If Orthodox Catholics believe that Adam and Eve had two sons, Cane and Abel,....

[Vagabond]

And they believe in Creation, how do they explain the human race?

I've always been too embarrassed to ask anyone else.

Mumsnetters..... please explain.

Adam's rib......? Seems a poor excuse, frankly.

LeBFG I'm not actually saying either of those things. I'm saying that what the Catholic church says is not incompatible with Darwinism because it isn't. The church is primarily concerned with our souls, on which Darwin was obviously silent, and the church accepts that evolution, qua Darwin, happened, in the absence of any better scientific explanation. As with all scientific developments. The church has maintained that God created the whole shebang, and that is not incompatible with darwinism either.

God is often seemingly quite macro. This is something that many people - believers and non believers- have a problem with. I certainly don't have any answers and nor to be honest do I need any.

Could you at least post a link to show that the Catholic church and Darwinism are compatible? I would be very interested to see this is not just your opinion.

Sorry, Metabilis3, just realised that my post sounds shirty. I don't mean to be! In a fact kinda person that's all.

metabalis whichever teacher told you Matthew and John were disciples was talking out of their arse.

LeBFG: "In the first, this a pretty interventionist god! Why didn't he just get on and just make the bleedin humans and animals? I prefer the Darwin bit because it is a whole lot simpler - "

Well, yes. If you think that the earth is about 4 billion years old, and modern humans are about 200,000 years old, you do have to wonder what God was doing in between. What were the dinosaurs about, for example? They died out 64 million years ago.

The big question for me is do with the fact that in the monotheistic religions, humans are central - God created them with a purpose, and although we share the planet with billions of other creatures, humans are apparently unique in having a moral sense and an ability to understand the concept of God and (in Christianity) to accept Jesus as our saviour. But given that humans were evolving for several million years before the creature we know as homo sapiens, at what point did this unique moral sense appear? Who was the first human to have a concept of the difference between right and wrong?

The Occam's Razor explanation, it seems to me, is that humans are not here with a purpose, we are here as a result of a series of accidental events that ended up favouring our development.

LeBFG, there are plenty of Vatican scientists speaking about evolution. Pope Pius and JP2 both spoke in favour of it as have Gianfranco Ravas and George Coyne. There is stuff on the vatican website if you google but obviously its Latin so you would need to translate.

@ComposHat on the other hand, my teachers of long ago could (a) talk politely and (b) copy someone's name correctly. So, swings and roundabouts.

Yes because who would Cain marry?

Funny how some scripture is taken so literally. So many of these Bible stories are clearly fantastical yet many hold them to have happened.

The Nephilim theories are quite interesting. But purely from a folklore perspective.

Faith after all, is the holding of a belief without a requirement of proof.

Not read whole thread (mistake) but when I was at school I was always confused about this: If the great flood drowned everyone apart from noah and noah's wife, then everybody must be descended from them. So why the big fuss about adam and eve, surely noah and mrs noah are the first people (although they will have been descended from adam and eve of course but still, they are the people to look at, surely?)

SardineQueen

Exactly!!!!

Oh also not sure why the focus on RC, I thought it was evangelicals and the like that took it all more literally.

SQ - evangelicals and creationists aren't the same thing at all.
and yes, the RC focus has been challenged ages ago ^ there some where.

@Sardine It wasn't just Noah and Mrs Noah. There were also the sons of Noah and their wives who were somewhat stroppy if Benjamin Britten is to be believed.

The focus is on catholics because some people on mumsnet like to bash catholics.

CoE believe in Genesis too. They are less fundamentalist though and do not believe in transubstantiation unlike Catholics.

Glad that Catholic concept of 'Limbo' has been thrown out though although doesn't go far enough to appease the suffering of all those Catholic bereaved parents whose baby died before being baptised when Limbo was touted as a reality of Catholic doctrine.

What they must have felt being told their baby is 'floating' about in Limbo and cannot look upon the face of God because baby did not die in a state of grace..... ugh, just horrible.

I for one xp take through bible literally, I'm not Catholic though.

Adam and Eve were the mother and father of the human race, therefore all humans are descended (this ties in with the sins of Adam being inherited by all.

Therefore, Cain and Abel procreated with their sisters. Sounds horrible however, God made Adam and Eve genetically perfect, therefore their children, although affected by sin, were pretty much genetically perfect too. Therefore, procreation with their siblings would not have resulted in the genetic implications it would today.

Also, Adam and Eve lived VERY long lives( wasn't Adam 900) and had hundreds of children, as did their children and so forth until the flood, easy to see how the world populated so fast!

I believe in a 7 day creation, literally, really recommend the book 'Answers in Genesis'... lots of questions answered using the literal word if God.

See what I mean?

Yes, but the Noahs were the only family left.

Oh yes and Noah and Mrs Noah weren't too far separated from Adam, they probably were genetically superior too so cousins getting it on wouldn't have been a big issue.

Then you can throw into the mix the 'sons of God' I.e. angels, coming to earth and procreating with human women...resulting in giants...goliath and the like ;-)

The angels coming to earth was before the flood. That's why God sent the flood, to get rid of their offspring.

btw bumpkinbillionaire the quote upthread DID come from the Vatican website - they even have a choice of languages so even lil ol me could understand

Misslinnet you are right so disappointed not to be related to angels boo

I love a bit of religion chat. Really interesting stuff about the history of the bible etc. I'm not religious but do believe that the bible represents a historical record on our ancestors original beliefs about where their tribe came from. Which would have been the world, as they wouldn't have travelled all over and met many others. I think.

In other words, the bible is a collection of folklore tales made up by untravelled incestuous inbreds.

Roman Catholics believe in, and teach, evolution.

The Othodox Catholic church (eastern) don't take a firm stand one way or the other, so I guess it's quite possible you might meet an Orthodox Catholic who is a creationist.