Pope Francis declares evolution and Big Bang theory are right; God isn't a magician

[Oakenshield]

No. He's not "trying too hard." He's also not attempting to "appease the opposition of the faith." Many times he has spoken boldly on Christian doctrine, but that doesn't get advertised and announced to the four winds... which is to be expected.

Yes, he has criticized the government of the Church as such (with right reason to do so). That doesn't mean he is in a quest for deconstruction of the Roman Catholic Church. He wants to reform what needs to be reformed, improve what can be improven, and do away with what does not work.

P.S.: The "RC" is not a denomination.

My apologies, I was not trying to offend. I only recently came to Christianity and was only expressing what is mentioned around me at home. :o

 

[fat wee robin]

I have to say that I like Pope Francis a lot ,and he has a huge task in undoing some of the poor teaching ,and unhealthy attitudes of certain people especially among those who have had power to change for the better ,and have not done so .
The problem seems to be that on some more complicated matters he should not reply "off the cuff" ,for as we all know, a part truth can be made to be anything the hearer wants it to be .
I read something that he said on "triumphalism" in the RCC, and more on Jesus, and that to me is where he is going to be a catalyst for change .The Vatican became like a "royal court" , and lost it's direction to do God's work in humility. What Pope Francis is doing is revolutionary and neccessary,and it will take a little time to digest .

 

[BobRyan]

The theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real and God is not “a magician with a magic wand”, Pope Francis has declared.

Speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pope made comments which experts said put an end to the “pseudo theories” of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

“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,” Francis said.

He added: “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.
Pope Francis declares evolution and Big Bang theory are right and God isn't 'a magician with a magic wand' - Europe - World - The Independent

He did some good pontificating there.
And it is about time the many-storied junk-science religion of blind-faith evolutionism had the endorsement of someone who is at the top of that sort of thing.

Meanwhile there are some Bible believing Christians that will notice the following obvious statement about the actual text of Gen 1-2 and the "kind of literature that it is".

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[FONT=&quot]One leading Hebrew scholar is James Barr, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University and former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England. Although he does not believe in the historicity of Genesis 1, Dr. Barr does agree that the writer's intent was to narrate the actual history of primeval creation. Others also agree with him. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. [/FONT]

James Barr, letter to David Watson, 1984.
================================

 

[BobRyan]

So the Roman Catholic Church thinks the book of Genesis is a work of fiction!!

And this comes as a surprise?

 

[BobRyan]

Whilst I don't believe in a literal six day creation 6,000 years ago, I'm absolutely convinced that the universe didn't get here by some unexplainable big bang. And I'm equally convinced that life itself didn't just happen due to some random coming together of "stuff" that was just lying around.

I don't think the Pope is doing the church any favours by saying that "God in not a magician". .

Good point.

but Gen 1:2-2:3 does not describe the timeline for the universe - it is only dealing with this planet, all life on earth, the sun and the moon in that 6 days.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Blue Wren]

So the Roman Catholic Church thinks the book of Genesis is a work of fiction!!

-

No, they just don't think it's a science text book.
tulc(there's a difference)

Exactly.

 

[rmalex]

The theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real and God is not “a magician with a magic wand”, Pope Francis has declared.
Speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pope made comments which experts said put an end to the “pseudo theories” of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI.
“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,” Francis said.
He added: “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.

Does it really matter how God created everything? I know some people get very uptight about this but the reality is that it doesn't matter how God did it more of that He did. I agree that it may be slightly gapped in some areas but remaining open minded we can still read Genesis and not find any contradictions.

Whereas I agree Genesis isn't a science book it still gives an order to what happened without contradicting evolutionary theories. That being said, I'm sure that the pope's decision to publicly announce this will disgruntle some people.

 

[seekingsolace]

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And to these single cell amoebas God said; go forth and mutate."

 

[ViaCrucis]

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And to these single cell amoebas God said; go forth and mutate."

Technically amoebozoa is a sister clade to fungi and animals, as such we didn't evolve from amoebas, but all animals, all fungi, and amoebas do share a very distant common single-celled ancestor.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Blue Wren]

Hasn't the Vatican, accepted evolution & the Big Bang, for quite some time? Since the turn of the Millennium, I think?

 

[seekingsolace]

Technically amoebozoa is a sister clade to fungi and animals, as such we didn't evolve from amoebas, but all animals, all fungi, and amoebas do share a very distant common single-celled ancestor.

-CryptoLutheran

Trust you to spoil the joke

 

[Archivist]

Every day I like this Pope even more.

 

[NewEnglandGirl]

Good for him. The pope speaks for Catholics and Catholicism, not protestants or non-catholics.

 

[Zero1]

As he's effectively saying that God created us through using evolution/big bang as a method, he is not regarding anything in Genesis as a work of fiction.

I think we're missing the point - it's important to believe God created us but no need to get so riled up on every minor detail and drive separation between the Pope/Catholics and everyone else due to this.
We're all in the same family.

 

[fatherjimparker]

<< Evolution disputes the Creation account of the Bible,>>

The litany of the "Creation Account" is a genealogy. It is a literary device which was in general usage in the literature of the ancient middle east. A genealogy was used to introduce a story and then, at the end of the story, to introduce the next episode.

There is no way under heaven that the creation litany of Gen 1 was ever meant to be a scientific treatise describing the physical events of the creation in precise chronological order. It is the introduction of the story of "who we (the Jews) are." The word translated "genesis" (re'shiyth) literally means, "in the beginning." It is the opening word of the story of the origins of the Jews from Adam, to Seth, to Noah, to Shem, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob who is called "Israel" and to his sons, the patriarchs.

<< and this information in the thread adds to a myth that Almighty God has limited power. >>

It does nothing of the kind. If God is almighty (and He is) then He can use any method He wants to do whatever He wants to do. He can create modern earth in its current, life sustaining form in an instant or He can set in motion and guide a 4 billion year process which takes the earth from it's "formless and void (barren)" stage to its fertile and life sustaining stage.

<< I prefer God's version. >>

What you prefer is your opinion of what "God's version" might be.


If you are going to refute evolution (not the origins of life since the theory of evolution does not address that) in favor of a creation with all species in their current form from the beginning, then you are going to have to explain why all the demonstrable steps are wrong. (Like from horses which were the size of a poodle millions of years ago to what we have today.)

I do not believe that science has made a convincing case that all species came from one or a small number of original life forms or that multiple species have evolved from prior, different species. And I understand that the fossil record is incomplete. But I don't think that is cause to toss the entire theory.


If you are going to refute the "Big Bang" theory, you need to explain exactly where every astrophysicist made the same error in his/her calculations to come up with the same 13.7 billion year age of the universe.

If you cannot prove them all wrong, using science and math, you must then consider that your understanding of Genesis 1 as a scientifically precise description of the exact events and chronology of the universe is flawed.

jim

 

[miamited]

Hi all,

Well, as I understand his comments, about the only thing he said that would be true is that God is not a magician. Magicians practice slight of hand. They make events appear to have happened that have not really happened. I remember when it was quite a deal when David whats-his-name was making jets and other huge objects just seemingly disappear into thin air. It's a great show and holds people's attention and everyone scratches their head wondering 'how' he did it, but everyone also knows that the truth is that he didn't just make a jet vaporize into thin air. It's a gimmick upon which magicians have traded for several millenia. God is not a magician.

God bless you all,
In Christ, Ted

 

[Crowns&Laurels]

The Catholic Church accepted evolution as soon as Darwin made his claim in the 1800's. No sooner was an idea of evolution realized that the Church said to not take Genesis literally.

Forget the pope. Forget the Church. It never fails to do what is convenient within it's own agenda.

 

[ALoveDivine]

How any intelligent person can read the first few chapters of Genesis and understand them as strictly literal historical/scientific accounts is beyond me. Christians have not historically viewed the bible like Muslims view the Koran, as a strictly verbatim literal recitation of God. That notion is foreign to Christianity. Yet that is what modern American fundamentalists seem to do, especially with Genesis it seems.

Sacred Scripture consists of different types of literature, written by different authors, over a wide span of time, for different reasons and with different intentions, though all of course under inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Young Earth creationism is one example of what you can get when individual interpretation is the norm in the reading of scripture. This is why Apostolic tradition and, yes, the Church, is so important. Just read some of the early Church fathers and you'll discover all manner of typological interpretations of OT scripture.

 

[Cuddles333]

The theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real and God is not “a magician with a magic wand”, Pope Francis has declared.

Speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pope made comments which experts said put an end to the “pseudo theories” of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

“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,” Francis said.

He added: “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.
Pope Francis declares evolution and Big Bang theory are right and God isn&#039;t &#039;a magician with a magic wand&#039; - Europe - World - The Independent

I have come to understand the creation of the universe as an undertaking assigned to Lucifer and his assistants. He was given everything to put all into implementation. The scripture attributes the universe's creation to God, which ultimately is true, however, Lucifer used time and assisted the evolutionary method till we have what we see today. It is my understanding that God had to restore what He intended Lucifer to create....mainly mankind, and the ZOE that was to accompany mankind with God.

As far as the 'magician & wand' reference; the Old Testament reveals that certain people did possess great power that was very evil. The Egyptians are mentioned the most, however, the Canaanites were even more evil and their worship methods caused such an evil essence to spread so as to infect their infants.

The reason there are 2 different accounts of Creation in the book of Genesis is due to their being Apologetic teachings to refute the Egyptian teachings of Creation. That mankind must worship animals and things seen in the night-time sky. The 7th day being a day of rest and holiness pointing to the future rest of mankind with God.