Science, soul and free will

[SirJosephPorter]

I love harry Potter. He makes a whole lot more sense than the Poop.

Cliffy, I have read all the seven Harry Potter books and seen the six movies made so far. I am looking forward to No.s 7 and 8 (they are going to make two movies from the last novel).

I think next one will come out next July, a year from now.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Actions, feelings, perspectives don't determine or change the truth because the truth is unchanging.

Alley, here we come back to the same old question, whose truth is unchanging? Who decides what is the truth? Does the Church decide and the rest of us must accept it, whether we like it or not?

 

[SirJosephPorter]

It is always fascinating to see the mental gymnastics of believers to justify their chosen belief system. It must take about as much practice as physical gymnastics.

That is the problem with any belief system, Cliffy. When you prescribe to a particular belief system, you are bound by the consequences, whether good or bad. Thus if you accept Bible as the word of God, you have to explain the atrocities committed by Christians in the name of God. Same with Islam.

Now, Bible has many pearls of wisdom(’love thy neighbour’, the golden rule etc.), one could take those to heart. One could say that Bible has some great wisdom which is applicable even today.

However, to claim that Bible is the word of God is a bit of stretch.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Give me one verifiable example of where science has shown its (the Church, i assume) 'empirical claims' about reality to be false.

Only one? You're letting me off lightly. I'll give you the two easiest ones: the age of the earth and the global deluge. The official line not very long ago was that the earth is about 6000 years old, and there was, within the tenure of humanity here, once a flood that covered the entire planet. Both claims we now know to be false. Any literal reading of the Bible will give you multiple empirical claims we know to be false.

 

[coldstream]

Only one? You're letting me off lightly. I'll give you the two easiest ones: the age of the earth and the global deluge. The official line not very long ago was that the earth is about 6000 years old, and there was, within the tenure of humanity here, once a flood that covered the entire planet. Both claims we now know to be false. Any literal reading of the Bible will give you multiple empirical claims we know to be false.

Then my second statement - I'm not sure you are well versed in what claims the Church has or has not made - is valid. The Catholic Church has never, since the onset of geological data to the contrary, contended that the earth was 6000 years old.

That figure was developed by an Anglican cleric, who traced back the genealogies to Adam, but they were never acknowledged or accepted by the Holy See. That's because Catholic dogma has always accepted the Creation story in Genesis as allegorical, not literal. The same with the Noah and the Deluge, which developed a moral link between man and the rest of Creation.

The literal 'Creationist' interpretation of Genesis is an axiom of some branches of Protestanism, notably Evangelical Protestanism. But the doctrinal and interpretive differences between the heirs of Luther (Protestants), and the heirs of Peter (Catholics) are profoundly different.

What the Catholic Church has rejected is Darwinism, not necessarily evolution. The former is a hypothesis which stipulates that accidental genetic mutation and natural selection alone are responsible for development of species. The Church states only that it is God, and God's design that is responsible for all Creation.

 

[AnnaG]

The beautification of scientists is popularly practiced and applied even in the face of contrary science itself.
Memories of Plasma
Aug 05, 2009

What do oriental carpets, craters and rilles, ancient mythology, rock art and plasma configurations have to do with each other? Along with others they are all pieces of evidence in a composite picture of catastrophe in ancient times.

/www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm

lol I agree that people idolize scientists. But they are not scientists themselves and don't tend to look at much of anything, including scientists, critically and analytically. Scientists are not gods. And definitely gods and most of their followers are not scientists. There is junk science, there is good science, and there is pseudoscience. You pays your money and takes your chances. Shop around to see what the good stuff is.

 

[AnnaG]

Only one? You're letting me off lightly. I'll give you the two easiest ones: the age of the earth and the global deluge. The official line not very long ago was that the earth is about 6000 years old, and there was, within the tenure of humanity here, once a flood that covered the entire planet. Both claims we now know to be false. Any literal reading of the Bible will give you multiple empirical claims we know to be false.

No doubt we'll be telling him/her the same thing over and over. I told him the same thing last week.

 

[darkbeaver]

But the most guilty of all are scientists, labeled as leaders in their fields, Nobel winners for fiction and falsehoods abound, thick as flies on the corpse of academia.
Good science is not hard to find at all. Cheops the machine screw Petras and maize are examples. Scientists certainly can approach godlike powers and have in many times and places on earth.

 

[darkbeaver]

Only one? You're letting me off lightly. I'll give you the two easiest ones: the age of the earth and the global deluge. The official line not very long ago was that the earth is about 6000 years old, and there was, within the tenure of humanity here, once a flood that covered the entire planet. Both claims we now know to be false. Any literal reading of the Bible will give you multiple empirical claims we know to be false.

The bible dosen't mention six thousand years does it? The flood happened Sinister, have some respect for the brains of your ancestors man, where do you think your own intellect came from, a test tube?

 

[AnnaG]

Then my second statement - I'm not sure you are well versed in what claims the Church has or has not made - is valid. The Catholic Church has never, since the onset of geological data to the contrary, contended that the earth was 6000 years old.

Does the Bible Actually Say How Old the Universe Is?

Biblical Age of the Earth is under 10,000 years old

Fitting the Bible to the Data



"The Bible says God created the universe in six days and indicates the passage of only about 6,000 years since then." - Fitting the Bible to the Data and so on and so on ad infinitum

That figure was developed by an Anglican cleric, who traced back the genealogies to Adam, but they were never acknowledged or accepted by the Holy See. That's because Catholic dogma has always accepted the Creation story in Genesis as allegorical, not literal. The same with the Noah and the Deluge, which developed a moral link between man and the rest of Creation.

What the Church has rejected is Darwinism, not necessarily evolution. The former is a hypothesis which stipulates that accidental genetic mutation and natural selection alone are responsible for development of species. The Church states only that it is God, and God's design that is responsible for all Creation.

And the RCC cannot see the existence of gods as being alleged but rather that their existences are fact.
Some Darwinism has no connection to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. So, you are right in a way.

Darwin's Theory Of Evolution

But, then there is this:

Irreducible Complexity Demystified

As it turns out, evolution is not as simple as even Darwin thought and we have been thinking all these years. Darwin had postulated that complex life descends from simpler forms. Yet it's been shown that there are also lateral movements where traits are paralleled.

Begley: Was Darwin Wrong About Evolution? | Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com

 

[Cliffy]

What the Church has rejected is Darwinism, not necessarily evolution. The former is a hypothesis which stipulates that accidental genetic mutation and natural selection alone are responsible for development of species. The Church states only that it is God, and God's design that is responsible for all Creation.

So god designed creation to evolve to something else. Did he design the amphibians (that preceded the dinosaurs) to be wiped out by a cataclysmic event in order that they be replaced by dinosaurs who were more suited to the changed environmental conditions.Then mammals evolved to suit the new environmental conditions after another cataclysmic event wiped out the dinosaurs. All this was part of god's plan to create humans in the long run. What a convoluted process. God must have been really bored that day to come up with a plan like that.

 

[darkbeaver]

Then my second statement - I'm not sure you are well versed in what claims the Church has or has not made - is valid. The Catholic Church has never, since the onset of geological data to the contrary, contended that the earth was 6000 years old.

That figure was developed by an Anglican cleric, who traced back the genealogies to Adam, but they were never acknowledged or accepted by the Holy See. That's because Catholic dogma has always accepted the Creation story in Genesis as allegorical, not literal. The same with the Noah and the Deluge, which developed a moral link between man and the rest of Creation.

What the Church has rejected is Darwinism, not necessarily evolution. The former is a hypothesis which stipulates that accidental genetic mutation and natural selection alone are responsible for development of species. The Church states only that it is God, and God's design that is responsible for all Creation.

I could almost be a catholic but for the guilt by association thing and the women thing and the celibacy thing and the eighteen hundred years of rape murder and pillage conducted circumglobaly against every people and culture of the earth. It would take faith in institution that I cannot have. While the church may be right about gods creation it may be wrong about god at the same time, in defense of its position it has through its acts demonstrated this over and over and over.

 

[coldstream]

So god designed creation to evolve to something else. Did he design the amphibians (that preceded the dinosaurs) to be wiped out by a cataclysmic event in order that they be replaced by dinosaurs who were more suited to the changed environmental conditions.Then mammals evolved to suit the new environmental conditions after another cataclysmic event wiped out the dinosaurs. All this was part of god's plan to create humans in the long run. What a convoluted process. God must have been really bored that day to come up with a plan like that.

The Church has not accepted many of the cataclysmic postulates of modern science with respect to geological history.. the extinction of the Dinosaurs by meteor impact for instance. It simply does not second guess, or assume to know things that are out of its competencies. What it objects to, cliffy, is scientists making similar assertions that are out of their competencies, of the rejection of any supernatural explanation for Creation.

There are problems with even non-Darwinian evolution. One being the homogeneity of the human species, and its distinctiveness in terms of the gifts of intellect, language, conscience, faith aspiration in relation to other species. Evolution gives no explanation as to how these abstract attributes could have developed, if the only necessity for continuing the species was to get your next meal, and get a mate.

Retrospective DNA analysis indicates the entire human race are the descendants of 2 prototype parents, one man, one woman, about 100 to 150 thousand years ago. How such a unique phenomenon of contemporaneous parents, solely suited to each other and to no other genetic relative, and uniquely able to spawn fertile offspring, 'evolved' is a mystery.

The gaps in evolutionary theory are manifold. No explanation is provided as to how genetic mutation actually occurs or what attributes are necessary to allow procreation within a given genus. So the answer to your question is that the Church has chosen not to postulate on things it does not have definitive answers for. It leaves that type of arrogance up to Modern Science.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Then my second statement - I'm not sure you are well versed in what claims the Church has or has not made - is valid. The Catholic Church has never, since the onset of geological data to the contrary, contended that the earth was 6000 years old.

And what did it claim before the data arrived? It's only a few generations ago that children in the separate school system around here were taught that the biblical tales of creation and Noah were historical. But okay, you want a widely known false claim issued specifically and officially by the Church of Rome: its declaration after the trial of Galileo that heliocentrism is a false doctrine.

 

[AnnaG]

.........

The gaps in evolutionary theory are manifold. No explanation is provided as to how genetic mutation actually occurs or what attributes are necessary to allow procreation within a given genus. So the answer to your question is that the Church has chosen not to postulate on things it does not have definitive answers for. It leaves that type of arrogance up to Modern Science.

Boy is your version of science antiquated or what. I am not a geneticist but I even know how genetic changes occur:

Genetic changes are acquires by environmental interference. For instance, disease can cause it and cells can make mistakes when copying theur DNA before cellular division.

 

[coldstream]

And what did it claim before the data arrived? It's only a few generations ago that children in the separate school system around here were taught that the biblical tales of creation and Noah were historical. But okay, you want a widely known false claim issued specifically and officially by the Church of Rome: its declaration after the trial of Galileo that heliocentrism is a false doctrine.

To be fair Galileo had it wrong too, having the Sun at the centre of the universe. rather than a minor star, in an obscure galaxy, amongst billions of others of the same. But hey, if science were wrong about that, maybe they're wrong about other things as well, like the Big Bang and the expanding entropic universe, superstrings, Darwinism and a lot of other things. Who knows. :smile:

 

[coldstream]

Boy is your version of science antiquated or what. I am not a geneticist but I even know how genetic changes occur:

Genetic changes are acquires by environmental interference. For instance, disease can cause it and cells can make mistakes when copying theur DNA before cellular division.

Well that's only if you accept there is no Supernatural design in the universe. As you are aware, Anna, i don't. And i'm not sure you're right about the mechanics of genetic mutation being fully understood. Seems i read an article some time ago about this being a contentious issue even amongst geneticists.

 

[AnnaG]

To be fair Galileo had it wrong too, having the Sun at the centre of the universe. rather than a minor star, in an obscure galaxy, amongst billions of others of the same.

Yes, there was a small flaw in his work. He was human. However, after discovering the flaw, we did not leap to the idiotic assumption that there were gods that made things. We investigated farther and discovered the correction.

But hey if science were wrong about that, maybe they're wrong about other things as well, like the Big Bang and the expanding entropic universe and Darwinism. Who knows. :smile:

It's quite likely, but more investigation will sort it out. :smile:

 

[AnnaG]

Well that's only if you accept there is no Supernatural design in the universe. As you are aware, Anna, i don't. And i'm not sure you're right about the mechanics of genetic mutation being fully understood. Seems i read an article some time ago about this being a contentious issue even amongst geneticists.

Sorry, I didn't say they were fully understood, I have no way of knowing that. But I do know what I know. Something else I know is that to date there is no evidence to suggest that there are supernatural beings. So the proposition that there are, as far as science goes, is on hold as an unknown, however improbable.

 

[Cliffy]

Science does not claim to have all the answers like religion does. In fact, they are barking up a lot of wrong trees as far as I'm concerned, but they are willing to adjust their thinking when new evidence is presented (although it may take a while for it to be accepted). But religion has killed millions who had the audacity to question their all knowing view of reality. I have never known a scientist who would kill to defend his beliefs.