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Pope Francis Declares Evolution and Big Bang Theory Are Right 669

HughPickens.com writes: The Independent reports that Pope Francis, speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, has declared that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real. "When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so," said Francis. "He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment." Francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator – arguing instead that they "require it." "Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve." Experts say the Pope's comments put an end to the "pseudo theories" of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI who spoke out against taking Darwin too far.
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Pope Francis Declares Evolution and Big Bang Theory Are Right

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:17AM (#48259331)

    Haleluja ...

    • So now that we've ticked off evolution in the list, the next step will be abiogenesis, once we'll manage to witness some funny stuff in lab?
      • the time scales involved are staggering. and corruption would always be suspect.

        I don't have that kind of time booboo.

  • Tip of the iceberg (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xonen ( 774419 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:20AM (#48259345) Journal

    There's actually a lot of potentional scientific correct stuff in the Bible. Yet, discussing them usually gets frowned upon by either team - it seems (for atheist scientists) a lot easier to discard the bible as 'rubbish' instead of an historical document - where the religious camp tends to take this same history book too literal, despite all translation issues.

    Genesis conforming our current Big Bang theory is already a nice start. But, it also hints of more scientific knowledge already known back in the days we call 'stone age'.

    A good example of this are Mozes' hygienic laws - about washing hands, seperating raw from cooked food, refraining from eating animals which carry nasty parasites (pigs) etc.

    To stretch the imagination more, more stories possibly have some scientific origin. Let me mention a few (without claiming this is correct, but hopefully also without hilarious laugther):

    * The arch of Noah - might well have been a spaceship from another planet or solar system, colonializing earth with humans and various animal species.

    * Adam and Eve may tell us about genetic engineering - and hence being banned from paradise (animals have no worries apart the current moment) by the knowledge gained (our brains improved by genetic engineering).

    * Jesus might have been a space traveller with a good first-aid kit - hence the miracle curings.

    * Ascension tells us how he (Jesus) left with his spaceship.

    * Even our fossile records supports theories of an alien origin of mankind - there is the famous 'missing link' between apes and humans, especially recent fossiles. Admittingly there are plenty other explanations for that.

    * The reasonable recent human races (homo sapiens, neanderthalers, denisovan) might hint to a humanlike race already spreading accross the universe, and colonizing earth with astronauts from various planets.

    * The bible distinguishes between 'The Lord' and 'God' - where the Lord is an actual impersonification of a man. Such Lord may well be some space traveller, or otherwise well-educated person, and is mistaken for God only by misinterpretation.

    Etc etc. It's easy reply to this with a 'what the f* did you smoke'. However, keeping all options open is what a scientist ought to do. We may have well been interpreting the Bible the wrong way all along. The better reader already noticed that some of the theories mentioned above conflict eachother. However, seeking a scientific explanantion makes more sence than believing in miracles and an almighty God.

    There is so much in history that we don't know, and can only guess. Thinking that we are the first intelligent species and culture that lives on this 4-billion year old earth may be very naive.

    To put that in perspective: We will probably be able this, or next century latest, to colonize other planets. We will also be able to send robotic vehicles to other star systems. Chances are, that in the next 500-1000 years, we will be able to geo-engineer another planet (Mars). We may be able to send deepfrozen life and DNA in a robotic space ship to another star. We may be able to send bacterial life to other planets. We even may be able to send animal embryo's to other planets. This is all only limited to our imagination, technically this all seems possible in theory.

    Now, if you accept this is possible, by us. Then it is reasonable to assume it happened before. It may be reasonable to speculate that earth is actively colonized, possible after being geo-engineered first for millions of years to make it suitable for human life forms.

    Surely the Pope won't like this last speculative thoughts. Yet, it's just a scientific-plausible theory. And we may actually have a record of exactly such in our very own Bible.

    • by jgtg32a ( 1173373 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:23AM (#48259371)

      Keeping an open mind is good but make sure your brain doesn't fall out.
       
      What state are you in, your dealer appears to have some great stuff?

    • by itzly ( 3699663 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:23AM (#48259375)

      might well have been a spaceship from another planet or solar system, colonializing earth with humans and various animal species.

      Unless they populated Earth with every single lifeform, that wouldn't be possible, since all lifeforms have a single family tree.

      • Unless they populated Earth with every single lifeform, that wouldn't be possible, since all lifeforms have a single family tree.

        Perhaps all life is in the same family tree? The environment it grows in shapes it to the needed design for the best chance of survival.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by jamiesan ( 715069 )
          The aliens were just here for a picnic, and they spilled some of their primordial soup.
    • by MightyYar ( 622222 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:36AM (#48259481)

      Thank you, I was just thinking: "You know, if there were space aliens in here, this whole book would be even more believable."

      • by SJHillman ( 1966756 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:41AM (#48259525)

        That's how we know Scientology is real. I'm not saying it's because of aliens, but.... aliens.

        • Scientology is the religion of taking advantage of the protections afforded religions as a way of dodging taxes.

          The LGBT community should declare their on religion in a like manner and then thumb their noses at state, federal, and local laws.

          Sorta like Scientology does.

          Why aren't the unthinking assholes who cry, "sanctity of marriage," going after the Scientologists?

      • by VAXcat ( 674775 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:08AM (#48259743)
        HA! That reminds me of what Terry Carr, a science fiction writer, once said, that if the Bible was released as an Ace Double, it would have been titled "War God of Israel", with the flip side called "The Thing with Three Souls".
    • by Jack Griffin ( 3459907 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:36AM (#48259483)

      It's easy reply to this with a 'what the f* did you smoke'. However, keeping all options open is what a scientist ought to do. We may have well been interpreting the Bible the wrong way all along.

      This is not how Science works. Science makes and observation and attempts to explain it. The Bible explains nothing in nature and no amount of re-interpreting changes that fact.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by idji ( 984038 )
      What a load of Mormon-like nonsense!!! They like to think of Jesus as a space traveller. You said nothing valuable here, just read your Mormon-like beliefs into the text where it suited you, and ignored everything else (like divine sea monsters in Genesis 1:21 that translators gloss over with "large sea creatures", "big fish" or "whales").
    • by khr ( 708262 ) <kevinrubin@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:47AM (#48259563) Homepage

      There's actually a lot of potentional scientific correct stuff in the Bible

      As they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

    • Which bible? There are almost as many versions as there are religions.
    • by tehcyder ( 746570 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:09AM (#48259757) Journal

      It's easy reply to this with a 'what the f* did you smoke'

      Saying "I'm not insane" is not, in itself, a proof of sanity.

    • by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:27AM (#48259917) Homepage

      The bible distinguishes between 'The Lord' and 'God'

      The reason for this is much more mundane. In the original Hebrew, God has many names depending on whether God is being referred to as someone who judges sins, as merciful, etc. These don't all translate perfectly from Hebrew to English so sometimes "Lord" is used and sometimes "God" is used - depending on the translation. No need to bring in space aliens and further complicate matters when a simple translation explanation will do.

    • by tibit ( 1762298 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:30AM (#48259951)

      The main problem with using the bible here is that it has no predictive power at all. It's all the classical case of "hindsight is 20-20". We can't read into the bible as to what to look for in future scientific endeavors. All we can do is do science the right way, and then try to use it and claim "hurr durr see bible was right - here here and there". The revisionist approach many religious people seem so fond of can be reduced to: the religious text X must be right, let's see if we can fit it to our current understanding of reality. I shouldn't need to state the obvious problem here: any time spent on such revisionism is a big waste and has nothing but faint entertainment value. If you're easily amused, that is.

    • by risom ( 1400035 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:50AM (#48260141) Homepage

      There's actually a lot of potentional scientific correct stuff in the Bible.

      The point about science is the process, not the result. There may be correct content in the bible, but that does not make it scientific.

    • by Mysticalfruit ( 533341 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @09:02AM (#48260285) Homepage Journal
      Which version of Genesis would you like to go with? You do know the bible contains multiple conflicting versions...

      I do like how you've taken the Ark story and turn it into a bastardized panspermia myth. The idea that earth was colonized by super beings from outer space sounds awesome! I'll put on the shelf next to my book of native american creation myths.

      As for the bible, it's a train wreck. You can take the bible and make ANYTHING out of it. It's theological mess, it's a moral mess, it's self contradictory mess. This is why we've got X denominations of Christians who can't decide on any single part of the bible. For every part that you like, you'll find some other group who has issue with it.

      However, our fossil record does not contain any evidence of alien origin. We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to transitional fossils and genetic evidence and radiometric dating that shows that genetically and chemically we're all related. You have lots of DNA in common with an oak tree, and a bunny, and a fish, and a chimpanzee, etc. I'll grant you that maybe some comet crashed to earth 4.5 billion years ago that had a strand of DNA in it and whole process got kicked off. However, until we start catching comets and examining them for evidence of genetic materials or the precursors therein, it's just a hypothesis without any evidence.

      Making the argument that the Earth as been geo-engineered for humans is preposterous. 2/3's of it is covered with water we can't drink! Large swaths are covered with desserts and mountain ranges. There are earthquakes and volcanoes, etc.
    • Well yes, all that may be true. And it may be that the reason that William of Ockham's had no beard is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.

      I blatantly stole that from some slashdotter's sig. Sorry for the lack of attribution. I don't remember who you are.

  • Only YEC denies it (Score:5, Informative)

    by halivar ( 535827 ) <bfelger@gmai l . com> on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:20AM (#48259351)

    This has been mainline Christian thought, even among evangelicals, for decades. YEC's get the spot-light because they're zany, but this has already been accepted for a good while now.

    • by aBaldrich ( 1692238 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:38AM (#48259501)
      The summary is wrong as usual. Francis did not say that these two theories are Truth. Nobody claims that a falsifable theory is The Truth, nor that it is "right". The Pope only said that they are not in contradiction with the common christian faith. Nothing less... and nothing more.
      • Yeah, but that doesn't stir the pot half as much, which is good for business. Better to whip all the demagogues (on either side of the argument) into a frenzy and enjoy the fireworks...apparently.
    • by damienl451 ( 841528 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:46AM (#48259551)
      Many evangelicals will be willing to grant some kind of natural selection that you'd have to be blind not to accept. They won't insist that the earth was created a couple thousand years ago. But my experience is that you'd better not say that you accept evolution unless you want all the zany people, whether young or old earth, to start trying to talk you out of it every opportunity they get. In the average evangelical church, an outspoken "evolutionist" would be marginalized and de facto excluded from positions of leaderships.

      Yes, most churches won't come out and say that you need to be a YEC or a OEC. But they'll still have that double standard that someone who talks about Adam and Eve being directly, physically created by God will never have any problem, while those who point out that it's scientifically inaccurate will be labeled intolerant, divisive, unfit for leadership, etc.

      Around 30% of evangelicals accept evolution. And that's with a very generous definition of evolution that allows for God to guide the process. If you ask people whether they think evolution is true and that was due to natural processes, i.e. the scientific consensus, you're down to 8%. I'm wondering if the Pope is not also leaving the door open to that when he says "evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve".

      And note that many among the 30% are not the most committed people. If you were to look at the leadership and other influential people in churches, the percentage would be a lot lower.
      • by halivar ( 535827 ) <bfelger@gmai l . com> on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:14AM (#48259803)

        As a church-goer, I can tell you that, yes, an out-spoken evolutionist will be met with awkward silence. Not because anyone disagrees with him, but because they all are thinking the same thing: "Oh, deal Lord, he's going to get crazy old Mrs. Doddard stated again on fossils again. How can I get out of here politely?" It's the same awkward silence you'd get discussing anything contentious at all. Politics, flu vaccines, or even theology (I'm a Presbyterian, and even still discussing Calvanism is a crap-shoot of accidentally starting an argument). Modern churches, even here in the deep south are pretty diverse places, and the general policy seems to be "if you think this is going to start an argument, and is not vitally important, don't talk about it."

        I don't doubt your 30%, though it does not reflect the evangelicals I know (and, like I said, very conservative deep south; perhaps skewed because my acquaintances run in the young adult range).

        • by tehcyder ( 746570 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:26AM (#48259907) Journal

          Modern churches, even here in the deep south are pretty diverse places, and the general policy seems to be "if you think this is going to start an argument, and is not vitally important, don't talk about it."

          I cannot see the point of an organisation that you go to voluntarily (i.e. excluding work) where you aren't allowed to have any meaningful discussions.

          Even going out for after work drinks you're likelyto argue about football, politics or something.

    • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:19AM (#48259827) Homepage Journal

      This has been mainline Christian thought, even among evangelicals, for decades. YEC's get the spot-light because they're zany, but this has already been accepted for a good while now.

      You can read in Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", his popular science book from the 80's, his conversations with the Pope in the 70's during which the Pope "concedes" time after the Big Bang to science. Hawking gets a little happy about then explaining how time didn't exist until just an infinite moment after the Big Bang, but that's besides the point.

      No, the theologically interesting part here is:

      we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so.

      The bit about magicians and magic wands are a throw away softening statement as nobody has ever imagined the Abrahamic God as requiring magic devices. More concisely then:

      we run the risk of imagining God was ... able to do everything. But that is not so.

      That may well be the most controversial thing a Pope has ever said. And has the potential to re-focus Christians on what Jesus was talking about - they've become lost in Old-Testament vengeance in the most recent millennium. Long gone are the days of Constantine not being able to fight wars of conquest because his army was full of Christian pacifists.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Pedrito ( 94783 )
      As someone who lives in the U.S. South (Arkansas), this is not the belief of most evangelicals. My wife is a devout Christian and our church is an evangelical church (though not like most that you're probably familiar with. Our church is very into being Christians and not so much talking about how Christian they are. They spend the vast majority of their money helping people in poverty while meeting in a Boys & Girls Club gym instead of building a real church.) But among the religious around here, there
      • by halivar ( 535827 )

        I would like to tut-tut your church's backward thinking, except it sounds like they do more for their fellow man than I do. TBH, it doesn't sound too tragic; I wish I was less into right-thinking and more into right-doing.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:27AM (#48259399)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by jehan60188 ( 2535020 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:30AM (#48259429)

    The theory of evolution isn't Earth-origin theory. Why can't people understand that?

    • by silentcoder ( 1241496 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:55AM (#48259617)

      It is also not abiogeneses theory.

      Religious people tend to lump these together because most creation myths cover both Earth-origin (and Universe-origin mind you) as well as life-creation.
      All of them assuming that life-creation basically got right to present-day creatures from the start (with a few rare stories where a particular new species is created in a myth in an almost evolution-life story).
      In the case of the Christian creation myth in particular - no such exceptions exist, so for Christian creationists big-bang, solary-system formation and evolution are all intruding on something they explain with a single (unscientific) story.
      Hence they tend to lump the science together as well.

      Of course this is ironic and silly - abiogenesis at this stage has no firm answers or theories, it has a few ideas but none have any significant supporting evidence yet.
      Evolution was hailed as a scientific breakthrough since first published and been validated with only minor corrections ever since.
      The Big Bang (like black holes) on the other hand was despised by scientists when they first realized that Einstein's theories had it as a possibility, physicists do not like singularities and to them the Big Bang theory was little more than creationism ! The fact that popes had embraced it by the 1960's actually HARMED It's acceptance in science.
      It wasn't until decades later as the evidence mounted that the big bang theory became mainstream science - something helped in no small part by the growing evidence for black holes (another hated singularity).
      Indeed the hypotheses that black holes in one universe are the big bangs of another universe was first proposed because it would take a universe with two types of known singularities and at least reduce it to ONE singularity, and importantly - one we understand a lot more about !
      If that hypotheses is true - then the "other side" of the big bang theory isn't a mystery - it's a black hole in another universe created by a supermassive star collapsing under it's own gravity.

  • by dywolf ( 2673597 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:31AM (#48259437)

    I have a feeling this only seems newsworthy because most folks here are more acquainted with American Catholicism, which tends be very very influenced by American protestentism (ie, evangelicals) and thus very very conservative in some areas (especially science).

    The Catholic Church has not been opposed to these things for some time, regardless of the feelings of certain members of the Church who didn't bother to learn their Catechism very well. Granted, the Church does an end run around them by essentially saying "if it is so, then it is so because God made it so", which is fairly standard religious belief around and not really out of hte ordinary.

    But the point is, the Church's actual teaching is that there is no conflict between the Church's spiritual beliefs and teachings and these sciences, and thus the Church does not reject these scientific theories.

    • There are catholics with very conservative views such as "the world was created 5000 years ago", and catholics that are very progressive and modern in their views. The real problem is that the second type does not call out the first as cranks and forces them to change their views, but rather they shrug and consider it a minor matter.

      Christians, even catholics, keep saying "why don't the moderate muslims ostracize Al Qaeda and this kind of extremisms?", but they behave exactly in the same way in this respect

    • Specifically, the Catholic Church made that stance their official one over a decade ago.
      They have been very involved in science from the beginning, they do not take that shit lightly and have a history of believing whatever the scientific consensus comes up with and steering their belief structures around that. In fact it was a Catholic Priest who came up with the theory of the Big Bang.

      I have a feeling this only seems newsworthy because most folks here are more acquainted with American Catholicism

      But how is that right? Isn't the whole point of Catholicism that that the church in Italy is in charge. Period. You don'

    • by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:30AM (#48259955) Homepage

      American protestentism (ie, evangelicals)

      You seem to be equating protestant Christianity with evangelical Christianity with literal biblical interpretation. Don't do that.

      Most Protestant Christians in America do not take the creation story as literal and do not believe that you can add-up the ages of the people in the bible to conclude that the earth is ~6,000 years old. As a non-denominational Protestant Christian, I've attended Nazarene, Adventist, Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal churches. So far as I know, none of them took literal interpretations of the creation story. I believe they all agree with the Catholics on this topic.

      Regarding evangelicals: The term merely means people who believe in the gospels and follow Jesus. That's really all Christians, so the term doesn't mean much. But it definitely doesn't mean "fundamentalist" or "literal interpretation."

      • by hibiki_r ( 649814 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @09:41AM (#48260617)

        Maybe we live in different Americas? Here in Missouri, if it says Baptist at the door, you can expect young earth creationism. And the worst part is, that's not even the worst of what they'll teach you. A friend of mine was OK with the YEC bullshit, but she ended up leaving her church, and really, her family, when she figured out the kinds of things that were being taught to her daughters.

  • by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:33AM (#48259453) Journal
    The Vatican has accepted Evolution doesn't conflict with theology for decades now, and the Big Bang theory was was proposed by a Catholic Priest.

    The problem is, most of the biblical literalists don't consider Catholicism to be a valid branch of Christianity.
  • Behind the theory of classic evolution lies a metaphysical explanation for the universe: that life "progresses", from simple to complex, from the more fundamental to the more sublime, from problem to solution. The metaphysics of evolution is very much rooted in the philosophy of positivism and progressivism. It is anti-religious not in the sense that it is against the idea of a God, necessarily, but in the sense that the concept of a God is not needed to explain the natural world. God is irrelevant.

    One does

    • by itzly ( 3699663 )
      Evolution doesn't progress from simple to complex, but it just spreads in random directions. However, if you start really simple (by necessity) then it is very likely that you'll see increased complexity over time.
    • The philosophy of evolution gets boring when you realize that an organism capable of doing philosophy can only ever find itself on a planet where such an organism evolved.

      The philosophy of evolution isn't going to get really interesting until we begin to find evidence of life on other planets, or better yet in other star systems.

  • by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:36AM (#48259487) Journal

    Why are people getting so excited?

    • My thought exactly. Pope John Paul officially blessed evolution and big bang over 20 years ago.
    • And a Catholic priest proposed the Big Bang in the first place:

      Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre [wikipedia.org]

      It was ejected by the scientific community for a while since it was too close to a 'creation' story.

      This is not news for people who have been paying attention to such things.

  • by slashdice ( 3722985 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:40AM (#48259519)
    fact: what we now call the "big bang" was proposed by Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic preist, in 1927. the alternative "steady state" (basically, the universe always existed) was primarily supported by Anglicans and atheists. The big bang theory was a big fuck you to both of them. I'm glad Pope Frank is keeping it real and isn't afraid to bitch slapping the Anglicans and atheists.
  • by olau ( 314197 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:42AM (#48259533) Homepage

    Will the pope declaring this really have an effect on people who are deeply entrenched in anti-scientific teachings? It seems more likely to me that these people will reject the pope. Or find a way to twist his words so as not to contradict them.

    • by Shados ( 741919 )

      It will affect church going catholics to some extent. Which means in the US, it will matter very little, and well, having been raised catholic north of the border, very few people I knew rejected evolution as it is...

      But hey, baby steps.

  • by Ronin Developer ( 67677 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:50AM (#48259583)

    On "The Big Bang Theory". Mine is Penny. LOL

  • Since 1909 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by michaelmalak ( 91262 ) <michael@michaelmalak.com> on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @07:57AM (#48259639) Homepage
    Nothing new since the 1950 Humani Generis [vatican.va] by Pope Pius XII that defined the relationship between evolution, immortal souls and faith. And that was just final infallible confirmation of what the Vatican Biblical Commission determined in 1909 in its On The Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis [vatican.va].
  • The universe growing from a singularity, the fact that we don't know what happened before. I am an atheist but I think may be the scientific theory that is the most compatible with the idea of a creator.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by itzly ( 3699663 )
      Of course, as soon as you introduce the concept of a deity guiding the universe in any way, you have an incompatibility. And without guiding, the whole point of the existence of a creator is pointless.
  • Not suprising at all (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pulse2600 ( 625694 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @08:19AM (#48259843)
    It was a Catholic priest who first developed the idea that became known as the big bang theory, which Einstein did not accept until he saw Msgr Lemaître present his theory at a conference or something. It is unfortunate that some scientists are so anti religion that they ignore the contributions of the Catholic Church and clergy to many of the ideas that they so rabidly defend as "proof" that there is no God or that religion and science are incompatiable.
  • I don't agree with every stance of the Church, but this is one that has been held true from my earliest recollection (I'm middle-aged). Evolution and scientific origins of the cosmos are entirely legit, and that gives me hope that in time other reasonable and logical viewpoints might be adopted.
  • by Cro Magnon ( 467622 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @09:23AM (#48260461) Homepage Journal

    It's good to know that the Church's beliefs are evolving.

  • by LoRdTAW ( 99712 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @10:07AM (#48260933)

    Back in 7th grade I was attending Catholic school. We had a teacher who was very, very religious but at the same time a good science teacher. How was this possible? She taught us a few memorable things: first off the creation in genesis took 7 days for god (7 th day was rest, chillin and having a beer hopefully). But who said a day for god is the same for us? In her words she said a day for god could be millions or billions of years to us. That made sense. Another thing that stuck out was that all of the physical processes we see are rules laid out by god. So basically, the laws of physics were created by god. Evolution? A natural process that god created. So here was a very godly woman who also was a firm believer in science because science is a gift from god. So the two can certainly coexist.

    A while back I was talking to a religious guy I know from the local dive bar I used to frequent (religious guy at the bar, go figure. a regular hypocrite was more like it). We got in talking about science and during the course, he bought up the opinion that science is against god. But I bought up the counter of, why would god bestow such an awe inspiring field of study only to restrict us from pursuing it? He gave us a giant sandbox to play in and we refuse it? To me it would be rude to declining a gift from god. He started to see my point and said: "you know that makes sense. don't know if I like it but it makes sense". You could see he sorta understood the point.

    So you can argue that all of science is merely a creation and gift from god. To deny it is to deny gods gift and possibly, god itself. Though there are some who will refuse any of those beliefs, if they are in a position of power be it a school board, politician or preacher, they have a self interest in that denial (control).

    Disclaimer: I am agnostic. I doubt there is a god. Or perhaps there is a god but not in the way we traditionally think, a person. Perhaps the laws behind our universe are god. Or we are a 3d projection of a 2d hologram or inside a giant computer simulation. We don't know and perhaps, we never will know. And if there is a god as we picture, I am sure he/she is not the dick they are made out to be in various man made books. And to be honest, I really don't care either way. I just live my life and enjoy it :-)

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