January 7th, 2009

Text Ticker: Catholics link evolution and the economy

Vienna's Cardinal Schönborn, a possible candidate for the next Pope and who for some time has been an ally of the intelligent design movement, recently joined Harun Yahya in proclaiming the economic crisis a product of evolutionist thinking.

The question of evolutionism and the economic crisis are very closely linked. What we can call the ideological Darwinist concept that the stronger survives has led to the economic situation we’re in today. I think that if education only focuses on making young people fit for the rat race and doesn’t teach them the great human values that society needs, it’s because it’s based on an image of humanity linked to ideological evolutionism.

Thanks, once again, to Reuters's excellent blog FaithWorld. [go!]

4 Responses to “Catholics link evolution and the economy”

  1. Catholics link evolution and the economy | The Row Boat by Nathan … | boathugger.com

    [...] Catholics link evolution and the economy | The Row Boat by Nathan … [...]

  2. BT

    I think this headline should rather be, “Schönborn links…” People like Schönborn (which is *not* to say all Catholics) misrepresent, either delinquently/knowingly or naively, what “evolution” means in the technical biological sense vs. figuratively, within whatever agency is open to modern human culture. For example, see a summary of Coyne’s (also Catholic) disagreements with S. S. is right to the extent that reductionist-materialists do the same thing toward their own extreme (make hasty & unfounded science->metaphysical claims), but it doesn’t excuse S.’ own oversimplifications & opportunism. He should know better — his own Church’s published doctrine is more subtle than he is.

  3. Nathan

    You’re 100% right. I was originally planning to use that title, but WordPress gets screwed up sometimes with special characters in the title so I chose otherwise out of pure laziness. Thanks for catching me on it.

  4. BT

    I didn’t realize the Reuters’ title was different from yours when I posted that; intended to just be critical of Schönborn’s identification/association with the Discovery Institute & his past comments also…