Vatican: Yeah, about that intelligent design business....

The official Catholic teaching has been that God caused Evolution for quite some time.

See, if I was inclined to believe in God then I could get behind that line of thinking. The problem I run into most with Christians is this almost arrogant need to personify Him - taking the "in His Image" thing way too literally. Although I do live in South and it's really hard to find anyone who can balance religion and rationality to any degree.

There was a special on Nova last night about a trial in Dover, CO that proved that Intelligent Design is the exact same thing as Creationism.

Basically, a school district was trying to get books put in the library that taught "intellignet design". They claimed it was a valid science and seperate from the religous basis of creationism. The lawyers on the case found a creationist catalog in the books that were delivered to the school so they requested any revisions of the text to see if the book had been altered before delivery. The publisher sent them the original texts and revisions which revelead that earlier additions of the book had the word "creationism" in place of "intelligent design". Since religious groups argue that creationism is separate from intelligent design, they were fucked.

Problem is they were so retarded in trying to hide this fact that when they made the revisions they just changed the word "creationism" to the phrase "intellignet design". They must have been in a hurry because they couldn't even do it correctly. There was an error in the book that when examined looked something like this:

Original text:

creationism

Revised text:

cdesign proponentsism

The rest of the sentence was exactly the same, except whoever made the changes was not very good with Microsoft Word.

It was a two hour special which basically amounted to a bitch slap to anyone that thinks intelligent design is a true science. The judge who ruled against teaching intelligent design was also a hardcore Christian republican.

I've yet to hear any credible religious/intelligent design argument that takes into account the existence of dinosaurs.

Gods true Truth about Dinosaurs...

No, those were just Sleestaks. Those I can buy, but not dinosaurs.

I went to Catholic school during the 80's and evolution was certainly taught as part of the curriculum.

Christians always want credit for shit they supposed to do. "I believe in evolution!" You supposed to believe in evolution you science-rejecting muthafucka! What, you want a cookie?!?

Ooh, we're coming very close to Jesus on a dinosaur. Awesome!

Do the fundies even look to the Pope as the voice of God here on Earth? I thought they were several points removed from that and as such, won't care about those filthy, liberal Vati-crats fucking up their business?

Bill Hicks, etc.

Fundies think the Catholics are going to hell anyway. To Baptists and Evangelicals Catholics are "followers of the Pope" and thus idolers and not true Christians. Seriosuly, been told that to my face a few times.

I'm a hardcore atheist but it always bugs me when Catholics get lumped into the Christian category. I guess I still have a soft spot for them.

Saint Augustine didn't believe in a literal interpretation of the Creation Story, and the Church has accepted evolution for quite some time. Heck, once more, remember one of the first people to propose (if not the first) the idea of the Big Bang theory was a Jesuit priest.

Psst! I was paraphrasing Chris Rock. I was only kidding around.

From what I gather, "intelligent design" means that an unfathomable being created reality, therefore reality is unfathomable. It seems to make the argument that the world is too big to understand, so we should stop trying to understand it.

In other words, "shut up and put your money in the collection plate."

I was going to pop in here and say that Catholics have believed in evolution for a while, but I see that I was beaten to the punch. As long as it's not taken too seriously, Catholics aren't much like most other Christians. Heck, there are even a large chunk of us who voted for Obama.

I once spent a holiday dinner arguing with a Catholic who, it eventually turned out, didn't even realize it was taught in Catholic schools.

And I was going to come in here and casually mention that you can't spell "papal-backed" without "back-pedal", but I guess now I'll just.... do it anyway.

I take care of my kids!

I guess currently, yeah. "Intelligent design" has been the word of choice for American evangelicals trying to ingratiate their brand of creationism to the mainstream. I guess it's working, what with half the country buying it and all.

BUT, the way "intelligent design" was taught to me in Catholic School was more along the lines of stuff posited by Aquinas aping Aristotle. I don't buy it these days, but the mainstream Catholic education system that I went through didn't really encourage the sort of scientific ignorance that you're suggesting. The party line while John Paul II was alive regarding science was basically that it was a tool that humanity uses to better understand God and His creation.

I don't buy it these days, but I'd rather that the religious among us subscribe to that than what they do now.

The whole concept seems like the work of paranoid schizophrenics, to me. It's the same kind of mentality that leads people to wear tinfoil hats and eat only canned food. It's like seeing a mountain for the first time, wondering how it was created and concluding that "someone must have put it there." For creationists, life is one elaborate plot devised by an invisible mastermind whose existence is — conveniently — unprovable.

What I've never understood is this: even assuming there was a god who wrote the laws of nature, where does not being allowed to eat pork or masturbate come into it? Even if the true believers could prove beyond a doubt that ID is accurate, why should I believe their bible stories? Maybe this creationist god of theirs would be completely baffled by their theology.

You're forgetting the neediness for praise and constant affirmation that God requires.

"If you truly love me and support what I've done, you'll stop abusing yourself and talk about me!"

"Huh, that's no prize pig -- look at the lemurs I've made!"

I think God's father must've been too busy at work to play and build up the self-confidence of his kid.

I was at a church event recently where a minister asked the group "Isn't it wonderful that God gave us so many different ways that we can worship and praise him?" I wanted to puke.

Yeah, what an intolerant minister. He should have preached about the one and only true way to do so! What was he thinking?!?!?!

Creation theory is unbiblical, but that a whole other can of worms.

Even the word in Gen Yom mean to be hot or age. It is used for day, but it is also used for other things. In the book of petter even say that Yom is not a day but thousands of years, or an age.

That not even going in to the Land of Nod, his wifes people, people wanting to kill Cain for murdering his brother, and the city of Enoch

The problem with this whole debate, be it creatonism vs. evolution or believers vs. non-believers in general, is that both sides have no idea what they're talking about, and do not particularly care. It's fun to watch for a while, but ultimately frustrating.

Yes! A fucking jihad on him!

He was beaming over the "many" ways for everyone to think and behave the exact same way. I'm not sure that counts as "tolerance," and he most certainly wasn't referring to other religions ... just the behaviors of his own Baptist congregation.

It's like professing your love of democracy because of all the ways you are able to vote for one specific party.

hehehehehehehehehehe

That's brilliant, Nordling.

Tea and cake or death, tea and cake or death...

"little red cookbook! little red cookbook!"

We’re gonna run out of cake at this rate...

We only brought three bits... we didn't expect such a rush!

What, so my choice is 'or death'?

I watched that Nova special online and LOVED every moment of it!