Posted on 11/07/2005 12:05:04 PM PST by Mikey_1962
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. His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.
"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".
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Gravity is fact not theory. I fell out of a tree once when I was a kid, so I know..........But HOW gravity works is still theoretical, in nature. If the entire universe was empty except for two hydrogen atoms separated by 20 billion light years, they would eventually come together because of gravity.....why?...........they were lonely?...........
"Now the natural man doesn't receive the things of God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can't know them, because they are spiritually discerned. "
Paul was full of hooey, just like the rest of the NT.
Don't know much about this Catholic priest, but many of them can also find socialism in the bible.
Origen wrote about evolution?
Faith can never conflict with reason. The Pope's statement on Galileo and science/scripture conflicts. An excerpt:
In fact, the Bible does not concern itself with the details of the physical world, the understanding of which is the competence of human experience and reasoning. There exist two realms of knowledge, one which has its source in Revelation and one which reason can discover by its own power. To the latter belong especially the experimental sciences and philosophy. The distinction between the two realms of knowledge ought not to be understood as opposition.The Pope's 1996 statement on evolution. Physical evolution is not in conflict with Christianity. Excerpts:
It is necessary to determine the proper sense of Scripture, while avoiding any unwarranted interpretations that make it say what it does not intend to say. In order to delineate the field of their own study, the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences.Pope Pius XII's 1950 Encyclical, Humani Generis. Referred to in the 1996 statement. Excerpt:Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical [see link & excerpt below], fresh knowledge has led to the recognition that evolution is more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favour of this theory.
... the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.
I'm a Noachide, which means neither Paul nor the Pope can tell me that six days is six aeons and that Hagar is a mountain in Arabia.
Gracias. Duly recorded.
Outside the limits of Neptune's orbit lies a band of chunks of ice and rock called the Kuiper belt (named after it's discoverer). One of the biggest and closest of those chunks is Pluto, discovered in 1930. It's orbit is the most eccentric of all planets, so much so that for part of it's orbit, it actually crosses inside Neptune's. With the advent of extremely Earth- and space-based telescopes, more Kuiper belt objects have been found. One has recently been found that is actually somewhat larger than Pluto, and the whole definition of "planet" has been thrown open. Shall we consider the new object a planet? Shall we downgrade Pluto? Currently, the consensus is to keep Pluto as a planet simply due to historical reasons and to consider any other Kuiper objects as non-planets, but that's still being debated. Where the fecal material will really hit the rotary distributor will be if a very large Kuiper Belt object (KBO) is found, say one twice or 3 times the size of Pluto. It could happen.
Note that the Kuiper belt is in roughly the same plane as the planets and has some limits as to it's extent. There is also the Oort cloud, which is where most comets come from. This is a cloud of objects that forms a sphere around the Sun and extends half-way to Alpha and Proxima Centauri. Orbits there are in the order of 10,000, 100,000, or even 1,000,000 years. Occasionally, collisions out there (or even the gravitational influence of other stars or non-stellar bodies passing by) disrupt those and cause them to slowly start to plunge into the inner Solar system. Sometimes they fall right into the Sun; the ECHO probe that photographs the Sun sees them. Sometimes they miss the Sun, flying by it and giving us a spectacular show as comets. Those that have hyperbolic orbits leave the Solar system. Others may not come back for 100,000 years. Some are influenced by (usually) Jupiter and are captured to become periodic comets whose orbit can be known and whose reappearance can be predicted; the most famous is Halley's Comet (1/P) with an orbit of 76 years.
The Vatican disagrees with you on that point.
Excellent statement, which I happen to agree with.
Looks like the Vatican is getting out in front of the obvious failure of literal creationism and ID to produce real evidence.
Is the office of the Pope in the bible?
I agree.
Leave science to the scientists.
Looking at science to either reinforce or detract from one's faith is a fool's errand.
Faith: either you have it or you don't.
Death came to all human souls through Adam, that is clear. It came to the world of humanity.
Was that the first appearance of sin in the entire creation or on the globe called earth? Of course not, else whence the Serpent and how did it find anything on earth that its spirit could infest?
More interesting to me is how saltwater fish and freshwater fish comingled. Whether the water ended up being predominantly salt, fresh, or an middling brackish, there are still thousands of fish and plant species with very specific salinity needs that should be dead today.
Me thinks you know more about the Bible then you are aware. At least you know who God used to write Corinthins. Therefore, you must know that ALL MEN will be held accountable at the Judgement Seat for not believing in the Saviour. You will never be able to say, "I never heard of you before."
Please take the time and opportunity "NOW IS THE TIME" for salvation. It is that important. More important than evolution, alignment of the stars, etc.
Even the story of Creation contains elements of evolution--
Day 1 - Created light / dark
Day 2 - Separated the earth and sky
Day 3 - Created earth and seas, plants
Day 4 - Sun, Moon, stars
Day 5 - Sea-animal, flying animal life
Day 6 - Land animals, Mankind
From the simplest to the most complete. Sounds alot like "evolution" to me...
It's too often assumed that because a Cardinal speaks that, ah, this is the opinion of Rome as a whole. Maddeningly though sometimes it seems, it doesn't always work that way. The Pope, and other Cardinals, can disagree with particular Cardinals on things for decades before they actually say something public about it. It's not at all clear that Pope Benedict, in particular, would be totally sympathetic. If I ran Rome there would be flash polls and none of these guessing games, but I don't run it, so....
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