Troll 1000% confirmed without the shadow of a doubt. There is nothing else to say. You clearly have not understood anything about my argument, and you are arguing against your own strawmen. So long as you are allowed to keep behaving like this with this clearly trollish behavior you are right to continue.
Matthew 18 is a big chapter with lots of topics covered in it.
And this is a lengthy thread, with lots of exchanges and topics in it too.
So if you have specific things in mind to address, you could direct your replies towards any particular posts above by just selecting a bit of text in any post to which you’d like to react, and then clicking the grey ‘quote’ option that appears. That inserts your quote into your response post (like I did with yours above.) That will help readers know to whom and to what you are reacting.
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I’ll keep feeding the troll, this is getting funny once again.
You wrote
And my thesis was simply that this doesn’t rule out the possibility that a particular couple was elevated by God to a state of sanctity and holiness.
Swamidass built his argument exactly on the same genealogical distinction made by Rohde, Olson, and Chang: genetic ancestry and genealogical ancestry are not the same question (!!!)
In his 2018 article, he says the following https://peacefulscience.org/pdf/PSCF3-18p19-35Swamidass.pdf
“It seems such a simple question, but it carries a great deal of subtlety and complexity: Do all humans descend from a single couple? Genetic science appears to answer with a “no.” From genetic data, the population size of our ancestors at different times is estimated. It appears that population sizes never dipped to a single couple in the last several hundred thousand years, during the time in which Homo sapiens arises.1 This conclusion is robust, based on several independent signals: our ancestors arose as a large population, not as a single couple. It is a subtle and consequential error, however, to think that these findings demonstrate that there are no individual couples from whom we all descend. For the “no” to be correct, we must have inserted into the original question a genetic notion of ancestry. This insertion of “genetic” into the question neglects a key scientific fact: genealogical ancestry is not genetic ancestry. Genealogical ancestry traces the reproductive origins of individuals, while genetic ancestry traces the origin of stretches of DNA. A question about “descent” can be a question about genealogies, and genealogical questions should be answered with genealogical science.”
He also writes
“Could a single couple be among the ancestors of all humans? The answer from genealogical science is a definitive “yes.” There are many universal genealogical ancestors (UGAs) in our past, each individually from whom we all descend. These genealogical adams and genealogical eves3 are likely to appear just thousands of years ago, and continge back until ancient times. Two of them could be a particular couple, named Adam and Eve in scripture, from whom we all descend. “
So you do understand that, when you write this,
You are stating something I have never denied? The only point I added is that the existence of “many, many such pairs” doesn’t in any way exclude the real possibility that, among them, one couple was raised to a special sanctity and holiness, that we all descend from them, and that science neither rules out nor confirms this theological view.
So if you still fail to understand this, if you still believe you have actually refuted me, and if you still fail to see how the Nature paper I cited (one even used by Swamidass ) helps my thesis (contrarily to what you wrote here, namely, citing your words from here Your thoughts on punishment or rehabilitation and whether there are any truly bad people - #176 by Roy : “ If you can’t understand the nature of your source, there’s no reason to think you’ll understand its contents either. That you think their work is helpful to your claim indicates you don’t”), thesis which, for the umpteenth time, is a thesis of compatibility, not affirmation (namely that the theological claim that we all descend from a primeval couple, elevated to sanctity and later fallen into sin, is scientifically possible, even if not scientifically established), then your problems and limitations are even worse than I imagined. The only alternative is that you are a full-blown troll. Tertium non datur.
In the likely event that you’re trolling, let me know if you need anything else to eat. I’m generous in that regard. After all, Jesus taught us to feed the hungry, and didn’t exclude hungry trolls.
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Some-one using your account wrote this (my emphasis):
Either you denied that the scientific possibility was confirmed (and can’t understand or remember your own words), or some-one else is using your account.
[Back to watching the piggery from the sidelines]
What I said was simply that the possibility of a historical Adam and Eve, elevated by God to sanctity and from whom all of us descend, is real and not refuted by science (with “nor confirmed” I obviously meant, for anyone who has the reading comprehension of a second grader and can understand the context, that science can’t prove the historicity of an original pair elevated by God from whom all humans descend, in other words I meant that the possibility is real -contrarily to what some people argue, because there are people who argue that an historical Adam and Eve are a scientific impossibility and that the orthodox Christian doctrine is demonstrably incorrect- but it cannot be proven and established as a scientific fact and remains just a possibility).
I have also distinguished between genealogical ancestry and genetic ancestry. You are nitpicking over isolated words without bothering to acknowledge what I’m actually saying in the context and what my actual thesis is
I don’t know how or why you are allowed to keep behaving like this, to be honest, but it’s embarrassing.
Skulls with holes bashed in them and human bones with scrape marks and cuts made by stone tools (butchering) appear throughout the hominin fossil record. One recent paper recorded a Neanderthal site with clear signs of cannibalism, and upon further investigation, the victims were all women and children unrelated to the tribe that butchered them.
There are fossil evidences of human-on-human violence from erectus through the earliest sapiens. It’s present in all recent human ancestors. But if your objection is that we have to have complete data on all behavior, then that standard is designed to be impossible to meet.
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Briefly, an article says, “This is material of substance that we have confidence in”, while a letter says, “We came across this and believe it’s worth thinking about”.
At least according to my university 400-level physics professor.
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Maybe, but only maybe – concluding that it’s “left open” is bad math. It’s entirely possible to say “X comes from set X’ that is no smaller than x”, where x can have a large value.
I.e. that in set X’ a value x" < x may exist that is distinct from the rest.
True enough, though it should be noted that this does not make x" ancestral to all X.
True – indeed there could be more than one such couple.
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I think the issue is that your phrase is being taken to mean “the only original pair . . . from whom all humans descend”. You’re basically saying, it seems, that there exists a pair (x,y) such that it is a member of all existing (x’, y’), but that it is not the only such pair.
(I’m not terribly awake yet; apologies for probably butchering the terminology.)
Sure – but unless it can be shown that every human ancestor was guilty of such bashing and butchering, that’s not conclusive.
That is my objection, and it is a necessary one if you’re going to claim that there have never been innocents (or “saints”, if you will).
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Roymond, my thesis is similar (not equal) to the Swamidass’ one. And I think I have explained in detail what I meant. :))
Exactly,
He actually claimed (Jay will correct me if i’m wrong) that the humans with whom God first interacted were innocent but not in the sense of elevation to sanctity and holiness (more like “not imputable ”): and he excludes a particular couple elevated to sanctity and righteousness before the Fall (my bad: the “Fall”, in quotation marks, because he always used quotation marks for the Fall). He certainly can hold this opinion, he can’t force it on anyone though.
Yes, i think that the key distinction is between later common ancestors and independent first-parent lineages.
A genealogical model like Rohde, Olson, and Chang’s says that, far enough back, all living humans come to share the same genealogical ancestral set; in the abstract they write that “the genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways” and that “each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.” That means many people can become common ancestors of everyone alive today. Scientifically, that is not a problem.
The theological problem would arise only if Adam and Eve were reduced to one pair among several independent first-parent lineages, so that some true human beings (in the sense of human beings with rational soul and the capacity of having a covenant with God) didn’t descend from them at all. That is precisely what Humani generis rejects when it says the faithful cannot hold that, after Adam, there were true men who “did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all,” or that “Adam represents a certain number of first parents.”
So the existence of many later universal genealogical ancestors doesn’t by itself conflict with doctrine. Those later common ancestors are a mathematical feature of pedigree overlap. What doctrine excludes is not many later common ancestors, but many independent origins of humanity in the relevant theological sense. The Catechism speaks of “a primeval event,” of “our first parents,” and says that original sin is transmitted “by propagation.”
In that sense, the two claims can fit together: science can describe a large shared genealogical ancestral set, while doctrine adds the further claim that Adam and Eve remain the real first parents of all. Many later common ancestors are therefore compatible with both science and doctrine; multiple independent first-parent lineages are not. And since the orthodox view, namely the one compatibile with doctrine, can be believed and it doesn’t conflict with science, i choose to hold it.
And sure, i choose to hold it by faith. Afterall, i recite the the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed everytime i go to Mass.
Credo in un solo Dio,
Padre onnipotente,
Creatore del cielo e della terra,
di tutte le cose visibili e invisibili.
Credo in un solo Signore, Gesù Cristo,
unigenito Figlio di Dio,
nato dal Padre prima di tutti i secoli:
Dio da Dio, Luce da Luce,
Dio vero da Dio vero,
generato, non creato,
della stessa sostanza del Padre;
per mezzo di lui tutte le cose sono state create.
Per noi uomini e per la nostra salvezza discese dal cielo,
e per opera dello Spirito Santo
si è incarnato nel seno della Vergine Maria
e si è fatto uomo.
Fu crocifisso per noi sotto Ponzio Pilato,
morì e fu sepolto.
Il terzo giorno è risuscitato,
secondo le Scritture, è salito al cielo,
siede alla destra del Padre.
E di nuovo verrà, nella gloria,
per giudicare i vivi e i morti,
e il suo regno non avrà fine.
Credo nello Spirito Santo,
che è Signore e dà la vita,
e procede dal Padre e dal Figlio.
Con il Padre e il Figlio è adorato e glorificato,
e ha parlato per mezzo dei profeti.
Credo la Chiesa,
una santa cattolica e apostolica.
Professo un solo Battesimo
per il perdono dei peccati.
Aspetto la risurrezione dei morti
e la vita del mondo che verrà.
Amen.
For every individual who is a genealogical ancestor to everyone alive today (and there have been many, many such individuals) that individual’s parents were such a couple.
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Then we’ll agree to disagree. The record indicates “evil” or “sinful” behavior as far as you can see in hominin evolution, up to and including early sapiens, but if all it takes is one saint (or a simultaneous pair of them, male and female) to make the scenario work, that can never be proven or disproven. It just strikes me as special pleading and appeal to miracle to solve a historical and scientific problem. I prefer an explanation that doesn’t require God’s intervention to fit the evidence. Occam’s Razor, but to each their own.
Edit: Oops. I forgot to mention that innocents have always been with us. Early humans were innocent because they were ignorant in the same way that a toddler is ignorant of evil, and therefore innocent. Innocence isn’t moral perfection. It’s ignorance.
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That only holds if you take Adam and Eve as originators of the race. Given that the two Creation accounts are talking about different things, there may have been “true human beings” before Adam and Eve.
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quote="BuffaloMax17, post:1, topic:58124, full:true"
I had a few thoughts on legal punishment that I was wondering if I could have your guys opinion on. I noticed that in the Bible, Jesus didn’t seem like the kind of guy who wanted people to face a justice system for their sins. I think of when that woman was accused of a crime and Jesus dared the Pharisees to stone her, which they did not.
/quote
We have to differentiate between what many people want and what is truly justice because what I observe among Christians is an increasing return to “a tooth for a tooth,” which in my mind, completely rejects the teaching of the prodigal son. If we take a look at Jesus’s reported attitude to law breaking, he points to exceptions, which there always are. Anyone who just rules according to the letter of the law is in danger of committing an injustice.
At its core, justice is about right relationship and giving each person what is due to them, in a way that recognises both fairness and humanity. But that simple phrase has been interpreted in different ways across history. That’s why many traditions distinguish between law and equity. Equity is the corrective: it bends rigid rules to fit the reality of a human situation without breaking the spirit of fairness.
Once you recognise that the “playing field” is uneven, a purely rule-based idea of justice starts to look inadequate. If relationships are already distorted by power, wealth, history, or social position, then simply applying the same rules to everyone can actually reinforce injustice rather than correct it. Treating unequals as if they were equal is not neutrality but a kind of biased blindness.
The example of the woman accused of adultery is where Jesus points this out. First of all, the woman is accused but she can’t commit adultery on her own, and secondly, who among the accusers is without sin? The whole situation is resolved by Jesus telling her to sin no more because it is contrived, as it often is in our world.
quote="BuffaloMax17, post:1, topic:58124, full:true"
Not to mention that Jesus died in the cross for all of our sins (which isn’t to say that we cannot commit crimes but that we weren’t delivered rightful justice because of his sacrifice). With this thinking, I wonder if we it is really good to have a justice system that prioritizes punishment (I.e. you will be in prison for this amount of years) versus one that prioritizes rehabilitation (more emphasis on programs that take people from their criminal mindsets and prepares them for re-integration with society).
/quote
Because I oppose the atonement teaching and see Jesus teaching forgiveness, not that God needs a “thunder rod” to contain his wrath, this is also a contrived answer. But it does point to the fact that a “scapegoat” circumvents justice, leaving the guilty unpunished. Once more, it is seen as an exception to the rule of law, “a higher magic” as CS Lewis says in his Narnia story.
If you have a perverted justice system based on revenge, you will have more people in prisons than need be, because the perversion is in the inequity of society to begin with. The more corruption the more people find themselves facing draconian punishments for misdemeanours, which are often inappropriate and cause further problems in families and communities. The system then perpetuates the behaviour it is supposedly trying to stop.
quote="BuffaloMax17, post:1, topic:58124, full:true"
However, I then think of circumstances like “so should murderers be given lessened sentences and be treated nice even though they killed people?” My father was a New York State Trooper and remains adamant that some people are just beyond saving. Perhaps I’m too naive or optimistic to realize this, but what are your thoughts.
/quote
When you jump to murder, you are entering a whole new crime scene. But even here, we have too many examples of people spending years on death row, only to be found innocent. The more tragic cases are when innocence is proven after execution. The judgement that “some people are just beyond saving” shows how the system is already rigged against certain people or groups because as soon as you are judged in this way, your chances of losing that stigma is reduced and pushes you into the arms of the marginalised in society.
quote="BuffaloMax17, post:1, topic:58124, full:true"
I also wonder if there are any truly “bad” people. When I mean by bad people, I imagine sort of person like an evil villain of some superhero movie that everyone just agrees is “justified” to face a horrible death in the movie for their crimes. I remember hearing about a school shooting that occurred recently where a few children were hurt but some lone stepped in and killed the gunman before they could do any more harm. When a few of my friends were discussing it, they were cheering and laughing about the gunmans death. However, I couldn’t help but also feel that that shooter was also a human and because of whatever circumstances was lead to do this act of evil. Are there some people that we can just ignore their “human-ness” and celebrate their death, or should we also mourn the dead of those who commit egregious crimes? I often feel there is this great disparity inside me when I weigh these two opposites: feel bad for a criminal or be joyous at the death of another intelligent being?
/quote
The strange thing about “bad” people is that they generally don’t see themselves as bad per se, but as doing “what has to be done.” The most famous bad people believed they were improving society by ridding it of the worse. This is where you see that if we don’t become a more equitable society, we will perpetuate this kind of mindset and cause more crime and suffering as a result.
Many shooters are disturbed people, often mixed up young ones, who believe in the wild west narrative that is still part of the entertainment in much of the West. How many deaths does an evening’s “entertainment” in front of the television render? How many people does a young person kill each day with computer games? How often is brutality portrayed as the “only way” and how many stories are two-dimensional and unable to fathom the deep trauma that our society inflicts on people every day?
Christians cheer this on rather than recognising that Christ confronted the demons of humanity with love. He paid for it, as love always does, which I suspect is the reason too few Christians follow his example and would rather rely upon the atonement to circumvent justice. When I see Christians out protesting against whatever “evil” they have focused on, I wonder what they have done to prevent it.
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How would you suggest Max express this to someone with his father’s experience, in a way that still takes those concerns seriously?
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In the same way that I already have. The problem is a larger one, namely that delinquents are being produced by a society that has lost its hold on reality. It creates what it purports to be fighting.
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- I understand the point you’re making about society shaping the conditions that lead to crime, and I think there’s truth in that. At the same time, that seems to move the discussion to a different level than the one Max is dealing with. Even if we grant that society contributes significantly to producing offenders, we’re still left with the question of how to respond to individuals as they actually are right now.
- So for someone in Max’s position, the question doesn’t go away:
- What do we do about people who are currently dangerous?
- How should we think about them—as persons—while also taking that danger seriously?
- Those seem like questions that still need an answer even if larger social reforms are needed.
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I think the answers need the social reforms up front, then the whole conversation changes. If you try to clean yourself while still standing in mud, you won’t have much success.
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That may be true at a societal level, but it doesn’t really answer Max’s question about how to think about individuals in the present.
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