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Bishops Support Evolution Petition
The Living Church Foundation ^ | 8/29/2005 | unknown

Posted on 08/29/2005 5:52:18 PM PDT by sionnsar

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To: annalex
Atheistic evolution is heretical.

Why is evolution heretical, but rain falling because it condensed out of the air is not? Both can be seen as purely naturalistic, or both can be seen as acts of God, depending on one's point of view.

You are perfectly free to interpret Genesis in a way that allows for evolution, as several popes have done.

Atheistic evolution means spontaneous formation of life.

Technically, evolution theory doesn't cover where the first life came from. But just as it takes no heretical thought to accept that apparently "designed" snowflakes condense and freeze in the sky without apparent intervention from God, why is abiogenisis a problem? If God raises the sun in the morning, what's the problem with Him forming life 3 billion years ago in a stagnant pool and evolving it since then? God is omnipotent, you know. And if He want's to do it that way, and indeed the evidence says He did, what's the problem?

a typical "proof" of the evolution hypothesis is that similarities in features and proximity in geography and the strata of the findings of the fossils prove descent. Quite obviously they don't, although they indeed corroborate the evolutionary hypothesis. This substitution of corroboration for proof is the hoax I was referring to.

You use the word "hoax" the same way as a leftie calls Bush a "liar". The word describes a giant conspiracy theory spanning generations of scientists across all continents.

Evolution can be disproved in many ways. Despite the efforts of religious people with a particular interpretation of Genesis and millions of dollars of research over 75+ years, it has not been disproved.

it seems that you need to be able to tell a random sequence from a useful feature sequence before you can show that the retroviral sequence proves descent better than, say, the fact that apes and humans have two ears and one nose proves descent.

We know the DNA sequences of ERVs. When we find lots of them in human DNA, we know they got there by infections in specific individuals, because it's the only explanation that's reasonable. They consist of quite long stretches of base pairs that make no sense being "designed in", any more than it makes sense that six sided snowflakes were individually "designed" by God. A much more logical explanation was that God designed water molecules in such a way as to crystallize in six sided shapes. And designed life to evolve, as we see it has done in the past, and can watch it do today.

Imagine creating a thing that operates over vast reaches of time, that finds it's own energy (no refineries required). A thing that adapts to changing conditions, repairs itself, and actually improves itself. Such a thing could be called a "miracle", if it were designed by a mere human.

God created evolution, that has done those things, seemingly unaided, for billions of years without letup. God created evolution, and I'm amazed that you dismiss His most glorious creation with a wave of your hand, simply because you can't imagine such a grand invention. Evolution is so big, you can't see it. It is the forrest you can't see for the trees.

101 posted on 08/31/2005 9:21:33 PM PDT by narby (There are Bloggers, and then there are Freepers.)
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To: curiosity

I think that the link I provided shows that God being an author of life is a dogmatic teaching. If you want to cram a round peg into a square hole and parse authorship of God as indirect, or find room for polygenism, you will have to do the exercise alone.


102 posted on 08/31/2005 9:37:32 PM PDT by annalex
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To: narby

I understand that some room for some eveolutionary belief exists in Catholic Christianity. I dismiss it because I dislike it, and don't see a rigorous proof.

Of course the word "hoax" is rhetorical. The basis for this choice of words is in my belief that at least some of the evolution theory enthusiasts want it to be there before they do the science. Then they do the science to fit the belief. If they did not try to cram this complex, counterintuitive and badly corroborated theory with massive philosophical implications in schools but merely stuck to their labcoats, I would not give them another minute of my time, let alone argue over their superstitions.

"Because that is the only explanation that is reasonable" is not proof. Again, you assume what you want to prove, do some lab work and voila, Proof.


103 posted on 08/31/2005 9:44:38 PM PDT by annalex
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To: annalex; narby
I think that the link I provided shows that God being an author of life is a dogmatic teaching.

Very true. However, it is not a dogmatic teaching that this authorship is direct. No magisterial document rules out the possibility that God used secondary causes for this purpose. In fact, a very recent one explictly allows for this, as I will show you below.

If you want to cram a round peg into a square hole and parse authorship of God as indirect, or find room for polygenism, you will have to do the exercise alone.

Actually, I'm in very good company.

With regard to God using secondary, natural causes to create life, last year, a theological commission headed by the present pope (while he was still a cardinal) explicitly stated that such a belief is compatible with the Catholic faith:

In freely willing to create and conserve the universe, God wills to activate and to sustain in act all those secondary causes whose activity contributes to the unfolding of the natural order which he intends to produce. Through the activity of natural causes, God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation.(para. 68)

Another good passage is here:

according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation.(para. 69.

Here's a link to the full document:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html

Regarding polygenism, this is indeed a topic that mainstream Catholic theologians, many of them on Pontifical commissions, are freely exploring right now. So again, it does seem I'm in pretty good company.

Who knows? Maybe it will be decided that a literal interpretation of Adam and Eve is most compatible with modern science. There are ways of reconciling a literal Adam and Eve with what genetics tells us about the earliest human population. All the ones I can think of are a bit counter-intuitive, but not illogical.

104 posted on 08/31/2005 10:15:06 PM PDT by curiosity (.)
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To: annalex
Of course the word "hoax" is rhetorical. The basis for this choice of words is in my belief that at least some of the evolution theory enthusiasts want it to be there before they do the science.

And you want evolution to be false before you do the science. Everyone has their preconceptions, and everyone has a hard time looking past them.

"Because that is the only explanation that is reasonable" is not proof.

I was speaking of the explanation for the existence of viral DNA sequences within human DNA. The shear number of base pairs involved makes the concept that these sequences are anything *other* than an ERV insertion untenable. They can't have been accidental because the odds are too long. And your belief that God put them there for some mystical reason doesn't hold water, unless God put them there via a virus attack several million years ago. And not just one ERV sequence, but a couple thousand of them.

There is a way to decide if God "designed" humans in a special creation. If that was true, then there must be some method to distinguish a designed thing, from an undesigned thing. The scientific method to do this would be to make a prediction of what a designed thing should look like. What remnants of the design could be found. What "signature" to look for.

Unfortunately, even with some very bright people working on that issue with plenty of money to keep them at their work full time, no one has been able to even scratch this knotty problem.

If God existed, and he "created" us and all life, then He did it via evolution. Evolution is actually a very interesting theory, and has been deliberately used in biological engineering, and computer engineering to develop things that could not be "designed" in a straightforward manner by humans. There is simply no question that Evolution theory "works", because we can set up the conditions and allow it to work at will.

Many Christians understand evolution to be Gods greatest creation. Some cannot imagine it's existence.

To me, the reason we cannot distinguish between what is "designed" and "undesigned" in species, is because God created the universe that allows evolution to work, and there is no need for Him to "design" things in a manner analogous to what humans do.

Hands on "designing" is beneath Gods pay grade.

105 posted on 09/01/2005 7:29:22 AM PDT by narby (There are Bloggers, and then there are Freepers.)
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To: curiosity

Maybe it will be decided that a literal interpretation of Adam and Eve is most compatible with modern science. There are ways of reconciling a literal Adam and Eve with what genetics tells us about the earliest human population. All the ones I can think of are a bit counter-intuitive, but not illogical.
Theory of mitochondrial eve i think comes close to the Genesis story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve


106 posted on 09/01/2005 10:31:08 AM PDT by stan_sipple
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To: curiosity
[Belief in] God using secondary, natural causes to create life [...] is compatible with the Catholic faith

I agree that it is compatible, but it is innatural theologically and harmful pastorally. Theologically, God is the author of life, period. Whether or not He used tools of creation, like a human author uses a pen, is not a domain of theology. We do not recast the flood story in terms of the mechanism of the flood (rain, hurricane, government neglect of the levies), because what is important is that God sent a flood.

Polygenism, of course, presents severe logical problems for a theologian. Do the Eves make the fateful decision to trust the snake by committee? Independently?

The Church should simply ignore all scientific speculation, and it should discourage all scientific work in the interest of evil. That includes scientific work aiming at contradicting the Faith. It should not flex its doctrine in anticipation of a possible scientific revelation in the future, because we know that a true revelation, scientific or not, will be doctrinally sound.

107 posted on 09/01/2005 11:39:48 AM PDT by annalex
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To: narby
Everyone has their preconceptions

True, but not everyone has the same duty in this debate. I do not propose a theory, so I get to have a preconception against yours. You are the one in the lab. You should not be cooking the DNA in order to suit your preconceptions.

The scientific method to do this would be to make a prediction of what a designed thing should look like. [...] no one has been able to even scratch this knotty problem.

True. This is why your assertion that the purported ERV signatures in the fossil DNA are random is without scientific basis.

108 posted on 09/01/2005 11:48:36 AM PDT by annalex
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To: annalex
You should not be cooking the DNA in order to suit your preconceptions.

This is the latest of several examples where you've completely missed the point. I wonder whether this is deliberate, to allow you to criticize a point I make. Or whether you really don't understand what I'm saying. Or perhaps I'm just not a good communicator.

There have been tests of altered ERVs in attempts to cure congenital diseases. Why would you say that this was "to suit your preconceptions"? No one did this to demonstrate evolution. They were attempting to cure disease. And "I" didn't do it in my lab coat. I'm not a scientist. Merely an interested conservative attempting to thwart a looming political disaster because a great many conservatives have been misled on evolution and conservative issues will pay the price for no good cause.

Conservatives might perhaps gain something in this debate, IF they could win it in the end. But unfortunatly they won't, simply because they're wrong in their facts. When the debate is fully joined in the public arena, conservatives will lose.

Previous post: The scientific method to do this would be to make a prediction of what a designed thing should look like. [...] no one has been able to even scratch this knotty problem.

Response: True. This is why your assertion that the purported ERV signatures in the fossil DNA are random is without scientific basis.

ERV DNA has a signature. We know what this signature is and can recognize it when we see it. We know that ERVs insert themselves in basically random places, which increases the confidence that the matching patterns we see in primate and human DNA come from ancient infections.

An argument has been made that if such infections seek out specific places to insert themselves, then they could have been different infections. But it has been demonstrated that these infections do occur all over the genome, although there are "hot spots" where they occur slightly more frequently. But in the end, the fact that the patterns of their placement match exactly, and the ratio of which species have ERV insertions that do not match vs. those that do, is proportional to the time since the species branch from each other, is confirmation both of the random nature of the insertions, and of common ancestry that created the matching patterns.

109 posted on 09/01/2005 12:12:58 PM PDT by narby (There are Bloggers, and then there are Freepers.)
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To: narby

I referred to "you" in a lab coat to signify a scientist. You also refer to scientists as "we" in your posts. I surely have no way of knowing what is your personal connection to science. I meant not personal offense. If you are not a scientist, good. Keep it that way.

Regarding the ERV, if your description is accurate, I see how it would be a proof of descent form apes to humans. My misunderstanding was that the signature sequence itself was random, not its placement.

This is then, I admit, the first serious attempt at proving -- rather than corroborating -- evolution between primates. Not being a natural scientist myself, I'll just have to wait if it stands.


110 posted on 09/01/2005 1:09:19 PM PDT by annalex
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To: annalex
This is then, I admit, the first serious attempt at proving -- rather than corroborating -- evolution between primates. Not being a natural scientist myself, I'll just have to wait if it stands.

The serious evos would say that "theories are never proven, they can only be disproven".

I tend to think that like in a trial, you can "prove" something beyond all reasonable doubt. But I don't think you can ever prove anything beyond all doubt. I'll leave it to the philosophers to debate that one.

Thank you for a very good discussion.

111 posted on 09/01/2005 1:38:09 PM PDT by narby (There are Bloggers, and then there are Freepers.)
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To: narby

And thank you.


112 posted on 09/01/2005 1:56:38 PM PDT by annalex
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To: annalex; narby
I agree that it is compatible, but it is innatural theologically and harmful pastorally.

Why?

Theologically, God is the author of life, period. Whether or not He used tools of creation, like a human author uses a pen, is not a domain of theology.

I agree, that's what I've been arguing all along.

If it's not the domain of theology, how can it be pastorally harmful or theologically "innatural" (whatever that measns)?

We do not recast the flood story in terms of the mechanism of the flood (rain, hurricane, government neglect of the levies), because what is important is that God sent a flood.

Yes, and further, it's not important whether it was global or local, or whether Noah is a literal person or a symbol for a larger group of persons who had faith and whom God saved from the delluge.

Polygenism, of course, presents severe logical problems for a theologian. Do the Eves make the fateful decision to trust the snake by committee? Independently?

Well, we know primitive, tribal huaman communities make a lot of decisions collectively. Genetic evidence suggests that the human species emerged in a very small population of maybe a few hundred individuals. It is certainly plausible that they were all of one tribe, and all the women in the group collectively succumbed to the temptation of the devil.

Alternatively, it may be that there was biological polygenism, but spiritual monogenism. That is, God chose the two most advanced individuals from a group of proto-humans and ensouled them. These were Adam and Eve, the first true humans.

After the Fall, their children interbred with non-ensouled proto-humans. Individuals descended from the first ensouled couple had some sort of selective advantage, so after a few generations, the entire hominid population was descended from them.

The Church should simply ignore all scientific speculation, and it should discourage all scientific work in the interest of evil.

Agreed, but the Church cannot ignore well-established scientific facts, like evolution. Truth cannot contradict truth. In a few years, the same status will be likely be accorded to biological polygenism.

If she contradicts or ignores scientific truth, the Church will discredit the Gospel. Thankfully, She has leared from the Galileo fiasco and refrains from doing such things.

That includes scientific work aiming at contradicting the Faith.

Scientific work does not aim at anything except discovering laws of nature. By definition, this cannot contradict faith.

It should not flex its doctrine in anticipation of a possible scientific revelation in the future, because we know that a true revelation, scientific or not, will be doctrinally sound.

Yes, but true scientific revelation sometimes necessitates reinterpritation of existing doctrine, just like the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton required re-interpretation of existing doctrines about man's place in the universe.

But I agree this should not be done until a scientific theory is well-grounded in empirical data and survives extensive testing, like evolution has.

With polygenism, there is still a ways to go, but it looks very likely that in the near future polygenism will become similarly well-grounded. But we have a ways to go on this matter, so the Church should take her time here, I agree.

113 posted on 09/01/2005 2:31:44 PM PDT by curiosity (.)
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To: stan_sipple
Mitochondrial Eve is only the last common matrilineal common ancestor of all humans living TODAY. That is, she is the last woman to have a direct mother-daughter link to all women alive today. She's not humanity's last common female ancestor.

She is not even a matrilineal ancestor of all humans who ever lived. How do we konw? Well we know she was not the only woman alive during her time, and we know there were women alive before she lived. None of them could have been her descendents. And some of these other women must have left descendents.

The only thing we can say is that she was the only woman of her time who has matrilenial descendents who are still alive today.

114 posted on 09/01/2005 2:41:20 PM PDT by curiosity (.)
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To: curiosity
Correction, the only thing we can say about Mitochondrial Even is that she is the last woman to have a direct matrilineal link to all women alive today.
115 posted on 09/01/2005 2:53:11 PM PDT by curiosity (.)
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To: curiosity

Despite agreeing that the recent ERV studies offer a proof of evolution between primates, I do not think that evolution has reached the status of an established fact. The ERV is the only direct proof, the fossil record is a corroboration that does not prove anything. And the ERV needs to be understood, the experiments repeated independently, etc. -- time needs to pass. In the modern climate, when science is done paid for by governments, and disdains any moral teaching, anything they do is suspect. Unless that climate goes away, or unless a simple, outside-of-laboratory verifiable by all evidence (like for the laws of Newton) is presented for the evolution, it remains a speculation. The church should maintain the basic assumption that the Bible account of Creation as read plainly, and allowing for certain allegory, is the correct view. Theological speculation about evolution as a tool of God is fine, but it should not enter the theological mainstream.

Also, there was no Galileo fiasco. The way science was done under sponsorship of religion is the only way to do science honestly. In fact, I would like to see research into evolution sponsored by the Vatican and done by professing Christians before I am convinced in the evolution hypothesis. This field is too technical, and the benefit an error would bring to Satan is too big to leave it to atheistic government whores responsible for science today.


116 posted on 09/01/2005 2:54:25 PM PDT by annalex
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To: annalex
Despite agreeing that the recent ERV studies offer a proof of evolution between primates, I do not think that evolution has reached the status of an established fact.

Huh? There's proof but it's not established fact? I don't understand.

The ERV is the only direct proof, the fossil record is a corroboration that does not prove anything. And the ERV needs to be understood, the experiments repeated independently, etc. -- time needs to pass.

There's lots of other corroboration besides the fossil record. The existence of vestigal organs, for instance, the fact that speciation has been induced & observed in real time, etc.

In the modern climate, when science is done paid for by governments, and disdains any moral teaching, anything they do is suspect.

Much, if not most of science is NOT paid for by governments. Many scientists are believing Christians, including the head of the Human Genome Project, which came up with the evidence you concede is proof.

Unless that climate goes away, or unless a simple, outside-of-laboratory verifiable by all evidence (like for the laws of Newton) is presented for the evolution, it remains a speculation.

There is: the fossil record, real time observation of speciation, etc.

The church should maintain the basic assumption that the Bible account of Creation as read plainly, and allowing for certain allegory, is the correct view.

She hasn't. The international theoligcal commission, chaired by the present pope, already conceded that the human body almost certainly the product of evolution. See the link I posted in a previous post.

Theological speculation about evolution as a tool of God is fine, but it should not enter the theological mainstream.

It already did, about 30-50 years ago.

Also, there was no Galileo fiasco.

Are you denying history now?

The way science was done under sponsorship of religion is the only way to do science honestly.

Why?

In fact, I would like to see research into evolution sponsored by the Vatican and done by professing Christians before I am convinced in the evolution hypothesis.

It's already been done. Ever heard of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences? There are several evolutionary biologists on the staff.

Many defenders of evolution are believing Catholics. Ever heard of Kenneth Miller?

This field is too technical,

No, it's not. The basic principles and data in evolutionary biology are very simple.

and the benefit an error would bring to Satan is too big to leave it to atheistic government whores responsible for science today.

Where is your evidence that science is dominated by "atheistic whores?" Do you need to be reminded that slander is a sin?

117 posted on 09/01/2005 5:02:04 PM PDT by curiosity (.)
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To: curiosity

The ERV evidence would be proof if it is independently verified. At this point all I can say is that IF it stand up for scrutiny -- which I cannot provide -- then it would be proof of evolution between primates.

The Church should exercise control and leadership over science because the Church is a source of higher truth. Natural science is something secondary and should not be driving theology. For example, the Church correctly sanctioned Galileo because (1) his opinions were not confined to physics and astronomy but veered into theology, where he erred; (2) his purely scientific results were challenged by some of his peers and so the Church rightly demanded a better standard of proof. Very similar, by the way, to what it should be doing vis a vis the evolutionists.

A private scientific effort is, of course preferable because it is less likely to be coopted by the government in its struggle against religion. However, even private research is subject to moral law, and so should not be done without the supervision of the Church.

I realize that my position is entirely countercultural in a technology-obsessed society like ours. Too bad.


118 posted on 09/01/2005 5:13:35 PM PDT by annalex
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