Another day, another battle in the war on science. Some members in the Catholic church are urging caution:
A recent article by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn in The New York Times, asserting that “unguided, unplanned” evolution is inconsistent with Catholic faith, should be read with caution warn a number of Catholic scientists and theologians, including the head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Most of the experts interviewed said the article can offer a useful alert if taken at a theological level. Evolution, they point out, has sometimes been invoked to justify atheism, as well as immanentism (that God is a vague life force) or deism (that God set the universe in motion and has nothing more to do with it).
To the extent Schönborn’s point is that Christianity cannot accept a universe without an active, personal God, they say, there’s little to dispute.
If taken as a scientific statement, on the other hand, these observers warn that Schönborn’s insistence on seeing “purpose and design” in nature could steer the Catholic church towards creationism in the bitter cultural debate, especially prominent in the United States, between evolution and intelligent design. Doing so, they say, risks overstepping the bounds of the church’s competence, as well as reopening a divide between science and the Catholic church that had seemed largely overcome.
Several said Schönborn’s July 7 piece should be read in the context of a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, an advisory body of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most recent Vatican document to treat evolution.
Ask any Catholic you know how much fun things have been since the Second Vatican Council, and you can understand why they are urging caution and trying to avoid another ‘divide.’
In other creationism news, make sure you check out report #5 from inside the Creationism Mega Conference at the Panda’s Thumb. The previous reports from the conference can be found here.
ppGaz
We could all just do a Galileo, and recant.
That’s what these religious potatoheads want, isn’t it?
Take us back to the 16th century. Screw these stupid people and the sacred cows they rode in on.
jg
Yup.
Brian
16th Century? Nope. Back to the Dark Ages. 8th Century I’d say. Same as Osama.
Doug
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? That’s the new name for the Roman Inquisition, isn’t it?
Al Maviva
Right on Doug. We papists are coming for you. “Confess the faith, or die.” I think that was the hidden message there. Either that, or it was a dog whistle for anti-Catholics to make them sit up and bark. Not sure which, lost my secret decoder ring a while back.
And Brian, your interpretation is totally screwed. We Catholics want to take you back to the 4th Century, in which we’ll use the new Roman Emperor to persecute you. Osama’s a pussy compared to what the ghost of Mother Theresa is going to do to you.
On the other hand, the religious paranoia is kind of refreshing compared to the normal, bog standard political paranoia.
DougJ
“Evolution, they point out, has sometimes been invoked to justify atheism, as well as immanentism (that God is a vague life force) or deism (that God set the universe in motion and has nothing more to do with it).”
Sometimes? Inevitably that is what belief in evolution does.
What I find increasingly annoying is the put-down “they want to take us back to the 15th century” line the liberals and RINOs use. Before you say things like this, you should try to learn something about the 15th century. What makes you so sure it was more “backwards” than the hedsonistic, relativistic world we live in now.
CaseyL
DougJ, nostalgic for the good old days of the Dark Ages, wonders whether the 15th was really “backwards.”
DougJ: You mean, besides the lack of indoor plumbing, central heat, and municipal water and sewage utilities?
How about the medical practices of the day? Nobody washed, including doctors. In fact, a blood-caked apron was considered a sign of professional success: doctors proudly wore them from one patient to the next. Infant mortality rates were second only to maternal mortality rates. There were no antibiotics, no anaesthesia, and no concept of sepsis. A cut could kill you. Appendicitis *would* kill you. Oh, and religious bans on dissecting corpses meant doctors knew little to nothing about the inner workings of the human body.
Speaking of religion: in some countries, translating the Bible into the vernacular tongue was a crime punishable by death. There was an Inquisition in Spain. Heretics, witches, and the otherwise insufficiently devout were routinely tortured, burned…or, in the case of Inquisition Spain, forcibly expelled from the country altogether. And there were two Popes (one in Rome, one in Avignon), both of whom were the subjects or sponsors of various dynastic wars.
Only the upper classes were educated. Most people were illiterate. The dynastic politics of the time had children marrying old men, children marrying strangers, and children marrying one another. Not to mention forced marriages, marriage-by-rape, and divorce-by-murder.
Then there was the Divine Right of Kings. The Divine Right was only about Ruling. Nothing about the DIvine Responsibility of Kings to Govern Wisely and Well: evidently, God’s chosen form of government was absolute monarchy, regardless of the merits of any particular ruler. So there was the Hundred Years War; the continous civil wars in France (Joan of Arc was one of the casualties) and wars between city-states in Italy. England was at war with Scotland, France – and itself (the Wars of the Roses)… all over who got to enjoy the Divine Right of Kingship.
“Democracy” wasn’t even a gleam in anyone’s eye – at least, no one who wanted to keep breathing. Starting a “People’s Rebellion” was a good way to get yourself drawn, quartered, and beheaded. And that’s strange, don’t you think? Considering how “We get our freedoms and our form of government from the Bible,” right? Yet those freedoms and that form of government were nowhere to be found in Most Christian Europe. Why is that, do you think?
ppGaz
For DougJ, the best thing about the 15th century was the Internet. Using it, he could troll blogsites and drum up attention to himself — Job One — and also pimp the assault on discovery. Discovery, it was then believed, would result in a rise in Atheism. Sure enough, a few hundred years later, the United States is only self-reporting about 84 christianity*, down from the 150% that the Founders had in mind when they created the United States of Jesus Christ.
Also, in the 15th century, people actually laughed at Doug’s malapropisms.
No wonder he longs for those Good Old Days!
*Mapquest
DougJ
“DougJ: You mean, besides the lack of indoor plumbing, central heat, and municipal water and sewage utilities?”
I realize that is was a less comfortable time, but it was also a more faithful time. I’ll take greater societal faith over greater comfort any day of the week.
ppGaz
Bzzt! Sorry, game over, DougJ.
More faithful time? Please compare the rate of “faithfulness” then, with that of the present time. Be sure to state the geographical boundaries that apply to your figures. We’ll need to also see the total population figures, in order to substantiate your assertion.
“More faithful”, my ass. You have no idea what you are talking about. Shut up.
capelza
I want to go back to good old days! Back all the way to the sixth century BC and to minds like Anaximander. Creationists blame Darwin, this guy had it figured out 2600 years ago.
Isn’t it incredible that it took 2500 years for the great scientific minds of the Western world to figure it out again?
How sad is it that this country with it’s Senate and great classical architecture harkening back to our Greco-Roman heritage and that faithless pagan ideal of Democracy is stuck in this weird anti-science twilight zone and a group of people want to return it to a god based government that never existed in the first place…boggles the mind I tell you.
Defense Guy
Darwin was a smart observor who may have taken it a step to far, IMO, he did. Who exactly is trying to return it to a god-based government?
As an aside, what do you make of the idea that the founders floated the revolutionary idea that rights are established by G-d and that governments are merely institutions designed to protect them? If that is what you mean by G-d based, then I agree.
Sojourner
This will come as a hell of a surprise to the many Christian scientists who work in areas heavily influenced by evolutionary theory.