Posted on 11/17/2005 11:33:50 PM PST by nickcarraway
ping
BUMP!
It's more like the other way around. Ever since the Enlightenment - heck, ever since Galileo - the Church has been trying to keep the faith intellectually respectable as new scientific discoveries have kept threatening specific literalist interpretations of the Bible.
Some scientific theories are so well-supported that it would be foolish for the Church to try to deny them in order to save a particular piece of dogma. So they re-interpret the Biblical passage or the dogma instead, thus protecting the faith.
Other sects have chosen to d@mn the science, full speed ahead (to varying degrees). It's a very open marketplace of ideas.
(In the opinion of this former Catholic, long-since atheist.)
If you are an atheist now, you never were a Catholic. IMHO
nope, there is no conflict between theism and Darwin's theory. There is also no conflict with disagreeing either, but the idea that it is one or another is just stupid IMO.
So what? The test for every theory is its explanatory and predictive powers, not its relationship with any theology. So far, Darwinism successfully supported the development of major fields [biology, medicine, biotech industry]. These developments [like genetic manipulation, for example] continue, for Darwinism is working there.
LOL! Well, I was confirmed. So perhaps technically that makes me merely AWOL.
Sorry to hear that. I can understand a disenchantment with the Catholic church but to deny all of Scripture is throwing the cat out with the bath water.
In which opinion, you are in complete agreement with the author of the article. Note that Mr Neumeyr nowhere claims that Darwinism is false. He adduces no evidence whatsoever against it, cites no references that dispute Darwinism, and of course offers no alternative scientific explanation in its place.
The article is complete, 100% mudslinging and slander. It is sad that so many Christian opponents of Darwinism adopt this tactic, because it can only repel people uncertain of their faith. And if they then read Darwin, and experience his own unfailing courtesy and politeness, the contrast is telling.
Darwinism works for evolving animals, but not for a sinful humankind which is becoming stupider. Man does not survive through fit but through politics meant to undermine perceptions of such fitness. Evolution works towards a single limit between man and animals. Animals tend up to it, men tend down to it in convergence. Soddomite bestiality is an interesting metaphore of this phenomena. The error of Bible believers in this debate is that the Bible spends only a few words on creation, and not on mankind's self destruction, one which is valid. Until Darwinists realize that Darwinism is not meant to approve Marx's false ideal of the perfectibility of man, then we're doomed as a race. Only idiots believe in perfectibility of man through natural selection anarchy.
What made you decide there was no God?
Not a very Christian thing for you to say, unprovoked.
Only a small percentage of Creationists aren't idiotic enough to figure out that evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life.
Unfortunately, the author of this piece isn't one of them.
""If you are an atheist now, you never were a Catholic. IMHO"
Not a very Christian thing for you to say, unprovoked.""
I don't agree... I believe there are many who subscribe to belief in God for all kinds of reasons that have nothing at all to do with actual belief or faith.
If one believes something and is presented with proof to the contrary, it may be logical to change one's belief. I don’t think any such proof, one way or the other, can exist for matters of faith.
It's reasonable to assume that if your faith is so weak that you can become convinced that you were always wrong about it, which is what would be required to go from being a Christian to an atheist, then you never had it in the first place.
It's not logical or intellectually honest to say that God touched my heart (which is a prerequisite of being a Catholic or a Christian) when I was young, and now affirm that he never existed in the first place.
Does that clear it up for you?
That’s backwards. One dose not have to disprove something to stop believing in it. One only has to loose faith in the evidence in its favor to no longer be convinced of the belief.
It’s not “reasonable to assume” that because one does not believe now, they never did. People process new information through life that leads them to new conclusions about may things, from relationships to politics, morals and ideology.
But to approach someone who left your ideology out of the blue like that and publicly accuse them of never being a believer is an arrogant and condescending act of disrespect, symptomatic of a defensive and reactionary personality. Not very Christian of you.
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