BELIEVING that God created the universe in six 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.
...
"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."
--Ian Johnston, New Scotsman
My oh my, the Vatican sounds more and more liberal by the moment. Sometimes I wonder how much of these statements is genuine reconcilliation with science though, and how much just good publicity.
Brother Consolmagno, who was due to give a speech at the Glasgow Science Centre last night, entitled "Why the Pope has an Astronomer", said the idea of papal infallibility had been a "PR disaster".
2 comments:
Yeah, I saw this the other day too... You want to hope there is sincerety in these statements, but who knows?
I do think so. It's a great way for them to win converts from the Evangelicals if they support science.
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