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Thread: The Vatican and Darwin

  1. #51
    TRiG
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    Quote Originally Posted by disciple View Post
    "The lowly appendix, long-regarded as a useless evolutionary artifact, won newfound respect two years ago when researchers at Duke University Medical Center proposed that it actually serves a critical function. The appendix, they said, is a safe haven where good bacteria could hang out until they were needed to repopulate the gut after a nasty case of diarrhea, for example….'Maybe it's time to correct the textbooks,' says William Parker, Ph.D., ***istant professor of surgical sciences at Duke and the senior author of the study." ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2009)
    Hmm. Try reading it in context. The appendix is a vestigial organ.

    TRiG.

  2. #52
    TRiG
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    Quote Originally Posted by disciple View Post
    They discovered that God made it for a reason.
    They discovered nothing of the sort. You're making stuff up again. Stop doing that.

    TRiG.

  3. #53
    Senior Member disciple's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TRiG View Post
    They discovered nothing of the sort. You're making stuff up again. Stop doing that.

    TRiG.
    Making stuff up, you mean like men evolved from apes?

  4. #54
    asdf
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    Quote Originally Posted by disciple View Post
    For years we have heard the argument that the appendix was positive proof for Darwinian evolution, and that those who didn’t accept the evidence were unscientific.

    Suddenly it goes from being a useless evolutionary leftover to being something that "serves a critical function." They discovered that God made it for a reason, and all we get is "maybe it’s time to correct the textbooks." Maybe? Of course it won’t be.
    I'm sorry disciple, but you're quite mistaken. ***uming for the sake of argument that the appendix research is legit (and TRiG's article does cast some doubt on it, at least insofar as it's being presented), scientists will accept it. Overriding previous conceptions based on new evidence is something that scientists absolutely love! There's no immortalizing or setting in stone the works and conceptions of scientists of the past - the evidence stands or falls on its own.

    Here's one example from the article TRiG cited:
    Charles Darwin was wrong about many things — I'll even give an example at the end of this article — and it's part of the nature of science that everyone's work will be revised and refined over time, and some of us will even be shown to be completely wrong.
    If the evidence is there, the textbooks will indeed be corrected. It happens all the time.

  5. #55
    NoneOfTheAbove
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    Quote Originally Posted by disciple View Post
    Greetings Nota,
    You said,

    I won't try to address the question you are posing for asdf, except to ask you a related question.

    Are grace and redemption just promises, or are they things we can actually experience as a result of living morally and ethically, "in Christ" as a Christian might say?

    What is grace? Grace is Gods unmerited and undeserved favor, it is not a result of anything except His love and mercy towards us. Grace is not getting what we deserve and getting what we don't deserve. Ephesians 2 tells us that by grace we have been saved through faith and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God not of works.
    I should have worded it better, but still you answered below:

    So living "in Christ" is the result of grace and redemption.
    .
    By which I understand that you see "Grace" as something experienced by the living.
    There are people who live what we would deem moral and ethical lives but are not in Christ, which is because we only see the outside but God sees the heart.
    No doubt some people do the right things for the wrong reasons. One reason I try not to overly indulge in judging people. I hear a lot of people, including Christians, say things like "by their actions they will be judged", and the oft repeated cliche about that with which the road to Hell is paved. Those things being considered, it does indeed require Grace to keep the heart in the right place and have the right actions follow from it. It's not automatic. At least that's my take ($.02).

    Thanks for that, Disciple.

  6. #56
    NoneOfTheAbove
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    Quote Originally Posted by asdf View Post
    I'm sorry disciple, but you're quite mistaken. ***uming for the sake of argument that the appendix research is legit (and TRiG's article does cast some doubt on it, at least insofar as it's being presented), scientists will accept it. Overriding previous conceptions based on new evidence is something that scientists absolutely love! There's no immortalizing or setting in stone the works and conceptions of scientists of the past - the evidence stands or falls on its own.

    Here's one example from the article TRiG cited:
    Charles Darwin was wrong about many things — I'll even give an example at the end of this article — and it's part of the nature of science that everyone's work will be revised and refined over time, and some of us will even be shown to be completely wrong.
    If the evidence is there, the textbooks will indeed be corrected. It happens all the time.
    I would add that for an organ to be considered vestigial, it is not required to have no function - only that it's current function is not the one it first served. The appendix still qualifies.

  7. #57
    TRiG
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    Quote Originally Posted by disciple View Post
    Making stuff up, you mean like men evolved from apes?
    Making stuff up, like the idea that this paper in any way casts doubt on evolution. It doesn't.

    TRiG.

  8. #58
    NoneOfTheAbove
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    Quote Originally Posted by TRiG View Post
    Making stuff up, like the idea that this paper in any way casts doubt on evolution. It doesn't.

    TRiG.
    You're right, but I think D believes otherwise - or did when he wrote that.

  9. #59
    asdf
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    Quote Originally Posted by disciple View Post
    If you and I believe God really is who He revealed Himself to be in the Bible, then your question is answered. Our God could not be deceptive in anything, that is why I believe the creation account in Genesis to be correct.
    I agree that the God I know, love and worship is not and cannot be deceptive. That is why I believe that God's creation itself can be trusted, and that humans can make meaningful observations thereof.

    I've started writing a longer reply to this concept, but I believe it probably should go in its own thread. Look for it soon.

    God desires His followers to walk by faith not by sight for what appears to be "evidence", especially if conceived in the hearts and minds of men, can lead to deception.
    As I said before, faith is belief without evidence, not self-deception in the face of contrary evidence.

    So is God against science? Absolutely not, since He ins***uted all the laws that men take so much joy in discovering and investigating.
    I agree

    Does He condemn the one who says,"I have a hard time believing what is in the Bible"? No, He welcomes questions and searchers and says in the scriptures, "Come let us reason together" about sin or grace or redemption or the theory of evolution. Jesus said, "whoever comes to me I will never turn away", that includes those who believe all the Bible is true as well as those who struggle with belief.
    I appreciate you saying that - I think it's a major problem that some sectors of the church seem to be pushing out those who attempt to reconcile science with their faith. I'm happy that you can see the bigger picture for those to whom intellectual honesty requires them to accept scientific opinion even if it conflicts with a certain interpretation of the scriptures.

    Those who refuse to believe or reason with God are in a different catagory since they are putting all their trust in themselves or other men.
    It really comes down to this, God is trustworthy or He is not, I believe He is.
    I think I understand what you're saying. It's like Moses, or ***, or David - lamenting about God's seeming cruelty and indifference in the face of grave injustice, arguing with God, etc. - what's striking to me about these p***ages is that God is not threatened by such challenges. God does not smite them for daring to question [him]. (Quite the opposite, in fact, in many cases.)

    If I have to choose between what God says by faith alone or what man says even with what seems to be reasonable evidence, I will choose God.
    I understand that. But with the Bible, we're always dealing with an interpretation that necessarily chooses to take some p***ages more "literally" than others.

    If I can trust Him with my eternal life I can trust whatever He says. Of course this does not make me better than anyone else or put me in a position to judge but it sure gives me joy and peace. Thanks.
    Blessings

  10. #60
    sunofmysoul
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    Quote Originally Posted by asdf View Post
    Ooh, how fun:
    Richard Dawkins's new book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, is out on September 10, and The Times is serialising it this week. The first extract appeared today.
    (via)
    Here's a couple juicy quotes:
    Imagine that, as a teacher of European history, you are continually faced with belligerent demands to “teach the controversy”, and to give “equal time” to the “alternative theory” that the Holocaust never happened but was invented by a bunch of Zionist fabricators.

    ---

    The Greatest Show on Earth is a book about the positive evidence that evolution is a fact. It is not intended as an antireligious book. I’ve done that, it’s another T-shirt, this is not the place to wear it again. Bishops and theologians who have attended to the evidence for evolution have given up the struggle against it. Some may do so reluctantly, some, like Richard Harries, enthusiastically, but all except the woefully uninformed are forced to accept the fact of evolution.

    ---

    Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips . . . continue the list as long as desired. That didn’t have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be true, but it is. We know this because a rising flood of evidence supports it. Evolution is a fact, and [my] book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it.

    ---

    In neither case should the word “only” be used, as in “only a theory”. As for the claim that evolution has never been “proved”, proof is a notion that scientists have been intimidated into mistrusting.

    Influential philosophers tell us we can’t prove anything in science.

    Mathematicians can prove things — according to one strict view, they are the only people who can — but the best that scientists can do is fail to disprove things while pointing to how hard they tried. Even the undisputed theory that the Moon is smaller than the Sun cannot, to the satisfaction of a certain kind of philosopher, be proved in the way that, for example, the Pythagorean Theorem can be proved. But m***ive accretions of evidence support it so strongly that to deny it the status of “fact” seems ridiculous to all but pedants. The same is true of evolution.

    ---

    Evolution is an inescapable fact, and we should celebrate its astonishing power, simplicity and beauty. Evolution is within us, around us, between us, and its workings are embedded in the rocks of aeons past. Given that, in most cases, we don’t live long enough to watch evolution happening before our eyes, we shall revisit the metaphor of the detective coming upon the scene of a crime after the event and making inferences. The aids to inference that lead scientists to the fact of evolution are far more numerous, more convincing, more incontrovertible, than any eyewitness reports that have ever been used, in any court of law, in any century, to establish guilt in any crime. Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Reasonable doubt? That is the understatement of all time.
    awesome post asdf...(it IS easy to type isn't it...)

    thanks for this post!

    soms

  11. #61
    TRiG
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    Couldn't resist dropping this link in too: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...s_from_aig.php

    TRiG.
    Last edited by TRiG; 08-30-2009 at 03:10 PM. Reason: Grammar

  12. #62
    asdf
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    Quote Originally Posted by asdf View Post
    I agree that the God I know, love and worship is not and cannot be deceptive. That is why I believe that God's creation itself can be trusted, and that humans can make meaningful observations thereof.

    I've started writing a longer reply to this concept, but I believe it probably should go in its own thread. Look for it soon.
    The Book of Nature

  13. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by pilgrim1411 View Post
    CREATIONISM IS the teaching of the Catholic Church, but it has been forgotten and ignored. The Fathers of the Church were unanimous in teaching creationism, and the Fourth Lateran Council and Vatican I made dogmatic pronouncements on creationism.
    I'm afraid that modern Catholic teaching is not so antagonistic to reality.

  14. #64
    pilgrim1411
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    I submit that the modern Roman "Catholic" ins***ution is in total apostasy, and is controlled by Freemasonry, the Illuminati and/or other dark and creepy secret societies. My opinion.

  15. #65
    asdf
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    Quote Originally Posted by pilgrim1411 View Post
    I submit that the modern Roman "Catholic" ins***ution is in total apostasy, and is controlled by Freemasonry, the Illuminati and/or other dark and creepy secret societies. My opinion.
    Ah. Okay then. Carry on...

  16. #66
    pilgrim1411
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    Historically, the Roman Catholic Church has rejected the theory of evolution. What we see today in the RCC, are signs of modernism and apostasy.

  17. #67
    pilgrim1411
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    Robert Sungenis proves that historically the Roman Catholic Church has been opposed to Evolution.

    http://www.catholicintl.com/index.ph...article/58/576

  18. #68
    alanmolstad
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    Only the church position today is relevant to this conversation....we cant go back in time...we are here....in the NOW....

    Thus only the church position at this time is worth talking about because its the only thing that actually affects people....

  19. #69
    alanmolstad
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    Young Earth creationism is a lie.........

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