Why should we assume that anything is "really" feeling emotions? What is the difference between "really feeling" something and "mimicking feeling" something? You have a lot of assumptions flying there.

And if the Catholic church made no formal claims about anything physical, this would be a valid critique. It is not. The church makes claims about evolutionary history(see Humani Generis, the Catechism, etc), miracles(see virtually any beatification process), mental illness(see any "possession" case), decay(see the silliness about incorruptible bodies), etc. This is ignoring such silliness as transubstantiation("this process is physical, but can't be detected pretty much by meaningless distinctions about substance and accident").

And you miss the point. The church STARTS by asserting that a whole host of events, both historical and on-going, are not natural events. Those events are ignored in terms of the scientific method.
And they often only pay lip service to claims of scientific evaluation. It doesn't take much digging around in the miracle claims for beatification, things like eucharistic miracles and the ever present Marian visitations(just for a few random examples) to see that a lot of "evidence" is just hand-waving over dubious claims.

Hmm, all of those papal encyclicals, catechisms and other teachings are obviously out of date, then, since they often make claims about physical processes which are very much in the area of scientific investigation. You should mention this to your bishop, so he can pass it on.

Ah, that's why they have jettisoned the idea of a single couple as the genesis of the whole human race as it's scientifically untenable. Oh, wait, they didn't. That's defined in Humani Generis:

When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents.

So, no, a basic fact of human evolution is ignored because of its theological implications. That's not a scientific viewpoint.

They don't even go that far. Hell, they've even regressed in modern times, since JPII gutted the office of the Promotor fide(better known as the Devil's Advocate). It wasn't rigorous before; now it's a rubber stamp. And don't get me started on exorcisms.
I was a Catholic and active in apologetics for many years. This nonsense was a large part of what made believing in that church an untenable position.

The RCC likes to pretend that it accepts evolution. But it puts restrictions on the events(such as insisting on a single couple being the start of the human race) in such ways that it is really incompatible with science. It's just a dodge.

Well, you should explain to all of your miracle-believing friends that they are completely wrong.

By your own logic, the bible is riddled with errors, as it supposedly documents MANY impossible, not improbable, events. It takes an almost completely figurative reading of the bible to come up with the idea that it's not contradicting science.

In other words, it's only useful against the vast majority of Christianst. If you've studied Christianity and haven't realized that, you might want to dig a bit deeper.

Yup, it's a tight bit of circular logic that apologists like Keating attempt to ignore by making silly claims about a "lawful spiral" and other such nonsense.

That's some specious reasoning, there. Of course Catholics were involved with the development of science. But it certainly wasn't a church function.
That being said, I think that the OP was not being clear. It is not that the pope doesn't accept the scientific method and reasoning in general. It's just that he uses compartmentalized thinking to avoid applying those principles to certain cherished beliefs. Unfortunately, this sort of thinking is fairly common, even among those who understand science and skepticism, and it's not limited to religious thought.

Been there, done that. It's a fairy tale with no more validity than any other religion. Special pleading for your favorite deity is a fallacy. Waving hands and whispering "mystery" is silly.

I didn't. I said that Christianity was instrumental in creating the cultural climate which enabled Hitler to scapegoat the Jews by tapping into existing prejudice. The fact that he also abused others has zero bearing on these facts.

Yeah, it's not like he was drawing upon a rich history of persecution against the Jews. This doesn't sound the least bit familiar to you in this context?

Hitler's attempt to scapegoat the Jews was primed for success by European Christian society.

There, fixed that for you. Dawkins is a brilliant evolutionist and a good defender of science. And he is a shithead when it comes to sexual harassment. If this attitude is the new face of the atheist movement, then fuck it. I no longer spend time or money on such things, and I'm not going to play ball with a bunch of sexist fuckwits. And if this is your attitude, then fuck you, too.

Then you are simply not paying attention. That's just one site, and 10 seconds of typing to get to it. Make an effort to read the data, don't bitch because you aren't getting spoon fed.