Adam & Eve were absolutely real as was Noah & The Deluge.

Note:  The following essay should be considered deprecated.  If you buy the arguments that I once made in this essay, you might as well become geocentrists, which is what some traditional Catholics are, because, clearly, that is what the Bible teaches, and what the Catholic Church, once upon a time, reaffirmed, at least through its authentic Magisterium.  I was heavily influenced by the arguments of William Lane Craig, but after seeing Craig debate Professors Lawrence Krauss and Sean Carrol, I am convinced that Craig is just a charlatan who likes to travel the World with his wife at other people's expense.

Almost all modern scholars and/or scientists like to consider "fundamentalist" Catholics such as myself as being "idiots," "morons," "imbeciles," etc., because we take the first 11 Chapters of Genesis literally. Let's consider what the world's leading "village atheist," Richard Dawkins, says in his book The God Delusion (page 73):

"Science-fiction writers, such as Daniel F. Galouye in Counterfeit World, have even suggested (and I cannot think how to disprove it) that we live in a computer simulation, set up by some vastly superior civilization..."

Now, to be fair to Professor Dawkins, he has never said that he believes in such a notion; however, while he refers to people of faith as "faith-heads," anti-intellectuals, etc., he never uses any of those words to describe Mr. Galouye. Let's assume for a moment that Mr. Galouye is correct, and that this entire World & Universe are nothing more than a computer simulation:

You do not exist, at least your body.  Neither does the computer in front of you. Likewise, you do not have any free will; everything that you do and say and everything else that everyone else does and says is the result of the code that runs in the computer simulation.  Likewise, all natural and/or man-made disasters are segments of code (functions/procedures/routines) which execute on the grand computer that gives us all existence.  (Evidently, if someone ever unplugged this computer, we would all cease to exist.)  Natural and physical law is simply computer code that is executed frequently; a miracle would be code that executes on rare occasions, or perhaps only once and is never executed again, say, a special subroutine that is called once and then never called again.

Now, if Mr. Galouye's view is correct, then the 6-day Creation, Adam & Eve, and Noah & The Deluge are completely plausible, and would simply be well-specified subroutines that were written by some alien software designer, which were then run on his cosmic computer.  The "output" from these miracles (again, special code that is run only once) would be completely dependent upon our alien software designer. He or she could design certain special subroutines to have absolutely no output; other subroutines could be designed to have tangible output, which could be fed, as input, into various other subprocesses, perhaps, the subroutines which "spawned" (no pun intended) us.

Of course, what is possible for some grand alien software developer is certainly possible for the immutable, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient One and Triune God, and since we know that God is a Perfect Being, we know that He is not a liar, and therefore, not some grand alien computer programmer.

Doesn't modern science and scientific findings contradict Genesis and the Bible?

Yes, but so what?  A fundamental flaw is in the minds of those (such as Dawkins) who embrace scientism:

The One and Triune God is not subject to the physical laws of nature, which He, after all, created.

The existence and creation of Adam & Eve were miracles -- two fully-grown individuals do not daily appear ex nihilo possessing thought and speech.  Only a miracle could explain such an event.  It should come as no surprise that modern genetic evidence and evolutionary theory could not "account" for the existence of Adam & Eve any more than such theories could explain how Christ could have been conceived and born of a Virgin, turn well-water into wine, walk on water that was deeper than the length of his body, or be clinically dead for no less than 36 hours and return to life in a resurrected body that was able to pass through solid matter, appear and disappear, and rise to Heaven on its own volition out of the gravity well of the Earth. As with Adam & Eve, such things are scientifically and medically impossible, which is why such events are referred to as miracles.

It should come as no surprise to anyone as to why modern genetic evidence contradicts the fact that all human beings descend from two original individuals, Adam & Eve -- the children of Eve were also miracles, in that they had DNA completely distinct from both that of their parents.  No doubt if a modern geneticist tested the DNA of Eve's children, he/she would find that they were "not" the offspring of Eve, and not only were they "not" her biological children (even though she gave birth to them), but that they were "not" even related to each other! This would explain the modern genetic diversity that is seen today while retaining the absolute fidelity to the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture.

What modern atheistic biologists fail to understand is that Adam & Eve, having been both specially created, had within their germ lines all the variation which we see among human beings today. This would allow all the offspring of Eve to have distinct DNA, even though they were born from the same parents. This “genetic bootstrapping” on the part of the One and Triune God would have allowed Eve’s children to marry and have sex with each other, allowing them to have normal human offspring.

As with the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ, Science cannot enter the realm of the supernatural, that is, actions performed by God which violate the Law of Conservation of Energy, which He established to give order to His Creation. These events by God are what Catholic theology terms as being “miracles”: raising those who are in a state of clinical death back to normal life, restoration of an adult amputee's amputated limb (such as occurred in the Miracle of Calanda), simultaneous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to tens of thousands of individuals over hundreds of square miles (such as occurred with the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima), etc.

Since Adam & Eve were both specially created, their bodies were not like ours. They were not conceived, but instead, were formed out of the “dust of the earth”, coming into existence possessing thought and speech. In many respects, their creation was like that of the angels, immaterial beings whom God simply willed into existence ex nihilo. As such, modern genetic theory and assumptions simply do not apply to Adam & Eve. We accept their existence as a matter of divine revelation which came to us through the One and Only Son of God, Jesus Christ, which He entrusted to His Church, the Holy Roman Catholic & Apostolic Church, outside of which no one at all will be saved.

As for the Deluge, it was one of the grandest miracles of all time.  As with the Miracle of the Sun, the One and Triune God wiped-out life on the surface of the Earth (not the oceans, of course) and then brought it back.  Think of this miracle as simply "suspending" the Cosmic program, running some other programs, and then resuming the former program.

Atheism is stupid.

To be an atheist (either strong/positive or weak/negative) one must assert (at least implicitly) the following:

1) The Universe came from nothing by nothing.   As the Protestant apologist Dr. William Lane Craig has so eloquently argued (his denial of Catholic dogma notwithstanding), "nothing" cannot create something.  No matter how one slice's it (quantum singularities, fields, and/or foam, cosmic strings, etc.) at least something has to start things out.  For Catholics, of course, (and everyone else) that "Something" was the One and Triune God.

2) The Universe is infinitely old and infinite in extent.  Again, as Dr. Craig has shown (borrowing heavily from Saint Thomas and other scholastics), something that begins to exist must have a cause.  Since the Universe began to exist (it's finite in age), it must have had a cause. Likewise, since actual infinites cannot exist in Nature, the Universe can neither be infinite in age or extent.  (See Dr. Craig's "Hilbert Hotel" for an example of this.)

3)  No human free will.  "You" are nothing more than "molecules in motion," the simple firing of neurons in a mammalian brain, the product of billions of years of mindless evolution, your conscience "self" the physical product of electrons transitioning from one quantum state to another. You have no free will nor do you have volition of any kind. Your mind is an illusion and does not really exist. And, when you die, you will cease to exist. It will be as if you were never born (unless, of course, there are infinite number of you!)  Here are some examples of "molecules in motion":
  • A mother weeping at the death of her newborn, molecules in motion.
  • A newly married couple joyfully having sex lost in each other's arms, molecules in motion.  
  • A man on trial for murder, molecules in motion.
  • Tears running down a priest's face at the Elevation, molecules in motion.
  • You, me, and everyone else typing at our computer keyboards, cell phones, iPods, Wiis, etc., molecules in motion.
Evolution is materialistic and says that you and I are all "molecules in motion," nothing more.  This is why evolution is stupid.  Minds do not exist, free will is an illusion, just the random firing of electrons in an advanced mammalian brain. Death is annihilation.  Of course, we all know better, don't we?  If you doubt this, just consider the testimony of the late Pam Reynolds.  Since consciousness can survive the death of a physical brain, such is testimonial evidence (the best kind of evidence) that the immaterial soul does exist, which Darwinian evolution could not have produced.

4)  Objective moral values do not exist.  Rape is evolutionary advantageous -- lions "do it," so do tigers (what are left of them), and so do lots of other animals. It's "wrong," according to atheism, because the culture says so.  Most academics and intellectuals in the days of Nazi Germany supported Hitler (as did scores of young women), but today academics disavow him, because he lost. Pope Pius XII, of course, commanded that Catholics pray for Hitler, and we know now that there was a reason for that.  (By the way, what else could the Pope do??)

I read Dawkins' book The God Delusion several times. His whole argument is in a section called "The Poverty of Agnosticism" (pages 43 to 51) where he gives his 7-point scale of belief, 1 being you are 100% convinced that God exists (strong theism) and 7 being that you are 100% that God does not exist (strong atheism). Keep in mind that earlier in the book Dawkins says that "Deism is scarcely more probable than theism." In The God Delusion, Dawkins says that he is "in Category 6 (de facto atheism) but leaning towards Category 7." In a few interviews, he has said that he is a 6.8; in another interview he said that he is a 6.9.

So, let's analyze Dawkins position, shall we? Converting his equal-interval "1 to 7" scale to a ratio scale, we subtract 1; hence, Dawkins is a 5.85 (taking the average of his statements) on a 0 to 6 scale. Given this, Dawkins thinks that there is a 5.85 out of 6 chance that God does not exist, which means he thinks that there is a 0.15 out of 6 chance that God does exist. Computing an "odds-ratio," this means that Dawkins believes that there is a 39:1 chance, given our present evidence, that God does not exist.

Now, here's a nice little article on calculating horse racing odds:

http://horseracing.about.com/cs/handicapping/a/aaoddschart.htm

So, a 39:1 odds means that if you bet $2, you get $80 back (the $39-bet, plus the $2 you spent on the bet.) So, what does Dawkins offer us, assuming that his "odds" are correct:

Bet on Dawkins: get nothing, once you're dead, your dead.
Bet on "some" God (see my other posts on Baptism): the hope to get everything.

Okay, of course, this is Pascal's Wager, which Dawkins & Friends love to bash. Their flaw is, of course, in not understanding Pascal's theology (who was, of course, Catholic.) If God exists, then He (pardon the pronoun, for those secular readers among us) is either indifferent to belief (deism) or is not, and if it is the latter, it is more reasonable than not that those who seek Him will find him, even if they are born into the "wrong" religion. Even in Father Feeney's theology, the idea of "salutary repentance" is accepted, whereby God will grant mercy to those who sincerely seek Him, as evidenced by the fact that He raised people from the dead so that they could be Baptized.  This means that theism, whatever its stripe, will always be a better "bet" than atheism.

Now, if Dawkins is correct (God forbid!), then atoms, even in groups, do not think or posses free will.  This is what Dawkins believes. If he is correct, how can he be critical of believers?  We are just soda cans fizzing. Perhaps Dawkins is Pepsi, and I am Coke.  Maybe you are Mr. Pibb, others readings this blog are perhaps Mello Yello.  In any case, we are all the equivalent to soft drinks, molecules in motion. Now, how one soft drink can be critical of another is beyond me?!

The "trick" to Dawkins and the New Atheists philosophy is this:

Atheism only makes sense if you presume the existence of God.

That's right! Every time Dawkins is critical of believers and our supposed "lack of intelligence," he is borrowing from our philosophy!  He is assuming that minds exist!! But, if minds truly exist (something for you married couples to think about the next time you are with your beloved one), then how can minds be nothing more than the arrangement of molecules? For molecules, like billiard balls, are deterministic (even if the outcomes are statistical per quantum mechanics), just simply interacting with other according to the Laws of Conservation of Energy, Momentum, and Angular Momentum, nothing more.  (Play a game of pool to see this in action!)  No, minds if they exist, must be spirits, they must be souls, immaterial and non-corporeal.

The fact that the brain can interact with the soul, even severely impair it, does not eliminate the you -- "you" are still there, when when you have been drinking heavily (God forbid), suffer a concussion, or have Alzheimer's.  Perhaps your conscious self is sometimes lost within your defective, even dying, brain, but it is still there, even if we cannot "see" it or interact with it, that is, you.  As Pam Reynold's and many, many others' testimonies of veridical life-after-death experiences teach us, your spirit will survive the death of your brain, either to everlasting bliss or everlasting suffering.

In short, your existence, your mind, proves the existence of God, the ultimate mind. QED.

The "argument" from evil.

Because there is evil in the World, God does not exist, or so goes the "argument."  Of course, with the Fall of Adam & Eve, death and suffering entered into the World for human beings.  As for natural evil and suffering, such resulted from the Fall of Angels, which occurred long before the Creation of the Cosmos.

You shouldn't even exist, but you do!

We have already seen that the Cosmos must be finite.  Now, consider this:

http://i.imgur.com/Dub8k.png

The probability that you should exist is infinitesimal, which means that in a finite universe, you must have been created.  QED.