Pope says God was behind big bang. Interesting read
by rabidewok 26 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
BurnTheShips
God was behind Big Bang, pope says
'The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe'
VATICAN CITY — God's mind was behind complex scientific theories such as the Big Bang, and Christians should reject the idea that the universe came into being by accident, Pope Benedict said Thursday.
"The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe," Benedict said on the day Christians mark the Epiphany, the day the Bible says the three kings reached the site where Jesus was born by following a star.
"Contemplating it (the universe) we are invited to read something profound into it: the wisdom of the creator, the inexhaustible creativity of God," he said in a sermon to some 10,000 people in St. Peter's Basilica on the feast day.
While the pope has spoken before about evolution, he has rarely delved back in time to discuss specific concepts such as the Big Bang, which scientists believe led to the formation of the universe some 13.7 billion years ago.
Researchers at CERN, the nuclear research center in Geneva, have been smashing protons together at near the speed of light to simulate conditions that they believe brought into existence the primordial universe from which stars, planets and life on earth — and perhaps elsewhere — eventually emerged.
Proof God doesn't exist? Some atheists say science can prove that God does not exist, but Benedict said that some scientific theories were "mind limiting" because "they only arrive at a certain point ... and do not manage to explain the ultimate sense of reality."
He said scientific theories on the origin and development of the universe and humans, while not in conflict with faith, left many questions unanswered.
"In the beauty of the world, in its mystery, in its greatness and in its rationality ... we can only let ourselves be guided toward God, creator of heaven and earth," he said.
Benedict and his predecessor John Paul have been trying to shed the Church's image of being anti-science, a label that stuck when it condemned Galileo for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun, challenging the words of the Bible.
Galileo was rehabilitated and the Church now also accepts evolution as a scientific theory and sees no reason why God could not have used a natural evolutionary process in the forming of the human species.
The Catholic Church no longer teaches creationism — the belief that God created the world in six days as described in the Bible — and says that the account in the book of Genesis is an allegory for the way God created the world.
But it objects to using evolution to back an atheist philosophy that denies God's existence or any divine role in creation. It also objects to using Genesis as a scientific text.
-
sd-7
The Pope received his words from the Skeptnostitian Bible, found in It Starts, chapter 1, verse 20, which reads: "And look! A large bang happened! Stars, including the Kedar constellation, and the Kimah constellation, and a whole lot of other constellations were born."
So his conclusions are not new, but rather, solidly based on scripture--scripture that was just revealed...um...yesterday or the day before, I think. No doubt as the remainder of the Skeptnostitian revelation is received, there will be similar 'conclusions' reached by the religions of the world. Thus proving that the Skeptnostitians taught it first. I hope. 'Cause it's kind of lonely here...
--sd-7
-
leavingwt
The Catholic Church no longer teaches creationism
Worthy of mention: This means that most Christians alive today are members of a religion that rejects Creationism.
-
BurnTheShips
The Pope received his words from the Skeptnostitian Bible, found in It Starts, chapter 1, verse 20, which reads: "And look! A large bang happened! Stars, including the Kedar constellation, and the Kimah constellation, and a whole lot of other constellations were born."
Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître...was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, honorary prelate, professor of physics and astronomer at the Catholic University of Louvain.
Lemaître was the first scientist to propose what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître
BTS
-
ProdigalSon
What is the big deal with reconciling an intelligent Creator with Evolution? Simply because it took so long? Just because it didn't happen in a week?
I don't know who, in this day and age, still thinks it's all an accident. How ridiculous. Who on earth can look at the Fibonacci sequence and still think it's pot luck?
This is one thing I always thought the Watchtower did well in pointing out....heard this in a public talk once: Even a simple thing like a pencil requires a designer and a craftsman. Take a piece of wood, a piece of rubber, a piece of lead, and a piece of aluminum, throw them all off of a 10 story building repeatedly for billions of years, and see if it ever accidentally becomes a pencil.
Now add this to the mix: A single human cell is just as complex as the City of New York, but 100 times more efficient.
-
Lore
Of course he says that, he's the pope. . . what else would he say?
Pope: "I believe god was completely uninvolved in the beginning of the universe, and is as suprised as we are to find out how it began."
He's a religious guy doing what religious people do: Making stuff up as they go to continue being religious.
The real headline should be Why Should You Give a Crap What the Pope Says?
-
leavingwt
What is the big deal with reconciling an intelligent Creator with Evolution?
The big deal has to do with the idea of a benevolent Creator. Our planet is a never-ending arms race between predator and prey, filled with unspeakable violence and suffering, on every level examined.
If there is an intelligent Creator, he/she/they is one mean SOB. This is rarely the version sold in churches.
-
PSacramento
If there is an intelligent Creator, he/she/they is one mean SOB. This is rarely the version sold in churches.
Why mean SOB?
-
BurnTheShips
As usual, mainstream media articles miss a lot when reporting on Catholic matters.
The Catholic Church no longer teaches creationism
The Catholic Church has always taught that God is the Creator of the Universe. We recite during every Mass:
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
Worthy of mention: This means that most Christians alive today are members of a religion that rejects Creationism.
The Catholic Church does not reject Creationism, if by Creationism you mean "special creation." It has no official teaching on whether to believe the literal 6 day/6000 yo creation or not.
Even in the early days, there was a wide divergence in ideas regarding Genesis:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Creation_and_Genesis.asp
Millions of Catholics believe in a literal Genesis, however.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_creationist_organisations
As Catholics, we are free to agree or disagree. I would say, the great majority disagree. When I went to Catechism classes before my baptism, we had a class on origins, and our teacher for that lesson was a Catholic geneticist specializing in yeast biology. Evolution was accurately explained.
BTS
