Vatican backs Darwin, criticizes Intelligent Design fundamentalists

Tormac said:
...its clear that most fundies have declared the Catholic church as a tool of Satan, I'm sure ill will goes both ways on this kind o thing
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That is not my experience, and it certainly isn't the church's official position.

In fact, the Catholic Church, under John Paul II, has made more ground ecumenically than at any other time in the past 1900 years.
 
The problem is that it declares the pope to be able to make divinely infallible pronouncements on what god is really thinking. Makes the 'can't we all be pals and get along' idea a bit difficult. To do that, the papal bull would have to be renounced.
 
The idea that the Bishop of Rome has special insight and authority goes all the way back to the establishment of the Papacy - if we include the years before the Eastern and Western branches broke apart, before then. The idea of papal infallibility is only a recent, modern incarnation of this belief.
 
Melendwyr said:
The idea that the Bishop of Rome has special insight and authority goes all the way back to the establishment of the Papacy - if we include the years before the Eastern and Western branches broke apart, before then. The idea of papal infallibility is only a recent, modern incarnation of this belief.
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This is a fair point - but there's one part I didn't understand: are you dating the establishment of the papacy to some period other than the lifetime of the first Bishop of Rome (St. Peter)?
 
ceo_esq said:
Yet that's been an issue, what - twice in the entire history of the papacy?
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I think it's the only mainstream religion to have someone alive today that claims that. All the others, their prophets are dead and gone, it is people interpreting the written records. The fundies are just as self righteous, but they claim to only be saying what is written in the bible.

If you going to claim to have that power, you are going to raise people's hackles, even if you don't use it often.
 
a_unique_person said:
I think it's the only mainstream religion to have someone alive today that claims that. All the others, their prophets are dead and gone, it is people interpreting the written records. The fundies are just as self righteous, but they claim to only be saying what is written in the bible.
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Mormons
 
curi0us said:
THE Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly.

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"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".

This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to "understand things better".
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17162341-13762,00.html



I find it interesting that the Vatican is mocking fundamentalists for taking the bible literally. Is intelliegnt design a hot political issue in other countries too, or did we just get a bigger percentage of unreasonable christians in the U.S. somehow?
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Ok, this is going to sound harsh but I don't know why I should take scientific advice from someone who believes that crackers can turn into flesh.
 
KingMerv00 said:
Ok, this is going to sound harsh but I don't know why someone should take scientific advice from someone who believe that crackers can turn into flesh.
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Because, as believers of ridiculous things, the Catholic Church's opinions about what are ridiculous things should be taken seriously.

(Question: would you trust the judgment of someone who insists that the bread and wine are anything other than symbols?)
 
Melendwyr said:
Because, as believers of ridiculous things, the Catholic Church's opinions about what are ridiculous things should be taken seriously.

(Question: would you trust the judgment of someone who insists that the bread and wine are anything other than symbols?)
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The Catholic church has always struck me as odd. It is perfectly comfortable to ignore the Bible and side with evolution. On the other hand, they lose all scientific perspective when is comes to saints and demon posession.

Selective wooism at its best.
 
From the article:

His statements were interpreted in Italy as a rejection of the "intelligent design" view, which says the universe is so complex that some higher being must have designed every detail.
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So what the Vatican is advocating is not ID because of the issue of what determines the details (science, not God)? Would you be considered an "I.D.er" if you believe in science up until what science doesn't yet know, at which point you believe God is pulling the strings?

BPSCG said:
This is interesting. All the Vatican is claiming as its own territory is the ground that science acknowledges can't be discerned by science - what caused the Big Bang.
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Can't be discerned - yet. The Vatican's territory is shrinking, slowly but surely. I wonder if this may be why evolution in schools is a hot topic again - creationists know they are losing the battle, and they are making their last stand. Call me optimistic or a dunderhead, but I believe creationism is in its death throes.
 
BPSCG said:
This is interesting. All the Vatican is claiming as its own territory is the ground that science acknowledges can't be discerned by science - what caused the Big Bang.
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This isn't new, is it? The Catholics, to their credit, have always (in my lifetime) recognized science as a separate discipline from theology and not incompatible. This is just a restatement of the that.

On the other hand, it's a thin plank they walk. As I recall, the Pope urged Steven Hawkins not to question the basic origins too far. He (SH) thought that was funny.
 
Elind said:
On the other hand, it's a thin plank they walk. As I recall, the Pope urged Steven Hawkins not to question the basic origins too far. He (SH) thought that was funny.
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The previous pope, I assume. Where does Hawking tell this story? I'd be interested to read it.

Interestingly, Hawking is one of the pope's official scientific advisors.
 
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