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

[Aloysium]

The average IQ of humanity has been dropping, irrespective of the growth that is attributable to better nutrition and public health measures. According to one study which measured brain reaction time, since Darwin’s day it has been falling by one point a decade. This has attributed to “evolutionary” pressures, but the latest seems to be that pollution is the cause.

If you want to see where things are heading, just look in the mirror, and if you think you look better now than when you were half your age, it will be only because of degenerative changes to your vision.

 

[buffalo]

What is the true origin of marriage? That, Venerable Brethren, is a matter of common knowledge. For although the revilers of the Christian faith shrink from acknowledging the Church’s permanent doctrine on this matter, and persist in their long-standing efforts to erase the history of all nations and all ages, they have nonetheless been unable to extinguish, or even to weaken, the strength and light of the truth. We call to mind facts well-known to all and doubtful to no-one: after He formed man from the slime of the earth on the sixth day of creation, and breathed into his face the breath of life, God willed to give him a female companion, whom He drew forth wondrously from the man’s side as he slept. In bringing this about, God, in his supreme Providence, willed that this spousal couple should be the natural origin of all men: in other words, that from this pair the human race should be propagated and preserved in every age by a succession of procreative acts which would never be interrupted. And so that this union of man and woman might correspond more aptly to the most wise counsels of God, it has manifested from that time onward, deeply impressed or engraved, as it were, within itself, two preeminent and most noble properties: unity and perpetuity. Pope Leo XIII

 

[buffalo]

Pontifical Biblical Commission’s Responsum of June 30, 1909 (post Darwin)

Whether, in particular, the literal historical sense ( sensus litteralis historicus ) may be called in question ( vocari in dubium possit ), where it is a question of facts narrated in these chapters ( ubi agitur de factis in eisdem capitibus enarratis ) which involve the foundations of the Christian religion ( quae christianae religionis fundamenta attingunt ), as are, among others, the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time; the special [or, particular] creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man ( formatio primae mulieris ex primo homine ); the unity of the human race; the original happiness of our first parents in a state of justice, integrity and immortality; the precept given by God to man in order to test his obedience; the transgression of the divine precept under the persuasion of the devil in the guise of a serpent; the fall of our first parents from the aforesaid primaeval state of innocence; and the promise of a future Saviour?

Response: In the negative ( Negative )

 

[IWantGod]

Let’s examine the Word of God itself. (notice how each species was separately created"

In other-words you can’t provide an authoritative document stating that the Theory of Evolution is against official Catholic church teaching.

Thankyou.

 

[buffalo]

n other-words you can’t provide an authoritative document stating that the Theory of Evolution is against official Catholic church teaching.

The theory of micro-evolution is not against Catholic teaching as I have posted numerous times.

 

[IWantGod]

The theory of micro-evolution is not against Catholic teaching as I have posted numerous times.

If you are going to continue to be dishonest despite the evidence that i have provided you to the contrary, then our conversation can end here.

For anyone else that may be reading here is the correct information again.

" 3896. Wherefore, the magisterium of the Church does not forbid that the teaching of “evolution” be treated in accord with the present status of human disciplines and of theology, by investigations and disputations by learned men in both fields; insofar, of course, as the inquiry is concerned with the origin of the human body arising from already existing and living matter; as to the souls, the Catholic faith demands us to hold that they are immediately created by God."

http://inters.org/evolution-and-monogenism

 

[Aloysium]

Wherefore, the magisterium of the Church does not forbid that the teaching of “evolution” be treated in accord with the present status of human disciplines and of theology, by investigations and disputations by learned men in both fields; insofar, of course, as the inquiry is concerned with the origin of the human body arising from already existing and living matter; as to the souls, the Catholic faith demands us to hold that they are immediately created by God."

So, we should “think that the Natural-Evolution of the species is true” because “evolution” (I cannot stress enough the significance of the parentheses here) is not forbidden by the Church. That is not a convincing argument.

It should be noted that living matter has no agreed upon meaning. The fish and chips I had for dinner last night, I could include in that definition, and I don’t mean just the bacteria. Note that the term “living being” has not been used. Actually, pretty much everything that constitutes my body originated as living matter.

I would also point out that the human body, yes, is built resembling that of other living organisms that already existed.

Nowhere in the statement is there mention that a living form, which would possess a soul by virtue of its existence in itself, had that organizational principle replaced by an eternal human spirit.

Maybe God in creating the first man, in that moment brought matter together to form a cell, DNA and all the supporting structures, which grew and He then caused to differentiate in accordance with a hominid template, but of exceeding beauty and perfection, a sort of living matter. This is conjecture, a story in line with Intelligent Design and not one of evolution, as it is being taught in schools and in the various media.

The quote from the CCC, does not in any way indicate support for the belief that our ancestors include primates and bacteria.

 

[buffalo]

The theory of micro-evolution is not against Catholic teaching as I have posted numerous times.

Adam evolved but Eve was taken directly from Adam’s side?

 

[Aloysium]

I recall the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fish; God does not need some “evolutionary” process to bring something into existence.

And this life here is the seed from which our eternal glorious bodies will arise.

God maintains this moment, bringing all moments into existence, as they constitute the timeline that is the universe, which arose ex nihilo. He does so as Father, our Creator, the Son, the Way, who is one of us, and whose body together we form in loving one another, and as the Holy Spirit who gives us life and through whom we enter into communion with the Trinity.

Our origins are best described in Genesis. This phase humanity is going through, it too shall pass. In the meantime, look at the damage done, justified by a myth that misuses science to give credence to nonsense.

 

[IWantGod]

So, we should “think that the Natural-Evolution of the species is true” because “evolution” (I cannot stress enough the significance of the parentheses here) is not forbidden by the Church. That is not a convincing argument.

I never made that argument. But i think you are really good at making straw-men. The way you masterfully weld that ability, you make it almost look like a real talent.

 

[Techno2000]

 

[Bradskii]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[edwest]

Bradskii, Bradskii, Like I said, forever.

 

[Aloysium]

Interested in addressing what is being said, I did not claim that this was an argument you had made; rather, I was trying to connect the points you are posting within a thread you originated. My reponse to those ideas, however poorly it was communicated, was contained in the totality of my post.

It is clear that to say that one believes in “evolution” is not to necessarily commit heresy. The problem is that the term “evolution” has a variety of meanings, and most of them express views that are contrary to the dogma of the Church. That’s what Buffalo seemed to be getting at, and you did the same thing with him that you did with me; of all he posted, all you could come up with was that “evolution” is not forbidden.

Let me try to make a point about one issue with evolution. The following is a video about eukaryotes and prokaryotes. If you listen, you will hear the science framed in evolutionary terms - randomness and survival. The other is that the fundamental order of the universe has always existed, if not eternally, then as a potential to bring itself into existence. These are its pillars, and they are assumptions based on a philosophical/metaphysical understanding of the world. Replace these with the idea that the existence of all these forms is the result of creative acts of God, and you will get an understanding of how I see it and how this is a far better way of understanding what this all is and how it got here.

Translating the metaphors used in Genesis into those of the modern world, we can say that on the third day of God’s creative labours, He brought forth from the earth, from the elements that constitute a lifeless planet, the existential reality of the simplest of living things. Weaving together, organizing atoms into the constituent parts that form the physical dimension of cells, the spirit of prokaryotes, which He created from nothing, brought them into existence as one totality, a new form of being different from and greater than their component parts - able to incorporate external matter into themselves and procreate. From those beginnings He created eukaryotes, possibly utilizing living matter, a procaryote in that case, uniting it in a new kind of being that allowed for a future of multicellular organisms. On the last day of God’s labours, however that took in terms of our frame of reference within space time from the beginning of His creation, we came into existence as whole beings, persons, whose only ancestor is God the Father.

 

[FredBloggs]

@Techno2000

“The Greatest Lie Ever Told”

Video fails in the first 35 seconds when it defines evolution in a general instead of specific (biological) sense and thus sets up a straw man for the rest of the video.

 

[edwest]

I thought it was quite good, aside from some minor points.

 

[Aloysium]

Video fails in the first 35 seconds when it defines evolution in a general instead of specific (biological) sense and thus sets up a straw man for the rest of the video.

The post itself is a presents a straw man, refuting an argument that was not presented by the video, neglecting its major points, making a general statement based on the first 35 seconds, without going into specifics.

In order not to be accused of doing the same thing, I’m going to to argue that the specific (biological) sense of evolution is a subset of the word’s general meaning. Refute the general and you’ve refuted one aspect of it.

 

[Aloysium]

Fact is that each of us, as one individual being in our selves, persons are more complex than a bacterium, also one form of being, both kinds of life-form having a material configuration.

Appreciating the science itself, putting aside how it is framed by evolutionary theory, the intricasies of the physical processes involved, as well as the reality of their being subsumed into one being, existing in relation to all other being, is wondrous at even the most primitive levels of life. It is in that wonder, the contact with and through the giving over of ourselves to that beauty and truth, that we come closer to knowing God, in all His glory.

This is the age of information technology and the analogies we use are going in that direction. There’s a weird, to my mind, thread on these forums asking whether we live in a computer simulation that basically reflects the modern mind toying with these concepts. In a way, we are an “app” that contains numerous component sets of code working together. The information that is contained, let’s say for example, in building the part of our being that is visual world, which is 100% physical, 100% psychological and 100% relational existence, could not develop on its own. Although some people seem to fanatically endorse the view, believing that in billions of years and trillions of planets, anything is possible, I don’t think so.

One basic difference between a creationist view and that of evolution is whether stuff was/is brought into being or the stuff that is the universe, reflected in the laws of nature, simply is and moulds itself into diverse forms. These are fundamental beliefs which bring together the scientific evidence into a mythos that helps us understand our existence and its origins. From a Christian perspective the progessive complexity of individual forms that we find in nature reflects a creative process by an external, eternal, personal Cause of all that exists, relational in itself and reflected in everything that is.

 

[FredBloggs]

In order not to be accused of doing the same thing, I’m going to to argue that the specific (biological) sense of evolution is a subset of the word’s general meaning. Refute the general and you’ve refuted one aspect of it.

Well yes, if you take the over-arching definition of “evolution” to be “the gradual development of something especially from a simple to a more complex form” and then arbitrarily say that Evolution by Natural Selection must follow that same over-arching law, then I can understand why you’d have problems with the latter, because that’s not what the Theory says.

What I constantly see from theists is a misunderstanding, deliberate or otherwise, about what the ToE actually says. So you get comments like “if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys,” and “why are there no transitional fossils between a wolf and a dog?” Or, “how did species X know to develop trait Y?”

The theory is beautifully simple in its concept, and if you understand its basic concept then you’ll know that nothing about it requires complexity to increase. Which is why the first 35 seconds of that video invalidates whatever comes after it.

 

[Techno2000]

The theory is beautifully simple in its concept, and if you understand its basic concept then you’ll know that nothing about it requires complexity to increase. Which is why the first 35 seconds of that video invalidates whatever comes after it.

Vague…