Pope Francis praises Stephen Hawking for his brilliant work during his audience with scientists

[rug]

Pope Francis has praised atheist Stephen Hawking for his brilliant work during his audience with scientists at the Vatican

Pope spoke to members of Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome

Atheist Steven Hawking has been a member of group since 1986

Smiling Pope warmly greeted him with a touch on the shoulder

Francis said scientists are needed to solve the world's problems

By CHARLIE MOORE
PUBLISHED: 10:58 EST, 28 November 2016 | UPDATED: 12:14 EST, 28 November 2016

Pope Francis has praised atheist Stephen Hawking for his brilliant work during his audience with scientists at the Vatican.

The pair met in Rome today as members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences gathered for a conference.

Francis appeared delighted to greet the theoretical physicist, who has met three previous Popes, by touching his shoulder as he welcomed him warmly.

The pontiff then addressed a group of scientists, saying their role in finding creative solutions to the world's problems is more urgent than ever.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3979094/The-Theory-except-evolution-Pope-Francis-praises-atheist-Stephen-Hawking-brilliant-work-audience-scientists-Vatican.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Academy_of_Sciences

[guillaumeb]

1. The Pope recognizes that religion and science deal with different areas.

There is no inherent conflict between faith and science, except for that conflict which is deliberately created to serve an agenda.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Incorrect.

I agree they are non-overlapping magisterium, but the RCC has long attempted to use one to justify the other, and link them.

Director of the Vatican Observatory:

"But we do this work not just because a Pope wants us to do it. All the science we do, and all the outreach we do, reflects a quality that motivates everything we do in astronomy: a sense of joy. The stars are glorious, and it’s a treat to be engaged in their study. Their glory proclaims the Glory of their Creator!"

[rug]

3. Incorrect.

There is no attempt "to use one to justify the other, and link them."

Nor does your unattributed link demonstrate that.

Your insinuation says little for Hawking who has belonged to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences for thirty years.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. It's not unattributed, I specified who. The director.

Nor did I specify a link at all. It's right there on the fucking front page of the Vatican observatory itself.

http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/en.html

[guillaumeb]

6. What!!! A man of science on the Pontifical Academy of Sciences?

Can it be that faith and science are compatible?

This conflicts with the orthodoxy of atheistic faith Rug.

[rug]

7. Don't forget, Hitchens was asked by the Vatican to be the Devil's Advocate against Teresa.

[guillaumeb]

8. True, and when a Devil's Advocate is appointed, that advocate is expected to argue

vigorously against the proposal to canonize.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. They should have taken his advice.

[rug]

11. They have standards.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Clearly not.

[guillaumeb]

5. Perhaps you misunderstood.

The Director is making a statement that the work is done because of the joy it gives the worker. And that joy is based on the belief that all of creation is evidence of the Creator.

Their is no linkage in a scientific sense, but science is used to reinforce faith.

Perhaps this is where your objection lies?

[AtheistCrusader]

9. That belief that all of creation is evidence of the Creator is an assumption.

Director Father George Coyne, “True science, good science, does not conflict with religious belief.”.

That's utter nonsense. That's not science at all. Religious belief of certain peoples held that lightning was driven by a supernatural bird, usually in some long-running conflict with underwater or underground serpents. Good Science shows that is not the case, despite whatever cultural significance those stories and beliefs used to have.

In the current incarnation of the RCC, they are just keeping the 'faith' squishy enough it sounds like maybe it has a place in the modern world, and only makes claims that can neither be proven nor disproven. It's an art. You hear the same claptrap from Deepak Chopra about 'quantum vibrations'.

[rug]

12. The Director is Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ.

He has a very impressive c.v.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Consolmagno

OTOH, you have a very skewed idea of what science is and the RCC's view of science.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. Excuse me, former director.

(Now running the observatory in Arizona, since 2012)

I'm sorry I take the words of Catholics at face value. My bad.

[guillaumeb]

15. You are apparently insisting on a literalist interpretation.

And that does make your job easier but it reduces all belief to one type, literalism, that you insist is the only valid interpretation.

If you wish to argue against a literalist interpretation that is fine, but it does not prove your points here.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Most of the world has solved that issue by

telling indigenous peoples of the Americas that their beliefs are mythology.

it just hasn't gotten around to facing facts on the current dominant world-spanning religions.

If you want to go down the 'literalist'/'non-literal' path, then there's no point discussing further because then nothing has any meaning whatever.

A omnipotent, supernatural bird COULD hide from our perception and still drive lightning, but we understand the natural forces behind lightning well enough that we can show no such phantasmal creature is in any way required for lightning to happen.

[rug]

17. It may boil down to neuroscience.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811905005860

[guillaumeb]

18. And many Christian believers accept that the Bible is allegory.

And I would think that Christian scientists subscribe to that view. Any attempts to frame religion as inherently opposed and antithetical to science reveal much about the maker of the remarks and nothing about religion.

[AtheistCrusader]

19. At what point does ignorance of the real world recorded in religious origin texts relegate the

text to 'mythology' status? Can we get an objective finish line here?

Book 1 of the old testament, god curses serpents to crawl on their bellies in the dust for all their lives.
Chrysopelea can fly.


You do the math. (It's ALL mythology, which is a fine storytelling pursuit in it's own right, but it tells us nothing about the universe or our place in it.)

[guillaumeb]

20. One can separate the myth, the creation stories, from the essential message.

And many do just that.

[AtheistCrusader]

22. What is the 'essential message' of The Fall, in the section I referenced?

I can summarize it as it reads:

1. Being is created ignorant of good/evil.
2. Being is then instructed not to acquire knowledge of good/evil.
3. Not knowing about good/evil, being does not know any actual reason not to pursue that knowledge.
4. Being is punished for acquiring that knowledge.


This is the equivalent of chaining a wild predator up to a wall, in a room, painting a line on the ground, and telling a two-year-old not to cross the line, and then leaving the room.

And then, to top it all off, castigating the child/later-adult it's entire life as a bad person for losing an arm trying to Pet The Kitty.


It's a horrible nightmare that, even as non-literal allegory, paints god as a capricious monster that no sane person would align with.
What other lessons can we learn from this as an 'essential message'?

[guillaumeb]

24. You obviously have a personal understanding of this. But you do realize that it is your personal

reading. Your personal meaning.
A question for you:
What is the "essential message" of the phrase, all men are created equal"? Given that the Founders did not include non-whites in the message, nor did they include women or poor white men, what is the essential message? And if we interpret the phrase as actually meaning all white men of property are created equal, do we then reject all that is associated with this message?

[AtheistCrusader]

27. I take the essential message of the DoI at face value.

I consider it a happy accident, where the founders hit much closer to the mark than they were capable of realizing.

It would be nice to think they were altruistically setting a high bar for future generations to attain, but I don't really believe that. The essential message is literal and plain, and it's a shame they couldn't live up to their own words.

All men (in the sense of mankind, thus inclusive of men and women irrespective of gender/identity) are in fact, equal in principle, and we do have inalienable rights that must be asserted, and if I am to claim mine, I must respect yours as well, or no one else will ever respect mine.


The essential message contained in that phrase was forged by racist, sexist, classist men, and in fact, directly penned by a man who thought he could own other men as property and somehow, I believe without truly understanding it, they managed to craft a reflection of a truth that not only has stood the test of time, but has yet to be truly attained by even the best of us.

But we're closer than they were.

It would be nice to think maybe Genesis of the Abrahamic bible might provide a similar foundation for reflection on the human condition, but I don't see one in any way comparable to the Preamble, and the rest of the texts don't support it. Genesis seems to lay out the framework of humanity enthralled in an abusive relationship. In fairness, the Constitution itself didn't support the lofty claims of the Declaration, but, the DoI doesn't have any legal force in law so it's at least honestly consistent, and further; the Constitution spelled out multiple mechanisms by which it could be improved, inching ever closer (and sometimes slipping away) from the spirit of the sentence you cited.

[guillaumeb]

29. After reading your comments about the DOI,

perhaps what happened was some sort of inspiration. The writer was inspired to write something that he could not live up to at that time. We do not know what inspired the writer, but we recognize the desirability of living by what was written.

And this inspiration is also understood as the source of what is written in the Bible. One difference is that the DOI was written in English approximately 250 years ago, whereas the Bible was written approximately 5800 years ago, and has been passed down and translated and emended and retranslated into numerous versions.

But in each case, we have a document that represents an ideal. And whether or not individual "believers" live up to the ideal in no way reflects on the ideal.

[AtheistCrusader]

30. But that leads us back in a circle to evaluate the message itself.

That old testament message seems to distill down to 'man was created sick, and commanded to be well', to borrow a phrase from Hitchens.

I will, of course, allow your point that the texts have been translated and patched together, and some texts are included, some are excluded based on various choices made throughout the millennia. But this just casts more doubt on the data, for me.

[guillaumeb]

31. The key words in your argument are "seems to".

And Christopher Hitchens, no matter his education and intelligence, was not actually a Biblical scholar, so his attempts at Biblical exegesis should be understood as representing his uneducated (on this subject) opinion.

Similar to me, with degrees in literature, making a pronouncement about particle physics.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. Most biblical scholars are christians, or a small subset, were christians.

What theological seminary is going to hire an outspoken atheist to study? I would reject this as an appeal to authority.

Agnes Pockels didn't receive a (honorary) degree in Physics until 3 years before her death (age 70). You'd be surprised what people without degrees can accomplish in the hard sciences.

[rug]

21. You really don't understand the purpose of scriptures, do you?

[AtheistCrusader]

23. This seems like a rhetorical question.

Can you be more specific?

I can go a couple different directions with that question, but I don't think I would align to your meaning.

[rug]

26. Yes. You treat it as a geology text.

[AtheistCrusader]

28. When people purport to use it to explain the nature/origins of the universe

yes, yes I do. I expect it to contain some useful data or specifications on the universe, it's nature, and our place in it.

That book (or collection of texts, really) doesn't, anymore than Der Ring des Nibelungen.

[guillaumeb]

25. I would refine that to add:

nor do you seem to understand the concept of allegorical speech.

[Bretton Garcia]

33. Guil? First you claim that literalism misses the essential message

Then however when asked what that message is, you are evasive. Suggesting 1) you won't tell us what that message is. Or 2) you don't know.

Or 3) there isn't one. Or most likely 4) It's all up to each of us.

But if all up to each of us, then there is nothing fixed here.

So it's all B S. Or trying to nail jelly to a wall.

If we can project whatever we want into it, then it's just a mirror of ourselves. And therefore no net gain over our everyday selves.