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Darwinism championed again by some influential Roman Catholics

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Prize Winning Catholic Biologist Creationists Can’t Stand

Kenneth Miller wrote the biology textbook often targeted by creationists who want to toss it from public schools. Oh, and now he’s won one of the Catholic Church’s top prizes.

Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, one of America’s leading advocates, has just received one of America’s oldest and most prestigious awards—from the Roman Catholic Church.

At commencement on May 18, the University of Notre Dame will honor Miller with the 2014 Laetare Medal, an award given annually to a Catholic “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.” The award was first given in 1883 and previous recipients include former President John F. Kennedy, and West Wing’s popular acting president Martin Sheen.

Many consider Miller a paradoxical figure who occupies the thinly populated no-man’s land between science and religion, embracing both with enthusiasm and finding no conflict. He is a life-long practicing Catholic and accepts church teachings on salvation, the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus. He described himself in the PBS “Evolution” series as simply a “traditional” Catholic, one who has not had to abandon or distort his beliefs to accommodate his other passion: evolutionary biology. Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins describes Miller as an “incisive witness both to scientific acumen and religious belief.”

Why did they pick Catholic Ken Miller over Catholic Michael Behe?

HT JoeCoder

Comments
"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is a thought of God."Pope Benedict XVI and ...The more we know of the universe the more profoundly we are struck by a Reason whose ways we can only contemplate with astonishment. In pursuing them we can see anew that creating Intelligence to whom we owe our own reason. Albert Einstein once said that in the laws of nature "there is revealed such a superior Reason that everything significant which has arisen out of human thought and arrangement is, in comparison with it, the merest empty reflection." In what is most vast, in the world of heavenly bodies, we see revealed a powerful reason that holds the universe together. And we are penetrating ever deeper into what is smallest, into the cell and into the primordial units of life; here, too, we discover a reason that astounds us, such that we must say with Saint Bonaventure: "Whoever does not see here is blind. Whoever does not hear here is deaf. And whoever does not begin to adore here and to praise the creating Intelligence is dumb." Jacques Monod, who rejects as unscientific every kind of faith in God and who thinks that the world originated out of an interplay of chance and necessity, tells in the very work in which he attempts summarily to portray and justify his view of the world that, after attending the lectures which afterward appeared in book form, François Mauriac is supposed to have said: "What this professor wants to afflict on us is far more unbelievable than what we poor Christians were ever expected to believe." Monod does not dispute this. His thesis is that the entire ensemble of nature has arisen out of errors and dissonances. He cannot help but say himself that such a conception is in fact absurd. But, according to him, the scientific method demands that a question not be permitted to which the answer would have to be God. One can only say that a method of this sort is pathetic. God himself shines through the reasonableness of his creation. Physics and biology, and the natural sciences in general, have given us a new and unheard-of creation account with vast new images, which let us recognize the face of the Creator and which make us realize once again that at the very beginning and foundation of all being there is a creating Intelligence..."buffalo
April 10, 2014
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Pope Benedict's Easter Homily - Creative Reason "The creation account tells us, then,that the world is a product of creative Reason." - perhaps the pope would like IDvolution. Pope Benedict: Easter brings us to the side of reason, freedom and love "It is not the case that in the expanding universe, at a late stage, in some tiny corner of the cosmos, there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning and of trying to find rationality within creation, or to bring rationality into it. If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature. But no, Reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine Reason."buffalo
April 10, 2014
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Thank you rhampton7:
Msgr. Fiorenzo Facchini, who is an anthropologist and paleontologist, said evolution could have ended at the pre-human stage, but thanks to God’s will, humans emerged with the capacity for self-reflection and knowing the transcendent. Msgr. Facchini has said that rather than picturing it as humans descending from the apes, humans ascended or rose up from the animal kingdom to a higher level, thanks to the hand of God.
So this guy also thinks the Bible is nothing but stories and fiction. That would mean that there isn't any reason to be a christian at all, yet here they are. These chumps are going to have hell to pay! :)Joe
April 9, 2014
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I also don't understand why behe wasn't picked . Maybe Behe wasn't enough of a sheeple in conforming to the ultra liberal standards of Notre dame university leftist college lolwallstreeter43
April 8, 2014
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Buffaloe I am one of those Catholics and I frequent idvolution many a times . It's good to see you from the catholic answers forum which I also frequent :) ID will have its day , hopefully I will see that day within my generation. What a breath of fresh air that day will be :)wallstreeter43
April 8, 2014
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Can you believe it tragic? To cover up a cross at a Catholic university . Like I said even my liberal older brother won't consider sending his kids to collage there lol. I don't even consider Notre dame a Catholic university anymore but a secular university in religious clothingwallstreeter43
April 8, 2014
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Speaking as a catholic that was a theistic evolutionist for 41 years and is now a believer in ID , getting an award from Notre dame means very little since Notre dame is now known as one of the most liberal leftist universities of all Catholic universities. My older brother wouldn't even consider sending his son there and get this: my older bro is a democrat liberal himself who voted for Obama twice, and he says that Notre da me is now too liberal even for him lol. I consider miller to be an Uncle Tom evolutionist who is trying to appease the secular scientific community. Why do you think the national Academy of Sciences want to use a puppet like him to push their materialist agenda, and he doesn't even realize he's being used. It's a shame And his arguments against behe never convinced me , why do you think I'm no longer an evolutionist today lolwallstreeter43
April 8, 2014
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tragic mishap
At Obama’s request, Notre Dame covered up the cross behind the podium when he went to speak there.
Yes, indeed. They are ashamed of the same church whose name they continue to use solely for recruiting purposes. The same can be said for Georgetown, Catholic University of American, Fordham, Boston college and most of the major institutions of that kind. All have been lost. At this point, there are only about a half dozen legitimate Catholic colleges in the entire United States and most of them are relatively unknown. Only one (Franciscan University) offers graduate programs.StephenB
April 8, 2014
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"The Christian idea of the world is that it  originated in a very complicated process of evolution but that it nevertheless still   comes in it's depths from the Logos. It thus bears reason in itself." -Joseph Ratzinger Pope Benedict XVI ppolish
April 8, 2014
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At Obama's request, Notre Dame covered up the cross behind the podium when he went to speak there. They must have figured a little extra time in Purgatory wouldn't be so bad.tragic mishap
April 8, 2014
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From the Catholic News Service, April 25, 2013:
...Bishop Sanchez said the evolutionary laws of heredity and genetic mutation pose no conflict to the Catholic faith and offer a biological explanation for the development of species on earth. However, he said, the beginning of the universe, "the transition from nothing to being," is not a mutation; God is the first cause of creation and being. "In this first transcendent origin of the human being we should in fact admit the direct participation of God," which also occurs with each conception of human life, he said. Human beings are not just biological creatures, but spiritual, too, whose "incorruptible soul," he said, "requires a creative act of God." Msgr. Fiorenzo Facchini, who is an anthropologist and paleontologist, said evolution could have ended at the pre-human stage, but thanks to God's will, humans emerged with the capacity for self-reflection and knowing the transcendent. Msgr. Facchini has said that rather than picturing it as humans descending from the apes, humans ascended or rose up from the animal kingdom to a higher level, thanks to the hand of God.
rhampton7
April 8, 2014
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Kennedy, Sheen and not this guy! These people contributed nothing to mankind if a evangelical protestant may say so. In these days of a revolution against error its suspicious why they picked this guy? well then they should pick a iD Catholic and prove they have no agenda and prove they don't think they can influence movements and events!!Robert Byers
April 8, 2014
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ppolish - some Catholics have warmed back up to ID as it was long understood and taught. - IDvolution.orgbuffalo
April 8, 2014
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ppolish- How long did it take the Church to warm uo to the heliocentric model? ;) But I agree, this (acceptance of ID) should be sooner rather than later "Dear Roman Catholic Church, Did you know that your most recent recipient of the Laetare Medal thinks that the Bible is just a collection of books, most of it fiction, and publically bears false witness against his opponets? Nice Job. Ex-RC, Joe G"Joe
April 8, 2014
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Notre Dame is not really a Catholic university, having declared itself independent of the Catholic Church and its teachings at the infamous Land O' Lakes conference in 1969. As far as the university's administrators are concerned, the pope (or any faithful catholic) can go take a hike. They promote their own truth, which is a long way from conventional Catholicism. That is why they invited the abortionist-in-chief, Barack Obama, to address the graduating class of 2009. It is this same Notre Dame connection, in concert with a few rogue Cardinals in the Vatican, that prevented ID proponents from participating in the infamous discussion about evolution a few years ago. Pay no attention to Miller's claim that he is both an "orthodox Catholic and an orthodox Darwinist." When it suits his purpose, he cheerfully subordinates his Catholicism to his Darwinism. Among other things, he holds that human consciousness is a result of natural selection. According to the church he claims to belong to, the human soul, which was infused by God, is the subject of consciousness. It did not emerge from the bottom up. Miller also, and against orthodox Catholicism, questions the literal existence of Adam and Eve.StephenB
April 8, 2014
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Joe, remember - it's not a lie if you believe it... http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_PSJsl0LQ The Catholic Church will warm up to ID soon enough I'm betting.ppolish
April 8, 2014
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So liars get awarded for their lies. Nice culture we live in.Joe
April 8, 2014
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Guided Theistic Evolution is the world's most popular Evo viewpoint is it not - so I see this as a "popularity contest" win for Dr K:) Dr B will become a more scientifically popular Catholic in time I'm guessing. Closer to truth.ppolish
April 8, 2014
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