suggest.

But this is not symbolism; it is simply the occasional use of hyperbolic figures-of-speech. Here are a few similar examples of the same literary tool:
Genesis 41:57 – “And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world.”
1 Kings 10:24 – “The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.”
Luke 2:1 – “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire world.”

Again, consider – there are two accounts of the narrative, which actually happened? One pair of ever animal, or 7 pairs, clean and unclean? The two accounts appear to contradict each other, and if they are read literally, which one is to be taken as truth?

If seven pairs went into the ark, “two” (one pair) certainly went into the ark - because one is less than seven. Obviously, seven pairs of clean and one pair of unclean went into the ark.

 

[Edgar]

You can believe that if you want to, but the Church does not insist that we take the dimensions of the ark as literal truth.

If the dimensions of the ark aren’t literal, what is their meaning?

 

[Edgar]

Which science says mankind is much older than 7000 years?

 

[Edgar]

If the words/names are actually translated, they are geographical regions, which is super interesting.

That’s not unusual - Cain founded a city and named it after his son, Enoch. Are you saying this Enoch was not a real person? Jacob had his name changed to Israel - Jacob was a real person, no?

The genealogy of the descendants of Shem (one of Noah’s sons) includes Abram (aka Abraham) and Lot. Surely if Abraham and Lot were real people, it is reasonable to assume all the other names in the genealogy likewise were real people. The ancient Jews took all the OT genealogies literally; their opinion is trustworthy - unlike some of the absurd, intelligence-insulting interpretations modernist “theologians” invent to serve evolution.

Reading it to mean that there were exactly 70 literal generations would be a little dubious

Why dubious? Were these people so stupid and primitive that they couldn’t record 70 generations? It’s not rocket science.

 

[Edgar]

Anything that doesn’t fit the evolution paradigm gets the “symbolism” treatment, regardless of how absurd and meaningless that renders the sacred text.

 

[Edgar]

In my opinion, the Church is plagued by lost intellectuals whose interpretations of certain Scriptures are ludicrous and aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The claim that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are written in figurative language is one such “Lost in Space” interpretation. You need to avoid these blind guides - they will mislead you into a black hole of error and nonsense.

“Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church’s vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual” - Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, 1950.

“Some ideas are so absurd that only intellectuals can believe in them” - George Orwell

 

[Edgar]

From a biological point of view, there is only one ‘kind’: the Life on Earth kind. That makes biology, including evolution, compatible with Genesis.

Hardly. Contrary to evolution’s “one kind” narrative, Genesis mentions several different kinds:

• “plants yielding seed according to their own kinds”
• “fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind”
• “the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with the waters swarm, according to their kinds”
• "every winged bird according to its kind
• “beasts of the earth according to their kind”
• “cattle according to their kinds”
• “everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind”
• human beings, although they are not described as a “kind”

The evidence of the history of life tends to confirm the all life is one kind hypothesis

The history of life, as revealed by the fossil record, doesn’t seem to suggest a “tree of life”:
“The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils” - S.J. Gould

 

[Edgar]

Karma is not like a law administered by a judge

What are you talking about? Karma is EXACTLY like a law administered by a judge!

A mindless universe just happens to have a keen sense of morality and accidentally produced a mindless force that judges the every deed of every person who ever lives, then dishes out the correct amounts of good or bad karma to each person in a future life granted to them by that same mindeless universe - wow, how is that for luck? And no intelligence was required to set up this all up? If you believe that, no wonder you have no trouble accepting mindless abiogenesis and mindless evolution.

 

[Edgar]

Classic god of the gaps: “never”. Be very careful here. Thor once lived in the gap called “What causes thunder?” Science closed that gap and now Thor has to live in comic books, not Asgard

You’ve entirely missed the point - humans cannot create matter from NOTHING (that’s why, in the joke, Jesus said “Get your own dirt”).
And if you are in Disneyland if you think humans can one day make viable life arise from inanimate matter (althought I appreciate that atheists easily fall prey to this superstition).

 

[Edgar]

Except that it isn’t.

“The EXTREME RARITY OF TRANISTIONAL FORMS IN THE FOSSIL RECORD persists as the TRADE SECRET of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, NOT THE EVIDENCE OF FOSSILS …
Darwins argument (of a very incomplete fossil record) still persists as the favoured escape of most paleontologists from the EMBARRASSMENT of a record that seems to show SO LITTLE OF EVOLUTION directly … I wish only to point out that (gradualism) was NEVER ‘SEEN’ IN THE ROCKS.
We (paleontologists) fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favoured account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as SO BAD that we ALMOST NEVER SEE THE VERY PROCESS WE PROFESS TO STUDY…
For several years, Niles Eldrege … and I have been advocating a resolution to this UNCOMFORTABLE PARADOX” (emphasis mine) - S. J. Gould, The Panda’s Thumb, pp. 181-182

 

[Edgar]

An alternate hypothesis to evolution (small errors in the beginning result in large errors at the ending) is to assume a large and fixed gene pool at the beginning. What evolutionists call “mutations” become simply “permutations” and no evolving occurs.

??? My model of Progressive Creation consists of a series of separate creations, so the “gene pool” of each separate creation is independant of any previous creations. Hence there is no ever-increasing accumulation of “errors” as creation proceeds over eons.

 

[Edgar]

That is the first step in the scientific process.

Catholics don’t need a “scientific process” to explain the history of life … anymore than they need a “scientific process” to explain the Resurrection or Transubstantiation. It is atheists who search for a “scientific process” to explain life, because science is all they’ve got.

Are there any identifiable portions of advanced DNA in the most primitive life forms?

A creation model can account for any “advanced DNA” evident in the most primitive life forms.

What about artificial selection where very unnatural characteristics are selected for and evolve?

What about dogs remaining dogs, cats remaining cats, cow remaining cows, etc, etc after several thousand years of intensive artificial selection? This same stubborn stasis is evident in the fossil record:

“Every paleotologist knows that MOST SPECIES DON’T CHANGE … They may get a little bigger or bumpier but REMAIN THE SAME SPECIES and that’s NOT DUE TO IMPERFECTIONS AND GAPS (in the fossil record) but STASIS. And yet this REMARKABLE STASIS has generally been IGNORED AS NO DATA. If they don’t change, it’s not evolution so you don’t talk about it” (emphasis mine).
S. J. Gould, Lecture at Hobart and William Smith College, 1980

What is the proposed mechanism by which advanced characteritics appear at the proper time?

The will of God and the miracles He wroughts.

What is the cause and effect?

See previous answer.

This theory has more problems than evolution.

Evolution fails because it attempts the impossible - to explain the miracle of God’s creation using materialistic means (and thus betraying its atheistic roots). My model doesn’t attempt to explain miracles at all.

 

[Edgar]

This is a much more reasonable explanation. I would add that God’s plan does not merely play out in time, but involves His active involvement as Creator of all time and place, Divine Artist and Father.

My Progressive Creation model - ie, a series of separate creations - requires God’s active involvement as Creator at every step of the process. There is therefore no risk that the creation process can ever be considered the result of a “secondary cause”, independant of God - unlike the theistic evolution model

 

[Edgar]

I can accept the Church making a scientific mistake - eg, accepting the evolutionary explanation for the history of life on earth. But what I can’t accept is that the Church considers this evolution explanation to be compatible with Scripture - Genesis 2:7, in particular.

 

[Edgar]

Remember that God wrote two books: the Bible and the World. You appear to be ignoring what He said in His second book.

I think the evidence of the World can be just as misinterpreted as the Bible can. For example, I believe the claimed genetic evidence of common descent is misinterpreted in favour of an evolutionary explanation. The “common mistakes/mutations” evident in the genomes of humans and lower animals (esp primates), while providing a reasonable argument for common descent, could well be attributable to the effect of the Fall on the DNA of all living creatures (Scripture states that the Fall affected the entire creation). As one would expect in such a scenario, these detrimental effects are most obvious in creatures whose DNA is closest to ours - primates.

Furthermore, genetic science can err owing simply to limited knowledge. Living matter is very, very mysterious and it’s complexities are seemingly never-ending. Genetics scientists are dreaming if they think they fully understand their subject matter. I believe science will never fully understand life and how it works.

 

[rossum]

Lenski’s E.coli are still E.coli - in a billion years’ time they will still be E.coli.

There is more genetic variation in E. coli than there is in the entire animal kingdom among Eukaryotes.

rossum

 

[rossum]

You’ve entirely missed the point - humans cannot create matter from NOTHING

Nor can God. God did not start with nothing", He started with Himself.

As to cosmology and “nothing”, here is Stephen Hawking:

There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

– A Brief History of Time

A zero energy universe is just another way of saying “nothing”. You now have the choice of either denying science or saying “look how Genesis predicted something cosmologists have only just discovered”.

rossum

 

[Bradskii]

LeafByNiggle:

You can believe that if you want to, but the Church does not insist that we take the dimensions of the ark as literal truth.

If the dimensions of the ark aren’t literal, what is their meaning?

If you have read any Hans Christian Anderson’s tales then you will know that they are stories with a message. They go into a lot of detail which keeps one’s attention through to the end and the imagery it conjures up helps to carry the messages. Messages about life. About morality. About doing the right thing.

'God was angry and flooded the earth to kill everyone. One guy and his family built a boat to save themselves and lots of animals. The end.

Doesn’t really catch the imagination, does it…

 

[Gorgias]

'God was angry and flooded the earth to kill everyone. One guy and his family built a boat to save themselves and lots of animals. The end.

OT, but…

If you start the story where you do, and end it where you do, then you’re missing the whole point of the Noah / flood narrative. Just sayin’…

 

[o_mlly]

My model of Progressive Creation consists of a series of separate creations, so the “gene pool” of each separate creation is independant of any previous creations. Hence there is no ever-increasing accumulation of “errors” as creation proceeds over eons.

The key point is that either assumption (each as reasonable as the other) precludes any spontaneous mutation. No mutations means no evolution, just limited or bounded variation within species. And Darwin goes to he dustbins of history.