Now, I am happily ignorant when it comes to just exactly how the good Lord created us. The Catholic Church allows for different understandings of the biblical creation accounts, as long as certain basics are agreed on. Like rejecting the idea that we are merely a cosmic accident, the result of blind and purposeless natural forces. Things like that.
It is the presumptious and condescending manner in which evolution was for so long presented as settled fact that has helped to make a cottage industry of refuting the theory. People generally don’t respond well to force-feeding of any kind.
Again, I am not saying (or not NOT saying) that evolution of some kind might not have played a role in the creation of our physical bodies. I don’t know. But I know that alot of people just plain got sick-up-and-fed with being beaten over the cranium with atheistic evolution, so I was not that surprised to hear that some IMAX theaters had given a polite "no thank you" to a recent movie that makes yet another reference to the "E" word. No big deal, it just wasn’t something they thought would sell in their area. It’s a free country, right?
Well, it turns out that not only are we ignorant red-staters Ruining Everything, we are actually repressing the creative giants who make IMAX movies, and stuff. They are really very worried that this will restrain their creative approach. The story also points out that this is mainly occurring in the dreaded South.
Take heart, theistic IMAX moviegoers! To paraphrase Goethe, "Act boldly, and unseen (market) forces will come to your aid."
Liberals give me a headache. On one hand they claim to uplift the downtrodden and the minority view, then they turn around and say that they are simply voicing the opinion of the majority. After the election in which the majority of the U.S. voted against them, they claim all the red states are ignorant and stupid.
With nothing left to whine about, they turn their attention to IMAX films.
There is probably little we would agree about. However, I believe we sould agree that public schools do a lousy job of teaching science. If they were better at that task, these accusations of “athiestic evolution” would never rise to the top of what has become the public cesspool of discourse. Evolution is NOT athiestic. Good science does not comment on the existence or non-existence of a divine power; that is not its area of endeavor. Good religion should not comment on the nature of science, both for its own good, and the good of science. Otherwise, it might be discredited when it is fully demonstrated that the sun does not circle around the earth. Science is materialistic – after all, that is its field of study: Material substances and forces, and the laws that govern them. Religion deals with that which transcends the material. The two are not in conflict. In formal language, they are mutually exclusive. Science should be taught in the public school, and religion in Sunday school.
Well, that is the problem. Science – in it’s proper place – is no threat to faith.
Unfortunately, science has often been used by the ignorant (and malicious) as some sort of cudgel with which to beat up on religious folk.
The underlying message is usually “people used to believe in God, but now we know better”. The implication that evolution is a proof of the non-existence of God has been drilled into the heads of countless millions of unsuspecting high school and university students who, in general, do not know enough to question the assumption.
Religious people can overstep their bounds, too, and that does not help. Those who insist on six literal 24-hour days of creation, for instance. You can certainly believe that, but to insist that it is a necessary article of faith (let alone science) is wrong-headed.
God is the author of all truth, whether it be scientific or religious.