Vatican in space
“If the Big Bang was the start of everything, what came before it?”
That is one of the questions being posed by a new website being set up by the Vatican and Italy’s scientific community.
After centuries of mistrust between religion and science, the intention is to give the public a greater understanding of both sides.
The website, which will be available in Italian and English, has information on everything from astronomy to theology, from space missions to philosophy and art.
… The venture is being run jointly by the Vatican and the Italian Space Agency, ASI.
Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, the dean of the Pontifical Lateran University’s philosophy department, will be the Vatican’s point man on the scheme.
He says: “From the Church’s point of view, this is about getting religious people to see that scientists are not the enemy and getting scientists to see that religious people are not the enemy.
“The aim is for both sides to come together for the good of humanity.”
This BBC article does go on to point out that the Italian Space Agency and the Vatican might be “uneasy bedfellows”.
Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12244279
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Religious people aren’t the enemy. The Vatican is the enemy.
I sincerely hope that Italian spacecraft are more reliable than their cars. Please tell me they are not built by Fiat/Alfa.
“If the Big Bang was the start of everything, what came before it?”
Silly question (or at least very poorly worded). If the Big Bang was the start of “everything” then obviously nothing came before it. If something came before it, it couldn’t have been the start of “everything”. If the purpose of the website is “greater understanding” and this is the best it can come up with, it’s doomed.
“But there was a time when the Church was hostile to those who challenged orthodox teachings.”
Aren’t we still in that time?
“Where there are scientifically proven explanations for things, the Church says they should be accepted. Where there are not, then faith may have a role.”
God of the gaps.
“The Church says it is about parallel realities, not competing ones.”
NOMA nonsense.
I’m highly suspicious of any attempts to “reconcile” religious teaching with science, because religion is fundamentally at odds with what science tells us. The core tenets of religion — souls, afterlife, supernatural beings, supernatural occurrences, claims that the universe was created by a deity — are all counter to what science increasingly reveals to us as how things actually are. Such attempts may be superficially intended as an accommodation between incompatible disciplines, but at root they are simply aiming to slow the inevitable: the dwindling power of the church.
Doomed.
I would love to see catholics in space………………………..all of them!