Pope declares Evolution and Big Bang are right.

[zinfamous]

No, he isn't. He's specifically going against intelligent design. From what I could gather reading the article. He's basically saying god created the spark that started the universe and let it roll (my words though the article is short of details). He didn't use a magic wand and tinker around with the universe.

It would be difficult for him to suggest such a thing, as it would mean that humans aren't the special flowers that God-loving people assume we are.

If God just lit a fart and bowed out, then what would be the point of worshiping that God?

I haven't read the statements, but I doubt that we will ever see an official Catholic doctrine that truly accepts evolution--which, by definition, has no goal. If humans are not created in God's image, then there is no point to religion. If evolution is "the tool" used to create humans, then you aren't talking about evolution. I just don't see the Church ever abandoning some flavor of creationism/ID.


fwiw, I thought the Catholic church had long accepted the Big Bang? :hmm:

 

[zinfamous]

The Bible shows that God created man separate from animals, science shows that man evolved from animals.

Both cannot be true, which was my point. One will be simply "reinterpreted", or simply abandoned.

pretty much.

 

[zinfamous]

I grew up Catholic. When I went to Sunday school, we learned the story of Noah. But, it seemed to be taught more from the perspective of "this is a religious children's story, fictional, but does contain some moral lessons." I was only 6 or 7 at the time though, so maybe they were teaching it as a real event. I just know that, possessing the cognitive abilities and reasoning capabilities of someone my age, or maybe even those of an 8 or 9 year old, I was pretty sure that it was just a story and wasn't actually true. I'm bewildered that grown adults believe the story is true, word for word.

same. I believe there was a mixture of types at our church (Methodist)--hyper conservative, but also highly educated, discerning, somewhat liberal-types...so I can't really say how these things were taught when i was in Sunday School.

I only know that for myself, I only ever thought of them as stories, nothing more. These stories were always absurdly impossible; so to me, Noah on a boat with all of the world's animals was no different than something like Unicorns fighting Dragons in the other stories that I read. I certainly assumed everyone else in my class thought the same way, and that the adults thought the same way.

It's only recently that I've started to think about those days and wonder: holy shit, did the adults in that church actually believe this stuff to be true? D:

 

[Vic]

This isn't really news. Catholics have accepted evolution and big bang theory for decades. Maybe the Pope is just reminding the world of that.

And seriously, the only conflicts between faith and science are derived from dogma. No where in the bible does it say that the earth is only 6,000 years old. No where does it say that God waved a magic wand and *poof*. Quite the opposite, it can be readily inferred through the text that God (should one choose to believe) must have utilized a logical process, which science has been discovering.

 

[Vic]

The Bible shows that God created man separate from animals, science shows that man evolved from animals.

Both cannot be true, which was my point. One will be simply "reinterpreted", or simply abandoned.

And maybe one has been misinterpreted all along.

 

[alzan]

No, but that's not my point. I agree that there are things that speak to "different areas of our lives" and so on, but I don't think that when you run into a conflict, you can always say that the contradiction speaks to another area of our lives without providing some evidence that shows that as the intent.

I've outlined a few points to demonstrate what I mean:

Virgin Birth: A Bible teaching held as fact by nearly every Christian on this planet. It contradicts science and what we know about how women are impregnated, so in what way does this speak to something else?

Jesus' Divinity: Another unscientific belief held by all Christians as 100 percent fact.

Jesus' Resurrection: Perhaps one of the most unscientific beliefs we hold, yet, we belief this as fact.

All I am really saying is that if these are held as fact, then they're true and aren't symbolic or allegorical in order to convey a bigger meaning in life, or as just a teaching tool, but they are stark contradictions to what science shows us.

Held as fact by Christians as an article of faith; AFAIK there exists no verified, testable or observable evidence. As you are fond of saying abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence.

Since there's no reliable way of knowing one way or the other I'll just go ahead and mark those in the "unknown at this time" column.

 

[Retro Rob]

Held as fact by Christians as an article of faith; AFAIK there exists no verified, testable or observable evidence. As you are fond of saying abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence.

Right, and additionally, there is nothing from which to derive an interpretation of "allegory" -- and that's precisely why I posted those examples.

If anyone asserts that they are "allegory", it's just that...an assertion. And guess what my good friend Alzan, if evidence were to come to light tomorrow verifying those teaching, they are suddenly factual and not allegory.

Saying something is allegory because of the absence of evidence is silly...you should base that conclusion ON evidence.

Since there's no reliable way of knowing one way or the other I'll just go ahead and mark those in the "unknown at this time" column.

Cannot disagree with you there.

 

[Retro Rob]

And maybe one has been misinterpreted all along.

No, the Bible definitely doesn't support the view that Adam and Eve were mere symbols of right and wrong.

Bible scholars and other interested persons have traced the genealogies from Jesus back to Adam as mentioned in the Bible, and that undeniably shows that Adam was the first human created something around 6000 years ago as a forefather to Christ, hence, where creationists get the Young Earth viewpoint.

Biblically speaking, Adam was real and there is no symbolic context to that.

The only reason why people "interpret" that as allegorical is because they want to appear pro-science, while holding a clearly anti-evolution viewpoint at the same time.

Has it ever occurred to you that for centuries religion held them [Adam as Eve] as REAL, until Darwin's book was published? There was indeed internal conflict about what to believe (special Creation or Evolution) and the consensus simply was that they're going to find away to believe both at the same time, and that was by simply asserting the Genesis account was symbolic.

 

[sm625]

At this point you have to seriously consider that evolution may in fact not be correct, or at least not entirely correct. Yall should read this excerpt, written by Charles Darwin, of all people:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Pn...arwin dog butcher "Essay on Instinct"&f=false

 

[Retro Rob]

It would be difficult for him to suggest such a thing, as it would mean that humans aren't the special flowers that God-loving people assume we are.

If God just lit a fart and bowed out, then what would be the point of worshiping that God?

I haven't read the statements, but I doubt that we will ever see an official Catholic doctrine that truly accepts evolution--which, by definition, has no goal. If humans are not created in God's image, then there is no point to religion. If evolution is "the tool" used to create humans, then you aren't talking about evolution. I just don't see the Church ever abandoning some flavor of creationism/ID.


fwiw, I thought the Catholic church had long accepted the Big Bang? :hmm:

Cannot agree more with this post!

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

It would be difficult for him to suggest such a thing, as it would mean that humans aren't the special flowers that God-loving people assume we are.

If God just lit a fart and bowed out, then what would be the point of worshiping that God?

I haven't read the statements, but I doubt that we will ever see an official Catholic doctrine that truly accepts evolution--which, by definition, has no goal. If humans are not created in God's image, then there is no point to religion. If evolution is "the tool" used to create humans, then you aren't talking about evolution. I just don't see the Church ever abandoning some flavor of creationism/ID.


fwiw, I thought the Catholic church had long accepted the Big Bang? :hmm:

I suspect he still holds that god created the human soul, which isn't a shocking position for him to hold, but he is clearly going against intelligent design.

 

[zinfamous]

I suspect he still holds that god created the human soul, which isn't a shocking position for him to hold, but he is clearly going against intelligent design.

No, he isn't:

“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” Francis said.
He added: “He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfilment.

Sorry, that does not embrace evolution. It doesn't even begin to understand evolution. That statement that he made is basically what any ID nutter would squawk over and over again. :\

Don't get me wrong--I really like this pope, for what it's worth; and as wrong as it is to interpret such a statement as an acceptance of evolutionary theory, I still think what he said has advanced the Catholic Church another century or so in rational thought. ...Now they are kinda in line with the early 19th century.

 

[Retro Rob]

I suspect he still holds that god created the human soul, which isn't a shocking position for him to hold, but he is clearly going against intelligent design.

He's going against Intelligent Design as a political [creationist] movement, yes, but he's invoking an intelligent creator.

Charles Darwin was probably most intellectually honest person of his time because he realized that he couldn't merge his beliefs with his observations and thus decided to abandon those beliefs.

Furthermore, evolution is more of a "bottom up" approach whereas creation is a "top down" approach to intelligent life. I think that people who hold to Theistic Evolution should actually start examining what they accept as a "tool" of creation, as was so eloquently explained to me.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...snt-a-magician-with-a-magic-wand-9822514.html

I lika dis guy. When you cant beat em, merge them

Actually catholic church supported the Big Bang Theory when it first emerged because it disproved the atheist supported theory of a Steady State universe which had no creation event. So that is hardly new. In fact one of the biggest supporters of the big bang theory was Georges Lemaître a catholic priest and astronomer who first proposed the idea of the expansion of the universe from a "creation event" (Big Bang) based on previous findings by Edward Hubble and few others scientists/mathematicians.

 

[alzan]

Right, and additionally, there is nothing from which to derive an interpretation of "allegory" -- and that's precisely why I posted those examples.

If anyone asserts that they are "allegory", it's just that...an assertion. And guess what my good friend Alzan, if evidence were to come to light tomorrow verifying those teaching, they are suddenly factual and not allegory.

Saying something is allegory because of the absence of evidence is silly...you should base that conclusion ON evidence.

Cannot disagree with you there.

Well it's a good thing I posited the possibility that they were allegory instead of stating it as fact.

I won't hold my breath waiting for the "evidence" to come to light.

 

[Retro Rob]

Well it's a good thing I posited the possibility that they were allegory instead of stating it as fact.

I won't hold my breath waiting for the "evidence" to come to light.

That's fine. I wasn't at all suggesting that evidence *will* come forth one day, but rather, I was showing why asserting something as allegory doesn't make it such.

 

[MovingTarget]

Promulgating the dictum that a basic, biological function is a "sin" springs to mind.

Yes, but sin is not a scientific concept. I tend to agree with your statement. But even as a Catholic myself, the kind of repressed nonsense about all things sexual that was spread about with Humanae Vitae is harmful. I would say that was the modern church's "Galilleo moment". The sooner the hierarchy tosses that encyclical in the same dustbin as the Syllabus of Errors, the better. The laity for the most part already have.

 

[Matt1970]

No, but that's not my point. I agree that there are things that speak to "different areas of our lives" and so on, but I don't think that when you run into a conflict, you can always say that the contradiction speaks to another area of our lives without providing some evidence that shows that as the intent.

I've outlined a few points to demonstrate what I mean:

Virgin Birth: A Bible teaching held as fact by nearly every Christian on this planet. It contradicts science and what we know about how women are impregnated, so in what way does this speak to something else?

Jesus' Divinity: Another unscientific belief held by all Christians as 100 percent fact.

Jesus' Resurrection: Perhaps one of the most unscientific beliefs we hold, yet, we belief this as fact.

All I am really saying is that if these are held as fact, then they're true and aren't symbolic or allegorical in order to convey a bigger meaning in life, or as just a teaching tool, but they are stark contradictions to what science shows us.

Those I would actually believe over one guy building a boat to house 2 of every species of animal on the planet with enough food to last for 40 days to rid the world of sinners. Why even do that to begin with? God could have easily just snapped his fingers and 'poof', they would all be gone.

 

[Vic]

No, the Bible definitely doesn't support the view that Adam and Eve were mere symbols of right and wrong.

Bible scholars and other interested persons have traced the genealogies from Jesus back to Adam as mentioned in the Bible, and that undeniably shows that Adam was the first human created something around 6000 years ago as a forefather to Christ, hence, where creationists get the Young Earth viewpoint.

Biblically speaking, Adam was real and there is no symbolic context to that.

The only reason why people "interpret" that as allegorical is because they want to appear pro-science, while holding a clearly anti-evolution viewpoint at the same time.

Has it ever occurred to you that for centuries religion held them [Adam as Eve] as REAL, until Darwin's book was published? There was indeed internal conflict about what to believe (special Creation or Evolution) and the consensus simply was that they're going to find away to believe both at the same time, and that was by simply asserting the Genesis account was symbolic.

Not trying to offend here, but every culture that's ever existed has had its own creation story that was believed to be real. What makes the Genesis narrative more real than any of those others except for our own culture's traditional faith in it?

Personally, I believe the problem here is that some people who claim to believe in God actually believe in a book.

 

[Retro Rob]

Not trying to offend here, but every culture that's ever existed has had its own creation story that was believed to be real. What makes the Genesis narrative more real than any of those others except for our own culture's traditional faith in it?

Personally, I believe the problem here is that some people who claim to believe in God actually believe in a book.

You're not offending me here. Sure, everyone culture has its creation story, but so what? Not relevant to the post your quoting.

I was simply pointing out as a rebuttal to your point that it was always "misinterpreted" (assuming you mean Adam and Eve were mistakenly taken as literal people) by showing how the Bible itself showed, though the evidence I provided, that those two were real.

This isn't at all suggesting this as a reality...this only supports my argument that there is no internal Biblical evidence that suggests this as being a symbolic account.

I'm also showing how religious leaders arbitrarily decided this was symbolic simply because they could no longer defend it in the face of evolution, so now the Pope is trying to nestle God into science somehow.

I know you know this, but the BB and evolution are natural explanations for our physical world and life on this planet, theories that show NO supernatural Creator was necessary.

To try to back God into these theories is unscientific, and intellectually dishonest.

 

[lopri]

I largely agree, but to your last point, if science and religious beliefs meet at a crossroad and contradict one another, then you're going to have to abandon one for the other, or try to reconcile one with the other, or simply attempt to hold both contradicting views as true.

I think this is called Cognitive Dissonance.

I agree with the first paragraph but not the second. At least not to the extent it comes off as disparaging efforts to solve legitimately difficult moral questions. And I would not call it Cognitive Dissonance - I would call it human reality.

Earlier today I participated in death penalty debate in another thread. There, I remembered this thread and how science had been used to suggest methods of killing as more painless, thus more humane ones in appearance. We came away from Guillotine to hanging to firing squads to electric chairs to, what we have today, lethal injection. Each time argument was made to transform the method of killing under the fog of science. It seems to me we have simply swapped one grotesque mode of killing with another. Lethal injection is an extremely grotesque mode of killing, for the drugs it use (one of the drug used is banned for animal euthanasia), in its preparation (you have to get healthy to be killed), and the whole ritual we go through in its administration to "ensure death" in "humane" manner. I personally think we may be better off with where we started - Guillotine - if we were to keep death penalty.

This is a different argument than whether capital punishment itself is just or worthy. It is a question whether science has been providing rational for death penalty in a rather convoluted manner, and whether science can be truly divorced from beliefs. In my view, there are questions that are unanswerable (or extraordinarily difficult to answer) using science. And even if science provides rather stable baseline answers for our basic needs it is all too often susceptible to abuse (e.g. eugenics) just like everything else humans do.

 

[OverVolt]

False

They help you lose weight!

Besides i dunno where the hell these internet crusader types get their info.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3490543/

Basically fighting fire with fire, or science with science. Which should go to show that science in itself is not immune to corruption or conflicts of interest and its important where the money is coming from. FWIW there is more private funding of science today than there has ever been in recent history.

The general "internet" consensus these days is so utterly uninformed it hurts. Social media, and podium for crazy people yadda yadda.

If the only place you know where to get information from is the internet you know nothing anyway.

 

[soulcougher73]

You're not offending me here. Sure, everyone culture has its creation story, but so what? Not relevant to the post your quoting.

I was simply pointing out as a rebuttal to your point that it was always "misinterpreted" (assuming you mean Adam and Eve were mistakenly taken as literal people) by showing how the Bible itself showed, though the evidence I provided, that those two were real.

This isn't at all suggesting this as a reality...this only supports my argument that there is no internal Biblical evidence that suggests this as being a symbolic account.

I'm also showing how religious leaders arbitrarily decided this was symbolic simply because they could no longer defend it in the face of evolution, so now the Pope is trying to nestle God into science somehow.

I know you know this, but the BB and evolution are natural explanations for our physical world and life on this planet, theories that show NO supernatural Creator was necessary.

To try to back God into these theories is unscientific, and intellectually dishonest.

Can you post this evidence again? I must have missed it or skimmed past it too fast.

 

[Olikan]

Another holy war? Where do I sign up for the crusader gear?

just remember... "we" lost the last one