Schönborn again
Jul. 13th, 2005 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Orac has another take on Cardinal Schönborn's evolution op-ed: he thinks that this is an attempt to sway church policy on the part of one or a few Intelligent Design-movement-influenced cardinals, but one that he doubts will succeed in, say, getting ID taught in Catholic schools, which have typically done better at teaching evolution in biology classes than American public schools do. I do hope he's right.
(I say "typically": I vaguely recall a former student of one Ontario Catholic school telling me that, a few decades ago when he was there, the nuns there never got the memo about faith being compatible with Darwin.)
(I say "typically": I vaguely recall a former student of one Ontario Catholic school telling me that, a few decades ago when he was there, the nuns there never got the memo about faith being compatible with Darwin.)
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Date: 2005-07-13 07:48 pm (UTC)The Catholic Church is, not to belabor the obvious, a church. To say that they believe in Intelligent Design is like saying that Einstein believes in relativity or something. This Cardinal may have gone a bit overboard in his enthusiasm, but obviously the Church figures that a faithful Catholic will take away from evolution the idea that humans are the pinnacle of evolution, ergo that the whole point of the process was to make humans, ie, Intelligent Design.
This is as far as you're going to get any church to go, ever. Trying to get the faithful to go farther is idiotic, ignorant, and counterproductive. I'm still trying to figure out why this is controversial, and I still haven't been able to come up with an answer.
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Date: 2005-07-13 08:04 pm (UTC)Of course the church has the right to teach any damn thing it believes, and my arguing with them on points of theology is like adherents of Euclid and Lobachevsky arguing whose postulates are better, a pretty pointless activity. But their educational system has some reputation for quality beyond the church, and if that's going to change it would be interesting to know it. I suspect and hope that Orac's right and this is not going to happen.
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Date: 2005-07-13 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-14 07:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-14 09:01 am (UTC)They covered Schonborn Tuesday here (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4749724) on NPR's west-coast show Day to Day, the midday show that can't easily be distinguished from Slate Magazine because of all the material they trade. But this one is an interview with a Georgetown theology prof, not a navelgazing thumbsucker.
[Links don't go direct to audio]