“Pope Benedict XVI marked the holiest night of the year for Christians by stressing that humanity isn't a random product of evolution,” The Associated Press reported.
The Pope’s justification lies in the existence of human reason.
"If man were merely a random product of evolution … then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature," he said. "But no, reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine reason."
The Pope’s strange Easter homily evokes the classic conflict between science and religion. But in the midst of an increasingly secular society, how does religion continue to hold its own? The answer: Many Catholics actually believe there is no conflict.
“A Christian can … accept the theory of evolution to help explain developments, but is taught to believe that God, not random chance, is the origin of the world,” the article said.
However, many philosophers, scientists and atheists disagree with the view that a designing God is not at odds with the basic tenets of the theory of evolution.
During an interview in his 2004 BBC television series “The Atheism Tapes,” Jonathan Miller asked evolutionary biologist and atheism activist Richard Dawkins why he views the argument for non-theistic evolution as so important.
“I don't have much patience with theologians who say, ‘Well we're really not disagreeing,’” Dawkins said. “To me there is a problem because the moment you talk about a supernatural creator, designer, anything, you are advancing a scientific hypothesis which is either right or wrong.” Natural selection and God are not the same thing.
Miller then asked Dawkins about his own personal transition from a “normal Anglican upbringing” to disbelief.
For Dawkins, the argument from design — the one essentially evoked by the Pope last Saturday night — was what sustained his religious belief as a child starting to “appreciate the glorious complexity ... of life.” However, it wasn’t until he had grasped Darwinian evolution that he found a “fully satisfactory explanation of the way the world was.”
Personally, I think it is better — more impressive and dignified — to think of humanity as the result of evolution instead of some random act of God.
It means that our species has earned its place in the universe, through billions of years of adaptation and competition, rather than being given it by some supernatural being. In some sense, the story of humanity is the classic story of the American dream.
Perhaps in a post-theistic world, in which the perspective has moved away from mainstream religious belief, we will act more rationally, fight less and respect each other as co-conspirators in the creation of our own world.
But as the Pope said, without God, isn’t humanity’s existence random and meaningless? In other words, one can only find purpose and meaning in life thorough a belief in the deity we call God.
However, as Dawkins said, “The sense of wonder that one gets as a scientist contemplating the cosmos, or contemplating mitochondria is actually much grander than anything that you will get by contemplating the traditional objects of religious mysticism.”
In short, meaning and happiness are not left to only those at church on Sunday.
Reason with Danny at djoconn1@asu.edu
