If you want any solid proof that a Pope is as flawed, ignorant and uneducated as the rest of us, look no further than Benedict XVI. When he isn’t busy making controversial statements about Islam, he likes to take a breather by trying to dismantle Evolution by means of Natural Selection by perpetually pointing at dusty old tomes. His latest blunder comes care of an off collar remark asking: “[h]ow many of these people are there today? These people, fooled by atheism, believe and try to demonstrate that it’s scientific to think that everything is free of direction and order.†Ratzinger is not a complete fool; although he lacks any training and understanding of evolution, he knows enough to realize that it seriously undermines the role of his creator god, which therefore puts his cushy job in jeopardy.
For the Vatican, it’s a departure from John Paul II comments claiming that evolution was more than a theory, and was not incompatible with Christianity. In July, Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn said that the Jon Paul’s statements were “vague and unimportant”, and himself backed the notion that a designer must have been responsible for the complexity of the Universe.
I don’t know about you, but I’m personally sick and tired of priest, cardinals and popes (the vast majority of them having no scientific training whatsoever) telling every scientist that they are wrong the natural world. These are the same men that devote their entire lives to the study of the supernatural, which by definition can never be measured, or even properly understood. Never mind the fact that two Popes, who are supposed to be the infallible avatars of God, never seem to agree on anything; the simple fact is that their authority extends no further than their own secluded belief structure. The very act of trying to extend their sophisticated form of fantasizing to the natural world only demonstrates their own hubris. These people may have power and influence, but if those in power still determined the truth, we would never have escaped the hell of the Dark Ages.
Benedict XVI should go back to the one activity that does absolutely no harm: praying. Since it’s a well demonstrated fact that prayer has no effect whatsoever, at least he can stop meddling in affairs that don’t concern him. If someone wants to know how many angels, fairies, or dragons can fit on the end of a pin, then they can give him a call. Otherwise, for any questions concerning the real world, don’t have him on your speed dial.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I completely agree with you, but, just to play devil’s advocate (no pun intended) if priests that have no scientific training can’t comment on science, can scientists with no (priestlike) religious training comment on religion?
July 26th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
That’s a good question! I would argue that it all depends on what, exactly, this “scientists” would be commenting on. Good scientists usually try to stay out of the realm of the supernatural, and instead try to focus on the aspects of religion that are measurable, the same way that anything that obeys natural laws are. If a priests makes a claim that prayer has a real effect, a scientist can try and test that claim.
You have to remember that some religious people don’t just make claims about their own beliefs: they make statements about objective reality, and those CAN be tested. In that sense, a scientific person can comment on their findings, since they are, at least, interested in testing the validity of claims that are made.