ANSWERS: 13
  • + The Soul + A manlike being is slowly evolving. At some point God gives these beings a soul These human beings lived in complete “original” holiness. They loved God with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their mind. They loved their neighbors as much as they loved themselves. Then the first human beings disobeyed God, choosing to follow their own will rather than God's will. This was the Original Sin. Consequently, they lost the grace of original holiness and sin became universally present in the world. + Evolution + Most Christians do not take the stories of creation in the Bible literally. Catholics believe the book of Genesis tells religious truth and not necessarily historical fact. One of the religious truths is that God created everything and declared all was good. Catholics can believe in the theories of the big bang or evolution or both or neither. On August 12, 1950 Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical Humani generis: The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. Here is the complete encyclical: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html And here is the Address of Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996 speaking of the Theory of Evolution: http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm The Church supports science in the discovery of God's creation. At this time, the theories of the big bang and evolution are the most logical scientific explanations. However tomorrow someone may come up with better ideas. As long as we believe that God started the whole thing, both the Bible and responsible modern science can live in harmony. The Clergy Letter Project an open letter endorsing the Theory of Evolution signed by over 10,000 clergy from many different Christian denominations: http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evol_sun.htm With love in Christ.
  • Oooooh, these answers should be rich!
  • It is nearly impossible to determine the essence of what soul force involves from the position of a human understanding, of something that is not human. It is like a scientific theory that is speculation and educated guess until proof is either discovered or exposed trhough trial and error. But in this case, there is no means by which to experiment, only imagine if one is mentally able to do so. There are different brain types that are being examined now that prove how some people have a preconcieved and capable brain for spirituality and some have those capabilities for science and logic only. Perhaps that means in essence, that some of us have souls and some of us just dont because we dont want them? As more than anything else, science and spirituality come together in one common ground... Belief creates... "One must first aquire the potentiality and only later effect its actualization." Aristotle I personally, believe that the "soul" is a force, an energy, the very thing that holds molecular structure together causing it to become somewhat sympathetic to some. and that "God" is the intelligence that science is missing in the supposition and "theories" that say "There is indeed an intelligence, but we don't yet know what it is." I believe that the soul is a force, a scientific kind of spiritual energy principal that guides and projects and superimposes perception onto the fabric of humanity and we can't understand it, because it simply is so different from what we are as humans. So therefore a caveman, would no longer be a caveman in spirit and energy and force and inertia... He would be more like an electric impulse or a beam of light returning back to the source of that original intelligence. Just like it would be hard for an artist to capture air on canvass, but easy for a musician to portray its essence musically. Kinda like that...
  • The soul is not immortal. This is not a Christian teaching. This is a prime example of pagan teaching infiltrating Christianity. And not everyone goes to heaven so do not worry bout Neanderthals.
  • I don't. I don't believe in a soul. No evidence. No need for it. No hole in science that only the existence of a soul would fill. Nothing. No soul. Sorry.
  • I bet you're one of those people who thinks humans weren't so intelligent a couple of hundred years ago. They didn't have such a good scientific starting point, but their brains weren't any different to ours. We are progressively gaining more knowledge but we're not getting any more intelligent. I don't think Neanderthal bone structure makes much difference when you're dead, but then neither does brain capacity, seeing as how brain chemicals and a skull won't be getting in the way either.
  • I do not think that you can reconcile the idea of an imortal soul with Evolution. Other animals are not expected to have immortal souls, so why should humans? If we use the term soul to mean selfconciousness or personality, then perhaps it is a pattern generated by the brain not unlike an image on a screen generated by a copputer.
  • I do not think that you can.How do you know that you actually have an immortal soul? Surely, your brain generates your conciousness or "soul" just like your computer generates the picture on its screen.If your brain is damaged or destroyed the "picture" disappears.
  • There is absolutely no evidence that a soul or heaven even exists. So there is no reason to give credence to such inquiries. My Christian friend who is an anthropologist says that Cromagnon were the first humans capable of realizing Gods glory and that they were his design. That is how he reconciles it.
  • Maybe the soul has its origins in a different dimension of existence than the body. Good question.
  • Easy. There is no such thing as a soul or heaven. End of discussion
  • "In October of 1996, Pope John Paul II issued a statement on Darwinian evolution. It received front-page newspaper coverage around the world. But much of the reporting was based on only a superficial reading of the statement. Since then, the full statement has been reprinted. Most recently, it was reprinted in THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY (December 1997), which manifests a remarkable acknowledgement by biologists that they must take seriously the meeting between science and religion on the issues of biological evolution. From my reading of the Pope's message, I would draw three conclusions. First, the Pope defends an evolutionary creationism as a middle ground between evolutionary materialism, on the one hand, and antievolutionary creationism, on the other hand. The Pope's evolutionary creationism also rejects the separatism of people like Stephen Jay Gould, who argue that science and religion belong to completely separate domains. My second conclusion is that the Pope has adopted virtually the same position taken by St. Geoge Jackson Mivart in his 1871 review of Darwin's DESCENT OF MAN. Although he generally accepted Darwin's theory, Mivart argued that while the human body and all other forms of life might be products of Darwinian mechanisms, the human soul must have been created directly by a miraculous intervention of God into nature. My final conclusion is that both Mivart and the Pope fail to take seriously the idea of emergent evolution as explaining the evolution of the human soul in a way that would be compatible with both biological science and creationist theology. While Pope Pius XII in 1950 considered evolution "a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation," John Paul II concludes that new knowledge makes evolution "more than a hypothesis." It is a theory that can be confirmed by empirical observation. And yet John Paul indicates that there are "several theories of evolution" insofar as there are different explanations for the mechanisms of evolution. He also claims that there are differences in the "philosophies" on which evolution is based. Evolution can be interpreted as supporting materialism, reductionism, or spiritualism." Source and further information: http://metanexus.net/magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/2773/Default.aspx
  • This is a question for a monkey.

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