Does the church believe in/promote/accept Evolution??

Fluffybums · 21-02-2010 2:22pm

Based on the information here, what I have seen and read elsewhere and linked to, I would say that the Church of Rome does accept evolution. The Anglican church also accepts evolution (a certain poster on this thread will dismiss this church because it is not the Church of Rome). I guess it would be more accurate to say that the theory of evolution does not contradict the teachings of the church.

As for some of the weirder, in my opinion, churches primarily based in the US....:eek:

Of course that is just my interpretation is the information presented here and elsewhere.

wolfsbane · 21-02-2010 6:37pm

Fluffybums wrote: »

Based on the information here, what I have seen and read elsewhere and linked to, I would say that the Church of Rome does accept evolution. The Anglican church also accepts evolution (a certain poster on this thread will dismiss this church because it is not the Church of Rome). I guess it would be more accurate to say that the theory of evolution does not contradict the teachings of the church.

As for some of the weirder, in my opinion, churches primarily based in the US....:eek:

Of course that is just my interpretation is the information presented here and elsewhere.

Sorry I have not been able to follow the posts.

As far as I can gather, the RCC can accept evolution, but not the standard version. It still requires a sinless Adam and Eve as the original humans. Quite how they fit that with the scientific version, I don't know.

While many Christians today do accept evolution, the historic position of Christianity would not allow for it. That position is still held today by many churches and individual Christians. Christians of all types - theologians and scientists included - have publicly rejected evolution.

Here's a recent example I posted on the Creation thread:
Should Christians Embrace Evolution?
Biblical and scientific responses
Norman C Nevin (Editor)
http://www.ivpbooks.com/9781844744060

grrrrrrrrrr · 22-02-2010 12:31am

35% each!! It'll have to go to extra time!! butter my arse!

strobe · 22-02-2010 12:40am

Are you asking these questions and giving your responses out of the will to know the answer Grrrrrrrrrr or are you just trolling? A genuine question, because I honestly can't tell.

smokingman · 22-02-2010 5:02pm

Firstly, the Pope is meant to be infallible is he not?
So his comments on the validity of Evolution has to be taken as truth.

Looking back though, Pope JPII did admit to the church being wrong about the Earth being the centre of the universe so maybe the current Pope isn't infallible...

PDN · 22-02-2010 5:51pm

smokingman wrote: »

Firstly, the Pope is meant to be infallible is he not?
So his comments on the validity of Evolution has to be taken as truth.

No, you haven't understood the concept of papal infallibility (a concept by the way, that I profoundly disagree with). Papal infallibility asserts that the Pope is infallible when he solemnly declares or promulgates to the Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals as being contained in divine revelation.

However, in all other pronouncements (for example if he says that peanut butter is nicer than Marmite) the Pope's opinion is not considered by Catholics to be infallible.

ISAW · 24-02-2010 3:01am

smokingman wrote: »

Firstly, the Pope is meant to be infallible is he not?
So his comments on the validity of Evolution has to be taken as truth.

Looking back though, Pope JPII did admit to the church being wrong about the Earth being the centre of the universe so maybe the current Pope isn't infallible...

you should look into the history. It is less than 150 years old. Since the solemn declaration of Papal Infallibility by Vatican I on July 18, 1870, this power has been used only once ex cathedra.

and on the Earth being the centre thing yu are also wrong. The position on galileo was changed for centuries but only formally accepted recently. Just like say Gorbachev visited the UK but was still at war with Berwick upon Tweed because a formal declaration of peace was not made since WWI.

Adn you are wrong about the centre thing too. the suspicion of heresy was that of the Earth moving and the Earth going round the Sun ratehr than Sun going round Earth. Even today under General Relativity we can claim anywhere is at the centre.

neuro-praxis · 24-02-2010 10:48am

monosharp wrote: »

Congratulations on your award winning sentence.

This made me lol. :pac:

grrrrrrrrrr · 02-03-2010 11:46pm

Sorry i had a week ban. ok so ill take it the church does believe in evolution. thanks

monosharp · 03-03-2010 2:13am

Stephentlig wrote: »

The two leading evolutionists, Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge, admitted it in a 1971 speech in Chicago to all the world's evolutionists.

May I just point out how absolutely ironic it is that for creationists to get any kind of credit at all they need to misquote real scientists :pac:

Stephen J Gould was a great evolutionary biologist and absolutely accepted evolution as fact.

The quote your Mr Salza is referring to is this;

- Stephen J. Gould - Evolution's Erratic Pace, Natural History, vol. 86 (May 1987), p. 14. wrote:

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils ….We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study."

Mr Gould is not saying there are no transitional fossils, he was saying that they are rare and if you actually read the paper this quote is taken from you would see that he believes this is exactly right because of the rarity of fossilisation.

Anyways this isn't the thread.

Subsequently, they invented the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium to replace the absence of transitional fossils.

wikipedia wrote:

Punctuated equilibrium is a theory in evolutionary biology which proposes that most sexually reproducing species will experience little evolutionary change for most of their geological history (in an extended state called stasis). When evolution occurs, it is localized in rare, rapid events of branching speciation (called cladogenesis). Cladogenesis is simply the process by which species split into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another. Thus, "punctuated equilibria is a model for discontinuous tempos of change (in) the process of speciation and the deployment of species in geological time."

PE is a theory that various species punctuated the landscape instantaneously, without gradual development.

You know lying is a sin ? You should tell that to your Mr Salza.

Fanny Cradock · 03-03-2010 2:53am

Take it to the other thread.

grrrrrrrrrr · 05-03-2010 12:05am

strobe wrote: »

Are you asking these questions and giving your responses out of the will to know the answer Grrrrrrrrrr or are you just trolling? A genuine question, because I honestly can't tell.

No i was genuinely interested because in another thread they said the church did but i was always under the impression that the RCC DID NOT support it!!

So im done here. I know the church does now...

Thanks to all posters.....

Mods, close this when theres no discussion or whenever ye see fit!!

Does the church believe in/promote/accept Evolution??

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