Posted on 11/18/2005 10:14:11 AM PST by shooter223
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that "intelligent design" isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States.
The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.
"Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science."
His comments were in line with his previous statements on "intelligent design" - whose supporters hold that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Someone should hand these folks a copy of Genesis.
The Vatican has a chief astronomer?
The following can be said about Fr. Coyne's remarks. They are his and not the Vatican's and to Fr. Coyne I would say:
ID arguments have been around as long as Aristotle and they are philosophical in nature. Order or complexity as such is an observable phenomenon and can be scientifically measured and described.
What that order means, I believe takes one into the philosophy of science. Revelation takes us further. Pope Benedict criticized the notion that creation was without direction or order.
Evolutionists themselves can go beyond the scientific evidence and enter the arena of philosophy of science but they often don't acknowledge that transition.
Genesis, as well as much of the bible was written circa" 600bc.
Are you saying nomads knew more about the origins of our world than todays enlightened scientists?
Yes indeed, you see it's a little thing called actually having faith.
Genesis, like the rest of the bible, is considered to be divnely inspired.
Historically, science has inevitably produced natural explanations for the development of that era's contemporary examples of observed order or complexity. If you are to contend that such items are scientific proof of God, then you are conceding that your God shrinks with each such advance.
So, how long do they think it will take God next time around, when He creates the new heaven and new earth? Just curious. Oh, and how long did it take Him to part the Red Sea?
But the Catholic Church considers the creation stories to be allegories and in no way literal.
Since EVERY biblical account was written in hindsight, they were written to show God's presence in salvation history and the reflection of the Jewish community that God intervened with His people, through natural events, in the Old Testament.
They are not scientific nor historical documents.
And his scientific points and arguments that life was not intelligently designed are...?
Just more rhetoric.
Ah, the Jesuits!!!
I am gratified that there are those who still hold faith in high regard. I too believe that the Lord God Almighty created the Heavens and the Earth. I also believe that the theory of evolution is an acceptable explanation of how God's handiwork functions and adapts to non-optimal conditions.
Further, it is my belief that Intelligent Design is not science in any respect. The very nature of science omits pat answers and ideological cul-de-sacs.
In the final analysis, Intelligent Design is little more than an attempt to "prove" what God demands must be accepted on faith alone. I care not to think of the Lord's response come the final reckoning when these souls stand before him and say, "I believed in you, Lord, because I couldn't think of anything better."
The bible was originally called " Hebrew Scriptures, and were never " divinely inspired'. It was simply their story about the journey of the Hebrews, their belief system and their rituals.
It was Christians who took the book, changed its name to " Old Testament".
If I believe I can walk on water on faith, can I ?
But it's not supposed to be a biology textbook.
The cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing, “Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not.”
http://www.acepilots.com/mt/2005/07/10/leading-cardinal-redefines-churchs-view-on-evolution/
"Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary." -Pope Benedict
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20050424_inizio-pontificato_en.html
You have already illustrated a heroic lack of faith, so how do you propose you could?
He's the Pope. o_o
Yeah, that works.
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