What you could do better than god

[Roger Ramjets]

Well for a start the RCC's position includes the belief that God sent His only son to save us from our sins. That doesn't sound like "little or no interaction with it after the act of creation" to me.

One man out of millions? And if the Bible is accurate he didn't do much. If it wasn't for getting a cult following after death that was co-opted by the Romans we probably wouldn't even be aware of his existence today.

The virgin birth, the resurrection and miracles are compatible with science? Please explain.

Again, not much in the scheme of things. Virgin births, resurrections and miracles were a dime a dozen back then - every good religion had them. Serious Bible scholars know that, and the RCC does too!

Other than performing the occasional, verified by them, miracle, you mean?

Yep. You see, those 'miracles' are defined as nothing more than unexplained remissions of diseases. If that was God's doing then His power is totally explained by quantum mechanics - ie. random chance.

As far as evolution is concerned, I am not convinced that they truly believe that it happened without divine guidance and with no end point in God's mind, because it seems to me that makes a nonsense of most of their other beliefs. YMMV.

If you've read the Bible then you know there's precious little divine guidance or evolutionary 'end point' mentioned in it.

But more importantly, the RCC openly states that anywhere there might be apparent conflict between science and Christianity, the science is not disputed. If science says the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and life evolved over that time to create humans, that's what happened. Genesis is then seen as allegory, not scientific fact.

 

[Pixel42]

One man out of millions? And if the Bible is accurate he didn't do much. If it wasn't for getting a cult following after death that was co-opted by the Romans we probably wouldn't even be aware of his existence today.

Seriously? The existence and divinity of Christ is the defining feature of Christianity, without it the religion wouldn't have arisen, let alone still exist. The God of Christianity is most definitely not an non interventionist God, and miracles are at its core. It's a religion that cannot be made compatible with science without losing what makes it distinct from generic deism.

 

[GDon]

But more importantly, the RCC openly states that anywhere there might be apparent conflict between science and Christianity, the science is not disputed. If science says the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and life evolved over that time to create humans, that's what happened. Genesis is then seen as allegory, not scientific fact.

Stephen Jay Gould, the famous evolutionist and Jewish agnostic, shared an amusing story:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242780580_Nonoverlapping_Magisteria

... In early 1984, I spent several nights at the Vatican housed in a hotel built for itinerant priests... Our crowd (present in Rome for a meeting on nuclear winter sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) shared the hotel with a group of French and Italian Jesuit priests who were also professional scientists.

At lunch, the priests called me over to their table to pose a problem that had been troubling them. What, they wanted to know, was going on in America with all this talk about "scientific creationism"? One asked me: "Is evolution really in some kind of trouble, and if so, what could such trouble be? I have always been taught that no doctrinal conflict exists between evolution and Catholic faith, and the evidence for evolution seems both entirely satisfactory and utterly overwhelming. Have I missed something?"

A lively pastiche of French, Italian, and English conversation then ensued for half an hour or so, but the priests all seemed reassured by my general answer: Evolution has encountered no intellectual trouble; no new arguments have been offered. Creationism is a homegrown phenomenon of American sociocultural history—a splinter movement (unfortunately rather more of a beam these days) of Protestant fundamentalists who believe that every word of the Bible must be literally true, whatever such a claim might mean. We all left satisfied, but I certainly felt bemused by the anomaly of my role as a Jewish agnostic, trying to reassure a group of Catholic priests that evolution remained both true and entirely consistent with religious belief.

Another story in the same mold: I am often asked whether I ever encounter creationism as a live issue among my Harvard undergraduate students. I reply that only once, in nearly thirty years of teaching, did I experience such an incident. A very sincere and serious freshman student came to my office hours with the following question that had clearly been troubling him deeply: "I am a devout Christian and have never had any reason to doubt evolution, an idea that seems both exciting and particularly well documented. But my roommate, a proselytizing Evangelical, has been insisting with enormous vigor that I cannot be both a real Christian and an evolutionist. So tell me, can a person believe both in God and evolution?" Again, I gulped hard, did my intellectual duty, and reassured him that evolution was both true and entirely compatible with Christian belief—a position I hold sincerely, but still an odd situation for a Jewish agnostic.​

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Is that actually true, though? From experience, claims like that are often not based on fact but rather speculation. Given that the Catholic Church led the way in promoting science and rationality from before the time of the Enlightenment (yes, I know many here will disagree!), I'm sceptical of the claim, at least as presented.

So, Church leaders really didn't want to adopt the use of lightning rods, even while knowing the process worked, because they thought God wanted to zap their churches??? Other than one or two eccentrics, it sounds doubtful. I did a bit of googling, but didn't find anything concrete.

Apparently one of the earliest lightning rods was built by a theologian and used to protect a church:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod

Besides the claim of lightning rods causing droughts, others accused lightning rods of causing earthquakes because of the lightning being driven underground. I can't find explicit references to anyone saying "let the lightning destroy the churches!" They might be there though.

Yes many of us will disagree, because we understand how reality went down. For most of its history the rcc has been very anti science. And if Ratzinger didn't do a runner he would have pushed the anti-science agenda (quite a few of his pronouncements bordered on YEC in their meaning).

 

[HansMustermann]

For... anyone whose cognitive dissonance resolves that Catholicism is actually compatible with science, please do explain to me is simple words, like to a mentally retarded, how the following are scientific:

- the immaculate conception: Mary was specially created free of the original sin. Actual ex-cathedra papal infallible pronouncement, carrying an automatic anathema (excommunication) if you don't believe it, and generally being by definition incompatible with being Catholic. Where exactly on the human DNA is that original sin? We have sequenced it. Which sequence is the original sin gene?

- Mary's assumption: she was bodily lifted to heavens at the end. Again, the second ex-cathedra papal infallible pronouncement. If you don't believe it, you're incompatible with being a Catholic and automatically damned. So bodily assumption... WHERE? Please do try to come up with a reasonably pseudo-science fiction

- Mary got not just to become pregnant without intercourse, but stayed a virgin even after giving birth. Jesus just apparently went right through her, without disturbing her hymen on his way out. Again, actual Catholic dogma. Do be creative.

- Where did Jesus's Y chromosome come from, if no sperm from a male was involved?

 

[arthwollipot]

Miracles don't have to be scientifically viable, because God.

 

[HansMustermann]

Miracles don't have to be scientifically viable, because God.

Well, sure, but when one goes "well, it's a miracle" that's rather incompatible with science, wouldn't you say? I mean, the whole point of a miracle is that it's not a naturally-occurring phenomenon.

 

[arthwollipot]

Well, sure, but when one goes "well, it's a miracle" that's rather incompatible with science, wouldn't you say? I mean, the whole point of a miracle is that it's not a naturally-occurring phenomenon.

I think the position of the Catholic Church is that both science and miracles exist. Science works for everything except miracles, which are therefore evidence for God.

 

[HansMustermann]

I think the position of the Catholic Church is that both science and miracles exist. Science works for everything except miracles, which are therefore evidence for God.

I will grant that, but that's like saying that science is right, and planets are totally round, but only the Earth is flat. And yeah, the immune system totally works like science says, but vaccines still cause autism. It's not scientific, it's just carving out which domains are science, and which are my own BS,

 

[arthwollipot]

I will grant that, but that's like saying that science is right, and planets are totally round, but only the Earth is flat. And yeah, the immune system totally works like science says, but vaccines still cause autism. It's not scientific, it's just carving out which domains are science, and which are my own BS,

Oh, it's special pleading, absolutely! But maybe someone who is more familiar with the doctrine of the Catholic sorry Roman Catholic Church could provide more information. My own church was more of the pure science-denying type.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I think the position of the Catholic Church is that both science and miracles exist. Science works for everything except miracles, which are therefore evidence for God.

Not quite. Actually it's the other way around - miracles only work for things that science doesn't. As science gets better at explaining things, the number of things that can be called miracles decreases.

Miracle

The Catholic Church believes miracles are works of God, either directly, or through the prayers and intercessions of a specific saint or saints... The church says that it tries to be very cautious to approve the validity of putative miracles. The Catholic Church also says that it maintains particularly stringent requirements in validating the miracle's authenticity...

Only after all other possible explanations have been asserted to be inadequate will the church assume divine intervention and declare the miracle worthy of veneration by their followers. The church does not, however, enjoin belief in any extra-Scriptural miracle as an article of faith or as necessary for salvation.

You can be a Catholic and not believe in any miracles except the ones in the Bible. The church hierarchy probably doesn't either, but they have to approve at least some miracles to placate the faithful.

Apart from that though, why bother venerating miracles if believing in them is not a requirement? The answer is, miracles have another purpose in the RCC....

Before a person can be accepted as a saint, they must be posthumously confirmed to have performed two miracles. In the procedure of beatification of Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, the Vatican announced on 14 January 2011 that Pope Benedict XVI had confirmed that the recovery of Marie Simon-Pierre from Parkinson's disease was a miracle.

So you see, miracles are just a currency they use for handing out sainthoods - not much different from people getting knighthoods or on the cover of Time magazine.

With science doing such a good job of explaining the natural word today, miracles are a lot harder to get approved than they used to be. 2000 years you just had to write an obviously fictitious story and bingo - a 'genuine' miracle! In the 17th century, regrowing an amputated leg qualified. In the early 19th century, 70,000 people witnessing the Sun do a dance qualified. But you wouldn't get away with claiming things like that now. These days it's pretty much reduced to people recovering from a disease that doctors were sure was incurable. But as medical science gets better even that category is shrinking.

The Catholic Church's position on miracles isn't much worse than eg. the CIA's position on directed-energy attacks, or the U.S. Air Force's position on UFOs. A lot of people believe aliens are visiting us in their spaceships, so the authorities have to investigate 'credible' claims or believers get upset. And when they can't come up with an 'adequate' scientific explanation...

 

[HansMustermann]

You can be a Catholic and not believe in any miracles except the ones in the Bible.

Without denying everything else you wrote about sainthood miracles and such, the bigger problem is just what I highlighted: "except the ones in the Bible." That already conflicts plenty with science.

Plus the first two I mentioned are infallible papal pronouncements, meaning officially you can't be a Catholic if you don't believe those. Also it's stuff that even a future pope can't change, or the whole infallibility doctrine fails.

 

[HansMustermann]

OK, here's one, every single melanoma case so far and a bunch of thyroid and colon cancers and a few others, all have the same mutation on the same codon for the same protein: the so called BRAF V600E mutation. Like, literally same nucleotide 1799 has a T instead of an A. Every single melanoma case (and, again, a bunch of others.) This causes the BRAF protein to fold differently, so it can still trigger cell division, but it doesn't require any up-stream signaling to do so.

Any reason why a good and benevolent God couldn't have the immune system or any other mechanisms pre-"vaccinated" against the BRAF V600E mutation?

I mean, it wouldn't even mean tipping his hand off to humans. Just do that some hundred thousand+ years ago when the first human got a melanoma. By the time we sequence that gene in our day, we'd just think "hmm, must have evolved naturally, for some weird reason."

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Without denying everything else you wrote about sainthood miracles and such, the bigger problem is just what I highlighted: "except the ones in the Bible." That already conflicts plenty with science.

No.

You see, like those game shows the judge's decision is final even if the correct answer is later found out to be different. They were 'genuine' miracles at the time. Now science tells us different, but once a miracle is on the books it cannot be revoked.

Plus the first two I mentioned are infallible papal pronouncements, meaning officially you can't be a Catholic if you don't believe those. Also it's stuff that even a future pope can't change, or the whole infallibility doctrine fails.

Papal infallibility

An example of where there is dispute over whether a subject matter is within the limits of infallibility is the canonization of a saint by a pope. If they are, then they would represent a very common occurrence during a papacy. However, those are usually regarded as not of divine faith, as they depend on facts that post-date New Testament revelation. The status of individuals as saints in heaven is not taught in the Catholic Catechism or Creeds as required for belief.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Any reason why a good and benevolent God couldn't have the immune system or any other mechanisms pre-"vaccinated" against the BRAF V600E mutation?

Yes.

The population is too high because people have been 'sinning', so God built in a way to get it down 'naturally'. Pretty gruesome huh? (my mother died of melanoma and I may very well carry the same gene). Or perhaps it's not that at all. Perhaps that gene will one day be the savior of mankind. Or perhaps mankind isn't even the thing that needs saving.

Whatever the reason, if there was a creator god who made the Universe the way it is, that gene is a part of His creation even if He didn't know it was going to occur. Maybe this God was quite satisfied just knowing that evolution would do its thing, and He is simply waiting for something useful to come out of it. That's how we are using computers now with genetic algorithms.

It's also how the scientists I work with attempt to create new breeds of fruit tree. Last year I was involved in raising 60,000 plants from seed, which we then had to throw away because none of them showed the anti-pest trait they were looking for (and yes, it was quite distressing ripping all those healthy little trees out of their pots after all the nurturing we gave them, but that's just the nature of my job. Playing God isn't always fun).

I mean, it wouldn't even mean tipping his hand off to humans. Just do that some hundred thousand+ years ago when the first human got a melanoma. By the time we sequence that gene in our day, we'd just think "hmm, must have evolved naturally, for some weird reason."

That's right.

But why stop there? Here we are some hundred thousand+ years after that first human got sick, wondering why nobody ever died of anything since then. Seems strange that other animals die of diseases but we don't, but that's just the way it is - no need to presume God did it. Right?

Not that this is relevant. The God I am positing doesn't necessarily care whether we divine His existence from from we what see in nature or not. And my god isn't upset about harmful mutations because they are a necessary part of the mechanism (evolution). My God is isn't squeamish about breaking eggs to make His omelette.

 

[Roboramma]

If you presuppose that everything God did was perfect, then yeah, you can't improve it.

If we don't make that presumption, but just look at the world based on what we actually know about it, then, yeah, fewer people getting cancer is actually a good thing.

And it seems pretty unlikely that for God's plan to work out he needed to do all these seemingly dumb things, like routing nerves on long meandering paths through an organisms' body, like letting people (and animals) die slow painful deaths with no obvious purpose.

Sure, we can't rule out that he needed this Rube Goldberg contraption of errors to achieve some higher purpose. But in general things designed for a purpose actually seem that way.

 

[p0lka]

What could I do better than God?

everything and anything,

such a Puny god.

 

[Blue Mountain]

The Hajj. It's a requirement for every Muslim to do the pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime. It was a nice idea when Islam had a small number of adherents localized to the Middle East. Now it's a world-wide religion with nearly two billion adherents, making it a huge logistical problem for Saudi Arabia. At least they have lots of oil money, so they can make it happen in relative safety. Will they still be able to do so when the oil runs out?

 

[HansMustermann]

Papal infallibility

Not entirely sure what that has to do with what I was saying. I never said it had anything to do with every saint. In fact the only two which strictly qualify are the immaculate conception and the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven. (There are several earlier ones which would qualify, but the doctrine of papal infallibility was not yet defined.)

And yes, you are incompatible with being a Catholic if you don't believe a papal infallible pronouncement. In fact, it's a requirement for it to count as one.

But obviously, no, it doesn't apply to the list of canonized saints. Those were never qualifying as infallible pronouncements.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

The Hajj. It's a requirement for every Muslim to do the pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime. It was a nice idea when Islam had a small number of adherents localized to the Middle East. Now it's a world-wide religion with nearly two billion adherents, making it a huge logistical problem for Saudi Arabia. At least they have lots of oil money, so they can make it happen in relative safety. Will they still be able to do so when the oil runs out?

The Hajj is a money maker, not a liability. There's a huge tourism industry to provide all these travelers with the various things they need to make such a trip.