Not stupid, but naive, yes. Reactions I would expect from most YEC-fundamentalists fall somewhere in this range:
“Whatever.”
“Well, they’re not really Christian. Those Catholics down the street seem like nice folks, though–shame they’re going to burn in Hell. Maybe I ought to go witness to them after I finish my beer and hide the can.”
“They’re Satanists! Of course they’d claim to believe in EVIL-lution!”
On the bright side, I think that last position is less prevalent than it used to be…but that may only be because they’ve got more other groups to slap the “Satan” label on these days.
Not really. The Catholic form of theistic evolution, in my understanding, is that God invisibly loaded the dice so that intelligent creatures like us evolved. For instance, perhaps God nudged the asteroid that zapped the dinosaurs (non-avian ones.) There is absolutely no discovery about evolution that a Catholic would reject.
Now Behe, who is Catholic, thought that he could find stuff that proved that the hand of God was involved He was wrong, but that in no way invalidates theistic evolution.
I don’t buy it but there is no way of demonstrating whether or not God was invisibly involved.
As for astronomy, I knew someone in college who is now an astronomer at the Vatican and I’d have a hard time believing his views on cosmology are distinguishable in any way from those of a purely secular astronomer.
Heck, the RCC can even claim its own famous evolutionary biologist/paleontologist: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - Wikipedia
Yeah, and my Religion classes in the ‘70s included teaching that the idea of “God created the world in 6 24h days” doesn’t mesh up with the Genesis’ own descriptions (the 24h day would have been created on the 4th day)… well, they were supposed to include it; both times it was supposed to come up it was with priests who liked to start their lessons by asking for our opinions and, since we reached that conclussion by ourselves, we moved on to the next lesson.
It’s like God had some influence (spark of life etc.) vs. every day between spin classes he decides to give this animal fins or this one frickin laser beams.
You’re really gonna have to find references beyond anecdotes (e.g. Behe as mentioned). The official line can’t possibly be more explicit in rejecting that.
During my 12 years of Catholic education creationism came up… in religion classes. Science classes talked about evolution. Creationism was predominantly discussed in discussing other religions (both in grade school we had classes in other religious and spiritual traditions). I do remember it being explicitly discussed once in teaching about the Catholic faith. It was used an example of the difference between contextual reading of the bible (Catholic doctrine) and literal reading of the bible by some Christians.
kk fusion - I don’t think you’ll get anything to satisfy you. The church acknowledges the science and being contexualists, Genesis doesn’t conflict with that. The creation story is a way to talk about the divine creating the universe not a literal play by play. It’s a story like the parables Jesus used to teach. They believe only humans have souls given by a creator though; we’re special even if our evolutionary cousins are soulless primates. That may lead to the confusion and you probably can’t clear that one up since there’s no “soul science.”
My church has **always **accepted that Evolution is simply the mechanism used when God created the planet. There’s no conflict between science and faith based religion. imho They easily can coexist. Science does not alter or threaten my faith in God.
Glad to hear the Catholics are finally accepting reality.
No not at all. Most mainstream churches accept science and medicine. It’s only the extreme fundamentalists that refuse to accept science or feel their faith is threatened by it. I never understood why the Catholic Church stubbornly refused to accept science. The Pope’s recent statements are a big step in the right direction.
AFAIK the typical priest accepts Evolution and other science. The Jesuits being the most highly educated and trained in critical thinking. But officially the Church’s position has been different.
You understand that for all its other faults, when it comes to the Big Bang and evolution the RCC has pretty much been the poster child for religion and science co-existing? Did you skip the 800 posts in this thread about Lemaitre?
I’m not Catholic. I don’t know jack about their official Church positions. I just know they threatened to burn the scientists at the stake in the Age of Renaissance.
AFAIK the Catholic Church has never officially accepted Evolution. Just like they don’t accept birth control.
I have no interest in Catholicism. I’m certainly not going to waste my time researching their official positions on every subject.
I’m simply acknowledging that the Pope is bringing much needed clarity to an old issue.
No, but you could read the rest of this thread, to maybe, you know, fight your own ignorance on the subject?
I just came in to add that in my Catholiuc High School, first week of Religion class, we were taught that the first part of Genesis, up to the Tower of Babel, was all didactic fiction, that is it is there to teach a lesson, and is not literally true. This was September of '84.
