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Church needs better evolution education, says bishops' official
Catholic News Service ^ | 2-1-2005

Posted on 02/07/2005 7:30:07 AM PST by mike182d

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Catholic educators need better teaching programs about evolution "to correct the anti-evolution biases that Catholics pick up" from the general society, according to a U.S. bishops' official involved in dialogue with scientists for 20 years.

Without a church view of human creation that is consistent with currently accepted scientific knowledge, "Catholicism may begin to seem less and less 'realistic' to more and more thoughtful people," said David Byers, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Science and Human Values from 1984 to 2003.

"That dynamic is a far greater obstacle to religious assent than evolution," he said in a bylined article in the Feb. 7 issue of America, a weekly magazine published in New York by the Jesuits. The article discussed the value of the dialogues with scientists organized by the bishops' committee.

"Denying that humans evolved seems by this point a waste of time," he said without mentioning specific controversies in the United States.

(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: bishops; catholic; church; creation; evolution; god; schools; science
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To: orionblamblam

Point to a biological mechanism in which one species "naturally" reproduces another species? Its logically impossible as the created offspring are reproductions of the original species' DNA.


61 posted on 02/07/2005 8:12:24 AM PST by mike182d
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
Note: I do NOT work for AIG. I am simply pointing out an article that disagrees with supposed 'human evolution.

Correct. Send $$ to:

John Woodmorappe

62 posted on 02/07/2005 8:13:28 AM PST by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: lnbchip

A little more on sola scriptura and Akins' well-known arguments against it. I haven't read Salmon's book yet, but I think I will.

http://www.christiancourier.com/feature/september2002.htm


63 posted on 02/07/2005 8:13:49 AM PST by mikeus_maximus
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To: mlc9852
I think people refuse to believe our ancestors were monkeys.

Funny... nowhere in Darwin's studies does he suggest man evolved from monkeys... This is a myth pushed by the Church.

64 posted on 02/07/2005 8:13:51 AM PST by Lunatic Fringe (http://www.drunkenbuffoonery.com/mboards/)
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To: John_Wheatley
Men were killed by good Christians for having the temerity to say the earth was not the centre of the Universe.

Who was killed for believing this?
65 posted on 02/07/2005 8:14:19 AM PST by mike182d
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To: mike182d
They then go on to deduce, given their limited knowledge of the past, that since the two cars are nearly identical in structure and chemical make-up that one must have come from the other "naturally" by means of "evolution."

No. They have an entirely different running gear. Not even close in structure.

66 posted on 02/07/2005 8:15:04 AM PST by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: mike182d
"it just happens."

That's the creatinist hypothesis.

67 posted on 02/07/2005 8:17:30 AM PST by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: John_Wheatley
The DNA of your great-great-great Grandfather is extremely similar to your own, do you think it is ridiculous to link the two.

Variations within a species are not the same as speciation. Reproduction is the duplication of DNA and the result is an organism of the same species with variance in characteristics due to the synthesis of chromosomes. When have we ever witnessed a duplication of DNA in the process of reproduction that resulted in the creation of a different species?
68 posted on 02/07/2005 8:18:07 AM PST by mike182d
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To: mike182d

I don't get it.

Why bother to believe in God?

Why bother to believe in a virgin birth?

Why bother to claim you are a Christian if you don't believe in the miracle of Creation?

God is supernatural. He has no limits. Why limit Him on Creation and (pretend?) to believe in God, a virgin birth etc.?

BTW, it's not just the Catholic church pushing this nonsense.


69 posted on 02/07/2005 8:18:36 AM PST by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God).)
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To: mike182d

"Its logically impossible as the created offspring are reproductions of the original species' DNA.
"

Nonsense. In no case, other than parthenogenesis, are the offspring of any species which reproduces sexually identical to the parents. You see, your ignorance of biology is betraying you again.

If you think you are identical to your parents, then you are quite incorrect. If you have a brother or sister, is that brother or sister identical to you? Not unless you are identical twins.

You make a common, but regrettable mistake. It is the very fact that reproduction is NOT uniform that leads to the evolution of species.

Your other miscomprehension is that a single reproductive incident can produce a new species. That is simply not the case, and nothing in the theory of evolution teaches that.

Speciation is not a one-time event. By the time a new species emerges a long period of slow alterations has taken place over many, many generations. Once it emerges, the new species can no longer reproduce (in most cases) with the predecessor species.

Please do read something about the theory of evolution, written by someone in the field. Once you do that, you may understand what the theory is. Until you understand that, you will continue to make these simple errors.


70 posted on 02/07/2005 8:19:30 AM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: John_Wheatley
" You are ignorant to the fact that science calls many things a theory when indeed it is accepted fact."

Don't embarrass yourself with such nonsense.

Theory is theory and fact is fact. Theories may include facts, but they still remain theories. "Accepted facts" are also merely theories. Facts do not require "acceptance". Facts are truths and exist independent of anybody's acceptance criteria.

While theories can be useful and appear definitive within observational limits that does not make them fact. It does make them useful for prediction, within constraints.

Newton had a theory of gravity. It was a fact that apples fell to the earth, but Newtons theory of gravity was not a fact, it was a model, an estimation, a tool. Newton's theory was later turned upside down by Einstein. Einstein is now in the process of being turned upside down by string theory.

Facts are not subject to later revision. Theories are.

Evolutionary theory is far more full of holes than Newton's theory of gravitation.

For you to believe evolution is a fact is merely religious zealotry on your part.

You have your religion, others have theirs.

71 posted on 02/07/2005 8:19:33 AM PST by Mark Felton (We are free because we are Christian. There is no other reason.)
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To: mike182d

"The Roman Catholic Church does not make statements on the truth of scientific claims, nor is it meant to. It is wholly concerned with spirituality and morality. Thus, for the Church to even suggest that a particular scientific theory must be ascribed to by its body of believers is proposterous and even heretical."

Church teaching does set limits on such theories where they cannot be reconciled with revelation. See Humani Generis (Pius XII). "If such conjectural opinions are directly or indirectly opposed to the doctrine of revealed by God, then the demand that they be recognized can in no way be admitted." He goes on in subsequent sections (36+) to state some areas fit for discussion (though not conceding the theory of evolution as true), but he also condemns others as contrary to the faith (e.g. polygenism).


72 posted on 02/07/2005 8:20:08 AM PST by Miles the Slasher
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To: nmh

"I don't get it.

Why bother to believe in God?
"

An excellent question, indeed...


73 posted on 02/07/2005 8:20:36 AM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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Comment #74 Removed by Moderator

To: WildTurkey
That's the creatinist hypothesis.

Not quite.

Let us suppose that two men are walking in the woods and come across an instruction manual on how to build a house.
The creationist would say "Ah, certainly there must have been an intelligent person, who knows how to build a house, that is responsible" while not knowing exactly who it was that did it.
The evolutionist would say "Ah, given millions and millions of years, this information could have been compiled naturally." and not have a clue as to how to explain this.
75 posted on 02/07/2005 8:21:37 AM PST by mike182d
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To: mike182d

Church Needs Better Bishops, says God


76 posted on 02/07/2005 8:22:53 AM PST by kittymyrib
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To: dmz

Well, if you're saying that you believe we somehow "evolved" from fish, to monkeys to man, you've made a leap of faith way too far for the evidence to sustain. But you're certainly free to do so.


77 posted on 02/07/2005 8:23:45 AM PST by Emmett McCarthy
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To: mike182d

Actually many parasites go from complexity to simplicity.


78 posted on 02/07/2005 8:24:08 AM PST by From many - one. (formerly e p1uribus unum)
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To: John_Wheatley
Yes, it was called the Spanish Inquisition.

It was an attempt by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in the 15th century to "unify" a broken nation by purging the populace of non-Catholics.

What does this have to do with science?
79 posted on 02/07/2005 8:24:59 AM PST by mike182d
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To: MineralMan
Of course I know why ... :)

I was being facetious, however that is the logical question to ask when you deny Him as Creator.
80 posted on 02/07/2005 8:25:18 AM PST by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God).)
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