To: StJacques
Yeah, right ... I "didn't understand what I posted." You are a reeeeeeal piece of work.
You origionally spoke of "THE" theory of evolution and stated that the pope was in agreement with it.
I then showed you that the pope spoke of "several" theories of evolution - not "the" theory of evolution.
Then I showed you what Darwin's opinion of his own theory was, and added as back up the statement from the Encyclopedia Britannica which states: "There was no place in Darwin's world for divine intervention, nor was mankind placed in a position of superiority vis-a-vis the rest of the animal world. Darwin saw man as part of a continuum with the rest of nature, not separated by divine injunction."
Then I backed that up with statements from well-known highly respected "scientists" who also embrace "Darwinism".
In light of what Darwin believed ... neither you, nor the pope could legitimately / logically embrace the evolutionary theory known as "Darwinism".
143 posted on
10/16/2005 5:09:18 PM PDT by
Matchett-PI
( "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." -- Dwight Eisenhower)
To: Matchett-PI
"Yeah, right ... I "didn't understand what I posted." . . ."
With regard to your quoting of the Pope, yes; I am convinced you did not understand what you posted, as I'll explain in a moment. But I never told you that the "Pope was in agreement with it." No; I told you precisely the following:
". . . what is really interesting is that two Popes, Pius XII and John Paul II, have pointedly stated that 'If the human body take its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God,' which John Paul II further built upon in saying 'The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory,' which makes clear that some of the most religious men of recent times have seen evidence supporting the Theory of Evolution as valid, . . ."
What part of the above-quoted statement do you find flawed? The quotes I use are copied and pasted in from the original sources and they do show that the two Popes saw the evidence supporting the Theory of Evolution as "valid." You challenged me on my statement by referring to the three theories of evolution Pope John Paul II discussed, but that is only a useful rejoinder on your part if either [or both] of them are held as competing with the Darwinian theory, which is NOT the case, since none of them were presented as an alternative to Darwin's theory but rather as separate paths of philosophical inquiry and the Pope's clear assessment that the cumulative findings of science regarding [Darwinian] evolution were a "significant argument in favor of the theory." That is not an "embracing" of Darwin's theory by the Pope, because the Catholic Church will not embrace any scientific theory. It doesn't even embrace Newton's Laws of Motion for that matter. But it is a public statement that the best findings of recognized science up to this point support Darwin's theory. It's just that those findings are within materialist philosophical inquiry and are therefore a matter of no great concern for the Church, whose duty is theological inquiry.
So Matchett, if you have argued that Pope John Paul II has presented or praised an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution as explaining the material origins of the form of man, which is what I read in your post, then I charge you with not knowing what you are talking about. If you are arguing something different, then state clearly what that is.
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