Does anyone else feel that the pope made himself look like a HUGE hypocrite today?

Question

Benedict XVI, in his first extended reflections on evolution published as pope, says that Darwin's theory cannot be finally proven and that science has unnecessarily narrowed humanity's view of creation....Yet his ENTIRE life is based on a theory that can NEVER be proven, GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps instead of pointing out the "faults" in evolutionary theory, he should himself be trying to solve the HUGE "faults" in the God theory....at least he is educated about God.

Answer 1

You present a quality and awakening question. As you know, the Catholics are always turning their backs on truths. Case in point, the Catholics say the present pope was not a Nazi, even though he was. The abuse and hypocritical ways of the Catholic Church was even evident during World War II. This is an article from Yahoo News. The Catholics boycott to punish the truths. This is truly hypocritical. Pot calling the kettle black? Rather than face the truth, Catholics become an immitation of an ostrich, hiding their heads in the sand.

(From Yahoo News)
The Vatican ambassador to Israel threatened on Thursday to boycott a Holocaust memorial ceremony next week over a museum's portrayal of Pope Pius XII's conduct during the Nazis' killing of Jews in World War Two.

Archbishop Antonio Franco said he had written to the director of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum asking for the revision of a caption suggesting the wartime Pope had been apathetic to the Jews' plight.

The caption, quoted in the Israeli press, says Pope Pius XII "abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews" and "maintained his neutral position throughout the war."

Archbishop Franco said that in his letter he advised the Holocaust museum he "would not feel comfortable going to Yad Vashem" unless the wording was amended or the photo removed.

The photo appears in a new part of the museum that was opened in 2005. Yad Vashem hosts Israel's annual state ceremony to mark Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, which will take place on Sunday.

Archbishop Franco said he had not received an answer from the museum, which hosts foreign ambassadors at the event.

Defenders of Pope Pius XII have said he did everything possible to help Jews, while critics have portrayed him as an anti-Semite and Germanophile whose views were formed while working in Germany before his election as Pope in 1939.

Yad Vashem, which contains the largest archive of data on the Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed, said in a statement it had told the Vatican's representative "it was willing to continue examining the issue."

In its statement, Yad Vashem said it would welcome the opportunity to study the Vatican's archives relating to Pope Pius XII "to possibly learn new and different information" about him.

Historians have called on the Vatican to fully open archives for the papacy of Pius XII, which ended in 1958.

Answer 2

the Pope was not pointing out 'faults' in evolutionary theory, he was discussing the limits of science, faith, and philosophy.
A common example of a mistake in this area is your line 'his entire life is based on a theory that can NEVER be proven, God'. You probably mean 'proven by the scientific method', but there is nothing in the scientific method that says 'all reality is contained in what the scientific method can prove'. To say that would be to say something that is not a scientific statement, but rather philosophical. I would not accuse you of being a hypocrite, but I have never met anyone who lives only and always according to the scientific method (in any case, mathematics has its incompleteness theorem that says that mathematics itself cannot prove everything that pertains to itself). Perhaps Spock tried, but to that extent he was not human. Pascal said 'the heart has its reasons that reason does not know', and in my experience every human has moments when they realize the importance of that statement.

Answer 3

The Vatican isn't real good about understanding science--it took them 400 years to finally get arounding to accepting Galileo.

As for the "God theory" that's a matter of philosophy--and not a question that can be answered by science--either way. Where Benedict is making a mistake is not hypocrisy--its that he doesn't realize that science deals only with PROCESS--what happened and how does it work. It does not say anything--one way or the other--about ultimate causes.. On the other hand--scientists who claim that science "disproves" religion are equally wrong--for the same reason--its not the kind of question science can deal with.

Answer 4

Actually I think the Pope is demonstrating the fact that he doesn't do the job that God calls a leader of the church to do. The Pope should be saying that the theory of evolution is nonsense and that God created everything to reproduce after it's own kind. Instead the Pope is straddling the fence just like he does when he doesn't tell people from other religions that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no one can be saved apart from faith in Christ. Instead the Pope panders to religions like Islam by saying that since they believe in God then that's OK. But what does the Bible say about that?

James 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

Acts 4:10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. 11 This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. 12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Now the Pope is pandering to people by straddling the fence on an unproved theory that denies the teachings found in the Bible.

Answer 5

Well,darwin was kind of a fraud. He took all the known evidence that species evolve and used it to support a theory that has no scientific basis whatsoever - namely,that one species can evolve into another. There is no evidence for this whatsoever,and it's quite a leap from simply stating that species do evolve. Basically,it was a kind of sleight-of-hand-maneuver,which I'm sure is what the Pope was referring to. Everybody thinks there is evidence for "evolution" - well,what kind? That species evolve (of course) or that one species evolves into another - no evidence for that at all. What's hypocritical? You just aren't taking in the distinction.

Answer 6

It is written in the Word to cast down any imagination that exalts itself above the knowledge of God.

So, an obedient Christian will cast down theories that contradict with the written Word of God. There are obviouse faults with the theory of evolution, so the Pope was just being an honest Christian.

A hypocrite would say that man evolved from a monkey man because science is smarter than God.

God isn't a theory. God Is.

Answer 7

Mr Ratzinger (aka The Pope) is a careerist conman, he is pushing a totally unsubstantiated claim that should be completely ignored, his global ambitions to subvert politics for his own power should be curtailed as much as possible.

Answer 8

Until evolution can be proved it is a theory. and that is what the pope said. Some don't accept evolution as the end all for creation. Just as some don't agree that religion exist.Religion exists in many peoples mind and hearts.

Answer 9

I don't think he specifically looked like a bigger hypocrite today than he did yesterday.

Popes are hypocrites by definition. They are the ruler of their own theocracy, Vatican City. It is the least democratic country on our planet, and it even has political influence. It doesn't get much more hypocritical than that.

Answer 10

Can any pope there is from here on out compare to John Paul II? I mean, Benedict has done only one thing in his reign, alienate more Catholics from the church.