Creationism

People are free to believe whatever they like. Any decent approach would attempt to persuade, either by example or words, but recognise that people can make up their own mind. If their faith is strong enough, then God or the universe can deal with those who don't believe, frankly.

I've just come back from mass and was, as usual, surprised to find on the web a certain amount of ignorance about faith, some of it spread by the faithful. Surely it should now be obvious, to people--after all, you've had nearly two thousand years--that the Catholic Church (tm and (c)) which I love has a passing acquaintance with the literal word of the bible (choose your version and translation), but also with the holy spirit's guidance of a church defined by a logic which depends only upon its premises. Catholics are in fact enjoined to believe so that they may understand--credo ut intelligam--set out by the pope amongst others.

It is very possible to see this as a duty to be rational and skeptical. That, presumably, is the way the catholic priest who modelled the big bang or the catholics who developed the spectrograph at the Vatican Observatory thought.

Catholics are also under a duty to love any sinners, and to separate them from any sin; and to remind themselves that they are as flawed as anyone else and that heavenly access is a kind of monopsony mediated by Petrine nepotism, not an insurance policy. So, no patronising thickies and no absolute certainties about things outside of the body of the faith.

I only say this because I've just read on the web that 'creationism' or 'intelligent design' may be taught in Catholic schools. As far as I can tell, the only way it could be would be to refute it, and in fact should be. When should anyone, especially Catholics, be afraid of the truth? We have been at our flawed human worst when we have hid in the darkness.

One fact that people should just be told and allowed to discuss; ninety nine per cent of all species that ever existed are extinct.

Predicating your faith upon a creator who either gets it right one per cent of the time, or who is some sort of universal tinkerer, or who deliberately destroys is not, so to speak, my cup of tea. I find it hard to be writing this, but according to Sarah Palin, her dad was a science teacher and that position is the one she's taken.

At the minute, the most we can say, and Palin and the Pope agree on this, is that God originated a universe somehow that invented evolution and that depends on physics. That's intelligent design for you, though its also a fantastically stupid debate which results in very little enlightenment, I would have thought.

Please think about that if you have any intention of voting for her.