Evolution sparks high level debate in Catholicism!!!

L

Lawdog

Digging up old bones
Registered Senior Member
Hey folks,

Many of you have incorrectly labeled me a fundamentalist. Keep in mind that just because fundamentalist christians use biblical doctrines that correspond to Catholic teachings, that doesnt make us fundamentalist.

I will never need to change my opinion on the absurdity of Evolution, not matter what fake evidence is contrived, for the truth does not change.

This article shows the superiority of our Faith in comparison to other christians, a Church in which there is healthy debate on scientific and moral levels, and a Church which promotes science (provided its non-Death oriented) Here's the article:
EVOLUTION DEBATE
 
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Religion is the lie. Repent and you may be saved. In the name of Darwin, we cogitate: Ohmmmmmmmmm....
 
All that this points out is that the Discovery Institute with their Creationist ideology (dishonestly called Intelligent Design) are becoming more and more perniciously influential in leading American institutions, and now it seems, the Catholic Church itself. And that there are plenty of Catholic theologians who are more than happy with the theory of Evolution and its compatibility with God.

Lawdog said:
I will never need to change my opinion on the absurdity of Evolution, not matter what fake evidence is contrived, for the truth does not change.
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Lawdog, it is the generally Creationist "evidence" which is fabricated. Creationists will find some thing that they say points to a <10,000 year old world, and then will dispute the radiometric dating methods which indicate 4.6bn years. The fact that the entire world is covered with ample evidence that mankind have been around for 30,000 years, 50,000 years, 100,000 years - that various rock formations, landscape formations, sea formations, continent formations, indicate a minimum earth age of 1 million years, 10 million years, 600 million years - that we can see galaxies which must have been formed billions of years ago for us to be seeing them at all - seems to be irrelevant. Well, it isn't irrelevant. It just shows that whatever evidence they are pointing which generally indicates the earth could be only 10,000 years old (as a minimum age) is contradicted by all the evidence that it couldn't possibly be as young as that.

The theory of evolution is not based upon fabricated evidence, it is based upon the actual evidence that is there. Not just fossils, or just Carbon 14 or Uranium 235 dating, or just the vast distances of parts of the Universe, or just the structure of DNA, chromosomes and the facts of genetics. But a conglomeration of each of these factors, all of them or only some of them. If the theory of Evolution conflicted with any of the physical evidence, it would be declared false by scientific reasoning. But it does not so conflict. And it is not merely a doctrine of belief, either - like any scientific theory it has to do something useful, and it does: it provides us with information about the spread of bacteriological and viral infections, and how limited our resources are for wiping them out completely; it indicates methods for providing better, cheaper and easier to grow food, for the purposes of feeding the hungry; it is fundamental to 21st Century medical science, which is increasingly reliant on genetics; it gives us a mechanism for how Legionnaires Disease, Sars, MRSA and AIDS came about, and thus guides us on how to cure them. It is not "just a theory".
 
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From the article:

In an article entitled "Finding Design in Nature" in The New York Times last month, Cardinal Shönborn reignited the row between the Church and science by frankly denying that "neo-Darwinian dogma" was compatible with Christian faith. He wrote: "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo- Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not."

n The Tablet he says that Cardinal Shönborn's article has "darkened the waters" of the rapport between Church and science, and says - flatly contradicting the cardinal - that even a world in which "life... has evolved through a process of random genetic mutations and natural selection" is compatible with "God's dominion".
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Lawdog, do you agree with Cardinal Shönborn's or Father George Coyne?
 
I will never need to change my opinion on the absurdity of Evolution, not matter what fake evidence is contrived, for the truth does not change.
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That makes you a fundamentalist. Not only is evolution not absurd, it is the truth, and the evidence is not fake. You are the victim of a deliberate campaign to confuse the scientifically nieve public.

The Catholic church is often decades behind the times on scientific issues.
 
Lawdog said:
I will never need to change my opinion on the absurdity of Evolution, not matter what fake evidence is contrived, for the truth does not change.
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Lawdog, why do you think this fake evidence is being created? What is the motivation of those involved? Is it, in your view a co-ordinated conspiracy, or rather small groups, or individuals with discrete motives?
 
Lawdog, you can argue the existence of God, but you cannot deny that there is scientific evidence that suggests that we are the result of macroevolution and random selection. Now there are gaps in the research, and I have heard that there is more discovery filling the gaps, which in my mind, leaves the door open to the possibility that either they will be filled or they will not. I bet that the gaps will never be filled, but that is my biased opinion.

Lawdog, you need to read Rob Bell's book "Velvet Elvis". He will challenge you to take your faith, which is a brick wall, and expand it so that it will be springs on a trampoline, because if everything is black and white to you (brick wall), then you are not allowing God to be what he is, which is I AM (who has no name, no form, and no limit). Let God out of the box you have him in, because you know in your heart that you don't have him figured out. If you did, he would cease to be God, and you would be in his place. Come back into the awesome wonder of God and ask questions.

Often times theists are accused of having a closed-mind.

What is fascinating to me is that at the center of the Christian faith is the assumption that this life isn't all there is. That there is more to life than the material. That existence is not limited to what we can see, touch, measure, taste, hear, and observe. One of the central assertions of the Christian worldview is that there is "more". Those who oppose this insist that this is all there is, that only what we can measure and observe and see with our eyes is real. There is nothing else. Which perspective is more "closed-minded"? Which perspective is more "open"?
-Rob Bell

You and I know that there is more than a choice at stake with Christianity. There is living with an unlimited grasp of not only what is tangible, and there is the joy that comes with experiencing God. The trick is to invite people on the journey, not to convince them of God's existence. Read it. Free yourself of the yoke.
 
Silas My researches and studies strongly suggest that the earth may be anywhere between 1 and 10 million years old, though I give no more precise date, realizing the limitations of my abilities, unlike Modernist Scientists. Although it is true that Creationists may have offered improperly understood evidence, and generally adhere to a theology that is not recognized as science, the Evolutionists are gulity of the same activities, and they are experts in making there science look valid, which creationists are not. Intellegent Design theory causes the modernist scientists alarm and fury, exposing their psuedo-scientific motives.

It comes down to this: All the circumstantial evidence you listed is interpreted through your singular rose colored glasses, but this is not enough.
Personally, I dont need Evolution never to have happened in order to believe in God. Therefore my conclusions are objective, unlike those who need a warped Science to remain biased against Creationism, lest there seem to be a God, and they will lose their academic seats.

Recently, on the National Geographic special concerning Dragons, one Modernist ACTUALLY ADMITTED that his scientific philosophy was based on the imagined overthrow of the Natural Philosophy of Realism (of the Scholastics) in the so-called Enlightenment!!!!!

In reply to above jayleew post: Thank you for the book recommendation, I will check it out. However I suggest you look at it again, since you dont think your scientific philosophy is black and white, which it perhaps is, since it is not based in Spiritual Realism but on Rationalist Idealism, and so by necessity must tend toward the absolute, perhaps by offering a false version of Aristotles Nicomachean Ethic, the main omission being Aristotles' correct assertion that many things in the case of ethical thought are grey. Hopefully you do not make the mistake of saying that all such ethical matters/philosophic issues are of a grey hue, since that statement is itself absolute in assertion, and thus cancels itself out, is not logical, and is therefore a lie.
 
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It's more like 4 billion, dude, with a "B". The human race is even older than 30 million!

How did you arrive at 1 to 10 million?, because real scientists show their work.
 
You have no way of knowing that. My studies are not scientific, but based on ancient history and examination of certain geologic phenomenon. I admit that this is all just amature work, but its the best thing I can offer. Hopefully real scientists will come along with better evidence and findings.
 
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A grain of Zircon crystal was found recently in Australia and dated at 4.4 Billion years old.
 
Thats just the problem, how did they get that date? Have they ever observed the behavior of matter or
energy or atoms over a period of 4 billion years? Its all based on a false premise.
 
Thats just what I am talking about. That system, Carbon-14, is based on a false premise.
 
Why? We know it works because we can test it on objects where we already know the age. Then it is pretty simple to date things much older with only a very minor margin of error. There are other compounds you can use for dating as well.

I can't see any false premise.
 
Of course. It's no use arguing with him, he wants to believe something, and ignores all evidence to the contrary like a good Christian.
 
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