Posted on 05/08/2003 10:11:06 AM PDT by Nebullis
Awww, the creatidiots are just upset because this concept puts another nail in the ultra-speculative nonsense termed "irreducible complexity" and, of course, refutes the the absurdist mythology of Bible-literalist-Creationism itself.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Very enlightening. In fact Mensa level commentary.
But I offer you the same opportunity to put forth a theory which yields an ever expanding universe from nothing.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!! won't get it done however.
I think you can get that effect if the remarks are drawn from a very small database. No depth. Subject's gotta change.
With all due respect, do you REALLY believe that? If your answer is yes, then pull up a padded folding chair and a Diet Coke (Cheetos optional), and sit down.
According to dictionary.com, Science is defined in this case as "The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena." Or if you prefer, "Knowledge, especially that gained through experience."
Science as I understand it has to do with the quest for knowledge. Name any scientific discipline and it will have as its purpose the pursuit of knowledge within (and sometimes without) that discipline.
You and I would agree that God is Creator and knows everything. If God is Creator (and He is) and is all-knowing (that is, He has all knowledge), striving to learn more of what God has (facts) is NOT anti-God. Many founders of scientific disciplines were creationists, including Louis Pasteur (bacteriology), Francis Bacon (helped develop Scientific Method), Sir Isaac Newton (co-founder, calculus) and Gregor Mendel (genetics).
"Wait a minute!" you say. "Those evolutionists claim to be searching for facts, then deny God when they publish their findings!" That's true. But evolutionists, like creationists, interpret the facts through their worldview. The facts stay the same; the interpretation of those facts is the variable.
The key is: which interpretation is right?
A broad question. Does the Pope believe in the Bible? How do you account for the Pope believing in both the bible and the Theory of Evolution?
I disagree with your premise that the Catholic Church maintains belief in evolution. First of all, this issue is not addressed directly in the Cathechism of the Catholic Church, but indirectly in passages relating to man's relationship to God and animals.
For instance, CC 371 - God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." None of the animals can be man's partner. (Gen 2:18-20).
CC 2417 - God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image.
CC 2457 - Animals are entrusted to man's stewardship, he must show them kindness. They may be used to serve the just satisfaction of man's needs.
This from the Eternal World Television Network website:Evolution as Philosophy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is the attitude of the Catholic Church towards the theory of evolution?
Considered strictly as a scientific theory, evolution starts with the hypothesis or conjecture that higher forms of life have developed from lower forms over a period of millions of years. The scientist then tries either to prove or disprove this hypothesis by searching for evidence to be found in the geological record. If he can show that there is a record in the rocks which shows the development of some lower form of animal into a higher form, he has proven his hypothesis. Consequently, there has been a great effort among scientists to search the geological record for evidence that modern man has indeed descended from the lower animals like the ape. There are, however, too many missing links in the record to allow any reputable scientist to claim that evolution is a proven fact.
Since, however, the cultural elite of today have a strong bent towards atheism or at least agnosticism, they push the theory of evolution as a proof that the world has not been created by God and that man is simply a higher animal without an immortal soul. In this propaganda effort they have taken a scientific hypothesis and turned it into a philosophy. They claim that their beliefs are somehow more rational or scientific than the belief of Christians. A true scientist, however, will recognize that physical science has nothing to do one way or another with proving or disproving the existence of God or the immortality of the soul. A true scientist will stick to his trade and recognize that such matters are beyond his competence as a scientist. If he is of the opinion that there is no God he will hold it as his personal belief and not as a proven scientific fact.
Obviously, those who embrace evolution as a philosophy oppose Christianity. Thus today there is a struggle in the public schools between the "Creationists" and the "Evolutionists." The Creationists, who are those Protestants holding for a strictly literal interpretation of the account of creation in the Bible, oppose evolution not only as a philosophy but as a scientific theory. Holding the God created man directly from the earth, they insist that the hypothesis of man descending from the apes must be wrong. Hence they regard the teaching of evolution even as a scientific hypothesis as anti-Christian.
The Catholic Church is united with these Christians in opposing evolution AS A PHILOSOPHY. With the Protestants, the Church insists that God created the world and that man has an immortal soul. The Church, however, does not oppose evolution AS A SCIENTIFIC THEORY. The reason is that she does not hold for an absolutely literal interpretation of those chapters of Genesis. Thus the Church sees no necessary conflict between the belief that God created the world from nothing and the scientific hypothesis that the world has evolved over millions of years. Again, the Church sees no necessary conflict between the belief that God created directly the souls of Adam and Eve and the scientific hypothesis that Adam and Eve descended from non-human ancestors. Thus even if can be proven scientifically beyond a reasonable doubt that man has descended from some lower animal like the ape, the Church will not have to change its position. Thus the Church is content to let the scientists go about their business and will only react when some step beyond the limits of science in making the claim that the theory of evolution has made Christianity obsolete. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Answered by Dr. Richard Geraghty, PhD
From HUMANI GENERIS (Concerning Some False Opinions Threatening to Undermine the Foundations of Catholic Doctrine) Excerpted from Pope Pius XII Encyclical Promulgated on 12 August 1950 To Our Venerable Brethren, Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops and other local Ordinaries Enjoying Peace and Communion with the Holy See.
Venerable Brethren, Greetings and Apostolic Benediction
If anyone examines the state of affairs outside the Christian fold, he will easily discover the principal trends that not a few learned men are following. 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 this, and audaciously support the monistic and pantheistic opinion that the world is in continual evolution. Communists gladly subscribed to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism.
Christians are explicitly directed to get used to not knowing. Yes, they are supposed to believe in Jesus, the resurection and the afterlife, but they are specificly directed not to pretend to understand the big mysteries of existence, or pretend to know when the day of judgement is due, or who is saved.
The notion that Christians have some detailed key to the operation of the universe is blasphemous.
For 150 years the jokers of evolution have been saying that evolution is science but they have had no explanation for the development of organic features! Finally a truthful admission from an evolutionist!
We examined this issue using digital organismscomputer programs that self-replicate, mutate, compete and evolve. Populations of digital organisms often evolved the ability to perform complex logic functions requiring the coordinated execution of many genomic instructions. Complex functions evolved by building on simpler functions that had evolved earlier, provided that these were also selectively favoured.
A 'function' is an algorithm. No one has ever seen matter write either a function or an algorithm. So the question must be asked: how can this be a real life simulation of matter by itself creating complexity?
However, no particular intermediate stage was essential for evolving complex functions. The first genotypes able to perform complex functions differed from their non-performing parents by only one or two mutations, but differed from the ancestor by many mutations that were also crucial to the new functions. In some cases, mutations that were deleterious when they appeared served as stepping-stones in the evolution of complex features. These findings show how complex functions can originate by random mutation and natural selection.
It takes a lot of gibberish to hide the fact that the author is hiding a big problem in the experiment - the fitness cost of non-performing functions. According to evolution unfit functions must dissappear. However this program does not delete them as natural selection would, instead it lets them hang around without punishment.
This indeed is in real life one of the great problems of Darwinian evolution. How can an organism become increasingly fit through the large number of small steps required in gradual evolution at every point in the process. This is clearly impossible.
However, the question that this article raises is even more important than what it says: why cannot evolutionists give real evidence for their theory from real life? Why can they not find examples of these supposed processes occurring in living, breathing organisms?
Surely, we in the US have been spending uncounted billions on biological research for decades. There are millions of scientists throughout the world working on biological questions. How come none of these in the many decades of this intense biological research have been able to find the process of evolution actually occurring in any living thing?????????
Wow! wires and transistors reproducing themselves! That must be some program! Can you send it to me? I could use it to have it make me a new tv, or perhaps a computer or a car?
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