Here is a criticism of evolutionary biology:
…it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory … We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory.
If a Bill Dembski or a Michael Egnor or a Ken Ham had said this — and it is exactly the kind of thing they would say — we’d be throwing rotten fruit at them and mocking their ignorance of how science works. Nothing is proven, it’s all provisional, but we do have an incredible amount of evidence in support of biology. This fellow is also deeply wrong about what we can do in the lab, and is overlooking the fact that not all science is something you do on a bench. Those statements are the kind of destructive nonsense the Discovery Institute uses, propaganda sown explicitly to spread excessive doubt where we should have very little, so that their vapid and useless ‘alternative’ theory looks a little more attractive. That quote is a stupid statement that ought to be ripped apart on the evolution blogs.
The critic, who if you haven’t figured it out yet is Pope Benedict XVI, goes on to make more assertions.
The question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science.
Those words could have come out of the mouth of Phillip Johnson. Of course our understanding of the world has gaps; science is a successful strategy for closing them, not a complete description of the state of the cosmos. It’s a pointless platitude to whine that there are possibilities beyond methodological naturalism when you can’t provide any. It doesn’t matter whether it is in defense of Intelligent Design creationism or Catholicism — those are philosophies that have failed to provide any insight into the machineries of the universe, and it’s contemptible and pathetic for advocates of supernaturalism to only look at the triumph of scientific thought to find the questions we’re still asking, and treat that as a weakness.
So why are some people treating this statement as a victory against Intelligent Design creationism? It’s true that the Pope did not endorse the specific organizations promoting anti-scientific nonsense, like the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis, but what he did say was superstitious pablum and a carefully phrased rebuke of science — he is actually backing away somewhat from the tepid support of a previous pope, and is providing consolation to creationist philosophy.
This provides no advantage to supporters of good science. We should not be treating it as even a marginal victory. What we have here is a superstitious old man with an exaggerated reputation making stupid remarks about biology that will impede our ability to inform people about science. We should not be nice to him. We should be clearly and vigorously repudiating the sanctimonious old fart’s proclamations.
Sometimes, though, our side has a regrettable tendency to make allies of the enemies of our enemies simply because they are disappointing the Discovery Institute. Ultimately, though, our enemies are not the propagandists of the DI, they are not the dishonest televangelists and wandering creationist preachers, they are not the people who have been duped by the misleading dogmas of the church — our enemies are bad ideas. The pope is a mouthpiece for bad ideas. When we go easy on bad ideas because they aren’t coming out of the mouths of the usual suspects, or because they’re said by someone who might support us in other ways, we have lost our perspective on what we are fighting for.
10,000 generations = 200 days for bacteria.
Just sayin’.
I miss Popo John-Paul, at least he had the guts to make it (somewhat) clear that he did not support Creationism and Intelligent Design simply because it was convenient for dogma, unlike Benedict.
What amuses me: Ratzinger has clearly indicated he has absolutely no qualifications to use the words ‘theory’ or ‘science’ publically. As, to misquote Iniqo Montoya, I do not think they mean what he thinks they mean…
Thus, will the same deep thinkers who happily kvetch that Dawkins and Harris are ‘ignorant of theology’* and thus cannot meaningfully comment on it now please tell Ratzi where he can put his opinions on science? As opposed to happily and uncritically quoting him on them?
More seriously, I do feel strongly that Ratzinger should be entitled to make as big an ass of himself as he likes, commenting upon matters of which he clearly knows about as much as Ken Ham. And that the rest of the world is equally entitled to guffaw heartily at what an utter schmuck he reveals himself to be in doing so.
*I won’t enlarge on that, here. Out of place. Apart from to say: I, myself, do not particularly know the precise details of how one allegedly casts horoscopes, even assuming there is a consistent enough methodology between practitioners that I could know such a thing. But I can still fairly easily demonstrate that astrology is bunkum. But yeah, we’ve been there, already, haven’t we? This has not been an attempted derailing. I swear.
…because treating it as a sign that Catholicism and science are incompatible is more likely to drive people away from science than Catholicism?
This is the man who is still “considering” allowing married couples where one partner has Aids to use prophylactic contraception. When that gets counted as a victory…
Thousands of men under his authority will engage in actions in Africa which will result in the spread of Aids. Willful stupidity of this kind is genocidal.
Whatever happened to the meme that a “God” could
create species any way it wanted? Including evolution.
BTW, what sexually propagated species has the most generations/time? Just curious.
What is the pope’s degree in science? From what autority does he speak about it?
Does it matter in the slightest what he said about science?
Yes, because there are people stupid enough to listen.
How ironic that the Pope, a man who *believes* in devils and angels, would demand the strictest proofs of science.
The day I lost any respect I had for Madonna:
Sinead O’Conner once delighted me by tearing up a picture of the Pope (the last one) on stage on Saturday Night Live. *That* was rock and roll – heartfelt, honest rebellion. Then Madonna came along and condemned Sinead for meanness to the Pope, and that is when I knew that she had no rock and roll in her soul. Just the soul of an accountant in tight clothing.
Who is the rebel who will tear up the picture of this miserable old man? I would, but no one has invited me onto TV yet.
Well, rather.
This is a gentleman who has signed up with his whole life and heart (one hopes: he is after all, the pope) and taken a vow to put his brain on a shelf in favour of, in his own words, faith. He has put aside that great inquisitive nature that has taken us, as a species, from banging two rocks together to, you know, here. He has chosen dogma instead.
I don’t think this is a benign choice, either, particularly when one considers the power this one man has over the actions of so many. But the pope was never going to be anything different.
Reading about ID and creationism being taught in schools makes me wonder if we are going to have a generation of god-botherers who are unable to understand the simplest scientific concepts, or if children will somehow see through the nonsense and manage to make their own world views.
What he either doesn’t know, or ignores, is the fact that nothing complex is “proven” by entirely recreating it in a lab. It’s like saying that hurricane forecasting is not “a complete, scientifically proven theory” because we can’t haul the entire cyclone into the lab, or even study every aspect of it in nature. The statement is trivially true, but deceptive in its framing.
Or perhaps a more apt analogy is if we were to suppose that we don’t know, within a fairly narrow range, where the moon has been in the last 100,000,000 years, because, by God, we can’t recreate its orbital motions in a laboratory. Of course not, we study motion, plus the various effectors of motion, and we extrapolate from that. True, we know more precisely where the moon was at for the last 100 million years than we know precisely the evolutionary changes occurring during the same time, but I used this example precisely to indicate what a stupid “argument” it is, not because the two are equally well understood (we study the less understood phenomenon, we don’t throw up our hands and say “God”).
As far as these rather reprehensible statements being treated with kid gloves, it’s quite evidently because he isn’t actively disagreeing with evolution, no matter how weaselly he is about it. Not a defense as such, I’m just saying why it is.
But yes, his statements confuse and oppose science (even more than I realized when I skimmed it from the PT link). John Paul’s endorsement of science was probably as good as one could get out of a pope in this era, Benedict’s statements aren’t that far from the rhetoric opposing Galileo’s (sans the iron maiden, fortunately) reliance upon “mere science”.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o
OK, I realized that this isn’t totally true, but you know what I mean:
What he either doesn’t know, or ignores, is the fact that nothing complex is “proven” by entirely recreating it in a lab.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o
jimjv,
The fastest grower that I know of is Vibrio cholerae. It has a doubling time of about 12 minutes (much faster than the laboratory workhorse E. coli, which doubles every 20 minutes).
Whoops, just noticed you said “sexually-propagated”. C. elegans is pretty fast (2 weeks)…
In breaking news, Pope Benedict announced that the heliocentric model of the solar system is not “scientifically proven” but is “only a theory,” and that he was thereby retracting the official church apology to Galileo made by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.
Onward, into the fourteenth century!
I weep for humanity.
…because treating it as a sign that Catholicism and science are incompatible is more likely to drive people away from science than Catholicism?
I think the best indication of the (lack of) compatibility of Catholicism and science is Pope Benny’s current attempts to “fast-track” the canonization of J2P2. For me (and presumably many others), this completely torpedoes his credibility when speaking on scientific matters.
Exactly right, Mr. Meyers.
Pope Benedict even goes so far as to describe the selection in natural selection as being driven by the “creative reason” of God. (I discussed it briefly on my blog)
That sure sounds like a version of creationism to me, but stuffed into a smaller gap.
A belief that’s often assumed but rarely supported with either evidence or argument.
I don’t pretend that anecdotes are data, but many of know, and not a few of us are, people who “lost their faith” over precisely that conflict.
How can someone be “ignorant of theology” anyhow? Don’t you just make it up as you go along?
I like asking about the underlying laws of theology. “What?” Yeah, sure. When someone says “God gave his only begotten blah blah to save the world from sin.” I ask them where their understanding of the universal laws of sin and redemption come from. I mean, if God HAD to do that, then there’s a higher law he has to follow – which is interesting that a mere mortal would have access to. Hmmm.. So then I ask them “So it sounds like since God has to follow rules he’s not all-powerful? Who made those rules? God? Was this son-sacrifice some kind of self-inflicted rule?”
Getting people to explain theology as if it’s logical is very very fun. If you think “evolution has holes in it” you ought to try theology! When believers say “evolution has holes in it” compared to theology that’s the collander calling the hoover damn “holy” if I may mangle a figure of speech.
mjr.
…
…
This is catty, unworthy, unscientific, and totally subjective. But …
I’ve noticed that, sometimes, certain tweaked people actually LOOK tweaked. I can’t say it any better than that, but I’ve noticed some indefinable element in the appearance of, say, some hard-edged child molesters, people like that.
(Actually, it seemed to me that Tammie Faye Bakker and Ted Haggard had that look too – even without knowing what they did, if I met either of them at a bus stop I would be repelled. For me, they had a kind of sticky-nasty Something about them.)
It’s like their inner tweaked-ness has somehow eroded away their common humanity until their outward appearance matches that inner self in some indescribable and unclean way.
To me, Pope Benedict LOOKS tweaked.
This is not just some I-hate-the-pope atheist thingie either, because despite disagreeing with him radically on many things, Pope John Paul II looked to me like a nice grandfatherly man.
…
…
Well, he is a theologian, and that places his him in “rarified air,” meaning that he has thought the deep thoughts, discerned the grand design, he has seen the face of God and lived. He has been placed above the rest of us all, been given “infallibility” and the import to speak on matters for which we mere mortals can have no clue.
If what the Pope says isstupid then it is at a level of stupidity that we can never hope to achieve, because we have neither the weight of 1.1 billion Catholics behind us, nor do we have a 2,000 year old tradition of stupidity behind us to give us the authority to have our words taken seriously.
Now, when Dawkins is criticized for not taking into account the “serious” God, it is okay because he doesn’t have all the answers about all of the versions of God. A guy like Ratzinger, well, he knows it all even when he doesn’t.
Ah, now you see, eh?? This Pope has been meddling in every aspect of Italian politics since he was nominated to office. That is ALL this fellow does!! Right-wing politics: anti-stem cell research, anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-artificial insemination (over here, the Church effectively made it next to impossible), anti-gay rights, anti-gay manifestations (the Church has organized a so-called “family day” which does not include guess which types of families??), he has issues proclamations and diktats declaring that Catholic politicians in Italy cannot vote against Papal dogma on pain of going to eternal damnation, etc.etc,etc,etc,ùù
He is the last totalitarian monarch in the Western world. Ten thousand times more powerful, dangerous, wealthy and evil than your Protestant fundies.
Ok, maybe I’ve been living over here too damned long….but it’s pretty bad, I can tell you.
The Pope.
The epitome of arrogant, ceremony-enriched authoritarianism, decider of the status of children in Purgatory, believer in Hell, gay basher, anti-feminist, thinks his position alone gives him the right to pass judgment on all of science.
Presides over a vast, self-perpetuating bureaucracy whose primary funtion is to keep people in ignorance and get them to overpopulate the planet with more Catholics.
The one nice thing that can be said about him is that he is anti-war.
Time for the whole house of cards to come tumbling down.
Carrie, do you really think this is the only alternative to lauding the Pope’s statement as a “win” for evolution?
I don’t see PZ saying what you describe. I certainly didn’t regard it as one of two options for my response to the article when I first read it. My reaction was simply that here we had a man whose words are accorded considerable respect by many across the world, who was talking nonsense, and nonsense quite separate from his being religious. I did not think “clearly Catholicism and science are incompatible” (at least, I didn’t think it in response to seeing this article), but simply “isn’t it a shame that influential people don’t check whether their words are anywhere close to meaningful, and isn’t it a good thing that most Catholics I know are well used to dismissing most of what the Pope says on an issue as irrelevant anyway”.
Evolution as Fact and Theory
by Stephen Jay Gould
…
Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.
Moreover, “fact” does not mean “absolute certainty.” The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
…
[ Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution as Fact and Theory,” May 1981; from Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994, pp. 253-262. ]
Hank Fox:
What did Bill Hicks say about Jimmy Swaggart? “First of all, he’s gonna slit his wrists in a bathtub beneath a pecan tree and write in blood I’ve been a bad boy. In his attic the police are going to find the skins of dead children — flies buzzing in and out of the eaves — and on CNN, over and over again, his wife saying, I always wondered about Jimmy’s collection of little shoes.” That’s more or less it, I believe.
Mike Haubrich:
Well, so have I, but I don’t make that big a deal out of it. Three years ago, I was in the front row when Mary Prankster sang “Irresponsible Woman”.
She autographed my CD of Lemonade Live. That’s more evidence for the miraculous than anybody else has ever provided.
To continually suggest, that true Catholics (never mind other religions of course, Arabs, Jews, Hindu – its all ok…) are silly buggers is just misleading. No matter if one is religious or not, what matters is ones education. The previous pope knew, that Evolution was a fact. If one is ignorant, being atheist will not help. Why so many Americans do not still know that it is earth that goes around the sun, not the other way around, where is Europe, who was the last president etc etc. Lots o people are plain stupid – deal with it, it’s also a fact…
>>>Carey It’s not ironic, its his job (devils, angels and the lot) ;)
Excuse me, Mr. Pope, but I think you have better things to worry about than evolution.
What was that about religion being the source of morality, again?
*fumes*
I’m saying that it’s a lot more useful – from a strictly anti-creationism point of view – to treat this as “The Pope is a theistic evolutionist, just like always” than “The Pope’s position on evolution is crappy and non-scientific,” even if both are true. I haven’t checked the DI’s site, but I’m guessing they have or will soon be spinning this as “The Pope is recognizing all the exciting new evidence casting doubt on evolution!” It would be nice to not agree that they’re on the same team against evolutionists.
Steve @ 17, I think it’s possible it might drive some people who understand science away from Catholicism, or to a more liberal brand of “eh, screw the pope” Catholicism, but I think people with very little understanding of science, who have always been uncomfortable with this whole man-evolved-from-monkeys idea, would be very happy to have an excuse to fight it. I know my Catholic aunt is very fond of “just a theory” type language.
When Ratzinger was first elected Pope, I thought it was horrible. In hindsight, it was my disgust for him and what he represented that finally gave me the courage to quit Catholicism and religion in general. So, in that light, the Jerk was good for me.
The pope and the Catholic church need to shut the fuck up about evolutionary biology.
The Pope has no more credibility or authority to comment about evolution than he does to give advice about how to construct a high-rise building or wire a house.
Would you take advice on how to install plumbing for a new bathroom from your corner bartender? I doubt it. Why then do so many people defer to religious know-nothings when it comes to evolutionary biology?
Twenty-first century Christianity is more ignorant than fifth century Christianity (no mean feat):
Carrie, your response merely amounts to the tautology “People who don’t care about science don’t care about science”. Your aunt is simply not relevant to the question at hand- she doesn’t care about anything but Catholic dogma. She won’t change her mind about anything just because PZ starts talking nice about the pope.
Perhaps Ratzy should stop the novenas and switch on the NOVA. This coming Tuesday’s NOVA is on the evolution of flowers: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/flower/
Flowers! Pretty, evolved flowers. Guys who wear long flowy dresses and funny pointy hats must love flowers, don’t they? Maybe he’d like to learn how the lilies of the valley and the sweet rose of Sharon really got here.
Hank, for the sake of argument…
Using that logic, I bet you would say Quasimodo was a bit tweaked too, but I heard he was actually a nice guy. Also the elephant man, the kid from the movie “mask”, Rosie O’Donnel, Anne Coulter, not to mention Stephen Hawking, one of our true Gods.
Mendel may lie uneasy in his grave today. One pope dug up his predecessor, put him on trial, found him guilty, chopped off the poor chap’s blessing fingers and threw his body in the Tiber. (Perfectly sane behaviour, felt like doing it many times myself.) Benedict was JPII’s consigliere, often called his Rottweiler and was through to be more hardline than JPII, so it comes a no surprise that he’s written this bilge. I’m sure there’s a little list somewhere in the Vatican of scientists to be hauled before the Inquisition when the prayers are answered (we used to say prayers for the conversion of England and, if I remember rightly, Russia. Honest.) and everyone becomes Catholic. Then PZ can have his Galileo moment muttering the evolutionary equivalent of ‘Eppur si muove’ when shown the instruments. Of torture, obviously.
I was just reading this regarding the Pope:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-04-12-pope-evolution_N.htm#uslPageReturn
The comments are encouraging because before I started reading I figured they would be heavy on religious nuttiness, but that’s not quite the case.
Just my usual call for a little more circumspection. What we have here is a news media soundbyte pulled out of a book in German that actually isn’t even publically available yet. Myself, I’ll wait to see what he actually says in context and without ellipses. I am willing to bet he isn’t really saying what you all think he is saying. In particular I don’t think he’s meaning to make a “*criticism* of evolutionary biology” at all.
Oh, by the by, you folks who keep praising JPII and contrasting him with Ratz: please, please never forget that JPII is the man responsible for the ideological cleansing of the Vatican hierachy, the Papal commissions, the Secretariates, the Congregation for the Dogma, etc.. He did everything in his power (which was indeed considerable!!) to eliminate every last vestige of progressive (liberal means something different over here) social democratic thought and represenation from all the instituions of the Church. The RCC (I speak as one who has family on the INSIDE, for jupitrìs sake) is now so throughly and irredemably reactionary that it was only a matter of time before they started backpedaling on evolution.
You can’t even being to imagine some of the articles and books that are inconspiciously published over here in magazines like “Avenire” and in books by right-wing Catholic “intellectuals”like Antonio Soci. Well, actually you can!! It’s a great deal like the Church of about the 13th century.
“Muslim invasion”, “Crusades were not really the fault of Catholics”, “Those persecuted Christians in modern secular society”. My cousin Dimitri is a wealthy lawyer who teaches theology at a local university. He recently published a book on the “True origins of Life”. One passage went “that absurd
book by Darwin”; another stated “Darwinism is a materialistic, atheistic and nihilistic ideology with no evidecnce” etc.. He sent it to the Vatican and it was was given a sort of offical seal of approval by Cardinal Secretery of State Angelo Sodano!!
Point: The Vatican is is moving gradually, but inevitable, to the right because it has to compete with hideous beast of fundemantalist Islam taking over Europe and with Protebnstant fundemnatlost in the third world. The world is becoming divided between anti-modernist, anti-scence, anti-liberal fundamentalists of all stripes and the secular, free thinking world. Religious moderates are finished!! It’s a dying breed. Some of you folks don’t seem to get this.
Oh, by the by, you folks who keep praising JPII and contrasting him with Ratz: please, please never forget that JPII is the man responsible for the ideological cleansing of the Vatican hierarchy, the Papal commissions, the Secretariats, the Congregation for the Dogma, etc.. He did everything in his power (which was indeed considerable!!) to eliminate every last vestige of progressive (liberal means something different over here) social democratic thought and representation from all the institutions of the Church. The RCC (I speak as one who has family on the INSIDE, for Jupiter’s sake) is now so thoroughly and irredeemably reactionary that it was only a matter of time before they started backpedaling on evolution.
You can’t even being to imagine some of the articles and books that are inconspicuously published over here in magazines like “Avenire” and in books by right-wing Catholic “intellectuals”like Antonio Soci. Well, actually you can!! It’s a great deal like the Church of about the 13th century.
“Muslim invasion”, “Crusades were not really the fault of Catholics”, “Those persecuted Christians in modern secular society”. My cousin Dimitri is a wealthy lawyer who teaches theology at a local university. He recently published a book on the “True origins of Life”. One passage went “that absurd
book by Darwin”; another stated “Darwinism is a materialistic, atheistic and nihilistic ideology with no evidence” etc.. He sent it to the Vatican and it was was given a sort of official seal of approval by Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano!!
Point: The Vatican is is moving gradually, but inevitable, to the right because it has to compete with hideous beast of fundamentalist Islam taking over Europe and with Protestant fundamentalist in the third world. The world is becoming divided between anti-modernist, anti-science, anti-liberal fundamentalists of all stripes and the secular, free thinking world. Religious moderates are finished!! It’s a dying breed. Some of you folks don’t seem to get this.
Don Imus and Garrison Keillor also look like they got subjected to some kind of medieval skull-warping torture. Also that senator Inhofe seems tweaked.
Just my usual call for a little more circumspection. What we have here is a news media soundbyte pulled out of a book in German that doesn’t seem to even be publically available yet. (Try to buy it on Amazon.de — the title is Schopfung und Evolution — it is not yet available.) Myself, I’ll wait to see what he actually says in context and without ellipses. I am willing to bet he isn’t really saying what you all think he is saying. In particular I don’t think he’s meaning to make a “*criticism* of evolutionary biology” at all.
Fair enough, Michael. Now, if it turns out (as I expect it will) that he really did say something that stupid, what will your response be then?
Scholar: Not to start an outright dogfight, but what part of “This is catty, unworthy, unscientific, and totally subjective” don’t you understand?
Now, to be fair (and with respect to Hank), if I found myself opening a statement with those words, I probably would stop there.
Ah, and Mr. Kremer, how I’ve missed your apologetics. I’d like your take on how the meaning of “or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science” got lost in translation.
Carrie appears to be another appeaser. She wants us to pretend that we think “theistic evolutionism” is an intellectually respectable position, deserving of respect.
I refuse to be complicit in what I consider to be a lie.
Steve, there’s a difference between not caring about science and actively opposing it. If Citizen X doesn’t know about science but trust the Pope, what happens when Citizen X Junior starts learning about evolution in school? If the pope says evolution is okay, Junior gets to learn science without a fuss. If the pope says evolution is bad, at the very least you get wasted class time when Junior argues with the teacher, and at most you get enough social pressure for disclaimers, skipped chapters, weak science standards and bad textbooks.
Ugh. For all the ridiculously stupid views of the Catholic Church, one thing they didn’t take part in under JPII was anti-evolution craziness. Even before I ran away from the church I could never manage any respect for this new moron. The church is already pretty backwards and now they’re backpedaling… I’m so glad I’m not part of that anymore.
Steve: if he said something stupid, I’ll just say he said something stupid. (Note that this isn’t a problem even for the strictest Catholic — this book is not a doctrinal statement or a piece of official Church teaching in any sense. It’s just Ratzinger expressing his opinion in a dialogue with scientists and theologians.) But let’s wait and see what he actuall said.
rrt: Well, I have other things to do than butt heads here continually. But on what you quoted, I think he’s not referring to evolutionary theory as such. He’s referring to anyone who presents evolutionary theory (or even science in general) as if it answers all meaningful questions. That is, he’s only critiquing a use of evolutionary theory which pretends to answer questions that (he and I both think) it can’t answer. The “gaps” here aren’t things like “gaps in the fossil record” or “gaps in the possibilities of explaining irreducible complexity”. They are “gaps” in our basic understanding of the world at a more fundamental level (such as the inability to answer the question why the world exhibits an intelligible structure that permits it to be studies scientifically at all). (Note too that the word “gaps” is a choice of a news agency translator, since the document itself only exists in German.)
Anyway, I’ve said my piece and won’t get drawn in further today. Lunch break is over.
Pope also believes Jews should wear yellow badges
Assuming that the Pope accepts all official Catholic doctrine, the former Hitler-Jugend must also believe that Jews and Muslims must wear a special dress to enable them to be distinguished from Christians (Judenhut, yellow badge). And that Jews are not to go outdoors during the last for days of Easter. Its all in the Papally issued Fourth Council of the Lateran of 1215. This, and many other Catholic doctrines, puts the current Pope in bind. Does he admit that forcing Jews to wear yellow badges is morally wrong and thus admit that his own church and past popes were immoral? Or does he just sweep it all under a rug and pretend it never existed? Also, and PZ should take note, Canon 3 of the Lateran council requests that temporal lords confiscate the property of heretics. In effect, the Hitler-Jugend Pope is still asking Chimpy to take away your home and give it to the local Catholic diocese because the 4th Lateran Council is still official church doctrine.
For me, any institution scores negative points when it slaps a yellow badge on Jews or confiscates the property of those disagree with it. And ultimately, there is no redemption for that institution. My only hope is that the hundreds of millions of uninformed catholics out there are really just ignorant or kept in the dark about the official doctrine of their church.
Fourth Council of the Lateran
I totally agree with Hank Fox. Tweaked is as good a way to put it as anything I’ve come up with. I get the same feeling about Pope Ratzi (and Carl Rove, for that matter) as Hank does.
Also, I got to see Pope JP2 back in 1981. He was a riveting speaker and just radiated kindness. I can’t think of another way to put it. Very charismatic, but not in a creepy or manipulative way at all. (This is just my impression of the man and not to say that I believe that he used his powers for the general good of mankind.)
Just to add an alternative take on what the Pope said:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070411-0300-pope-evolution-.html
You still might not like it, but it’s closer to what I expected. Now, I’m off.
Well, Carrie, I don’t see these new crusaders springing up (the serious, active anti-evolutionists, as opposed to mentally lazy fellow-travellers, are a fairly small band of dedicated kooks), whereas every day there are people rejcting religion because they can no longer tolerate its conflict with reality. So color me unpersuaded. Note also that the occasion for PZ’s comment would not even have arisen had Ratzinger simply shut up about matters of which he knows nothing.
See a visual commentary on the Catholic Church’s inability to evolve…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
“The Pope is not our friend”
I nominate this for the Understatement of the Year award.
The new Popemobile
PZ Better Be Careful, Lest He Get a Hot Pear of Anguish Up His Poop Shoot
PZ better fall in line or suffer the same fate of heretics and free thinkers of yore. I’m sure if Pope Benedict could, he would have the Inquistors pay PZ a visit for a good ol’fashioned Catholic twist and burn torture session.
My advice to PZ when they put him on the Judas cradle. Simply mumber the two favorite words of all Catholic clergy everywhere for the past two millenia.
“I recant”
PZ Better Be Careful, Lest He Get a Hot Pear of Anguish Up His Poop Shoot
PZ better fall in line or suffer the same fate of heretics and free thinkers of yore. I’m sure if Pope Benedict could, he would have the Inquistors pay PZ a visit for a good ol’fashioned Catholic twist and burn torture session.
My advice to PZ when they put him on the Judas cradle. Simply mumber the two favorite words of all Catholic clergy everywhere for the past two millenia.
“I recant”
Michael, I’d like to agree with you, but I think it’s a stretch. It’s classic creationist language, and even your milder interpretation is an unsupported design inference. The universe is designed because we can understand at least some of it?
Anyway, I agree, not looking to tussle, and I’d like to think he was going purely after the “science and the supernatural are totally separate” angle. I just don’t think so.
Okay, first, I’m defending Wes, not the Pope. I would be very happy if the Pope had kept his trap shut about evolution, but since he didn’t I think we need to interpret it as best we can.
Second, really? You don’t see new crusaders springing up? Rogers, Arkansas? Sisters, Oregon? Kearny, New Jersey? There are plenty of anti-evolutionists out there.
Ratzy’s tweakedness doesn’t seem to come from a medical condition. Most of it is in his eyes. Look at any tweaked picture of him (and that’s most pictures of him). He’s got the look of someone deeply involved in evil all his life. It’s not fair to judge people on their looks, but he was Hitler Youth, and he is the current Pope, and he happily remains responsible for exacerbating overpopulation and the spread of AIDS.
Another nomination for understatement of the year.
“make allies of the enemies of our enemies”
An individual can be on the right side of one issue and on the wrong side of another. For example, the previous Pope was on the right side against Soviet Communism – alongside democratic leftists like Vaclav Havel – while on the other side on issues like reproductive freedom and gay rights.
And from an atheistic scientific perspective, theistic evolution is at least partly correct.
In fact, scientists do pull 10,000 generations into the lab when they study fossils and when they study molecular genetic evidence of common descent.
I think the pope was trying to avoid the god of the gaps trap, but he fell squarely into it anyway. There is no scientific evidence of god, so those firmly rooted in belief in god as creator always fall to a gap. Some move back beyond the big bang, which a somewhat better safe haven for now, while others chose to deny current science to provide for a more active role for god in daily life.
Yeah, I do see what you mean. I’ve always thought there was something, well, creepy-looking about that guy.
Colugo, I just don’t think the Pope can be considered a theistic evolutionist. Like Ken Miller? You don’t hear Ken Miller mouthing DI talking points about ‘gaps’ in the theory. BXI’s trying to assure RCs who have no clue about science that, hey, it’s okay. If he actually had some passing experience with how science is done, he would never have said a word about ‘gaps’.
Frankly, he’d be sounding a lot more like Pope Leo XIII, who was pretty pro science compared to his 20th century successors.
John Farrell: “I just don’t think the Pope can be considered a theistic evolutionist.”
Now that I’ve given the matter some more thought, I think you’re right. He sounds more like an evolutionary IDist like Behe than a theistic evolutionist like Miller.
Colugo,
Even a stopped clock, as they say, is right twice a day. The Pope may happen to be on the right side of some issues, but that’s just a happy accident, not any kind of validation of his belief system.
Scientific thinking, education, common sense, and any other rational thinking process will never be able to overcome the lack of thought I see in people of faith.
People of faith do not actually need to think, they “believe” and that is enough for them. Because they believe, then all of the facts and data that humans have available to us are meaningless to them. This information is as useless to them as it would be to a sea slug. (Sorry sea slugs.)
Pope HitlerYouth Will Eat Your Soul for the Dark Side! And just like FORMER-Speaker Hastert, he’s (at least) complicit in the rape of children by fascists.
And Haggard? In “Root of all Evil?” he definitely had a bit of the ‘jaw-going-to-break-from-forcing-this-smile’ freakanoid crazy about him.
Whatever individual Popes may say, the official teaching of the Catholic Church is that the existence of God, the creator of all things, can be known with certainty through reason. The teaching is not merely that there is evidence for God, or that reason suggests that there may be a God, but that the existence of God is a certainty, established through rational thought.
Certainly some Hitler Youth were perpetrators in the Holocaust and other atrocities. But being a member of the Hitler Youth, by itself, is not like being a member of the Waffen-SS, as novelist Gunther Grass was. Philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend served as a Wehrmacht lieutenant in the Eastern Front. And Paul de Man, a Belgian pro-Nazi antisemitic propagandist and later literary theorist, arguably shares more culpability for Nazi crimes than Ratzinger, Feyerabend, or Grass.
I didn’t realize that noting that Benedict had apparently rejected Intelligent Design Creationism and backed “theistic evolution” (and that it would piss off the Disco Institute), was declaring victory. Are you sure this isn’t one of those irony thingies you were telling us about over at Wilkin’s place?
And I suppose that waiting to hear a bit more about what he really said, rather than going by news reports, would be too much to expect in the face of the affront of the Pope not agreeing with you 100%.
But hey! If you get the Pope to agree to give up the “superstitious pablum” (as you define it), through this kind of argument, that’ll be real news …
Pope Benedict is far more conservative than his predecessor. John Paul is a better man for science. I’m sure we won’t agree with everything he says but he was open evolution and accepted big bang and he was able to reconcile good science with good religion.
What a shame.
Not to stick up for the pope, but in all fairness his membership in the Hitler Youth was probably not his first choice of vocations.
Parents of the time were strongly “encouraged” to enlist their children in the Hitler Youth, and there was also serious peer pressure from the pro-Nazi youth.
Criticizing the Pope for being Catholic is like criticizing a bear for shitting in the woods. No Pope is ever going to say anything about evolution that is satisfactory to non-theistic scientists, or to non-theists generally. The best we can expect from the Pope — from any Pope — is a clear statement that the theory of evolution is the best current science on the matters it covers and that Catholic doctrine accepts it as such.
As several commenters have pointed out, by this standard Mr. Ratzinger’s statement was somewhat deficient, and this is fair game and useful criticism. But pointing out that the Pope believes a lot of other, somewhat related stuff that doesn’t make sense, while true, is not news.
Darwin didn’t have answer to everything: Pope
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21548439-2703,00.html
Yeah, ’cause that’s the Catholic Church’s job.
Prior to being proclaimed Pontiff, Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of an interesting organisation. Something called “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”. This particular piece of verbiage was a PR makeover renaming what was once called “The Office of the Holy Inquisition”. So, if he looks “tweaked” to use one previous commenter’s phrase, perhaps it is not surprising, given that he’s spent a large part of his career in an organisation that was, in the past, responsible for what happened to Galileo. He’s “tweaked” because he’s a career Inquisitor …
Here’s a crazy thought:
It doesn’t matter whether saying that Catholicism and science are incompatible will drive people away from one or the other. All that matters if whether it’s true: if it’s true, you say it, no matter the consequences, and if not, don’t.
If you’re willing to silence the truth because it has political consequences you don’t like, you have no right to be speaking about science, or even to eat of its fruits.
My two cents are that this is not so much a symptom of a rightward move as it is a reflection of Ratzinger’s shortcomings. He has an authoritarian bent (not entirely atypical with one of his background) and, like most clergy, a poor understanding of science. I do not believe his predecessor would’ve spoken so clumsily, that’s for sure.
Another polar pronouncement from the old Scot, but this Scott is amused. ‘Right’ to be speaking about science? Says who? I missed the part where science became a private club open only to those who share an absolutist take on the nature of science.
Since I haven’t bought into the notion that scientists are in the ‘truth business’ (that’s the priest’s angle, not ours), then I see no conflict between doing science and downplaying the question of whether science and any sort of belief are incompatible. As long as the practice of the latter doesn’t impinge upon the conduct of the former, I’m not obligated to make any sort of commitment.
Besides, history of full of scientists who didn’t exactly speak the truth to power, and were more than willing to conceal their views on this or that subject in order to avoid the political consequences. I don’t feel the least bit abashed, for example, in sampling the fruits of Newton’s scientific work: Issac went to great pains to keep his occult beliefs to himself while managing the English monetary system. To do otherwise would have threatened a sinecure that not only paid well, but offered Newton great latitude for his pathological vindictiveness. He was truly the kind of person who, if crossed, would say something about not wanting to meet him in a dark alley, etc. I’m sure you can understand why I don’t feel indebted to such people, dead or otherwise, and tend to take their pronouncements on science with a grain of salt.
Darwin – Hitler – Hitler Youth – Pope Benny the Rat Ratzinger.
Just as with the Church, his authority to speak on evolution is derived from the right of apostolic succession.
.
Bad pope! Your right to wear that hilarious hat is hereby revoked! Here, wear this dunce cap instead. Suits you better…
*mumbles something about Emperor Palpatine*
I would assume what the poster meant was that the Pope’s usage of those terms was inappropriate and presumptuous given his obvious gross ignorance of their meaning and connotation, and that his pretense to any sort of authority on scientific matters was completely unjustified.
I think your assumption is wrong on this one, Az. Caledonian’s statement (up there at #77) is a straighforward and unambiguous commentary on the debate sparked by Carrie’s answer (at #4) to a question PZ posed in the blog entry. I’ll resist the temptation to try to explain or rephrase Cal’s words, because I think they speak for themselves.
The following seems rather informed:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,476820,00.html
From Spiegel:
“Tatsächlich dürfte das Buch die Hoffnungen von US-Kreationisten, die katholische Kirche könnte sich ihrem Konzept des “Intelligent Design” annähern, endgültig enttäuschen – trotz Benedikts rhetorischen Remplers gegen die Evolutionstheorie. ”
(translation about)
“The book should definitely dash the hopes of the US-creationists that the Catholic Church would move towards their concept of ‘Intelligent Design’ – despite Benedict’s rhetoric against evolutionary theory”
The book Schoepfung und Evolution is not yet available, can only be ordered.
“his pretense to any sort of authority on scientific matters was completely unjustified.”
It’d be interesting to find out who he learned about evolution from. I’m sure he has as many advisors on these issues as he needs. There must still be a couple of Jesuits kicking around the Vatican who have plenty of degrees in biology.
One of the things about Ratzinger, and anyone trained in crafting Church statements, is that he always says precisely what he means to say, and almost never says what he seems to be saying. It’ll be interesting to see the full text of these comments. He’s quite good at finding the precise spot in which to drive the wedge, and causing some fruitful divisiveness the Church can benefit from.
The truth is that religion and science are fundamentally incompatible. Not because there’s necessarily any incompatibility between what science has and might yet find and what any particular religion teaches, but because their methods are exclusive.
Religion permits – indeed, encourages and sometimes even requires! – beliefs to be held on faith, without rational justification, and without being subject to argument and analysis. It essentially defines what the ‘correct’ conclusion is going to be, and doesn’t concern itself with how that conclusion is reached.
Science is exactly the opposite. It rejects faith as a method, founds itself in (contingent) evidence, and emphasizes the means by which conclusions are reached instead of the conclusion.
Catholicism claims that their deity can be known through reason? It has no demonstration of this fact, no proof that it is possible, and it isn’t interested in such. The claim is a statement of faith: Catholics must proclaim that it is true, act as though it were true, regardless of whether they can show that it is, and reject the possibility that things can be otherwise.
It doesn’t matter whether Catholicism claims to embrace the findings of science or rejects them outright. It has necessarily and fundamentally rejected the most basic defining elements of science.
There is an excerpt here
Not a very informative one, but I was surprised by this quote right on top (apparently this is the theologist Wiedenhofer speaking):
The demise of the dinosaurs was not part of any Plan??? In the next sentence it’s revealed that they are talking about some kind of ‘Evolution plan’ (determinism in evolution?) and not, you know, ‘The Plan’. But it sounds almost a Freudian slip :)
It’d be interesting to find out who he learned about evolution from.
In the excerpt it says that he went to the natural history museum in Vienna with his brother once, and that they were “bestürzt über so viel Schreckliches in der Natur.” Heh.
“[Cardinal of Vienna Christoph] Schoenborn, who published his own book on evolution last month, has said he and the German-born Pontiff addressed these issues now because many scientists use Darwin’s theory to argue the random nature of evolution negated any role for God.”
That statement from someone who knows the Pope’s thoughts well says quite enough about what the thrust of his argument will be: It’s those nasty scientists arguing against any role for God that forces us to defend Him in this manner….
If Benedict thought PP2’s position was satisfactory, there would obviously be no reason to make any further statements about evolution at all. The fact that he has quite publicly conducted discussions about the subject and has now published a book indicates he saw a need to triangulate away from a position felt to be too accommodating to the role of science as determiner of truth. And as Scott Hatfield alluded to in #78, with Benedict’s customary lack of tact the move is not so much a triangulation as it is a damning of the torpedoes and full steam ahead, declaring that science *cannot* fully determine truth. Full knowledge of the truth can only come from God, etc., etc.
This is bedrock anti-science, both in the more obvious “truth can only come from God” sense, and in the more subtle sense that it posits some static final truth rather than a continuing, dynamic, honest quest for knowledge.
BTW, if ‘Pope still not a scientist’ is not news, neither is ‘Pope still not an American fundie protestant’ :)
Science is exactly the opposite. It rejects faith as a method, founds itself in (contingent) evidence, and emphasizes the means by which conclusions are reached instead of the conclusion.
Exactly. And contingent is a key point, which makes me wonder exactly why BXI felt he had to say anything at all.
(politics…probably0
Can I just remind you all of some facts that I pointed out last fall?
This book is the result of the Pope’s meeting with some of his former students in September 2006 to discuss creation and evolution. The group was addressed by four speakers: Cardinal Christoph Schonborn (of the infamous NYT editorial — note that Schonborn has himself published a book on creation and evolution recently, also in German), Jesuit Fr. Paul Erbrich, emeritus professor of natural philosophy from the University of Munich; Professor Robert Spaemann, a political philosopher; and Professor Peter Schuster, President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
(Source: http://ncrcafe.org/node/350)
Note that among these four presenters there were two scientists — one a priest, but the other a non-believer (Schuster).
It is presumably from such scientists as these that Benedict has learned about evolution. At the end of the meeting, Peter Schuster reported “The pope … listened to my talk very carefully and asked very good questions at the end.” (Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/09/03-week/)
According to Wikipedia, “Peter K. Schuster (born March 7, 1941) is a renowned biophysicist, known for his work with Manfred Eigen in developing the quasispecies model. Born in Vienna, Austria, his work has made great strides in the understanding of viruses and their replication, as well as theoretical mechanisms in the origin of life. He is full professor of theoretical chemistry at the University of Vienna, the founding director of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Jena, Germany, as well as the current head of its Department of Molecular Evolutionary Biology.” Here is Schuster’s website: http://www.tbi.univie.ac.at/~pks/
Mmm-hmm. The notion that the omnipotent and omniscient Creator of all reality needs defending is beyond the absurd. What degree of hubris is required for one to think that oneself capable of such a thing, or that such a thing is even necessary?
It is true that the Pope is (still) not a scientist, nor is he a Fundie, nor is he an Olympic champion ice dancer. What is he, exactly? I would say that he is a politician, one who represents the very small constituency that elected him, a constituency whose interests include, among other things, some measure of rule over a huge number of followers who have no voice whatsoever in the selection of their leaders or in the determination of the policies they set.
Yes… From their point of view, treating those questions as a weakness is absolutely necessary to sustaining their claim of knowledge of the existence of the unknowable. In the end, they’re defending a god of the gaps (ironic, given the wording of the Pope’s criticism) who shrinks with each acquisition of knowledge. And it’s not hubris that drives the defense of that kind of god – it’s something more akin to desperation. IMO.
Sigh.
… “to think oneself capable of such a thing” …
I’ll never get a job as a proofreader. *mutter*
Kremer-
So? The Pope himself came of badly here. He is an old virgin(allegedly) who pretends to be an authority on matters he can’t be. Thats sad enough. Whats more sad is that a few other humans actually listen to him.
He most certainly is a fundie just of a different variety. Anyone who asserts as he does that catholic dogma is correct is a fundie. Just a different kind.
Windy says: “In the excerpt it says that he went to the natural history museum in Vienna with his brother once, and that they were “bestürzt über so viel Schreckliches in der Natur.” Heh.”
Oh come on. This is a parenthetical remark attached to a description of someone else’s reaction to a visit to that museum, noting that the Pope has made the same visit and had a similar reaction. Why should the Pope have visited that museum more than once? Please note that the Pope is not from Vienna. He is not even an Austrian.
At the website Windy linked to you can get a table of contents of the book, from which you can see that there is a contribution by the scientist Peter Schuster whom I mentioned above.
Oh come on. This is a parenthetical remark attached to a description of someone else’s reaction to a visit to that museum, noting that the Pope has made the same visit and had a similar reaction.
I know, I know… and yet the remark is rather intriguing. Is the Vienna museum significantly more ghastly than other natural history museums? Why was the Pope so shocked by that one? What would the reaction be if Dawkins said he went to a church once and was shocked by the images of tortured people, and derived the essence of the Church from that incident?
I could be wrong but the statement “…went there once with my brother…” sounds a lot like he went there in his youth? I’m sorry but pearl-clutching over a visit to a natural history museum seems a bit ironic, considering what else was going on at the time…
I’m just happy everyone commenting here understands there are plenty of us Catholics who believe in evolution, and look to scripture as a moral guide and not a historical text.
You do realize this right? Just making sure. I wouldn’t want a bunch of scientists, amateur or pro, to go and make the fundamental mistake of assuming that since the Pope said something that the rest of us will follow like zombies.
=A=
AM,
Bottomline- that’s exactly what you do.
What statement are you referring to now, chance?
=A=
Wasn’t it even required by law from 1938 on?
In any case, Ratzinger deserted in 1945. When he felt he had to choose between his God and his Leader, he made the choice we can expect.
Yep.
Apparently not much…
“aghast at so much [that is] terrible in nature.”
No. (Unless you count its being “the museum of a museum”. *snark*)
Well said.
Thanks! As expected, he defended theistic evolution. Quotes from the article:
No, this is not the business of philosophy. It is philosophy meddling with the affairs of science.
Ouch. Natural selection can’t be that hard to understand.
Wasn’t it even required by law from 1938 on?
In any case, Ratzinger deserted in 1945. When he felt he had to choose between his God and his Leader, he made the choice we can expect.
Yep.
Apparently not much…
“aghast at so much [that is] terrible in nature.”
No. (Unless you count its being “the museum of a museum”. *snark*)
Well said.
Thanks! As expected, he defended theistic evolution. Quotes from the article:
No, this is not the business of philosophy. It is philosophy meddling with the affairs of science.
Ouch. Natural selection can’t be that hard to understand.
“aghast at so much [that is] terrible in nature.”
If he gets this upset over a couple of dioramas of stuffed animals, let’s hope he never finds out what really goes on out there!
…ok, ok, I’ll stop picking on the Pope now…
PZ, while I commend you for your thoughts, I still have to classify you as a theist-sympathizer. Why? Because you did not add some crucial things to your condemnation of the “pope.”
The pope is WRONG about christianism and evolution!
The ONLY way to read the book of genesis is as a LITERAL, HISTORICAL account!
And since that is the truth, and it is also the truth that evolution is true, that means that CHRISTIANITY IS FALSE! JESUS NEVER EXISTED!
The only belief that is compatible with science is the belief that there is NO god and NO afterlife!
In order for people to accept science, they must know that there is NO afterlife! When you die, your mind, thoughts, and memories also die, it is as if you never lived at all! END OF STORY! That message must be brought by ANY MEANS NECESSARY! That includes bringing our message to the monuments to their invalid gods and to their false afterlives.
PZ, say it loudly and proudly, EVOLUTION PROVES THAT ALL RELIGIOUS BELIEF IS FALSE AND ANYONE WHO BELIEVES OTHERWISE IS DELUSIONAL IN THE HIGHEST SENSE OF THE WORD!
AND DON’T FORGET: THE LOUDER YOU SAY IT, THE MORE TRUE IT IS!!!!!!
(Actually, PZ knows better than that.)
I think freethinker went off his meds. Creating a strawman perhaps.
I don’t think even PZ believes that evolution proves there is no gods. Who does?
It is NOT a strawman. It is the truth that the delusional faith-head freaks don’t want to hear.
“The ONLY way to read the book of genesis is as a LITERAL, HISTORICAL account!”
Seems a pretty narrow view from the freethinker.
Listen. I’m as big an atheist as anyone. But you can’t say science proves there is no god. You can’t prove a negative. You can say there is no god. But you can’t say that science proves there isn’t one. However, science sees no evidence of a god, that’s not the same thing.
Steve_C, if you repeat the old canard that “you can’t prove a negative”, we’re not only going to think of you as an idiot, but an idiot who uses cliches. Also, God kills a domokun every time someone says that.
Please, think of the domokun.
Guess what?
If the Bible isn’t a literal account… then it isn’t true.
Oh, it might express some allegories that correspond roughly with true statements about the world (although I doubt it), but that doesn’t make the story itself true.
And as St. Paul claimed, if the Resurrection is just a story, the faith is false, because the faith is founded on the reality of that event.
So either the Bible is to be taken literally, it’s potentially true, but we then know it’s false. If it’s not to be taken literally, it’s false, and your faith is a lie.
The fact that evolution disproves THREE major religions is just as good as saying that there is no god and especially no afterlife.
And OneBG, I shouldn’t have to repeat that the only way to read genesis is as a literal, historical account. Any other way of reading it is false and the delusional freaks are just trying to weasel their way out.
Cal.
Can science or does science prove that god does not exist?
And yes science does show that creationism is false. And that people cannot rise from the dead and there was no biblical flood… yes the bible and most religious writing are bullshit.
Er, freethinker, only kooks, trolls, and satirists use that many CRAZY CAPS WORDS.
Caledonian: “Also, God kills a domokun every time someone says that.”
Not only that, He demands another amputated foreskin.
Define ‘god’. Until you do that, you’re not even wrong.
Let’s try this one, just for arguments sake.
God: The creator of the universe and all the natural laws that govern it.
Woah now freethinker… I don’t look at the bible as religion, I look at it as a story with a good moral. A book doesn’t have to be non-fiction to impart a good moral. I try to live by the set or morals set by the bible (and I’m not very good at it) because I think its a good guide.
Just because I think your wording was narrow-minded doesn’t make me a fundamentalist. Although its good to see that prejudice and ego are rampant in individuals on both sides. It makes for a nice dirty playing field.
Play ball!
My wording on how to interpret the first book of the bible is not narrow-minded. It is the only way to read it. Period. And (you can put 2 and 2 together, can’t you?), since evolution disproves the “truth” of genesis, it means that the entire bible is false. Those other ways of interpreting the bible that you mentioned are stupid and are only attempts by faith-head freaks to try to put some legitimacy into false accounts.
God: The creator of the universe and all the natural laws that govern it.
Is this God a complex intelligent being? Complex intelligent beings are part of the material universe and evolve within it. The idea of one of them happening to be floating around outside the universe is as coherent as saying that the universe is supported on the back of a giant turtle. Can science disprove the giant turtle? No, but does it need to?
Okay so … given that the story of genesis isn’t true (which I never disputed), you mean to tell me that interpreting a moral from the bible is impossible? Because I have to tell you, I read the bible and afterwards I understood the ‘moral(s) of the story’ as they say.
I don’t think a mouse ever pulled a thorn from a lion’s paw either, but I got that moral when I was just a little child.
If that makes me a faith-head freak to you, so be it.
Oh and my dictionary defines “Narrow-minded” as “lacking breadth of view” so yes, saying there is only one way to read it is narrow-minded. According to my dictionary, your statement by definition is narrow-minded. Sorry but its a fact by my book. You can go look up a different definition if you want but then ……. oh, well, you can put 2 and 2 together and figure out what I’m trying to imply, can’t you?
Now, be specific about ‘universe’. If there are many linked entities known as ‘universes’ that interact with each other, does your definition still apply?
Yeah, the morals did get pretty obvious when the Bible said you should punish just about everything with lethal stoning. Also illuminating were the parts where God ordered people to rape and kill whole communities, and they were rewarded if they raped and killed enough.
See? Opening paragraph – it’s pure epistemology. It’s what I just said: you talk about epistemology all the time. (And that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. It’s either weird or funny that fans of this site think otherwise. They’re consuming a diet of mostly epistemology and apparently don’t realize it.)
I don’t remember anything about rape, but I recall something about God ordering the destruction of cities and such in the old testament in order to create a home for the Jews, which seemed contra “Thou shalt not kill.” Years later, I read some interesting articles which cited issues with the King James version translation, and the commandment was really meant to say “Do not put any person to death without cause” or something. I don’t see the ‘moral’ there, though. Then again, I was never very good with theory or philosophy…just math 8)
I’m not trying to argue one side or another, but I’ve read most of these comments and they’re quite interesting and entertaining so kudos to you all.
Cheers!
C.S.Brock
I swear at one point, God said the Jews should “know” the women in the groups they were attacking. Its been a while since I read the Bible, though.
Christina: Numbers 31 is the part most frequently cited as a reference for the bible’s claims of divine approval of rape, though I believe there are others.
freethinker: wwaaaiiittt a minute. Am I to understand that you’re not sarcastically miming a laughably caricatured view of the beliefs of atheists and scientists as a whole? That you’re serious here? If so…I think you really ought to cite some evidence or change your name. Tactless, derisive, thoroughly unsupported assertions are pretty much the Creationists’ stock in trade. You aren’t placing yourself in good company.
Marcus Ranum: A great challenge is to try to set up what some have called “axiomatic Catholicism”. Good luck trying to make it consistent. (Are there any theologians who have adopted a paraconsistent logic yet? :))
peter: The previous pope, though, was hedging – he denied evolution of the human psychological faculties. (Which ones are not clear. Not surprising, since to say more is to be more open to being out-right refuted as opposed to refuted by consilience.)
αθεοι: Of course, PZ will likely to say under his breath “Eppur si muove”, or whatever the biological equivalent it is.
Ophelia Benson: I wrote about the epistemological differences between the scientist and the Catholic theologian once and determined that really the metaphysics makes the difference – in order to make Catholism work you have to postulate a faculty something like “the light of grace” which is another, “nonnaturalistic” sense. Of course, this is also the way in which I think one has to make Kierkegaard’s choice – but then really reject what science says completely. (BTW, I’ve really enjoyed reading Butterflies and Wheels. Keep it up.)
Wow! That “freethinker” is a classical, obvious troll. I didn’t think I’d see one so soon. :-o
Wow! That “freethinker” is a classical, obvious troll. I didn’t think I’d see one so soon. :-o