The Vatican has just weighed in heavily against "intelligent design." The Vatican Astronomer (chew on that one for a while) said: "Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science." This was intended as a clarification of Pope Benedict's comment that the universe was created as an "intelligent project" - meaning really that universe was intentional, rather than random. That belief is, of course, not falsifiable, but not at odds with natural science. It posits only why not how, and represents the view, I suspect, of most intelligent religious people.
And this from the people who are preparing a witch-hunt for gays in American seminaries. If even they can see this, it gives me hope. I mean, they pardoned Galileo almost a decade ago...
Friday, November 18, 2005
Vatican Refutes "Intelligent Design" as "Not Science"
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 10:38 AM
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8 comments:
Rumor is that Benedict may not be as conservative as we think. The Catholic, contrary to expectation, as always been fine with evolution.
// posted by uswest
Oh, Benedict XVI is a hyper-traditionalist who hates gays and even wants to re-translate the mass to be more faithful to the Latin "original." He really has no problem with a much smaller more hyper-orthodox church, or at least orthodox as he sees it. He famously stated that the Anglican church is "not a proper church" and reiterated that the only means of salvation -only- is through Catholic (i.e., his) blessing. Probably has a weird Mary fetish too. But I'll grant he's not an ignorant fundamentalist sonofabitch. He's got a great record on relations with Jews and gets what science is all about.
// posted by LTG
Great. So we should be happy that Benedict is a 19th century mind instead of a 17th century one? Another example of how the global right lowers our expectations by getting more and more reactionary?
// posted by Raised By Republicans
Who cares what the Pope thinks about evolution?
"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo
Another quote from Galileo:
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect intended us to forgo their use." -Galileo
Who cares what the Pope thinks about evolution? Not I when you get down to it. But millions of American voters care what he thinks and I have to care what they think because they are trying to use their religion to stamp out 200 years of reason, liberty and progress.
I hope (but doubt) that this announcement from the Vactican will have a similar effect as King Juan Carlos' announcement that he did not support the Francista coup d'etat in Spain just as they were democratitizing in the 1980s.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
By the way, great quotations Dr. Strangelove! Too bad his elloquence didn't save his career from the Inquisition. I suppose he counted himself lucky to have survived at all.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
Dr. S's question is eerily reminiscent of Stalin's remark: "How many divisions has the pope?" The answer is: a lot. Ratzinger leads a church of more than 1 billion members. Even a relatively small % of devoted followers is many. So the Vatican's position is huge. I guarantee you that if the Vatican also endorsed creationism/ID, it would be taught in US schools.
// posted by LTG
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