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Vatican Official Refutes Intelligent Design

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that "intelligent design" isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States.

The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.

"Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science."

His comments were in line with his previous statements on "intelligent design" — whose supporters hold that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.

Proponents of intelligent design are seeking to get public schools in the United States to teach it as part of the science curriculum. Critics say intelligent design is merely creationism — a literal reading of the Bible's story of creation — camouflaged in scientific language, and they say it does not belong in science curriculum.

In a June article in the British Catholic magazine The Tablet, Coyne reaffirmed God's role in creation, but said science explains the history of the universe.

"If they respect the results of modern science, and indeed the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly."

Rather, he argued, God should be seen more as an encouraging parent.

"God in his infinite freedom continuously creates a world that reflects that freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and greater complexity," he wrote. "He is not continually intervening, but rather allows, participates, loves."

The Vatican Observatory, which Coyne heads, is one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world. It is based in the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome.

Last week,
Pope Benedict XVI waded indirectly into the evolution debate by saying the universe was made by an "intelligent project" and criticizing those who in the name of science say its creation was without direction or order.

Questions about the Vatican's position on evolution were raised in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn.

In a New York Times column, Schoenborn seemed to back intelligent design and dismissed a 1996 statement by
Pope John Paul II that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis." Schoenborn said the late pope's statement was "rather vague and unimportant."

The Vatican has an astronomer?

It's next door to the Holy Astrologer's office

They have their own stamps, so why not an astronomer? Probably their own milkmen too.

The conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote about the intelligent design thing in his column today.

1. Kurtz- I'll bet that was your family named before great grandpappy shortened it, no?

2. That was a very good article. I'd appreciate it a whole bunch if this bullshit just went away now. It really is degrading to religion.

I just wanted to point out that Einstein was not religious. Not a big deal I guess, but yeah.

I was pretty sure he was, though. You sure?

Einstein wrote the following in a letter a year before he died.

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

I dunno, ironic that this guy is a writer, my family are builders, yet he gets to keep the -hammer at the end?

Actually, he can keep it. Krauth is a bad enough last name to have.

Well, Nobelprize.org's bio doesn't mention religion, but it DOES mention he married his cousin. Holy shit.

I read this too. Not religious at all.

Even worse, he was a Jew.

Were this a properly organized society, we would handle those who dare to bring religion into the classrom like the Saudis:

Saudi Teacher Sentenced to 750 Lashes
By TAREK AL-ISSAWI
Associated Press Writer

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A Saudi high-school chemistry teacher accused of discussing religion with his students has been sentenced to 750 lashes and 40 months in prison for blasphemy, officials said Thursday.

The court ruling was condemned by human rights activists, who said Mohammed Salamah al-Harbi was being imprisoned for having an "open discussion" with students.

Al-Harbi was convicted of questioning and ridiculing Islam, discussing the Bible and defending Jews, judicial officials said Thursday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Prosecutors acted after a complaint by students and al-Harbi's fellow teachers, officials said. The court in the northern province of al-Qassim heard the case Saturday in a six-hour trial.

Al-Harbi was in prison Thursday, but the Saudi newspaper Al-Madinah reported him as saying he would appeal the verdict.

"There are charges that the judge read which are unknown to me, such as defending Jews and the Bible, ridiculing Islam and witchcraft. It's strange that the judge ruled so quickly and wanted to end the case so fast," al-Harbi was quoted as saying.

His lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, refused to talk to The Associated Press because of the sensitivity of the case, but he was quoted as telling Al-Madinah the judge refused his request to postpone the trial to allow time for a proper defense.

"The judge's refusal to read a statement by witnesses is a violation of the defendant's rights," al-Lahem was quoted as saying in Sunday's edition.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said al-Harbi had been "talking to his pupils about his views on a number of current topics, such as Christianity, Judaism and the causes of terrorism."

"The Saudi government is imprisoning schoolteachers for having open discussions with their students," said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group's Middle East director said in a statement Thursday. "As long as schoolteachers face persecution for doing their job, Saudi children will lose out."

Al-Harbi's sentence likely will be seen as a setback to Saudi moves to reform its education system. Following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, the government altered the school curriculum to remove passages from textbooks that were offensive to Christians and Jews in an attempt to encourage moderation and tolerance.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in those attacks were Saudis. Local intellectuals and newspaper columnists said the strict Islamic tenets followed in schools and mosques could have played a role in fostering Islamic militancy.

I think he believed in a 'God' but not an interventionist one or anything, and didnt belong to any particular religion - Ill see if i can find the quote im looking for

It isnt the Catholics calling for ID introduction in the US right, its the Presbyterians and all? The Catholic church hasn't questioned the validity of evolution for a long while now.

They just spend their thime discouraging condoms instead.

<---- lapsed Catholic

<-------------- lapsed fornicator

Albert Einstein to Max Born1

Translated by Irene Born Newton-John
Commentary by Max Born [1882–1970]1

Hedi [Born, Max's wife] had sent her play, A Child of America, to Einstein, asking his opinion.2 Einstein's son-in-law, who had married the eldest of his stepdaughters, Ilse, was the then well-known and respected author and critic, Rudolf Kayser.

4 December 1926

Dear Born,

You will have to be a little patient. My son-in-law is certain to read the play, and I will write to you. But the poor man has to economize with his strength, as his heart is in poor condition. I have reminded him again to give an opinion on the play as soon as possible. I liked the beginning of the play very much, and I think its impact will not be lost on him.

Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "Old One." I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice. Waves in three-dimensional space whose velocity is regulated by potential energy (for example, rubber bands) . . . I am working very hard at deducing the equations of motion of material points regarded as singularities, given the differential equation of general relativity.

With best wishes,

Yours,
A. Einstein

Einstein's verdict on quantum mechanics came as a hard blow to me. He rejected it not for any definite reason, but rather by referring to an "inner voice." This rejection plays an important part in later letters. It was based on a basic difference of philosophical attitude, which separated Einstein from the younger generation to which I felt that I belonged, although I was only a few years younger than Einstein.

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
Albert Einstein, "The World as I See It"

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann, Princeton University Press.
"I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet."
letter, 1954

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism..."

"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."

"The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenatrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself amoung profoundly religious men."

there are more here:http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/einstein.htm

I'm as big a separation proponent as anyone here, but I hope to God there's some irony hidden in that statement.

Yeah, I actually fucking hate the Saudis. Fuck Afghanistan and Iraq---those people should deserve "the mother of all beatdowns"

*spits*

quote of the day.