(But our beginnings never know our ends!)

Friday, July 08, 2005

Now this

link | posted by La Lecturess at 11:52 PM |

2 Comments:

 BrightStar (B*) commented at 7:35 PM~  

The pope didn't make a clear statement, right? The main quote was from a cardinal, and there are a wide range of perspectives among the cardinals.

The quote I read was, "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not." It appears as though the opposition is not against evolution persay, but against the absence of a divine plan. Perhaps this cardinal thinks that "random" and "unplanned" smack of a godless point of view. To that, I say, can't God orchestrate some things to be random if She wants to? It goes without saying, but it would be completely obnoxious if the Catholic church were to side against the teaching of evolution. Scientific reasoning and discovery are gifts from God, so let's honor their fruits.

Whew. I'll stop highjacking your comments. :)

 La Lecturess commented at 7:50 PM~  

It's a little unclear. At first I though the NYT was just making a big deal out of nothing--that the cardinal in question had just picked a small quarrel w/ some of the ways in which evolution is said to happen, in order to make clear that there's a creator who set evolution in motion (which position I have no problem with)--but as the article goes on it sounds as though the Church is becoming very interested in having ID and creation science or whatever taught alongside evolution, and perhaps is moving toward discounting evolution altogether.

And yeah, it's just this one guy speaking out right now, but the Pope seems tacitly in agreement.
The cynical and probably at least partly correct analysis would seem to be that portions of the RCC are hoping to make common cause with right-wing evangelicals over yet another culture-war issue.

(Yet another reason to be thankful that my current parish continually speaks out in favor of intellectual inquiry, social justice, and the equality of the sexes...)

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