Catholics Embrace Evolution?

[bush_cheney2004]

Shucks...no more Santa Claus or Easter Bunny? How sad......

[BubberMiley]

From the article- popes have believed in evolution for fifty years. The latest pope's opinion is not news, and doesn't represent any change in the religion

Do you have a link?

[Michael Hardner]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II#Evolution

Pope JP2 -> evolutionist

"The question of the origin of man's body from pre-existing and living matter is a legitimate matter of inquiry for natural science."

Pius 7, 1950

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution#Pope_Pius_XII

[overthere]

Pope JP2 -> evolutionist

Pope JP2 -> pragmatist

Pope JP2 -> opportunist

The better Vatican management teams have always recognized that the Church itself must evolve or die. It has nothing to do with dogma and everything to do with survival adn growth and control. Dogma is elastic, simply a tool.

[Michael Hardner]

The better Vatican management teams have always recognized that the Church itself must evolve or die. It has nothing to do with dogma and everything to do with survival adn growth and control. Dogma is elastic, simply a tool.

It seems that the options are: dogmatism, or control so as to ensure growth.

Is there any room to acknowledge progress in there ?

[Mighty AC]

Well they used to celebrate Hitler's birthday and they killed non-Catholics and stole their land and possessions. Now they don't and they even, eventually, apologized to the Jews. That's a good thing.

[The_Squid]

Supposedly, they stopped hiding their child molesters..... when they were forced to.... that's something, I guess....

[Michael Hardner]

Well they used to celebrate Hitler's birthday ...

What's this ?

[Mighty AC]

What's this ?

The annual birthday celebrations were initiated by Pope Pius XII in 1939. Hitler pushed Catholic teachings into the public school system and he also collected taxes from Catholics which he sent back to the Vatican. In return for cash and support, the RCC included some Nazi ideals in their sermons and really helped to ramp up the anti-antisemitism. The relationship reminds me of how we play nice with evil regimes in say Saudi Arabia or China for trade reasons. At the same time the RCC did help to hide and rescue some Jews, but for some reason failed to condemn the actions of the Nazis even after the war was over.

Both Catholic and Protestant churches, moreover, were on the Nazi payroll, benefiting from taxes. After the State, they were the largest landowners. The Nazis provided subsidies which rose from 130 million marks in 1933, to 500 million in 1938, then to a trillion during the war.

Both Catholic and Lutheran churches massively supported the Hitler regime, with many outright declarations of support, “unconditional loyalty to the Third Reich and the Fuhrer.”

Pius XII, writing a friendly letter to Hitler in 1939, practically congratulated Hitler for his conquest of Czechoslovakia, terming it “one of the historic processes, in which, from the political point of view, the Church is not interested.” Catholic churches rang their bells in celebration of Hitler’s birthday.

The hierarchy told the people to obey Hitler, whom Pius saw as the indispensable bastion against socialism. Hitler, on his part, with his extermination policies against the Jews, claimed to be “just carrying on with the same policy which the Catholic Church had adopted for 1500 years.” A Catholic Encyclopedia of 1930 had already called political antisemitism permissible.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/not-hitlers-pope/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Pope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Germany

[Michael Hardner]

Ok, they celebrated it in 1939 ? Fine, then. You can call it a black mark but it seems to just make it more significant that the leadership amends its position over time.

[Mighty AC]

Ok, they celebrated it in 1939 ? Fine, then. You can call it a black mark but it seems to just make it more significant that the leadership amends its position over time.

I was acknowledging progress.

[overthere]

It seems that the options are: dogmatism, or control so as to ensure growth.

Is there any room to acknowledge progress in there ?

Progress in what? Ensuring that the Church survives and thrives? Obviously the Vatican and their CEO have done a bangup job at that, despite some trifling setbacks over the last couple millenia. Raping children, playing footsie with Hitler- these are trifles when compared to real threats like widespread literacy or The Reformation. It was not so long ago that the Church controlled access to books and education, had huge revenues and controlled all the leaders of Europe. They not only survived that, the Church spread globally after those disasters.

Dogma is just a tool when your Executive Branch can interpret the Scriptures in any way that suits the times and benefits The Church, and can be sold to the faithful. It seems to me that the evangelical Christians have backed themselves into a bad spot when they insist on the literal interpretation of the Bible. The Vatican has never hobbled itself like that.

Control is not an option at all, it is clearly the only goal and always has been.

[Michael Hardner]

Progress in what? Ensuring that the Church survives and thrives?

This is what I mean - it's no win. Of course the church wants to survive and thrive, but if they change then it's done for nefarious reasons and if they don't then they're evil and archaic.

If the answer is that we just hate religion and want it to stop, then fine, but you can't expect them to adopt that mindset.

[overthere]

This is what I mean - it's no win. Of course the church wants to survive and thrive, but if they change then it's done for nefarious reasons and if they don't then they're evil and archaic.

If the answer is that we just hate religion and want it to stop, then fine, but you can't expect them to adopt that mindset.

I don';t expect anybody to change their minds or adopt anything other than the mindset taught very well at a very young age. It's another area where the Church excels : gaining hearts and minds hard and early. They've been copied by other organizations, but they are the masters.

They don't change their approach for nefarious reasons, they change because there is human profit in doing so. It's just business, though a business rooted in a unique base: faith.

[Michael Hardner]

They don't change their approach for nefarious reasons, they change because there is human profit in doing so. It's just business, though a business rooted in a unique base: faith.

That sounds devious at the very least, so my original point stands. If you understand that the religious viewpoint is not going to simply disappear, then you will start to appreciate it more when the rules of the religion soften and modernize a little.

[GostHacked]

That sounds devious at the very least, so my original point stands. If you understand that the religious viewpoint is not going to simply disappear, then you will start to appreciate it more when the rules of the religion soften and modernize a little.

You start to move away from religion in general when you have to adjust your mantras in light of new knowledge. Meaning the doctrine that religion adheres to becomes marginalized and to put it exactly, obsolete. What becomes of the religion when these changes occur? How does a religion stay relevant when they have moved so far off their original base? How does that affect the people and how they view their faith?

For me I think that is a good thing, moving away from monotheistic religions with outdated ideology. It is not the god that forces them to move in this direction, but the followers of the religion that makes those changes. One might ask, why was that faith/religion relevant in the first place and why has it not disappeared from our civilization?

[Michael Hardner]

One might ask, why was that faith/religion relevant in the first place and why has it not disappeared from our civilization?

Some things could be: touchpoints of tribalism, ritual and the attendant comforts... something answering the deeper questions for the fearful...

[GostHacked]

Some things could be: touchpoints of tribalism, ritual and the attendant comforts... something answering the deeper questions for the fearful...

We have many living in fear. But then again, we are told constantly through the media to be scared of things.

[Mighty AC]

This is what I mean - it's no win. Of course the church wants to survive and thrive, but if they change then it's done for nefarious reasons and if they don't then they're evil and archaic.

We get that these organizations want to survive and thrive, but keep in mind that religious positions often involve claims of authority. The authority being a god and evidence being passages in the bible. This bible is static, hence when religious positions do change to, somewhat, keep up with advancing secular morality, it is hard not to question and mock how the same authority granting passages now command the opposite position.

God endorses slavery...now slavery is bad. God hates fags...now they're acceptable. God says women are inferior...well that one hasn't really changed yet, has it? That passage is the word of God...now it's just allegorical. We kill scientists that prove facts that diminish God's authority...now we just work with conservatives to discredit them.

[Mighty AC]

Some things could be: touchpoints of tribalism, ritual and the attendant comforts... something answering the deeper questions for the fearful...

I found it interesting that comets used to illicit fear of a god's intentions and then last week science landed a spacecraft on one. I think it's important for society to continually pull back the curtains and burst the bubbles that protect such wild, unfounded beliefs and the reinforcement necessary for these ideas to persist.

In an education thread you talked about a certain amount of knowledge being necessary for informed civic engagement. I think unfounded belief can do more to squash quality engagement than ignorance of the process or even apathy.

[overthere]

That sounds devious at the very least, so my original point stands. If you understand that the religious viewpoint is not going to simply disappear, then you will start to appreciate it more when the rules of the religion soften and modernize a little.

Appreciate it? Appreciate what exactly?

I can appreciate that change is done to keep the faithful, faithful. A business decision, no more or less.

It is only admirable if you admire the institution.

I understand the human need for tribalism, fellowship, and the use of ritual in assuaging pain and grief.

It's the approach to it that offends, and the smug retreat to an act of faith when challenged.

[Shady]

What's the constant obsession over what Catholics believe?

[overthere]

I don't care what Catholics believe.

I am commenting on the actual role of the Papacy.

[Michael Hardner]

It is only admirable if you admire the institution.

What could they do that would be admirable to you ?

[Michael Hardner]

I found it interesting that comets used to illicit fear of a god's intentions and then last week science landed a spacecraft on one.

Interesting how ? As proof that science holds domain over our real understanding of the universe ?

People have generally been convinced of that for awhile. The Catholic church gave up trying to own that understanding too.

I think unfounded belief can do more to squash quality engagement than ignorance of the process or even apathy.

I don't see how. Quality engagement is ensured by the robustness of our open system of governance and of socialization. The separation of church and state and the pursuit of happiness were a couple of tenets of that system. Religion is less powerful today (fewer people consider themselves religious than a few generations ago) and engagement is also at a low ebb, so it doesn't seem to me that religion has as much impact as that.