... against a "Catfish" on Evolution

Video commented on first half of

Why Don't Catholics Believe in Evolution?
FatherCatfish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIaXs_ellDo

0:00

Nice font. I enjoy blackletters too:

from: Creation vs. Evolution : URL in Blackletters http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2016/01/url-in-blackletters.html

0:13

You said "Catholics" do believe in Evolution, that is a bit like saying "Holy Bible" condemns such and such a practise or doctrine of (traditional) Catholicism. That may be why precisely English is the language in which both CATHOLICS and HOLYBIBLE add up to .... let's see:

C	67 060 07	H	72 070 02 620
A	65 120 12	O	79 140 11 046
T	84 200 16	L	76 210 17 666
H	72 270 18	Y	89 290 26
O	79 340 27	B	66 350 32 610
L	76 410 33	I	73 420 35 056
I	73 480 36	B	66 480 41 666
C	67 540 43	L	76 550 47
S	83 620 46	E	69 610 56

Obviously, Sagrada Biblia and Católicos get other scores in ASCII Code. So do Heilige Bibel and Katholiken.

1:45

If the difference is in:

• content type
  THEN that is from the character of the case. Genesis 1 is about origins before man, and that is a subject matter not much elaborated on in the rest of the Bible; or if it is in
  
  
• amount of detail
  THEN that might be due to care of transmitting orally only the very leanest essentials of what one transmitted, so it could be learned by heart.
  
  Chapters 1-6, DRB, copied to a word document with 20 points typographic height gave 21 pages. On 7 pages, same height, I fit in five Greek Constantinopolitan Creeds. BUT the comparison is a bit lopsided, since Greek is shorter than English. So, even so, it means 2.5 creeds per chapter. Take into account that Hebrew, like Greek, is shorter than English, they will probably be less than 2.5 Greek creeds each. And even normal, post-Flood persons are able to learn the Creed by heart (Orthodox and presumably Byzantine rite uniates too use it instead of Apostolic creed). And if the difference is in:
  
  
• poetry versus narrative style
  THEN I cry foul, your sophism has been duly debunked. By people who know Hebrew lost better than either you or I. At least what I presume for you, and what I know for me.

CMI : Is Genesis poetry / figurative, a theological argument (polemic) and thus not history? Critique of the Framework Hypothesis
by Dr Don Batten, Dr David Catchpoole, Dr Jonathan D. Sarfati and Dr Carl Wieland
Published: 30 November 2007(GMT+10)
http://creation.com/is-genesis-poetry-figurative-a-theological-argument-polemic-and-thus-not-history

See also this discussion:

Let’s ask opponents the question: just suppose, for the purposes of the argument, Genesis is history, how would you expect it to look? We can answer from the style of the undisputed historical books such as most of Exodus, Joshua, Judges, etc.

Hebrew grammar experts have shown that historical narratives in the Old Testament have a very distinctive verb pattern. They start with a type of verb called a qatal (perfect) and continue with another type of verb called the waw (vav,8 ו) consecutives, or wayyiqtols.9 This verb type is frequent in the historical books of the Old Testament.

Apply this to Genesis 1, the first verb, ברא bārā’ (create), is qatal, while the subsequent verbs that move the narrative forward are wayyiqtols (ויאמר wāyyō’mer (‘and … said’), ויהי wāyehi (‘and there was’), וירא wāyyāre (‘and … saw’). Thus this has just the pattern one would expect from a historical narrative.

Furthermore, Genesis 1–11 moves seamlessly on, with no change in style, to Genesis 12–50. No one doubts that the latter is intended to be read as history. Therefore any doubts with the former don’t stem from the grammar and style of the text itself. Rather, they come from considerations outside the text, such as long-age uniformitarian geology and evolutionary biology.

CMI : Genesis is history!
by Jonathan Sarfati
http://creation.com/genesis-is-history

As said, someone who knows Hebrew better than either of us. At least than me.

2:05

"highly symbolic" is a highly ambiguous phrase. It can mean "rich in symbols" (for what is to come). If so, true. It seems in this context to mean "more likely to be true in symbolic than in historic ways and highly so". That is, if you meant that, false. Presence of factual historic truth is NOT at inverse ratio to presence of symbols. And God is, as St Thomas noted, able to adapt, rather than just an invented text (like Roman de la Rose or Psychomachia), a whole series of events that will be recorded in a text to symbolic truths as well.

2:11

"but not in a fundamentalist way"

Why exactly that?

2:23

Sorry, but Genesis 1 is a creation account, not a map. You cannot look closely at it like you can at a map, you may be able to look closely to descriptions. THAT involves that descriptions may correspond to what they suggest spontaneously OR be accurate in a less direct way, but accessible to those who know the details. The Flat Earth part is NOT directly stated in Genesis 1, while it is very directly stated in what Egyptians believe about Solar deities : half of the 24 hours these are NOT shining on Earth, which can only be true with a flat earth.

A little further on, you say something about "how we understand the world today".

Round Earth is not directly contradicted by any verse or any conclusion following logically from two or more verses.

Very unlike Pagan ancient Mid East religions where myths and holy texts all are considerably more direct about Flat Earth.

If we come to "and it was very good" you are correct that we correctly understand the world today to contain lots of evil. That is the result of sth that can be studied in Genesis 3:

GENESIS - Chapter 3
in Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id329.html

Note very well how Haydock comment on Genesis 3 explains the "text" transmission from Adam to Moses.

Excepting the detail of adhering to Christmas chronology (Latin Mass and even Novus Ordo up to 1994) rather than Ussher and therefore not thinking Shem lived to the days of Abraham, therefore needing a few intermediates more on the "bare minimum" of continuous transmission he is talking about, I agree totally.

But by "how we understand the world today" you may also be referring to very dubious theories which all of us do not share even today, like Heliocentrism and Evolution.

These actually would contradict or compromise Genesis 1.

If Earth is regularily rotating around Sun, what was Earth rotating around the first three days before there was a Sun? If Earth was immobile days 1-3, why did it start moving around Sun on day 4?

One can patch that together. But accepting Geocentrism will do it too.

And according to Genesis all birds and fish (that would include all flying creatures or vertebrate creatures and all under water creatures not just "fish" but also invertebrate, mammalian and - erstwhile, before Flood - perhaps reptilian too) were created on day 5, all land vertebrates (and land invertebrates too) were created on day 6.

This contradicts evolutionary accounts when all vertebrate flying creatures (pterodactylian, bird or bat) are evolved from earlier land living forms.

So, yes, if you count evolution as true understanding of the world, you will be forced to ditch literal truth of Genesis. You shouldn't.

Unlike the physical evils of sickness and death and the moral evils of sin, of error, evolution is not in this sense a clear observation we can make now.