Replies

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.

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 prefer Intelligent Design over both strict Creationism and atheistic evolution. We can compare notes on the other side and ask The Creator the Truth of the matter. Until then we will all continue to see as through a glass, darkly; but then we will KNOW.

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

Pius XII On Those Who Put Faith In Evolution, Like Materialists And Communists Do

By Frank Walker
Pewsitter.com

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.