Oh Boy......

[cclanofirish]

dogma ( from merriam-webster
One entry found for dogma.


Main Entry: dog·ma
Pronunciation: 'dog-m&, 'däg-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural dogmas also dog·ma·ta /-m&-t&/
Etymology: Latin dogmat-, dogma, from Greek, from dokein to seem -- more at DECENT
1 a : something held as an established opinion; especially : a definite authoritative tenet b : a code of such tenets <pedagogical dogma> c : a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds2 : a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church

How does doctrine and dogma differ? You are splitting hairs IMO.

Who gets to decide what adequate ground are?

 

[TexasDomer]

Well, my distinction between doctrine and dogma comes from Catholic uses of the terms, not the Webster's Dictionary:

A dogma is something that must be assented to with what's called "the assent of faith." Rejection of such a teaching separates one from full communion with the faith. The Incarnation of Christ is an example for a Catholic, or the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Dogmas in Catholic theology come from Ex Cathedra statements by the Pope, binding canons from Ecumenical councils, and what's called the universal magisterium, a teaching held always and everywhere by bishops in union with the Holy See.

A doctrine is a teaching that is considered authoritative, but is not so much so that one must adhere to it with "assent of faith." All dogmas are doctrines, but not all doctrines are dogmas.

Here's a good summary:

Dogmas are the fundamental teachings of the Church. The basic catalog is the articles in The Apostles’ Creed (The Apostles’ Creed is a sort of pageant that has one article or verse for each of the twelve apostles—but that’s a post for another time). There are many other dogmas including Transubstantiation, the Immaculate Conception, and others. Oddly, there doesn’t appear to be a completely inclusive list of Church dogmas and scholars and clerics differ somewhat on what the dogmas of the Church actually are. Dogmas are universal and unchanging. So long as Catholicism remains Catholicism you won’t see a change in the dogmas of the Church. Canons of Church councils are dogmatic.

Doctrines are, broadly, the teachings of the Church. Every dogma is a doctrine but not every doctrine is a dogma. A doctrine may apply to a specific community within the Church. It may be binding and authoritative to them and not to other communities within the Church. Papal encyclicals are doctrinal. Doctrines may be different within different communities within the Church and may change over time. For example, Pius IX (IIRC) taught against political democracy. John Paul II taught in favor of political democracy.

Disciplines are practices that spring from the magisterium—the teaching office—of the Church and definitely have changed over time. The disciplines of indulgences and fasting have changed enormously since the Middle Ages, for example.

From http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=953

So, when I say things about dogma or doctrine from a Catholic POV, this is what I mean.

Regarding God "resting" on the 7th day, my response is, what is a day to a God existing outside of time? What's the theological truth behind the statement in Genesis? What is inerrant is the idea that, if God "rested" on the seventh day, it is meant by the author of Genesis to support the idea of a day of rest for man so that he can worship his Creator. It supports the idea of the fact that man should not work all the time, but rather find time to rest.

I agree that if one takes a hyperliteral view of Scripture, seeming contradictions emerge. But, my faith tradition isn't one of hyperliteralism. It is about interpretation of the meanings behind why two narratives about the creation of man are in Scripture--to teach us two different messages about the nature of our relationship with God.

To argue with a Catholic about literalism in Scripture is a red herring: we don't hold that approach to exegesis.

 

[Satans Little Helper]

Evolution Info

What have we learned since Charles Darwin's treatise on evolution, Origin of Species, was first published in 1859? In addition to a thorough exploration of the fossil record, a vast amount of other information is readily available. Obviously, the first problem is the lack of the fossil record.

After the fossil record, the second supposed proof of evolution offered by Darwinists is natural selection, which they hoped biologists would confirm. Darwin's idea that the survival of the fittest would explain how species evolved has been relegated to a redundant, self-evident statement. Geneticist Conrad Waddington of Edinburgh University defines the fundamental problem of advocating natural selection as a proof of Darwinism: "Natural selection turns out on closer inspection to be a tautology, a statement of an inevitable although previously unrecognized relation. It states that the fittest individuals in a population ... will leave most offspring" (Bethell, p. 310).
In other words, what are the fittest? Why, those that survive, of course. And what survives? Why, naturally, the fittest. The problem is that circular reasoning doesn't point to any independent criteria that can evaluate whether the theory is true.

Darwin cited an example of the way natural selection was supposed to work: A wolf that had inherited the ability to run especially fast was better equipped to survive. His advantage in outrunning others in the pack when food was scarce meant he could eat better and thus survive longer. Yet the very changes that enabled the wolf to run faster could easily become a hindrance if other modifications of the body did not accompany the increased speed. For example, the additional exertion required to run faster would naturally place an added strain on the animal's heart, and eventually it could drop from a heart attack. The survival of the fittest would require that any biological or anatomical alterations would have to be in harmony and synchronized with other bodily modifications, or the changes would be of no benefit. Natural selection, scientists have found, in reality deals only with the number of species, not the change of the species. It has to do with the survival and not the arrival of the species. Natural selection only preserves existing genetic information (DNA); it doesn't create genetic material that would allow an animal to sprout a new organ, limb or some other anatomical feature.

What about random mutations? Curiously enough, Darwin himself was one of the first to discount beneficial effects from rare changes he noted in species. He did not even include them in his theory. "He did not consider them important," says Maurice Caullery in his book Genetics and Heredity, "because they nearly always represented an obvious disadvantage from the point of view of the struggle for existence; consequently they would most likely be rapidly eliminated in the wild state by the operation of natural selection" (1964, p. 10, emphasis added). In Darwin's lifetime the principles of genetics were not clearly understood. Gregor Mendel had published his findings on genetic principles in 1866, but his work was overlooked at the time. Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, Hugo De Vries rediscovered these principles, which evolutionists quickly seized on to support evolution. Sir Julian Huxley, one of the principal spokesmen for evolutionary theory in the 20th century, commented on the unpredictability of mutations: "Mutation provides the raw material of evolution; it is a random affair and takes place in all directions" (Evolution in Action, 1953, p. 38).

What has almost a century of research discovered? Those mutations are pathological mistakes and not helpful changes in the genetic code. C.P. Martin of McGill University in Montreal wrote, "Mutation is a pathological process which has had little or nothing to do with evolution" ("A Non-Geneticist Looks at Evolution," American Scientist, January 1953, p. 100). Professor Martin's investigations revealed mutations are overwhelmingly negative and never creative. He observed that an apparently beneficial mutation was likely only a correction of a previously deleterious one, similar to “punching a man with a dislocated shoulder and inadvertently putting it back into place.” Science writer Milton explains the problem: "The results of such copying errors are tragically familiar. In body cells, faulty replication shows itself as cancer." (Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, 1997, p. 156). Yet evolutionists would have us believe that such genetic mistakes are helpful in the long run. Phillip Johnson observes: "To suppose that such a random event could reconstruct even a single complex organ like a liver or kidney is about as reasonable as to suppose that an improved watch can be designed by throwing an old one against a wall" (Darwin on Trial, p. 37). We can be thankful that mutations are extremely rare. An average of one mistake per 10 million correct copies occurs in the genetic code. Whoever or whatever types 10 million letters with only one mistake would easily be the world's best typist and probably would not be human. Yet this is the astounding accuracy of our supposedly blind genetic code when it replicates itself.
If, however, these copying errors were to accumulate, a species, instead of improving, would eventually degenerate and perish. But geneticists have discovered a self-correcting system. "The genetic code in each living thing has its own built-in limitations," says Hitching. "It seems designed to stop a plant or creature stepping too far away from the average. Every series of breeding experiments that has ever taken place has established a finite limit to breeding possibilities. Genes are a strong influence for conservatism, and allow only modest change. Left to their own devices, artificially bred species usually die out (because they are sterile or less robust) or quickly revert to the norm" (Hitching, pp. 54-55). Some scientists reluctantly concede that mutations do not explain Darwin's proposed transition from one species to the next. Zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé, he published a major book on evolution in 1973. First and foremost, the book aimed to expose Darwinism as a theory that did not work, because it clashed with so many experimental findings. Grassé studied this extensively, both inside his laboratory and in nature. In all sorts of living things, from bacteria to plants and animals, he observed that mutations do not take succeeding generations further and further from their starting point. Instead, the changes are like the “flight of a butterfly in a green house, which travels for miles without moving more than a few feet from its starting point.
There are invisible but firmly fixed boundaries that mutations can never cross . . . He insists that mutations are only trivial changes; they are merely the result of slightly altered genes, whereas 'creative evolution . . . demands the genesis of new ones'" (Hayward, p. 25).


Embarrassingly for evolutionists, mutation is also not the answer. Ironically, mutation shows the opposite of what evolutionism teaches: In real life random mutation is the villain and not the hero.

This takes us to one last point on mutations: the inability of evolution to explain the appearance of simple life and intricate organs. Cells are incredibly complicated living things. They are self-sufficient and function like miniature chemical factories. The closer we look at cells, the more we realize their incredible complexity. For example, the cell wall is a wonder in itself. If it were too porous, harmful solutions would enter and cause the cell to burst. On the other hand, if the wall were too impervious, no nourishment could come in or waste products go out, and the cell would quickly die. Biochemist Behe, the associate professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, summarizes one of the fundamental flaws of evolution as an explanation for any form of life. "Darwin's theory encounters its greatest difficulties when it comes to explaining the development of the cell. Many cellular systems are what I term 'irreducibly complex.' That means the system needs several components before it can work properly. (Darwin Under the Microscope, New York Times, Oct. 29, 1996, p. A25). Michael Denton, the microbiologist and senior research fellow at the University of Otago in New Zealand, contrasts how the cell was viewed in Darwin's day with what today's researchers can see. In Darwin's time the cell could be viewed at best at a magnification of several hundred times. Using the best technology of their day, when scientists viewed the cell they saw "a relatively disappointing spectacle appearing only as an ever-changing and apparently disordered pattern of blobs and particles which, under the influence of unseen turbulent forces, [were] continually tossed haphazardly in all directions" (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1985, p. 328). The years since then have brought astounding technological advancements. Now researchers can peer into the tiniest parts of cells. “To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology," writes Dr. Denton, "we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in every direction away from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to the central memory bank in the nucleus and others to assembly plants and processing units. The nucleus itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometer in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules. We would wonder at the level of control implicit in the movement of so many objects down so many seemingly endless conduits, all in perfect unison. We would see all around us, in every direction we looked, all sorts of robot-like machines. We would notice that the simplest of the functional components of the cell, the protein molecules, were astonishingly, complex pieces of molecular machinery, each one consisting of about three thousand atoms arranged in highly organized 3-D spatial conformation. We would wonder even more as we watched the strangely purposeful activities of these weird molecular machines, particularly when we realized that, despite all our accumulated knowledge of physics and chemistry, the task of designing one such molecular machine-that is one single functional protein molecule-would be beyond our capacity. Yet the life of the cell depends on the integrated activities of thousands, certainly tens, and probably hundreds of thousands of different protein molecules" (Denton, pp. 328-329).This is a microbiologist's description of one cell. The human body contains about 10 trillion (10,000,000,000,000) brain, nerve, muscle and other types of cells.

Sir James Gray, a Cambridge University professor of zoology, states: "Bacteria are far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism" (Marshall and Sandra Hall, The Truth: God or Evolution?, 1974, p. 89).How complex are the tiniest living things? Even the simplest cells must possess a staggering amount of genetic information to function. For instance, the bacterium R. coli is one of the tiniest unicellular creatures in nature. Scientists calculate it has some 2,000 genes, each with around 1,000 enzymes (organic catalysts, chemicals that speed up other chemical reactions). An enzyme is made up of a billion nucleotides, each of which amounts to a letter in the chemical alphabet, comparable to a byte in computer language. These enzymes instruct the organism how to function and reproduce. The DNA information in just this single tiny cell is "the approximate equivalent of 100 million pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica" (John Whitcomb, The Early Earth, 1972, p. 79).

What are the odds that the enzymes needed to produce the simplest living creature-with each enzyme performing a specific chemical function-could come together by chance? Astrophysicists Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe calculated the odds at one chance in 1040,000 (that is, 10 to the 40,000th power: mathematical shorthand for a 10 followed by 40,000 zeros, a number long enough to fill about seven pages of this publication). Note that a probability of less than 1 in 1050 is considered by mathematicians to be a complete impossibility (Hayward, pp. 35-37). By comparison, Sir Arthur Eddington, another mathematician, estimates there are no more than 1080 atoms in the universe! (Hitching, p. 70).

unfortunatley all of these points are speculation with no supporting data. and not widely accepted in the scientific community btw. i wonder did you cherrypick this just like everything else? Did you even read this? I fyou want to argue that an apple cant grow from a tree there are many speculative apparati that i can come up with. Once again, this is not data. Not scrutinized evidence. Try again.

 

[Satans Little Helper]

Who gets to decide what adequate ground are?

im not quite sure where you are going but i think that you are saying who are the Protestants or the Ctaholics to decide gods will. Well i am trying to figure out how the Council of Nicea held the authority to decide this at first, oh and aslo we cant forget the split betwween the orthodox and the Catholics based on belifs of the same religon. This is Mind numbingly insane.

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

unfortunatley all of these points are speculation with no supporting data. and not widely accepted in the scientific community btw. i wonder did you cherrypick this just like everything else? Did you even read this? I fyou want to argue that an apple cant grow from a tree there are many speculative apparati that i can come up with. Once again, this is not data. Not scrutinized evidence. Try again.

LOL...Since when did you become the pronounced expert on what is science and what is not??? Who is cherry picking now? You sound like someone who accepts only what supports his beliefs, and snubbing what disproves it. Now that is total intellectual honesty!!

 

[cclanofirish]

unfortunatley all of these points are speculation with no supporting data. and not widely accepted in the scientific community btw. i wonder did you cherrypick this just like everything else? Did you even read this? I fyou want to argue that an apple cant grow from a tree there are many speculative apparati that i can come up with. Once again, this is not data. Not scrutinized evidence. Try again.

Dude, read it and point out the flaws with it. Come on, I know you're not a typical liberal pansy. And show some proof for your own assertions.

 

[cclanofirish]

im not quite sure where you are going but i think that you are saying who are the Protestants or the Ctaholics to decide gods will. Well i am trying to figure out how the Council of Nicea held the authority to decide this at first, oh and aslo we cant forget the split betwween the orthodox and the Catholics based on belifs of the same religon. This is Mind numbingly insane.

Its a simple question....Who decides? Is it scientists or religious people?

 

[cclanofirish]

unfortunatley all of these points are speculation with no supporting data. and not widely accepted in the scientific community btw. i wonder did you cherrypick this just like everything else? Did you even read this? I fyou want to argue that an apple cant grow from a tree there are many speculative apparati that i can come up with. Once again, this is not data. Not scrutinized evidence. Try again.

But are they truth. If you do not care to debate this, I understand. You dont like to have your beliefs challenged....its perfectly understandable.

 

[TexasDomer]

Well i am trying to figure out how the Council of Nicea held the authority to decide this at first, oh and aslo we cant forget the split betwween the orthodox and the Catholics based on belifs of the same religon. This is Mind numbingly insane.

Nicaea acted to bring a unified belief about Christ's human and divine nature about because of two beliefs:

a. There is one truth about these things.
b. There were too many differences for Christendom to be unified on such a fundamental thing.

The bishops that gathered at Nicaea did so because, as successors to Christ's apostles, they were shepherds of the flock on earth. The belief in One Church required a unity of belief on whether Christ was both God and man, on how Christ could be God, the Father could be God, yet be only one God, and so forth.

They had that authority because of apostolic succession.

The Orthodox and Catholics split in 1054 because of political disputes between the East and West and because of the use of filioque in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in regard to the Holy Spirits' "proceeds from the Father and the Son. Orthodox didn't accept this, since it was an addition to the Creed. They accepted (and accept) the theology behind it, but didn't like the idea that the creed could change. This served as a flashpoint for lots of other issues, more political than theological to lead to a separation.

It's the prayer of many Catholics and Orthodox that someday the Church will be able to "breathe with both lungs." At this point, we both acknowledge legitimate Apostolic Succession in both Churches, valid Sacraments, valid priesthood, etc. There's plenty of common ground on which we hope to build, so that, like at Nicaea, we can all be one Church again.

 

[Satans Little Helper]

See SLH, unlike you, I back up my statements with some emblence of resources to peruse. You on the other hand, attack anything you dont agree with, but still have not provided any links, or other outside proof to show that your assertions are correct. So I invite you to do so now.

this is not evidence. You have provided speculation. My evidence is in the journal of animal phyisiology, the jounrnal of Evolutionary biology, oceanography, Geology, Physics, Chemisty etc ad nasum. These are crtiued by the scientific community and if one thing is wrong or not valid to any other portion of the theory it does not get added. The burden of proof is on you to prove the evolution does not exist. You will need a lot more than several pages of speculation lifted from god knows wehere on the internet.

You have issued an ultimatum that i can neither do here on this message board or in person in a week. I dont know what you expect? It tooke me 10 years in college to accumulate half of what i know now. Do you expect me to whip up some evidence that genetic mutations occur but result in things that are bad or good for organisms. Thiose mutations that are good stay and those that are bad cause the animal to get killed. Or that Chloroplasts and mitochondria were once bacteria but now provide nourishment for our cells or that plants have both chloroplasts and mitochondria while animals only have mitochndria. Or that the higher up the evolutionary chart the higher number of chromosomes get to support the more complex body forms. Or that Squid and snails and octopi are such close relatives they differ very little in genetic material and quantities. Or that salt marsh grass was once a terrestrial plant that nowcan live in saltier waters because of an adapatation that allows it to handle salt water in its cells. The reason that certain animals (Cichlids fish) are only found in Africa and South America is that Plate techtonics states that the two continents were once the same pice of land? Or there are fish with lungs that can breath on land or underwater. Or that sharks are so well adapted to their environent that they have changed little for millions of years. The evidence is out there. It is not on me to prove anything here to you. The burden of proof is on you to disprove the theory. Fossils do not preserve very well and we are damn lucky to have any at all. We rely on other information other than the fossil record because there are so many gaps in it. It is not what drives the theory today and has not for some time. The fossil gap is widely acknowledged as being a hinderence on the theory. thank god we have so many other ways that explicitly imply evolution occurs.

You ask something that i cant do on a message board. I cannot accept your ultimatum .

 

[cclanofirish]

this is not evidence. You have provided speculation. My evidence is in the journal of animal phyisiology, the jounrnal of Evolutionary biology, oceanography, Geology, Physics, Chemisty etc ad nasum. These are crtiued by the scientific community and if one thing is wrong or not valid to any other portion of the theory it does not get added. The burden of proof is on you to prove the evolution does not exist. You will need a lot more than several pages of speculation lifted from god knows wehere on the internet.

You have issued an ultimatum that i can neither do here on this message board or in person in a week. I dont know what you expect? It tooke me 10 years in college to accumulate half of what i know now. Do you expect me to whip up some evidence that genetic mutations occur but result in things that are bad or good for organisms. Thiose mutations that are good stay and those that are bad cause the animal to get killed. Or that Chloroplasts and mitochondria were once bacteria but now provide nourishment for our cells or that plants have both chloroplasts and mitochondria while animals only have mitochndria. Or that the higher up the evolutionary chart the higher number of chromosomes get to support the more complex body forms. Or that Squid and snails and octopi are such close relatives they differ very little in genetic material and quantities. Or that salt marsh grass was once a terrestrial plant that nowcan live in saltier waters because of an adapatation that allows it to handle salt water in its cells. The reason that certain animals (Cichlids fish) are only found in Africa and South America is that Plate techtonics states that the two continents were once the same pice of land? Or there are fish with lungs that can breath on land or underwater. Or that sharks are so well adapted to their environent that they have changed little for millions of years. The evidence is out there. It is not on me to prove anything here to you. The burden of proof is on you to disprove the theory. Fossils do not preserve very well and we are damn lucky to have any at all. We rely on other information other than the fossil record because there are so many gaps in it. It is not what drives the theory today and has not for some time. The fossil gap is widely acknowledged as being a hinderence on the theory. thank god we have so many other ways that explicitly imply evolution occurs.

You ask something that i cant do on a message board. I cannot accept your ultimatum .

Seems to me like someone's full of shit, and just got called on it.

 

[Satans Little Helper]

LOL...Since when did you become the pronounced expert on what is science and what is not??? Who is cherry picking now? You sound like someone who accepts only what supports his beliefs, and snubbing what disproves it. Now that is total intellectual honesty!!

None of what Clan of irish chose to submit for persual is evidence. I do not cherrypick anything. I am well aware of those arguments and they are nto based on fact but are chery picked to suit their argument. The fossil record is the only thing creations have to argue against and it does not even make 10% of the total basis of the theory. I snub nothing. Do you think this is the first time i have seen had this argument. Those are as common as Chritians thinking that gays are abominations.

 

[cclanofirish]

None of what Clan of irish chose to submit for persual is evidence. I do not cherrypick anything. I am well aware of those arguments and they are nto based on fact but are chery picked to suit their argument. The fossil record is the only thing creations have to argue against and it does not even make 10% of the total basis of the theory. I snub nothing. Do you think this is the first time i have seen had this argument. Those are as common as Chritians thinking that gays are abominations.

Disprove them.

 

[Satans Little Helper]

Seems to me like someone's full of shit, and just got called on it.

yep you got me. just because i can put about several million pages of accepted journal material on a message board means im full of shit. man This is why i disclaimed that i wcould not accept your challege. If i asked you to go home and copy or scan all of your entire library of books and put them on this board Could you? Like i said the burden of proof is on you. The theory of evolution is not going anywhere.

Seems to me you are grasping at straws.

 

[cclanofirish]

yep you got me. just because i can put about several million pages of accepted journal material on a message board means im full of shit. man This is why i disclaimed that i wcould not accept your challege. If i asked you to go home and copy or scan all of your entire library of books and put them on this board Could you? Like i said the burden of proof is on you. The theory of evolution is not going anywhere.
Seems to me you are grasping at straws.

When would you like me to start.

 

[Satans Little Helper]

When would you like me to start.

i hope you are kidding!

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

None of what Clan of irish chose to submit for persual is evidence. I do not cherrypick anything. I am well aware of those arguments and they are nto based on fact but are chery picked to suit their argument. The fossil record is the only thing creations have to argue against and it does not even make 10% of the total basis of the theory. I snub nothing. Do you think this is the first time i have seen had this argument. Those are as common as Chritians thinking that gays are abominations.

All christians don't think that! BTW, I'm not sure either creation or evolution can be proven to an extent that would satisfy everyone. I advise you to read Ann Coulter's book "Godless". Despite your distaste for her, it might give you insight into your own way of thinking. Her belief is that liberals and scientists are very insistent on trying to disprove creationism because doing so will (in their minds) prove that God does not exist. Honestly, you can't tell me many on the left don't think that way.

 

[Satans Little Helper]

Evolution Info

What have we learned since Charles Darwin's treatise on evolution, Origin of Species, was first published in 1859? In addition to a thorough exploration of the fossil record, a vast amount of other information is readily available. Obviously, the first problem is the lack of the fossil record. Fossil record is incomplete. It is not hevaily relied upon for the theory. It does allow us to get ideas of what past animals look like and acted like. They also allow us to date them to a specific period. this includes animals and plants and microbes. Mos objects do not fossilze well and therefore are not discovered. OI will not disagree with this but this is flimsy to hang your hat on.

After the fossil record, the second supposed proof of evolution offered by Darwinists is natural selection, which they hoped biologists would confirm. Darwin's idea that the survival of the fittest would explain how species evolved has been relegated to a redundant, self-evident statement. Geneticist Conrad Waddington of Edinburgh University defines the fundamental problem of advocating natural selection as a proof of Darwinism: "Natural selection turns out on closer inspection to be a tautology, a statement of an inevitable although previously unrecognized relation. It states that the fittest individuals in a population ... will leave most offspring" (Bethell, p. 310).
In other words, what are the fittest? Why, those that survive, of course. And what survives? Why, naturally, the fittest. The problem is that circular reasoning doesn't point to any independent criteria that can evaluate whether the theory is true.

Darwin cited an example of the way natural selection was supposed to work: A wolf that had inherited the ability to run especially fast was better equipped to survive. His advantage in outrunning others in the pack when food was scarce meant he could eat better and thus survive longer. Yet the very changes that enabled the wolf to run faster could easily become a hindrance if other modifications of the body did not accompany the increased speed. For example, the additional exertion required to run faster would naturally place an added strain on the animal's heart, and eventually it could drop from a heart attack. The survival of the fittest would require that any biological or anatomical alterations would have to be in harmony and synchronized with other bodily modifications, or the changes would be of no benefit. Natural selection, scientists have found, in reality deals only with the number of species, not the change of the species. It has to do with the survival and not the arrival of the species. Natural selection only preserves existing genetic information (DNA); it doesn't create genetic material that would allow an animal to sprout a new organ, limb or some other anatomical feature. This argument does not adress the fact that animals and individuals are just that individuals. He uses the wolf as an example which is a social animal and dependent on heirharchy. The leader of the wolf clan is always the strongest fastest and most adept at getting food and running the pack. the alpha male always eats first and gets to impregnate all the females ensureing his line is carried through, Genes in all. It is not necessarily the idea of one limb or a faster beating heart but can also be the individual itself. he does not adress population genteics which is a large part of the theory. He only addresses on cherrypicked idea and hammers on it. Typical. But if there is a wolf say that by genetic variation in popluations gene pool is much larger and much faster, he will obviously be able to asusume the lead role and pass on his genes to the next generation which will also have the genes for being excessively big and fast etc.. If After several generations the animal can become a much larger faster wolf and with the combinations of other genetic modifications throught the poulation, look like an entirely different animal ( ie current breeding of canines)

What about random mutations? Curiously enough, Darwin himself was one of the first to discount beneficial effects from rare changes he noted in species. He did not even include them in his theory. "He did not consider them important," says Maurice Caullery in his book Genetics and Heredity, "because they nearly always represented an obvious disadvantage from the point of view of the struggle for existence; consequently they would most likely be rapidly eliminated in the wild state by the operation of natural selection" (1964, p. 10, emphasis added). In Darwin's lifetime the principles of genetics were not clearly understood. Gregor Mendel had published his findings on genetic principles in 1866, but his work was overlooked at the time. Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, Hugo De Vries rediscovered these principles, which evolutionists quickly seized on to support evolution. Sir Julian Huxley, one of the principal spokesmen for evolutionary theory in the 20th century, commented on the unpredictability of mutations: "Mutation provides the raw material of evolution; it is a random affair and takes place in all directions" (Evolution in Action, 1953, p. 38). If Darwin had known about DNA at the formulation of this theory, he would have held it in higher degree. Genetic mutaions account for very little of the actual change in DNA frequencies and it pales in comparison to mistraaslation during copying and the influence of different populations. This does not negate the theory in any manner.

What has almost a century of research discovered? Those mutations are pathological mistakes and not helpful changes in the genetic code. C.P. Martin of McGill University in Montreal wrote, "Mutation is a pathological process which has had little or nothing to do with evolution" ("A Non-Geneticist Looks at Evolution," American Scientist, January 1953, p. 100). Professor Martin's investigations revealed mutations are overwhelmingly negative and never creative. 1953 Huh? Might want to quote someone a little later now that DNA hs been discovered. I will nto respond to this. this is probably one of the guys that said DDTwas safe for childeren. He observed that an apparently beneficial mutation was likely only a correction of a previously deleterious one, similar to “punching a man with a dislocated shoulder and inadvertently putting it back into place.” Science writer Milton explains the problem: "The results of such copying errors are tragically familiar. In body cells, faulty replication shows itself as cancer." (Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, 1997, p. 156). Yet evolutionists would have us believe that such genetic mistakes are helpful in the long run. Phillip Johnson observes: "To suppose that such a random event could reconstruct even a single complex organ like a liver or kidney is about as reasonable as to suppose that an improved watch can be designed by throwing an old one against a wall" (Darwin on Trial, p. 37). We can be thankful that mutations are extremely rare. An average of one mistake per 10 million correct copies occurs in the genetic code. Whoever or whatever types 10 million letters with only one mistake would easily be the world's best typist and probably would not be human. Yet this is the astounding accuracy of our supposedly blind genetic code when it replicates itself.
If, however, these copying errors were to accumulate, a species, instead of improving, would eventually degenerate and perish. But geneticists have discovered a self-correcting system. "The genetic code in each living thing has its own built-in limitations," says Hitching. "It seems designed to stop a plant or creature stepping too far away from the average. Every series of breeding experiments that has ever taken place has established a finite limit to breeding possibilities. Genes are a strong influence for conservatism, and allow only modest change. Left to their own devices, artificially bred species usually die out (because they are sterile or less robust) or quickly revert to the norm" (Hitching, pp. 54-55). Some scientists reluctantly concede that mutations do not explain Darwin's proposed transition from one species to the next. Zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé, he published a major book on evolution in 1973. First and foremost, the book aimed to expose Darwinism as a theory that did not work, because it clashed with so many experimental findings. Grassé studied this extensively, both inside his laboratory and in nature. In all sorts of living things, from bacteria to plants and animals, he observed that mutations do not take succeeding generations further and further from their starting point. Instead, the changes are like the “flight of a butterfly in a green house, which travels for miles without moving more than a few feet from its starting point.Once again the largest part of your argument hinges on a very small portion of genetic variability. Not something to hang your hat on.
There are invisible but firmly fixed boundaries that mutations can never cross . . . He insists that mutations are only trivial changes; they are merely the result of slightly altered genes, whereas 'creative evolution . . . demands the genesis of new ones'" (Hayward, p. 25). Creative mutation? Now mutations are created? this is out right false. Variations in the gentic material of species populations lead to new species very frequently and has very little to do withm mutations. Again i dont have my journals here at work to provide documents but i will not lift anything from an internet site to argue these points.


Embarrassingly for evolutionists, mutation is also not the answer. Ironically, mutation shows the opposite of what evolutionism teaches: In real life random mutation is the villain and not the hero.

This takes us to one last point on mutations: the inability of evolution to explain the appearance of simple life and intricate organs. Cells are incredibly complicated living things. They are self-sufficient and function like miniature chemical factories. The closer we look at cells, the more we realize their incredible complexity. For example, the cell wall is a wonder in itself. If it were too porous, harmful solutions would enter and cause the cell to burst. On the other hand, if the wall were too impervious, no nourishment could come in or waste products go out, and the cell would quickly die. Biochemist Behe, the associate professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, summarizes one of the fundamental flaws of evolution as an explanation for any form of life. "Darwin's theory encounters its greatest difficulties when it comes to explaining the development of the cell. Many cellular systems are what I term 'irreducibly complex.' That means the system needs several components before it can work properly. (Darwin Under the Microscope, New York Times, Oct. 29, 1996, p. A25). Michael Denton, the microbiologist and senior research fellow at the University of Otago in New Zealand, contrasts how the cell was viewed in Darwin's day with what today's researchers can see. In Darwin's time the cell could be viewed at best at a magnification of several hundred times. Using the best technology of their day, when scientists viewed the cell they saw "a relatively disappointing spectacle appearing only as an ever-changing and apparently disordered pattern of blobs and particles which, under the influence of unseen turbulent forces, [were] continually tossed haphazardly in all directions" (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1985, p. 328). The years since then have brought astounding technological advancements. Now researchers can peer into the tiniest parts of cells. “To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology," writes Dr. Denton, "we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in every direction away from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to the central memory bank in the nucleus and others to assembly plants and processing units. The nucleus itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometer in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules. We would wonder at the level of control implicit in the movement of so many objects down so many seemingly endless conduits, all in perfect unison. We would see all around us, in every direction we looked, all sorts of robot-like machines. We would notice that the simplest of the functional components of the cell, the protein molecules, were astonishingly, complex pieces of molecular machinery, each one consisting of about three thousand atoms arranged in highly organized 3-D spatial conformation. We would wonder even more as we watched the strangely purposeful activities of these weird molecular machines, particularly when we realized that, despite all our accumulated knowledge of physics and chemistry, the task of designing one such molecular machine-that is one single functional protein molecule-would be beyond our capacity. Yet the life of the cell depends on the integrated activities of thousands, certainly tens, and probably hundreds of thousands of different protein molecules" (Denton, pp. 328-329).This is a microbiologist's description of one cell. The human body contains about 10 trillion (10,000,000,000,000) brain, nerve, muscle and other types of cells.

Sir James Gray, a Cambridge University professor of zoology, states: "Bacteria are far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism" (Marshall and Sandra Hall, The Truth: God or Evolution?, 1974, p. 89).How complex are the tiniest living things? Even the simplest cells must possess a staggering amount of genetic information to function. For instance, the bacterium R. coli is one of the tiniest unicellular creatures in nature. Scientists calculate it has some 2,000 genes, each with around 1,000 enzymes (organic catalysts, chemicals that speed up other chemical reactions). An enzyme is made up of a billion nucleotides, each of which amounts to a letter in the chemical alphabet, comparable to a byte in computer language. These enzymes instruct the organism how to function and reproduce. The DNA information in just this single tiny cell is "the approximate equivalent of 100 million pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica" (John Whitcomb, The Early Earth, 1972, p. 79).

What are the odds that the enzymes needed to produce the simplest living creature-with each enzyme performing a specific chemical function-could come together by chance? Astrophysicists Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe calculated the odds at one chance in 1040,000 (that is, 10 to the 40,000th power: mathematical shorthand for a 10 followed by 40,000 zeros, a number long enough to fill about seven pages of this publication). Note that a probability of less than 1 in 1050 is considered by mathematicians to be a complete impossibility (Hayward, pp. 35-37). By comparison, Sir Arthur Eddington, another mathematician, estimates there are no more than 1080 atoms in the universe! (Hitching, p. 70).

.

 

[Satans Little Helper]

I will say this also clanof irish...your little bit of evidence ( is typical little foothole argument i have come across many times before and i reject all of it to hang an anti-evolution argument against) does not come close to negating all of the other evidence from the numerous othe rscientif disciplines in lcuding plate techtonics and zoogeography. Thos two alone explain more about the theory of evolution than random gnetic mutations could ever hold a birthday candle to.

 

[d9cornel]

What is really sad is that there are a select few who have put so much into this. WOW!!! Do you all have jobs or...?

 

[Satans Little Helper]

What is really sad is that there are a select few who have put so much into this. WOW!!! Do you all have jobs or...?

yes ido. my work is sporadic so ther are days where idont work at all and some i work alot. today is a day i dont have a lot going on. Its not sad. Either join in or GTF out.

 

[Satans Little Helper]

Nicaea acted to bring a unified belief about Christ's human and divine nature about because of two beliefs:

a. There is one truth about these things.
b. There were too many differences for Christendom to be unified on such a fundamental thing.

The bishops that gathered at Nicaea did so because, as successors to Christ's apostles, they were shepherds of the flock on earth. The belief in One Church required a unity of belief on whether Christ was both God and man, on how Christ could be God, the Father could be God, yet be only one God, and so forth.

They had that authority because of apostolic succession.

The Orthodox and Catholics split in 1054 because of political disputes between the East and West and because of the use of filioque in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in regard to the Holy Spirits' "proceeds from the Father and the Son. Orthodox didn't accept this, since it was an addition to the Creed. They accepted (and accept) the theology behind it, but didn't like the idea that the creed could change. This served as a flashpoint for lots of other issues, more political than theological to lead to a separation.

It's the prayer of many Catholics and Orthodox that someday the Church will be able to "breathe with both lungs." At this point, we both acknowledge legitimate Apostolic Succession in both Churches, valid Sacraments, valid priesthood, etc. There's plenty of common ground on which we hope to build, so that, like at Nicaea, we can all be one Church again.

I know, I know, I know. I know all of this. its the hypocrisy and the idiocy that humans come up with a god and then have to argue about what he really is or what he really means. Then 600 years later fight about it all over again. Then 500 years later fight over it again.. ARRRGHH:banghead2

 

[Satans Little Helper]

Well, my distinction between doctrine and dogma comes from Catholic uses of the terms, not the Webster's Dictionary:

A dogma is something that must be assented to with what's called "the assent of faith." Rejection of such a teaching separates one from full communion with the faith. The Incarnation of Christ is an example for a Catholic, or the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Dogmas in Catholic theology come from Ex Cathedra statements by the Pope, binding canons from Ecumenical councils, and what's called the universal magisterium, a teaching held always and everywhere by bishops in union with the Holy See.

A doctrine is a teaching that is considered authoritative, but is not so much so that one must adhere to it with "assent of faith." All dogmas are doctrines, but not all doctrines are dogmas.

Here's a good summary:

Dogmas are the fundamental teachings of the Church. The basic catalog is the articles in The Apostles’ Creed (The Apostles’ Creed is a sort of pageant that has one article or verse for each of the twelve apostles—but that’s a post for another time). There are many other dogmas including Transubstantiation, the Immaculate Conception, and others. Oddly, there doesn’t appear to be a completely inclusive list of Church dogmas and scholars and clerics differ somewhat on what the dogmas of the Church actually are. Dogmas are universal and unchanging. So long as Catholicism remains Catholicism you won’t see a change in the dogmas of the Church. Canons of Church councils are dogmatic.

Doctrines are, broadly, the teachings of the Church. Every dogma is a doctrine but not every doctrine is a dogma. A doctrine may apply to a specific community within the Church. It may be binding and authoritative to them and not to other communities within the Church. Papal encyclicals are doctrinal. Doctrines may be different within different communities within the Church and may change over time. For example, Pius IX (IIRC) taught against political democracy. John Paul II taught in favor of political democracy.

Disciplines are practices that spring from the magisterium—the teaching office—of the Church and definitely have changed over time. The disciplines of indulgences and fasting have changed enormously since the Middle Ages, for example.

From http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=953

So, when I say things about dogma or doctrine from a Catholic POV, this is what I mean.

Regarding God "resting" on the 7th day, my response is, what is a day to a God existing outside of time? What's the theological truth behind the statement in Genesis? What is inerrant is the idea that, if God "rested" on the seventh day, it is meant by the author of Genesis to support the idea of a day of rest for man so that he can worship his Creator. It supports the idea of the fact that man should not work all the time, but rather find time to rest.

I agree that if one takes a hyperliteral view of Scripture, seeming contradictions emerge. But, my faith tradition isn't one of hyperliteralism. It is about interpretation of the meanings behind why two narratives about the creation of man are in Scripture--to teach us two different messages about the nature of our relationship with God.

To argue with a Catholic about literalism in Scripture is a red herring: we don't hold that approach to exegesis.

Of course. Of course. Im tired. I am done.....

 

[TexasDomer]

Well, don't ask the question if you already know, or don't want to read, the answer.

 

[TexasDomer]

its the hypocrisy and the idiocy that humans come up with a god and then have to argue about what he really is or what he really means

Or the alternative hypothesis that there is a God, He came to earth, established a Church, whose job it is to teach the world about Him. To do so, it has to have a unified view of
Who He is. If there is a God, if there is an objective Truth, then there has to be a way to come to a unified belief of it, if you believe the Church is in communion with God as we do.

You're asserting the contrary doesn't make it fact, although I know you think it does.

 

[marv81s]

I can't imagine how awful it must be to know everything and never be wrong.

Just terrible

 

[TexasDomer]

I've gotten used to it.

 

[marv81s]

I've gotten used to it.

Misunderstanding dude, I was aiming that at GD1977 or satans little helper, but hey, your pretty good too

 

[TexasDomer]

Yeah, I know what and whom you meant. Just crackin' a joke.

Semper Fi.

 

[marv81s]

do or die