Posted on 02/07/2005 7:30:07 AM PST by mike182d
NEW YORK (CNS) -- Catholic educators need better teaching programs about evolution "to correct the anti-evolution biases that Catholics pick up" from the general society, according to a U.S. bishops' official involved in dialogue with scientists for 20 years.
Without a church view of human creation that is consistent with currently accepted scientific knowledge, "Catholicism may begin to seem less and less 'realistic' to more and more thoughtful people," said David Byers, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Science and Human Values from 1984 to 2003.
"That dynamic is a far greater obstacle to religious assent than evolution," he said in a bylined article in the Feb. 7 issue of America, a weekly magazine published in New York by the Jesuits. The article discussed the value of the dialogues with scientists organized by the bishops' committee.
"Denying that humans evolved seems by this point a waste of time," he said without mentioning specific controversies in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnews.com ...
Creationism is not a theory. It is a belief system.
> As for "Christians" believing in evolution, that is an oxymoron. You cannot believe in both.
Tell that to all the Christians who do. Your lack of imagination AND wisdom does not necessarily trasfer to everyone else. Just as Christians (most of 'em, anyway) got past the flat Earth, got past burnign cats as witchs familiars, got past seeign the Earth as the center of the universe, Christians will also largely get past the childish notion of "Genesis as literal fact." And Christianity will be better off for it.
> Notice how you elevate a mere fallible mortal above what is written in the Bible ...
A Bible which was written by fallible mortals.
Thank you for that splendid concise summary.
> As for "Christians" believing in evolution, that is an oxymoron. You cannot believe in both.
Then you cannot both be a Christian and believe in the Bible. Consider what Genesis *actually* says:
"Let the earth bring forth grass..."
"Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life..."
"Let the earth bring forth the living creature..."
Note: It's not said that God himself directly created the plants, water critters or land critters.... but that they were "brought forth" from the sea and the earth. This could be *easily* and *intelligently* interpretted as the process of evolution.
Unfortuantely, history has shown that those who bang drums can overrun those who are rational. Only the constant vigilance of the rational prevents the domination of the irrational and their irrational ideologies. And even then, constant vigilance may not be enough. Sometimes the barbarians win.
Not much shock - I was in the military 12 years before I came to Mississippi and hadn't been stationed above South Carolina in that time. The biggest problem was/is adjusting to the summers - they're every bit as brutal as a New York winter!
> Why do you think the environment is ripe for the creationist argument to gains at least some acceptance in America?
My guess would be that the Creationists have finally updated their lies and nonsense to at least *sound* scientific, with that ID twaddle. So just as a superstitious barbarian might be held from attacking a castle because of the high walls... give that barbarian a ladder - even a poorly constructed one - and he'll go for it.
Creationism is a theory - The belief that God created man and the Earth is the belief system - How he did it is the theory.
"but those who insist on a young-earth are barking mad."
The funny thing is that they aren't, really. To be sure, such a position requires twisting or ignoring wide swathes of well-accepted modern science, but is entirely consistent with a belief in an inerrant, literal, Bible. A belief which too many people hold to class them all as crazy, although I must admit I have trouble understanding it.
Creationism in the way the term is normally defined, posits a belief in God. Thusly, creationism is not a scientific theory.
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