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Catholic Church ready to reject intelligent design.
Religion is religion, science is science, and good fences make good neighbours. That seems likely to be the thrust of an expected clarification by the Roman Catholic Church of its position on biological evolution, according to a prominent biologist who spoke at a retreat on the topic held last weekend by Pope Benedict XVI.
Read the story here.
Posted by Nicola Jones on September 06, 2006
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It's not clear that a pronouncement by the Church against 'intelligent design' would be any more acceptable than one against Darwinism.
I did wonder about the surprise expressed at the sharpness of the Pope's intellect. If we had a female Pope, you'd never get away with saying that!
Posted by: Tim Roberts | September 11, 2006 05:52 PM
Beyond where the eyes can see or(a long long path to) beyond where anything can see
When we think of evolution we think of continuance and the root element that directs change. When we add the words natural selection to this along with observations indicating that one thing came from the next we become enthralled with our insights. To the nitty gritty these are hard to refute only on nitty gritty issues-inconsistencies. Why does an individual take challenge to what appears sound from the evidence-what is(are) the discrepancy (ancies) of religion and science. i think mostly scientific deduction always seeks a unity-in analogy -the reverse of an atomic decay that proceeds one to two to four to eight etc atoms in a chain reaction-in example it refers to one instead of, in example an Adam and an Eve. ..always leaving a perplexing enigma that is referred away from as irresolvable and hence referred ultimately to spiritual belief. A scientist knows also he can only induce a forwards path from his deductions of the reverse path from the present; making science itself somewhat theological in nature-relying on imagination and emotion. Religion does not rely on a mathematization of the past, it centers on the spiritual, human behavior, learning and history. It is not any wonder that these two components of society do not always get along. In my interpretation, either is subject to false belief, with science the more vulnerable in this respect. The scientist has not yet reasoned, that his bowl of evolutionary ideas beginning somewhere -extending to present and ending in the future with the end of the life line of mankind, or of nature, must include from the outset of his endeavors, within the bowl of ideas, properties, objects and energy the words "beginning and end" as unknowns. A column of figures without and first and last figure cannot ever include absolutes, or define a total. This I imagine is difficult to do. However, it would reduces his science to that of exact observation-direct witness, net ratios. His new constructions also could not include an assumption of any one third party neutral witness. (i.e light with constant velocity). The notion "neutral witness"-center point, used only where it probably referred in it's first usage, in the name of a commonality, i.e. "spiritual fulfillment" - to the lessons of life, living, and the world.
A conceivable beginning of scientific pursuits -truths-probably had no such fine line of question as the vast complexities discerned today demand. Religion, superstition, belief are today taboo topics for science, yet science probably evolved from related contrasts, conflicts, ... observation-truth seeking originating from the other. How could it not resemble it on one hand and not come to perpetual inherent conflicts on the other.
In history it is always how we spend our time as it is on an individual level, and our time is dominated by the instinctual natures and directions of a struggle towards an of-itself-ness in conquest of those factors that retain us from a forwards path(which I think can be in any direction what so ever, as long as existence is within a certain radius defined from the struggle-i.e. men pushing back and forth against a wall, each other-gains in its' gratifications.
It is often difficult to distinguish those emotions and actions that originate as existing for- self properties-innate proclivities of the cascade of cyclic feedback and learning mechanisms (gears derived from the real and continuous form of diversity) and behavior from exceptional emotional judgments-(poor judgment)/(bad behavior)(maybe of a common state/attitude of contemporary society)-i.e.-the certain rights and lefts with respect to survival from natural mechanisms from which we acquire knowledge. Assimilation of positive evolutionary directions require (slowly) acquired wisdoms on the nature of change verses the additive brick laying logic of science and observation.
Conceptualization of change and time perplex mankind from his first thought, as he does not(and cannot)see all of nature.. In my own interpretation, we seem to come to a consensus that nature has a unifying concept to it and we can ask(claim) if this is so ..what is(would be?) the perceived difference in the nature of the world on in depth probing, assuming, though, that we know of the world before we begin to question? The obvious answer is none. We simply do not perceive it (the same direct perception from our vantage points or life experience and are constantly pointing way beyond for evidences asked of facts seemingly explainable only by deduction..intellectual inductions of the future, in the name of logical deduction.
If life propagates in a tree like manner, parent to child, then the world is a tree and can be no different.
This fact is beyond curiosity or test(what would be the seed of a unique tree..of everything if everything is a place of seeds and trees.
Yet( pushingly-as if wishing to bully nature to call the point) we repetitively return to this issue- make further divisions- yet we already know that the straight lines of logic are not the same as the real world when we seek to ban gene cloning, or demand Americans get their own internal businesses in order before they trespass afar, or ask for nuclear non-proliferation, or enforce auto emission controls, or try to conserve parks and wooded areas...
If the world has this unification, an underlying unique concept, maybe we are bored with it, we have exceeded logic; as the need to seek (a unity, known unity) must originate in the past from the same life's needs(that motivate our initial steps )needs always of the same, known tree).
If one thinks of animals with a apparent greater sense in this issue-they do not know money-it's symbolism and meaning in substitute for food, shelter etc. An animal can not do this-test nature in this way ,his problem solving cannot invent or construct notions about distant places beyond where he survives -it is my opinion in this matter, that neither can(should) the problem solving of aware sober men(really be different from that of an animal in basic instinct). Given the existence of a unity, in what men first know of all things, there are not two unities. In what mankind knows of his seeking to seek and why he seeks-vs. what he defines to seek-he appears to be emotional-an enraged infant-a drunken gambler. The exact basics of the world can hold no attracting mystery, are at the demarcation line where the self defines his life problems. (i.e. to have two of everything not to exclude the world itself as we want or wish it to be).
What place then does science legally own in the affairs of mankind if it(science) is falsely applied to lay the bricks of society for this purpose-even afterwards of the deduction of its' tresspasses and self intrepidations, to proclaim so only to continue on the same line,without an in depth understanding to reason this there is a major and solid wall of demarcation in some of its'(science) activities that is barely perceived to exist where in study and action as if the world a laboratory and the laboratory in some cases the world.
With respect to this, where in does lay the difference between men and animals if we are to proclaim that the existence of a spiritual nature to men gives them a separate place in the world? What does an innate unity of things have to do with the other living things we share the world with? That we do not know the evolution of animals-how are we different? I think we can extrapolate to the fact, that, of the definition of animal, an animal is no more or less an animal than would be the definition of an animal of himself -a container can define no more than its' contents, as the same for man. And together..? always container and contents. If our spirit and learning grow and change the container is changed. If the soul were to be defined as the composite of all of the possible choices of all of the possible paths, walked and learned, past to present, that as light rebounds and reflects past to present, our thinking souls are, just alone, this vast (infinite) number that also defines the container-a fluid, thinking, seeking, feeling assembly of all that is-that has rebounded to and from us, of all the paths walked. There in passed to us, are only tales of evolution and history in this process, which reflects (upon)our (emitting)lives, only, as they stand from past history to present. Are we digging up the world in a search for naught?
Have we walked past the important clues given to our witness ?..maybe we have a greater circumference to our containers than meets our eyes, impinges on our senses and feeling-but is this not how men grow narrow/callous and unready when opportunity presents itself.
This, I think, as the only description of evolution (emission- reflection); all knowing is dependant on first hand witness-hence, on the human and animal life that habitat the world along with each of us, as the unique and holy sacred witnesses to the lessons of life and breath-the only present means for each of our spiritual endurance. It is evident in the nature of mankind’s contradictions and conflicts, resolutions, his scientific religious questions, pursuits , categorizations, that the paramount notions have escaped our lives.
http://www.marvinekirsh.com
http://www.authorsden.com/marvinelikirsh
Posted by: Marvin Eli Kirsh | October 16, 2006 01:56 PM