Vatican and aliens

Actually the Vatican has had a policy on alien contact since the 1930s, so their astronomer wasn't going out on a limb but was simply repeating old news. The policy was thought up by the Jesuits, who are often nearly as far ahead of the curve as the more benighted orders are behind.

The Vatican do Know well

Evolve or die.

/coat -on

/goto exit

Darwin got it very wrong by excluding the possibility of God.

Maybe Because his Father was an atheist... he thought that he had to be so too...

Fact is that Both Creationism and Evolution can coexist - if you believe that god used evolution as a tool to make mankind from a muddy pool of ameobas.. the questions that evolution can't answer can still be atributed to a god.

Such as why certain specifc mutations occur (evolution determins which prevail not which happen!) and Why we are what we are... (for example Why are humans two legged when most animals have more!) in other words why did we come from this path of evolution and not another? why did we evolve from apes and not sloths? (Giant slothes were once far more powerful than apes!)

There is still room for God in evolution its just that people like to see it as Black or White and not both.

Now Intelligent Design on the other hand.. well that comes from the land of scientology.. nuff said.

Ethics

"with genetic manipulation fairly high on the Vatican's current don't-like list"

And is there any part of science you don't like (as opposed to don't believe in)?

Should there be any limit to what scientists can do?

Interesting

Interesting and progressive, now lets talk about contraception and the Third world shall we?

Next...

...Pope declares "There is probably no God - now stop worrying and enjoy your life" :)

Augustine Misquote

I believe Augustine actually said "Give me chastity and continence - but not yet". The quotation is from Book 8 of his Confessions, which is a great read. Fortunately he received a healthy dose of both, becoming a monk and one of the greatest thinkers and theologians of all time. Though he was instrumental in steering the Church through the Pelagian controversy, it was probably not until the time of the Reformation that his deep understanding of the vital doctrine of grace was fully appreciated.

I was tempted to go with one of the "saint" icons, but I think putting billg or steveb next to a posting about Augustine would probably earn one a swift crisping by lightning-bolt - hence flames.

"Valid Scientific Approach"

And herein lies the key. The Church sees science as a mechanism for us humans to use to describe God's creation. It is axiomatic that all life and all matter in the Universe was created by Him, and our scientific explanations sit within that philosophical framework. So a "valid scientific approach" may be rigorously true within its own philosophical domain without causing any wider problems.

The IDers don't have such a philosophical framework, and therefore place scientific explanation at odds with creation. The description of ID as a "cultural phenomenon" puts it firmly, and rather wittily, in its place.

Keep up at the back!

With the Vatican eating humble pie, I suppose that leaves just the Palinesque theotards at the back of the class fiddling with their "Jesus riding a dinosaur into Jerusalem" playset. Their destiny? To work as bus drivers refusing to drive buses, one would imagine, given the amazing selection of role models at their disposal.

Great

So they're catching up with 19th century science? Excellent.

God of the Gaps

AC - "the questions that evolution can't answer can still be atributed to a god."

Only if you subscribe to the "God Of The Gaps" notion. If science cannot currently answer a question, then immediately saying "Aha! God did it!" is about as intellectually weak as it is possible to be.

Wouldn't it be better to try to find out, than to invoke the supernatural as an explanation for anything you don't know the answer to?

Evolution does not preclude the existence of a God, but it does show that there is absolutely no need to require a God to explain the entire history of life on the planet.

You might as well say, "Well, I don't really understand every detail of how my Plasma TV works, so I guess God must be working in there somewhere".

Alien Rapture

I recently worked with a guy who told me that the catholic church came out with the story about aliens so that when The Rapture (TM) comes and all the "true believers" are taken up they will explain the disappearances away as alien abductions.

Genius.

Religious Conspiracists are the maddest ones of all. Give me David Icke and his 4th dimensional lizards any day...

" Unless it can be tested, hence falsifiable, it's not science"

That's "climate science" taken care of, then.

"Darwin was merely the scientist who put all the pieces together"

Really?

Drat. If only it wasn't for those Mendel-ing kids, he might have got away with it.

Erm, what about the dinosaurs Benny?

So, even my nine year old daughter (who goes to a C of E school) knows that the bible never mentions the mighty lizards.

When asking the person who taught creation she was told "God put them there to test the faith of man"

As you can imagine I haven't told her about Father Christmas yet, but imagine someone living in an age of medicine, computers and learning being told "oh, some invisible person who keeps an eye on us all the time and refuses to show himself did all this"

I do hope this spread of religious insanity stops and people realise there is no omnipotent creature who guides and punishes everyone.

Life is short and our role is to reproduce and continue the linage of our d.n.a.

Get over your medieval fairy stories and enjoy what time you have wondering at the marvel of how strands of acid can do what they do.

Paris: because she enjoys the close-quarters study of other people's dna.

A bit off on the Augustine

Augustine wasn't referring to all sin, just the best kind. The quote in the article should be "Lord, give me chastity, but not yet."

Funny discussions

I get a kick out of people when they argue about evolution vs. creationism.

The pro evolution groups argue that creationism cannot exist because it is fact that the world is more than a couple of thousand years old.

The creationists argue that the idea of dinosaurs and evolution are ideas planted by people trying to destroy the church.

Thing is they are both right and wrong in ways. There is no reason you cannot believe in creationism and evolution.

First TIME is a constant that was created by man, thus only has any basis in fact on this little planet in our terms. The Bible states that God created the heavens and earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th. As God first of all would be Omni-potent and Omni-present why would our limited knowledge of the Universe act as a restriction on this being.

Second lets think about the current timeline as stated by our limited knowledge of the universe. Earth has been around for about 6 billion and some odd years. So who is to say that each billions years is not represented by 1Billion years.

Third option to think about is that our current view of time is based on how long it takes for the earth to revolve and rotate aournd the sun. Thus these ideas are not contants as not all heavenly bodies revolve at the same speed or rotate around thier respective suns at the same speeds.

As if it mattered.

The majority of the Creationist cum IDers aren't Catholic. You read that right, not Catholic. Many of the Catholics I know are down right reasonable and pragmatic folk, albeit most could be best described as Cafeteria Catholics or Condom Catholics, much to the chagrin of "true" Catholics, AKA Papists. Note, theoretically, there aren't any divisions in Catholicism as practiced by lay people, only the elite group running the show have their sects but the hoi polloi don't. Don't get me wrong, Catholics have problems too but that has more to do with pent up issues about gender identity, sexual preference and impotence. Hence the different sects for the elites.

No, most of the ID card carrying members are of the Protestant persuasion and couldn't give a gnats arse about what the Vatican does or says about putting a Darwin-fish on the back of your Prius. The real screamers are typically the Evangelicals, who have a burning desire to show their superiority and are often anti-Pope to the point of disgust. After all, either they are right or the Pope is, can't have any grey, grey is bad for the chitlin's.

The Bigger Picture

Look, it's like this. God is everywhere and he (or she) knows everything. So, knowing that a BIG BANG would start off the whole Universe and all of the processes that scientists theorise about, right about, argue about and sometimes prove - there you have it, you can spend as much time as you like trying to argue for Evolution vs Creationism vs Natural Selection vs MTV (cos everyone is entitled to it), but at the end of the day - an all-knowing, all-seeing, omnipresent being flicked over the first domino and the rest (as they say - whoever they are) is history. Get over it and enjoy life people ! You're only here for approx 70 years and then you're worm food, so burn that candle at both ends !

P.S. There is no God - he (she!) was just a way for the religious leaders of the times to get control of the nwashed, ill-educated masses - but, hey, who gives a shit.

@ AC 13:37

"Fact is that Both Creationism and Evolution can coexist - if you believe that god used evolution as a tool to make mankind from a muddy pool of ameobas [sic]" -- Except that's not quite what happened, though, is it? Try reading a science textbook sometime.

"The questions that evolution can't answer can still be atributed [sic] to a god." -- only until science finds out the real answer.

"Such as why certain specifc mutations occur (evolution determins [sic] which prevail not which happen!)" -- mutations occur at random. When DNA is copied, there is a definite probability of errors. Which of the randomly-occurring mutations prevail is not random, but is determined by their contribution to the viability of the next generation.

"and Why we are what we are... (for example Why are humans two legged when most animals have more!) in other words why did we come from this path of evolution and not another? why did we evolve from apes and not sloths? (Giant slothes [sic] were once far more powerful than apes!)" -- we are what we are because that is what we are, and if we were different that's still all we'd know. Asking this question is no different from a puddle of water wondering why the hole in the ground is the exact right shape for it. We adapted to fit an environment that already existed. There are other potential solutions that would be valid, granted; but humans happen to be what the process of trial, error and refinement came up with.

"There is still room for God in evolution its [sic] just that people like to see it as Black or White and not both." -- well, that "room for god" is shrinking day by day.

"Now Intelligent Design on the other hand.. well that comes from the land of scientology.. nuff said." -- Intelligent Design is just creationism, reheated. It still suffers from a fairly fundamental flaw: If complexity cannot arise spontaneously, meaning complex life-forms must have required a more-complex designer, then how do you account for the existence of the required designer in the first place?

Anyway, Scientology is ultimately no more riduculous than Christianity.

What a great idea . . . !

"why don't we have heat sensors like snakes?"

I want - wings like a swan so I can fly, eyes that see into the infrared and UV, and a bifurcated whanger (like snakes have) so I can do the twins next door simultaneously instead of sequentially.

Interesting to make a list of the various senses/capabilities various animals have and then do a bit of genetic engineering so we can have them as well.

Igor, fetch my coat, that's a good lad . . .

RE:Darwin got it very wrong

Darwin wasn't an atheist, and in fact, he mentions g*d (or a Creator) in his Origin of Species, as the one who laid down the rules for natural selection. That is what makes the whole ID/Creationist argument so funny. If they only read what they criticised...

Oops!

"..original sin, the stubborn blemish that has condemned humanity to a progressive decline from the Garden of Eden..."

You see then, if the RCC really accepts evolution, they should fold up their frocks and go out of business. Because...

If evolution is true, then the creation myths of Genesis are not. No six day creation, no Garden, no Adam & Eve = NO ORIGINAL SIN!

No original sin, no need for the sky-god's little boy to be grotesquely sacrificed to save us from it, and voila...no more need for the RCC or any of its considerably diverse and divergent offspring.

Mind the (God of the) Gaps.

"... the questions that evolution can't answer can still be atributed to a god..."

No, they can't. By labelling everything unknown as 'God did it', you're espousing the very opposite of scientific theory. When a scientist encounters an unknown quantity in a formula, or lacks a theory to rationally explain something, the correct answer is "I don't know". Admitting your ignorance is not shameful, and highlights areas where other people should focus their research. To assume that anything that can't be explained has to be the work of God is to admit that there's no point trying to find an answer.

I wouldn't be typing this now if at some point in the past scientists had given up trying to explain electricity and just declared it was angry sparks hurled from the sky by God. The electron gun in my monitor wouldn't exist if science hadn't discovered the atom and its fundamental particles. Back then, they couldn't see these particles first-hand so their solution should have been to accept that everything was made of magic God-stuff and leave it at that?

Most importantly, using God as an explanation is simply replacing one unknown quantity with another. Many people with your reasoning often attribute the Big Bang to God, since the universe can't just have been created from nothing, right? Maybe, but this doesn't answer the question - it just raises more. If God made the Big Bang, who made God? What is God made of? Is there more than one God? What physical phenomena or stimulii caused the God to react to form a Big Bang? Can we reproduce the God in controlled experiments?

OK, silly, but the point is that it's much more scientific to say "we don't know, but let's research the hell out of it and get some answers" than to say "we don't know so God must have done it, case closed. Let's cancel all research and go sing us some Kum Ba Ya".

@AC 19:04

"What did the Pope ever do to you lot?"

oh.. I don't know... how about single handledly slaughtered millions in Africa due to his moronic take on sperm for starters ?

Just because...

Just because I can see the flaws in "Intelligent design", and recognise that (at least some - I've not seen it all) creationist literature is a pack of misrepresentations designed to impress the gullible, does that make me an atheist? No!

Just because I get angry to see God's name linked to lies, does that make me a heretic?

Just because I can see the gaping flaws in, say, Dawkin's arguments, does that make me some gullible extremist loony? Doubt it.

Just because I can read Genesis without thinking I need to ignore scientific results, does that mean I deny my faith? Naaaah.

Do I know all the answers? No, of course not, I'm a scientist!

Do I know who does know all the answers? Yes, he's my friend, my saviour.

Am I glad he's not telling us all the answers? Yes, it's much more fun to find things out as we go along!

Coat... I'd like the flame proof one that Daniel's friends had, please!

@What did the Pope ever do to you lot?

Well for starters he will be happy to tell me that I am guilty of a sin that condemns my soul to an eternity in hell. A sin that was alleged to have happened at the dawn of creation by two people I have never met nor had any relation with. He will be all to happy to judge me and find me guilty based on information he lacks because "God told him to." While I am fortunate enough to be out of his tyrannical reach, his followers attempt to push their religion on me through numerous pieces of legislation that demeans whole classes of people and favors "proper" living situations based on nothing more than a monogamous relationship between a male and female. Given the historical evidence and failure of many a Pope to cry out "X was wrong," the question should have been, what haven't the Pope and his lot done to us?