| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Conspiracy of Doves" |
| Date: |
04 Nov 2005 08:38:17 AM |
| Object: |
Vatican Cardinal Says We Should Listen to Science |
Vatican Cardinal Says We Should Listen to Science
And amazingly enough, it is on the Fox News website.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174489,00.html
But of course I have to disagree with the "science should listen to
religion" line.
Science should listen to morality, not religion.
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Vatican Cardinal Says We Should Listen to Science
Thursday, November 03, 2005
VATICAN CITY - A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should
listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that
religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific
reason.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture,
made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project to help end
the "mutual prejudice" between religion and science that has long
bedeviled the Roman Catholic Church and is part of the evolution debate
in the United States.
The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992
declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was
an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was
condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth
revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at
the center of the universe.
"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to
keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in
particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to
prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future,"
Poupard said.
But he said science, too, should listen to religion.
"We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the atomic bomb
and the possibility of cloning human beings are fruit of a reason that
wants to free itself from every ethical or religious link," he said.
"But we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with
reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism," he said.
"The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular
modern science has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith
be taken in consideration as an expert voice in humanity."
Poupard and others at the news conference were asked about the
religion-science debate raging in the United States over evolution and
"intelligent design."
Intelligent design's supporters argue that natural selection, an
element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life
or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or
Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996
statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis."
"A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said.
"(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."
He was asked about comments made in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph
Schoenborn, who dismissed in a New York Times article the 1996
statement by John Paul as "rather vague and unimportant" and seemed to
back intelligent design.
Basti concurred that John Paul's 1996 letter "is not a very clear
expression from a definition point of view," but he said evolution was
assuming ever more authority as scientific proof develops.
Poupard, for his part, stressed that what was important was that "the
universe wasn't made by itself, but has a creator." But he added, "It's
important for the faithful to know how science views things to
understand better."
The Vatican project STOQ has organized academic courses and conferences
on the relationship between science and religion and is hosting its
first international conference on "the infinity in science, philosophy
and theology," next week.
.
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| User: "VoiceOfReason" |
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| Title: Re: Vatican Cardinal Says We Should Listen to Science |
05 Nov 2005 09:24:43 AM |
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Robert J. Kolker wrote:
duke wrote:
Christianity is the basis for morality, not science.
Then explain the Holy Inquisition and the Crusades to me.
Morality evolves too. :-)
What many fail to realize is that while religions are part of our
explanation of basic morality, they're based on basic human values
we've had since pre-history.
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