Posted on 10/29/2014 3:23:51 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
For only the second time in history since it was formally defined, Pope Francis has invoked papal infallibility in order to restate the Catholic Church's two most ancient, unchanging, and distinctive doctrines: evolution and a non-literal interpretation of Genesis (which was totally written by stone age savages, by the way).
Invoking the apparations of Our Lady Queen of Higher Criticism, the Pope stated:
While the ordinary magisterium from the very day of the Church's founding 1,981 years ago this past April has been most clear and constant, nevertheless we are most grieved at the dissemination of the "Errors of Alabama," of which Our Lady so warned the little particle physicist children when she opened before them a vision of Hell and told them "this is Hell, where all the poor creationists go."
Noting that for eighteen hundred years a primitive, unauthoritative Bible and a belief in purely natural forces has been the unbroken teaching of all Christendom, Francis pointed out the strange coincidence of the rise of the utterly novel and heretical belief in Biblical literalism at the exact moment that Charles Darwin had published his book describing what everyone had always known and believed all along. "Why did these evil people," he asked, "pick this exact moment to deny what has been always, by everyone, everywhere? One can only see the work of the Devil in it, and he doesn't really exist either."
The Pope's restatement of traditional Catholic dogma in the extraordinary form of an infallible decree has won for him the admiration of many conservative Catholics who up until now had been his staunchest critics. This is not universal, however. Some ultra-Right Catholics insist that so long as the Pope refuses to identify explicitly the Judaeo-Masonic Conspiracy as the prime mover in the introduction of this and other novelties. "Until he does this," says traditionalist priest Father Patrick Antonio Pierre Duc Aloysius O'Rabinowicz, "those of us who truly believe in the apocalyptic message of Our Lady of Higher Criticism will continue to regard his words and actions with the greatest skepticism."
Pope Francis' truly historic declaration was timed to fall on the traditional feast day on which large numbers of profound intellectuals come to Rome to wrap snakes around a statue--which is totally not to be confused with what those inbred morons in West Virginia do, btw.
Check this out before it’s yanked. It won’t last long.
You’re no John Semmens.
What is wrong with this person? Is “Self” a Freeper? Odd.
Thanks for the ping! Looking forward to seeing who else has a sense of humor!
Thanks for the ping! Looking forward to seeing who else has a sense of humor!
I suspect a great deal there will be a bit of a divide on the issue.
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"You're not worth the powder." ~Horatio Hornblower
IMO none of us can hold a candle to John's surgeon-like skill with the satirical blade (but I did chuckle at ZC's handiwork). Please ping John when you pay him a compliment.
Kinda hard to tell with this Pope, I admit.
Lo and behold, Brian Kopp DPM, one of the most traditionalist and orthodox Catholics on this forum, has stood forth to defend the sacred two thousand year old Catholic doctrine of evolution and to defend the Mother Church of all simple child-like peasants (so long as they aren't rednecks--ugggh!!!) from the Judaeo-Masonic-Protestant doctrine of BIBLE-WORSHIPING CREATIONISM, that scourge of souls throughout the world and to which only a belief that the story in the Book of Jonah actually happened can even remotely be compared in its diabolical infamy!
I realize that you think that both I and the Religion Moderator don't recognize potty language when you write it, but, believe it or not, despite being an inbred moron who lives in a trailer and thinks Blacks have skin like snakes (which I simultaneously handle), I've actually read Gulliver's Travels. The whole, unexpurgated thing. It was the subject of a book review in my senior year of high school.
Glad you noticed the turn of phrase. But this is posted in Chat, so why bring the RM into it? The Religion Forum doesn’t like potty talk but I was not aware such was verboten in Chat.
And when you pinged Alex, was that a Freudian slip, because it looks like you were trying to ping the RM.
Oops, I mentioned Alex in my post. Maybe I should have pinged Alex too.
Nah.
Dang me, you're right. For some reason I tend to think of all posts and threads as on the Religion Forum, probably because it is my obsession.
And when you pinged Alex, was that a Freudian slip, because it looks like you were trying to ping the RM.
I pinged Alex because he's the one to whom your post was addressed. Perhaps there is indeed an International Protestant Masonic Creationist Conspiracy to destroy Catholicism with Biblical inerrancy, but if Alex is the relgiion moderator, I am unaware of it.
Oops, I mentioned Alex in my post. Maybe I should have pinged Alex too.
Nah.
Yeah! What are "rules?"
Personally, I think Pope Francis recent words on evolution and the Big Bang (and his actions via the recent Synod, which he personally engineered and micromanaged) stand condemned by many Popes who came before him, but then, "Who am I to judge?"
October 29, 2014
Nate Anderson at ars Technica science site reported on Pope Francis' words on creation, the Big Bang, and evolution theory.
Though only a few paragraphs long (and currently available only in Italian; the translation below is unofficial), Francis's remarks focused largely on evolution—still a controversial doctrine in parts of the worldwide Christian church.
"When we read in Genesis the account of Creation, we are in danger of imagining that God was a magician, complete with a magic wand capable of doing anything," Francis said. "But he was not. He created beings and let them develop in accordance with the internal laws that He has given to each one."
The writer goes on to note Pope Pius XII’s warning of on the value that materialists and atheists find in evolutionary theories.
The Catholic church has long been open to evolution, though always stressing its belief that God is the ultimate power behind the universe and its unfolding story.
In 1950, Pope Pius XII wrote about evolution in Humani Generis, saying that "Communists gladly subscribe to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism."
For Pius XII, however, evolution was only a possibility that was yet unproven, and so he went on to rail against those who "act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question."
Modern advances in biological science, the fossil record, and technology which reveal the complexity of living organisms, cast many doubts upon 19th century theories of random natural selection. They point rather to an intelligent origin for living things and make the warning of Pope Pius even more relevant.
My opinion is that "intelligent design" is nothing but "theistic evolution" with a signature.
The part that so many seem to be missing is that this is not about science at all. That's not the problem. The problem is that evolution (of any variety) denies the simple facticity of the Biblical narrative. This is what it's really all about.
I disagree. Someday, God Willing, we will both KNOW.
Why resort to satire when for decades Rome has sanctioned such teaching in the commentary of her NAB Bible:
The commentary in the the New American Bible (NAB, the American bishop's official* Bible for use in America, including the edition provided by the Vatican's own web site, (2002 Copyright: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_INDEX.HTM) impugns the integrity of the Word of God by its adherence to the discredited JEDP theory, and by relegating numerous historical accounts in the Bible to being fables or folk tales, among other denials, along with other problems which even some Catholics complain about.
In addition, some NAB footnotes assert alleged contradictions in Scripture, and Catholics are divided on whether the Vatican Two statement in Dei Verbum (which was seen as a response to a behind-the-scenes debate at Vatican II about inerrancy), that the Bible “teaches without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation," supports the position that the Bible is only immune from error within a certain limited area, versus what Pope Leo XIII, in Providentissimus Deus and Pope Benedict XV Spiritus Paraclitus state. However, the real authority for Catholics is their self-proclaimed infallible magisterium, although there is disagreement as to how many infallible statements there are, and the full meaning of these as well as multiple other non-infallible teachings canm be subject to some interpretation.
I myself first became aware of the basic liberal bent in the NAB when reading the notes in the NAB, St. Joseph’s medium size, Catholic publishing co., copyright 1970, which has the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur stamps of sanction. The NAB has gone through revisions, but I have found the same O. T. footnotes in “The Catholic Study Bible,” Oxford University Press, 1990, which also has the proper stamps, and uses the 1970 O.T. text and the 1986 revised N.T. And a Roman Catholic apologist using the 1992 version also lists some of the same errors described below, and is likewise critical of the liberal scholarship behind it (though he elsewhere denigrated Israel as illegally occupying Palestine), while a Roman Catholic cardinal is also crtical of the NAB on additional grounds.
And as noted below, even the 2011 NAB Revised Edition (NABRE) contains some of the errors of liberal scholarship. (http://www.usccb.org/bible/approved-translations/index.cfm)
The study aids therein teaches that, "The Bible is God’s word and man’s word. One must understand man’s word first in order to understand the word of God." ("A Library of Books," p. 19) and warns,
“You may hear interpreters of the Bible who are literalists or fundamentalists. They explain the Bible according to the letter: Eve really ate from the apple and Jonah was miraculously kept alive in the belly of the whale. Then there are ultra-liberal scholars who qualify the whole Bible as another book of fairly tales. Catholic Bible scholars follow the sound middle of the road.” (15. “How do you know”)
However, they are clearly driving on the left.
It “explains”, under “Literary Genres” (p. 19) that Genesis 2 (Adam and Eve and creation details) and Gn. 3 (the story of the Fall), Gn. 4:1-16 (Cain and Abel), Gn. 6-8 (Noah and the Flood), and Gn. 11:1-9 (Tower of Babel: the footnotes on which state, in part, “an imaginative origin of the diversity of the languages among the various peoples inhabiting the earth”) are “folktales,” using allegory to teach a religious lesson.
It next states that the story of Balaam and the donkey and the angel (Num. 22:1-21; 22:36-38) was a fable, while the records of Gn. (chapters) 37-50 (Joseph), 12-36 (Abraham, Issaac, Jacob), Exodus, Judges 13-16 (Samson) 1Sam. 17 (David and Goliath) and that of the Exodus are stories which are "historical at their core," but overall the author simply used mere "traditions" to teach a religious lesson. After all, its understanding that “Inspiration is guidance” means that Scripture is “God’s word and man’s word.” What this means is that the NAB rejects such things as that the Bible's attribution of Divine sanction to wars of conquest, “cannot be qualified as revelation from God,” and states,
Think of the ‘holy wars’ of total destruction, fought by the Hebrews when they invaded Palestine. The search for meaning in those wars centuries later was inspired, but the conclusions which attributed all those atrocities to the command of God were imperfect and provisional." (4. "Inspiration and Revelation," p. 18)
It also holds that such things as “cloud, angels (blasting trumpets), smoke, fire, earthquakes,lighting, thunder, war, calamities, lies and persecution are Biblical figures of speech.” (8. “The Bible on God.”)
The Preface to Genesis in my St. Joseph's 1970 NAB edition attributes it to many authors, rather than Moses as indicated in Dt. 31:24, and the footnote to Gn. 1:5 refers to the days of creation as a “highly artificial literal structure.”
Even in the the current online NABRE, the The footnote (http://www.usccb.org/bible/gn/1:26#01001026-1) to Gn. 1:26 states that “sometimes in the Bible, God was imagined as presiding over an assembly of heavenly beings who deliberated and decided about matters on earth,” thus negating this as literal, and God as referring to Himself in the plural (“Us” or “Our”) which He does 6 times in the OT. Likewise, the footnote to Ex. 10:19 (http://www.usccb.org/bible/ex/10:19#02010019-1) regarding the Red Sea informs readers regarding what the Israelites crossed over that it is literally the Reed Sea, which was “probably a body of shallow water somewhat to the north of the present deep Red Sea.” Thus rendered, the miracle would have been Pharaoh’s army drowning in shallow waters!
And after affirming all of the Bible is the word of of, in its preface to the Pentateuch, it asks, "How should a modern religiously minded person read the Pentateuch?," and in answering that it asserts (consistent with the aforementioned discredited liberal JEDP theory, which holds the Pentateuch was not written mainly by Moses, but was the work of later writers, editors and redactors as late as the sixth century BC), "The story had to be reinterpreted, and the Priestly editor is often credited with doing so. A preface (Gn 1) was added, emphasizing God’s intent that human beings continue in existence through their progeny and possess their own land. Good news, surely, to a devastated people wondering whether they would survive and repossess their ancestral land. The ending of the old story was changed to depict Israel at the threshold of the promised land (the plains of Moab) rather than in it." (http://www.usccb.org/bible/scripture.cfm?src=_intros/pentateuch-intro.htm)
Its (NABRE) footnote (http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/6#01006001-1) in regards to Gn. 6 and the sons of heaven having relations with the daughters of men explains it as “apparently alluding to an old legend.” and explains away the flood as a story that “ultimately draws upon an ancient Mesopotamian tradition of a great flood.” Its teaching also imagines the story as being a composite account with discrepancies. The 1970 footnote on Gen. 6:1-4 states, “This is apparently a fragment of an old legend that had borrowed much from ancient mythology.” It goes on to explain the “sons of heaven” are “the celestial beings of mythology.”
In addition, even the ages of the patriarchs after the flood are deemed to be “artificial and devoid of historical value.” (Genesis 11:10-26)
All of which impugns the overall literal nature the O.T. historical accounts, and as Scripture interprets Scripture, we see that the Holy Spirit refers to such stories as being literal historical events (Adam and Eve: Mt. 19:4; Abraham, Issac, Exodus and Moses: Acts 7; Rm. 4; Heb. 11; Jonah and the fish: Mt. 12:39-41; Balaam and the donkey: 2Pt. 2:15; Jude. 1:1; Rev. 2:14). Indeed “the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety” (2Cor. 11:3; Rev. 12:9), and if Jonah did not spend 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the whale then neither did the Lord, while Israel's history is always and inclusively treated as literal.
Regarding the Gospels, the teaching of my 1970 NAB speculates that some of the miracle stories of Jesus in the New Testament (the fulfillment of of the Hebrew Bible) may be “adaptations” of similar ones in the Old Testament, and that the Lord may not have actually been involved in the debates the gospel writers record He was in, and thinks that most of which Jesus is recorded as saying was probably “theological elaboration” by the writers.
Going beyond the Holy Spirit condensing or expanding the words of Christ, as seen by duplicate accounts, it states under "Reading the Gospels,
“The Church was so firmly convinced that the risen Lord who is Jesus of history lived in her, and taught through her, that she expressed her teaching in the form of Jesus’ sayings. The words are not Jesus but from the Church.” “Can we discover at least some words of Jesus that have escaped such elaboration? Bible scholars point to the very short sayings of Jesus, as for example those put together by Matthew in chapter 5, 1-12”
It does allow that the slaughter of the innocents by King Herod, was “extremely probable,” and that people leaving Bethlehem to escape the massacre, is equally probable, but outside the historical background to this tradition, “the rest is interpretation.” This means is taught as justified due to the authors intent.
It additionally conveys such things as that Matthew placed Jesus in Egypt to convince his readers that Jesus was the real Israel, and may have only represented Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, to show that Jesus wa the s like Moses who received the law on Mount Sinai. (St. Joseph edition, 1970; How to read your Bible, "The Gospels," 13e, f, g. and i)
The “Conditioned thought patterns” (7) hermeneutic also paves the way for the specious argumentation of feminists who seek to negate the headship of the man as being due to condescension to culture, a very dangerous hermeneutic, and unwarranted when dealing with such texts as 1Cor. 11:3.
In addition, the current edition will not use render “porneia” as “sexual immorality” or anything sexual in places such as 1Cor. 5:1; 6:13; 7:2; 10:8; 2Cor. 12:21; Eph. 5:3; Gal. 5:19; Col. 3:5; 1Thes. 4:3; but simply has “immorality,” even though in most cases it is in a sexual context.
It is a slippery slope when historical statements are made out to be literary devices, and Muslims have taken advantage of the NAB's liberal hermeneutic to impugn the veracity of the Bible, http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Shabir-Ally/nab.htm.
As stated, the NAB has gone through revisions, and one of the changes i have noted between the 1970 NAB and the online version of today, is that the former has “justice” (which perhaps the social gospel Catholics preferred) over “righteousness' in such places as Rom 4:5,6, and that David “celebrates” the man..., while the online NAB has “But when one does not work, yet believes in the one who justifies the unGodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. So also David declares the blessedness of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works”.
On the other hand there are Catholics who only sanction the Douay-Rheims Bible, yet one Roman Catholic apologist criticizes it as well. (http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4300&CFID=45541857&CFTOKEN=30609021)
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2010/9/12/18017/5649 http://geocentrism.com/Catholic_Geocentrism_1
I think that is what the ACLU types want people to believe. I did buy Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology by William . Dembski, but have not read it yet.
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