Paul Fidalgo
Vatican rejects atheism; also, fire is hot
March 5, 4:59 PM
According to the AP, Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said during a seminar at the Vatican commemorating the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, that while the church did not reject evolution, it insisted that God was its progenitor.
March 5, 4:59 PM
According to the AP, Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said during a seminar at the Vatican commemorating the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, that while the church did not reject evolution, it insisted that God was its progenitor.
"We believe that however creation has come about and evolved, ultimately God is the creator of all things," he said on the sidelines of the conference.
But while the Vatican did not exclude any area of science, it did reject as "absurd" the atheist notion of biologist and author Richard Dawkins and others that evolution proves there is no God, he said.
"Of course we think that's absurd and not at all proven," he said. "But other than that ... the Vatican has recognized that it doesn't stand in the way of scientific realities."
This is big news, folks, and it's a good thing it was picked up by the Associated Press (with almost all headlines used for this article being some form of, "Cardinal says atheist's theories 'absurd'"). Else, how would we ever know that the Catholic Church as an institution had not yet dismissed the existence of God? Here was me, just sitting here thinking that His Holiness was having pow-wows with Sam Harris and Penn Gillette, readying to dismantle the entire organization, when it is reported that in fact atheism was not a tenet of Catholic dogma. Amazing.
In related news, Republicans on the Hill think taxes are bad, a survey of American mothers finds that almost all of them love their children, and recent focus group studies show that people are wary of touching open flames because of an alleged "hotness" associated with fire.
Okay, I kid the AP. I kid 'cause I love. The whole conference sounds like it was a positive thing, with evolution being supported and intelligent design in science classes being rejected. All very good stuff, with no complaints here.
One side note to this same article, though, notice that "the atheist notion" is attributed almost exclusively to Richard Dawkins. I know he's one of, if not the most famous nonbeliever these days, and it was in the context of a kind of biology summit, but I still find it curious that right now our culture is equating atheism with Dawkins. It's not as though he just came up with atheism! We might as well call it "Dawkinsism" as far as a lot of folks are concerned.
I think that's a little hard to say, frankly. Just try it. Dawkins-ism. You see? It would never fly.
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