I'm talking to a radical traditionalist now, and he's saying I can't be catholic and believe in evolution, despite pointing out that Father Georges LeMaitre formulated the Big Bang Theory with Einstein and Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk, is the father of genetics.


What do you all think?

Evolution is incompatible with the Catholic Faith.

I would say that it is certainly heretical to believe in evolution, for the Bible clearly states that God is the Creator of all things.

LeMaitre was a modernist, so you're not going to do yourself any favors by citing him as a reason for believing in evolution.

That being said, what do you believe?  When people say they believe in evolution, they usually mean they believe in the spontaneous creation of all life form, from which, after billions of years, man evolved from that initial "spark."  

You can't believe that without, at best, rendering the Genesis account to be nothing more than a suspicious allegory made by simple people.

Without an actual first man and woman who were created by God, and subsequently fell (original sin) you render all of Christianity a hoax.  No first man and woman, no fall.  No fall, no original sin.  No original sin, no point in a savior.  The doctrine of evolution undermines the entirety of Christianity.  

The spider spins his web in the same fashion that was thousands of years ago.

I'm talking to a radical traditionalist now, and he's saying I can't be catholic and believe in evolution, despite pointing out that Father Georges LeMaitre formulated the Big Bang Theory with Einstein and Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk, is the father of genetics.


What do you all think?

I was going to thumb you down gobosox91, but then I thought:  "He's asking
an honest question, ostensibly, so maybe he's really sincere."  So for now, you
get the benefit of the doubt.................... for now.

Gobosox91,

You won't win a thing taking that attitude.

I'm not so sure gobos is trying to "win" something.  That is, I would like to
think that's the case.  We'll have to wait for gobos to post again, which might
be a long shot.  It's only been 7 hours, after all....................



My questions:

1)  You have said, " that Father Georges LeMaitre formulated the Big Bang
Theory with Einstein and Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk, is the father
of genetics."  That literally says that Mendel and Einstein formulated the BBT
with LeMaitre.  But I'd like to presume that's not what you meant.  Is it?

2)  The science of genetics has nothing to do with 'evolution'.  Are you aware
that any honest genetics study does nothing but disprove the possibility of
evolution by orders approaching infinity -- which means, statistical
certainty against 'evolution'?

3)  Are you, gobos, trying to "win" some kind of argument against a "rad trad"
on this subject?  (Would you mind describing what you think a "rad trad" is?)

4)  Have you, gobos, heard a Catholic priest tell you that in some manner,
'evolution' is okay for you to believe?  

5)  Was the title of this thread meant to be some kind of joke?



I have more, but let's see if you reply to these, as well as the ones asked
by other CI members.......................

That's pretty good, Donachie.  Did you write it all?  

There's another thread somewhere with some videos - I think it's in the
Library section.  If I can find it I'll post a link here.  Some highly regarded
scientists about 20 years ago were filmed saying that so-called evolution
isn't science, it is philosophy.  

I like to take it up a notch and say it's a bad hypothesis, because, as
not being "scientific," it cannot therefore qualify as being a "theory,"
because that implies a "scientific theory" which has rules, and the bad
hypothesis of evolution would have to break those rules, therefore, it
cannot be called a "theory" except perhaps a philosophical theory.

I would enjoy matching your sentences for content with any sentences
in that video.  That might be a lot of fun.  

But did you write those lines or were you quoting someone else?

Post

The spider spins his web in the same fashion that was thousands of years ago.

I wasn't going to reply to this at first, but on second thought..............

We don't objectively know what the numerous varieties of arachnids
did thousands of years ago, or exactly what their different kinds of
webs looked like.  And it would be the kind of thing that evolutionists
would be eager to say, that we 'don't know'.  They would most likely
be highly prone to argue in favor of change in the "fashion" of web
spinning over time.  

However, what we do have is recent studies, and biologists and their
precursors have been taking note of the species and web description
relationship for over 100 years now, so we do have a recent history,
and, unlike for evolution, a lot of data has been accuмulated in
support of your statement, above, MyrnaM.  I would venture to guess
that what you say is true, and that the recent evidence points to that
as being the case, since if webs continue to look the same, in terms
of "fashion of spinning them," over the past century, why would the
past 5 millennia be any different?  

In my own experience over half that time (the recent record, that is!)
the webs of garden spiders that look the same as they did then
continue to appear the same today.  The web of any black widow
spider looks and behaves practically indistinguishably from any other
web of any other black widow spider today, just as they did then.
Ditto for wolf spiders, trap door spiders, and one particularly curious
mountain spider that I have found whose web is remarkably more
sturdy than the black widow's, which, by the way, is a lot stronger
than the majority of other spiders.  I have to wonder about the
various jungle spiders that I've seen in books, whose webs have
strands stronger than steel wire and glue stronger than contact
cement.  That's not one you want to "run into," especially when the
spider is about the size of your open hand!  

Some may say (as if to help themselves feel better) that when they
get that big they can't move as fast so you have a better chance of
getting away from them, or such nonsense.  I saw firsthand a
spider in the wild, on an island in the Caribbean Sea, that ran across
the wall and across the 'bathroom' vanity mirror, but as it ran, its
'feet' made a tapping noise that was clearly audible.  When I say "it
ran," that's exactly what I mean - it ran about as fast as the fastest
cockroach runs.  That is to say, if it had ME in mind for its objective,
I doubt I could have moved away fast enough if it had caught me
off-guard.  It was about  two inches across with legs in running
position.  I did not find out what its web looks like, however.  

Entomologists claim that the spinnerettes of all spiders are HIGHLY
DEVELOPED and intricate mechanisms, more complex than most
other biological systems, on par with the human eye in complexity.  
As such, it is all the more impossible for them to have "evolved" from
anything else, since the first generation of spider would have to be
able to spin a web to catch its prey and eat, thereby surviving.  

Without the HIGHLY DEVELOPED spinnerettes, no web, no prey, no
food, no eat, no live, no generations.

So it shouldn't be any wonder why evolutionists and spiders are not
normally found on the same page of the books at your friendly
neighborhood library in the 'bugs' section.

Furthermore, it is false to say that spiders' webs are a product of their
environment inasmuch as any spider that is transported to a distant
location, such as another continent with a similar climate, will spin
a web that is suddenly different from the web it spun "back home."  
At least in the short term, that is, within one generation, the webs
continue to be spun the same as they had been before when the
parent spider was in her land of birth. I say "similar climate" because
these little creatures tend to be unable to survive a dramatic change
in climate.  So if you want to check subsequent generations, you had
best be sure that they can first survive and spin new webs for you to
check out.  

I'm talking to a radical traditionalist now, and he's saying I can't be catholic and believe in evolution, despite pointing out that Father Georges LeMaitre formulated the Big Bang Theory with Einstein and Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk, is the father of genetics.


What do you all think?

You can't believe in evolution, because materialistic evolution denies that all human beings came from two individuals, Adam & Eve:

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/catholics-claim-that-lies-are-truer-than-truth/

What biologists fail to understand, however, is that Adam & Eve, having been both specially created, had within their germ lines all the variation which we see among human beings today.  In other words, all the offspring of Eve had distinct DNA, such that if a geneticist had tested them he/she would find that they were not even "related" to each other, even though they were born from the same parents!  This "genetic bootstrapping" on the part on the Triune God would have allowed Eve's children to marry and have sex with each other, allowing them to have normal human offspring.