Posted on 05/28/2008 10:38:31 AM PDT by Keli Kilohana
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While apes evolved naturally into pre-human creatures, it was the will and desire of God that turned them into humans, an article in the Vatican newspaper said.
"The formation of human beings necessitated a particular contribution by God, though it remains that their emergence was brought about by natural causes" of evolution, it said.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnews.com ...
If Americans came from Europeans, why are there still Europeans?
Agree.
I even received a veiled death threat once, okay, they just said that they hoped my grandchildren were raped and killed so I would know how awful illegal aliens were. That was after I said that I would feed a starving illegal. I never said I was for illegals or anything.
There are plenty of sources out there that refute the bilge taught in evo classes, but if we can't have a conversation, then it has become your religion, not education. Just one question could destroy you religion. Explain how fossils found in one layer of rock that ranges from "500 billion" years ago can be found in the same rock that "250 million" year fossils, all the way to human fossils in the same layer of rock, at the same level, in the same place? How can granite that is supposed to be 350 million years old have trace elements embedded in them that can be measured that have a half life of microseconds? The only way that happens is if the granite cooled instantly. How can you explain the exponential degradation of the magnetic field over millions of years when you couldn't support ANY form of life with the magnetic field strength 10k years ago?
There are literally thousands of questions that evolution can't answer. Even mathematically it proves to be impossible to explain evolution. I've looked at the evidence and am not worried about my faith.
Atheists and Theists can look at the evolutionary evidence and come to exact opposite conclusions about “origins”.
The problem arises that atheists/secular humanists INSIST on teaching only their worldview, and use evolution as “evidence” that their worldview is “correct”, and use government to enforce the exclusivity of teaching their worldview in the classroom.
Back in the Scopes trial, the evoatheists were calling for “equal treatment” of their worldview with the Creator/Creation worldview. Ever “consistent”, when they got in, they insisted that no other worldview be taught.
Evos - fine, teach “change over time” and the DNA evidence, but leave your atheistic worldview conclusions in the theology department where they should be discussed.
I wouldn't be so quick to rule it out...
How a Catholic priest gave us the Big Bang Theory
Evangelicals should follow Catholic example on evolution
What about the aliens?
Not Latin Americans, but ET...
I wonder how much of this story is correctly reported. When I was in HS, my Junior Class religion reacher was a priest who told us we were allowed, as Catholics, to believe or not to believe in evolution.
What was necessary as a Catholic was to believe that God created human beings in His image, and that He infused into human beings an immortal soul, thus raising humanity to be above all other creatures. He eventually made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants; and later sent His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ to teach us, to die for us, and to open up the gates of paradise for those who believed and who followed Him.
What I am saying is that epistemologically the two questions are unrelated and should not be conflated.
If it is incorrect for someone to believe that evolution is valid, it doesn't necessarily follow that the person who makes that supposed error will go on to make the error of assuming there was no Virgin Birth.
If anything, Catholics are criticized for making too much of Mary rather than in danger of belittling anything related to her, e.g. the Virgin Birth of Jesus.
How do you know that there was a Virgin Birth? What is the authority for that belief? The Word of God? What is the authority for transubstantiation in the Mass?
And that limited ability is still on display to this very day!
Where did Americans come from?
Europe?
“Where did Americans come from?”
“Europe?”
So why are there still Europeans?
To flippantly say God is a liar is a pretty important thing. If you have ever heard the term "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge", what God is saying is that it is important to believe what He says. If you don't know the customs and Laws of the Jews, you are missing the guts of what God is revealing to His people. He has told us even the DAY He is coming back, but no one seems to know it and even cares to know it. A 6 day Creation is absolutely necessary to understand what God is telling us about prophesy.
To simply allow atheists to tell you what you have to believe as a Christian is just wrong! If you believe it, you must examine your own salvation to see if you have 2 masters. When Peter was told to get out of the boat, he showed where his faith was placed. If Jesus asks us to act in faith, we say, "An atheist says thats impossible." We miss God completely. Fence sitters and lukewarmers are going to have their place with the NON BELIEVERS! Halfway believing isn't going to cut it with God. It's easy to say "I'm a Christian" and never show even the smallest faith. If your spouse said they loved you, yet called you a liar every time you opened your mouth, how would you feel about their "love"? Can you face Jesus and say, "Well you can't expect me to believe EVERY word you say, can you?"
You seem fixated on the Virgin Birth. How can you choose to believe that, but reject Noah's Flood? Sodom's destruction? Six Day Creation? Which do you choose to believe and which do you reject? The Muslims say Jesus wasn't killed and didn't rise from the grave. They DO believe in Six day creation and the Flood. Are they saved people?
I've been mixed up in evo threads before and try to avoid them because it does no good. No one is going to change their minds because someone on FR said something. It always spirals down into Thermodynamics and my scientist is better than your scientist. No one can explain where the matter came from for the Big Bang. No one can explain the math doesn't work, and no one can explain what our purpose in life is if there is no God. Right this minute there is a lander on Mars that has NO purpose other than to prove God is unnecessary for life to form. A Christian can only ride the fence so long then they become an atheist.
How does the Mississippi River start flowing backwards?
Don't give up. I for one am reading this with great interest.
Why do we still have zebras?
I do not believe it was my "choice"; notice that chuckles said after he was born-again (i.e. regenerated) he believed.
The truth revealed in Scripture is that we are born spiritually dead, really dead stinking corpses Rom 3:23, Eph 2:1b, and, as such, can only come to faith if God justifies us while we were yet ungodly/dead Rom 5:10a through the blood of His Incarnate Son Jesus; quickens us Eph 2:1a; implants faith Eph 2:8 resulting in repentance of sin & faith in His righteousness being imputed to us 2 Cor 5:21; sanctifies us so that we can say with Paul Gal 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” ; and ultimately glorifies us with the end that we shall see Jesus by sight,& be found in character in his likeness. All to the glory of the Triune God
All of which is the result of God of His free will choosing us resulting in our regeneration/rebirth by the power of the Holy Spirit; we are reborn/regenerated not by the will of man but by the will of God. John 1:13
That was your choice. Nothing in Scripture demands that you take every word literally.
I disagree since I hold by hypothesis that that the Scripture is the true word (Word) of God. You apparently holding to a mix of truth & error/myth/??.
You also run the risk that your faith could be totally shattered with the revelation of an undeniable scientific discovery which God blesses us with from time to time.
A meaningless self-contradictory statement. But without restating it to make sense, I will agree with you as to my faith, the keyword being my. Saving faith is not whatever faith we are born with it is the faith we are reborn with, a super natural faith, Eph 2:8-9.
Personally, I see literalists as knowing all the words but never quite understanding the message.
I claim that the primary message of Scripture is summarized quite well by the above comment to your That was your choice
As to Creation, I have no desire to tell God how He should have done it. I'm simply content to know that He did... how He did it is immaterial as far as my faith is concerned.
By stating such verses from Scripture as Let there be light, ..., and the evening & the morning were the fourth day we literalists are not telling God how he should have done it but God is telling man as much as he would have us know. On the other hand, it is clear from your references to science that you are quite willing to let us literalists know that he did not do it in 7 days or 10,000 years ago or whatever conclusions can/should be drawn from Scripture.
Your pejorative use of literalists should stop short of us claiming God has wings because he spreads his wings over us in love; we do not claim God is a chicken or some such bird. However please charge us with such things as holding to virgin birth, truly God & truly man, raised bodily from the literally dead, ascending in body literally to heaven, literally being the sole mediator between God & man, and literally returning to judge the quick & the dead. All of which have already been called foolish by, denied by, laughed at by scientists; not only those of this age but from the time the first bite was removed from the apple.
But praise be to God!!: even those, who today, this minute, call all this foolish can yet be changed even in the twinkling of an eye because they may have been chosen from before the foundation of the world & yet not have reached the time when God will quicken.
For salvation is of the Lord & none other.
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