11/29/2005
"There has always been some conflict between science and religion. One famous example was when Galileo Galilei, by supporting the Copernican notion of the Earth orbiting the sun, was placed under house arrest by the Catholic Church. A more recent example has been seen in American classrooms -- when the religious concept of intelligent design was suggested as a viable alternative theory to be taught alongside Darwinian evolution, it left the scientific community up in arms." Read full article.
Replies: 2 Comments
Posted by shiva das @ 11/29/2005 02:37 PM PST
That priest said:
The trouble is that some people think they can use science to prove God. And that puts science ahead of God; that makes science more powerful than God. That's bad theology.
That is clearly an attempt at denigrating scientists who believe that science can reveal God. If I believe that by using science that I can prove the necessity of an intelligent designer to account for living things that does not put "science ahead of God". It has nothing to do with theology. It uses science to gain an understanding of the natural world which is incomplete without the inclusion of God.
There are numerous catholic priest scientists who all tow the part line on this topic. Interestingly they support evolution not only of the origin and diversification of species but also they believe in the evolution of the universe.
George Coyne the head of the Vatican Observatory preaches this message in colleges around the world. He and many other catholic preist scientists teach that God set in motion the laws of nature and that then God had nothing more to do with it. Coyne teaches that the universe evolved without any direction from God, and that life came into existence without God, and that life evolved without God doing anything. Coyne has written that he doesn’t believe that God is omniscient. He has said "God is not a source of knowledge". He also said "It was inevitable for the human brain to come to be due to increasing natural complexity”.
That is his basic idea. Increasing natural complexity caused everything to come into existence. He has said "Does God know human life will come to be before it evolved? No".
God to Coyne and these other priests is some kind of loving force, they are essentially impersonalists. They have as their guru Teilhard de Chardin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point
Teilhard De Chardin was a priest paleontologist who spent his life trying to prove evolution and searching for the “missing link” between ape and man. He was infamously involved with two famous missing link frauds (piltdown man and peking man).
I believe that these priests are non believing catholics who are trying to use the catholic church to push a new religious philosophy because catholic doctrine is defective and they know it. Malachi Martin a deceased former leading member of the catholic church wrote books and gave talks on his beliefs that there is an underground in high places in the catholic church who are not believing catholics and want to change cathlolicism into something else which he called "satanic". Not in the devil worship meaning but in the mayavadi meaning.
The basic problem with cathloic theology is the question of the disparity between peoples lives on earth and the question of so called evil.
Without reincarnation if you postulate a personal God who is involved with his creation, then there is no philosophically sound justifiable basis for the disparity found between people lives. Some are born rich and healthy, others poor and sick. some people are born in happy circumstances and others are born into misery.
So if God is involved with humanity and his creation why is there suffering? And why is there a disparity in the way God treats people?
The catholic theologian Hans Kung wrote a book where he compared catholic theology and the theology of the major faiths of the world. For hinduism he chose the teachings of Sri Ramanujacarya. His conclusion was that of all religions Ramanujacaryas religion was by far the closest to catholic theology. He also admitted that hinduism is a superior philosophy when it comes to explaining the disparity in peoples lives we see around us. He conceded that reincarnation was a superior philosophy to what the catholics believe.
But since reincarnation goes against catholic dogma too much they cannot incorporate it into their theology. So many preists and theologians have turned to a type of mayavadi philosophy and they have also borrowed from the western occult traditions to a degree in the formulation of their new beliefs. And in fact Teilhard De Chardin has created a new theology which is believed in to varying degrees by various catholic priests.
“A Symposium sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation
Chaired by Martin J. Rees Council Chamber Pontifical Academy of Sciences The Vatican Rome, Italy(7, 8, and 9 November 2000)
The meeting is supported in full by the John Templeton Foundation. The organizers are: John Barrow, George V. Coyne, George Ellis, Michael Heller, Martin J. Rees.
A provisional agenda in four headings:
1. Physics of the universe: scenarios for the long-range future:
(A) Towards asymptopia: evolution of cosmic structure, death of stars, decay of atoms, formation and evaporation of black holes, behaviour near cosmological singularities, etc. What would an eternal cosmos be like at each era between the present and the final ‘omega point’? ”
So I believe what we are seeing with catholic priest scientists and billionaire spiritual foundations like the Templeton Foundation (they openly admit to funding anti Intelligent Design scientists to publish demagogic criticisms-see http://www.templeton.org/topics_in_the_news/Official_Statement.asp ) is an organized attack on Intelligent Design because it subverts with scientific credibility their plan to convert people to their theological positions on God, man, and destiny.Posted by Subal Krsna das @ 11/29/2005 01:27 PM PST
Two things struck my about Bro. Consolmagno's interview here:
1. his non-controlling attitude towards physical knowledge, &
2. his mentioning that "God so loved the world..." justifies investigation of it.
It's a bit sad though that he thinks science can't prove God. According to Srila Prabhupada, science is meant for that!
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