List of intelligent Catholics

[Wisdom]

I think Francis Collins was an atheist turned deist turned Christian he used to be a rabid atheist so he’s come a long wayI am sure he could help our cause as an intelligent apologist againt atheistic Darwinism and meanwhile not be descredited as just another fundamentalist literal creationist because he is not that either.

 

[Cat]

Gregor Mendel. I don’t know if it’s still on display or not, but the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, had an excellent exhibit this fall about Mendel.

 

[Paganus]

The purpose is to prove to an atheist who has a great respect for science that religion is not merely emotional comfort for non-intellectuals.

Does your atheist friend believe in the Big Bang Theory?

Perhaps he would be interested to know that the theory was originally called “the hypothesis of the primeval atom” by the man who first proposed it - a Roman Catholic priest named Father Georges-Henri Lemaître.

However, his atheist critics tried to laugh off his hypothesis by calling it “the Big Bang theory” since after all, any intelligent atheist just knew that “the steady state theory” was the smarter choice.

Now we continue to call it the Big Bang Theory to provide emotional comfort to atheistic non-intellectuals.

 

[SeekerJen]

I think Francis Collins is a deist right now he used to be a rabid atheist so he’s come a long way I don’t think he’s converted to any form of Christiantiy yet but it appears he is open to God and I would love for him to join the catholic church I am sure he could help our cause as an intelligent apologist againt atheistic Darwinism and meanwhile not be descredited as just another fundamentalist literal creationist because he is not that either.

You mean this Francis Collins? He’s an Evangelical Christian as well as the former head of the Human Genome project at the National Institutes of Health. Perhaps you are confusing him with someone else who is not particularly religious.

I believe that Louis Pasteur was a Catholic.

 

[Wisdom]

You mean this Francis Collins? He’s an Evangelical Christian as well as the former head of the Human Genome project at the National Institutes of Health. Perhaps you are confusing him with someone else who is not particularly religious.

I believe that Louis Pasteur was a Catholic.

Yeah I changed the contents of my post a long time ago you must have forgotten to refresh anyway its the same guy and I did mention he did turn to Christianity he was the atheist to turn deist to turn Christian hopefully he converts once again the Catholcism.
Actually his ideas are more common to modern catholcism theistic evolution than evangelical christiantiy which the majority beleive in either a literalist creationism or intelligent design, he believes in neither and pretty much echoes the sentiments of John Paul II. Anyways he in the minority is his community and I think he constantly having to regute remebers of his own evanglical community he would not have that problem as a catholics who are accepting of theistic evolution as well as intelligent design. Most evanglicals I talk to are anathema to the idea of theistic evolution and insist in literalist creationism the 6 days theory or the intelligent design theory with little room for any sort of evolutionary process.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Does anyone know of a list of intelligent people throughout history who have embraced the Catholic faith in particular (preferrably) or Christianity in general? I know there are a lot, but I’d like to see a list I can forward to someone.

I’m looking for people who have been well-respected, preferrably by Christians and non-Christians alike. The greater number of scientists on the list, the better.

The purpose is to prove to an atheist who has a great respect for science that religion is not merely emotional comfort for non-intellectuals.

Try this: adherents.com/adh_fam.html​

That kind of argument is of limited value, because truth & numbers aren’t related - at most, one can show that plenty of scientists have not been aware of a tension been their religious & scientific commitments; whether scientists should be aware of such a tension, is another matter. It could be argued that those who don’t see such a tension, either

• are being inconsistent
  or
• are pursuing the kind of of science in which such tensions don’t arise
  or
• have been doing their work at a time in which the tensions had not yet fully emerged
  BTW, & very important - it never does any good to assimilate religion to science: science is valuable, good, & necessary, but, it is not the same kind of thing as religious faith; so it is is fatal to over-emphasise the similarities, or to treat either as the other. A major weakness of much apologetic is that the scientific type of knowledge has been assumed to be the only valid type of knowledge of any kind; & the results of this have been nothing short of disastrous.

If religious faith is valuable at all, it is valuable as the thing it is, as religious faith; not as a poor relation of the sciences. ##

 

[drafdog]

Remind your friend that musical notation, double-entry bookkeeping, hospitals and universities are all products of the Catholic mind.

That should be intellectual enough for him.

Matthew

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Remind your friend that musical notation, double-entry bookkeeping, hospitals and universities are all products of the Catholic mind.

That should be intellectual enough for him.

Matthew

Universities may be of Muslim origin - the trouble with attributing “firsts”, is that there is a question of definition: what counts as (in the present instance) a university ?​

Double-entry bookkeeping, for instance, has been attributed to the Sumerian & Hindu cultures

 

[sanctamaria17]

I’m pretty sure Mme. Curie was a practicing Catholic.

 

[Caesar]

Pope Benedict XVI. One of the most intelligent theologians of the twentieth century.

 

[Larry1700]

Again, thanks for all your replies, but as I mentioned on April 4, I passed the information on already (it was ribozyme, BTW). For my own edification, however, I’m still enjoying your replies.