creation and evolution

[theculturewarrior]

Humani Generis. That's what I believe. For the rest, I wasn't actually present, not being God and all. You know.

[Brother Adam]

yeah. I know what you mean. Good thing God told Moses what went on and he recorded it for us and the Church told us it was infallible and inerrant.

[theculturewarrior]

Evolution is an allowable opinion in the Church. Read Humani Generis.

[theculturewarrior]

Even the Early Church Fathers speculated that the Creation story was figurative.

[philothea]

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='Sep 19 2005, 06:09 PM'][quote](1) The earth is very old.  [/quote]
According to what? Science? The same science that not so long ago would have you burned if you didn't confess the earth was flat?
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The belief that the Earth was flat was not science; it was superstition. Even the Ancient Greeks figured out through observation that the Earth was spherical.

It is kind of ironic to dis science via a medium which is the pinnacle of modern scientific achievement.

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='Sep 19 2005, 06:09 PM'][quote](2) There has been a succession of life forms living on it, primitive ones long ago, and more sophisticated ones more recently.[/quote]
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There may be some other explanation, but the fossil evidence [i]really does look like[/i] the primitive stuff is lower/older, and the more advanced life forms are found higher up.

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='Sep 19 2005, 06:09 PM'][quote](3) Many living things of the past no longer exist, and many modern-day creatures did not exist long ago.[/quote]
Right on the creatures going extinct, wrong on the creatures that evolved thing.[right][snapback]730343[/snapback][/right]
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I never said evolved.

All evidence points toward there being eras where only certain plants and creatures existed simultaneously, because only those fossils are found there. A bunch of primitive fossils, say early arthropods (Trilobites, Ammonites, and Belemnites) are found all over the Earth, at a certain age and depth, and no evidence of [i]any[/i] advanced, modern form is found [i]anywhere[/i] with them.

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='Sep 19 2005, 06:09 PM'][quote](4) All living things are related to each other, some more closely than others.[/quote]
I know this isn't a widely accepted idea, but it could be that it is because God created each and every one of them. Close resemblance does not dictate evolution unless you force it to.
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The point of science, which you so easily dismiss, is to find simple, plausible explanations for the myriad, complex patterns observed in nature. Using this principle has produced fabulous results in just about every facet of modern life: chemistry, medicine, electronics, and so on.

It seems nonsensical to me that there should be just this one pattern in nature that we should ignore. We can make sense of the elements and come up with the periodic table, and all of modern chemistry begins. We can notice patterns of disease, and come up with medicines to help people. We notice how light and electricity behave, and learn how to build integrated circuits.

But we shouldn't look at the evidence in the strata of the Earth, and in living cells, and try to figure out a pattern from it?

I'm not saying Darwin was spot on. No one does anymore! But it seems that there is a beautiful, mysterious, wonderful process through which God made life and humanity come to be in this universe, from the formation of stars to the earliest people learning to farm the land. I don't think it's wrong, ignorant, or disrespectful to try to understand that process, in our small human way. And it sure doesn't look like everything just appeared in its final form, [i]poof[/i], all at once.

[Brother Adam]

You are mistaking pure conjecture for observable physical science, as you yourself just admitted, no one even accepts Darwin anymore. And you can't just take a theory of origins by athiests and slap a "God Did It" sticker on it to make everything alright. Nature is beautiful, and life is amazing, but the Bible did infallibly tell us that out of the dust God created man. Just as you can't put God under a microscope, you can't explain away our creation as a theory from the pens of those who dispised and hated God.

"Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus' earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remain of the son of God. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing."-- Richard Bozarth

No one is asking you to ignore patterns, but consider first what has been revealed by Divine Revelation. Remember, if Adam and Eve never existed because creation did not happen like that, then the entire geneology of Christ is shot, and thus either does Christ exist. And if Adam and Eve are real historical persons (which the Church tells us is a matter that we must believe, along with that there were no other humans when they existed), then it only makes sense that the rest of the story is true too. With God being outside of time, it is possible He originated the physical outside of time as well, or at least outside of our concept of time. Have you ever seen those movies where they show timeshots of a plant growing and make it look like it grew from a seedling to a gaint oak in about 2 minutes? Just a thought of course. Oik has some excellent posts in the Debate Table on the incompatibility of evolution with Christianity from more philosophical and theological view.

[White Knight]

[quote name='heavenseeker' date='Sep 19 2005, 05:45 PM']but at the same time there are sure signs of evolution. but then again some would just call them adaptation within the species.
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Those are mostly forgeries my friend, and Evolutionists will admit to that, that its not fully or even at all creditable evidence.

[theculturewarrior]

[url="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html"]http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii...generis_en.html[/url]

[Brother Adam]

[img]http://www.unitedwaycg.com/photos/merry-go-round.jpg[/img]

[hierochloe]

HAHAHAAAA!!! That's a good one, Bro.

Until a better scientific theory explaining the origin of species is proposed, I'm sticking with evolution - and no, not the evolution made up by atheists to explain away the soul and refute God or whatever else they may have attempted.

[infinitelord1]

no way man........its not a sin to believe that at all. Evolution happened whether we are frightened by this theory or not. I think God created us through evolution. It certainly doesnt say that there is no god. My personal belief is that the second creation story is talking about evolution.........i.e. god made man from the mud.........but that is just me.
When has god ever just magically created something in the physical realm? Usually a lot of time and growing is involved. Why didnt he just create jesus and descend him from the clouds? In stead, God chose a more realistic approach.........birth.........he didnt want to make things too obvious for us because then we wouldnt have a choice........if people knew that jesus was god then they would have no other choice than to believe in him. I think the same applies to evolution.

Edited September 20, 2005 by infinitelord1

[heavenseeker]

ok how does a simple question turn into a argument. go to your seperate corners and stay there. its now called adaption no more evolution.

Edited September 21, 2005 by heavenseeker

[Snarf]

I find the perseverence of Creationist Catholics to be quite disheartening. It outlines that people who can maintain a cogent coexistence of science and religion, as Catholicism has in regards to evolution, nevertheless choose not to because they think it somehow empowers them with excess faith.

Evolution poses no threat to Catholicism. Evolution is just as much a "theory" as is quantum mechanics. We've explained it thoroughly, made predictions based on them, and have seen the predictions come to pass. Specifically, I mean the fact that genetic mutations happen on a regular basis, regular enough to merit evolution not only likely but inarguably certain.

The question I ask is, if God didn't want us to believe in evolution, then why did he create the world in such a way that it appears beyond argument that evolution is true? Why plant the dinosaur bones, why adjust isotope ratios to point to a six-billion-year old Earth? Why make nucleotide chains so unstable that mutations are inevitable? To throw in the Big Bang, why make the universe have remarkably precise agreement between cosmologically predicted and observed hydrogen/helium ratios?

Yeah, I'm sure you could nit-pick all those points to death, saying that some Bible college professor wrote an article about how a cup of Starbucks coffee was carbon-dated to the Renaissance. Oh, and please link to that Jack Chick track I love, I'd owe you the favor of making my work easier by detailing the tortuous hypocrisy of it all.

So yes, I'm a firm, active, devout Catholic. I have one contention against dogma and I've elaborated on that elsewhere, it's not here relevant. I choose to believe in evolution because I don't think God is such a jerk that He would deceive His flock in something as important as science, in such a field that could be applied to better human life.

[Brother Adam]

[quote name='theculturewarrior' date='Sep 19 2005, 07:19 PM']Evolution is an allowable opinion in the Church. Read Humani Generis.
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One of those things that won't go away. No one ever said evolution isn't an 'allowable option'. Evolutionists will continue screaming at creationists calling them idiots and so on, and creationists will continue screaming at evolutionists calling them faithless. Life goes on. It will though continue to make my job now, and even more in the future difficult and help anti-Catholics remain firmly rooted in their positions, and we will only help them do that.

[Snarf]

I just thought of a friend of mine. In high school, we teased each other about our faiths, she being a fundamentalist. She equated religion with creationism.

Come college, she worked in a biology lab. Once she got a scope of what she was actually doing, she slammed head-on into belief in evolution. So, she's an agnostic now.

Don't build faith on sand, you'll just wash away.