J.D.-I agree, except the recognised chronology isn't. Remember all those artefacts, like the hammer so metalicly pure we can't make it even today or all those other stuff, clearly made by inteligent beings, which is dated at ages impossible for the curent "timetable" to fit in, hence why many of these artefacts "mysteriously" dissapear from museums (without any evident investigation, of course) or the curators just flat out refuse to show them to reporters.
Sorry, Lobo, but I'm going to need more information on these; all such I've ever encountered have turned out to be complete hoaxes or misrepresentations of the facts -- not uncommon when it comes to the general media reporting on science.
Is ther, perhaps a pyschological need for religion? It seems that many--not not all of course--seem to beleive in something. When the do the Gallup polls here in America, the belief in "God or some higher power" runs about 70?.
I do not intened to force my religion down anyone's throat. As long as I am permitted to beleive in God, anyone else ican NOT believe in God. But, I do object to staements implying that all who beleive in religion are weak. Just because I do not beleive in the same way as other persons does not make me either weak or stupid. I am neither.
Btw, as far as "god" being immaterial, thoughts cannot be touced or seen. Yet, are not thoughts real and vital?
Mary -- I did not mean to offend with my statement, so perhaps a clarification may help. I did not state (nor do I believe) that "all who believe in religion are weak" -- at least, no more so than the majority of people. But I stand by my statement that religion itself is a weakness. A perfectly understandable one, given our history, but a weakness nonetheless. This is a position I've come to gradually over a long period of time, and not without a great deal of struggle about various issues connected with it.Whether it is one we will ever manage to outgrow remains to be seen.
Your statement above, I think, goes close to the core of the matter; I'd agree that there is an emotional need (or, more properly, desire, though it is strong enough to feel like a need unless very closely examined) which religion fills for many people; but I'd also say this is because it evolved to fit that niche over time, becoming more "fine-tuned" over the millennia for that very purpose. And, after all, for most of the existence of the human race, religion of some sort has been "the default position" as far as addressing "the big questions" goes. Only in relatively recent times (say, from the beginnings of the civilizations in the Mesopotamian region) have we evolved a better tool for such, one which relies not on guesswork and/or "simple" acceptance of supposed sacred authority, but one based on rational examination of the world and universe about us, combined with an increasing ability to test and refine our observations and conclusions.
Still, the emotional appeal is immensely strong for the majority of people, and for many reasons; not least of which it taps directly into some of the most basic emotional complexes in the human psyche.
However, this is getting rather off-track to the main thrust of the thread, which is the Church's statement anent Darwinian evolution. I think that, if you look at the historical record, you'll find that a great number of religions accepted much of Darwin early on; it wasn't until his further work, The Descent of Man, brought home some of the implications, that they began to have trouble with it (this happening almost concurrently with the rise of the fundamentalist movement, iirc). The Catholic Church, however, has long had a (somewhat uneasy) compromise with the idea. This is nothing new. It's what the Church has done throughout its existence -- if it can't destroy that which is opposed to its teachings, eventually it adopts it to some degree; usually only as much as is necessary to maintain the Church's viability....
