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Pope says science can unite humans with God

This will set the atheists off.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI told scientists that their research can lead to knowledge of God by revealing the natural order of the universe.

The pope made his remarks on Thursday (Oct. 28) before a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican.

The evident logic governing the universe "leads us to admit the existence of an all-powerful Reason, which is other than that of man, and which sustains the world," Benedict said.

"This is the meeting point between the natural sciences and religion," the pope said. "As a result, science becomes a place of dialogue, a meeting between man and nature and, potentially, even between man and his Creator."

The academy is a group of 80 eminent scientists, including more than two dozen Nobel laureates, who promote research into natural science and related philosophical issues. Membership is without regard to religious affiliation.

Related link: Pope says science can unite humans with God ~ The Christian Century

Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Sorry, LRO, derogatory comments of that nature against the Pope will be deleted. Try again.

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  3. Shame I don't know which bits you consider to be derogatory. I thought the description was quite apt.

    This will set the atheists off.

    yep, set me off alright,in to a fit of laughter and wondering just how dumber the pope can become.

    I'd like to see the pope point out examples of "The evident logic governing the universe ...", and even if he can, how that inevitably leads to "...the existence of an all-powerful Reason...". I thought you catholics believed in god, not Reason.

    Science does not need the pope to tell us it is "a place of dialogue", we already knew that. Someone should remind the pope that it is dialogue that separates science and reason from the pedagoguery of the church.

    Can the pope point to any advances in science that have come about as a direct result of religious belief? There are certainly numerous examples of scientific advances being held up or opposed by religion.

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  4. LRO,

    The Pope could become quite alot dumber than he is now and still be smarter than most people in the world, including you and me.

    The thing is, I understand what he's saying, yet you seem to have missed it completely. That all-powerful Reason is God. The natural order of the universe points to His existence. Therefore, advances in science could increase our knowledge of Him.

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  5. Lucia, I understand what the pope is saying, but not his logic.

    Where is the evidence of the "logic governing the universe ..."?

    And even if such logic were proven, its is still another giant leap of faith to posit that is god.

    Even your own comment above is completly circular, it proves nothing except thsoe wedded to faith are incapable of logical thoughts.

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  6. Can the pope point to any advances in science that have come about as a direct result of religious belief?

    Part of me says "you're kidding, right?" I can only assume you are sincere in thinking that religion had nothing to do with scientific advance, in spite of the religious roots of modern science.

    On the other hand, things like the principles behind AC electricity or genetics were discovered by religious people (Faraday's church was so fundamentalist it didn't even allow men and women to share the Lord's Table) which is arguably different to "from religious belief".

    However, if you want a direct example, Matthew Fontaine Maury mapped ocean currents as a direct result of reading Psalm 8 which talks about the "paths of the sea".

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  7. Of course, I'm assuming that you would exclude Darwin who came to formulate his theory of evolution thanks to his belief that there was no god.

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  8. Another one incapable of understanding a question.

    It's an incredibly simple question.

    How does religious belief lead to scientific discoveries?

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  9. LRO,

    Religious belief leads to scientific discoveries because of the underlying understanding that God is a God of reason. He's not a capricious god who created a random universe on a whim, He created an ordered universe out of love. Therefore that universe can be understood by study, hence scientific discoveries to try to unlock the laws of the universe, leading to manipulation of matter based on those laws.

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  10. Another one incapable of understanding a question. It's an incredibly simple question.

    Sounds more like you don't like it when you get a real answer. Incidentally, your new question is also answered if you read about Maury.

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  11. So, scrubone, what you're saying,is that if Psalm 8 had never been written, ocena currents would never have been discovered? How odd. Odder still that it was thousands of years after the Psalm was written that the paths of the oceans were mapped, even though many Men who had never read Psalm 8 used currents to help them travel the seas.

    You then waffle on about things being discovered by "people of religious belief" which is not the same thing as discovery as a direct result of religion.

    And then we have lucia with yet another round of her circular arguing, not a shred of proof in sight,.

    There is absolutly no proof that god is a god of reason,in fact, a close reading of the OT reveals a very unreasonable and irrational god. A capricious, vengeful and malevolent god.

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  12. in fact, a close reading of the OT reveals a very unreasonable and irrational god.

    I defer to your expertise - you clearly know a lot more about being irrational and unreasonable than anyone here.

    You did not ask if something "would otherwise have not been discovered", you asked for examples of religion leading to science. I gave one, and you then shift the goalposts.

    In fact, in your last comment you castigate me for talking about something different, even thought I myself acknowledged that point.

    It seems to me that you are convinced that religion and religious people have had (and can have) no useful contributions to science but when confronted with the absurdity of that idea you then retreat and insult.

    Or maybe I have you wrong. Perhaps all you require is a quote like this one from Michael Faraday, which demonstrates his religious motives behind his impressive science.

    Electricity is often called wonderful, beautiful; but it is so only in common with the other forces of nature. The beauty of electricity or of any other force is not that the power is mysterious, and unexpected, touching every sense at unawares in turn, but that it is under law, and that the taught intellect can even govern it largely. The human mind is placed above, and not beneath it, and it is in such a point of view that the mental education afforded by science is rendered super-eminent in dignity, in practical application and utility; for by enabling the mind to apply the natural power through law, it conveys the gifts of God to man.

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  13. "The scientific quest found fertile soil only when this faith in a personal, rational Creator had truly permeated a whole culture, beginning with the centuries of the High Middle Ages. It was that faith which provided, in sufficient measure, confidence in the rationality of the universe, trust in progress, and appreciation of the quantitative method, all indispensable ingredients of the scientific quest.
    -- Stanley L. Jaki, SCIENCE AND CREATION : from eternal cycles to an oscillating universe, Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1974

    Agnostic physicist Lawrence Krauss has called for respect for religious belief and for scientists to "stop being so pompous."
    Sam Harris, author of "Letter to a Christian Nation" had his atheistic epiphany when he took the drug Ecstasy before dropping out of Stanford and "realized that it was possible to be a human being who wished others well all the time, reflexively."

    Harris is as eager as Dawkins to kidnap your kids and bring on the day when "the practice of raising our children to believe that they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish be widely recognized as the ludicrous obscenity that it is."

    Imagine the government forcibly preventing you from inculcating your children with your values and convictions, and substituting its own instead. Even when it's Darwin — instead of Hitler or Mohammed — being worshiped by the state, fascism is fascism.

    Science can tell us many things. But it's running out of the ability to even get to the bottom of things: infinite universes and mult-dimensionalities that we can never test or see. The honest scientists admit this is getting metaphysical, even philosophical. If they can get metaphysical, why can't we get metaphysical? Science just cannot tell us everything that is true. And besides, aren't we also interested in the Good and Beautiful? Will science give us the blueprints for those things? It can't give us blueprints for reality as we live and experience it. Or maybe it's all an evolutionary illusion? Where is the proof of that?

    Finally, science cannot answer the most important question that we have before us today: just exactly what is man? What are we for? If you're limited to what's in the bag of tools of science, then you're merely an accidental agglomeration of organic slime.

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  14. The Vatican is desperate to spin what comes next into a positive. They are deathly afraid of what I have just published and rightly so.

    Watch the video to understand the truth and then draw your own conclusions. I have come like a thief in the night...

    Here is Wisdom !!

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  15. Seven Star Hand,

    The Vatican is not "deathly afraid" of what you have published. It's the same old, repackaged, heretical shite.

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  16. LRO,

    You said: There is absolutly no proof that god is a god of reason,in fact, a close reading of the OT reveals a very unreasonable and irrational god. A capricious, vengeful and malevolent god.

    Care to expand? You're very good at hurling from a distance, but your close combat skills are lacking.

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  17. How many examples would you like?

    1. Genesis - god sets up Adam and Eve and when they fall in to his trap, he doesn't just punish them, he punishes evey life form then currently living and yet to be born.

    Sounds irrational to me.

    If your child does something wrong, are you saving up the punishments for your grandchildren?

    Then there is the whole flood thing. Once again,universal punishment for individual wrongs.

    If your daughter does wrong, do you also punish your son?

    Exodus 4:21 is another great example of god's irrational and capricious actions.

    Do you ask your child to do something, knowing you have made it impossible for him to complete the task.

    Those should do for now, but let's not get in to the rape, murder, slavery etc all condoned and approved by god.

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  18. LRO,

    Let's just do the first one for now.

    You said: "Genesis - god sets up Adam and Eve and when they fall in to his trap, he doesn't just punish them, he punishes evey life form then currently living and yet to be born."

    It wasn't a trap, it was a test.

    Adam and Eve were not like us, not subject to concupiscence in which our will is subject to the desires of our flesh. They were in full control of their desires and their will. So a choice to disobey God was an outright act of supreme rebellion. Their punishment was to experience the consequence of that rebellion, which was the severing of the complete infusion of grace that enabled them to live in a state of perfect freedom and love, a state which we cannot even imagine. All of that is not possible if you rebel from God, because in rebelling you reject Him and you reject His gifts.

    As they were the first humans, they passed on their severed nature to their offspring. It could only be so until God intervened with a Saviour, which he eventually did with Jesus.

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  19. LRO said: If your child does something wrong, are you saving up the punishments for your grandchildren?

    When it comes to science, you accept this form of justice without question, because of your view of the nature of science. But even when you don't get science (undiscovered principles) you still figure "well that's the way it is" content to assume one day you will find a reason that satisfies.

    When it comes to God, however, you think you've already got everything figured out. You think you can assume "the mind of God" and when events don't stack up the way you expect, even though your expectations are built on a very poor state of learning around God, you then make your ridiculous conclusions.

    So to look at the science of your statement, yes the Grandchildren are punished if the mother takes thalidomide during pregnancy, even though at the time "science" said it was safe. "Science" soon learned that they were wrong and had to adjust their understanding.

    But note how the consequences were visited on the children for the action of the mother. Same for mothers that smoke, drink and take drugs during pregnancy. How unjust. In a fair world, the innocent would be protected from consequences.

    Now, assume for just a moment the Universe was created by intent, by a creator, and that creator was omnipotent enough to carefully tune the universe in such a way that the laws of physics work in a miraculous way, to ultimately produce life. Such a being would operate in ways you could possibly not even comprehend.

    Assume for the moment that we have a soul, and that our spiritual life may extend beyond our physical life.

    You can't say for sure that there isn't a creator, and you can't say for sure that we don't have souls. Consider it might be a little bit like assuming there is no such thing as invisible rays (x-ray, gamma ray) back in the 300's, and then perhaps later in history when they were suspected but couldn't be proven.

    You need to keep an open mind and then try some understanding.

    Your mistake is to assume you know the mind of God, and simultaneously dismiss the argument of consequences because it doesn't gel with your concept of a finite life and temporal justice. Yet, you probably fully accept consequences when they come from science.

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  20. Care to expand? You're very good at hurling from a distance, but your close combat skills are lacking.

    I wonder why you bothered. His comment is the equivalent of saying "I'm going to kick your ass - I watch kung fu movies".

    Seriously, talking a "close reading" of the OT then throwing out lines clearly from someone who hasn't - that's just not worthy of reply.

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