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 ...
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.
Correct. Send $$ to:
John Woodmorappe
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
Funny... nowhere in Darwin's studies does he suggest man evolved from monkeys... This is a myth pushed by the Church.
No. They have an entirely different running gear. Not even close in structure.
That's the creatinist hypothesis.
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.
"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.
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.
"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).
"I don't get it.
Why bother to believe in God?
"
An excellent question, indeed...
Church Needs Better Bishops, says God
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.
Actually many parasites go from complexity to simplicity.
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