No, it hasn't helped resolve it. The Catholic Church fully accepts the processes of science, consensus, and all well-established theories. It simply states that science cannot ever be inconsistent as both science and Catholicism are "on a quest for the truth," as Pope Benedict XVI said recently, adding that "God and the Big Bang aren't at odds."
Intelligent Design isn't science, isn't even a well-formed science hypothesis, and cannot be tested. It is nothing more than a facade for YEC (young Earth creationists) to push their political agendas in a highly disingenuous and completely insincere fashion. They know exactly what they are doing and why and they know it is NOT valid science.
If you lose the YEC part of it and accept, as the Catholic Church tentatively does, that the Earth is indeed billions of years old and that evolution took place here, then the broader idea of intelligent design might be able to be at least properly researched. And with the 100's of billions of dollars taken in by fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant religions in the US, each year, I'd imagine they could easily fund such research at well-established public Universities with qualified scientists. But none of that happens.
I don't think the research would yield results that the religious would want. And research is... well... research. It's an investigation looking for new approaches. And they would have to have a hands-off role of just funding the research, not trying to control outcomes. But if they truly believed the end results as they say they do (I don't for a minute believe they do -- they are lying and they know they are insincere and disingenuous about the whole idea and that it is entirely a political ploy from the start), then they would fund it because they would be sure that the research would eventually lead in the direction that would properly connect intelligent design into the body of science.
But the Catholic Church doesn't currently accept YEC and it doesn't accept intelligent design after the YEC fashion. It instead says that there is no conflict. That truth is truth and let the scientists do science.
Pope John Paul embraced science and reason. He said, "we will all be able to profit from the fruitfulness of a trustful dialogue between the Church and science." He accepted evolution, for example, "as an effectively proven fact."
YEC intelligent design isn't a Catholic initiative nor is it a problem with their theological positions, today.
I think there are very few people who would deny that existence is the most intelligent thing they know. Nothing but intelligent designs abound from bottom to top, in, out, and all throughout reality. Not much of an argument there. Intelligence has probably been working in reality all along from the beginning. Or you can see it as having nothing to do with intelligence at all and is just the most fortuitous thing there is. Either way you win. Either way you can apply an infinite and eternal amount of activities behind the most finite and temporal of manifestations and still have plenty to deal with without having to elevate all this to another dimension where another reality is in effect. You can keep all this terrenal and material and never get bored. Or you can try to solve this another way by adding some other concepts of there being some beings on a higher plane who started all this and we owe it them to find out why. Either way has absorbed the minds and hearts of most all of us at one time or another.
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No, it hasn't helped resolve it. The Catholic Church fully accepts the processes of science, consensus, and all well-established theories. It simply states that science cannot ever be inconsistent as both science and Catholicism are "on a quest for the truth," as Pope Benedict XVI said recently, adding that "God and the Big Bang aren't at odds."
Intelligent Design isn't science, isn't even a well-formed science hypothesis, and cannot be tested. It is nothing more than a facade for YEC (young Earth creationists) to push their political agendas in a highly disingenuous and completely insincere fashion. They know exactly what they are doing and why and they know it is NOT valid science.
If you lose the YEC part of it and accept, as the Catholic Church tentatively does, that the Earth is indeed billions of years old and that evolution took place here, then the broader idea of intelligent design might be able to be at least properly researched. And with the 100's of billions of dollars taken in by fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant religions in the US, each year, I'd imagine they could easily fund such research at well-established public Universities with qualified scientists. But none of that happens.
I don't think the research would yield results that the religious would want. And research is... well... research. It's an investigation looking for new approaches. And they would have to have a hands-off role of just funding the research, not trying to control outcomes. But if they truly believed the end results as they say they do (I don't for a minute believe they do -- they are lying and they know they are insincere and disingenuous about the whole idea and that it is entirely a political ploy from the start), then they would fund it because they would be sure that the research would eventually lead in the direction that would properly connect intelligent design into the body of science.
But the Catholic Church doesn't currently accept YEC and it doesn't accept intelligent design after the YEC fashion. It instead says that there is no conflict. That truth is truth and let the scientists do science.
Pope John Paul embraced science and reason. He said, "we will all be able to profit from the fruitfulness of a trustful dialogue between the Church and science." He accepted evolution, for example, "as an effectively proven fact."
YEC intelligent design isn't a Catholic initiative nor is it a problem with their theological positions, today.
What rift?
I think there are very few people who would deny that existence is the most intelligent thing they know. Nothing but intelligent designs abound from bottom to top, in, out, and all throughout reality. Not much of an argument there. Intelligence has probably been working in reality all along from the beginning. Or you can see it as having nothing to do with intelligence at all and is just the most fortuitous thing there is. Either way you win. Either way you can apply an infinite and eternal amount of activities behind the most finite and temporal of manifestations and still have plenty to deal with without having to elevate all this to another dimension where another reality is in effect. You can keep all this terrenal and material and never get bored. Or you can try to solve this another way by adding some other concepts of there being some beings on a higher plane who started all this and we owe it them to find out why. Either way has absorbed the minds and hearts of most all of us at one time or another.