Evolution and God

From PhiloWiki

Is it possible to believe in evolution and in God?

Evolution and God are compatible

None of the six creative verses (in Genesis) describe an out-of-nothing, puff-of-smoke creation," [Ken Miller] says. "All of them amount to a command by the creator for the earth, the soil and the water of this planet to bring forth life. And that's exactly what natural history tells us happened." (Miller has written a book on the subject: "Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.")

Still, today's emotional conflicts over teaching this science in public schools leave the impression that Christianity and evolution cannot be reconciled. This is not so.

In 1996, Pope John II wrote a strong letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences supporting the scientific understanding of evolution. That's one reason why students in Catholic parochial schools get a more clearheaded education in evolution science than do children at many public schools racked by the evolution debate.

American parents who want Darwin's name erased from the textbooks might be surprised at the father of evolution's burial spot. Darwin was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, an Anglican church and England's national shrine.

Not every illustrious Englishman gains admission to an abbey burial site. Darwin died in 1882. Two years before, friends of George Eliot wanted the famous (female) writer laid to rest at the abbey. Eliot had lived immorally, according to the church fathers, and was denied a place. (She is buried at London's Highgate Cemetery, not far from Karl Marx.)

But Darwin had been an upright man. The clergy were proud both of Darwin's accomplishments and of their own comfort with modern science.

In 1882, during the memorial service for the great evolutionist, one church leader after the other rose to praise Charles Darwin. Canon Alfred Barry, for one, had recently delivered a sermon declaring that Darwin's theory was "by no means alien to the Christian religion.

Finding common ground between God and evolution from Seattle Times Froma Harrop

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