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Catholicism Pure & Simple 
I thought Adam was only allegorical and metaphorical – not actually made of clay???
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Wow, great video Maryla!
I think we shall be hosting a few more from this outfit: RCSpiritualDirection.com
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Karlf,
I don’t think Adam – the first man – is either “allegorical” or “metaphorical”! Yet where it says in Genesis that he (Adam) was created out of the “clay of the earth”, that word “clay” (and in some translations the word is “dust”, or even “slime”) might well be considered simply a metaphor.
The actual figure of Adam as a historical figure cannot be proved indubitably of course, but in our modern advanced world today, what scientists have managed to prove is that all men, everywhere in the world, are descended from the same original man and woman! This makes Adam (and Eve) the first parents of each and every one of us! If you want to believe in evolutionary theory to explain our appearance in the world as homo sapiens – and this theory does not contradict Christian/Catholic teaching – there must still have been a moment when God infused an immortal soul into our first parents. From that moment in time man would no longer be just a being moved by instincts (like animals), but a human being with free will to choose between good and evil.
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Thanks for your answer Kathleen
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“From that moment in time man would no longer be just a being moved by instincts (like animals), but a human being with free will to choose between good and evil.” – you might find this article interesting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20973753
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Yes, I found it very interesting – thanks Karlf.
I watched a fascinating documentary about baby orang-outangs recently. (They had been orphaned and were being brought up in a reserve.) Really it was quite uncanny; these little apes behaved so much like small human children in their affections for their carers, their inquisitiveness, their tantrums when they didn’t get their own way, etc….. Wow!
Some might find this rather disconcerting, but to me it just gives a lot of weight to those who believe in the evolutionary theory of man’s development before he was truly human and given an immortal soul. There is still an enormous abyss in what truly distinguishes man from ape, primarily man’s ability to “know” and “love” God. Only man was created in His Image and Likeness. Do you agree?
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If chimps had the ability to communicate and share ideas as humans can, I see no reason why they could not understand the concept of God.
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As our commenter Toad used to point out, “if” is the pivotal word here.
Animals cannot understand the “concept of God”, and never will be able to. Man is the only creature in the world who can do so.
In one of the Wednesday General Audiences of Bl. Pope John Paul II he said: “Man is created for immortality. He does not cease to be the image of God after sin, even though he is subjected to death. He bears in himself the reflection of God’s power, which is manifested especially in the faculty of intelligence and free will. Man is an autonomous subject. He is the source of his own actions, while maintaining the characteristics of dependence on God, the Creator (ontological contingency).”
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Humans look like evolved apes and behave like evolved apes, and some apes clearly possess self awareness and ‘free wil’ as we have ‘free will’ . I don’t see how the difference between us and apes can account for being made in the image of God.
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http://www.elcaminounreal.blogspot.com.es/
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“Humans look like evolved apes and behave like evolved apes..”
Speak for yourself Karlf. ;-).
No, I’m joking, and I agree with you that far. After all, we share around 99% of our genes with chimps and bonobos! And yet we are so vastly different too….. and I don’t think you need me to give you the long list of ways we differ with that 1% of remaining gene. You don’t even have to be a believer to see that!
Yesterday evening I was reading this fascinating lecture by Prof. J. Rendle-Short (who I believe is a creationist) where he talks about how humans are built in the Image of God.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v4/n1/man-image-of-god
Karlf, have you ever wondered why animals seem to have no need of God? They are quite happy if they can eat, sleep, procreate etc. without ever seeking anything further? Beautiful as they are – and I am a great animal-lover – they have no questions about why they exist, nor any aspirations of a life after death.
Humans, on the other hand, from their very beginning have known and sought their Creator, craving for a “relationship” with Him, and with an inbuilt yearning for that immortality they already possess.. many without even knowing it!
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What I object to, Kathleen, is the concerted efforts of atheists to make a monkey out of me!
I am ever your obedient
Donkey
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…..Genesis 5: 1-2 which says: “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.”….Adam is both male and female, which means that Adam was not simply the first man …..Hebrew dictionaries list many different meanings for the word ‘Adam’. These include: “ground”, “red”, “ruddy”, “man”, “parson”, “man of low degree”, and “generic man”. In the Jerusalem Bible (Gen. 5:1,2) ‘Generic Man’ is their favoured interpretation and refers to both male and female of the human species, but the meaning of the word ‘Adam’ goes far deeper than anything pertaining just to ‘physical man’….’the garden eastward in Eden’ is usually identified with Paradise, which is elsewhere described as a spiritual realm. (2 Cor. 12. 2 – 4)
….Genesis chapter 2 and 3 make it abundantly clear that the narrative describes Adam or Man in the spiritual state, before he enters earth-life….Adam was placed in a deep sleep for the operation and then we are told that Eve was made out of Adam’s rib. The Hebrew word “tsalaw” that is here translated as ‘rib’ is not translated ‘rib’ in any other place in the Bible. It is a word which denotes something that limps as if one-sided, or something that is curved, such as an arch. It is in this sense that this translation is sometimes defended. (the human rib is curved) It may refer to the curved ribs on the underside of a ship. To make the ship complete and to protect its centre against storm, it needs ribs. It may also mean a plank, beam or the side of something. So Eve is “one side”, perhaps “the underside” of Adam, who is the Spirit of Man…………….
The name ‘Eve’ (Khavah) means “life-container” or “life-giver”, and refers to the soul which is the means by which alone the spirit is able to enter mortal life. It is and remains, united with the spirit as one spiritual entity
According to Eastern philosophy, life on earth is a sleep. The story of the Red King in “Alice through the Looking-Glass” may well be based on the Hindu Father-god Brahma in whose dreams we all exist. Tweedledee upsets Alice by telling her: “if that there king was to wake, you’d go out – bang – just like a candle,” Alice refused to believe him, of course, but there is some truth in the idea………excerpts from: http://orthodoxcatholicnew.tripod.com/id6.html
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That is a whacky website you link to jk72!
A bit too gnostic for my liking, to be honest.
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…just a juxtaposition of ideas i suppose…makes it easier to discern the plumb-line of truth…sorry…i always try to find the line of truth that conjoins us and gives us common ground…the perfusion of grace..how as a beam of light it is bent and reflected in the ideas of other belief systems…and how we can find the mystery of God everywhere…leading us to the superessential locus (Christ)…my bad indeed….:-)
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If chimps had the ability to communicate and share ideas as humans can, I see no reason why they could not understand the concept of God.
If pigs had wings, they could fly in the New York skyline …
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