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IWantGod
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Loooooooooooll!!!
If that’s what you think evolution is then it’s no wonder your against it. But in reality what you are describing is a straw-man
Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true
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If that’s what you think evolution is then it’s no wonder your against it. But in reality what you are describing is a straw-man
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rossum
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This is all about science, how things work. Thermodynamics isn’t about science; it is a philosophical system utilizing science to present chaos (random movement) and power (heat energy) as the ultimate realities of existence.
You really have a very strange understanding of science here.
rossum
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Aloysium
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Here we have it folks, the reason why we should think that the natural-evolution of species is true. Forget any discussion on the matter. As succinctly stated earlier about creationist beliefs:
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PickyPicky
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To be fair, there has been quite some discussion. 5000-odd bits of discussion.
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IWantGod
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There has already been plenty of discussion. If somebody keeps saying absurd things and perpetuating error even though it’s been pointed out on a number of occasions to be in error, then all that’s really left to do is roll ones eyes.
This thread should be called the rolling eyes thread.
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Aloysium
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I am making a distinction between science that reveals the nature of physical events and an unsupported theory that deals with matters beyond the reach of empiricism.
For all the evo-Catholics out there, it is exactly that “true chaos (random movement ) and power ( heat energy ) as the ultimate realities” of the physical universe, cannot explain the existence of living things. What they do reveal is that the workings of matter work against creation. Once established, entropy actually keeps living beings going, physically within their environment; it’s a matter of organizing the material components of living things to be in that state. Of course a living being is of a different order than its components, which if left to their own devices will disorganize the information-in-action that are cells.
For all the evo-Catholics out there, it is exactly that “true chaos (random movement ) and power ( heat energy ) as the ultimate realities” of the physical universe, cannot explain the existence of living things. What they do reveal is that the workings of matter work against creation. Once established, entropy actually keeps living beings going, physically within their environment; it’s a matter of organizing the material components of living things to be in that state. Of course a living being is of a different order than its components, which if left to their own devices will disorganize the information-in-action that are cells.
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Aloysium
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It would facilitate a meaningful dialogue to now address the points I make in my response above to Rossum.
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rossum
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How is the formation of any part of the physical body of a chimpanzee “beyond the reach of empiricism”?
Which parts of the physical body of a human being cannot be formed by adjusting the equivalent parts of the physical body of a chimpanzee using methods available to empiricism?
Biological evolution only deals with the formation of physical bodies. I have no problem with evolution, despite knowing that some non-physical parts of a human being, such as saṃskāra, are not formed via evolution.
Humani Generis takes the same attitude:
The Church appears wiser than you in this matter.
rossum
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Aloysium
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The part that is the individual chimpanzee, existing as one unity in being itself, as an individual expression of its kind, containing all the physical information that is its atomic, and cellular structure, organized into organ systems and psychological features such as perceptions, feelings and instinctive behaviour.
If all one is interested in is an understanding of the physical body, one will not see the chimpanzee. Of course we share features with apes. They were utilized in our formation. A kind of being gives rise to beings of the same kind; this reality goes beyond the physical. There is no way mankind evolved from apes.
Evolution fails where it fills in the gaps with speculations as to how matter would have done this unguided, by virtue of its own inherent properties.
The fact is that the soul of a thing contains the physical, bringing the constituent parts of the organism together, in one unity of being. There clearly is a hierarchy of different forms of being, and I hold that as the “non-physical parts of a human being, such as saṃskāra , are not formed via evolution” its physical manifestation likewise could not have. There is no spirit possessing the matter of the body; the body arises from the incorporation of matter to give rise to the physical form of the creature. The “soul” of the living thing is primary, as an organizational principle that is present from the moment of conception.
Whether or not the first placental creature emerged from an egg or not, which I would think the more difficult approach, it was a new creation, a new kind of being, giving rise to other memebers of its kind and with the potential to show great diversity as an expression of God’s infinite creativity in constructing the garden that was Eden, from which we fell.
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Wozza
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That sums up the thread quite nicely. Start with that as a basis for a debate and we can all see which way it’s going to go.
Unguided?
You have been told and told and told again that no-one considers it to be unguided. Even the atheists have told you again and again and again that it can be accepted that it is a guided process. By God.
You simply don’t want to hear.
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buffalo
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Guided evolution is intelligently designed?
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rossum
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What on earth is this word-salad meant to mean and what does it have to do with evolution? How does what you say affect, for example, the evolution of a chimpanzee’s eyes?
I asked you for an example of a part of the human body that could not have been derived by empirical means from the chimpanzee’s equivalent part. You have not provided a specific answer.
In science specific answers are important.
rossum
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rossum
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Wozza
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I’m not going to keep putting ‘for the sake of this argument’ because it should be apparent. But…Wozza:
Guided evolution is intelligently designed?
Evolution is a process designed by God. It is controlled by God. And it has acheived the result which He desired.
Now if anyone can explain that any clearer so this guy can understand it, then please be my guest.
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buffalo
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A marvelous breakthrough. We agree intelligent design drives evolution.
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Wozza
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Only someone like you you could describe something that was inherent from the very first post and has been explained to you on multiple ocassions as being the basis for this thread as ‘a breakthrough’.Wozza:
A marvelous breakthrough. We agree intelligent design drives evolution.
Or maybe this is the highlight of your forum life: ‘On a Catholic forum I got everyone to agree that God is behind evolution’.
I’m happy for you, mate. Well done. Although personally I think that you set the bar a little too low. But baby steps, eh?
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Aloysium
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It is remarkable how dumbed down humanity seems to have become, at least on the surface, which is the educational system and the media. The seduction of having things, pleasure, power and fame has skewed our understanding towards that which can be manipulated and produce material goods. People want their kids to have high paying jobs, so why would they spend their time learning philosophy or something as worthless to the world as Latin, a class I actually loved. As everything is emptied of everything but its material structure, the form of things, that which makes them what they truly are in reality disappears.
I’m thinking that the use of the word unchanging when applied to material things takes the life out of them. Everything changes in time, but here we are talking things eternal, immaterial, something like our existence in the moment. Now is unchanging, but is always changing. We can’t be anywhere else but when it is now. In the past, we would have thought, “This is happening now.”, as we do so now, and will also on our death bed. That’s where everything happens, everywhere. These universals generate the structure of the being that exists.
This relates to this discussion because that is what has been created out of nothing, be it a primordial plasma that once was the universe in the first “day”, the atoms that were brought into existence from that initial formless energy, the cells that arose as matter was unified into that new living form of being, followed by multicellular individual creatures, and we ourselves on the “sixth”. The kind of being we are, our “species” is human, whatever our genetic make up. The unifying principle that subsumes all the “information” that is found in animals, in all living forms and matter, ass well as the psychological counterparts, in us has an eternal nature and bestows upon us the capacity to reason, to know, and to act with a free will, enabling us to know our Creator through love. That is what was created, which no evolutionary process can do, existing as an “idea” in the Divine Mind, manifested in the individual reality of the person.
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Aloysium
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There may be significant issues with communication here. I’m reading this to say that atheists have accepted that evolution would be a guided process, guided by God. This is would be a contradiction. I don’t believe atheists would say that evolution, or anything is guided. Existentialist philosophers would argue that we make ourselves, we decide in a universe with no imperatives, so maybe at the point that we enter to picture, evolution would become guided by our choices.
Deists would say that their transcendent god preprogrammed matter for that eventual probability. A naturalist would say that the universe transforms itself into these various forms, as would basically a pantheist who imagines the universe to be one in a supreme identity manifesting itself in the many. None of this has anything to do with love, so I’m not sure how God would be involved in such a project.
My point is that there was no evolution, guided or unguided. What has occurred is the creation of different forms of being, which are whole, having existential/spiritual, physical, and psychological dimensions to the unity that is their existence as components of a greater system. I have mentioned earlier that I strongly believe that there was an Eden and that creation fell through original sin. Since then everything is devolving; this will all end, to be resurrected in a new world, centred around God, a New Jerusalem.
When these sorts of statements pop into my mind, I try not only to not act on them, but try to reflect on how they may apply to myself.
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Aloysium
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First of all I do not believe in evolution. Although the science behind it is good enough and growing, evolution is too far-fetched for me and not reflective of reality as I experience it. I am proposing an alternative way to bring the facts together into a picture that makes sense in view how we experience our daily lives, especially as an expression of our relationship with God.Aloysium:
What on earth is this word-salad meant to mean and what does it have to do with evolution? How does what you say affect, for example, the evolution of a chimpanzee’s eyes?
I asked you for an example of a part of the human body that could not have been derived by empirical means from the chimpanzee’s equivalent part. You have not provided a specific answer.
In science specific answers are important.
rossum
So, there was no evolution of a chimpanzees eyes. The essential structure of the eye that most animals share is amazingly constructed. An eagle is known to be able to see a rabbit 3.2 km away. The building of our bodies shares that same information. It seems to me that it is up to you to explain how the eye evolved, since that is what you, not I, believe happened, supposedly in very small random incremental steps over millions of years.
There is no way to empirically determine whether any part of the human body derived from that of an ape. From a chimpanzee’s, it could not happen since they and we are considered to be different branches of the would-be tree of life.
As you say:
I’m talking about something more than the realm of science today, which would include the possiblity of evolution. What must be taken into account if we are to get a better story of who we are and where we came from, is the reality of things in themselves. Whether you wish to believe it or not you are a self, existing in relation to the world. We are communicating, two entities who are other to each other, but of the same kind, with the capacity to know and act. This is what came into existence, and evolution is nowhere close to any sort of rational explanation as to how this happened, let alone, in a universe that exists within God’s infinite ocean of compassion, how it is that there exists suffering.
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Wozza
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Utterly and completely irrelevant. Things aren’t wrong because you find them far-fetched. If that were the case then almost all scientific discoveries would be wrong. Science IS difficult to comprehend. Especially when one is talking about processes that take place over time limits that we cannot comprehend.
And whether it reflects your personal experience of reality is even less than irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that you have fundemental beliefs and science contradicts those. So rather than adjust your position, you claim, with an all too observable lack of an undertsanding of the scientific process you wish to decry, you deny the evidence.
For the life of me I canot understand why you and the others like you just don’t come clean and admit it. No-one is going to chastise you for it. You might even get some pats on the back for a degree of honesty and integrity. I would image that any disinterested person reading your posts would think the same. But keep making ill-informed comments about something you don’t understand, cannot grasp and admit to finding far fetched and you’ll keep getting shown how wrong you are.
Creationism is no different to believing in a young earth in that reasonable people consider each to be an affront to common sense and basic science.
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