The Vatican's E.T. Conference: Is the Pope More Pro-Science Than He Gets Credit For?
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Four hundred years after it put Galileo under house arrest for arguing that the sun, not the Earth, is the center of the universe, the Roman Catholic Church this week sponsored a conference on the search for extraterrestrial life. At a time when the relationship between Christianity and science has been widely portrayed as an adversarial one (think Bill Maher's Religulous or the recent God & Country debate on Darwin's Origin of Species) the conference reminds us that leading authorities from both camps—like the pope and the worlds' top astronomers—believe the two need not be in conflict.
And for all the attention Pope Benedict XVI has received for his outspoken traditionalism and social conservatism—he recently said that condom distribution in Africa could "aggravate" the continent's AIDS epidemic—the E.T. event is a reminder that Benedict is also trying to modernize the church by reconciling faith and reason. Earlier this year, he convened a conference to celebrate the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species.
With a recent poll finding that just 4 in 10 Americans believe in evolution, one might be tempted to ask who's more antiscience: the Vatican or the average American?
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Tags: Pope Benedict XVI | religion | Vatican
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Vatican Conference on Extra-terrestrial Life
Could you please tell us what happened at this conference? It was held over a week ago, and I've found nothing anywhere that could be called follow-up reporting. Given the unprecedented nature of this event, it would be tremendously helpful if we outsiders might be kept informed. Thanks.
The Vatican's E.T. Conference: Is the Pope More Pro-Science Than He Gets Credit For?
We tend to forget that the physicist Georges Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe. We also forget that Monsignor Georges Lemaître was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, honorary prelate, professor of physics and astronomer at the Catholic University of Leuven and an elected member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Lemaître himself described his theory as "the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation." It should not be surprising that the Church of the 20th and 21st century should embrace science otherwise it would be placing limitations on the Creator.
Say Chuck...
thanks for "stooping" - I often "stoop". I'll do so again.
First, let me say that I am sorry you had a bad experience at your grand-children's school. Although your assessment of my comments as B.S. leads me to suspect that you are prone to hyperbolic responses to those with whom you disagree.
Further, I infer that the B.S. you refer is the following statement;
"Today there is indeed a religious war being waged. But its origin springs from the intolerant religion of Dogmatic Science and Environmentalism - Which hold as their Genesis, the Big Bang of self creating or eternal matter and energy which, through the magic of astronomically unlikely coincidence, self organized, created a dimension of time and space, and later auto-animated. It should be noted that the "eternalness" of energy, matter physics and natural laws (nature) as a "first cause" is as mind boggling as an eternal, creative consciousness - outside of time."
Chuck, I am not anti-science - I qualified my comments by using the term "Dogmatic Science". In case you're wondering, and even if you're not, Dogmatic Science is generally science that is intolerant and imperious. Their intolerance is a defense mechanism - They feel the need to protect their self contained theories and protect the fragile foundation upon which they rest.
You were apparently unable to understand the point of the paragraph in question.
I will try and simplify it. There are only two choices with regard to the origin of the universe. Science proposes the "Big Bang" as the answer. However, one easily sees that it is no answer, and merely begs the question and does not address the issue at hand. Let's suppose you park your Ford at the mall. When you return you find a smoking hole and a fireman filling out a report. You rush to the fireman and ask, "What happened to my car?" Fireman responds, "A Big Bang." Are you satisfied with that explanation? Of course not, but you do accept it from scientists for the creation of the universe - but your missing Ford - no way.
So, the two choices are these; In the beginning there was pre-existing energy, matter. "Something" caused it to explode and in so doing, time, space, laws of physics, gravity came to be, and all self organized. Later parts of it auto animated - at odds of billions to one - all resulting in a perfectly balanced universe. Creation by eternal matter, energy. Followed by happy coincidence and trick of chance - no plan. Neat.
On the other hand you have an eternal, creative consciousness as the "first cause" of all the above.
So you can readily see that if you are a "dogmatic" scientist you must, of necessity, obscure and protect the flimsy foundation upon which you stand - for it is nothing more than faith in eternal mass, energy, coincidence and happenstance. This need to protect their foundation of unanswered questions often leads to attacking those who suggest the alternative.
God, evolution and the Big Bang are not incompatible.
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