(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Believing that God created the universe in six [literal 24-hour] days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

Comments

[scixual.livejournal.com]

I love the New Catholics.

[vagabond27.livejournal.com]

Seriouslsy, the second they get over the whole "anti-gay" and "anti-birth control" thing, they have it made.

[vagabond27.livejournal.com]

"It's not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear," he said.

Man... if only someone would tell Bush.

[paoconnell.livejournal.com]

That's been the Catholic Church's position for a long time. Given a conflict between religion and well-documented scientific evidence (using the scientific method so the evidence is overwhelming), the scientific evidence wins every time. I was taught about evolution in a Catholic school back in the early 60s. The only classes that ever had any religious content were catechism (duh) and history (nothing about the Inquisition or the Protestant Reformation that would put Catholics in a bad light).

Now, if they would get it right on birth control and sex in general (including removing the celibacy vow from Catholic priests, monks, nuns, bishops, cardinals, the Pope, and others), they might just have a viable religion again.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Karen Armstrong (author of A History of God, among other highly-regarded books) made a similar point in New Scientist a couple of months ago.

I kind of wish he wouldn't try to hand off this particular superstition to us, though. For one thing, we have so many already to deal with that we're running out of sporks. For another, it seems to equate polytheism with superstition, and while there's plenty of that to go around (see point 1), that is not all there is to it.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Brother Consolmagno was also slated to appear in several panels in the 2005 Worldcon, although I believe he couldn't come at the last minute. Yes, the Vatican (was at least going to) send a delegate to an SF con.