

Canada Goose sale Catholics claim that lies are truer than truth Why Evolution Is True Canada Goose sale

Canada Goose Outlet BBC goes after atheism tonightCatholics claim that lies are truer than truthBut let us begin at the beginning. Shea goes after me for my claim canada goose outlet real which I stand by 100% that modern genetics makes nonsense out of the canada goose outlet black friday Adam and Eve story, and thus invalidates the canada goose outlet legit entire Christian theology of sin and redemption through Jesus. We know now from genetics that humanity did not descend from only two ancestors, but from a population of ancestral apes that evolved into hominins, who themselves went through a population bottleneck of roughly a few thousand individuals. (For a full account of the scientific, historical, and theological issues, read Jason Rosenhouse posts here, here, and here). To debunk my criticism, Shea goose outlet canada simply cites an article by Mike Flynn at the TOF Spot. Flynn main claim is that there could have been thousands of humans at the time of Adam and Eve, and some of these mated with the First Couple spawn, explaining the canada goose outlet genetic data. Canada Goose Outlet

Canada Goose Parka Dr. Coyne primary error seems to be a quantifier shift. He and his fundamentalist bedfellows appear to hold that the statement: Canada Goose Parka

Canada Goose online A: is one man from whom all humans are canada goose outlet toronto factory descended equivalent to the statement: Canada Goose online

cheap canada goose uk B: humans are descended from [only] one man. other words, Flynn sees the solution in canada goose stockists uk (A): cheap canada goose uk

canada goose black friday sale Traditional doctrine requires only A, not B: That all humans share a common ancestor, not that they have no other ancestors…. Dr. Coyne believes the mathematical requirement of a population numbering 10,000 somehow refutes the possibility that there were two. But clearly, where there are 10,000 there are two, many times over. Genesis tells us that the children of Adam and Eve found mates among the children of men, which would indicate that there were a number of others creatures out there with whom they could mate. canada goose black friday sale

canada goose factory sale And, in his piece, Shea says this: canada goose factory sale


canadian goose jacket Let dispose of this nonsense immediately. As Jason shows, and a reading of Genesis immediately confirms, there no evidence that Adam canada goose outlet store quebec and Eve were anything but the ancestors of all humanity. Now who their sons married (presumably their sisters) is a matter of theological dispute, but there simply no evidence that Adam was contemporaneous with thousands of other people who were created at the same time. There nothing in Genesis canada goose outlet eu to support Flynn claim that canada goose outlet 80 off the children of Adam and Eve found mates among the of men, if those were anything other than Adam and Eve own spawn. Both men are relying here not on the Bible, but on some doctrine that that there were originally more than two created humans. And to save the story, the theologians show another characteristic feature: they simply make stuff up. In this case, both Shea and Flynn fabricate a huge population of humans, not directly related to Adam and canada goose outlet in toronto Eve but living at the same time. There not a shred of evidence for that anywhere in the Bible. It theology again, confecting stories to preserve its central message from the ravages of scientific fact. canadian goose jacket

canada goose uk outlet But enough of that. Beyond this kind of religious logic chopping lies an attitude deeply disturbing to anyone who cares about reason. Here what Shea says about the Catholic Cathechism (its words are in italics): canada goose uk outlet

uk canada goose As the Catechism itself says:390 The account of the fall canada goose outlet sale in Genesis 3 uses figurative canada goose uk site language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original canada goose outlet miami fault freely committed by our first parents. uk canada goose


cheap Canada Goose Translation: lies are the best way to affirm a truth. Flynn goes on in the same vein, but makes another statement that reminds me of John Haught assertion that a video camera recording the Resurrection wouldn have shown anything: cheap Canada Goose

Genesis’ account of the fall does the same sort of thing. It uses figurative language to describe a real event which took place here in the real world, not in cloud cuckoo land: Our canada goose sale uk First Parents abused their free will, sinned against God and fell. canada goose outlet buffalo The mythic language is truer language than newspaper language, because it brings us to the heart of what happened, which is far more important than a photographic record of what happened. A video of the first man committing the first sin would show us nothing, for the same reason that video of, say, a young Adolf Hitler sitting in a Vienna cafe and looking at an old Jew sipping his coffee would not reveal the momentous moment he canada goose outlet winnipeg address turned from thinking, “Is this a canada goose outlet boston Jew?” to thinking “Is this a German?” Traces of when sin, hate and evil are conceived in the heart cannot be detected in fossilized skulls.

Note carefully what Shea is claiming here: that an idle thought by one man (who, unlike Hitler, didn do anything!) doomed all humanity to a condition of sinfulness, only to be redeemed by the bloody death of an apocalyptic preacher. How can any rational person buy a story like that?

Canada Goose Jackets And if the language is figurative (and there no indication that it is: Shea simply realizes that the story wrong in light of modern science), how does he know the event is real? Making miracles not only one offs, but one offs that can even be seen when they happen, puts the whole theological enterprise beyond the pale. That means that there no way of knowing that miracles happened even if you were there. This insulates all miracles from empirical demonstration, which of course means that we can no longer make people saints, and endeavor that depends on two verified miracles. Canada Goose Jackets

canada goose store Here another assertion by Shea in which he simply makes stuff up to save the central doctrine of Christianity: canada goose store

canada goose clearance Adam’s first sin was likewise probably invisible to the naked eye the mere thought “No” directed at God or his own conscience would be sufficient. For all we know, it might literally have consisted of something as seemingly trivial as stealing canada goose outlet seattle a canada goose outlet near me bit of fruit. But it was enough. It sent out shock waves in the heavens and down through human history. But the sciences can have nothing, yay or nay, to say about it. canada goose clearance

The appropriate canada goose outlet price response is that of Delos McKown: invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike. Shea touts the endless resourcefulness of Catholic theology:

Canada Goose Online Bottom line: There really are canada goose clothing uk resources in the Catholic tradition for digesting this fascinating (but not, I think, anywhere near insuperable) challenge to the popular understanding of human origins and human sinfulness. The Church is in the very early stages of mulling over this matter and I am no prophet, but I suspect canada goose outlet in usa that, in a century or two, once the Church has finished puzzling out this matter, she will come down somewhere in the neighborhood of the territory Flynn https://www.winterdownparkas.com (and others) are pioneering (though, of course, the science may be very different by then and scientists may, ahem, have come to incorporate or grasp insights to which it is presently blind due to its ignorance of St. Thomas and Catholic theology). Dr. Coyne’s approach is, alas, an example of that problem, but I will draw a discreet veil canada goose jacket outlet uk over canada goose outlet in uk that and simply point out that the rumors of the death of Catholic theology are greatly exaggerated. Canada Goose Online

buy canada goose jacket Yes, we scientists (and rationalists) are severely disadvantaged in comparison to tradition and its theologians. We aren allowed to make up untestable stories to buttress our preconceptions, especially when they proven wrong. There is nothing no evidence in the world that would make these folks finally admit that the Adam and Eve story and its tale of Original Sin, is a simple human fabrication. They can always dig deeper into their goody bag of post hoc rationalizations. buy canada goose jacket

Professor Coyne has hit upon the central point: Rationalizations about a literal Adam and Eve are varied and tiresome, but they illustrate that, in religion, you are free to make canada goose outlet 2015 stuff up. Moreover, from my interactions with students, I have noted that religious apologists MAKE STUFF UP RIGHT ON THE SPOT. (In one case, this happened just after a student told me that her religion is based on eternal truths!). Isn it curious that, before modern science, no one made up these silly and indefensible rationalizations about what happened in Adam and Eve generation.
