Fw: "individual Catholics (meaning Ken Miller) get to define what the Catholic Church stands for..."

Deeply - is Dr Heddle aggrieved. Deeply. Yet nor does he condemn his opponents:

[...] Moving on, they [proponents of Darwinism] will argue that it is the IDers who wish to impose their religion on society at large--while heaping accolades on their guru, Richard Dawkins, who believes that parents who raise their children in their religion are committing child abuse. Is the implication of what will happen to religious families, should Dawkins's bigotry ever go mainstream, not clear?

Similarly, they will argue like libertarians if a local government mandates the teaching of ID along with evolution, and turn around and argue like totalitarians if a local government simply permits it. No government intervention can be their mantra in Georgia, on Tuesday, while the government must take control of a school's curriculum will do nicely on Wednesday, in California.

Or it allows to them to argue (actually, in this case, lie is probably more accurate) that the Catholic Church is fine with evolution period, when in fact the Catholic Church is demonstrably fine only with a very narrow perspective: theistic evolution. If pressed too hard, their arguments will start sounding like: individual Catholics (meaning Ken Miller) get to define what the Catholic Church stands for, not the anachronistic pope, and not the obscure Magisterium.

And speaking of theistic evolution, they will at times argue that it is indistinguishable from "regular" evolution or, if politically expedient (or, more likely, if caught off-guard) will treat it as little more than religious charlatanry. So while, for effect, they make Ken Miller dance for the cameras, the view behind the curtain is all Sam Harris (HT Telic Thoughts): "It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum. There is no question but that nominally religious scientists like Francis Collins and Kenneth R Miller are doing lasting harm to our discourse by the accommodations they have made to religious irrationality." [...]

-- David Heddle at http://helives.blogspot.com/2006/08/dissonance-as-way-of-life.html

Well, at least they've correctly identified the authority (auctoritas) of the Millersterium, even if they mixed up individuate members thereof, much as some cannot tell their Pius IX from their Pius X, or as they say of liberal Catholics in the USA - "mistaking John Paul Stevens for John Paul II".