Posted on 08/28/2004 9:10:46 PM PDT by AskStPhilomena
In what appears to be its latest capitulation to worldly wisdom, the Vatican apparatus now assumes (contrary to the teaching of Pius XII in Humanae Generis) that the evolution of men from animals is a proven fact.
On June 24, 2004 Zenit.org reported that "Vatican Observatory has convoked a range of experts to reflect on a question that at times seems to be forgotten in scientific research: Is there purpose in evolution?" That is, evolution is now assumed to have occurred, and the only debate is over whether it has a purpose. The Vatican called a symposium of experts to meet on June 24-26 to discuss whether evolution has a "purpose."
The Vatican Observatory’s announcement of the symposium states that "in scientific circles, there is a very deep-seated distrust of teleological language, even though researchers may occasionally use the word ‘design’ in an attempt to grapple with the often astonishing adaptive complexes they study … Put crudely, the widely accepted scientific worldview is that human beings or any other product of evolutionary diversification is accidental and, by implication, incidental."
Well, that’s right, of course. And what is the Vatican’s response to this worldview? Read it for yourself, if you can believe it: "The purpose of this symposium is not to dispute this worldview, but to inquire whether it is sufficient and, if it is not, to consider what we need to know and ultimately how we might discover the requisite information with one or more research programs." So, the Vatican does not dispute the view that the emergence of human life is merely incidental to the process of "evolution," whose truth is now apparently assumed.
The symposium (whose results have not yet been published) was asked to address five questions:
-- Can we speak of a universal biochemistry?
-- How do levels of complexity emerge, and are they inevitable?
-- Can we properly define evolutionary constraints?
-- What does convergence [different species displaying the same traits] tell us about evolution?
-- What do we mean by intelligence? Is intelligence an inevitable product of evolution?
Notice that every question presumes that evolution has, in fact, occurred, even though there is abundant evidence showing no gradual transition from one form of life to another (as evolution supposes), but rather the sudden appearance of every basic form in the fossil record, which is precisely what one would expect to see if God directly and specially created each kind, as the Book of Genesis recounts.
In Humani Generis Pope Pius XII warned that "the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own."
Moreover, Pope Leo XIII taught in his encyclical letter Arcane Divinae Sapientiae (Christian Marriage) that Adam and Eve, and they only, are our first parents and that Eve was created from Adam's body:
We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep. God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should be the natural beginning of the human race, from whom it might be propagated, and preserved by an unfailing fruitfulness throughout all futurity of time.
The Church says that no one may doubt these things. Yet how can these things be reconciled with the view that Adam and Eve (and who knows how many other humans) "evolved" from apes and that Eve was not formed from the body of Adam, as the Vatican now seems to suppose, in calling for a symposium to discuss the "purpose" of evolution.
So the question must be asked: Do those who are in charge of the Vatican’s approach to "modern science" still believe in what the Church teaches concerning the origin of the human race? Or are we witnessing yet another sign of the great apostasy in the Catholic Church beginning at the top, which was predicted by the Third Secret of Fatima?
***They had been of two sexes for millions of years before that. So I don't see any contradiction of evolution in the quote you posted***
He said, "Have you not READ (reference to the written account) that from the BEGINNING (not several billion years after the beginning). Hard to miss his meaning.
***Scientists aren't looking for someone to pray to.***
We're not talking about "scientists" we are talking about you.
***it makes a lousy Advanced Physics textbook***
Really, well try these on for size...
The stars are too great in number to count
Genesis 15:5
Jeremiah 33:22 Hebrews 11:12
19th Century AD with the advent of powerful telescopes. Prior to this, most thought there were no more than 6,000 stars (what could be seen with the naked eye from all points on the earth). See this CNN report titled Star survey reaches 70 sextillion.
The Earth is shaped like a sphere (round) and rotates
Isaiah 40:22
Luke 17:34-36
Luke 17:34-36 depicts Christ's Second Coming as happening while some are asleep at night and others are working at day-time activities in the field, an indication of a rotating earth with day and night at the same time.You may be surprised to learn that the Bible revealed that the earth is round. Job 26:10, Prov 8:27, Isaiah 40:22, Amos 9:6. Today, we chuckle at the people of the fifteenth century who feared sailing because they thought they would fall over the edge of the flat earth. Yet the Bible revealed the truth in 1000 B.C. 2500 years before man discovered it for himself!
Earth floats freely
in space
Job 26-7
Circumcisions should be performed on the eighth day after birth
Genesis 17:12
According to the Old Testament (Genesis 17:12), circumcision of newborn males was to be performed on the eighth day after birth. Why the eighth day? In 1935 Professor H. dam proposed the name "vitamin K" for the factor in foods which helped prevent hemorrhaging in baby chicks. We now know that vitamin K is responsible for the production of prothrombin by the liver. If vitamin K is deficient, there will be a prothrombin deficiency and hemorrhaging may occur, since both vitamin K and prothrombin are necessary for proper blood clotting. Oddly enough, it is only on the 5th through the 7th days of the newborn male's life that vitamin K begins to be produced (the vitamin is normally produced by bacterial action in the intestinal tract). and it is only on day eight that the percentage of prothrombin climbs above 100% of normal! The only day in the entire life of the newborn that the blood clotting element prothrombin is that high is day eight. The best day for surgical procedure like circumcision is therefore day eight. (1)
Jews and Arabs
descendants of one man
Michael Hammer at the University of Arizona in Tucson and colleagues, some from Israeli universities, analysed 18 sections of the Y chromosomes from 1371 men. They came from 29 different populations, including seven Jewish (Ashkenazi (European), Roman, North African, Kurdish, Iraqi and Iranian, Yemenite and Ethiopian Jews), five Arabic (Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Israeli Druze and Saudis) and 16 non-Semitic groups. The close similarities within the Jewish Y-chromosomes, even from widely scattered populations, was compelling evidence that they all come from a common ancestor. The study also showed that Arabs are closely related to Jews.
Air has weight
Job 28-25
Entropy
Psalms.102:25-26
Isaiah 51:6
Hebrews 1:10-11
Rudolf (Julius Emanuel) Clausius formulated the Second Law of Thermodynamics in 1850.
All things are made up of sub-atomic particles that are invisible to the naked eye
Hebrews 11:3
The first sub-atomic particle to be discovered by modern science was the electron. It was first discovered by J.J. Thomson in 1897.
Time had a beginning
1 Timothy 1-8-9
It's difficult to pin down precisely when modern science concluded that time had a beginning.
There are springs that arise from the ocean floor
Job 38:16
Mountains and deep valleys exist on the ocean floor
Jonah 2:5-6
The Challenger expedition (1873-1876) commenced the first scientific exploration of the ocean floor,during which a canyon 5 1/2 miles deep was discovered in the Pacific. (1)
"Paths of the sea"
Matthew Maury (1806-1873) is considered the father of oceanography. His wife was reading a portion of the Bible to him. While listening, he noticed the expression "paths of the sea" in Psalms 8:8. Upon his recovery, Maury took God at his word and went look ing for these paths. We are indebted to his discovery of the warm and cold continental currents. His book on oceanography is still considered a basic text on the subject and is still used in universities. Maury used the Bible as a guide to scientific discovery. If only more would use the Bible as a guide in their personal lives!
The Hydrologic Water Cycle
Revealed in the Bible: Job 36:27-28
The water cycle was not fully understood until about 30 B.C. by a Roman engineer named Marcus Vitruvius. Yet every aspect of the water cycle was fully revealed to mankind in 1600 B.C.! The Bible's description is in perfect harmony with modern science. Eccl 1:6-7; 11:3; Job 26:8; Amos 9:6. Vitruvius was 1600 years too late!
And the Torah exhibits a implicit knowlege of a bacteriological view of health and medicine with numerous rules about washing, quarintine and destruction of infected objects - utterly unknown inthe ancient near middle east and only discovered in Americal in the 18th century (and still not understood or parcticed in 3rd world countries today)
***Religion is a wonderful thing, until you start to believe that it is the only thing.***
Jesus said,
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
Sounds like Jesus claims he is the ONLY way.
But he never claimed that the Bible was the only book that one should read, nor did he ever claim that he was the only source of information on the natural world.
Did you read all of the evidence I posted which is Divine revelation in the Bible and magesterium, not to mention the excellent statements from Chesterton. Evolution is a hoax. I used to believe it and apparently you still do. Evolution is not the teaching of the Church. The Church said that scientists could discuss it provided that they did not leave out the fact that our first parents got there soul directly from God. Most evolutionists including Karl Rahner taught polygenism which is the belief that man started not as single parents but as a group of individuals who where human and descended from a common ancestor or missing link to apes. The Church condemned polygenism and macro Evolution in general very early on and the science for evolutionary theory was every bit as strange as it is today. The Church has no problem with micro evolution as things always change with species. It is a no brainer that the law of entropy demonstrates that things close in on themselves and species would have a tendency to weaken but evolution claims biological progress that the structure gets better and better evolving into higher life forms. Did you ever see a chicken turn into a cow. Science never can proove evolution -it’s a myth.
"For the Greek philosophers, inquiring into the beginning of the world, have gone, some in one way and some in another. In short, Pythagoras says that numbers are the elements of its beginnings; Callistratus, that qualities; Alcmaeon, that contrarieties; Anaximander, that immensity; Anaxagoras, that equalities of parts; Epicurus, that atoms; Diodorus, things in which there are no parts...Democritus, that ideas; Thales, that water; Heraclitus, that fire; Diogenes, that air; Parmenides, that earth; Zeno, Empedocles, Plato, that fire, water, air and earth. Aristotle also introduced a fifth element...by joining the four elements into one..." (Clement of Rome, Pseudo-Clementine, Ch. XV, Theories of Creation).
All of the Fathers were bombarded by the latest theories of the day, theories which purported to go way beyond the simplistic view of ex nihilo creation presented in Genesis. Hippolytus of Rome, an early Father who lived in the second century (d. 235), writes:
"But Leucippus, an associate of Zeno...affirms things to be infinite, and always in motion, and that generation and change exist continuously....And he asserts that worlds are produced when many bodies are congregated and flow together from the surrounding space to a common point, so that by mutual contact they made substances of the same figure and similar in form come into connection; and when thus intertwined, there are transmutations into other bodies, and that created things wax and wane through necessity..." (The Refutation of All Heresies, Ch. X: Leucippus and His Atomic Theory).
Hippolytus also critiques Thales, Founder of Greek Astronomy; Pythagoras on his Cosmogony and the Transmigration of Souls; Empedocles on Causality; Heraclitus on his Theory of Flux; Anaximenes on the idea of "Infinite Air"; Anaxagoras on his Theory of Mind and Efficient Cause; Parmenides on his Theory of Unity, and other Greek philosophic and scientific ideas.
"Scientists who go about teaching evolution as a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution, we do not have one iota of fact." Dr. T. N. Tahmisian, US Atomic Energy Commission
"Evolution is a fairy tale for grownups. The theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless" Professor Louis Bounoure, Director: Strasbourg Zoological Museum
"I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has." Malcolm Muggeridge, Pascal Lectures, University of Waterloo, Ontario.
It’s in the bible how it happened read the accounts and as far as the fossil record is here is a web site http://geology.ref.ac/berthault/
which prooves:
"This point:Conversely, the scientific advances of Creation science, in particular the work of Catholic sedimentologist Dr. Guy Berthault, who has shown through field research and laboratory experiment that geological strata are not formed chronologically over thousands or millions of years but within days or months, has been virtually ignored by the scientific establishment, since, if true, it reverses every theory concerning the geologic column that evolutionists have depended on for so long. Other Catholic scientists such as paleontologist Dr. Roberto Fondi; geneticist Dr. Giuseppe Sermonti; and mathematician and physics professor Dr. Wolfgang Smith have published important books refuting evolution, but these are totally ignored by the Pontifical Academy of Science which advises the Magisterium on scientific matters. I will tell you more about this in my upcoming book: Not By Science Alone: Modern Science at the Crossroads of Divine Revelation, due out in 2004." quote from Bob Sungenis who also has a science degree in Engineering or Biology
The Bible describes the days of creation as "morning and evening". That strongly points to literal days. Evolution is contrary to the Bible and it's silly to pretend that it's not.
But if you did something one way then described it a totally different way, you would be either a fool or a liar. Which one do you think God is ?
It claims the material world is made out of light, so it seems pretty up to date, or ahead of physics, to me.
"The Bible describes the days of creation as "morning and evening". That strongly points to literal days. Evolution is contrary to the Bible and it's silly to pretend that it's not..."
The accounts in Genesis are an allegory that contains theological Truth. The point is that God created the Heavens and the Earth, not that He did it this way or He did it that way.
"But if you did something one way then described it a totally different way, you would be either a fool or a liar. Which one do you think God is?"
False dichotomy. There are many things about God that we cannot understand, so when God speaks to us about them, He uses approximations and allegories.
Really? Who told you that? Specifically.
Who told you that the sun rises in the east?
I told him. Isn't it obvious to anyone with an IQ in 3 digits?
I'm around every morning, God willing, to witness the sun rising over the trees.
By your analogy, I take it you were around when God created the earth.
Impressive. You don't look a day over 1700 years.
"By your analogy, I take it you were around when God created the earth."
It's a good thing this isn't a Phillip K. Dick novel, because you just flunked the analogy comprehension test.
It's not a question of having been present at creation, since Revelation did not cease at creation, but rather one of having perceived God speaking in approximations and allegories.
And that applies to everyone who has read the Bible, whether they know it or not.
Unless, of course, you think that the Parables had no deeper meaning but were just anecdotes.
I know that your IQ can be measured in three of the digits on one of your hands, but Dr Eckleburg is biblically constrained from psychic readings or psychotic ramblings.
You mean dark sayings?
LOLOL!
Hahahahaha. So sad it's funny...
You're well on your way to becoming a Baptist.
The world is much much older than 7200 years, and it has been proven, scientifically.
That's the problem with the fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture: it falls like a house of cards in the face of science.
>>>
And you acted like you didn't know what I meant...lol
Like I said, your disdain for Conservative Christians knows no bounds as you repeatedly demonstrate herein...
If you're a fundie, fine. I'm not going to argue with you. I won't convince you, and you won't convince me.
I have no idea what you are talking about.
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