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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH EMBRACES EVOLUTION!!!!
MuscleHead Revolution ^ | 11.14.2005 | Kevin McCullough

Posted on 11/14/2005 5:12:54 AM PST by jodiluvshoes

In a remarkably odd statement this past week, the Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin!

In fact Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture said that "if the Bible were read correctly" that the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible."

"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".

He went on to advocate that the idea of creation is a theological one, while the substance of origins is a scientific one and that Catholics should "know" how science sees such things so as to "understand better."

(Excerpt) Read more at muscleheadrevolution.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: catholicchurch; darwin; evolution; intelligentdesign; shazam
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To: todd1
So what if my friend gets full of the Holy Spirit and speaks in tongues. God is so awesome that he gave us more than one way to worship him. We can worship with song and prayer or by helping a neighbor in need. God wants us to love each other as he so loved us. That is a message that we all can agree on.

Agree 100% with ya.
301 posted on 11/15/2005 9:53:40 PM PST by Cronos (Never forget 9/11. Restore Hagia Sophia!)
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To: redgolum
Thanks -- I think the one regret (or make that two) most RCs have is that Luther didn't make the reforms WITHIN the Church (and that the Church wasn't so bone-headed to not listen to him).

Some of his points -- especially those in corruption, were quote correct and were subsequently cleaned up in the Church. Don't forget that 300 years earlier, St. Francis had cleaned up the Church but stuck within it.

I suspect that if Luther came around today he would find he didn't have much to disagree with the RCC church (smatterofact he'd probably be one of those against VAtican II and a proponent of the Latin, Tridentine mass -- my own views on the mass and reforms are mixed).
302 posted on 11/15/2005 9:57:42 PM PST by Cronos (Never forget 9/11. Restore Hagia Sophia!)
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To: SoothingDave
Your ignorance of hermeneutics is showing.

One of the princples of hermeneutics is use of the allegorical method of interpretation of Scripture is one of last resort. The reason for this is that there are aboslutely no rules and there's no uniform standard to apply to Scripture. With the allegorical method, the literary becomes unimportant; the focus being entirely on the spiritual. Allegorists tend to spiritualize Scripture rather than principalize it. The authority to interpret ends up in the mind of the interpreter, rather than exegeting meaning out of Scripture, allowing Scripture to be its own interpreter (to convey the meaning of the author). With the allegorical method all objectivity is lost, interpretation becomes entirely subjective and ulitmately wholly existential, i.e., it means whatever it means to you at the time it means that to you. With the allegorical method, there is no means to test one's interpretation.

It is far better to use the literal historical grammatical method, whereby the author's intended meaning is discovered by the study of the actual language, taken in its most natural significance, the open and obvious teaching, within the context it is intended, in light of the times it was written. Ezra read the book and then translated it. Rabbis used the literal method, almost to the point of wooden literalism, and the Apostles used this method most certainly.

According to the principle of literal interpretation, every word is attributed the same meaning it would have in normal usage, whether employed in writing, speaking or thinking. It allows for figurative, metaphoric, idiomatic speech having the following forms: metonymy, personfication, apostraphe, fable, hyperbole, irony, mataphor, simile and euphamism. It is based on grammer, synthesis, and syntax (having subject, predicate, mumber, gender, mood, tense (past, present, future, past perfect, present perfect, future perfect).

Problems can arise with respect to designation. That is, if a word always referred to the same thing, there'd be no problem. However, this is not always the case. For example, "chair" could be a noun, or it could be a verb. In Danial 2:37, "kingdom" is earthly, in Col 1:13 it is spiritual, in Mt 13:33 it applies to the sphere of profession. "Spirit" is used of the human body in I Cor 2:11, of the Holy Spirt (and human) in Rom 16, in Jn 3:8 it refers to the wind, and in I Pt 3:4 dispositition.

The key to literal interpretation is to find the common sense meaning within the context of the passage being interpreted. Interpretation must presever Scriptural integrity. One reference can not be intrepreted at the expense of another. That the Scriptures were produced over 1600 years, by 40 different authors in 60 differnt books with a unified message requires caution of proof text method of theology construction. It insists upon comparative Bible study as both logical and necessary.

Empahsis is placed upon literal interpretation because language was created by God to comunicate truth. The Bible supports literal interpretation, and prophecies were fulfilled literally. To be told to "straighten up" could mean one of two things. "Pick up the floor" usually can only mean one thing logically, as the other meaning most likely is absurd. The general principle of hermeneutics is to use the literal interpretation method unless the context clearly shows otherwise. It is context within which all determination is made respecting speaking or writing to decide meaning. The Bible is no exception to this.

I challenge you to adduce your assertion that the passages in question pertain exclusively to spiritual death (and not merely eisegetic philosophy). In all frankness, against normal principles of biblical exegesis (ignoring pressure to make the text conform to the evolutionary prejudices of our age), your position is overwhelmingly untenable.

303 posted on 11/16/2005 1:16:38 AM PST by raygun
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To: The Cuban
Rhetorical. I agree with you.

Oops, sorry, guess I got a little defensive. The "your hatred of Protentants" posts were coming at me a little fast for a while...

304 posted on 11/16/2005 5:29:40 AM PST by jscd3
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To: curiosity
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/history/1997Russell.html

Thanks for the link. I had actually seen this page a while ago but had neglected to bookmark it. Well, that problems solved...

305 posted on 11/16/2005 5:31:30 AM PST by jscd3
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To: raygun
According to the principle of literal interpretation, every word is attributed the same meaning it would have in normal usage, whether employed in writing, speaking or thinking. It allows for figurative, metaphoric, idiomatic speech having the following forms: metonymy, personfication, apostraphe, fable, hyperbole, irony, mataphor, simile and euphamism. It is based on grammer, synthesis, and syntax (having subject, predicate, mumber, gender, mood, tense (past, present, future, past perfect, present perfect, future perfect).

You use a lot of words to basically say that because the words have a literal meaning, you must therefore be prohibited from thinking about them on a non-literal level.

I don't share your principle.

SD

306 posted on 11/16/2005 6:34:24 AM PST by SoothingDave
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To: raygun
With the allegorical method all objectivity is lost, interpretation becomes entirely subjective...

The general principle of hermeneutics is to use the literal interpretation method unless the context clearly shows otherwise.

"Clearly" is an entirely subjective attribute. You have thereofore failed to provide a qualitative distinction between your subjective interpretation of the bible and others' subjective interpretations of the bible.
307 posted on 11/16/2005 10:29:22 AM PST by aNYCguy
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To: BikerNYC
Moreover, there is no requirement that the creator continued to exist after his act of creation.

I'd never thought of that before. Interesting. It even is in line with ID. Watchmakers die all the time.

308 posted on 11/16/2005 10:35:52 AM PST by GraniteStateConservative (...He had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here...-- Worst.President.Ever.)
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To: Petronski

It's come as a bit of a surprise to me, being from England, that such vicious sectarian sentiments - although perhaps better concealed - are as prevalent over here they are in the UK. In fact, I never came across anti-catholic propaganda in England (which has calmed down considerably compared to Scotland and N. Ireland regarding sectarian conflicts), despite my nations history.

In just two years in Missouri, I've been handed a variety of pamphlets and kitch cartoon strips of anti-catholic content at a number of otherwise completely non-religious public gatherings. I'll give the people who hand them out their due; they certainly make sure they've got a good 20 yrds away from you before you have a chance to read their nonsense.


309 posted on 11/16/2005 12:23:25 PM PST by Incitatus
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To: jodiluvshoes
I think it may be the beginning of a large rift between evangelicals and catholics on the culture war, and we need each other to stay involved.

I think this has been going on since the 16th century; the 18th if you're being specific to Evangelicals.

310 posted on 11/16/2005 12:25:54 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: JamesP81

Unless you accept God cannot alter the constant and linear measurement of time or the human perception of it.


311 posted on 11/16/2005 12:29:31 PM PST by Natural Law
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To: SoothingDave
No reader has the right to impose his own ideas on the text. Scripture itself clearly teaches that the only meaning of a text is what the Holy Spirit intended when He inspired the human writer (2 Pet. 1:20-1). It follows that every text has only one correct interpretation. If two readers disagree on what it means, at least one of them is necessarily wrong. Perhaps both are wrong. How do we discover the one correct interpretation? We must consult the author Himself, the Holy Spirit. We must allow Him to teach us.

Popular thinking of many people today is colored by the idea that all truth is relative - that what is true for me may not be true for you. Thus, when someone prefers a doubtful interpretation of Scripture, he may justify himself by saying, "Everyone is entitled to his own interpretation," as if any interpretation is as good as another. The rule of authorial intent shows this thinking to be in error. The only correct interpretation is the one faithful to the author's intent. Churches tainted with neo-orthodox theology use Bible words and concepts to gain satisfying religious experience. This is existentialism along the lines of Kierkegard, Bart & Heidiger writ large. Upon reading a Bible text, they look for subjective meanings. They ask, "How is this text useful for reinforcing my own religious ideas and promoting a good religious feeling?" Because they set subjective meanings in place of intended meanings, they are violating the rule of authorial intent. This is the very essence of eisegesis as opossed to exegesis.

The basic sense of a passage is the single sense evident to any reader who allows the words their ordinary meanings and who expects the grammar and syntax to shape and combine these meanings in a normal fashion. (This rule should not be applied indiscriminately, without recognition that Biblical writers may sometimes propound a riddle or engage in word play. In either instance the words may bear more than one basic meaning.) That death is to be interpreted as spiritual death exclusively, when the broadest sense of the word is universally expressed throughout Scripture, can not be established from the context.

The context of a passage may supply clues to the correct interpretation. Such clues may even clarify a passage that otherwise would be obscure. The meaning of the word death is not obscure, its broadest sense is intimated throughout Scripture. The context of Genesis as a straightforward, in an obvious sense, authentic, literal, historical record of what actually happened (if the normal principles of biblical exegesis - ignoring pressure to make the text conform to the evolutionary prejudices of our age - are applied) does not support a restrictive interpretation of a spiritual death exclusively.

Just how much liberty do we have to discover allegories? Some church fathers and many commentators during the Middle Ages carried allegorizing to extremes, even so far as to neglect the plain meaning of Scripture. In reaction against allegorizing, most Bible-believing expositors since the Reformation decline to look for any allegories besides those Scripture itself identifies - with one major exception: The Song of Solomon has traditionally been read as an allegory of Christ's love for the church. Reading the meaning of death as being one exclusively a spiritual death only is not even allegory (where each element of a story represents something beyond itself), but an insistance of a restrictive interpretation of a word that is universally used in it broadest sense. And as I've already stated, that's not exegetical, that's pure eisegesis.

The Bible is to be taken literally unless it is using symbols or a figure of speech. Death in this case is not a metaphor: speaking of an equivalence when there is no more than a resemblance; it is not metonymy: a substitution of a related concept for the intended concept; it is not synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword); it is not ellipsis: an abbreviated expression that requires the reader to supply the missing words; it is not hyperbole: rhetorical overstatement.

How can it be objectively ascertained that the word in question isn't a figure of speech? Generally, an expression should be taken figuratively if it falls in one of three categories:

  1. The literal meaning is impossible.
  2. The literal meaning is possible, but probably never true.
  3. The literal meaning is trivial.
The meaning behind the word death can not be construed to be symbolic. When the Bible uses symbolism, it alerts the reader to the nature of what he is reading (no such thing is happening here). In Biblical symbolism, each element corresponds to something real (death itself is real). The Bible interprets its own symbolism and the symbols are always appropriate.

Scriptures are not to be interpreted in a metaphorical sense unless their literal sense is impossible, untrue, or trivial. It cannot be concluded that the account is symbolic unless there's meaning in the details. But virtually none of the details in the creation account have meaning if the account is not literally true. It is just a nice story with hardly any connections to fact. You have yet to conclusively adduce that death is exclusively spiritual, a restrictive interpretation of a word that is universally used with it broadest meaning intended.

312 posted on 11/16/2005 12:51:40 PM PST by raygun
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To: raygun
Scriptures are not to be interpreted in a metaphorical sense unless their literal sense is impossible, untrue, or trivial.

Perhaps I and the others are not being clear enough. I'll try it again:

We don't have to read Scripture according to your "rules."

Also:

Your "rules" are not a guarantee that your understanding is straight from the Holy Spirit.

What hubris.

It cannot be concluded that the account is symbolic unless there's meaning in the details. But virtually none of the details in the creation account have meaning if the account is not literally true. It is just a nice story with hardly any connections to fact.

Thank you again for showing how those hellbent on seeing only the literal facts of an allegorical account can remain blind to the richness of the imagery. "Virtually none of the details in the creation account have meaning if the account is not literally true" you pronounce from on high. That's hilarious.

I guess the names of the trees in the Garden are meaningless, and you've probably never contemplated what it means to know Good an Evil and how this changes our responsibilities to act in a way that is different from the way animals react to their environment by instinct.

No, there's no meaning there. Just names of pretty trees.

SD

313 posted on 11/16/2005 1:18:04 PM PST by SoothingDave
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To: raygun; SoothingDave; The_Reader_David
I love how raygun claims his single set of "rules" can be applied to the entire Bible, as if it were a single book conforming to a single literary paradigm. It's amazing anyone can make such a claim with a straight face.

I also find this amusing:

The context of Genesis as a straightforward, in an obvious sense, authentic, literal, historical record of what actually happened

It's a nice example of what Reader Dave has pointed out to be the most common fundamentalist error: an attempt to impose post-enlightment rationalist standards of historical scholarship on a text written for a people who knew nothing of such things.

314 posted on 11/16/2005 1:45:32 PM PST by curiosity (Cronyism is not conservative)
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To: curiosity; SoothingDave

"Hubris!" screamed the pig vehemently; the kettle darkened blackly. Pigs may well fly, if but for their singing; except that nobody wants to waist the're thyme by annoying pigs.


315 posted on 11/16/2005 1:57:45 PM PST by raygun
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To: curiosity

>I love how raygun claims his single set of "rules" can be applied to the entire Bible, as if it were a single book conforming to a single literary paradigm. It's amazing anyone can make such a claim with a straight face.<

If you don't understand what he wrote just say so don't throw rocks because it is over your head..He laid out a systematic procedure for consistently doing exegesis on all scriture.By the way the method he expoused has been used by theologians both Protestant and Catholic for years.


316 posted on 11/16/2005 2:22:36 PM PST by Blessed
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To: Blessed; raygun; SoothingDave; The_Reader_David
He laid out a systematic procedure for consistently doing exegesis on all scriture.

And therein lies the problem. Different parts of scripture, even different sections within the same book, were written in different time periods for people living in completely different cultural and historical circumstances. Hence the absurdity of using the same exegetical procedure on all of scripture.

317 posted on 11/16/2005 5:11:59 PM PST by curiosity (Cronyism is not conservative)
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To: jodiluvshoes

"In a remarkably odd statement this past week, the Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin! "

This isn't new at all.

Teilhard de Jardin, the brilliant Jesuit, led the thinking of the Church to embrace evolution in the mid 20th century.


318 posted on 11/16/2005 5:27:29 PM PST by edwin hubble
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To: raygun

Actually the only really sound solution to Scriptural interpretation is to read Scripture in the context of the Church which has provided a consistent stream of interpretation from the time of the Holy Apostles onward. (We Orthodox and our separated Latin bretheren differ on where the Church is to be found since the 11th century, but we agree on the principle I have enunciated.)

Your proposed hermeutic would put you in good stead with the ancients in the Partiarchate which I am blessed to serve as a subdeacon: the exegetical school of Antioch very much tended toward literalism. While this restrained Antiochenes from falling into gnosticism, Origenism or Monophysitism, reliance on literal interpretation of Scripture did not prevent Nestorius or Theordore of Mopsuestia from falling into grevious heresies. Likewise, St. Cyril of Alexandria was soundly orthodox, despite the Alexandrian school of exegesis relying on metaphor and analogy in its approach to Scripture.

The problem--exacerbated by reading Scripture in translation--is that without well-formed tradition, 'literal' doesn't really signify much. Your own approach to the passage you cite from the Second Universal Epistle of Peter is a case in point: the Holy Apostle writes that 'prophecy' is not a matter of one's own interpretation (I checked the Greek), yet you apply it to all Scriptural texts. A 'literal' reading would lead to the limitation of the principle to prophetic texts. And, moreover, you then assume that multiple meanings are not intended by the Spirit. (A curious assumption, since human authors with far less wit and skill than Our Lord showed in his repartee with the Pharisees often intend multiple layers of meaning.)

Likewise, it is curious that you fix on 'death' being meant literally throughout Scripture. "In the day you eat of it you will die." Either 'day' is not literal in that Divine pronouncement, since the Scriptures record that Adam and Eve lived years and had children subsequent to the day they 'ate of it', or 'die' means spiritual death, separation from the Life of the All-Holy Trinity.

Of course if 'day' is metaphorical in that Divine command, one is left with the likelihood that it is metaphorical earlier in Genesis. It is the same word in both places--I checked the Greek Septuigent--as an Orthodox I regard the
Greek Old Testament prepared by Jewish scholars at the behest of the Ptolemaic Pharoah in the 3rd c. BC as authoritative--you are welcomed to check the Masorete to see whether the Hebrew 'day' in the command and 'day' in the creation account are different. I suspect not, since the best Jewish scholars of the 3rd c. BC rendered them the same in Greek.


319 posted on 11/16/2005 7:45:57 PM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: Liberal Classic

While we're at it, classical Christianity sees the same oddity in the text of Genesis that the Talmud points to: St. Gregory of Nyssa described the first two chapters as 'doctrine in the guise of a narrative'.


320 posted on 11/16/2005 8:03:43 PM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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