Realist Guide to Religion and Science - SSPX accepts old earth, progressive crea

[Quaremerepulisti]

Hate to break it to you, Xavier, but your beloved SSPX is on board with accepting an old earth, local flood, and progressive creationism.  Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX, has written "Relaist Guide to Religion and Science" which promotes these views and the book is promoted by the SSPX.

https://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/author-realist-guide-religion-and-science-answers-questions-big-bang-36299

[Xavier]

Yes, thanks, Quare. I was aware of it, thank you. Dr. Sungenis has written a rebuttal entitled "Scientific Heresies and their effect on the Church". Meanwhile, here is an Old SSPX article on evolution and its Communist proponents. More on the Communist angle in the history forum later.

"THE DEVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION
Dr. Terry Jackson

Originally featured in the February 1997 issue of The Angelus magazine.
In 1947, Bishop O'Gara was imprisoned by the Chinese Communists and wrote from his prison cell regarding the Marxist indoctrination of his flock. A number of them were "hopeless" to the new regime and were executed. Those considered "salvageable" had to attend a week-long class as the new "People's Republic" was born. His letter described the retraining classes. He does not refer to Marxist philosophy, redistribution of wealth, or even basic socialist principles, but rather Darwinian evolution. This was what was considered the first vital step towards a cooperative communist populace. Eliminate God the Creator, eliminate original sin, replace God with the State.

The Communists utilized Darwin's observations of natural selection1 (which are valid observations) to advance a concept that all life, humans included, is pure chance resulting from environmental pressures existing for untold millions of years slowly molding them into their current status. The beginnings of life resulted from chance occurrences with random molecules. From a primordial ooze came the first living cell which became a two-celled organism and, billions of years later, became a human being, an organism of 100 trillion cells. The Chinese relied upon Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to undermine the religious foundation of millions of faithful. Those too strong to crack were eliminated.2"

http://archives.sspx.org/against_sound_bites/devolution_of_evolution.htm

If we hope to defeat the last vestiges of Marxism and of leftism even in the west, it will be of utmost importance to oppose evolution. Reverend Fr. Robinson, with all due respect, is making a very serious mistake. The blood of the Christian Martyrs who heroically gave their lives to overthrow the diabolical sect of godless Communism calls out to all serious Chistians to choose differently. Dr. Jackson also goes over some material we've covered before here from different sources.

Anthropology claims to have a fair amount of support for the theory of evolution. Piecemeal bone fragments, it says, provide glimpses at our ape-like ancestors. However, a lot of fraudulent input exists from this discipline also. A few examples:

A piece of bone dated at 5 million years was thought to be the collarbone of a human-like creature. This bone is actually part of a dolphin rib.2

Hesperopithecos, cited as evidence for very early man in North America, was a skull entirely formulated from a single molar tooth from a fossil pig.20, 21 This does not reflect well on evolutionary anthropologists. Shouldn't a pig's tooth be part of a pig's skull?

Piltdown Man, claimed to be the earliest Englishman, was another hoax. This was compiled from the jawbone of an orangutan and a modern human skull.13 A student priest (Tielhard de Chardin) was involved in this hoax which included teeth filed to make them appear human and chemical staining of the jawbone and teeth to give an old appearance.22

Peking Man (1929) was constructed from a skull cap closely resembling that of a great ape (furnished by Teilhard de Chardin). The cast of Peking Man, which took two years to construct, no longer exists. All that remains is a plastic model which itself was not taken from the original. This is on display in the Red Chinese Hall of Science and Evolution Exhibit. The original material has been "lost." 22

[Maximilian]

Thank you very much for posting this. I remember reading about this bishop many years ago, and I've been trying in vain to find the original source so that I don't have to rely on my defective memory.

I recall, however, having a small pamphlet written by this bishop. It started out with the same facts as are recounted in this article, regarding how the bishop was surprised when he was sent to the Chinese Communist re-education camp to find out that they began the indoctrination not with some pearls of wisdom from Marx or Lenin but with evolution.

I also recall that his biggest shock was when he was expelled from China and returned to the West, only to find that these ideas had already permeated the supposedly Christian countries.

[Maximilian]

Now that I know the author's name, I was able to find the booklet I've been search for.

http://catholicism.org/in-china-darwinism-preceded-marxism.html

When he returned to the United States Bishop O'Gara committed himself to preaching and giving lectures not only about Communism but also what he clearly perceived to be a growing cancer of secularism in America. With his first-hand knowledge of Communist doctrine, indoctrination methods, terror tactics, and global goals, it is not surprising that O'Gara was an ardent supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy.  On November 26, 1954, three days before McCarthy was Judasized by his fellow senators, Bishop O'Gara gave a stirring invocation to a pro-McCarthy rally in Madison Square Garden.

A year before he died the holy bishop published the treatise I have just read.  It was his last attempt at waking up indifferent American Catholics who, he believed, were on a slippery slope that could only end in atheistic tyranny.  Secularism was preparing the grounds.

In this work the bishop revealed a very interesting fact in the opening paragraphs. He explained that when the Red Army took over his diocese in 1949, they were followed by a civilian propaganda corps. These were the real fanatics for the revolution, the zealots committed wholeheartedly to the cause.  All of the people were divided into their professional class and indoctrinated as a group: the doctors, the lawyers, the farmers, the teachers, even down to the coolies.

"Now what, I ask," wrote the bishop, "was the first lesson given to the indoctrinees? One might have supposed that this would have been some pearl of wisdom let drop by Marx, Lenin, or Stalin.  Such however was not the case. The very first, the fundamental,  lesson given was man's descent from the ape – Darwinism!  . . . Darwinism negates God, the human soul, the after-life.

Into this vacuum Communism enters as the be-all and the end-all of the intellectual slavery it has created. In the Red prison in which I was held, the slogan, 'Bring your mind over to us and all your troubles will end,' was hammered into the minds of the prisoners with brutal and numbing monotony.  Nothing but a groveling holocaust of the human person can satiate the lust for dominance of Peking's Red regime."

On May 13, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, 1968, the valiant Bishop Cuthbert O'Gara died of a heart attack in his monastery of Saint Michael, Union City, New Jersey.

"The Surrender to Secularism" can be ordered from the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation, P.O. Box 11321, Saint Louis, MO 63105

[Habitual_Ritual]

Hate to break it to you, Xavier, but your beloved SSPX is on board with accepting an old earth, local flood, and progressive creationism. 

Mere opinion. Nothing of any great note

[Daniel]

Fr. Robinson is just one priest of the SSPX. I'm not sure that the SSPX has any unified position on evolution/old earth theory. Surely you'll find at least some SSPX priests who disagree with Fr. Robinson's view.

[Quaremerepulisti]

Yes, thanks, Quare.
...

If we hope to defeat the last vestiges of Marxism and of leftism even in the west, it will be of utmost importance to oppose evolution. Reverend Fr. Robinson, with all due respect, is making a very serious mistake. The blood of the Christian Martyrs who heroically gave their lives to overthrow the diabolical sect of godless Communism calls out to all serious Chistians to choose differently. Dr. Jackson also goes over some material we've covered before here from different sources.

The fact the SSPX is promoting this book doesn't mean they have officially adopted an old-earth progressive creationist position (nor is it reasonable to expect such since they are not a scientific organization); but what it does mean is that they find such a position acceptable to hold.  That is where they diverge from you.

Apparently, for you, "opposing evolution" means opposing an old earth as well.  Fr. Robinson clearly argues against materialist goo-to-you-by-way-of-the-zoo with the usual arguments about complexity of the cell and so on, but apparently that doesn't count for you sufficiently as "opposing evolution" and his support for an old earth constitutes a "serious mistake" and by implication support of evolution and even support for Communism.

So I'm just curious what you want me (and other scientifically literate Christians) to do, who realize that the scientific evidence does, in fact, overwhelmingly support an old earth, bearing in mind the specific costs of each approach.

1.  Lie and say the evidence shows a young earth, or at least that an old earth isn't a clear conclusion, and cherry-pick from the scientific literature in order to give that impression.  Opposing evolution, by any means necessary, is even more important than truth.

2.  Say that we don't care what the evidence says, we care what the Fathers (or other authorities) say.  In other words, an argument from authority should take precedence over an argument from evidence, no matter how strong the evidence.  Opposing evolution, by any means necessary, is even more important than rationality.

3.  Attempt to discredit the entire scientific establishment.  There were some instances of forgery in the past, and today scientific fraud and misconduct occurs via p-hacking and other nefarious practices.  What more do you need?  (But it's not OK when others do this to us and attempt to discredit the Church based on the crimes of priests and cover-ups by Bishops.)  Never mind that cars, and planes, and computers, and electricity, and so on, work just like science says they should (e.g. in the vast majority of cases science gets it right).  Opposing evolution, by any means necessary, is even more important than fundamental fairness.

4.  Other.

[Kreuzritter]

who realize that the scientific evidence does, in fact, overwhelmingly support

There's no absolute and objectively determined way to quantify and value such "support", even theories intended to "explain" data  could at the same time appeal to that data as "evidence" of their truth, which they can't, theories are valued at best on subjective persuasiveness concerning alleged "explanatory power", which in an historical science which can make no observations of its predicted processes is not exactly a very objectively determinable and testable concept. That's what you could admit, for a start, Mr. Scientifically Literate. The problem is not even your beliefs concerning natural history, it's your clear idolatry of human "reason" and raising of "science" to a quasi religion.

[Daniel]

4.  Other.

One could adopt some sort of idealism or other metaphysical theory to attempt to explain the existence of all the scientific evidence for an old earth despite the earth being young. (The Thomist can't do this though, since the Thomist is an empiricist.)

[Quaremerepulisti]

Well, OK, there's 4.  Go all pomo and rant and rave SJW-style against "rationalist hegemony" (instead of white male hegemony).  Claim unwelcome conclusions are all subjective and simply due to the racist/sexist (or this time rationalist) bias of those who hold them in combination with entrenched power structures; and furthermore, that those who hold them are, ipso facto, evil and no debate on the merits is even necessary (You oppose illegal immigration because you're xenophobic and racist; you believe in an old earth because you idolize reason).

Of course, there goes Christian apologetics, which is based on the idea that one can actually make valid inferences (even historical inferences) from data, and that decisions of early Councils on things such the humanity or Divinity of Christ are not just the triumphs of victors in internal power struggles ending in "Christian hegemony".  But never mind.  Evolution must be opposed by any means necessary, even if it means sawing off of the branch Christian apologetics sits on and finding common cause with postmodern deconstructionists.

There's no absolute and objectively determined way to quantify and value such "support", even theories intended to "explain" data  could at the same time appeal to that data as "evidence" of their truth, which they can't, theories are valued at best on subjective persuasiveness concerning alleged "explanatory power", which in an historical science which can make no observations of its predicted processes is not exactly a very objectively determinable and testable concept. That's what you could admit, for a start, Mr. Scientifically Literate. The problem is not even your beliefs concerning natural history, it's your clear idolatry of human "reason" and raising of "science" to a quasi religion.

You provide no argumentation whatsoever for your claim that theories are valued only on subjective persuasiveness.  You just screechingly assert it, along of course with the accusation that anyone who would deny this is being disingenuous.   You are quite the sleazy apologist for religion.  And you obviously know nothing whatsoever about testing of models.  The inverse square law of gravity is a better model than in inverse cube law.  That mother isotopes decay into daughter isotopes exponentially is a better model than daughter isotopes decaying into mother isotopes.  You can screech all you want about how this is all "subjective", but you will have abandoned reality for postmodern delusion.

And of course data is used as evidence in support of theories as well as in forensics.  Your argument has as much value as a sleazy defense lawyer saying, Ladies and gentleman of the jury, yes we know DNA matching the defendant's was found all over the victim and all over the murder weapon.  But there is no objective way to determine the defendant was the murderer.  Pay no attention to the prosecution's mention of "science", "evidence" and "reason" and "explanatory power" of the DNA.  There is only subjective persuasiveness, and you know my client was a good man.  The prosecutor claims that DNA couldn't have come from another man based on "theories" such as genetics intended to explain "data" but then he must appeal to the data itself as "evidence" of the truth of the "theory". If you believe him, you have raised science to a quasi religion.  And if you believe this, you probably also believe O.J. Simpson was innocent.

[Kreuzritter]

Well, OK, there's 4.  Go all pomo and rant and rave SJW-style against "rationalist hegemony" (instead of white male hegemony).  Claim unwelcome conclusions are all subjective and simply due to the racist/sexist (or this time rationalist) bias of those who hold them in combination with entrenched power structures; and furthermore, that those who hold them are, ipso facto, evil and no debate on the merits is even necessary (You oppose illegal immigration because you're xenophobic and racist; you believe in an old earth because you idolize reason).

Of course, there goes Christian apologetics, which is based on the idea that one can actually make valid inferences (even historical inferences) from data, and that decisions of early Councils on things such the humanity or Divinity of Christ are not just the triumphs of victors in internal power struggles ending in "Christian hegemony".  But never mind.  Evolution must be opposed by any means necessary, even if it means sawing off of the branch Christian apologetics sits on and finding common cause with postmodern deconstructionists.

There's no absolute and objectively determined way to quantify and value such "support", even theories intended to "explain" data  could at the same time appeal to that data as "evidence" of their truth, which they can't, theories are valued at best on subjective persuasiveness concerning alleged "explanatory power", which in an historical science which can make no observations of its predicted processes is not exactly a very objectively determinable and testable concept. That's what you could admit, for a start, Mr. Scientifically Literate. The problem is not even your beliefs concerning natural history, it's your clear idolatry of human "reason" and raising of "science" to a quasi religion.

You provide no argumentation whatsoever for your claim that theories are valued only on subjective persuasiveness.  You just screechingly assert it, along of course with the accusation that anyone who would deny this is being disingenuous.   You are quite the sleazy apologist for religion.  And you obviously know nothing whatsoever about testing of models.  The inverse square law of gravity is a better model than in inverse cube law.  That mother isotopes decay into daughter isotopes exponentially is a better model than daughter isotopes decaying into mother isotopes.  You can screech all you want about how this is all "subjective", but you will have abandoned reality for postmodern delusion.

And of course data is used as evidence in support of theories as well as in forensics.  Your argument has as much value as a sleazy defense lawyer saying, Ladies and gentleman of the jury, yes we know DNA matching the defendant's was found all over the victim and all over the murder weapon.  But there is no objective way to determine the defendant was the murderer.  Pay no attention to the prosecution's mention of "science", "evidence" and "reason" and "explanatory power" of the DNA.  There is only subjective persuasiveness, and you know my client was a good man.  The prosecutor claims that DNA couldn't have come from another man based on "theories" such as genetics intended to explain "data" but then he must appeal to the data itself as "evidence" of the truth of the "theory". If you believe him, you have raised science to a quasi religion.  And if you believe this, you probably also believe O.J. Simpson was innocent.

Blah blah. Note the completely emotive "argument" he offers in response to my assertion. And with that, all you've done is make my point. The inverse square law accurately describes measurements of dynamic properties of observable phenomena under certain conditions. This is a fact, not a theory, and no physicist, as a physicist, needs to make further assertions about it. But belief in its universal extensibility through space and time is a matter of ultimately subjective persuasiveness, based not only in the logically curious conviction of humans that the frequency of past outcomes implies something about future outcomes, a belief really founded in the assumption that these are bound by an intelligible law of reason, but also in the ad hoc inclusion of additional forces into a system whenever it fails in its predictions: these reasons do not possess some absolute implicative properties of truth which can be objectively determined and quantified, and this is just a fact, one that genuine philosophy of science has been struggling with even before Hume addresses his problem of induction. Decay of isotopes, on
the other hand, is in one sense not a model but an observable, though in another it is indeed an abstract theory of hypothetical objects, whose ontological nature cannot be accounted yes for, to predict effects upon measuring instrument (I'll add that many of the strongest minds of physics considered them to be mathematical constructs of mere pragmatic worth); but their ability to be used to predict experimental outcomes under conditions or to construct machines does not imply anything g about their "truth" except to those who have persuaded, again by ultimately non-quantifiable means, of suc, but that is really persuasion concerning a metaphysical interpretation of the model's "reality", not anything asserted by the model itself! Your attempt to use these examples as analogues to the theories of an historical science, which do make ontological assertions which can never be tested in themselves, but truly only favoured by their persuasiveness according to certain personal criteria and some u derlting assumptions about the nature of reality, is - disingenuous - and it's noteworthy how you run to relatively high-level, in some sense directly observable, and ultimately phenomenological models of mechanics whenever you grasp for a counterexample to defend a criticism of your logically spurious historical science.

As for appealing to the legal process and it's undefined (and unquantifiable) "reasonable doubt", a theatre of pragmatic expediencies,  on a matter of the epistemology of science, that is really barrell-scraping behaviour, the last appeal of the illiterate. I actually make no claims concerning OJ's innocence or guilt. Does that trouble you? That you would conclude that I believe Simpson to be innocent because I recognise the subjective nature of being persuaded by the evidence is truly bizarre. You really do have trouble with drawing valid inferences, don't you? Then again, you are an insufferable Bayesian quack, aren't you?

No, this isn't any kind of "postmodernism" - I'm neither a metaphysical nor epistemological relativist (though you scientific materialists and all who believe experience of "the mind" is mediated as an epiphenomenon from a categorically distinct atomistic reality driven by intelligible laws of reason really should follow the logical road down Kantianism and into relativistic nihilism)  - and neither is any other critique just because it targets your crypto metaphysical naturalism and physicalism or their vaunted "science". 

Oh, and I haven't uttered one apology for religion in this thread. But note how he automatically assumes a critical attitude toward science is an attempted apology for religion, not to mention the negative sense in which he uses that word! I've already made clear umpteen times that I don't care one way or the other about the truth of any form of evolutionism itself, and that either way as far as I'm concerned this world in which we find ourselves is the blundering work of a devil in mocking imitation of the divine creation.

[Kreuzritter]

And you obviously know nothing whatsoever about testing of models.

You're not going to smuggle in the problem of induction through the back door with p-values or the semantic sophistry of applied Bayesian formalism and claims to quantify truth and determine "true" degrees of an undefined "rational" belief.

[Quaremerepulisti]

Again, all your screechy rhetoric only ends up sawing off the branch Christian apologetics sits on - a claim you never addressed.

Why demand that the Resurrection of Christ be accepted as a miracle?  If laws of nature can change over time, then all you have is "subjective persuasiveness" and "underlying assumptions about the nature of reality" and "historical science" which makes "ontological assertions which can never be tested in themselves" and an "ultimately phenomenological model" of life.  Maybe 2,000 years ago people rose from the dead all the time.  The "law" that dead people do not rise accurately describes phenomena under certain conditions, but belief in its universal extensibility is only subjective.

In fact, why accept the Bible as a reliable source of "truth" (see, I can put things in scare quotes too)?  That we can claim to know what words in languages spoken many thousands of years ago actually mean relies on subjective persuasiveness and underlying assumptions, etc.  Maybe they meant exactly the opposite of what we think they do.  In fact, the claim that we even have an accurate copy of what was written that long ago likewise relies on such subjective persuasiveness and assumptions.

Once you deny that there are actually objective laws of reality that can be known via observation, you slide down the slope to postmodernism, and the base for Christian apologetics vanishes.  You accept the miraculous quality of the Resurrection and the Bible as a source of truth but deny that the inverse square law of gravity is really a law because you want it to be so, after all is said and done.

This is the intellectual shell game played by the anti-science crowd.  But they have to play it - for once they admit laws of science are determined by the ontological nature of things and don't involve mere "phenomena", the gig is up.

The inverse square law accurately describes measurements of dynamic properties of observable phenomena under certain conditions. This is a fact, not a theory, and no physicist, as a physicist, needs to make further assertions about it. But belief in its universal extensibility through space and time is a matter of ultimately subjective persuasiveness, based not only in the logically curious conviction of humans that the frequency of past outcomes implies something about future outcomes, a belief really founded in the assumption that these are bound by an intelligible law of reason...

Note the descent into Kantianism when it suits the anti-science polemicist to do so.  The position of an object is not a mere "phenomenon", but an ontological accident.  However, for the anti-science crowd all we can see are "phenomena" which give and can give no insight whatsoever into the underlying reality or "noumena" - just as Kant would have it.  But the fact is, the inverse square law not only describes measurements but also predicts them - something which is inexplicable unless the frequency of past outcomes actually does imply something about future outcomes, and that this law (even if we do not understand everything perfectly and the model is not perfect) arises due to the nature of things.

Decay of isotopes, on the other hand, is in one sense not a model but an observable, though in another it is indeed an abstract theory of hypothetical objects, whose ontological nature cannot be accounted yes for, to predict effects upon measuring instrument (I'll add that many of the strongest minds of physics considered them to be mathematical constructs of mere pragmatic worth); but their ability to be used to predict experimental outcomes under conditions or to construct machines does not imply anything g about their "truth" except to those who have persuaded, again by ultimately non-quantifiable means, of suc, but that is really persuasion concerning a metaphysical interpretation of the model's "reality", not anything asserted by the model itself!

Note the shell game being played.  It's true that any given model isn't the final word.  It may be, and is, improved, as classical mechanics was via quantum mechanics.  It's not true that a given model tells us nothing whatsoever about the truth of things.  There is a reason why the models succeed at predicting experimental outcomes, because they approach the reality of things.  It's like saying we know nothing whatsoever about the time of death of X because we know it approximately, in which year, but not which month, day, or hour.

Your attempt to use these examples as analogues to the theories of an historical science, which do make ontological assertions which can never be tested in themselves, but truly only favoured by their persuasiveness according to certain personal criteria and some u derlting assumptions about the nature of reality, is - disingenuous - and it's noteworthy how you run to relatively high-level, in some sense directly observable, and ultimately phenomenological models of mechanics whenever you grasp for a counterexample to defend a criticism of your logically spurious historical science.

No, this came in the context of your blanket claim that models can't be tested and compared.  If you now admit that, at least for directly observable motion of objects, they can in fact be, then we can look at testing and comparison of models for historical things.

As for appealing to the legal process and it's undefined (and unquantifiable) "reasonable doubt", a theatre of pragmatic expediencies,  on a matter of the epistemology of science, that is really barrell-scraping behaviour, the last appeal of the illiterate. I actually make no claims concerning OJ's innocence or guilt. Does that trouble you? That you would conclude that I believe Simpson to be innocent because I recognise the subjective nature of being persuaded by the evidence is truly bizarre. You really do have trouble with drawing valid inferences, don't you? Then again, you are an insufferable Bayesian quack, aren't you?

You're just blustering because you have no real answer to the claim that DNA evidence is scientific evidence about what happened in the past.  Deny this, and you look stupid and ignorant (and should be applauding the acquittal of OJ - if it don't fit, and all).  Admit this, and you must admit that historical science can and does make valid claims.

I've already made clear umpteen times that I don't care one way or the other about the truth of any form of evolutionism itself, and that either way as far as I'm concerned this world in which we find ourselves is the blundering work of a devil in mocking imitation of the divine creation.

Well, then you're not really a Christian, then, are you?