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Post by redmond on Sept 19, 2008 11:23:46 GMT
It is time we had a thread/comment item (as you can see I am computer illiterate and know little about pasting from original comments or adding faces etc.) on the evolution question. To start us off I shall tell a story. In the Irish Catholic of 11/9/08 there appeared an article by Professor Reville that I considered - well I better not say in keeping with the spirit of this forum so I will rephrase it, that I disagreed with. I immediately wrote a reply that was published but edited to render the letter worthless. Accordingly, I will put it up here and await comment:
Dear Editor, As an active young-earth Catholic creationist, I should like to support the named Mr Drew and comment on Professor Reville's article (IC 11/9/08). Creationists do not deny the ability of flora and fauna to adopt WITHIN KINDS to survive changing conditions. Darwin did indeed advance this fact of nature enormously. I note however that Prof. Reville presents this safety valve inserted by God into the genetic makeup of creatures as EVOLUTION, i.e., the theory that life generated from a single cell and evolved into one kind of creature into another (a fish into a cat). This is dishonest trickery and beneath an academic of his stature. There is more trickery when he states that the Second Law of Thermodynamics provides an upward energy supply if one counts the input of energy from the sun. What he did not mention is that the sun's energy will accelerate the decline of matter unless there is present in living creatures photosynthesis, the ability of creatures to utilise the energy in an upward direction. This is not mentioned because this process is so complicated only a fool would believe it just happened in their theory of evolution. When Dr Reville gets on to the fossil record, I note that to substitute for the billions of transitionally fossils that should be in the rocks he can only mention one, Orchestras, almost certainly a hoax, just like the dozens of other hoaxes they used to support their evolutionary theory. Books have been written on this subject the funniest being the knee cap of an elephant that was passed off as a hominid skull. Dr Reville is however soon going to have his work cut out trashing a new film out in America exposing the Evolutionist stranglehold on science and how they achieve it by dismissing skeptic academics from their jobs and their support grants. The film is Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Now I have no problem with Godless science inventing what they want or need for a complete theory, but I do object when such theories that are severely rejected by some are applied to Catholic theology. I cringe at the thought of another article teaching Catholics a new theory of Original Sin, the doctrine that resulted in God becoming man and giving us a Church to save us from its effects.
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Post by redmond on Sept 19, 2008 11:28:48 GMT
Sorry readers, 'Orchestras' should of course have read Archaeopteryx, you know, the fossil lizard with the fossalised wings attached with man made cement.
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Post by Michael O'Donovan on Sept 19, 2008 15:43:09 GMT
Thanks for starting this thread. It could be very interesting. Could you help us by giving a definition of Creationism? I understand that it is not the same as the fundamentalist belief in Genesis as a literal record, and that it is not inherently irreconcilable with the theory of evolution. Am I right?
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Post by redmond on Sept 19, 2008 19:05:46 GMT
Michael, For 40 years I was an evolutionist like everyone else 'educated' in my generation. Then I met am American Catholic who campaigned against the 'ideology', for that is what it is. He gave me some books to read on the subject and it took me five minutes to realise I was the victim of a gigantic fraud. That was twenty years ago and since then I have been on a journey out of 'modernism' back into 'tradition.' It began with an intense study of every aspect of the 'theory' in relation to science. I then researched how 'theistic-evolution' came about and this led me back to 1543 and Copernicus's theory of heliocentricism. This theory led the way to an assault on the traditional scholastic belief of the Church until 1741 and 1820 when Rome capitulated to scientific theory disguised as scientific reality. After that Modernism accellerated until no literal interpretation of the Fathers was left intact. This assault - rightly named NEO-scholasticism, threw every doctrine of the Church into chaos until most of them lost credibility even among the elect. Everyone now has a different version of dogmas like Original Sin as can be demonstrated by Dr Reville who intends giving us another one in next weeks Irish Catholic. My Catholicism was framed with the Penny Catechism. Twenty years of study now and I am now back to a literal reading of Genesis where the Fathers read it so, -and that includes a geocentric reading as was defined and declared as Catholic doctrine in 1633. My research and thinking on the matter is that Catholicism in all its aspects follows perfectly only from such a position. Any other scenario, be it heliocentricism or evolutionism, results in problems for the Catholic faith and all its claims. I have now satisfied myself that Catholicism is a perfect faith and complies with the four means of knowledge, reasoning from the senses, reasoning from true science. reasoning as in Philosophy, but all under the auspices of Theology. So Michael I am one very rare Catholic: a geocentricist who believes in a 6,000 year-old earth and that everything was created by God in six days ACCORDING TO ITS KIND. I of course can now defend my position in four ways as described above. I am well used to the rants and empty rhetoric of the anti-geocentrics and evolutionists and am glad you allowed the one above for it demonstrates one of my points, they are all bluff relying on the universal consensus to back them up. Hope this is sufficient for the moment Michael. Needless to say the debate will open up.
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Post by redmond on Sept 19, 2008 19:10:49 GMT
Sorry again Michael, I have mixed up my two threads. The skeptic i refer to was on the other thread on the Pope's wearing of fur. There are similarities with both subjects. They both draw out the same kind of replies, as we will see in a few days.
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Post by Noelfitz on Sept 22, 2008 3:32:36 GMT
Redmond,
In other Catholic forums debates about evolution go on and on. Neither side is convinced by or can convince the other.
However evolution is generally accepted. Ad hominem arguments are not helpful. Prof Reville is a reputable scientist and few scientists would disagree fundamentally with him.
I reject your views, however I do admit the topic does cause debate.
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Post by redmond on Sept 22, 2008 10:48:05 GMT
Good point Noelfitz about the endless debate about evolution for I too gave up on it many years ago. Perhaps the wisest man I know refuses to talk about it because he says it is the most absurd theory invented by man, an insult to human intelligence.The trouble with evolutionists is that you never get a direct answer just a repitition of the tantra that goes with the farce. 'However evolution is generally accepted. Ad hominem arguments are not helpful. Prof Reville is a reputable scientist and few scientists would disagree fundamentally with him.' See what I mean Noelfitz. Even if I asked Dr Reville how the first blob of cells secured its food as it was evolving a digestive system, all I would get is a non answer. I could go on but you should get my drift. My objection is when Catholics apply an absurd idea to Catholic theology. Absurdities beget absurdities and to go theistic-evolutionist is to subject Catholic theology to the same rot. The trouble here of course is that Catholics no longer know their theology and are not aware that all the attributes to God as Creator are eliminated by evolutionary thought. For example: God created all whole and complete according to their nature at the beginning of time. Evolution has nature doing the creating which is anti-Catholic. Now there are 40 theses along these lines showing the absurdity of evolution has now rendered 40 points of theology redundant. The greatest effect of all is the damage evolutionary thought has done to the theology of Original Sin. This dogma is crucial to the whole of Catholic belief for it explains EVERYTHING without any absurdities. Now try to get a coherent dogma out of monkeys becoming Adam and Eve and you find our first parents could have gone into the jungle and killed and eaten their parents for food with the blessing of God. That is now a joke against Catholicism, one evolutionists have to believe. Again I could go on and on but Catholics today do not give a damn about the theology built up throughout the ages. What matters now is that they are seen by academia to be educated and compliant to a consensus that not only accommodates the atheistic view but also a theistic view. And that is why so many theists see the absurdity of theistic evolutionism and jettison their belief for little or no belief.
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Post by Noelfitz on Sept 22, 2008 16:09:41 GMT
Redmomd
You wrote:
"Catholics today do not give a damn about the theology built up throughout the ages".
If this is so it is a pity. I am afraid I am no theologian, however when I want to find out what the Church has taught throughout history I refer to Ott. The Church was not founded in the mid 60s.
You post opens up many fundamental problems. Let's hope we will be able to discuss some of them in this forum.
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Post by redmond on Sept 22, 2008 17:36:07 GMT
Hopefully Noelfitz. I commend you on your choice of theology book, I too use it as a reference. However, if you look up the doctrines on creation you will see evolution has already infiltrated Ott's thinking. Nearly all 'great' theologians after him were and are Moderinists and unfortunately I have to include John Paul II and Benedict XIV. Both have written extensively trying to marry Catholicism and evolutionism and a rubbish theology resulted.
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Post by redmond on Sept 23, 2008 10:38:12 GMT
Wow Inedifix, now there is a novel interpretation of the evolutionary theory. Are you serious when you say no biologist ever dais that a cell became a fish that became a mammal that became a man, or to put it in other words a fish became a cat. I suggest when the theory is put out as it is, a fish becoming a cat, evolutionists cringe at the absurdity of it and run for cover. The second point you make vindicates what I said earlier, you never get a straight proper scientific answer [what would follow would be a genuine though complex explanation, and can be found in most good books on evolution]. What I want to read or hear is one of those 'what would follows'. Of course the question of how "the first blob of cells secured its food as it was evolving a digestive system" is a real question. The reason why you say it is not and why you say a real biologist would give a 'genuine though complex explanation' is because there is no possible scientific possibility of an answer. Now about the man from monkeys that no biologist has ever suggested. This remark is so wide of the truth that I am loath to get into it. Do you not remember when one of the original evolutionist, either Darwin or Wilberforce was asked in 1870: 'Are the monkeys on your fathers side or your mother's side. Moreover, if this is correct Inedifix, are you telling all that the conflict over the origin of Adam and Eve has been a figment of human imagination for well over a century?
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Post by Noelfitz on Sept 24, 2008 9:39:05 GMT
Inedifix,
one does not need to be an atheist to support evolution.
Redmond,
Congratulations on your letter to the Editor in the Irish Times recently.
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Post by redmond on Sept 24, 2008 11:20:23 GMT
First Inedifix, boy this name intrigues me, how did you come to use it?
thanks for that exchange and hopefully others will be able to assess which side of the debate has the most credibility. We could go on no doubt, but here I am trying to remain within the parameters of science while you and Dawkins operate in an area of 'we wern't there or some day we will know how it happened, - when we are all dead of course and we will all be certain of the truth by then, or in your case -you hope, there will be nothing. Dawkins faith, and yours it seems, although you think you have no 'faith', in evolution, which two centuries of scientific investigation and experiment has not found the 'missing links' - (well if they were found they wouldn't be called 'missing links' would they, probably 'links' - has failed to create life or show how one KIND becomes a different KIND , would make you guys SAINTS if it were the Catholic faith, Yes, such a faith puts peoples' faith in God in second place.
Anyway, just to complete this part of the debate let me work through the semantics you evolutionists rely on. Let me rephrase my fish to cats scenario. I was of course using a short cut to emphasise the transition from one kind to another evolutionists hold. So according to you above it should have been a bacteria to a fish and a bacteria (possibly the same one) to a cat, yes? Well now, that does make a difference.
Let us now go back to the cell. Have you ever seen a breakdown of a cell? It is more complicated than a city's traffic-lights. It is 'alive'. Where did life come from? You know evolutionists have been doing everything to dead matter to stimulate life into it for a hundred years, but with no luck. Now I go by the scientific method in this exchange but you do not, you have a faith that believes it happened without a shread of empirical proof or evidence. Thus you evolutionism is based on faith while my anti-wvolutionism is based on known science. Telling everyone that it will be discovered some day is just more of that faith.
One of my pet arguments is that in the eco system today, everything depends on everything else. Remove one link and it all falls doen. If alkl the bees on earth disappeared, how long would life last? So, did bees evolve before or after flora?
Oh the Chicken and egg question. The only answer is TWO chickens, a male and a female because an egg, to be useful, has to be fertilised. How can you get a fertilised egg before the chickens?
Finally the men from monkeys. Really I have no problem with you believing both evolved from bacteria, but my original point is that the Catholic faith should not be compromised trying to concord it with such repugnant (to this faith) theories. Now I do not care if I have to mention the names of 'pseudo-intellectual' popes to force home how I feel about this compromise.
Noelfitz, thanks for the congratulations. Since that woman became editor of the Irish Times she has published only ONE of my 101 letters on many subjects. I am surprised one more slipped through. That is why forums such as this one are priceless, censorship eliminated.
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Post by redmond on Sept 26, 2008 22:29:41 GMT
I have just read the above inedifix after accusing you of being a fixed atheistic mind on your Atheist thread. I'm a bit tired now so will give your points above a reply they deserve, but as your man said at the end of one of the greatest movies ever - GLADIATOR, 'But not yet.' Be in touch soon
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Post by cpm on Sept 27, 2008 21:56:12 GMT
May I remind you ALL of the forum rules, and of christian kindness and charity
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Post by redmond on Sept 29, 2008 16:07:11 GMT
Hi las, just a quicky as I have to make dinner. Inedifix, don't tell me you were offended by my saying to are 'dead mentally'. Why did you nat ask me what I meant by this. What I meant was that anyone who has only one single sourse for knowledge is dead mentally. The reason for this is because it can never consider subjects like geocentricism and evolutionism objectively. You cannot move from your set position imposed on you by people called scientists. Now a mind that cannot move is a 'dead' one. But in my case I had a second sourse of knowledge, revelation. It told me that direct immediate creation was the truth. So I then began to look at the question from BOTH points of view. Where I found FACTS I found they cocorded with the creation account but Would need an almighty stretch of IMAGINATION to fit the evolutionary scenario. For example a study of KNOWN genetics showed one KIND cannot become or cross over completelt to another Kind. Evolution depended on this so I could rule it out. My final conclusion is that evolution is scientifically impossible. But unlike you I had another choice, creation. My mind then is alive because I have something else to give it work to do, you are stuck in tour one track mind, thus the 'dead' description.
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