Vatican hosts Darwin conference


By David Willey
BBC News, Rome

The Vatican is sponsoring a five day conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species.

The subject is the compatibility of evolution and creation.

It is one of two separate international academic conferences being sponsored by the Vatican this year.

They aim to re-examine the work of scientific thinkers whose revolutionary ideas challenged religious belief: Galileo and Charles Darwin.

Scientists, philosophers and theologians from around the world are gathering at the prestigious Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome to discuss the compatibility of Darwin's theory of evolution and Catholic teaching.


Christian churches were long hostile to Darwin because his theory conflicted with the literal biblical account of creation.

But the Catholic Church never condemned Darwin, as it condemned and silenced Galileo.

Pope John Paul II said that evolution was "more than a hypothesis".
Yet as recently as 2006 a leading Catholic Cardinal, Christoff Schoenborn, of Vienna, a former student and friend of Pope Benedict XVI caused controversy by saying that Darwin's theory of natural selection was incompatible with Christian belief.

A leading American scholar of biology, Prof Francisco Ayala, plans to tell the conference that the so-called theory of intelligent design, proposed by Creationists, is flawed.

"The design of organisms is not what would be expected from an intelligent engineer, but imperfect and worse," he said.

"Defects, dysfunctions, oddities, waste and cruelty pervade the living world".


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[ArrayThey aim to re-examine the work of scientific thinkers whose revolutionary ideas challenged religious belief: Galileo and Charles Darwin. [/quote]

Although Darwin's theory hasn't bedrock proven scientific explanations in all matters, it has successfully managed to constrain Christians' unlimited-God-Authority which at a certain period of age, no one dared question its barbarian decisions ....History has been becoming brighter every day than what it was ...
It has run the gamut in Vatican, USA and as well as Saudi Arabia from Iron fist on thinkers to hosting them in conferences !
It is similar to Saudi Arabia when women were not allowed to vote, now they have they first woman in vice Minister Post.
the religions' sick arrogance has eroded by the brilliant concept that the man is not a slave to anyone but to himself.
:cool2: