Did I say “Retard”? I shouldn’t degrade mentally retarded people by comparing them to someone who willingly rejects knowledge and embraces ignorance. At least retarded people try to learn.

Pope says some science shatters human dignity

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Thursday that embryonic stem cell research, artificial insemination and the prospect of human cloning had “shattered” human dignity.

In an address to members of the Vatican department on doctrinal matters, Benedict said the Church had a duty to defend the “great values at stake” in the field of bioethics.

The speech was the latest in a series in which the conservative Pope has told his listeners that scientific progress should not be accepted uncritically.

Benedict, who headed the same department for years before his election in 2005, said the Church was not against scientific progress but wanted it based on “ethical-moral principles.”

He said this included total respect for the human being as a person “from conception until natural death,” and respect for the natural transmission of life through sexual intercourse.

Practices like freezing embryos, suppression of embryos in multiple pregnancies, embryonic stem cell research, the prospect of human cloning and artificial insemination outside the body had “shattered the barriers meant to protect human dignity,” he said.

Scholars protest at papal visit

Lecturers and students at a prestigious university in Rome want a planned visit by the Pope to be cancelled as they object to his position on Galileo.

Pope Benedict XVI is to make a speech on Thursday at La Sapienza university.

Sixty-seven academics have signed a letter saying the Pope’s views on Galileo “offend and humiliate us”.

They say he condoned the 1633 trial and conviction of Galileo for heresy. The astronomer had argued that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

The academics said it would be inappropriate for the Pope to open their academic year on Thursday.

“In the name of the secular nature of science we hope this incongruous event can be cancelled,” said the letter addressed to the university’s rector, Renato Guarini.

In a separate initiative students at La Sapienza have organised four days of protest this week. The first revolved around an anti-clerical meal of bread, pork and wine, the BBC’s Christian Fraser reports from Rome.

mattbors.com 

Yup, Atheist Crusades, Atheist Inquisition, Atheist Witch Trials, Atheist Suicide Bombers.. man, us atheists are responsible for the worst atrocities known to man.

Papal encyclical attacks atheism, promises hope

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, in a new encyclical released on Friday, said atheism was responsible for some of the “greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice” in history.

The 75-page “Spe Salvi”, which takes its Latin title from a quote by St Paul (in hope we were saved), is an appeal to a pessimistic world to find strength in Christian hope.

In the second encyclical of his papacy, Benedict urges Christians to put their hope for the future in God and not in technology, wealth or political ideologies which can often be deluding.

Atheism could be regarded by some as a “type of moralism”, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, to protest against the injustices of the world and world history, he said.

Reciting arguments made by atheists, he said: “A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God.”

History has proven wrong ideologies such as Marxism which say humans had to establish social justice because God did not exist, the Pope wrote.

“It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice,” the Pope said. Such a concept was grounded in “intrinsic falsity”.

Marxism, the Pope wrote, had left behind “a trail of appalling destruction” because it failed to realize that man could not be “merely the product of economic conditions”.