jeudi 26 avril 2012

Debating again with Patristics Debater

Hans-Georg Lundahl > J. U. :
April 18 at 1:10pm

Evolution: Fact or Belief
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWDZe8ZtneE


J. U. :
after the first two minutes, i think i can see where this is going. life does not come from non-life. but God is alive, and life comes from Him.

if we really knew of what life consisted, this would be clear.
April 19 at 12:53am

Hans-Georg Lundahl:
Well, that resumes the first five or ten minutes - then there are a lot of other subjects (including two dating related)
April 19 at 12:02pm

J. U. :
finished. interesting.
  • 1) this brings doubt upon the conclusions of dating methods.
  • 2) Darwin had none of these dating methods.
  • 3) we still have no theory better than evolution.

April 20 at 12:05am

Hans-Georg Lundahl:
OK, special creation of each species is not better than evolution? How?
April 20 at 11:01am

J. U. :
Are there observed natural processes which cause special creation of species?
Yesterday at 7:59am

J. A. · Friends with J. U. :
When you refer to dating methods not available to Darwin, would that include "speed dating?"
Yesterday at 8:02am

J. U. :
Much of evolution is speed dating.
Yesterday at 9:34am · Likes: 1.

Hans-Georg Lundahl:
"Are there observed natural processes which cause special creation of species?" - No. Obviously not. Why would a Christian require such? Or are you not into "God almighty, creator of heaven and of earth of all things visible and invisible" at all? I thought you were a Catholic. God is not an observed natural process.
20 hours ago

J. U. :
Are you not into "Primum Movens"? We see God's action through nature.
14 hours ago


Hans-Georg Lundahl:
We do. That does not mean that there are infinite in-betweens between our seing and his doing: there are definite points at which he moves immediately the result without any intervening second cause. In time one of them is creation. If Geocentrism is true there is a similar "point" about primum mobile being moved directly by God, even if lower things closer to earth are moved through it. And there are miracles.

And between God and us, the number of secondary causes is always finite (quia infinita pertransire impossibile). You also asked if there were a natural process causing special creation of each species to take place. No, but there is one keeping each kind within its place, it was discovered by Mendel and by Microscopes - it is called chromosome numbers. They do not vary at random as do the genes. Nor are they totally fixed - but the laws of their variations do rule out placental mammals having a common ancestor.

Considering where you studied, you ought to have a better grasp on St Thomas Aquinas than you do! Really!

@J. A. - speed dating is as for radioactive dependent on guesses concerning how much (how much C14 to start, how much lead was there to start, how much Uranium salt has been washed out) and as for sediment dating it is very dependent on how fast, since that varies considerably (which is not the only factor making for several billions of years of error, but one important of them). The video - have you seen it - gives a take on sediments I did not already view, watch it!
2 seconds ago

4 commentaires:

  1. J. U. :

    You can put this on your site: As Catholics, we do not have to take everything in Scripture literally (Augustine, "On Christian Doctrine"). Augustine and Ambrose take the first chapters of Genesis figuratively -- they are intended as moral fables, not scientific history. There is no reason not to believe in evolution where Christian doctrine is concerned.
    15 hours ago

    Hans-Georg Lundahl:

    ‎"Augustine and Ambrose take the first chapters of Genesis figuratively -- they are intended as moral fables, not scientific history" - where do you get that from? "Told after the manner of a myth" - if that would be the relevant phrase - does not at all mean "is a fable told only for morality". What they denied was that the full detail of natural science was intended (we get only a few lines for each major group of creatures) or for that matter historic research weighing source against source: indeed when the only source is one revelation of what happened before man's creation there is very little sense in weighing source against source.

    As for what they did not take literally was attributing a body to God before incarnation.

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  2. "But hasty and careless readers are led astray by many and manifold obscurities and ambiguities, substituting one meaning for another; and in some places they cannot hit upon even a fair interpretation. Some of the expressions are so obscure as to shroud the meaning in the thickest darkness. And I do not doubt that all this was divinely arranged for the purpose of subduing pride by toil, and of preventing a feeling of satiety in the intellect, which generally holds in small esteem what is discovered without difficulty."

    Now, how come no Church Father ever counted the six days among obscurities and ambiguities that could lead astray? Whereas all of them counted bodily attributes expressed about God as such?

    Maybe because believing God to have a body (in his divinity, before incarnation) is heretical whereas believing earth to be quite young (as compared to billions of years, though old enough as compared to the lifespan of men) is not a heresy and has never been counted so.

    "For why is it, I ask, that if any one says that there are holy and just men whose life and conversation the Church of Christ uses as a means of redeeming those who come to it from all kinds of superstitions, and making them through their imitation of good men members of its own body; men who, as good and true servants of God, have come to the baptismal font laying down the burdens of the world, and who rising thence do, through the implanting of the Holy Spirit, yield the fruit of a two-fold love, a love, that is, of God and their neighbor;--how is it, I say, that if a man says this, he does not please his hearer so much as when he draws the same meaning from that passage in Canticles, where it is said of the Church, when it is being praised under the figure of a beautiful woman, 'Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are shorn which came up from the washing, whereof every one bears twins, and none is barren among them?'(1) Does the hearer learn anything more than when he listens to the same thought expressed in the plainest language, without the help of this figure? And yet, I don't know why, I feel greater pleasure in contemplating holy men, when I view them as the teeth of the Church, tearing men away from their errors, and bringing them into the Church's body, with all their harshness softened down, just as if they had been torn off and masticated by the teeth. It is with the greatest pleasure, too, that I recognize them under the figure of sheep that have been shorn, laying down the burthens of the world like fleeces, and coming up from the washing, i.e., from baptism, and all bearing twins, i.e., the twin commandments of love, and none among them barren in that holy fruit"

    How come using six days for several millions of years does not give a similar pleasure?

    Augustine:
    De Doctrina Christiana, Book II
    (and I quoted chapter six, but they are all on same internet page)
    www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/augustine/ddc2.html

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  3. 15. But as men are prone to estimate sins, not by reference to their inherent sinfulness, but rather by reference to their own customs, it frequently happens that a man will think nothing blameable except what the men of his own country and time are accustomed to condemn, and nothing worthy of praise or approval except what is sanctioned by the custom of his companions; and thus it comes to pass, that if Scripture either enjoins what is opposed to the customs of the hearers, or condemns what is not so opposed, and if at the same time the authority of the word has a hold upon their minds, they think that the expression is figurative. Now Scripture enjoins nothing except charity, and condemns nothing except lust, and in that way fashions the lives of men. In the same way, if an erroneous opinion has taken possession of the mind, men think that whatever Scripture asserts contrary to this must be figurative. Now Scripture asserts nothing but the catholic faith, in regard to things past, future, and present. It is a narrative of the past, a prophecy of the future, and a description of the present. But all these tend to nourish and strengthen charity, and to overcome and root out lust.

    22. But when men unacquainted with other modes of life than their own meet with the record of such actions, unless they are restrained by authority, they look upon them as sins, and do not consider that their own customs either in regard to marriage, or feasts, or dress, or the other necessities and adornments of human life, appear sinful to the people of other nations and other times. And, distracted by this endless variety of customs, some who were half asleep (as I may say)--that is, who were neither sunk in the deep sleep of folly, nor were able to awake into the light of wisdom--have thought that there was no such thing as absolute right, but that every nation took its own custom for right; and that, since every nation has a different custom, and right must remain unchangeable, it becomes manifest that there is no such thing as right at all. Such men did not perceive, to take only one example, that the precept, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,"(1) cannot be altered by any diversity of national customs. And this precept, when it is referred to the love of God, destroys all vices when to the love of one's neighbor, puts an end to all crimes. For no one is willing to defile his own dwelling; he ought not, therefore, to defile the dwelling of God, that is, himself. And no one wishes an injury to be done him by another; he himself, therefore, ought not to do injury to another.

    From Book III (chapters X, XIV)
    www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/augustine/ddc3.html

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  4. Two ways in which this work is clearly antimodernist.

    The former is very relevant for the above discussion.

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