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The Independent reports that Pope Francis, speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, has declared that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real.
“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” said Francis.
“He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment."
Francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator – arguing instead that they “require it”.
“The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it. Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”
Experts say the Pope's comments put an end to the “pseudo theories” of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI who spoke out against taking Darwin too far.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Wednesday October 29 2014, @06:46PM
Well, there are many ways to confuse this issue, but I'll say that the large amount of airy-fairy bullshit around matters of spirituality has almost no bearing on a serious scientific consideration of the matter of whether such a spiritual/beyond world exists. The fact is that subjective spiritual/mystical experience is a real phenomenon, and by that I mean death-like experiences where one merges in with some infinite love/energy/source whatever; it's varied and that's a very thin slice of it (there's lots of other types), but those experiences most certainly exist and appear to be available to humans. In fact there's reasonable evidence that we have this kind of circuitry built in, which may be activated at special times (like actual death).
We can talk about the mechanics of (genuine) spiritual experience (or non-genuine/made-up for the purposes of "religious/spiritual business", but that's interesting in a different way), we can speculate about it being a mental illness, a figment of imagination, a glimpse of something real, and so on, but anyone who claims to have objective scientific proof of the ontology of these things is either ignorant or pushing an agenda (for instance wanting to "disprove" once and for all to the airy-fairy types that there is no beyond, or wanting to "prove" to the rational scientific types that there is). The amount of zealotry is extremely high on this issue in both camps. The belief that a seemingly inaccessible spiritual world is illogical is a very feeble proof to hold on to; the fact that the world itself exists seems highly improbable and illogical, especially given that no one even knows how it came into being in the first place, but that doesn't disprove it being here.
There really is a lot less science in this than people are led to believe. In most cases, beliefs about the ontology of spirituality are more like mass-cultural artefacts than anything concrete. The question is truly not within our grasp, we don't even understand our own bodies (i.e. the stuff that lets us perceive our slice of reality in the first place), whether God/Gods/spirits are "real" is way out of our league. The true and honest scientific take on this question is "at present unknowable". Everything else is belief (which is not necessarily a bad thing, we can't live without it).
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