tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post1670575180131026178..comments2024-01-29T08:39:40.754-05:00Comments on Musings of a Pertinacious Papist: Richard Dawkins v. Cardinal Pell: debateUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-13010740536124149682012-11-30T20:08:15.789-05:002012-11-30T20:08:15.789-05:00Thanks for pointing out the gorilla in the room. ...Thanks for pointing out the gorilla in the room. I quite agree.<br /><br />Like many others, Barr does overlook the bumbling primate knocking about between the dining room table and the wine cabinet.<br /><br />Even if he's withing the parameters of accepted Catholic opinion since Darwin's time, I think his defence of theistic evolution is overrated and overinflated. There are ample alternate options available to the Catholic willing to listen to voices outside of the evolutionist echo chamber.Pertinacious Papisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03213911570586726075noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-44937214000283607012012-11-29T16:56:44.753-05:002012-11-29T16:56:44.753-05:009 November 2012
Letters
First Things;
To the Edit...9 November 2012<br />Letters <br />First Things;<br />To the Editor:<br />Stephen M. Barr is logically and theologically correct in his article “Chance by Design.” Dec. 2012. However, Mr. Barr, as the great majority of Christian commentators, ignores the gorilla in the living room. That is, “Did an original first human man and an original first human woman, from whom all mankind has descended, exist?”<br />Based upon the traditional teaching of the Christian Church and codified in Pius XII‘s encyclical Humani generi , the existence of a historic first man and a historic first woman which pair committed the original sin is at the core of Christian theology. See Romans chapter V: 12-21.<br />However if one removes the blinders of received wisdom, and examines the evidence from a scientific point of view, that gorilla is like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon. The major difference between human and all other creatures, including extinct near human ancestors, is the gift of language which is a manifestation of the spiritual soul. <br />There are a number of establishment scientists that maintain that the mutation which lead to language occurred only once. (I.e. in the original “Adam and Eve.”) While the descendents of the original pair did mate with non-language relatives, the offspring of such mating (if they had language) would optimally survive, because of the great Darwinian advantage of language. Therefore, even though we have sundry genes from some 10 thousand or so ancestors, the one series of genes that come from Adam and Eve (which genes makes us humans with souls) are the genes for language. <br />Examples of scientists that assume that mutation for language occurred only once are: “Tim J. Crow Editor Proceedings of the British Academy V. 106 “The Speciation of Modern Homo sapiens.” Oxford University Press 2002,” and “John H. McWhorter, The Power of Babel A Natural History of Language (Times Books 2001) P. 8.” <br />Likewise, Ian Tatterstall in his latest book “Masters of the Planet The Search for our Human origins” Palgrave MacMillan New York 2012 discusses the importance of language in modern humans. In fact one his chapters is titled “In the Beginning was the Word.” Note, Dr. Tatterstall did not address the hypothesis that the mutation for language occurred once. <br />William M. Selenke<br />Cincinnati, OHWeeWilllienoreply@blogger.com