Why do Catholics believe in evolution?

I first asked myself the above question when I attended a summer evolution institute at the University of California, Berkeley, titled “Think Evolution,” which consisted of a series of crash courses in current, frontier research in the field of evolution. I received many amazing lectures from leading scientists in their field, and met some very interesting people who were in attendance. One such person was a self-proclaimed Catholic and a biology teacher at a Catholic high school. I asked her something along the lines of, “So, how is it teaching evolution to religious students?” I remember her reply, “It’s fine, the Catholic Church is OK with evolution.” I left the conversation at that, and we proceeded on with our tasks for the day. However, I had held a question back in order to avoid offense; what I really wanted to ask her was this: If the Catholic Church came out against evolution tomorrow, would you still accept it as fact? Or, in other words, why do you believe in evolution? Because it is fact, or because your religion permits you to?

I have become very interested in this question, but I find myself in a bind. I am very concerned with what people believe, since beliefs are the basis of actions, and actions have real-world consequences. But I am also very concerned with why people believe the things they do. Catholics claim that their religion is compatible with evolution, although it must be noted that it is also compatible with its complete rejection. And this is where it gets tricky; should we try to make Catholics justify their belief in evolution within the context of their religious beliefs, or should we avoid pressuring people who already believe in evolution into feeling the need to reconcile a dichotomy which may lead them to reject evolution in favor of their religious beliefs? I don’t know the answer to this question, but I don’t think it can be formulated as a simple yes or no. However, I will here demonstrate that the Catholic assumption asserting the compatibility between Catholicism and evolution is false, and then let you decide whether or not you wish to pursue this issue with individual Catholics. Continue reading…

Deprogramming : I Might Be Wrong

One question most Christians aren’t prepared to answer is, “What would it take for you to change your mind?”

As a Christian, I was always ready to share my testimony, my favorite scriptures or worship songs, my reasons for following Jesus, but for many years I was simply closed to the possibility of being wrong. I had been coached, and had even coached others, to walk away whenever conversations took this turn.

That’s a mistake I don’t intend to repeat. If there’s one thing I learned a little late in my faith but now maintain as a free thinker, it’s that I could always be wrong. Now, it takes more than authority claims or veiled threats of eternal punishment to get my attention. I require sound reasoning and, when available, verifiable proof. Continue reading…

Deprogramming : They Will Only Make You Feel Ugly

I was 17 years old when my girlfriend’s father pulled me aside, saying, “You’ve just got to hear this song.” He usually had great taste in music but honestly, what followed was one of the strangest things I’d ever heard. It was just a guy talking about what I could only describe as feel-good nonsense.

Chuckling to myself slightly, I was ready to give up when over a slight musical pause I heard the line, “Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.”

That caught my attention and the thought has stuck with me ever since. In much the same way that car advertising aims to convince you that your current vehicle isn’t cool, economical, spacious or versatile enough, the beauty industry thrives on convincing you that your looks need improvement.

They will only make you feel ugly. Weird how that actually works.

The song, if you haven’t guessed by now, was Baz Luhrman’s Everbody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) and it became the most unlikely number one hit back in 1998.

Over a decade later, the night my tenure in music ministry came to an end follows a similar narrative arc. That night I heard something truly profound that has had a lasting impact on the way I view (and continually re-assess) organized religion.

* * * Continue reading…

No Quarter

There was a time in this country when lynching was a public event, when people would look forward to watching a “colored person” be murdered for crimes such as looking at a white woman or not giving up their seat on the bus.

I drive a ’67 Plymouth, and as my car rolled off the assembly line it was publicly acceptable in many places to shout “nigger” at a passerby and, in some communities, this brand of hatred was still acceptable even from the pulpit.

These days, and more so every year, those organizations whose unifying principles revolve around racism or ethnic supremacy have their private meetings and their occasional rallies, but are relegated to the shadows. This is a good thing and our society is tangibly better off for it.

In most states, were one to go to work and publicly state their wish that all “colored people” should go back to Africa, or that lynching and interracial marriage laws should be reversed; his or her job would soon be in jeopardy.

It’s a sad yet telling coincidence that the very reason marriage licenses were initiated in the United States was to ensure that ministers could deny interracial couples the right to marry on religious grounds. How soon we forget. And though there are still communities where, once in a while, we hear of a minister or justice of the peace who refuses to wed an interracial couple on religious grounds, by and large, that form of hatred is no longer acceptable in American culture.

Now the marriage debate has changed course, and once again many (though not all) religious organizations have mounted an offensive to maintain their acerbic beliefs as public policy, freedom and liberty be damned.

I look forward to the day when bigots and homophobes, while still free to passively hate, must meet in secret and would rarely if ever in polite conversation admit they belong to some sort of anti-gay club. Like being a member of the KKK, homophobes should be free to believe whatever they like, but our society should offer them no quarter.

You shouldn’t be able to bring it up at work. You certainly shouldn’t be an educator if you openly promote hateful views to impressionable students. Surely there are white supremacists who are also teachers in this country, but being openly racist is certainly not classroom appropriate, and for good reason. There are black students and white students, Latino and Asian. And there are gay, straight, transgender and bisexual students as well. Every single one of these people has a right to be educated in a safe, positive, supportive environment. And every American, regardless of whichever of the many categories their life falls into, has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Freedom only works if it’s available to everyone.

You can be a bigot and be a school teacher, a senator, a waiter or a police officer, but you should never allow the two to mix. It’s that simple.

Homophobia is a private belief. While I would never vote to take away someone’s right to hate gays, I believe we, as a society, can and should band together and declare: Enough is enough.

In our schools and universities, hate is not welcome.

In our entertainment and media, hate is not welcome.

In our everyday conversation, in our workplaces, in our police and fire departments, in our military and even in our churches, hate is not welcome.

We will give you no quarter.

 

Why is religion considered philosophy?

I have always found it strange that people with a doctorate relating to religion get the designation Ph.D. It’s the “Ph” that really gets me. Why, I ask, is theology (with the exception of historical fields) considered a form of philosophy? The way I understand it, philosophy is a way of critically thinking about some aspect of the universe. Moral philosophy deals with explaining our moral impulses and creating coherent systems for real-world application. Natural philosophy attempts to describe the natural world and come to logical conclusions about the state of nature. And metaphysical philosophy attempts to construct and determine first principles that flow from the universal to the particular. What do all of these philosophical systems have in common? They all involve heavy discourse founded in an ultimate goal to describe the way things are, or aid in understanding. They are built upon, changed, and are adjusted based on new facts and insights—their aim is to discover truth. The same cannot be said of theology.

Theology represents stagnance. Views and ideas are set down and are never changed (at least that’s the goal). Theological systems claim that truth in its most pure form is already known through scriptures and supposedly “Holy” books. Any new thought, any amount of mulling things over or adjustments are forbidden, since that would be seen as a desecration of what is already true and pure. Truth is assumed a priori; no further investigations are deployed or are even seen to be needed.

Continue reading…

The arrogant atheist

“Atheists are so arrogant!”

This phrase can frequently be heard on the lips of religious people. What this accusation really boils down to is the fact that atheists, when speaking on various topics, either claim to know something based on evidence, or remain hesitant to make affirmative claims until they have amassed sufficient knowledge or evidence. In other words, atheists don’t just make things up. This should leave one asking themselves, “Well, what’s so arrogant about that?” To which they should immediately realize and answer, “Nothing.” In fact, what religious people call arrogance is really just intellectual honesty driven by curiosity, and placing importance on what is demonstrably true, or at least what can be inferred. Religious people, on the other hand, tend not to be as intellectually rigorous in this sense. They do just make stuff up. Let’s look at an example regarding both an atheist’s and theist’s answer to the question, “What happens when you die?”

Continue reading…

Creation “Museum” opens in San Diego County

Creation “Museums” are popping up like toadstools all over the country, the latest of which has sprouted in San Diego County, California, and appears to be wasting no time in its effort to lower the nation’s collective IQ through its administering of antiquated blarney, despite the fact that their ideas have been old hat for well over a century.

Religious beliefs tend to not be very concerned with whether or not ideas are true, but rather how tenacious they are. One comes to this realization while reviewing the current religious explanations for myriad phenomena only to discover that, despite having been completely and utterly refuted for decades or even centuries, they remain completely unchanged or merely redressed in freshly creased slacks, hoping you won’t discover that they’re still wearing the same skidmarked undies beneath a new fashionable pretence.

Continue reading…