Darwin didn’t start off as an atheist but he gradually became more and more agnostic as he did his research.
Yep. And God could have created the universe via a “Big Bang”.
Understandable. Science by its nature is agnostic. It operates based on empirical evidence. But the existence of God, or His non-existence, is beyond science. We may be just hairless apes trying to figure out how God did it.
Yep. And that’s all the Church needs to say. In fact, I believe the essential position on evolution is only that while evolutionary theory does not conflict with Catholic doctrine, the Church still maintains that God created the universe and the human soul. As long as the Church does not try to claim that there is scientific evidence for those things (or that scientists are “avoiding” such evidence), then there is nothing extraordinary or worrisome or anti-scientific in the postion.
Morde me. (MORE day may)
Here is the 1909 entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia regarding Catholics and Evolution. The science noted in the article is accurate as of its date.
Note that it distinguishes between the mechanical/physical events and the philosophical/theological discussions. I suspect that Schönborn is taking works such as those propounded by Dawkins and sloppily using their philosophical musings to (mis)label Neo-Darwinism. I think Schönborn should shut up until he takes a class to distinguish the areas he is discussing. (Alternatively, Neo-Darwinism, as a term, may have more of a philosophical meaning in Europe or in German that has led to confusion when the term is used in American English. I do not believe this is true–but one may hope.)
In any event, I really doubt that Schönborn is going to cause the church to overturn 96 years (128 years if we go back to the paper cited in the CE article) of careful pronouncements that distinguish between phytsical and philosophical meanings without a serious fight by genuine scientists. (Wait til the Jebbies get hold of him.)
Of course, he has now given me new ammunition when some twit cries “the pope said it!” According to Schönborn, even the pope can make pronouncements that are “vague and unimportant.”
Evolution, Creation, Design, Big Bang, Spear Dipped in the Sea, what have you. I am contentiously astounded by the effrontery of people who claim to have sought the mind of God and not only have found out what the Almighty thinks but also set themselves up as His exclusive spokesman on the matter. This, it seems to me is blasphemy of the most obvious and virulent sort.
Strangely enough, when ever some people seek to have the Lord God Almighty collaborate there particular view of any given question the Lord of Hosts comes right back on the dedicated line and pronounces that they are, yet again, right and that God is in complete agreement with them. It must be comforting to be so tight with God.
You and I apparently don’t understand “overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science”. You take that phrase to mean “overwhelming scientific evidence”, while I take it to mean something closer to “only God can make a tree” . Whether it’s an objective and malicious falsehood depends on which way it was meant.
You can try this link :-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/vaticanscientists.shtml
to see how the Cathlic Church handles scientific matters
Jebbies? Are you talking about the Jesuits?
Darwin not only wasn’t an atheist, he was a pastor, a common position for gentlemen of his standing at that time. Many such pastors were very enthusiastic naturalists, who took great delight in cataloguing the incredible variety of unique adaptations that plants and animals had made to their circumstances, because at the time such adaptations were considered to be living proof of the divine power of God. The argument being that only a just and merciful god would have made the Brazlilian flaming titmouse with a proboscis that is EXACTLY the right length to extract the nector of the Brazilian creeping Orinoco vine’s flowers, which are its only food. They were in essence cataloguing instance after instance of the “Paley’s watch” argument, unaware that in a very short time Darwin would come up with a natural mechanism whereby such adaptations could evolve, and suddenly agnostics would be using those very same adaptations as evidence against a Creator of all things.
Sometimes, life is sweet. Must have been very sweet indeed for a thinking man, in those days.
In any moment there are billions of cosmic, and physical actions taking place. If all these actions were accidental and/or random nothing could live anywhere. We rely on Order (check meaning in Dict.) to keep our environment reasonable to live in. No sane person will point to the accidental randomness of the orbits of the planets, the reliability of gravity and many other “physical laws” of the Universe. And you still say there is no evidence of Intelligent Design? Incredible.
Darwin studied for the ministry when young but was never a pastor. By his own account, he was an orthodox Anglican Christian as a young man, but gradually lost his belief in the Christian religion and eventually wound up a self-described Agnostic who clearly disbelieved in orthodox Christian dogma and professed no knowledge one way or the other about the existence of a Creator.
This paragraph makes no logical sense whatsoever.
But, of course!
I thought he was talking about the followers of Saint Jeb Bush, patron saint of the undead. 
<---- directed at the followers of Jeb
Good point: American and European intellectual discourse sometimes seem to be losing a common language of concepts. I also got a strong feeling while trying to wrap my mind around the article, that what Schönborn calls “Intelligent Design” is not really what American Creationists mean by “Intelligent Design”. He’s referring to the well-established doctrine that there is a Grand Divine Plan and everything going on within the Universe is part of it, rather than just contingent.
What I got from Schönborn seems to be some sort of fear that because strict scientific research rightly operates regarding divine intervention as something innecessary, somehow the civilians out there will think that “science has concluded God is innecessary”. Not only does it sound unbecomingly insecure, but it needlessly makes the Church look wishy-washy AND gives aid and comfort to the Creationists.
What do you think “found in modern science” means? There is only one meaning for SCIENTIFIC evidence. “God can make a tree” is not evidence “found in modern science.” In fact, it’s not evidence at all. Evidence is something tangible or observable which can support an assertion. “Only God can make a tree” is simply a bare assertion with no support at all. It’s not evidence for a conclusion, it IS a conclusion…and a rather vacant one at that.
As to my accusation of “malicious” intent-- the cardinal basically accused scientists of being dishonest, and “unscientific” and of “avoiding” scientific evidence. When he says they come up with theories in order to “avoid overwhelming evidence found in modern science,” that’s a lie, it’s not a difference of opinion it’s FALSE. One more time *there is no evidence whatsoever for ID found in modern science. Not “overwhelming” evidence, not some evidence, not a little bit of evidence. There is *none. nothing. zero. There is nothing to “avoid.”
However, science has every business to state unequivocally that if life was designed, it was designed by a moron who didn’t care how much suffering it caused. Certainly the ostensible “designer”, if it exists, is utterly unworthy of worship!
There is only one meaning for “scientific evidence”. But that’s not the phrase we’re talking about. He used a phrase that was IMO, deliberately not “scientific evidence”. In fact, I couldn’t find that phrase in the entire article . I did find “reason” and “intellect” used a few times. And this is what I think he means when he speaks of evidence found in science
You don’t not consider this evidence that there is a God, I don’t and it’s certainly not “scientific evidence”, but the Catholic church considers it evidence, in much the same way they conclude that the beauty of a tree is evidence that God made it.