Posted on 11/07/2005 12:05:04 PM PST by Mikey_1962
THE Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly. His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".
This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to "understand things better".
His statements were interpreted in Italy as a rejection of the "intelligent design" view, which says the universe is so complex that some higher being must have designed every detail.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
No Bible in front of me, but where does it say these were seven CONSECUTIVE days? Maybe God had some other projects going on, kept coming back to this "universe" thing on different days millenia apart? And on the seventh day he came back, he realized that everything he wanted to do was done, so kicked his feet up and just rested.
You know, like showed up at work, and posted on FreeRepublic all day or something. It counts as a day AT ... but really isn't WORKING.
Or when contractors quote a seven day project ... and finish it years later, having put in those seven days seemingly randomly, showing up one day in March, 2 in June, etc.
My understanding of entropy is that it is a measure of change in amount of energy dispersed or how widely spread out the energy becomes. DS = q(rev)/T
You are using the Boltzmann equation to show the entropy in a substance at a particular temperature. This is not a 'change' in amount of energy. What am I missing?
Why is the definition of order tied to the number of microstates?
The definition of order you use seems to be based on having only one microstate. The problem may lie in the definition of order/disorder. The creatinoids are trying to say that the observed order of galaxies, solar systems, amino acids, proteins... are not possible because of the 2LoT and entropy. All of this should go from order to disorder so the initial order must be from a first cause (read God).
"All of the available evidence shows that humans are living longer, healthier lives than any time in human history."
You are helping me make my point. In case you forgot, my point was that you can't reconcile the Bible and evolution with eachother. If you accept both, they why is it that the ability to live over 900 years (without advanced medical science even) vanished so quickly? Someone living that long would be capable of having a LOT of children with the genetics for long life and disease resistance.
It's true we live longer than they did 500 years ago, but that is due to medical science, not an improved gene pool.
You are missing my point:
According to the Bible: earth, plants, animals and man are created, reproduce their own kind, no death, THEN the fall happens and there is death AFTER man is already there. Men at first live very long lives, quickly decreasing to what we would consider normal lifespans.
According to evolution, all lifeforms were subject to death from the first lifeform onwards, all lifeforms have their origin in simpler lifeforms. Natural selection allows traits that increase survival to become common among a species.
The two ideas are not compatable. That is my point. I am not arguing for one or the other, I'm saying the for this minister to try and reconcile the two is forcing a square peg into a round hole.
That's the oldest, thermodynamic, definition. Boltzmann showed it was related to the number of states occupied, thus giving the thermodynamic quantity a molecular meaning. When heat spreads out, it occupies more states. They're two sides of the same coin.
You are using the Boltzmann equation to show the entropy in a substance at a particular temperature. This is not a 'change' in amount of energy. What am I missing?
The old definition only allowed one to calculate a change in entropy. One can get an absolute entropy by including the Third Law, which says that for a pure crystalline substance at absolute zero, the entropy is zero. So if you measure the heat absorbed by a substance as you increase the temperature, all the way up from zero kelvin, you can figure its entropy at any temperature. If you calculate the number of states occupied, in a molecular simulation, as you raise the temperature, you can also obtain a theoretical value for the entropy, from first principles. For systems where accurate computation is possible (e.g. pure gases, liquids and solids, and simple mixtures), the measurements and the theory give exactly the same number, to within experimental error.
The creatinoids are trying to say that the observed order of galaxies, solar systems, amino acids, proteins... are not possible because of the 2LoT and entropy. All of this should go from order to disorder so the initial order must be from a first cause (read God).
The order involved in starting with all the matter in the universe in a single point, as it was at the instant of the big bang, rather than dispersing it everywhere, is so huge, it overwhelms whatever minuscule changes in entropy that are happening in our own little neighborhood. All that matters is the total amount of disorder increase. That's certainly happening, as the vast heat flux of the sun and other stars disperses around the universe.
"When did humans live for over 900 years?"
Genesis 5
1 This is the history of the descendants of Adam. When God created people, he made them in the likeness of God.
2 He created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them “human.”
3 When Adam was 130 years old, his son Seth was born, and Seth was the very image of his father.
4 After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
5 He died at the age of 930.
6 When Seth was 105 years old, his son Enosh was born.
7 After the birth of Enosh, Seth lived another 807 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
8 He died at the age of 912.
9 When Enosh was 90 years old, his son Kenan was born.
10 After the birth of Kenan, Enosh lived another 815 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
11 He died at the age of 905.
12 When Kenan was 70 years old, his son Mahalalel was born.
13 After the birth of Mahalalel, Kenan lived another 840 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
14 He died at the age of 910.
15 When Mahalalel was 65 years old, his son Jared was born.
16 After the birth of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
17 He died at the age of 895.
18 When Jared was 162 years old, his son Enoch was born.
19 After the birth of Enoch, Jared lived another 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
20 He died at the age of 962.
21 When Enoch was 65 years old, his son Methuselah was born.
22 After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch lived another 300 years in close fellowship with God, and he had other sons and daughters.
23 Enoch lived 365 years in all.
24 He enjoyed a close relationship with God throughout his life. Then suddenly, he disappeared because God took him.
25 When Methuselah was 187 years old, his son Lamech was born.
26 After the birth of Lamech, Methuselah lived another 782 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
27 He died at the age of 969.
28 When Lamech was 182 years old, his son Noah was born.
29 Lamech named his son Noah, for he said, “He will bring us relief from the painful labor of farming this ground that the LORD has cursed.”
30 After the birth of Noah, Lamech lived 595 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
31 He died at the age of 777.
32 By the time Noah was 500 years old, he had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
There are several persons listed in the early part of Genesis as living very long lives. Adam and Methuselah both lived over 900 years, Noah lived a very long time too (it took 100 years to build the ark) but I'm not sure if he made it past 900 or not.
Evidence that those given ages are accurate ages?
Have you considered the possibility that the Fall (and eating from the Tree of Knowledge) may be an allegory of ancient man's choice to obtain knowledge and henceforth become aware of his own mortality? (Thus the fall from Paradise)
I'm not trying to be condescending here, I'm just wondering if you've ever considered that perspective.
According to the Bible: earth, plants, animals and man are created, reproduce their own kind, no death, THEN the fall happens and there is death AFTER man is already there. Men at first live very long lives, quickly decreasing to what we would consider normal lifespans.
So, immediately after the fall, people are doomed to die, but still live a long while, but the further removed people are from the fall, the more punished they are with shorter lives? Even after Jesus? Seems backwards to me.
According to evolution, all lifeforms were subject to death from the first lifeform onwards,
Where does evolution say that, or that it's impossible for a lifeform to evolve past death? (Creatures that pass along their genes better before they can stop passing along genes spread the genes further/longer ... but where does EVOLUTION say death is required? Actually, an immortal being, able to breed for its entire existance (doesn't run out of eggs, doesn't lose certain parts, etc. could eventually dominate the gene pool.)
all lifeforms have their origin in simpler lifeforms.
Where does evolution say that? A creature does not have to be more complex to be better able to survive its environment (it doesn't have to be less complex either). It just need to be be better able to survive to pass along genes.
Evolution just deals with what happened after the first spark of life appeared. Once-cell bacteria? Magical horse that willed itself into existance? It really doesn't matter.
Natural selection allows traits that increase survival to become common among a species.
The two ideas are not compatable.
For benefit of the readers, what two ideas are these again? The Bible (a creation of God) and the way the world (a creation of God) works?
That is my point. I am not arguing for one or the other, I'm saying the for this minister to try and reconcile the two is forcing a square peg into a round hole.
Extreme Biblical literalism does not reconcile with a good many things. But who says this minister is an extreme Biblical literalist.
Obviously, the minister is able to reconcile the two things in his mind.
And for some people, they can't reconcile their interpretation of the Bible and the theory of evolution ... that's why there are sometimes up to a couple of evolution/creationism/ID threads a month on these boards.
In the words of Galileo (the main player in the oft-misunderstood affair involving the Church):
The Bible tells how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go.
Knowing how the Universe was created is not necessary for salvation. The Hebrews could have said the Earth was 5 Billion years old (which they wouldn't have, since they had no such number, and could not conceive of such a number), and it would make no difference. Billions of years old or created in six days, either way, GOD DID IT.
It doesn't fit with what is said about Adam and death later on in the New Testement. The Bible teaches that death is a result of the fall, not an awareness of death, but death itself. Likewise Christ didn't come to save us from an awareness of death, but from death itself. The whole purpose of Christ coming here was to give us a way to negate the effects of the Fall (ie: sin and death).
1Cor15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
I'm just trying to say that animals don't seem to be to concerned about when they're going to die, that's all. You're obviously entitled to your own opinion, as am I, but I personally don't see a conflict here, and in fact, see it as a very powerful parable.
Most people take for granted what others have told them regarding the Bible.
Here is the Bible describing the earth as round (circle), and the heavens (universe) like a stretched out plane (curtain) that can have no three dimensional center.
Isa 40:22 [It is] he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof [are] as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain,
Scientists, and those who have misread the Bible (religious leaders or otherwise), have always been the ones who are wrong.
Some people like to claim figures of speech, like the one modern scientists use today - sunrise, sunset - mean the Bible is clueless. The same standard makes scientists clueless.
The earth is a sphere, not a circle. Circles are flat.
"Where does evolution say that, or that it's impossible for a lifeform to evolve past death?"
The dead don't evolve, they decompose.
"but where does EVOLUTION say death is required?"
Natural selection requires death to limit the spread of inferior genetics. If there is no death, there is no such thing as a survival benifit from any mutation since they would all survive without it.
"Obviously, the minister is able to reconcile the two things in his mind."
Not with intellectual honesty about both. You have to create rather tortured interpretations of the Bible that takes evolution as a premise, thus creating a circular argument. A handy skill for people who want to have it both ways.
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