Pope Benedict admits evidence for evolution

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The essence of it is that Pope Benedict states that “there is substantial scientific proof of the theory of evolution”, and that claiming that evolution and creationism are incompatible is “absurd”. Furthermore, we need to listen to the Earth and abide by the laws of creation: “This obedience to the voice of the Earth is more important for our future happiness … than the desires of the moment.”

Thoughts? Comments?
 
eponymic said:
Article Here

The essence of it is that Pope Benedict states that “there is substantial scientific proof of the theory of evolution”, and that claiming that evolution and creationism are incompatible is “absurd”. Furthermore, we need to listen to the Earth and abide by the laws of creation: “This obedience to the voice of the Earth is more important for our future happiness … than the desires of the moment.”

Thoughts? Comments?
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Sounds very New Age and or strongly environmental. But I agree, it is hard to deny evolution anymore.
 
eponymic said:
Article Here

The essence of it is that Pope Benedict states that “there is substantial scientific proof of the theory of evolution”, and that claiming that evolution and creationism are incompatible is “absurd”. Furthermore, we need to listen to the Earth and abide by the laws of creation: “This obedience to the voice of the Earth is more important for our future happiness … than the desires of the moment.”

Thoughts? Comments?
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Evolution is a fact.

Evolution of man from whatever is what the Church has a problem with.

Biblechristiansociety has a nice download about this.
 
I don’t really have a problem with it, seeing as the Church has generally (although not infallibly) held for roughly fifty years that it is acceptable to adhere to a theistic theory of evolution. Before this period the Church didn’t comment much on the matter. For a reference, I’d recommend Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 93-94 by Ludwig Ott (1955).
 
The article commented on the Pope’s position:
His comments appear to be an endorsement of the doctrine of intelligent design.
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Whoever wrote this seriously needs some remedial Science 101. The Pope’s comments endorsed no such thing.
 
For Catholics, the key comment was “… could not exclude a role by God.” Whatever is actually going on with the theory of evolutiuon, the Church has always maintained God’s role. Most comments I read online seek to exclude God in describing human origins.

My reading of the debate clearly shows that evolution has scientific and ideological aspects which are rarely separated when discussed by laymen. The Bible clearly states that God made all things and nothing was created without Him.

God bless,
Ed
 
i’ve always thought that it was silly for creationists and evolutionists to head to head the way they have… if god invented electromagnetism to keep his creation humming along, why not evolution? science is beautiful and endlessly fascinating, and at no time denies the existence of god.
 
mark_a said:
Evolution is a fact.

Evolution of man from whatever is what the Church has a problem with.

Biblechristiansociety has a nice download about this.
Click to expand...
If you have a link to the download, please provide a link. I don’t see how the Church is concerned about how man evolved as opposed to how other forms of life evolved. I wish the pope would have mentioned that Darwin’s theory relied heavily on Mendel’s (Catholic Monk, btw) experiments with pea pods.
 
Just confirms what I have been saying for sometime. It’s amazing how often this Pope and I agree.
 
mark_a said:
Evolution of man from whatever is what the Church has a problem with.
Click to expand...
emily47017 said:
i’ve always thought that it was silly for creationists and evolutionists to head to head the way they have… if god invented electromagnetism to keep his creation humming along, why not evolution? science is beautiful and endlessly fascinating, and at no time denies the existence of god.
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As written so well by Emily47017, from the perspective of the Catholic Church, it is pretty silly to argue about this. I only wish I could have expressed it as well as she does.

My daughter’s Catholic textbooks (6th grade) teach that the Catholic Church does NOT have a problem with evolution. In fact it basically says *(I’m paraphrasing) *that evolution is perfectly acceptable within the context of Catholic belief because God not only the world, but he also created evolution. Further the book teaches that we don’t know how the “days” were measured and within the context of the creationism story, a “day” may actually translate into what we call a year, a decade, a millenium or longer.

This was also a question that came up in the Catechism Bowl competition and and the 2 priest judging panel both concurred that evolution does fit within the belief structure of the Church.
 
The people causing the divide between creationists and evolutionists are the extremes on both sides.
A Catholic can and should be a theistic evolutionist where it doesn’t dismiss Genesis. St Peter said, to God a thousand years can be like a day and a day like a thousand years.
Genesis says life first appeared in the seas which is what scientists say too and so on to man being the last and evolution kinda backs that up.

It is sad some mix theistic evolution up with intelligent design. ID is put across as science, theistic evolution as a part of evolution is not put across as science, think it would be more philosophical in nature.
 
The problem has never been about the place of evolution within science. It has been caused by taking results from within science and trying to apply them to non-scientific issues, as if those issues were amenible to scientific investigation. In brief, “Now that we have evolution, we can dispense with the concept of God.”

But to say that, since applying the theory outside of science is nonsense, therefore the theory itself, even within science is therefore nonsense, is equally absurd.

The Holy Father, unlike some on both sides of the bruhaha, has demonstrated how logic and reason is to be applied to the questions.

Blessings,

Gerry
 
I don’t know how anyone can read that article and think the Pope supports evolution anymore then he ever has…it is the same Catholic teaching that regarding evolution that has existed for many years: Evolution has a lot of evidence, but even if it is true, God did it. Nothing new.
 
I do not believe in evolution… plain and simple. Its wrong IMO.
eponymic said:
Article Here

The essence of it is that Pope Benedict states that “there is substantial scientific proof of the theory of evolution”, and that claiming that evolution and creationism are incompatible is “absurd”. Furthermore, we need to listen to the Earth and abide by the laws of creation: “This obedience to the voice of the Earth is more important for our future happiness … than the desires of the moment.”

Thoughts? Comments?
Click to expand...
 
Logic and reason are two important things but the knowledge of Jesus Christ surpasses man’s knowledge. Right now, the debate centers around those who promote evolution as believable, but any who oppose evolution with contrary information are attacked, usually including calling the Bible a book of myths and God a myth as well. And none of this is new. Another important thing to remember.

For years, Christians have been taught God created. This debate is very old and as far as I can see, only serves to repeat atheist arguments in many Christian forums. Who were the protesters outside of the Creation Museum? What are they afraid of? That parents might show their children a different view? A view that challenges aspects of the theory of evolution?

God bless,
Ed
 
Nonoverlapping Magisteria
by Stephen Jay Gould
At lunch, the priests called me over to their table to pose a problem that had been troubling them. What, they wanted to know,** was going on in America with all this talk about “scientific creationism”? One asked me: "Is evolution really in some kind of trouble. and if so, what could such trouble be? I have always been taught that no doctrinal conflict exists between evolution and Catholic faith, and the evidence for evolution seems both entirely satisfactory and utterly overwhelming. Have I missed something?"
stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html
.
In conclusion. Pius had grudgingly admitted evolution as a legitimate hypothesis that he regarded as only tentatively supported and potentially (as I suspect he hoped) untrue. John Paul, nearly fifty years later, reaffirms the legitimacy of evolution under the NOMA principle—no news here—but then adds that additional data and theory have placed the factuality of evolution beyond reasonable doubt. Sincere Christians must now accept evolution not merely as a plausible possibility but also as an effectively proven fact. In other words, official Catholic opinion on evolution has moved from “say it ain’t so, but we can deal with it if we have to” (Pius’s grudging view of 1950) to John Paul’s entirely welcoming “it has been proven true;** we always celebrate nature’s factuality**, and we look forward to interesting discussions of theological implications.”**
I happily endorse this turn of events as gospel—literally “good news.” I may represent the** magisterium of science**, but I welcome the support of a primary leader from the other major magisterium of our complex lives. And **I recall the wisdom of King Solomon: **
"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country (Prov. 25:25).
.
 
I think it is important for Catholics to understand what John Paul II actually said:

newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm

He identified more than one theory of evolution and recognized an opposing view to the theory of evolution.

I know of no statement made by Pope John Paul II which called evolution true, however, he did state that it was “more than a hypothosis.”

God bless,
Ed
 
pprimeau1976 said:
I wish the pope would have mentioned that Darwin’s theory relied heavily on Mendel’s (Catholic Monk, btw) experiments with pea pods.
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He probably didn’t mention it because it isn’t true. Here’s what I’ve always been taught:
Mendel’s work helped answer these questions; unfortunately, Darwin was unaware of Mendel’s work during his lifetime.
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Reportedly a paper by Mendel was in the mail unopened on Darwin’s desk when he died.
 
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