Pope Finally Accepts Evolution and the Big Bang as Realities!

[Osmium]

Honestly I am getting pretty pissed off with some of the ignorance in this thread. 

 

For starters for the past several decades it has been widely accepted in the Catholic church that Evolution, the Big Bang, and tons of other scientific theories are not heretical or contradictory to scripture in any way. Their justification is the "7 day period" referenced in creation could easily refer to a long interval of time since before the earth was even made there would have been no human reference for time so 7 intervals of time is adequate. Evolution is pretty obvious, they just say God orchestrated natural selection which is perfectly fine theologically. 

 

Creationists are not the same thing as Catholics. Just reading all these flat out wrong posts about how Catholics all believe in creationist ideas. If you don't know something just don't say it.

 

The Catholic Church has supported evolution since Vatican II in the 1960s. In fact the first person to theorize the big bang was a Catholic Priest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre). 

 

Exactly.

[dalekphalm]

Honestly I am getting pretty pissed off with some of the ignorance in this thread. 

 

For starters for the past several decades it has been widely accepted in the Catholic church that Evolution, the Big Bang, and tons of other scientific theories are not heretical or contradictory to scripture in any way. Their justification is the "7 day period" referenced in creation could easily refer to a long interval of time since before the earth was even made there would have been no human reference for time so 7 intervals of time is adequate. Evolution is pretty obvious, they just say God orchestrated natural selection which is perfectly fine theologically. 

 

Creationists are not the same thing as Catholics. Just reading all these flat out wrong posts about how Catholics all believe in creationist ideas. If you don't know something just don't say it.

 

 

Exactly.

While that may be the case, I personally have known Catholics who did not believe in evolution, and thought it was "humans came from apes".

 

Obviously it's not good to generalize an entire group of people, especially based on anecdotal evidence. But it's an interesting observation.

 

Also the 7 day thing doesn't make sense as a metaphor either. Part of those "7 spans" happened well after the earth was created. Not to mention that the order of events is definitely, 100%, without a doubt, wrong. If day one created Night and Day, and day four created the Sun, Moon, and Stars, then how is that logical? It's not. It's a physical impossibility, since night and day are the rotational periods that expose the earth to the sun. Therefore the sun is required for daylight... Not to mention that the sun is required for.. well.. our entire solar system to exist.

[kingkickolas]

Honestly I am getting pretty pissed off with some of the ignorance in this thread. 

 

For starters for the past several decades it has been widely accepted in the Catholic church that Evolution, the Big Bang, and tons of other scientific theories are not heretical or contradictory to scripture in any way. Their justification is the "7 day period" referenced in creation could easily refer to a long interval of time since before the earth was even made there would have been no human reference for time so 7 intervals of time is adequate. Evolution is pretty obvious, they just say God orchestrated natural selection which is perfectly fine theologically. 

 

Creationists are not the same thing as Catholics. Just reading all these flat out wrong posts about how Catholics all believe in creationist ideas. If you don't know something just don't say it.

 

 

Exactly.

 

As @dalekphalm also pointed out, Genesis is not compatible with the scientific view of the history of the solar system, and of all of cosmology for that matter.

If the pope comes out and says that he supports evolutionary theory or Big Bang theory, he's not being consistent with the words of his gospel. The same is true of any Christian.

 

But, as you say, not every self-identified Catholic is a creationist. To this, all I can say is that the objections to the compatibility of science and theology can only be expected to be based on the words in the Bible, not on what each of millions of individuals might choose to decide for themselves.

It can't be helped if some self-identified Christians choose not to believe certain parts of scripture. But if that is the case, it must be reasonable to ask them on what basis and by what authority do they reject these elements of their text.

This type of picking and choosing has been called "a la carte" religion, and I'll link again to what 

 

 has said about it.

 

 

Some people may like that the Catholic church has given so much ground to science, as do I. But they're giving ground that they don't have.

[mr moose]

All I read in threads like this is:

 

"I don't like what you think, you must be stupid" and "you don't believe what I believe so you are ignorant"

[Volbet]

All I read in threads like this is:

"I don't like what you think, you must be stupid" and "you don't believe what I believe so you are ignorant"

Welcome to the internet. We have expected you.

What you just said is the exact reason why i haven't jumped into this thread before.

[OlekKing]

Honestly I am getting pretty pissed off with some of the ignorance in this thread. 

 

For starters for the past several decades it has been widely accepted in the Catholic church that Evolution, the Big Bang, and tons of other scientific theories are not heretical or contradictory to scripture in any way. Their justification is the "7 day period" referenced in creation could easily refer to a long interval of time since before the earth was even made there would have been no human reference for time so 7 intervals of time is adequate. Evolution is pretty obvious, they just say God orchestrated natural selection which is perfectly fine theologically. 

 

Creationists are not the same thing as Catholics. Just reading all these flat out wrong posts about how Catholics all believe in creationist ideas. If you don't know something just don't say it.

 

 

Exactly.

They always find a way to twist the words in their scriptures then claim that they are perfectly compatible with scientific findings, many times even claiming that the scriptures "predicted" them. What a way to insult the decades of hard work by thousands of scientists and researchers...

Just like those people who are homosexuals and religious at the same time, or even for that matter, women who believe in a patriarchal religion which tells them to shut up and that they are to be governed and owned by men.

Very funny indeed.