Your Thoughts on Creation & Evolution

[mark kennedy]

Yes, I've heard of CRISPR. Our institute currently holds the US patent on the application of CRISPR to humans. It has nothing to do with universal common descent.

It seems relavant to the role of mutations thought to have been driving the evolution of bacteria immune systems I think.

There is no question whatever that universal common descent is a scientific conclusion. If you think otherwise, you don't understand the issue.

I don't buy that universal common descent is the only conclusion, that is the issue.

 

[mark kennedy]

“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.” Pope Benedict had no problem with the scientific theory of evolution. According to the poster I was responding to, that must mean he was confused about his Christian faith.

HUMANI GENERIS has never been an endorsement of universal common descent, but a warning of these dangers:

1. Christian culture being attacked on all sides
2. men easily persuade themselves in such matters that what they do not wish to believe is false or at least doubtful
5.Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution, which has not been fully proved even in the domain of natural sciences, explains the origin of all things,
6. Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy
7. There is also a certain historicism, which attributing value only to the events of man's life, overthrows the foundation of all truth and absolute law, both on the level of philosophical speculations and especially to Christian dogmas.
10. desirous of novelty, and fearing to be considered ignorant of recent scientific findings, try to withdraw themselves from the sacred Teaching Authority and are accordingly in danger of gradually departing from revealed truth and of drawing others along with them into error.
11. some questioned whether the traditional apologetics of the Church did not constitute an obstacle rather than a help to the winning of souls for Christ
12 the removal of which would bring about the union of all, but only to their destruction.
17. things (truths of the faith) may be replaced by conjectural notions and by some formless and unstable tenets of a new philosophy, tenets which, like the flowers of the field, are in existence today and die tomorrow;
22. For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council's definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.
28. These and like errors, it is clear, have crept in among certain of Our sons who are deceived by imprudent zeal for souls or by false science. To them We are compelled with grief to repeat once again truths already well known, and to point out with solicitude clear errors and dangers of error.​

In other words, Humani Generis is warning against the dangers of wholesale universal common descent. What the encyclical really says is that Catholics are at liberty to speculate about evolutionary scenarios. This is in no way shape or form a ringing endorsement of evolution as natural history. What was outright condemned as heresy is the belief that Adam and Eve represented a certain number of first parents. This is called polygenism.

37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own. (Humani Generis 37)​

There is a reason that Rome must affirm the historicity of Adam and original sin and it's not because of Moses, it's because of Paul. Original sin is a Pauline doctrine and Paul explicitly states that the reason that all sin is because when Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, we did not fast.

I have never seen any Christian argue that creation is not an essential doctrine.

Because they can't, the real question is what it includes.

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

The question isn't whether or not God is capable of creating a universe in six literal days, but whether we have any genuine reason to believe that he did in fact do so. All of the empirical evidence would indicate otherwise.

Such as? Do you know that in the granite around the world are found polonium halos trapped in the granite. In order for this fast decaying isotope to be captured in the rock it would have had to cool within minutes or the decaying uranium would have escaped to atmosphere. How long does evolutionary theory say the planet cooled? What evidence?

That is just one of many, many evidences showing Creation science has empirical proof and evolution only has theories or suppositions.

Have you ever looked at the intricate workings of a DNA strands and how it replicates and repairs itself? Chance or random in the making?... statistically impossible. You would have to be a fool to come up with that idea after seeing how impossibly complex the smallest particle is designed.

 

[sfs]

HUMANI GENERIS has never been an endorsement of universal common descent

Who said anything about Humani Generis? We were talking about Benedict.

In other words, Humani Generis is warning against the dangers of wholesale universal common descent.

Nothing you listed there says anything about universal common descent.

Such as? Do you know that in the granite around the world are found polonium halos trapped in the granite.

No, but I do know that it's been argued that the halos are from polonium. I also know that there are other, more likely sources for the halos -- specifically, the decay of radon gas migrating through cracks in the rock.

 

[mark kennedy]

Who said anything about Humani Generis? We were talking about Benedict.

He was the one who wrote it when he was a Cardinal.

Nothing you listed there says anything about universal common descent.

It speaks volumes. You do recall my primary issue is human evolution right?

No, but I do know that it's been argued that the halos are from polonium. I also know that there are other, more likely sources for the halos -- specifically, the decay of radon gas migrating through cracks in the rock.

You lost me there.

 

[pitabread]

That is just one of many, many evidences showing Creation science has empirical proof and evolution only has theories or suppositions.

Out of curiosity, have you ever done any reading outside of creationist literature?

 

[Kenny'sID]

For me, I love the Bible and science, but this wondrous universe coming about spontaneously from singularity (the meaning of which I barely understand) in a big bang, without the mighty hand of God; a “single cell something” rising up from a mud hole (primordial soup of some kind) “on its own” in baron, inhospitable conditions and becoming “the common ancestor” in a linear progression to the varieties of everything on a beautifully complex earth, including man... well, just step back from all the jargon and defense for a moment and look at that picture.

I have looked at that picture several times and always draw the same conclusion...anything other than God being responsible for all creation, just as it is, is ridiculous.

It's wonderfully simple.

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

The part I have bolded suggests to me that you don't know as much about science as you think you do. In science a theory is the most powerful explanatory tool in the workshop.

It's conjectured guess work to fill in the obvious gaps...

 

[God bless Joshua]

If life developed from evolution we would become a bunch of tumor cells.

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

So people like N.T. Wright, John Walton and the Pope are highly confused in their faith?

If they don't believe the inspired Word of God, then yes, even those people... what makes those men so special? Have you heard of the controversy with Francis' quotes? And you question whether he's confused in matters of faith?

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

Spurgeon, wouldn't probably make an impression on most of you but he does for many other Protestants. He said,[paraphrased] that the earth was thousands, even millions of years old and that over that time God would create many different types of animals and some would die out before he ever created man.
See Sermons 30 and 41-42. at the New Park Street Pulpit.
Spurgeon Sermons, Complete Set of Sermons by C. H. Spurgeon

The earth is very, very old and the universe even older, God is eternal. Animals lived, animals died over a very, very long period of ages, God is eternal. God created.

So you don't believe the Word of God? If you doubt the creation story, why would you believe the burning bush story, or the red sea experience or even the flood?

 

[Kenny'sID]

Out of curiosity, have you ever done any reading outside of creationist literature?

Personally I barely bother with good Fairy Tales, the bad/uninteresting ones, at least aside from humoring some on CF and such, don't do a thing for me so I don't bother.

Would you read/study up on the prospect Micky Mouse created the universe? Of course you wouldn't, so there ya' go.

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

No, but I do know that it's been argued that the halos are from polonium. I also know that there are other, more likely sources for the halos -- specifically, the decay of radon gas migrating through cracks in the rock.

Did you just make that up? lol gas migrating through a crack in a rock does not deposit isotope halos in the rock where no cracks exist. You must write for Dawkins...

 

[mark kennedy]

Did you just make that up? lol gas migrating through a crack in a rock does not deposit isotope halos in the rock where no cracks exist. You must write for Dawkins...

His PHD is in Physics dude, he is making a kind of esoteric point, something probably bordering on satire.

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

If life developed from evolution we would become a bunch of tumor cells.

Completely agree. The main premise for evolution is continual improvement upward in biological complexity and refinement. Problem is, there's a beautiful actual scientific standard called the second law of thermodynamics that obliterates the evolution farce cold.

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

His PHD is in Physics dude, he is making a kind of esoteric point, something probably bordering on satire.

Don't think so... you know the man personally? Don't get caught up with self aggrandizement of internet personalities. Sincerely, the King of Siam

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

P
Would you read/study up on the prospect Micky Mouse created the universe? Of course you wouldn't, so there ya' go.

Ohhh that sounds plausible... I mean, if a mouse can actually talk what else is possible?

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

Out of curiosity, have you ever done any reading outside of creationist literature?

Nothing I could make it to the end because of the obvious gaps ad leaps of faith necessary to get to where they were trying to lead.

 

[pitabread]

Personally I barely bother with good Fairy Tales, the bad/uninteresting ones, at least aside from humoring some on CF and such, don't do a thing for me so I don't bother.

Would you read/study up on the prospect Micky Mouse created the universe? Of course you wouldn't, so there ya' go.

When creationists attempt to claim the superiority of creation "science" versus mainstream science only to reveal an obvious lack of familiarity with the latter, it completely undermines their point.

 

[pitabread]

Nothing I could make it to the end because of the obvious gaps ad leaps of faith necessary to get to where they were trying to lead.

As I figured. Carry on...