Pope admits there is evidence 1 plus 1 equals 2
Pope Benedict admits evidence for evolution
POPE Benedict has said there is substantial scientific proof of the theory of evolution.
The Pope, speaking as he was concluding his holiday in northern Italy, also said the human race must listen to “the voice of the Earth” or risk destroying its very existence.
Welcome to the 19th century, Benny! Perhaps in a few decades, you’ll have caught up with the rest of us in the 21st, even?
In a talk with 400 priests, the Pope spoke of the current debate raging in some countries, particularly the US and his native Germany, between creationism and evolution.
“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the Pope said.
“This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favour of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
But he said evolution did not answer all the questions and could not exclude a role by God.
Well, I guess not.
Either way, this is the guy who recently said the exact opposite (which itself was the opposite of what his equally infallible predecessor said), and claimed that passing laws to ensure our children get a halfway decent scientific education (that is, laws against the teaching of Genesis as a fact that is true) amounts to totalitarianism.
Too much of what is labelled as “flip-flopping” is just changing one’s mind when new evidence arrives, but this isn’t one of those. Not so infallible all of a sudden, are we?
Oh, and:
“Above all it does not answer the great philosophical question ‘where does everything come from?’”
Protip: evolution isn’t about the origin of the fucking universe. Any six-year-old could have told you that.
I guess this isn’t so much news as it is just business as usual.
(Via Pharyngula.)
mark said,
August 4th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I like to think of the answer as being a synthesis of the two–evolution and creationism. Some aliens came down to earth, as gods. They fucked with life a bit, making humans.
There’s lots and lots of evidence for the theory of evolution, and there’s also every single ancient culture’s history of contact with gods.
This synthesis does not included Yahweh or Jehovah being “good” and the one true god. Nor does it call Lucifer or Satan the bad guy. Humans are fantastically awful at labelling things. We tend to fight over this a lot.
There is a huge amount of evidence of alien contact. Unless the intelligence organizations have been very busy sowing disinformation, which is definitely possible. But things like the disclosure project seem to be legit in their disclosure of alien contact.
I know Sitchin is pretty controversial, and I’ve read some pretty good debunking of his translation abilities.
If you know magic is possible, which I do from experience, then that does raise the possibility of outside magical influence to create humanity.
And if all of this were true, I’d lay my money on us being created as slaves, possibly with the intention of having us transform the earth into a giant ball of technology and industry. Possibly a “terraforming” operation for someone who likes warmer climates.
Cairnarvon said,
August 4th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Wasn’t that the plot of Stargate?