Your kind of science seem to go directly against Karl Popper's and many others. Accordingly, good scientific statements (hence theories and hypotheses) are only those that are FALSIFIABLE. Verifiable claims are even slim in becoming scientific since strict conditions are required such as low chances for random case.

IMHO, everyone in science (atheists or theists or catholics) believe that the Universe (Nature or World) is ordered is a "precondition" and principle. The principle that cause precedes effect is another "precondition" in all scientific statements. One cannot simply escape the "baggage" of "ideal" culture. Scientists still think of ideal models. I write "ideal models" because it covers those that include inherent randomness (e.g. quantum formulation).

The real issue here I think is whether reality is just physical or also includes non-physical realities. Science can deal with non-physical realities such as justice, love, beauty, ethics, and many others. Science can be physics, biology, and many others. The latter sciences are properly called physical sciences, though.

-- Johnrob Y. Bantang

I account for that by recognizing that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was personally committed to a prudential reading of the signs of the times, which saw in the American Revolution a framework within which the Church could find a modus vivendi, as opposed to the French Revolution.

Congenial, and contributory to, this prudential decision, was a personal acceptance on the part of Cardinal Ratzinger of the provisional conclusions of modern scientific consensus concerning the age of the world, the causes of observed biodiversity, and, crucially, the techniques and tools of modern historical critical and text critical scholarship (if not their conclusions, especially in the case of Raymond Brown).

This prudential decision was the most important taken by the Roman Church (more than only Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict) in centuries.

Its consequences are, manifestly, disastrous at this point, and verging upon the catastrophic.

By their fruits you shall know them.

It is not looking good at this point for the entire Vatican Two project.

Quite to the contrary in fact.

I have the same statements in my NEB. These are the consensus of contemporary scholars, not authoritative pronouncements of the Magisterium, although obviously neither the USCCB nor the Vatican sees a problem for the Faith with this consensus.

I'm personally skeptical about what contemporary scholars say about anything after observing modernist theologians in the Church and every kind of Marxist scholarship in the humanities for the last 45 years.

My favorite edition (Navarre) generally has no problem with the early datings and traditional authorship.

I added the 'um' to take the sting out. :)

I wouldn't agree. Nature and the physical world are ideas which arise out of science, they don't precede it. (I'm speaking ahistorically here or course, science never sprung fully formed into existence and it's a long and ongoing process to remove the 'ideal' version from the cultural baggage of history.) Science is just about how you determine what can be reasonably believed.

When an atheist asks for evidence s/he is asking for an observation about the world, without preconditions on what the world may be like, that, on the whole, makes God's existence most likely to be true. Now understand that 'the evidence' isn't really a matter of weighing up a single piece as sufficient or insufficient, nor is it taking all the facts 'for' something and balancing them against all the facts 'against'. It is a matter of looking at the sum total and deciding what fits everything best, in principle. So given the massive success of what you think of as the 'physical' picture of the world, we tend to continue with that paradigm and there is no sign of its failure. But the concept of science does not require any particular such picture a priori.

You see, I can always come up with a hypothetical that doesn't produce any evidence, or that only produces evidence that looks like something else. But that doesn't have anything to do with physical/immaterial or natural/supernatural. These are called conspiracy theories, and a sufficiently powerful conspiracy theory can never be disproved. But that doesn't mean it is reasonable to believe in such a theory. It is reasonable to believe in that which parsimoniously accounts for all the available observations. It is unreasonable to believe in that which doesn't. That's science in a nutshell.

I can only really do so in response to a formal presentation of KCA. If I'm to show word-play and equivocation, I need to show it on the exact words being used and how they change meaning through the presentation of the argument.

Prime, I'm interested in your first couple sentences. Can you elaborate on those?

The validity of KCA is disputed though. It relies upon equivocation and word-play. Indeed often it's the premises themselves that are attacked, but that is not to limit the attacks on the argument from all and every angle.

Can I try a partial answer?

1. We know the KCA is correct if it is a valid argument (which is not typically disputed) and if each individual premise is more likely to be true than not. This especially means the key premise "The Universe Began to Exist." One could be reticent about placing too much weight on scientific evidence, but still admit that given the current state of affairs, Cosmology still suggests that a beginning is more likely than not (As Vilenkin recently commenting at a conference in honor of Hawking). Even if one doubt this, one might still accept the KCA on purely philosophical grounds (impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition). Finally, even if one rejects the KCA, this need not entail atheism since one might be a Christian on other grounds (fine-tuning argument, moral argument, evidence for Resurrection, or personal experience of God)

I completely agree that history is an empirical endeavor and that the claims Christianity makes about Jesus (existed, died, rose) are historical claims, as I think Akin does (when we says this is not in the realm of science, but history.

As to Biology, it is relevant, but not quite for the reason you think. Christianity claims that the Resurrection was a miracle, a *naturally* impossible event. Hence, Christians agree with the claim of Biology that dead men don't (naturally rise)! On the contrary, if a natural resurrection was possible, this would not support Christianity; it would disprove it because something Christians claim to be a miracle would not be a miracle at all!

Rather, you must distinguish between two claims:

1. Jesus rose naturally from the dead
2. God raised Jesus from the dead.

Everyone, Christian and atheist agrees that 1' is impossible. But we disagree on is 2. Though this is a supernatural claim, it is still empirical (historical) because it can be supported by empirical evidence. For instance, if we have facts like the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ etc. and these are more probable on the hypothesis that Jesus rose from the dead than on the negation of that hypothesis, then they count as evidence (possibly strong evidence) that Jesus rose).

~G.K. Chesterton: “Illustrated London News,” 6/18/32

Chesterton will see that on the combox from this site for sure xd

Matthew and John were written by Apostles.

Not according to the New American Bible, found on the web site of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and also the Vatican web site.

Gospel of Matthew

The ancient tradition that the author was the disciple and apostle of Jesus named Matthew (see Matthew 10:3) is untenable because the gospel is based, in large part, on the Gospel according to Mark (almost all the verses of that gospel have been utilized in this), and it is hardly likely that a companion of Jesus would have followed so extensively an account that came from one who admittedly never had such an association rather than rely on his own memories. The attribution of the gospel to the disciple Matthew may have been due to his having been responsible for some of the traditions found in it, but that is far from certain.

The unknown author, whom we shall continue to call Matthew for the sake of convenience, drew not only upon the Gospel according to Mark but upon a large body of material (principally, sayings of Jesus) not found in Mark that corresponds, sometimes exactly, to material found also in the Gospel according to Luke. This material, called "Q" (probably from the first letter of the German word Quelle, meaning "source"), represents traditions, written and oral, used by both Matthew and Luke. Mark and Q are sources common to the two other synoptic gospels; hence the name the "Two-Source Theory" given to this explanation of the relation among the synoptics.

Gospel of John

Critical analysis makes it difficult to accept the idea that the gospel as it now stands was written by one person. John 21 seems to have been added after the gospel was completed; it exhibits a Greek style somewhat different from that of the rest of the work. The prologue (John 1:1-18) apparently contains an independent hymn, subsequently adapted to serve as a preface to the gospel. Within the gospel itself there are also some inconsistencies, e.g., there are two endings of Jesus' discourse in the upper room (John 14:31; 18:1). To solve these problems, scholars have proposed various rearrangements that would produce a smoother order. However, most have come to the conclusion that the inconsistencies were probably produced by subsequent editing in which homogeneous materials were added to a shorter original.

Other difficulties for any theory of eyewitness authorship of the gospel in its present form are presented by its highly developed theology and by certain elements of its literary style. For instance, some of the wondrous deeds of Jesus have been worked into highly effective dramatic scenes (John 9); there has been a careful attempt to have these followed by discourses that explain them (John 5; 6); and the sayings of Jesus have been woven into long discourses of a quasi-poetic form resembling the speeches of personified Wisdom in the Old Testament.

The gospel contains many details about Jesus not found in the synoptic gospels, e.g., that Jesus engaged in a baptizing ministry (John 3:22) before he changed to one of preaching and signs; that Jesus' public ministry lasted for several years (see the note on John 2:13); that he traveled to Jerusalem for various festivals and met serious opposition long before his death (John 2:14-25; 5; 7-8); and that he was put to death on the day before Passover (John l8:28). These events are not always in chronological order because of the development and editing that took place. However, the accuracy of much of the detail of the fourth gospel constitutes a strong argument that the Johannine tradition rests upon the testimony of an eyewitness. Although tradition identified this person as John, the son of Zebedee, most modern scholars find that the evidence does not support this.