Pope Benedict commented yesterday on the rise of mankind through the means of evolution.  A loose translation of his comments:  "Baloney!"

Pope Preaches Against Chance Evolution: "Man is Not the Chance Result of Evolution"

REGENSBURG, Germany, September 12, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This morning Pope Benedict XVI discussed evolution in his homily at the outdoor Mass celebrated in Islinger Field.  In a direct attack on the concept of random chance evolution, Pope Benedict asked rhetorically: "What came first? Creative Reason, the Spirit who makes all things and gives them growth, or Unreason, which, lacking any meaning, yet somehow brings forth a mathematically ordered cosmos, as well as man and his reason."

The Pope explained that the belief in God as Creator comes in the most ancient profession of faith known to Christians, the Apostles' Creed.  "As Christians, we say: I believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth - I believe in the Creator Spirit. We believe that at the beginning of everything is the eternal Word, with Reason and not Unreason," he said.

While faith is not opposed to science, the Pope noted that some scientific endeavor is aimed at opposing faith.  "From the Enlightenment on, science, at least in part, has applied itself to seeking an explanation of the world in which God would be unnecessary," he said.  The Pope added, "And if this were so, he (God) would also become unnecessary in our lives."

Man, "would then be nothing more than a chance result of evolution and thus, in the end, equally meaningless," said the Pope.

However, Benedict XVI, noted assuredly that attempts to show God as unnecessary in the explanation of the universe are futile.  "But whenever the attempt seemed to be nearing success - inevitably it would become clear: something is missing from the equation!," he said.  "When God is subtracted, something doesn't add up for man, the world, the whole vast universe."

The debate that won't end.  It's almost been 150 years since Darwin's "Origin of the Species," and Darwinists were of the consensus view at the 100 year anniversary back in 1959 that all discussion was over, that Darwinism had triumphed, and had defeated the forces of "magic and superstition."  Well, doubts about evolution rage more today than at any time since Darwin stepped off the Beagle.  And for good reason.  That evolution occurs on a small scale, e.g., minor modifications within a population, is beyond debate.  That evolution occurs on a larger scale, bringing rise to new species, is far from established fact, regardless of what the Darwinists say.  What Darwin's theory concludes is:

• That something can rise from nothing. 

• That life can rise from non-life. 

• That multi-celled organisms can rise from single-celled organisms. 

• That intelligence can rise from non-intelligence. 

• That everything is the product of chance.

...and the Darwinists accuse creationists of believing in fairytales!

One of the most curious things about the evolution debate is that the ardent defenders of evolution protest that "Darwinism is science!" Hardly.  Darwinism is today as much a political/social/theological movement as it is a scientific theory. The Darwin defenders are highly organized and clearly dedicated to promoting their viewpoint, to such an extent that one has to wonder what their agenda really is.

The kind of "enthusiasm" we see from the Darwin-apologists can only be described as *religious fervor*.  As Robert Koons, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas has said, "The evidence for evolution seems far from compelling. It seems compelling only to those with a prior commitment to metaphysical materialism, for whom Darwinism is practically the only reasonable explanation available for life as we know it." I suspect the prime motivation for such rigid dedication to this "theory" has less to do with science, and more to do with adherence to a particular view of morality.

David Berlinski, in an article in the March 2003 issue of Commentary, wrote that...

“The term ‘Darwinism’ conveys the suggestion of a secular ideology, a global system of belief. So it does and so it surely is. Darwin’s theory has been variously used – by Darwinian biologists – to explain the development of a bipedal gait, the tendency to laugh when amused, obesity, anorexia nervosa, business negotiations, a preference for tropical landscapes, the evolutionary roots of political rhetoric, maternal love, infanticide, clan formation, marriage, divorce, certain comical sounds, funeral rites, the formation of regular verb forms, altruism, homosexuality, feminism, greed, romantic love, jealousy, warfare, monogamy, polygamy, adultery, the fact that men are pigs, recursion, sexual display, abstract art, and religious beliefs of every description.”

Darwinism has become a catch-all, the way that materialistic naturalists describe everything.

David Berlinski again:

"Darwin's theory of evolution is the last of the great 19th century mystery religions. And as we speak it is now following Freudianism and Marxism into the nether regions, and I'm quite sure that Freud, Marx, and Darwin are commiserating one with the other, in the dark dungeon where discarded gods gather. The problem facing us at the [beginning of a new century] with a magnificent body of theoretical accomplishments in physics and mathematics, and a very rich body of descriptive material in biology, is to come to an understanding that when it comes to the large global issues that Darwin's theory is intended to address, we simply do not have a clue. This is a daunting admission to make, but if we're intellectually honest, we should make it. The mechanism that Darwin proposed, that of random search or a stochastic shuffle in known to be inadequate in every domain in which it's applied. It's known to be inadequate in linguistics, and it's certainly inadequate when it comes to the overwhelming complexity of living forms. There is no reason on earth to believe that this mechanism is adequate to the task that it sets itself.