Pope agrees evolution happens. 'Intelligent design' looking more and more silly?

Question

Yes, the top Christian has pulled the rug on intelligent design. Even he agrees creationism is all a load of hogwash.

The Pope has made the comments in a new book titled Creation and Evolution.

The Pope has not endorsed the religion-based theory 'intelligent design' which has been criticised for being another version of Creationism.

Those who believe in creationism are feeling very foolish now.

Answer 1

if the pope really said that then i love the pope. good on him for speaking out against the stupidity of creationism.

Answer 2

I do not know what he said, I guess between the Imus and Anna Nicole Smith wall to wall coverage I missed this.

But you need to expand your knowledge a bit. Those promoting intelligent design are generally part of the Evangelical movement, meaning they are Protestants, many of whom do not believe Catholics are real Christians. So to them the fact that Pope disagrees with them (according to you, since I haven't read what you say the Pope said) only enforces Intelligent Design and Creationism. Catholics and Evangelicals only agree on Abortion.

PERSONALLY, I fail to understand how science and religion are mutually exclusive. For me, the more I learn the more about what science has discovered just proves there is a God. Our world was so perfectly conceived, how can it be an accident?



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Answer 3

PaulCyp has explained it well. It should be added that the Pope did this in 1950 before 'intelligent design' was thought up. Clearly fundamentalists and other new religious sects didn't listen to him then, and they won't listen to the Pope now.
The current pope does, I believe, use the phrase 'intelligent design' in the sense of the Bible, namely that an intelligent person looking at the universe sees the evidence for the existence of God in the glories of creation.

Answer 4

The Pope neither endorses nor rejects any scientific theory. He simply has correctly stated that biological evolution is a matter of science, and that the scientific evidence may be weighed on its own merits. This however is subject to the unchanging teaching of the Catholic Church that (1) if evolution occurs, it is ultimately an act of God, like all natural processes, since God designed and brought into being all that exists; and (2) that man could not have come into existence by evolution alone since evolution is a natural process, and can account only for natural characteristics of organisms. Man however has a spiritual nature in addition to a biological nature, and the spiritual nature of man, and therefore man himself, came into existence by a direct act of God. The Pope has not said anything contrary to this essential teaching of the Catholic Church.
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Answer 5

I did not read the article you cited nor did you give the website for it. But below is a clear distinction between what Intelligent Design theory is about and what Creationism is about. They are not the same at all.

In point 2 of the article I cite below:
Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago.

Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. Instead, intelligent design theory is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature observed by biologists is genuine design (the product of an organizing intelligence) or is simply the product of chance and mechanical natural laws. This effort to detect design in nature is being adopted by a growing number of biologists, biochemists, physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers of science at American colleges and universities"

As a Christian I believe the Genesis account but I know the science of microevolution explains the differences in the species which is Biblically supported in scripture.

Macroevolution however where the diversity of life came from one starting point is in my opnion scientifically unsupported for many years with missing links. The lack of evidence has given rise to other sources to explain the diversity of life. One of them is the Intelligent Design science.

Indeed the cofounder of evolution Alfred Wallace subscribed to an Intelligence at work in creation. That is in the second site posted below.

Answer 6

go pope i don't listen to the pope but go pope! creationism is absolutely silly when you look at all the evidence evolution has while creationism has well words. i feel sorry for people who believe in creationism you don't have to loose your faith to accept the theory of evolution . Oh and by the way everything is a theory even that we even exist . so saying it is just a theory is bullshit . Why can't we believe that good set the big bang into place and then had his little plan work out over a few billion years what can i say god likes to take to take it slow

Answer 7

I hate to burst your bubble but the pope is not the top Christian. In fact Catholics are not Christians at all. Calling a Catholic Christian is like calling a Muslim or a Mormon Christian. All 3 believe in Jesus, Mary, and the Prophets. They all even share a lot of the same stories, but believing that Jesus, Mary, and the Prophets lived does not make anyone a Christian. Catholics pray to Mary and the Saints which is blasphemy.They do not believe that Jesus is the son of God. They do not believe that Jesus can forgive their sins. That is why they do works and and ask men for forgiveness of their sins. They worship idols and graven images. You may say that these images are of Jesus and angels but the Bible clearly states not to make any image of things in Heaven. They sing homage to Lucifer and have been recorded doing so. Lastly the pope considers himself to be god on this earth. So no their not Christians, they are Anti-Christ.

Answer 8

As many will say, Intelligent Design and Evolution are not necessarily opposites. Indeed, the process by which God developed and created this world and it's inhabitants may very well have been evolutionary.

Remember that many of the world's greatest hospitals and universities were founded by religious institutions. It's unfortunate that a small vocal minority in the Christian community taint the rest.

Answer 9

OK....Your viewpoint is waay off. I'll try and explain this as simply as possible. The Catholic Church has been saying for years that yes, evolution is a plausible idea. How we differ though, is that we say that God had to be behind it; that He was the one that started it. It was His idea, and as humans, we give Him the credit. Does that make sense?? Catholics are some of the Christians that you don't have to worry about extreme creationism with. The main idea is that God is in charge of and behind it, nothing else. So evolution is really no problem. What I want to know is why it took you so long to get on the bandwagon and figure that out!!!!!

Answer 10

So what? The pope is just a man. He is not God and doesn't decide what is what. And he certainly does not decide what I believe! I am not Catholic, I'm Christian! Creation one of the main foundations of the Bible, so if the pope says he does not believe in Creation, he just pulled his own foundation out from under himself. He will crumble, but those who stand on God's Word will prevail!

Answer 11

If that were true, then the Pope is not only deluding himself, but he is deluding every Catholic. Also if that were true, they need to elect someone else to lead the Catholic Church. Besides, with people calling him father, they are sinning, because the Bible specifically says that you are to call no one father accept God.