Vatican Official Refutes Intelligent Design

[paultrr]

 

Some people probably think that based on something Einstein said, one is free to quote him in order to promote any kind of religion as if it was important to science. This is of course not true in the slightest. Science does not need religion, and religion needs science even less. How can religious dogma survive if reality turns out to be different?

 

The heart of religion, at least the way it is supposed to be under every religion out there, has nothing to do with dogma. Real religious truth, if there is any real truth it should be able to stand up to the light of discoverybecause discovery is the unfolding of truth which is exactly, to quote one religion's original founder's supposed words, "I am the truth, the way, and the life..." To those of certain oriental religions the same idea about truth has been put as the tau that is known is not the tau that is. This is one reason I have a few times in this forum suggested that Christians out there who attempt to argue everyone into heaven via logically reasoning are really missing the whole point of what religion is supposed to be about. Faith, according to the Bible and almost every other religious book ever written on this planet is something that believes even if there is no proof, no logic, no nothing except a certain knowledge inside of oneself.

 

I too do not see the need to mix religion and science together. In fact, if anything the two are seperate and ment to be seperate. But what I was saying is that for a true believer there does not have to be this great conflect between science and religion that everyone tends to think has to be there. By every religious account out there some great Creator made everything around us. Do any of those current religions exactly spell out the mechanism by which he or she did so? The job of science is to study nature and see what nature itself tells us about life and how we got here. Its the place of belief within each of us to tell us why life has some purpose. For the athiest his or her's belief is that there is no God. For them life itself provides whatever purpose there is. For the believers out there its not the method God used in creation that counts its the reason he or she is here.

[cwes99_03]

Interestingly enough this is the same church that said that there is no possible way that Jesus was born on Dec. 25, that the celebration of christmas is based completely in pagan origin, and that first century christians would never have celebrated such a holiday, yet they insist on carrying out their traditions.

[paultrr]

The basis of evolution is that living things come from earlier and different living things. Every organ and every organism is a modification of something that pre-existed it. The novelty lies in the arrangement of these organisms. But nothing in any of that requires that those pre-existing modifications all had to come from exactly one original single celled organism. You may find it interesting that the genome of an amoeba is much larger that our genone. But there are people out there who subscribe to evolution who actually think we are decended from an amoeba even though it itself is the product of a long line of evolution itself. But inspite of all this it is the same basic building blocks of DNA rearranged differently that give one the amoeba and ourselves. We certainly share genetic building blocks in common. But our source roots show to be vastly different. Push that far enough back into time and you have evidence of two distinct organisms giving rise to two distinct lines. Yet both must have exited at about the same time.

[Stargazer]

Are we talking about life forms that appeared out of the blue all at the same time?

[paultrr]

Are we talking about life forms that appeared out of the blue all at the same time?

 

No, considering some of the first era has little if any evidence preserved out there. But what little evidence there is already shows miltiple forms.

[paultrr]

Are we talking about life forms that appeared out of the blue all at the same time?

No. And I might add that the current news release by Clay rather tends to back up how the humanline may be far older than people tend to think. But this in itself does not eliminate the fact that our line has evolved. The key teaching out of the record we do have is that man is related to the apes via his genetic structure. The key teaching out of all the records out there is life evolves from simplier to more complex. As for that first era with the little evidence we have one is left with taking the evidence we do have and trying to project backwards. At that point there is a lot of room for speculation. Science attempts to bases its speculation or modeling there upon already knowns. From what I can see the ID position tends to base their's upon the assumption there was a Designer or Creator.

 

As for a time period over which it all took place even current science has tended to shift that one a lot simply because we have gaps in our knowledge of the early earth's conditions and exactly under what conditions life first arose.

 

I might make a side note here on that issue of conservation of energy. Conservation of energy simply put implies that energy is neither created or distroyed. The BB model has never implied a violation of that. The energy from which say particles and all the rest stem was vacuum energy. Under the BB model it was already there. Even in the Bible the Darkness was termed chaotic and unformed(original Hebrew word meanings). But the darkness is never said to be absent of energy. The modern quantum vacuum has never been as empty a thing as some tend to view it as. Its full of potential energy that usually tends to all ballance out to about the 120th power. But under conditions of what we term a false vacuum state all that energy is there for the transformation from potential energy into the formation of particle states.

 

The amount of energy in this universe has always remained the same. It is the form that energy is in that evolves with time.

[Stargazer]

No, considering some of the first era has little if any evidence preserved out there. But what little evidence there is already shows miltiple forms.

Is this because fossilisation is rare and especially so with life that early on?

[paultrr]

Is this because fossilisation is rare and especially so with life that early on?

Yes, basically the first era that is assumed by almost everyone to exist was single celled organisms. Even with multicelled organisms with a bit more complexity we do not have a lot of fossle evidence before a certain period of time and the single celled onesleft even less evidence behind unless you bring in the subject of earth's atmosphere into play. With the athosphere while there is some evidence for that period there is no specifics on what cells where around and what any of their DNA actually was. We can try and abstract backwards from what came later. But as mentioned the later stages show life well deversified into many different classes by then which is one reason it is possible from the start life had already diversified a lot to begin with.

[Stargazer]

So what is the reason to believe that common descent is not true in some cases? What are those cases and what is the more likely theory?

[Pyrotex]

Catholics are kinda cooky, their "religion" evolves constantly, one thing that doesn't seem to evolve in it however is the ol' "give us all your money" plea. No offense to any catholics here.

 

All religions evolve. They are cultural phenomena, defined by 'memes' that mutate, merge with other memes and become affected by new non-religious knowledge. The Southern Baptist Church and the Church of Christ have seriously evolved since I was a boy. Back then, either would have reacted to any attempt to derive Christian 'law' from the OT as a blasphemy against the teachings of Paul. Neither was concerned with politics, or who you voted for.

 

Fifty years later -- how things have changed!!!

[paultrr]

All religions evolve. They are cultural phenomena, defined by 'memes' that mutate, merge with other memes and become affected by new non-religious knowledge. The Southern Baptist Church and the Church of Christ have seriously evolved since I was a boy. Back then, either would have reacted to any attempt to derive Christian 'law' from the OT as a blasphemy against the teachings of Paul. Neither was concerned with politics, or who you voted for.

 

Fifty years later -- how things have changed!!!

 

Hell, I can remember very well when the standard evangelical teaching on creation was a literal seven days approach with total denial of any age for the earth beyond say 6000 years (the old Usser calender). At the same time period most major evangelicals found guys like Pat Robertson as weird, and Pentecostalism as an example as nearly a cult.

[paultrr]

So what is the reason to believe that common descent is not true in some cases? What are those cases and what is the more likely theory?

 

The point is we do not know exactly beyond a point just how commonly connected everything is. The earliest lifeforms we have records of show a progression from less complex towards more complex. But we do not know the root of each of these enough to demonstrate they all started with one single lifeform. That's why I stated that if one went by the evidence we have

there could have been multiple lines from nearly the get go. Complexity from simplier stages is supported in the record. Weither all the lines start at one point or multiple points is open to debate.

[goku]

i thought this thread was about the vatican.

[jkellmd]

Hahaha... lol.

 

Catholics have said that the Bible should be taken methaphorically, that's why they don't see a big problem with evolution.

 

Correct. Catholics, as a rule do not "interpret" scripture, and consider the bible to be allegory, not literal history or science. The Vatican was not involved in the Scopes trial, but rather nitpicking, literalist, fundemantalist christians - of the type who demand tithes, clog TV programming, and knock on your door Saturday morning (like our president). A major early proponent of the Big Bang theory was a Vatican doctor of theology. The Jesuits run the best christian education forums in the world, and consider a college degree a requirement to join. Try finding that at Orel Roberts or Bob Jones University. Not to say that the Catholic church is not flawed.

[Southtown]

The pope is the anti-christ.

 

http://www.remnantofgod.org/beastword.htm

[Southtown]

The pope is the anti-christ.

 

http://www.remnantofgod.org/beastword.htm

...the Vatican being the first beast of Revelation.

 

The United States is the second beast of Revelation, making the whole world bow to the first beast.

 

http://homeofmercy.com/discussionboard/index.php?showtopic=1040#entry14450

[jkellmd]

Is the third beast Elvis?