Very simple poll on the origin of Man?

[Orthodox Andrew]

 

[Matrona]

Other--"How the heck should I know?! It's not like I was there!"

 

[Lotar]

If evolutionists are correct, we evolved from the same ancestors as apes, not from apes.


The strongest evidence points towards evolution. Actually, 99.99% of the evidence points to it. But, it makes the theology behind The Fall much harder to explain. How could death come into the world before original sin?

 

[Suzannah]

If evolutionists are correct, we evolved from the same ancestors as apes, not from apes.


The strongest evidence points towards evolution. Actually, 99.99% of the evidence points to it. But, it makes the theology behind The Fall much harder to explain. How could death come into the world before original sin?

hmmm...that's only if you accept "original sin" in the common ideation of that term...

 

[Lotar]

I when I said original sin, I was refering to the first sin

If I remember correctly, the Orthodox believe we inherited the consiquences but not the guilt. So it still leaves you in with the same problem.

 

[Suzannah]

Sorry Lotar. I should have read your first post more carefully...I thought you were talking about something else....sorry!

 

[Orthodox Andrew]

If evolutionists are correct, we evolved from the same ancestors as apes, not from apes.


The strongest evidence points towards evolution. Actually, 99.99% of the evidence points to it. But, it makes the theology behind The Fall much harder to explain. How could death come into the world before original sin?

I shall change it.

 

[Sergius_Lucius]

As I've read in Fr Andrey Kuraev's article, Bl. Augustine and St. Mephodius of Patara thought that death existed in animal world before the Fall. It didn't exist in Eden but Eden wasn't all the Earth, it was created specially for Man.

 

[nyj]

Other. All life shares a common ancestor. How else do you explain that the genetic composition of mice and men hovers at around 95% similarity? If evolution is true, it had a divinely built lattice work upon which it grew, the highest part of which ends with man. At this point, God touched His creation once more and instilled into it an immortal soul and they became made in His image.

 

[Reader Nilus]

My dad used to say if they keep digging they maybe will find that apes descended from man. I voted man descended from apes, we have to much in common with our animal brothers to say otherwise.
Jeff the Finn

 

[countrymousenc]

Other. All life shares a common ancestor. How else do you explain that the genetic composition of mice and men hovers at around 95% similarity? If evolution is true, it had a divinely built lattice work upon which it grew, the highest part of which ends with man. At this point, God touched His creation once more and instilled into it an immortal soul and they became made in His image.

What he said.

 

[Patristic]

If we evolved from apes then the theology of original sin becomes tricky. In Romans 5 Paul definitely establishes a similar dichotomy between Adam and Jesus, and the role each played as a representative of the human race. Since we know Paul believed that Jesus was a real person, it makes sense to assume he believed in a real Adam as well, whose sin affected all of mankind. I just don't see how the modern evolutionary theory can be reconciled with this idea unless one wants to argue that one ape-man existed and he sinned affecting the rest of humanity.

 

[Umut]

Ahem, Lotar...

What on Earth are you talking about?

The theory of evolution has outdated itself constantly. There are observations on the Theory of Evolution at the Royal Ontario Museum, and they have been "outdated"
Am I drawing a correct picture?

Please do not make up ideas like... "99.99%"

It's just... why would you even say that?

The Theory of Evolution is pretty feeble-minded. They're talking about survival of the fittest: One animal was strong enough to survive climate change or a flood or a meteor or whatever... But do you think one animal can survive a colossal change on Earth? No matter how "fit" it is, it simply cannot burden enough strength to survive a whole climate change or meteor attack or whatever.

Let's look Charles Darwin's theory. Adaptation.

There are two islands. On one island there are birds with small beaks... Their food is lodged and stuck between the rocks on the shore... These birds supposedly grow large beaks so they can get into the rocks to pick out their food. I do not see the simplest logic in that. Think about this. A bird does not live very long! By the time it would "adapt" meaning that his DNA would change in order to make his beak LONG enough to reach between rocks; it would die 200 billion times... Like I always say: You need more faith to be an Atheist than to believe in God. On the other island the birds with long beaks can pick up their food from the rocks; while the small ones die. I don't understand why THOSE small ones didn't "evolve"...

Huh? Huh? *Umut pokes you on the ribs with his elbow...*

I mean... seriously... "Look an ape!... Wow! I think we evolved from it! Let's take a picture of an ape, and use 7 more frames of pictures and slowly turn his spine vertical, get rid of the hair in its body and make him look like us!" You see what I'm saying? You can make any animal look like a human skeleton with a few frames of pictures...

No animal can adapt to their environment... Let's say it happened. What governed them to adapt?

Animals don't have frontal brain lobes... The apes could not walk upright because of their knee joints... they could not be straight like ours; so they are considered animals; therefore they don't have frontal brain lobes either... If they were to "adapt" or "evolve" what would cause them to "evolve" and "adapt" to their environment...

They don't know what form of shape to take so they can survive in a certain environment... They don't know how to change their diet... Their bodies wouldn't know what to do... Not even humans would subconsciously know what to do, and we have THREE brain lobes!!

Umut's theory: Theory of Evolution is garbag-o!

Christ be with you all!

 

[Umut]

P.S. Even then if they DID evolve (by a miracle) it would be God that governed their bodies to evolve, because they sure as sugar wouldn't know how, when, why or in what way they should evolve; and into what they should evolve...

Christ be with you!

 

[Markh]

I know this is orthodox forum and all-- but i just wante dto add that I think that

the animals evolved to reach the great apes (chimps) but that they did not evolve into humans.

I beleive that God placed souls into these chimps or whatever to make humans. I do not think it would have been scientifically possible for humans to have evolved from apes.

 

[twex]

Let's look Charles Darwin's theory. Adaptation.

There are two islands. On one island there are birds with small beaks... Their food is lodged and stuck between the rocks on the shore... These birds supposedly grow large beaks so they can get into the rocks to pick out their food.

You described Lamarck's explanation, not Darwin's.

According to Darwin, the individual birds don't change. Their offsprings, however, are subject to small, random variations; some baby birds will have slightly longer beaks, others slightly shorter ones. The small-beakers will be more likely to starve, allowing the long-beakers to reproduce more freely and create new baby birds which share large parts of their genes. This establishes a population-wide tendency towards longer beaks.

 

[Dominus Fidelis]

Other. All life shares a common ancestor. How else do you explain that the genetic composition of mice and men hovers at around 95% similarity? If evolution is true, it had a divinely built lattice work upon which it grew, the highest part of which ends with man. At this point, God touched His creation once more and instilled into it an immortal soul and they became made in His image.

Similiar design = Common designer?

It is proclaimed by one of our Popes that Adam/Eve are literally the first people. No other people existed before or along side their creation. If so, how did we evolve from some other creature?

Not challenging, just trying to understand.

 

[twex]

The strongest evidence points towards evolution. Actually, 99.99% of the evidence points to it. But, it makes the theology behind The Fall much harder to explain. How could death come into the world before original sin?

No offense, Lotar, but it might very well turn out that only the Protestant version of the Fall has this problem.

Remember, the controversy was whether concupiscence prior to the consent of the will is sin properly so called. Luther said yes, Trent said no.

Consequently, Protestants view the Fall as the corruption of our very nature, whereas Catholics view it as the loss of supernatural gifts which Adam and Eve possessed in Eden.

Since the East tends to judge the degree of fallen humanity's corruption even less harshly than Rome, I would expect the resistance against accepting evolution to be weakest in Orthodoxy.

 

[Patristic]

Since the East tends to judge the degree of fallen humanity's corruption even less harshly than Rome, I would expect the resistance against accepting evolution to be weakest in Orthodoxy.

Putting the question of the extent of the effects of the fall aside, the question of ancestral sin as it relates to evolution still becomes a problem since it is difficult to explain how one individual could sin and effect the entire human race.

 

[nyj]

Similiar design = Common designer?

All of creation has a common designer. God. He alone creates.

It is proclaimed by one of our Popes that Adam/Eve are literally the first people. No other people existed before or along side their creation. If so, how did we evolve from some other creature?

Yes, I realize that. What we are required to believe, as Catholics, is that Adam and Eve were real. A man without an immortal soul is not true man. Let us call him an ante-man. If God chose two of these ante-men (one man, one woman) and instilled into them an immortal soul, they would be the proto-man and proto-woman (Adam and Eve) from which we all have descended. Only with this immortal soul is anyone considered "man" from a theological sense.