Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science....

[JayB]

VATICAN CITY - A

Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.

 

Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project to help end the "mutual prejudice" between religion and science that has long bedeviled the Roman Catholic Church and is part of the evolution debate in the United States.

 

The Vatican project was inspired by

Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

 

"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future," Poupard said.

 

But he said science, too, should listen to religion.

 

"We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the atomic bomb and the possibility of cloning human beings are fruit of a reason that wants to free itself from every ethical or religious link," he said.

 

"But we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism," he said.

 

"The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice in humanity."

 

Poupard and others at the news conference were asked about the religion-science debate raging in the United States over evolution and "intelligent design."

 

Intelligent design's supporters argue that natural selection, an element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.

 

Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis."

 

"A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."

 

He was asked about comments made in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who dismissed in a New York Times article the 1996 statement by John Paul as "rather vague and unimportant" and seemed to back intelligent design.

 

Basti concurred that John Paul's 1996 letter "is not a very clear expression from a definition point of view," but he said evolution was assuming ever more authority as scientific proof develops.

 

Poupard, for his part, stressed that what was important was that "the universe wasn't made by itself, but has a creator." But he added, "It's important for the faithful to know how science views things to understand better."

 

The Vatican project STOQ has organized academic courses and conferences on the relationship between science and religion and is hosting its first international conference on "the infinity in science, philosophy and theology," next week.

[Dechristo]

The notion of omnipotence and omniscience must include science to transcend at any point in time.

 

...it's about time.

[Stonehead]

The Vatican concedes that ignoring today's science may lead it as a religion to regress into fundamentalism. Yet, is it only discoveries revealed by scientific inquiry and its associated developments from applied science that cause societal change?

 

Regardless of the causes of societal change, it seems it is only when religion becomes a static entity rather than an evolving one that problems occur, in which case, there is a reactionary backlash against the forces of change and which is usually expressed as anti-modernism.

 

I am skeptical though. Seems in Germany the Church colluded with the Nazis at the beginning to lend that latter movement a legitimacy which allowed it to become rooted and flourish. Isn’t that what can happen when the established church allies itself with government in the pursuit of power to effect its intended changes upon society? In other words, religious belief in itself will not prevent future tragedies. Religion has such power to produce and/or enhance mass movements but can it be controlled?

 

Also, the Church is based on tenets of faith. Fundamentally, isn’t that counter to the operating principle of science, i.e., the scientific method? Or, is this just ‘pick and choose’ what aspects of science will support the faith?

 

What about the following statement by one scientist (Gert Eilenberger) who says, “…the rationality of science, expanded properly, is the sole and all-embracing source of cognition for mankind, the only religion of an enlightened future.” That statement refers only to unveiling the nature of the universe or to make the unconscious conscious to the mind of man. That statement made no mention of morality or ethics, that science is beyond good and evil. It is rather the business of each individual participant and that greater entity that they are a part of, the corporation, who provides their funding source as to the final meaning.

[Dru]

The atomic bomb and human cloning are given as examples or products of science without religion/ethics to guide it. But that's like saying that the Great Depression was economics without religion to guide it. Technology is not bad or good...

[Stonehead]

The atomic bomb and human cloning are given as examples or products of science without religion/ethics to guide it. But that's like saying that the Great Depression was economics without religion to guide it. Technology is not bad or good...

 

Wasn't it Oppenheimer who said, "I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds."? The Destroyer refers to Shiva of the Vedic pantheon?

[TREETOAD]

Will the change the fact that catholic girls are really horny?

[Stonehead]

No, it will not change the fact. Don't listen to Nietzsche though: "There are no facts, only interpretations."

 

I found it odd that Francis Fukuyama would seemingly ally himself with theologians in response to the perceived threat of the Transhumanism Movement.

[TREETOAD]

I went to a catholic school and I can tell you first hand that those girls are definately horny. You just have to love those pleated plaid skirts and white shirts too. As for the Fukuyama stuff I am too tire to read all that stuff so I will just agree with you.

[Gary_Yngve]

This statement from the Vatican makes me happy.

 

When I was in London and Cambridge, I was impressed by how the Church of England embraced science. They felt that scientific world and the spiritual world can coexist, and furthermore, each benefits from the other. Many luminaries who would be accosted by America's religious right are buried in Westminster Abbey. The CoE accepts the science of evolution. The CoE reminds everyone how it was Christian monasteries that led to the eventual founding of colleges and universities.

[Stonehead]

The faithful should listen to Napoleon Dynamite.

Edited November 7, 2005 by Stonehead

[Dru]

Fukuyama is a fool.

[Dechristo]

...the following statement by one scientist (Gert Eilenberger) who says, “…the rationality of science, expanded properly, is the sole and all-embracing source of cognition for mankind, the only religion of an enlightened future.”

That statement made no mention of morality or ethics, that science is beyond good and evil.

True faith is beyond good and evil.

[selkirk]

Wasn't it Oppenheimer who said, "I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds."? The Destroyer refers to Shiva of the Vedic pantheon?

 

He was quoting from the Baghavad-Gita (one of the Hindu holy books). It's interesting that the men who developed atomic weapons all (or almost?) became is staunchiest opponents.

 

Several years ago the vatican gave it's blessing to Stephen Hawking and the physics community in general to research anything they wished up to the point of the big bang. There isn't any fundamental conflict between science and religion.

 

The only people who seem to think there is are those groups that wish to supress thought in their members. Science has a nasty habit of questioning everything, and when the only reason you have that your religion is right and that your better than everyone else, is because your pastor says so... well it make them squirmy!

[cj001f]

It's interesting that the men who developed atomic weapons all (or almost?) became is staunchiest opponents.

There's a substantial number that became proponents. The late Edward Teller foremost among those. Most of the proponents labored in relative secrecy because they were still building bombs, whereas the opponents generally labored in more open environs.

[selkirk]

Unluckily the advances of science will always outpace the level of moral discourse necessary to temper it. At least it keeps us on our toes though!

[cj001f]

Unluckily the advances of science will always outpace the level of moral discourse necessary to temper it. At least it keeps us on our toes though!

 

Humans don't need science to monstrously slaughter hundreds of thousands, we are quite capable using basic technology, as Rwanda showed.

[kix]

american born again right wing christian fundamentalists do not care what the vatican says.

[Dru]

This is actually a much more interesting story when you realize that 'science' is the Vatican's code word for a beefy-armed dragon who burninates peasants.

 

VATICAN CITY - A

Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern Trogdor has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores Trogdoriffic reason.

 

Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project to help end the "mutual prejudice" between religion and Trogdor that has long bedeviled the Roman Catholic Church and is part of the evolution debate in the United States.

 

The Vatican project was inspired by

Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

 

"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural Trogdors, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future," Poupard said.

 

But he said Trogdor, too, should listen to religion.

 

"We know where Trogdoriffic reason can end up by itself: the atomic bomb and the possibility of cloning human beings are fruit of a reason that wants to free itself from every ethical or religious link," he said.

 

"But we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism," he said.

 

"The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern Trogdor has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice in humanity."

 

Poupard and others at the news conference were asked about the religion-Trogdor debate raging in the United States over evolution and "intelligent design."

 

Intelligent design's supporters argue that natural selection, an element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.

 

Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Trogdor, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis."

 

"A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."

 

He was asked about comments made in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who dismissed in a New York Times article the 1996 statement by John Paul as "rather vague and unimportant" and seemed to back intelligent design.

 

Basti concurred that John Paul's 1996 letter "is not a very clear expression from a definition point of view," but he said evolution was assuming ever more authority as Trogdoriffic proof develops.

 

Poupard, for his part, stressed that what was important was that "the universe wasn't made by itself, but has a creator." But he added, "It's important for the faithful to know how Trogdor views things to understand better."

 

The Vatican project STOQ has organized academic courses and conferences on the relationship between Trogdor and religion and is hosting its first international conference on "the infinity in Trogdor, philosophy and theology," next week.

[selkirk]

american born again right wing christian fundamentalists

 

are one of those wonderful groups where thinking seems highly discouraged

 

The statement about the vatican indicates that not all religous groups feel this way.

[Stonehead]

My bad!

 

Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly.

His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.

 

"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".

 

This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to "understand things better".

 

His statements were interpreted in Italy as a rejection of the "intelligent design" view, which says the universe is so complex that some higher being must have designed every detail.

-- another news article

Edited November 8, 2005 by Stonehead

[Dru]

american born again right wing christian fundamentalists

 

are one of those wonderful groups where thinking seems highly discouraged

 

The statement about the vatican indicates that not all religous groups feel this way.

 

Well, according to this "Chick comic" tract I have here, the Pope is the antiChrist and the Catholic church is a Satanist church...no WONDER they are supporting evolution.

[selkirk]

I wonder what the response from the orthodox religious groups will be when life is discovered on other planets in this solar system or another. Will, for instance, Christianity be able to reconcile the Genesis account with these possible new findings? Will the Church just weasel their way through by stating that God is ineffable, that God acts in mysterious ways, that His ways are not our ways? Or, will the Church be left in mute silence?

 

First it'll be a conspiracy by the gov't/jews/scientists/..... you know, like the moon landings. Then it'll just give the zealots and wacko's one more group of "things/people" that they'd like to get rid of and that are manifestations of evil. Then finally it'll be accepted as a matter of fact and the religous doctrines will be read somewhat less litterally and somewhat more expansively, to absorb the changes.

 

What's the general progression of any new scientific discovery? It's laughed at, it's persecuted, then it's accepted as obvious.

[Stonehead]

Do space aliens have souls? Inquiring minds can check Jesuit's book

[foraker]

Smite them Lord! Smite them hard!

Go Pat!

 

[Stonehead]

 

 

You go, Pat!!

 

Go far far away!