Predestination, John Calvin

[Centurion1]

And an heretic at that. Did you ever read some works of St. Augustine? Calvin's and Augustine's ideas were very similiar. With the difference that Calvin was excommunicated and Augustine canonized. You do sound like an adherent of (semi-)Pelagianism, a notoir heresy, denounced by pope Innocentius I himself and anathemised at the council of Ephesus in 431 A.D .

The issue with that being that the Church has moved away from its beliefs in 431 AD. According to your reasoning I should also be a total heretic for believing in evolution. Also Augustine and Calvin have superficial similarities at best.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

I'm a Presbyterian and I do believe in Predestination.... To a certain extent anyhow.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I believe God gives us the free choice to be predestined or not.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The issue with that being that the Church has moved away from its beliefs in 431 AD. According to your reasoning I should also be a total heretic for believing in evolution. Also Augustine and Calvin have superficial similarities at best.

Augustine believed in evolution.

[Centurion1]

The church as a whole did not in 500 AD.

I daresay you know exactly what I meant but are just being difficult.

[Tuuvi]

Wait how could Augustine and the church in 500 AD believe in evolution? I thought the theory didn't come about until the 19th century.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The church as a whole did not in 500 AD.

I daresay you know exactly what I meant but are just being difficult.

Wait how could Augustine and the church in 500 AD believe in evolution? I thought the theory didn't come about until the 19th century.

Well, first of all, Augustine was long dead by 500 AD, nearly a century in fact.

Secondly, Darwinian evolution was first proposed in the 19th Century but the theory was a scientific crock until we were able to verify Mendelevian genetics and "modern" evolutionary theory is far advanced from Darwin's original hypothesis, it even includes elements of Lamarkism. However, the concept of evolution is actually a very obvious one, animals develop and adapt, just as people do. It has always been plain to see for all stock breeders, and it was a fairly uncontentious stance until quite recently. Nor has is ever been vigarously opposed by the Churches on religious grounds, in so far as it was opposed it was on the basis of scientific scepticism.

[Tuuvi]

Well, first of all, Augustine was long dead by 500 AD, nearly a century in fact.

Secondly, Darwinian evolution was first proposed in the 19th Century but the theory was a scientific crock until we were able to verify Mendelevian genetics and "modern" evolutionary theory is far advanced from Darwin's original hypothesis, it even includes elements of Lamarkism. However, the concept of evolution is actually a very obvious one, animals develop and adapt, just as people do. It has always been plain to see for all stock breeders, and it was a fairly uncontentious stance until quite recently. Nor has is ever been vigarously opposed by the Churches on religious grounds, in so far as it was opposed it was on the basis of scientific scepticism.

Oh ok I understand now, thanks.

[classical_hero]

Augustine believed in evolution.

No he did not. He believed in an Earth that was not many thousands of years old. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120112.htm This the title of one the chapters of his Magnum Opus "The City of God" in the 12th book " Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World's Past" Here he is arguing against an old earth, which is the crux of the issue of Evolution. Given enough time, miracles can happen.

[Papewaio]

The crux of evolution is passing a template to the next generation.

Time is more of a requirement in seeing the results. Given enough time and you get more then enough variety. Each generation can have a change, seeing those results withou DNA testing can take many generations to see.

The age of the Earth is a geological and/or astronomical area of endeavour. Mind you the various fields of science can be used to calibrate and test the other fields. That the age of the Earth is ample enough for Evolution from inanimate to cell to multicellullar life is apparent within the fossil record. That age of sediments can be approximately dated by matching the fossils within them with other such fossil sites around the world.

Scientists get a perverse joy in tearing down theories, even their own if they can find a more elegant solution that fits the data.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The age of the Earth is a geological and/or astronomical area of endeavour. Mind you the various fields of science can be used to calibrate and test the other fields. That the age of the Earth is ample enough for Evolution from inanimate to cell to multicellullar life is apparent within the fossil record. That age of sediments can be approximately dated by matching the fossils within them with other such fossil sites around the world.

There is something of a fallacy here, sediments are dated by fossils and fossils are dated by sedimentary layer. It's a closed loop. All the fossil record tells us is that life has had long enough to evolve, but not how long that has taken.

I'm not arguing that the Earth isn't old, I'm just making a point.

[gaelic cowboy]

There is something of a fallacy here, sediments are dated by fossils and fossils are dated by sedimentary layer. It's a closed loop. All the fossil record tells us is that life has had long enough to evolve, but not how long that has taken.

I'm not arguing that the Earth isn't old, I'm just making a point.

Fossils are dated by carbon are they not, by definition it would be dead and therefore the carbon content would be datable, and I was always under the impression things like sediments were dated by things like lead or uranium decay??

Furnuculus is the man to ask

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Fossils are dated by carbon are they not, by definition it would be dead and therefore the carbon content would be datable, and I was always under the impression things like sediments were dated by things like lead or uranium decay??

Furnuculus is the man to ask

Fossils are petrified, in most cases this means they can't be carbon dated because the original organic material has been replaced by some form of inorganic chemical. In any case, Carbon14 dating is quite unreliable because of the way it can fluctuate, so it is calibrated using dendrochonology, but it has now been discovered that trees can grow more than one ring a year, so that is also flawed and in any case dendro only goes back to about 3,000 BC, which is as far as history goes anyway. Lead and Uranium decay can also be contaminated if they are too closely associated with other minerals.

The point is, we don't know how old the Earth is, we just have evidence and ways of interpreting it. This is no different to Augustine, whose analysis of the available evidence (the historical record) was essentially correct, the Greeks were basically right and the Egyptions really quite wrong.

[Tellos Athenaios]

There is something of a fallacy here, sediments are dated by fossils and fossils are dated by sedimentary layer. It's a closed loop. All the fossil record tells us is that life has had long enough to evolve, but not how long that has taken.

I'm not arguing that the Earth isn't old, I'm just making a point.

To a degree but you have to keep in mind that sedimentary layers are conveniently quite large and made by relatively simply physical processes which means you can do a lot of comparison with other samples of the same or other layers. This doesn't give you a reliable dating technique, but then again the sedimentary layer is only corroborating evidence for a dating or a ball park figure from where to start.

Also if you want an accurate measure of time based on radioactive decay, you want to try Caesium isotopes. These have a very regular and predictable decay pattern which is why they are used as atomic clocks. Furthermore there are other radioactive isotopes, again it is the multitude of samples which provides accuracy and not some technique applied to any individual sample.

It is precisely that flaw which makes carbon dating unreliable: the lack of valid samples to compare against.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

No he did not. He believed in an Earth that was not many thousands of years old. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120112.htm This the title of one the chapters of his Magnum Opus "The City of God" in the 12th book " Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World's Past" Here he is arguing against an old earth, which is the crux of the issue of Evolution. Given enough time, miracles can happen.

Have you read what you quoted? Augustine is aguing against the belief in cyclical time, rather than linear (Christian) time, which was one of the most important gifts Christianity gave to scientific enquiry. He is also correct within his knowledge, he can only date from written history and no written history goes back more much further than the Bible. I will, however, check that quote as I am supcicious of "not six thousand years", as that is a modern figure and would make Augustine's world about 2,000 years older than Bishop Ussher's 1200 years later.

Just because Augustine doesn't believe in an Earth which is billions of years old does not mean he believes life does not develop, quite the opposite in fact.