Friday, February 11, 2011

Happy Evolution Weekend

Over the last five years, more and more faith communities -- churches, temples and mosques -- in the USA have recognized the Sunday closest to Charles Darwin’s birthday (February 12), also known as Darwin Day, as an annual opportunity to reflect on what religion has to learn from science, in particular how Christianity can embrace the insights of evolution.

Many Atheists don't know that there are many Christians, Muslims and other religious adherents who are not anti-science. That's because mainstream media gives much more voice to the extremist religious elements that fight against science education. Adhering to religion does not mean turning one's back on the science of evolution, and many Christians, Muslims and others know this.

Comedian Stephen Colbert is a practicing Catholic, yet that doesn't stop him from believing in science -- and from brilliantly satirizing people like Fox News' Bil O'Reilly, who claimed that the regularity of the ocean’s tides proves the existence of God. When various people pointed out that the moon’s gravity causes tidal ebb and flow, O’Reilly dug himself in deeper by saying, "Okay, how did the moon get there?" Colbert likened O’Reilly to St. Thomas Aquinas since “Like St. Thomas Aquinas, Bill O’Reilly’s understanding of the world is also from the 13th century.”

The Rev. Carl Gregg blogged recently about the importance of Evolution Sunday to Christians and other communities of faith. He brought this to my attention:

In recent months, perhaps the most exciting dialogue between Christianity and evolution has been a series of free online teleseminars on The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity: Conversations at the Leading Edge of Faith that have featured some of the most well-known luminaries of the religion-science dialogue, ranging from scientists to theologians to pastors. The series was hosted by Michael Dowd, author of the bestselling book Thank God for Evolution.

Great stuff! What a shame THIS doesn't get covered on mainstream media!

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