|
Apes and Aliens: Where is the
Vatican
Leading Humanity?
by
Rodrigo Silva
Not
only has the Vatican been the
leader of ecumenical and interfaith talks with other religions in order
to form a One World religious system, but it is now promoting very
strange and Anti-Biblical ideas.
On
May 6,2008 the Catholic News Service reported
God made pre-humans into people, Vatican
newspaper says
VATICAN CITY
(CNS) -- While apes evolved naturally into pre-human creatures, it was
the will and desire of God that turned them into humans, an article in
the Vatican
newspaper said.
"The formation of human beings necessitated a particular contribution by
God, though it remains that their emergence was brought about by natural
causes" of evolution, it said.
The
article, published in the May 5-6 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, was
written by Italian evolutionary biologist Fiorenzo Facchini.
The
article said that, "when the biological conditions necessary for
supporting a being capable of reflective thought were attained, the will
of God, the creator, freely desired it, and man came to be."
The
article posed the question: Does this mean that humans evolved from
chimpanzees?
"No, it might be better to say that at some point God willed a spark of
intelligence to light up in the mind of a nonhuman hominid and thus came
into existence the human as a being, as a subject capable of thought and
the ability to decide freely," it said.
So
rather than picturing it as humans descending from the apes, it said,
humans ascended or rose up from the animal kingdom to a higher level,
thanks to the hand of God.
As
Pope Benedict XVI wrote in 1968 when he was Father Joseph Ratzinger, God
wanted to create a being that could know him and be able to turn to him,
the article said.
The
emergence of the human is neither a casual or accidental event, nor is
it something that was "strictly necessary," demanded by God or the
evolutionary process, it said.
Evolution could have ended at the pre-human stage, it said, but thanks
to "the free choice of God," humans emerged from their pre-human
ancestors.
This divine intervention "does not represent an unwarranted intrusion
(of theology) in the field of science -- as is the case with intelligent
design -- but is called for in order to explain the presence of man's
spirit" which cannot come from or evolve out of the material world, the
article said.
The
movement from being a creature of the animal and physical world to also
the spiritual was a gift from God "even if it came at the end of a
natural process of evolution," it said.
Source:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0802496.htm
The
above article says that God used some kind of evolutionary process to
turn apes which evolved into pre-human creatures into humans according
to the Vatican. The Bible is very clear
about how God created man and the animal kingdom:
''And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after
his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth
after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth
after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that
creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was
good. 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 the LORD God formed man
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life; and man became a living soul. ''(Genesis 1:24-27,2:7)
God
specifically says in the Genesis account that He made the beasts, the
cattle, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth ''after their own
kind.'' Then God says that He personally formed man in ''His own image''
with ''His own hands'' from the dust of the ground, not through an
evolutionary process, yet the Vatican denies
the biblical account and approves the false theory of evolution which
says that man evolved from apes.
Just a week later, Fox News reported:
Vatican:
It's OK for Catholics to Believe in Aliens
VATICAN CITY
— There could be alien life forms and believing they exist isn't
contradictory to having faith in God, the top astronomer at the Vatican said in an interview
published Tuesday.
In
the Vatican
newspaper piece, titled "The Extraterrestrial Is My Brother," the Rev.
Jose Gabriel Funes said the expansiveness of the universe means there
could be life on planets other than Earth.
"In
my opinion this possibility exists," Funes, the director of the Vatican
Observatory, told L'Osservatore Romano. "Astronomers believe the
universe is made up of 100 billion galaxies, each of which consists of
100 billion stars. ... Life forms could exist in theory even without
oxygen or hydrogen."
Funes said that there might even be other intelligent life out there,
but believing in its existence doesn't pose a problem for those of the
Catholic faith.
"It
is possible. So far we have no proof. But certainly in a universe so big
we can not exclude this hypothesis," he told the paper.
"As
there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, so there may be other
beings, intelligent, created by God. This does not conflict with our
faith, because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God."
He
said human beings could even consider another life form an
"extraterrestrial brother" because it, too, would be one of God's
creatures.
"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes
said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and
'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It
would still be part of creation."
The
interview covered a variety of topics, including the relationship
between the Roman Catholic Church and science, and the theological
implications of the existence of alien life.
Funes said science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion,
touching on a theme of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made exploring the
relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.
| | |