The RCC has long been okay with scientific progress. But yes, social progress is different.
Well, sorta, but the problem is that that pesky science is starting to muscle in on territory that previously was easy to leave to religion. Those gaps are getting smaller and harder to defend.
E.g., take the problem of the existence of a soul, and, really, WTH does it do? Because that's kinda central in letting religion have any say in anything.
Just off the top of my head:
1. We know that identical twins start as a single zygote. Then some accident causes a cell to basically split off, and because of lack of the regulating signals from cells around, it implants again and starts from scratch to build a new body.
Do those guys share a soul? Does one get to be soulless? (Even without being redhead
) Does God supply a second soul as needed? Does God foresee such an accident and supply two souls for the original zygote? This last one opens more cans of worms than is probably obvious.
But that's still the
easy problem.
2. Conversely there are cases where two foetuses which should have been fraternal twins merge into one, resulting in people with patches or whole organs with different DNA. I.e., Chimaeras. And there seem to be more of them than we thought.
What happens to one of the souls there, if each Zygote had a soul? Does one get killed off by God when they merge? Or does one get to be guilty of a murder before he/she is even born or capable of such a decision. (At that point not only the brain isn't connected to the rest of the body, to allow any purposeful action, but the "brain" is actually at most a couple of cells that can't function as a brain anyway.)
Or do you get a guy with two souls? Exactly how would you tell? Again, this opens a whole can of worms for those who take a sorta dualist view where the soul is sorta the consciousness. Because there is no indication that those guys have two sets of brain processes.
Or does god foresee it and allow some foetuses to not have a soul, to avoid such problems? Well, then why can't he foresee that someone will be aborted at 4 weeks, and not give that zygote a soul either?
3. About half of them are even a combination of XX and XY cells. If you get such a mixed up guy, exactly how much of him shares in Eve's sin?
These two have been relatively tame too. But here comes the whopper:
4. We know now that in cases where someone's two brain hemispheres get separated, basically they start functioning as two distinct brains, with distinct thoughts, opinions and world models. Even to the extent where one hemisphere is a devout believer, and the other an atheist. Yes, there is at least one such guy that is documented.
How does the soul fit that picture? Especially for those who take the dualist view that soul = consciousness.
Did that guy get a second soul when his hemispheres got separated? Then why does a zygote have to have a soul before its got a brain at all? If God CAN give a soul later, why doesn't he postpone it until necessary in the first place. Just think of all those zygotes that fail to implant or are spontaneously aborted later. Which may actually be a majority. Why does God need some billions of souls coming to him that not only died before being born, but were never even implanted in the first place. If God CAN give a soul later, WTH screwed up reason can he have to not pick a saner moment for it?
Does he have just one soul capable of operating both (half)brains at the same time? In that case does that soul go just half-way to heaven and half-way to hell, if one half is denying god?
Does only one half of the brain get to keep the soul? Well, then we just have a purely material brain that's still capable of thought and awareness without a soul.
Etc.
Those gaps for a god of the gaps are getting narrower and more uncomfortable.
And even for the most progressive pope, sooner or later the time will come when he must decide to either go with science, or admit that everything the church ever said on some domains was just talking out the ass. Including some infallible pronouncements that, supposedly, were dictated by the Holy Spirit.
