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Good! Glad to see some sense being injected into the discussion.

It's always bothered me to hear Catholics advocating various forms of "creationism" and quoting from books written by Seventh-Day Adventists (George Price, et al) - and ignoring or downplaying what Catholic scientists and theologians have said on the subject!

That doesn't mean going along with the secular scientists who insist that if evolution is true, there is no God. We should certainly protest whenever that opinion is presented as fact. But evolution, in and of itself, is nothing to be scared of.

Some of the best Christians I know are descended from ape-like creatures (and look it, too wink )!

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Theist,

I brought this up on a Latin forum and the response I got was "What do you expect? He's a jesuit!"

Darn SSPX folks are NUTS! Sorry anyone who loves SSPX.

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The problem I see here is the secular media's attempt to make 'intelligent design' mean creationism and to make evolution mean materialism. This is fallacious and improper journalism. The Holy See as the article infers by quoting Papa Bene does support the fact that the Universe is intelligently designed (how could it not??) However, the Catholic reading of Sacred Scripture is anything but fundamentalist.

The deliberate misreporting of the words of men like Papa Ratzi and Cardinal Shonborn is being done to make the Church look foolhardy and it is yet another example of the secularist agenda at work. The secularist press continuously ignore the fact that natural selection's co-author Alfred Russel Wallace believed in a Creator God and put a neo-Darwinist slant on everything. They are attempting to place a false divide between faith and reason along the lines condemned by John Paul the Great's encyclical 'fides et ratio'.

The media should make an effort to use correct and exact language when reporting these stories instead of pushing their irreligious agenda.


"We love, because he first loved us"--1 John 4:19
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Another thing that irritates me is: "creation" is NOT incompatible with "evolution". There's no reason why you can't believe that God created the universe, and used evolution as a tool to develop it.

Creationists give creation a bad name. wink

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It's called the "Gingrich" approach. Use negative words to describe someone or something you don't like and eventually people believe it.

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Myles wrote:
The problem I see here is the secular media's attempt to make 'intelligent design' mean creationism and to make evolution mean materialism.
Myles has cut to the core of the issue. �Intelligent Design� at its roots is simply the belief that the universe had a designer who guided that design with purpose. The media seems to like to morph the simple idea of an intelligent designer into the worst of the most fundamental Biblical Genesis literalists. My guess is that the good Father Coyne has probably obtained his understanding of �intelligent design� from the media and is responding in that light. The problem is the extreme at both ends. The development of the �Intelligent Design Movement� (if I can call it that) seems to be rooted in a response to the silly notion that God has no place in science. It is certainly possible for someone to affirm a belief in an Intelligent Designer while at the same time he or she is a good scientist.

Christians are creationists (we believe that God created the heavens and the earth). The Book of Genesis is a true account of creation yet it is not a scientific account of creation.

Christians believe in intelligent design. God has a purpose for everything.

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With all due respect, Administrator, you can't hold the secular media completely responsible for that. "Creationists" themselves have co-opted the "Intelligent Design" label to describe their belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis.

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Originally posted by Theist Gal:
With all due respect, [b]Administrator, you can't hold the secular media completely responsible for that. "Creationists" themselves have co-opted the "Intelligent Design" label to describe their belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis. [/b]
No where in my post did I state (or even imply) that the secular media was completely responsible for the idea that �Intelligent Design� equates to the Evangelical Christian �Genesis fundamentalism�.

Nor did I in anyway give a pass to the �Genesis fundamentalists�.

Might I respectfully suggest that you read my post again?

Admin biggrin

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Originally posted by Administrator:


Christians believe in intelligent design.
With respect Administrator,

I've heard different spokesmen on the radio (some of those protestant stations) state quite different definitions for exactly what they mean by 'intelligent design'.

I'm not sure

a. the term has been finally defined
b. it has been determined what the 'extended' philosophies and agendas of the movement are.

I think to state that "Christians believe" in this, is an overstatement.

I am interested in the theory, it may be a helpful way to dialogue with the current atheistic scholarly community.

I'm not sure that the 'intelligent design' movement is a simple a point ("that the universe had a designer who guided the universe with purpose").

Of course we believe that God created the universe, but there is something else involved here, and the doctrine of what we use to call "God's providence" is anything but simple.

Before completely endorsing the movement, I think it needs to define itself better.

Nick

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Nick,

Thank you for your post. From what I have read in the Catholic press (including papers like NCR and magazines like �Touchstone� and �First Things�) the term �intelligent design� is very wide-encompassing. I do acknowledge and realize that some Evangelical Protestants would corner the term and equate it to a literal interpretation of Genesis. Yet, just like I don�t surrender the term �Christian� to them and allow it to equate to �Evangelical� I don�t surrender the term �intelligent design� and allow it to equate to �Genesis fundamentalism�. Neither, it seems, do those in the Catholic Church who have addressed this issue since some provide a very well reasoned Catholic perspective to intelligent design.

As I pointed out earlier, the problem is with those who are extremists. I don�t think it is for us to wait for the movement to better define itself. I think it is for us to voice our opinion on this matter to offer a fully Catholic and Orthodox perspective that is respectful of both theology and science. If we proactively presented a very balance approach to intelligent design we would not have to be reactive to the fundamentalists on either side of this issue.

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Originally posted by Theist Gal:
Good! Glad to see some sense being injected into the discussion...But evolution, in and of itself, is nothing to be scared of.
Since the eugenics movement and National Socialism were spawned out of Darwin's pet theories brought to their natural conclusion, I'd say there is much to be scared of...still. (Just ask the Terri Schiavo's of the world...)

Here's a good (if expensive) read on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/14...55&n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Book Description from Amazon:

From Darwin to Hitler elucidates the evolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. Weikart demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially intelligence and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. This thinking had its biggest impact on Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism as popularly believed.

I'm no fundamentalist, but I'm not inclined to spurn the beliefs of others for thousands of years in deference to the purported "sense" of modern darwinist orthodoxies.

Gordo

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Dear Vito:

"It's called the "Gingrich" approach. Use negative words to describe someone or something you don't like and eventually people believe it."

I say:

But Gingrich isn't a Democrat. Isn't denigrating others a trait of the Democrats?

Zenovia

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Originally posted by Zenovia:
Dear Vito:

"It's called the "Gingrich" approach. Use negative words to describe someone or something you don't like and eventually people believe it."

I say:

But Gingrich isn't a Democrat. Isn't denigrating others a trait of the Democrats?

Zenovia
Oh Zenovia!!!!! That has been a trait of political discourse of all parties of every persuasion since politics began! Come now!! There is NO political party which is "God's Party"

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Originally posted by Brian:
Oh Zenovia!!!!! That has been a trait of political discourse of all parties of every persuasion since politics began! Come now!! There is NO political party which is "God's Party" [/QB][/QUOTE]

But some parties are more God's party than others! :p

And I'm still waiting for the names of those racist Dems who went Republican, Brian! biggrin

Gordo

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