General News Pope Francis Accepts Big Bang Theory and Evolution

This is great, this is one amazing man! And also I think no he's not ignoring the bible he's simply being open and looking at the facts I mean, we KNOW that people evolved, living things evolved. He's simply trying to explain to bothe scientific and religious community that they can go-exist something I admire. Also my church teacher happens to be a science teacher and has expressed his views on the bible openly, he also beleives in the theory of evolution. Thanks for sharing this with us.

 

Felt like he is just adapting with the times. Hard core idiots that takes the Bible literally is gaining less support from the public. It also makes more sense. If god is truly omnipresence, he is a being that transcend time and can anticipate the future, thus able to create beings that can adapt to changing environment as he anticipate, right? Saying that everything is just as it is since beginning without any changes at all simply goes against every evidences available.

 

Wow, this guy continues to shock me. At this rate, Catholicism might starting to sound tolerable to me. :0

 

Catholics don't interpret the bible like Protestants .their bible is also longer since it contains the apocrypha and has not been significantly textually changed since the council of Jerusalem( the kjv has had certain textual omissions and changes ). In Roman Catholicism the O T is interpreted figuratively and the N T for it's moral content as a teaching tool. The church is the final interpreter as it teaches that revelation has one common source, god , and two distinct modes of transmission : sacred scripture and scared tradition , and the final authority on these matters is the magisterium .
This makes the thread question, as it applies to the Catholic Church, difficult . What other Christian bodies think about the popes statements is their own internal dialogue. All the pope did was reinforce what pius xii did in his encyclical : humanis generis stating that there is no "intrinsic conflict between the theory of evolution and Christianity ....." This encyclical was published in 1950 . It also should be noted that both La Marck and Mendel were devout Catholics . The latter being a monk as well.

---------- Post added 31st Oct 2014 at 03:04 PM ----------

What people seem to be looking for from this pope is NOT going to happen . The essential tenets of the church regrading human sexuality , gender roles will not change and couldn't be altered as they are now by a pope . I find it interesting when people seem to still look for some sign of hope? from any major religious institution. Makes me go into long diatribes

 

I'm liking this guy more and more every day...

 

That's been their position for a while. This pope isn't more forward thinking than popes of old. He's just tries not to talk about the backwards stuff and has a slightly more "agree to disagree" approach. Don't worry the Catholic church is as backwards as it's ever been.

 

Nice. Doesn't mean the tea party or ukip will follow his footsteps, though.

 

I wasn't under the impression that ukip denied the Big Bang Theory and Evolution.

 

It's a positive development, but really, once we begin admitting that some parts of the Bible are only metaphorical, it does bring into question how much else is only metaphorical. Fundamentalists believe it is all literally true. A humanist like myself, sees it all as metaphor. He seems to be attempting to straddle a 'middle ground' between the two.

 

I agree... that line about 'hating' your mother and father means that, one ought to place spiritual life above temporal relationships based upon bodily considerations...obviously not to actually hate the people who brought you into the world. A lot of what Jesus says is in metaphor...he taught in parables, which are metaphors...
I'm not a Christian but my gut feeling is that Jesus was actually a radical spiritual guy who over time got subsumed into the prevailing organized religious structures of his time...and that whoever he was, if he actually existed at all, it is pretty clear that the Vatican pretty much stands for most of what he railed against.

 

What if God's method of creation was the big bang? That seems like some sort of act of a deity.

 

That's a very narrow view of Protestantism, especially the European branches. There are plenty of cultural differences, a lot of denominations and some level of ideological and theological diversity inside individual denominations, especially the large ones such as the RCC.


On another note, I always find it funny when people act as if the Pope accepting views that went mainstream more than thirty years ago is revolutionary.

 

I don't think it's revolutionary. I am not Catholic, but from what I understand it was permissible for Catholics to believe Creation originated with the Big Bang (and even believe in evolution), so long as they are seen as tools of God.

 

Hopefully the next step is them finally realizing that this "young earth creationism" crap is just that.

 

To clarify, at this point I'm talking about Christianity in general, not Protestantism. I'm not so uneducated to think that the RCC is Protestant. :lol:

 

smh.