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

[PickyPicky]

I read in your post that you did not see the contradiction.

The point is that everything that evolves does so with only the materials present in its being

That doesn’t seem to be the contradiction Techno had in mind.

 

[Techno2000]

This would require God’s ongoing involvement in His creation, as Divine Artist, and precludes there being a deist god who initiated a process and let it run.

Some Catholics want us to believe that God rolled the dice in such a way that the Virgin Mary pop up in existants just in time to give birth to Jesus.

 

[PickyPicky]

A fly exists in the light and is an amazing creature, but in terms of looks, I would say that the beauty is in the functionality.

Or in the eye of the beholder (I have to admit I have no great opinion of the fly’s beauty, but then I’m not a fly. To be honest I have no great opinion of my beauty either, but there you are: a matter of taste).

 

[PickyPicky]

Some Catholics want us to believe that God rolled the dice in such a way that the Virgin Mary pop up in existants just in time to give birth to Jesus

Wouldn’t that be quite an orthodox opinion (assuming the dice is metaphorical)?

 

[Techno2000]

Techno2000:

Some Catholics want us to believe that God rolled the dice in such a way that the Virgin Mary pop up in existants just in time to give birth to Jesus

Wouldn’t that be quite an orthodox opinion (assuming the dice is metaphorical)?

What I’m trying to say is, God would have to add perfect timing to evolution for everything in the Bible to play out as it has.

 

[PickyPicky]

Would that be a problem for you?

 

[Aloysium]

Or in the eye of the beholder (I have to admit I have no great opinion of the fly’s beauty, but then I’m not a fly. To be honest I have no great opinion of my beauty either, but there you are: a matter of taste).

I understand beauty to be a form of truth. The eye of the beholder aspect has to do with its desires and will, in relation to what is beheld. It would not be the visual appearance of another fly that would be important, but perhaps it’s how they move; I haven’t studied how sexy they can dance. I think that they came to mind in my original post because I can see only the appearance of greater survivability of offspring as being the lure a male fly might have to attract the female - better evidence for survival of the fittest than a peacock.

 

[buffalo]

What I’m trying to say is, God would have to add perfect timing to evolution for everything in the Bible to play out as it has.

Ahhhhhh- prophecies - several hundred prophecies fulfilled in one man - the odds of this is like going into the Sahara blindfolded and picked up on the very first try the only red marked grain of sand.

 

[PickyPicky]

I understand beauty to be a form of truth.

That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know, according to Mr Keats. Although I think he was exaggerating.

 

[Aloysium]

“All you need is love” - Beatles

 

[Wozza]

PickyPicky:

It was Techno who made the “create something” statement and who claimed the contradiction. Perhaps you should have a word with Techno.

The point is that everything that evolves does so with only the materials present in its being. A mutation, or more correctly, a permutation, is a rearrangement of existing elements; not the creation of new elements.

Where do you think that mutations occur? In a fully grown organism? So that it causes ‘a rearrangement of existing elements’?

It happens generally when the cell is dividing after conception. That is the only time a mutation can be passed on. Else if the mutation occurs in the testes or ovaries before conception.

So the mutation (which can itself be an addition to the genome) causes either a rearrangement of the organisms make-up, or it deletes something (a tail gets shorter) or it adds something (a tusk gets longer). In the case of something being added, something new is being created that would not have been created otherwise.

 

[Wozza]

PickyPicky:

o_mlly:

The contradiction is the claim that “evolution can create something ”. That which evolves does not create, that is to bring a thing into being from nothing.

But if you change the claim from “create something” to “ evolve something ” then the contradiction disappears iff by “evolve” you mean to bring the thing out of itself" as an embryo evolves into a fetus.

It was Techno who made the “create something” statement and who claimed the contradiction. Perhaps you should have a word with Techno.

PS these are my own thoughts, I didnt get them from creationist website.

I’d stick with the cut and paste if I were you.

 

[Wozza]

PickyPicky:

Techno2000:

Some Catholics want us to believe that God rolled the dice in such a way that the Virgin Mary pop up in existants just in time to give birth to Jesus

Wouldn’t that be quite an orthodox opinion (assuming the dice is metaphorical)?

What I’m trying to say is, God would have to add perfect timing to evolution for everything in the Bible to play out as it has.

And the subtext here is…Too hard for God. Who gets smaller and smallerwith each of these type of posts.

 

[Wozza]

PickyPicky:

Or in the eye of the beholder (I have to admit I have no great opinion of the fly’s beauty, but then I’m not a fly. To be honest I have no great opinion of my beauty either, but there you are: a matter of taste).

I think that they came to mind in my original post because I can see only the appearance of greater survivability of offspring as being the lure a male fly might have to attract the female - better evidence for survival of the fittest than a peacock.

And here you use one example, a peacock, to shoot down the argument you were putting forward. Using a peacock.

The irony.

 

[Aloysium]

I’ll go over some of what is behind the points I was trying to make:

• Beauty is Love is Truth is joyous is Existence itself is God
• What God creates manifests His glory as it reflects who He is.
• Beauty is an aspect of reality which can be appreciated through the asthetic component of our rational spirit.
• We know the beautiful within a relationship that exists between our self and what is being beheld.
• There are different forms of beauty, different goods.
• The person beholds that beauty, communing with beloved through the giving oneself over to it.

In the context of the fly, what is beautiful in my opinion, was stated to be more than its appearance, but rather its functionality. I guessed that another fly, not sharing with us the same visual capacities, might be drawn to that beauty. It was compared to the beauty of the peacock, which is apparent to both ourselves and that species of bird. In both cases, mating occurs because of an instinctive capacity to perceive beauty. The utilitarian aspect is what some people see, but that’s not what a fly sees. While one might think it’s an example of natural selection based on some randomly formed neurological process that favours interaction with healthy mates; this would be a misinterpretation of what is happening.

I’m not sure what you were trying to say, but this might make clearer what I was getting at. As I mentioned in an earlier post addressing that topic:

I would go on, but hope this is sufficient a response to your question.

 

[Wozza]

Ooh, look. I found a response from the author’s of Bufallo’s favourite ‘species are like galaxies’ article. A direct quote from the authors of the piece written in the DailyMail after they had similarly misunderstood the implications:

"Since publication of this article we have been contacted by Drs. Stoeckle and Thaler who have made the following statement:

'Our study is grounded in and strongly supports Darwinian evolution, including the understanding all life has evolved from a common biological origin over several billion years.

‘Our study follows mainstream views of human evolution. We do not propose there was a single Adam and Eve. We do not propose any catastrophic events’ " All humans may be descended from just TWO people, study suggests | Daily Mail Online

They are saying: This guy Bufallo has it competely wrong!

Keep 'em coming, Buff.

 

[Richca]

And you can’t tell me this isn’t a fundamentalist gig because if the word kinds hadn’t been used in the bible we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

(1) I suppose if we take out from the Bible a word at a time, we can continue until there is nothing left to the Bible, the written word of God, which is one of the two sources of the revealed word of God from which the catholic faith is founded on. I mean if Moses hadn’t begun Genesis with ‘In the beginning’ from which other ‘beginning’ texts of the Bible are probably taken from, we wouldn’t know whether God created the universe from eternity or if it is temporal. Aquinas says that it is only from divine revelation that we believe creation is temporal and had a beginning. He holds that it cannot be philosophically demonstrated by the natural light of reason that the universe is either eternal or temporal.

(2) Maybe the word ‘kinds’ in Genesis is there because that is the truth, namely, that God himself directly created the different kinds of plants and animals which is what I believe.

(3) If the evolution of species is so readily apparent to the mind of humans, why is it only about a 160 year old theory? Before Darwin or his father, this theory is virtually non-existent to my knowledge. The common belief in the Church since apostolic times among all the fathers, doctors, saints, and faithful prior to about 1900 was that God directly created all the species of plants and animals on earth. Apparently, if evolution is true, it is not something that Jesus and the Apostles taught and handed down to the Church. On the contrary, the faith of the early church fathers found in their writings is that of creationism which appears to be the literal teaching of the inspired sacred writers of the Old Testament.

(4) Creationism conforms to what we observe in the real world, namely, that like comes from like. Accordingly, its natural to reason that God directly created the different kinds or species of plants and animals. Macro-evolution contradicts direct observation of the generation of plants and animals.

(5) Apparently in your own mind, without the ‘kinds’ used in the Bible, evolution naturally follows and you extrapolate your own reasoning and opinion upon all other humans living or dead. I personally don’t think this way and evolution is not what I observe in the world in the generation of plants and animals and apparently neither did the greater part of humanity in the history of the human race. Plato and Aristotle believed that species were eternal and unchanging. Just from using my reason, I don’t find the evolution of species to be reasonable but I find it to be very odd, weird, virtually impossible, and contrary to observation. And again, it is only a recent theory concocted partly in the mind and partly in the imagination of Darwin. I happen to disagree with him and whoever else accepts macro-evolutionary theory either Darwiniam or cosmic such as from the big bangers.

 

[Richca]

(continued)

(6) It is traditionally believed that Moses wrote Genesis or at least its essentials or basic form. Consider all the supernatural experiences from God Moses either experienced himself or externally such as miracles.
God or angels communed supernaturally with Moses frequently. In fact, scripture says that God used to speak with Moses after the manner of a friend face to face and Moses even covered his face in public because it glowed with light apparently from his frequent communications with God or angels. Moses spent 40 years with the Israelites in the wilderness, plenty of time to contemplate nature and its beauty. What I’m getting at is this, if one had the supernatural experiences from God that Moses had and frequently and a witness to many miracles, what might be there perception of the natural world as God created it? I mean, they might have an intuition about it from all the supernatural experiences that your normal person will probably not have.

Taking all this into account and assuming Moses wrote the Genesis 1-2 creation narratives, this adds considerable weight imo to the narratives. Yet, we haven’t mentioned that which is most important in these narratives, namely, that God is the principle author of them so that whoever wrote or possibly redacted the Genesis creation narratives were inspired by God. Is there a modern day story or rather theory of creation and its formation other than Genesis and the Bible that can claim the authority of a prophet like Moses or some sacred writer and the inspiration of God? I think not!

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God;
all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made…

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God;
who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God…

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father…And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace’ (John 1: 1-3, 12- 14,16).

And that my friends ‘is the bottom line’.

 

[Aloysium]

So the mutation (which can itself be an addition to the genome) causes either a rearrangement of the organisms make-up, or it deletes something (a tail gets shorter) or it adds something (a tusk gets longer). In the case of something being added, something new is being created that would not have been created otherwise.

Thanks for including some science. Even though it is a very short summary it does point to processes and structures that we do know something about, although in the earliest stages. I want to put this into a creationist perspective. What happens here is preprogrammed, and describes some of the events happening at a genetic and cellular level when we observe different kinds of animals diversify. The large number of dog breeds, which differ quite markedly are made possible because of the variations which accompany these changes, which are inherent within the totality of the cell, and the organism as a whole. In spite of all these transformations, the offspring remain of the same kind as the parent, as has has been the case since their beginnings. The myth of evolution that operates today would have it that all this arose spontaneously, determined by the inherent properties of matter. A pantheist would see all this as the universe flowering as the divine mind itself; as mental phenomena and neuronal activity are one in the person, so too would be all this in which we participate. But, love being the Ground and Source of everything that is, what we have is God, bringing this into existence, manifesting His infinite artistry and the incredible power in the creation of mankind, a being capable of participating in its own creation.

 

[Aloysium]

They are saying: This guy Bufallo has it competely wrong!

The point Buffalo was making had to do with the science, not the temerity of individuals who must conform to the secular creed in order to be taken seriously. Of course they are saying he’s wrong; I would not expect otherwise. Who wants to be flung to the outskirts of science and lose their funding?