Dear Commons Community,

Pope Francis on Monday waded into the controversial debate over the origins of human life, saying the big bang theory did not contradict the role of a divine creator, but even required it. As reported by the Religion News Service:

“The pope was addressing the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which gathered at the Vatican to discuss “Evolving Concepts of Nature.”

“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” Francis said.

“He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment.”

Francis said the beginning of the world was not “a work of chaos” but created from a principle of love. He said sometimes competing beliefs in creation and evolution could co-exist.

“God is not a divine being or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life,” the pope said. “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”

Unlike much of evangelical Protestantism in the U.S., Catholic teaching traditionally has not been at odds with evolution. In 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed there was no opposition between evolution and Catholic doctrine. In 1996, St. John Paul II endorsed Pius’ statement.”

The more I see and hear Pope Francis, the more I like him.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Drew Faust, President of Harvard University, addressed a class of teens at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas, promoting the importance of staying in school and going to college. In addition to the financial rewards of a college degree, Faust mentioned the following reasons for going to college:

First, college will take you to places you’ve never been before. Some of you will choose a college or university in a different city, or state, or even country, and you will learn a lot from these new surroundings.

Second, college introduces you to people you’ve never met before. This is true both literally and figuratively. Even if you go to a school that is local and continue to live at home, your classes will be full of people you’ve never encountered, with views and experiences new to you.

Third, college helps you to discover dreams you’ve never dreamed before. College can offer you the satisfaction of hard, intellectual work—a paper or a project or an experiment—or play or a musical composition—that you are proud of.

Fourth and perhaps most important, college teaches us to “Think Slow.” No one denies the value of speed, connectivity, and the virtual world in an economy that thrives on all three. But college can also help you to slow down. And that, perhaps, is a lesson that you don’t hear taught all that often: Slow your processors down. College teaches you to sift through an enormous amount of daily information, to assess it, to use it critically. In other words, you learn to reject information as well as receive it. The ability to examine a piece of information skeptically, before deciding whether to accept it or not, is a vital skill in the workplace, and a vital skill in life. A dean at Harvard used to tell students that being able to detect when someone is talking rot was the main purpose of education.

“Information” is everywhere; but real “knowledge” and “understanding” are harder to achieve. That is what college will ask of you.

Faust concluded: “I have called this speech “the case for college” because I believe that college changes lives. It opens opportunities, …Perhaps even more important, it opens minds and worlds—in ways that stretch us—almost pull us—to become different people.”

Wonderful advice!

Tony