Young Earth Creationists

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I have no idea which post you’re referring to.
 
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Nor do I in your case. I mentioned that the Hebrew wording in Genesis could stand for “period of time” - you think that is somehow inaccurate? Please explain!
 
MLowe75 said:
First question: Does the reason that many Catholic apologists look down upon Young Earth Catholics as rubes have more to do with Young Earth arguments originating in Protestant, specifically evangelical circles?
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It has to do with our intellectual traditions. Indeed, my husband wrote his college thesis about how debates on the nature of the Eucharist led to the idea that you could change different metals into gold. While you can’t, efforts to change metals into gold led to the development of chemestry. Moreover, many Universities in Europe began as great intellectual hotbeds of Catholic philosophy and theology.

Certainly, something can be said about what led to western Christianity heading in this direction. Pre-Christian voices like Socrates certainly influenced it. But regardless, Catholicism is not fundamentalist. It’s a brainy religion and for that reason, it’s even a lot easier to determine what it teaches when comparing it to other religions (even though ambiguity still exists.
Second question: If some form of theistic evolution is true, at what point in man’s ancestry is it believed that he was given a soul?
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There’s no reason to combine theology with science. The only threat is people using science to refute that we’re born with original sin.
 
SalamKhan said:
The way I see it, the reason why Catholic apologists today look down on Young Earth Creationism, is because most Catholics today are so willing to compromise their religion for the sake of conformity with the post Modern world, and I don’t just mean the laity either.
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Young Earth Creationism is not part of the Catholic faith. Niether is Old Earth Creationism. Neither is part of the deposit of faith; it is simply not necessary for salvation to know the exact mechanism of creation, and thus the church cannot answer this question definitive. Just because ancient Christians proposed some form of “Young Earth” creationism using the best available information then, does not mean we must deffer to their answers in light of newly available information.
 
The first statement is a bit of a hasty generalization (if we are going to
use the language of rhetoric and logic). There is “no evidence”? Really?
As a Christian, I would hope the Bible might provide some evidence that the
earth was at least created by God. I assume you are of the same mind. At
that point, if the Bible can be used as evidence for the scientific origin
on the planet, it is no great leap to use it for other things, like the age
of the earth. Clearly, men of greater mental capacity than you or me have
come to this conclusion - Isaac Newton comes to mind.

The second statement, that the young earth position is the definition of ad
hoc reasoning, is also problematic. For one thing, I believe that’s your
opinion - none of the logic or rhetoric textbooks I have read over the
years (I have a Masters’ Degree in Rhetoric), have lifted up the YEC as a
textbook example. But I know what you are getting at. I’m afraid the
fallacy applies more to the old-earth camp, namely folks like Charles Lyell
  • because Charles Lyell was somehow able to date fossils without
    radiometric dating, or any kind of scientific technique, other than a wild
    guess. If Charles had based his belief on some ancient Hindu religious
    text, perhaps it would it least have that for evidence. As it stands,
    James Hutton, Charles Lyell, and Charles Darwin for that matter relied on
    very little scientific evidence, and a lot of anti-Christian prejudice.
Which brings me to the third statement, that no one who looks at the
evidence would believe it. What evidence? You at first say there is no
evidence to speak of. If there is no evidence, what exactly is one to look
at? So to be a pest, I will assume you mean the evidence for an old
earth. Yes, the evidence of an old earth prior to the use of radiometric
dating was based on some very serious spit-balling (I can imagine Lyell
hefting a clam fossil in his hand, closing his eyes, and writing down ‘65
mya’ - do you know of any other technique he might have used?). As for
radiometric dating itself, it’s based on a very simple first order
differential equation with at least two assumptions that can’t possibly be
proven: first, that decay rates that we have studied for a century or so
must necessarily have been identical to those billions of years ago; and
second, that the original element’s quantity can be posited. I will not
bore you with the anecdotal evidence involving mistaken radiometric dates
for volcanic rocks and so forth.

The whole point of my question was this: I was under the impression that
the Catholic Church does not dogmatically quantify the age of the earth.
Why, then, are Catholic apologists going beyond church teaching to
basically shame people as being ignorant for simply studying the issue and
deciding to remain open to a young earth. Do you have an opinion on this?
 
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Agreed. But if theistic evolution is true, how do you avoid this?
 
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Very true. Thank you for sharing this view, I hope it is given a fair
shake wherever it’s articulated among Catholics.
 
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So is this saying that human evolution is out of the question for a
Catholic?
 
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This is wonderful. Are Catholics also allowed to believe in a young earth,
and if so why are so many Catholic apologists keen on marginalizing them?
 
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This is unfortunate. I’m not sure Catholics should ‘bash’ each other.
 
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Thank you very much for the link. It seems unhelpful for Catholic
apologists to actively suppress a YEC perspective, since it’s been the
perspective of the Church for so long. I suspect it has something to do
with compensating for Galileo (or at least the popular view of that man’s
treatment by the Church), and not wanting to oppose another scientific
breakthrough by doubling down on literal reading of scripture. However, I
think one of your fields - physics - clearly allows for observation and
testing of claims. Geology or other disciplines that deal in the past are
not of the same order. It would be shame if the Catholic Church lost
ground on this subject for the opposite reason it lost ground during the
geocentric debates - by eschewing literal interpretation as flawed from the
outset.
 
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If I could ask, to what genetic material are you referring?
 
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I love Chesterton’s writing, thanks for sharing. I think he was open to
evolution to a point, saw its flaws, but certainly didn’t eschew the
traditional view.
 
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That is just not true. I don’t think my own perspective is unusual, in
that I find both theories - old and young - to have merit. To say one
should be looked upon as a red-headed stepchild is simply the wrong way to
go. It’s not only uncharitable, it’s intellectually shaky.
 
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Wonderful. I believe you are absolutely correct. But as you can clearly
see from this thread, there is a bias to marginalize one opinion and
endorse another. I hope other Catholics will take this view. I became a
Catholic 2 years ago, took my entire family into the church with this
assumption. We aren’t going to leave over it, but are disheartened by the
let down somewhat.
 
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It is obvious that humans descended from near-human hominids? Are you
basing this on homology alone?

What you’re advocating is that there were a group of “near-humans” standing
around one day and God decided to breathe a soul into two of them, but not
the others. Do you not see the problem here?
 
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I agree with you - the question is not theological or spiritual, but
primarily so. Obviously, there are second order effects that are found in
theology, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

I also agree with you that the Church should leave it up to the individual
Catholic to make up their own mind on this non-dogmatic issue. Why then
are Catholic apologists attempting to castigate YEC’s as ignorant rubes?
 
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Well, at least you’re not denying that Young Earth Creationism was taught by the Magisterium, I’ll give you that much. Unlike the other guy. One of the worst cases of doublespeak I’ve ever seen.
 
Hm? Could you define magesterium and quote where yec is taught? Thanks.

I personally am not very particular on what people believe about it, I see just so much contradictory information about the subject that suggest different points of view
 
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