Tópico: Theological Teachings Regarding the Animals and Man

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Trechos interessantes de um capítulo do livro "Warfare of Science with Theology ", de Andrews Dickinson White, 1896.

Está disponível online na íntegra:

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/White/

Theological Teachings Regarding the Animals and Man


[...]

So literal was this whole conception of the work of creation that in these days it can scarcely be imagined. The Almighty was represented in theological literature, in the pictured Bibles, and in works of art generally, as a sort of enlarged and venerable Nuremberg toymaker. At times the accounts in Genesis were illustrated with even more literal exactness; thus, in connection with a well-known passage in the sacred text, the Creator was shown as a tailor, seated, needle in hand, diligently sewing together skins of beasts into coats for Adam and Eve. Such representations presented no difficulties to the docile minds of the Middle Ages and the Reformation period; and in the same spirit, when the discovery of fossils began to provoke thought, these were declared to be ``models of his works approved or rejected by the great Artificer,'' ``outlines of future creations,'' ``sports of Nature,'' or ``objects placed in the strata to bring to naught human curiosity''; and this kind of explanation lingered on until in our own time an eminent naturalist, in his anxiety to save the literal account in Genesis, has urged that Jehovah tilted and twisted the strata, scattered the fossils through them, scratched the glacial furrows upon them, spread over them the marks of erosion by water, and set Niagara pouring - all in an instant - thus mystifying the world ``for some inscrutable purpose, but for his own glory.''



[...]Great men for eighteen hundred years developed the theory that before Adam's disobedience there was no death, and therefore neither ferocity nor venom.

Some typical utterances in the evolution of this doctrine are worthy of a passing glance. St. Augustine expressly confirmed and emphasized the view that the vegetable as well as the animal kingdom was cursed on account of man's sin. Two hundred years later this utterance had been echoed on from father to father of the Church until it was caught by Bede; he declared that before man's fall animals were harmless, but were made poisonous or hurtful by Adam's sin, and he said, ``Thus fierce and poisonous animals were created for terrifying man (because God foresaw that he would sin), in order that he might be made aware of the final punishment of hell.''

[...]

A curious development of this doctrine was seen in the belief drawn by sundry old commentators from the condemnation of the serpent in Genesis - a belief, indeed, perfectly natural, since it was evidently that of the original writers of the account preserved in the first of our sacred books. This belief was that, until the tempting serpent was cursed by the Almighty, all serpents stood erect, walked, and talked.

This belief was handed down the ages as part of ``the sacred deposit of the faith'' until Watson, the most prolific writer of the evangelical reform in the eighteenth century and the standard theologian of the evangelical party, declared: ``We have no reason at all to believe that the animal had a serpentine form in any mode or degree until its transformation; that he was then degraded to a reptile to go upon his belly imports, on the contrary, an entire loss and alteration of the original form.'' Here, again, was a ripe result of the theologic method diligently pursued by the strongest thinkers in the Church during nearly two thousand years; but this ``sacred deposit'' also faded away when the geologists found abundant remains of fossil serpents dating from periods long before the appearance of man.

Troublesome questions also arose among theologians regarding animals classed as ``superfluous.'' St. Augustine was especially exercised thereby. He says: ``I confess I am ignorant why mice and frogs were created, or flies and worms.... All creatures are either useful, hurtful, or superfluous to us.... As for the hurtful creatures, we are either punished, or disciplined, or terrified by them, so that we may not cherish and love this life.'' As to the ``superfluous animals,'' he says, ``Although they are not necessary for our service, yet the whole design of the universe is thereby completed and finished.'' Luther, who followed St. Augustine in so many other matters, declined to follow him fully in this. To him a fly was not merely superfluous, it was noxious - sent by the devil to vex him when reading.

[...]

Like all else in the Middle Ages, this sacred science was developed purely by theological methods. Neglecting the wonders which the dissection of the commonest animals would have afforded them, these naturalists attempted to throw light into Nature by ingenious use of scriptural texts, by research among the lives of the saints, and by the plentiful application of metaphysics. Hence even such strong men as St. Isidore of Seville treasured up accounts of the unicorn and dragons mentioned in the Scriptures and of the phoenix and basilisk in profane writings. Hence such contributions to knowledge as that the basilisk kills serpents by his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when pursued effaces his tracks with the end of his tail, that the pelican nourishes her young with her own blood, that serpents lay aside their venom before drinking, that the salamander quenches fire, that the hyena can talk with shepherds, that certain birds are born of the fruit of a certain tree when it happens to fall into the water, with other masses of science equally valuable.

As to the method of bringing science to bear on Scripture, the Physiologus gives an example, illustrating the passage in the book of Job which speaks of the old lion perishing for lack of prey. Out of the attempt to explain an unusual Hebrew word in the text there came a curious development of error, until we find fully evolved an account of the ``ant-lion,'' which, it gives us to understand, was the lion mentioned by Job, and it says: ``As to the ant-lion, his father hath the shape of a lion, his mother that of an ant; the father liveth upon flesh and the mother upon herbs; these bring forth the ant-lion, a compound of both and in part like to either; for his fore part is like that of a lion and his hind part like that of an ant. Being thus composed, he is neither able to eat flesh like his father nor herbs like his mother, and so he perisheth.''

[...]

Naturally this good Franciscan naturalist [Bartholomew] devotes much thought to the ``dragons'' mentioned in Scripture. He says: ``The dragon is most greatest of all serpents, and oft he is drawn out of his den and riseth up into the air, and the air is moved by him, and also the sea swelleth against his venom, and he hath a crest, and reareth his tongue, and hath teeth like a saw, and hath strength, and not only in teeth but in tail, and grieveth with biting and with stinging. Whom he findeth he slayeth. Oft four or five of them fasten their tails together and rear up their heads, and sail over the sea to get good meat. Between elephants and dragons is everlasting fighting; for the dragon with his tail spanneth the elephant, and the elephant with his nose throweth down the dragon.... The cause why the dragon desireth his blood is the coldness thereof, by the which the dragon desireth to cool himself. Jerome saith that the dragon is a full thirsty beast, insomuch that he openeth his mouth against the wind to quench the burning of his thirst in that wise. Therefore, when he seeth ships in great wind he flieth against the sail to take the cold wind, and overthroweth the ship.''

[...]

The same sort of science flourished in the Bestiaries, which were used everywhere, and especially in the pulpits, for the edification of the faithful. In all of these, as in that compiled early in the thirteenth century by an ecclesiastic, William of Normandy, we have this lesson, borrowed from the Physiologus: ``The lioness giveth birth to cubs which remain three days without life. Then cometh the lion, breatheth upon them, and bringeth them to life.... Thus it is that Jesus Christ during three days was deprived of life, but God the Father raised him gloriously.''

Pious use was constantly made of this science, especially by monkish preachers. The phoenix rising from his ashes proves the doctrine of the resurrection; the structure and mischief of monkeys proves the existence of demons; the fact that certain monkeys have no tails proves that Satan has been shorn of his glory; the weasel, which ``constantly changes its place, is a type of the man estranged from the word of God, who findeth no rest.''

The moral treatises of the time often took the form of works on natural history, in order the more fully to exploit these religious teachings of Nature. Thus from the book On Bees, the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpre, we learn that ``wasps persecute bees and make war on them out of natural hatred''; and these, he tells us, typify the demons who dwell in the air and with lightning and tempest assail and vex mankind - whereupon he fills a long chapter with anecdotes of such demonic warfare on mortals. In like manner his fellow-Dominican, the inquisitor Nider, in his book The Ant Hill, teaches us that the ants in Ethiopia, which are said to have horns and to grow so large as to look like dogs, are emblems of atrocious heretics, like Wyclif and the Hussites, who bark and bite against the truth; while the ants of India, which dig up gold out of the sand with their feet and hoard it, though they make no use of it, symbolize the fruitless toil with which the heretics dig out the gold of Holy Scripture and hoard it in their books to no purpose.

[...]

But it required many generations for such scepticism to produce much effect, and we find among the illustrations in an edition of Mandeville published just before the Reformation not only careful accounts but pictured representations both of birds and of beasts produced in the fruit of trees.

This general employment of natural science for pious purposes went on after the Reformation. Luther frequently made this use of it, and his example controlled his followers. In 1612, Wolfgang Franz, Professor of Theology at Luther's university, gave to the world his sacred history of animals, which went through many editions. It contained a very ingenious classification, describing ``natural dragons,'' which have three rows of teeth to each jaw, and he piously adds, ``the principal dragon is the Devil.''

Near the end of the same century, Father Kircher, the great Jesuit professor at Rome, holds back the sceptical current, insists upon the orthodox view, and represents among the animals entering the ark sirens and griffins.

Yet even among theologians we note here and there a sceptical spirit in natural science. Early in the same seventeenth century Eugene Roger published his Travels in Palestine. As regards the utterances of Scripture he is soundly orthodox: he prefaces his work with a map showing, among other important points referred to in biblical history, the place where Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, the cavern which Adam and Eve inhabited after their expulsion from paradise, the spot where Balaam's ass spoke, the place where Jacob wrestled with the angel, the steep place down which the swine possessed of devils plunged into the sea, the position of the salt statue which was once Lot's wife, the place at sea where Jonah was swallowed by the whale, and ``the exact spot where St. Peter caught one hundred and fifty-three fishes.''

As to natural history, he describes and discusses with great theological acuteness the basilisk. He tells us that the animal is about a foot and a half long, is shaped like a crocodile, and kills people with a single glance. The one which he saw was dead, fortunately for him, since in the time of Pope Leo IV - as he tells us - one appeared in Rome and killed many people by merely looking at them; but the Pope destroyed it with his prayers and the sign of the cross. He informs us that Providence has wisely and mercifully protected man by requiring the monster to cry aloud two or three times whenever it leaves its den, and that the divine wisdom in creation is also shown by the fact that the monster is obliged to look its victim in the eye, and at a certain fixed distance, before its glance can penetrate the victim's brain and so pass to his heart. He also gives a reason for supposing that the same divine mercy has provided that the crowing of a cock will kill the basilisk.

Yet even in this good and credulous missionary we see the influence of Bacon and the dawn of experimental science; for, having been told many stories regarding the salamander, he secured one, placed it alive upon the burning coals, and reports to us that the legends concerning its power to live in the fire are untrue. [...]

In the second half of the same century Hottinger, in his Theological Examination of the History of Creation, breaks from the belief in the phoenix; but his scepticism is carefully kept within the limits imposed by Scripture. He avows his doubts, first, ``because God created the animals in couples, while the phoenix is represented as a single, unmated creature''; secondly, ``because Noah, when he entered the ark, brought the animals in by sevens, while there were never so many individuals of the phoenix species" thirdly, because ``no man is known who dares assert that he has ever seen this bird''; fourthly, because ``those who assert there is a phoenix differ among themselves.''

In view of these attacks on the salamander and the phoenix, we are not surprised to find, before the end of the century, scepticism regarding the basilisk: the eminent Prof. Kirchmaier, at the University of Wittenberg, treats phoenix and basilisk alike as old wives' fables. As to the phoenix, he denies its existence, not only because Noah took no such bird into the ark, but also because, as he pithily remarks, ``birds come from eggs, not from ashes.'' But the unicorn he can not resign, nor will he even concede that the unicorn is a rhinoceros; he appeals to Job and to Marco Polo to prove that this animal, as usually conceived, really exists, and says, ``Who would not fear to deny the existence of the unicorn, since Holy Scripture names him with distinct praises?'' As to the other great animals mentioned in Scripture, he is so rationalistic as to admit that behemoth was an elephant and leviathan a whale. [...]

The inquiry into Nature having thus been pursued nearly two thousand years theologically, we find by the middle of the sixteenth century some promising beginnings of a different method - the method of inquiry into Nature scientifically - the method which seeks not plausibilities but facts. At that time Edward Wotton led the way in England and Conrad Gesner on the Continent, by observations widely extended, carefully noted, and thoughtfully classified.

[...]

Theologians soon saw a danger in this movement. In Italy, Prince Leopold de' Medici, a protector of the Florentine Academy, was bribed with a cardinal's hat to neglect it, and from the days of Urban VIII to Pius IX a similar spirit was there shown. In France, there were frequent ecclesiastical interferences, of which Buffon's humiliation for stating a simple scientific truth was a noted example. In England, Protestantism was at first hardly more favourable toward the Royal Society, and the great Dr. South denounced it in his sermons as irreligious.

O capítulo segue com a percepção do problema da biodiversidade e sua distribuição para o conto da arca de Noé.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Trechos interessantes de outros livros criacionistas mais antigos.


No livro "the negro, a beast", um criacionista ataca a herética tese ateísta-evolucionista de que os negros são humanos, e não macacos:

[...]
However, a comparison of its teachings with those of the
Bible enables us to realize that it was not through the
scriptural teaching that man is a distinct creation in the
image of God, that the Negro obtained his present un-
natural position in the family of man : but through the
pernicious influence of this atheistic tlieoiy, that man is
merely a highly developed "species'' of ape — the
"human species" — of which the Negro is the lowest
race lience, our social, political, and religious rela-
tions with the Negro are not based upon scripture, but
upon atheism. But modern Christians should pause to
consider that in their vain, criminal attempt to establish
a blood relationship between the flesh of man and that
of the ape, they have, to all intents and purposes, repu-
diated the declaration of Paul, that the flesh of man is
a different kind of fiesh from that of the beast, and have
accepted this atheist theory, that all flesh is akin ; that
they have repudiated the scriptural teaching that man is
a distinct creation, in the image of God, to accept this
atheistic theory that man is a highly developed species
of ape — the "human species'' — of which the White is
the highest, and the Negro the lowest race, vvith the
browns, reds and yellows as intermediate races, in dif-
erent stages of development. They should bear in mind
that in yielding to the degrading influence of this atheis-
tic theon', they practically renounced their kinship with
God to claim kin with the ape.

All scientific investigation of the sul)ject proves the
Negro to be an ape ; and that lie sinipl}^ stands at the
head of the ape famil3^ as the lion stands at the head of
the cat family. When Gad's plan of creation, and the
drift of Bible histor>^ are properlj^ understood, it will be
found that the teachings of scripture upon this, as upon
every other subject, harmonize with those of science-
This being true, it follows that the Negro is the only
anthropoid, or man-like ape; and that the gibbon,
ourang, chimpanzee and gorilla are merely negro -like
apes.

[....]

http://www.archive.org/stream/thenegrobeastori00carrrich/thenegrobeastori00carrrich_djvu.txt

Também vale a pena esse trecho do livro "The Negro: What Is His Ethnological Status?" do reverendo Buckner H. Payn:

[ ...] One point more. God has set a line of demarcation so ineffaceable, 80 indelible besides color, and so plain, between the children of Adam ami Eve whom he endowed with immortality, and the negro who is of this earth only, that none can efface, and none so blind as not to see it. And this line of demarcation is, that Adam and his race being endowed by God with souls, that a sense of immortality ever inspires them and sets them to work ; and the one race builds what he hopes is to last for ages, his houses, his palaces, his temples, his towers, his monuments, and from the earliest ages after the flood Not so the other, the negro; as left to himself, as Mizraim was, he builds nothing forages to come; but like any other beast, or animal of earth, his building is only for the dug. [...]

Now. let us sum up what is written in this paper: We have shown. (1.) That Ham was not made a negro, neither by his name, nor the curse (or the supposed curse) of his father Noah. (2.) We have shown that the people of India, China, Turkey. Egypt (C^pts), now have long, straight hair, high foreheads, high noses and every lineament of the white race; and that these are the descendants of Ham. (3.) That, therefore, it is impossible that Ham could be the father of the present race of Negroes. (4.) That this is sustained by God himself causing Mizraim to embalm his dead, from directly after the flood and to continue it for twenty-three centuries; and that these mummies now show Ham's children to have long, straight hair, etc., and the lineaments alone of the white race. (5.) That Shem, Ham and Japheth being white, proves that their father and mother were white. (6.) That Noah and his wife being white and perfect in their genealogy, proves that Adam and Kve were white, and therefore impossible that they could be the progenitors of the kinky-headed, black-skinned negroes of this day. (7.) That, therefore, as neither Adam nor Ham was the progenitor of the negro, and the negro being now on earth, consequently we know that he was created before Adam, as certainly and ap positively as we know that the horse and every other animal were ere ated before him; as Adam and Eve were the last beings created b/ God. (8.) That the negro being created before Atlam. consequent y he is a beast in God's nomenclature; and being a beast, was inner Adam's rule and dominion, and, like all other beasts or animals, las no soul (9.) That God destroyed the world by a flood, for the crim ; of tSe amalgamation, or miscegenation of the white race (whom he had endowed with souls and immortality), with negroes, mere beasts without souls and without immortality, and producing thereby a class (not race), but a-class of beings that were neither human nor beasts. (10.) That this was a crime against God that could not be expiated, and consequently could not be forgiven by God, and never would be; and that its punishment in the progeny is on earth, and by death. ^11.) That this was shown at Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the extermination of the nations of the Canaanites, and by God's law to Moses. (12.) That God will not accept religious worship from the negro, as he has expressly ordered that no man having a flat nose, shall approach his altar; and the negroes have flat noses. (13.) That the negro has no soul, is shown by express authority of God, speaking through the Apostle Peter by divine inspiration.

[...]

http://books.google.com.br/books?id=fPzG_pJ7IOkC&dq=The+Negro:+What+Is+His+Ethnological+Status%3F&hl=en&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Uma explicação criacionista antiga para formas intermediárias, como o arqueoptérix, ou especificamente para ele. Hoje costumam dizer que, como é classificado taxonomicamente como ave, e não em um táxon cujo nome explicite literalmente seu óbvio elo com os terópodes, ele é "uma ave completamente formada", que só calha de ter características de répteis, ou de dinossauros terópodes pequenos, até mais do que de aves.

Mas esse tal de Freeman, em 1897, criou uma outra hipótese para isso, em certos aspectos até mais inteligente. Em vez de negar, fingir que não enxerga o seu caráter intermediário entre os táxons com uma interpretação tapada de taxonomia, ele esse aspecto intermediário, só que dá outra explicação para o que seria indício de parentesco evolutivo: hibridação. Eram híbridos esporádicos, de pequenos dinossauros e aves, sem nunca deixar descendentes férteis, portanto não sendo significativos em termos de evolução.

[W.T. Freeman], a creationist, but of a different sort than today’s religious fundamentalists, he thought that there was a clear succession of organisms over time in which there were distinct species incapable of evolving into something else. As evidence for this, Freeman cited the fact organisms created near-perfect copies of themselves through reproduction. No organism gave birth to a different species, and even when two species interbred—an inappropriate interaction Freeman deemed “perverted”—the hybrid never became established as a new species.

Within this creationist system, Freeman believed he had found an explanation for Archaeopteryx. Recognized by many naturalists as an early bird with reptilian characteristics such as teeth and a long, bony tail, Archaeopteryx was regularly used as evidence that birds had indeed evolved from reptiles. (“Everything has, or has had, a definite purpose in life,” Freeman wrote, “and the archaeopteryx lived its life in order to bring bliss to the soul of the evolutionist.”) But Freeman took a different view. The mish-mash of bird and reptilian characters indicated that Archaeopteryx was nothing more than a sign of ancient indiscretions:

I suggest that in the earlier days there were ill-developed, low-typed, wallowing birds, also some highly developed reptiles. Perverted sexual instinct exists now, why not then, and as a result of this, why has not the archaeopteryx been an anomalous false hybrid that has been incapable, like other mongrels, of reproducing its kind?

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/dinosaur/2010/11/30/a-perverted-view-of-bird-evolution/