Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

A pope for our times: why Darwin is back on the agenda at the Vatican
Times Online ^ | 11/7/5 | William Rees-Mogg

Posted on 11/07/2005 2:23:36 AM PST by Crackingham

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-76 next last
To: anthraciterabbit
"Evolution is basically another false religion which competes WITH Christianity."

You may want to schedule a trip to Rome so you can instruct the Catholic Church on this topic.
41 posted on 11/07/2005 11:24:15 AM PST by NJ_gent (Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog
Sorry, but if that is what you believe--you are NOT a "fundie"---whose belief setting is the "language absolutist" idea that creation happened in seven 24-hour days. Once you depart from that language absolutism, you are in there with us "parable Biblicists", who believe that the Bible cannot be interpreted "exactly as written", but requires interpretation based on both Church tradition and our current "state of knowledge" about the universe.

Cut me a break, you are babbling total crap.

42 posted on 11/07/2005 1:11:03 PM PST by Dustbunny (Main Stream Media -- Making 'Max Headroom' a reality.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: The Ghost of FReepers Past; ohioWfan; Tribune7; Tolkien; GrandEagle; Right in Wisconsin; Dataman; ..
Similar thread to the last ping


Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info

43 posted on 11/07/2005 1:13:39 PM PST by wallcrawlr (http://www.bionicear.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Dustbunny
"Cut me a break, you are babbling total crap."

How so?? The fundamentalist position IS that Creation took place over seven 24-hour days. They say so repeatedly. The "Creation Science Institute" exists for no other purpose than to come up with scenarios that justify that position.

44 posted on 11/07/2005 1:19:23 PM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog
Evolution has zip to do with ethics, religion, or anything other than how species changed over time.
“The time has come to take seriously the fact that we humans are modified monkeys, not the favored Creation of a Benevolent God on the Sixth Day. In particular, we must recognize our biological past in trying to understand our interactions with others. We must think again especially about our so-called “ethical principles.” The question is not whether biology—specifically, our evolution—is connected with ethics, but how. As evolutionists, we see that no [ethical] justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will.... In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding. Like Macbeth’s dagger, it serves a powerful purpose without existing in substance.”

“Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place.”
-Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” in Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement, ed. J. E. Hutchingson (Orlando, Fl.: Harcourt and Brace, 1991)


45 posted on 11/07/2005 1:30:57 PM PST by Heartlander
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander
“Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place.” -Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” in Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement, ed. J. E. Hutchingson (Orlando, Fl.: Harcourt and Brace, 1991"

So?? This is just another attempt to hijack "evolution" into applying in an area to which it has no relevancy.

46 posted on 11/07/2005 1:38:16 PM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Crackingham
Sure a person can believe in God and in evolution. Obviously. They just can't also believe the Bible is true, not and be intellectually honest.

Ex 20:11 -
" For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

47 posted on 11/07/2005 1:39:49 PM PST by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. Ps. 14:34)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog
So?? This is just another attempt to hijack "evolution" into applying in an area to which it has no relevancy.
I have argued that the discontinuous gap between humans and 'apes' that we erect in our minds is regrettable. I have also argued that, in any case, the present position of the hallowed gap is arbitrary, the result of evolutionary accident. If the contingencies of survival and extinction had been different, the gap would be in a different place. Ethical principles that are based upon accidental caprice should not be respected as if cast in stone.
-Dawkins

Say when…
48 posted on 11/07/2005 1:40:32 PM PST by Heartlander
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander
" Say when…" Still the same answer. Another attempt to hijack science into an area in which it is not relevant.
49 posted on 11/07/2005 2:02:51 PM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: agere_contra

The thing is, why would anyone want to hear what the Catholic church has to say about the Scriptures? The Word of the Almighty was entrusted to a people He chose, Israel. Therefore, for interpretations and true translations, people should search in the English translations from the Hebrew/Aramaic/Peshitta texts, not from Greek/Latin persuasions. The latter are laced with deceit (humanism) and can only serve the purpose of keeping those who read their versions and views in bondage. We will indeed know the Truth, and that Truth shall set us free.


50 posted on 11/07/2005 2:16:08 PM PST by Hila
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog
Still the same answer. Another attempt to hijack science into an area in which it is not relevant.
Rapprochement may be neither possible nor desirable. There is something deep in religious belief that divides people and amplifies societal conflict. The toxic mix of religion and tribalism has become so dangerous as to justify taking seriously the alternative view, that humanism based on science is the effective antidote, the light and the way at last placed before us.

Religions continue both to render their special services and to exact their heavy costs. Can scientific humanism do as well or better, at a lower cost? Surely that ranks as one of the great unanswered questions of philosophy. It is the noble yet troubling legacy that Charles Darwin left us.
- Can biology do better than faith?


51 posted on 11/07/2005 2:16:31 PM PST by Heartlander
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

You can spout quotes all day. That doesn't change the fact that evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with ethics. The fact that some politically-minded scientists try to force-fit it into doing so says that they are more interested in the politics than the science.


52 posted on 11/07/2005 2:20:45 PM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog
“Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.”
-William Provine (from Darwin Day speech)

53 posted on 11/07/2005 2:38:23 PM PST by Heartlander
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander
I do not see how your quotes in any way create any sort of ethical or moral content to the theory of evolution.

The theory of evolution, like every other scientific theory, is amoral in the strictest sense. It tells us nothing as to how we should live our lives.

54 posted on 11/07/2005 2:47:46 PM PST by Palisades (Cthulhu in 2008! Why settle for the lesser evil?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: The Red Zone
The beauty and miracle of the Eucharist is that it is a physical connection with Jesus. It is a chain reaction, like dominoes, that had its beginning in a physical act by Jesus and that will perpetuate throughout the rest of human history.
55 posted on 11/07/2005 2:48:57 PM PST by Natural Law
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: NewJerseyJoe
You missed the point of Genesis. The fruit of the tree of knowledge is the ability to know right from wrong. This very uniquely human ability is what separates us from animals and permits us to willingly choose God and goodness over evil. Before we acquired the knowledge we were simply animals. Having the knowledge to know the difference and the ability to do wrong is the human "original sin". It is why we need a savior.
56 posted on 11/07/2005 2:53:19 PM PST by Natural Law
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: The Ghost of FReepers Past

Too many have restricted Gods words to what is and isn't in the Bible. The Bible is a human compilation of works that met the canon of Constantine and Council of Nicene. Many valid works were rejected and questionable works included to achieve Constantine's requirements of a faith that would allow him to cement control of a fracturing empire. Constantine was a pagan after all.


57 posted on 11/07/2005 2:57:18 PM PST by Natural Law
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Hila
There are no more "chosen" people/ God is the God of everyone. Jesus' act of overturning the tables of the money changers and lenders at the temple was symbolic in many ways. As He stated He came to establish a new covenant for all mankind. No longer would God belong exclusively to the Jews or to those among the Jews that the priests selected. No longer would God reside in a temple, restricted to the masses. He established that there was a very direct and personal relationship between even the lowest gentile and God.
58 posted on 11/07/2005 3:07:47 PM PST by Natural Law
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Palisades
I do not see how your quotes in any way create any sort of ethical or moral content to the theory of evolution.

Really? Hmmm…You might have a hard time seeing it for the same reason a thief cannot find a police officer. Look, Darwinism/evolution states we evolved from a single cell organism over time due to RM&NS; human consciousness, ethics, beauty, religion and our ecosystem came about void of intelligence. It creates a story that generally states ‘we were what we were because we are what we are’.

Were Boron salts at liberty to discard their identity, the claims of inorganic chemistry would seem considerably less pertinent then they do.
-Berlinski
How do you escape Sociobiology when applying evolution?
59 posted on 11/07/2005 4:45:27 PM PST by Heartlander
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog
"...evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with ethics."

Then would you consider evolutionary psychology to be an illegitimate branch of Darwinian evolution?

60 posted on 11/07/2005 4:49:48 PM PST by csense
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-76 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson