Replies

To: Gumlegs; jwalsh07

To be a Catholic, though, one must not of necessity, reject evolution. ....

Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person. --- [from your link]

Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when he beats his car. But I fear it is unlikely that I shall ever reach that level of enlightenment. ---- Dawkins

Gotta reject the evolution Richard Dawkins believes in.

1,051 posted on 10/27/2006 11:40:42 AM PDT by AndrewC

You're confused. We do not believe Richard Dawkins is God.

1,053 posted on 10/27/2006 11:49:00 AM PDT by ahayes (On the internet no one can hear you scream.)

Hi Andrew. I somehow knew you'd find your way to this beauty.

Keep the faith! :-}

1,057 posted on 10/27/2006 12:15:50 PM PDT by jwalsh07

Not all evos think Dawkins is correct. He is like Pat Robertson to a lot of us. He is an opinion and I think, an odious one at that.

1,066 posted on 10/27/2006 12:55:07 PM PDT by satchmodog9 (Most people stand on the tracks and never even hear the train coming)

To: AndrewC; jwalsh07

Gotta reject the evolution Richard Dawkins believes in.

The Pope points out (elsewhere in his document), that there are, more properly theories of evolution. My reading of the Pope's statement is that he accepts speciation, but not the idea that man is indistinguishable from any other animal. Man's having a soul is why he is in the image and likeness of God, and what sets him apart from animals. And that that could not have come about by any natural process.

That would appear to put JPII in the "theistic evolution" camp.

1,100 posted on 10/27/2006 3:29:56 PM PDT by Gumlegs

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