Grimer wrote:
I very much hope and pray that he hasn't "progressed" beyond Pius IX and I look forward to the day when the "battle lines" are once again "wonderfully clear"
I rest my case! We are in perfect agreement. I accuse Grimer of letting religion trump academic freedom, and interfere with science, and Grimer agrees that is exactly what he believes, and what he would do.
By the way, that 1896 quote from Pope Pius was an attack against evolution. A few decades later, the next Pope endorsed evolution, and it is now the officially sanctioned view of the Church that Darwin was right, and evolution did occur. So, if Grimer prays that the Pope Pius would stick to his guns, that makes both of them heretics. Woops! The authorities back in 1920 ordered Grimer to switch sides, but he didn't get the message.
I am kidding. Grimer did not realize that the particular "revealed doctrine" Pius was pontificating about later turned out to be un-revealed, just like the opposition to the Copernican theory that the earth orbits the sun, and the Church's endorsement of slavery (which ended around 1870 as I recall). Heresy, like treachery, is a matter of dates. You have to believe whatever "revealed doctrine" they come up with, when they tell it to you, and then you have to turn on a dime and believe the exact opposite as soon as They Change Their Minds. It calls for a kind of mental agility that I could never master, despite my years of training in cultural relativism.
Now I promise I will drop the subject, but I must say, this was FUN! - Jed
