Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer

[Errigal]

The Scotsman
Fri 5 May 2006

Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer
IAN JOHNSTON

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.

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.

Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods. "Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance. That's why science and religion need to talk to each other," he said.

"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."

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". What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept "somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority".

"It's not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear," he said.

Scotsman.com News - International - Creationism dismissed as \'a kind of paganism\' by Vatican\'s astronomer

[Errigal]

Do space aliens have souls? Inquiring minds can check Jesuit's book

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Galaxy-gazing scientists surely wonder about what kind of impact finding life or intelligent beings on another planet would have on the world.

But what sort of effect would it have on Catholic beliefs? Would Christian theology be rocked to the core if science someday found a distant orb teeming with little green men, women or other intelligent forms of alien life? Would the church send missionaries to spread the Gospel to aliens? Could aliens even be baptized? Or would they have had their own version of Jesus and have already experienced his universal or galactic plan of salvation?

Curious Catholics need not be space buffs to want answers to these questions and others when they pick up a 48-page booklet by a Vatican astronomer.

Through the British-based Catholic Truth Society, U.S. Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno has penned his response to what he says are questions he gets from the public "all the time" when he gives talks on his work with the Vatican Observatory.

Titled "Intelligent Life in the Universe? Catholic Belief and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life," the pocket-sized booklet is the latest addition to the society's "Explanations Series," which explores Catholic teaching on current social and ethical issues.

Brother Consolmagno told Catholic News Service that the whole question of how Catholicism would hold up if some form of life were discovered on another planet has piqued people's curiosity "for centuries."

He said his aim with the booklet was to reassure Catholics "that you shouldn't be afraid of these questions" and that "no matter what we learn, it doesn't invalidate what we already know" and believe. In other words, scientific study and discovery and religion enrich one another, not cancel out each other.

If new forms of life were to be discovered or highly advanced beings from outer space were to touch down on planet Earth, it would not mean "everything we believe in is wrong," rather, "we're going to find out that everything is truer in ways we couldn't even yet have imagined," he said.

The Book of Genesis describes two stories of creation, and science, too, has more than one version of how the cosmos may have come into being.

"However you picture the universe being created, says Genesis, the essential point is that ultimately it was a deliberate, loving act of a God who exists outside of space and time," Brother Consolmagno said in his booklet.

"The Bible is divine science, a work about God. It does not intend to be physical science" and explain the making of planets and solar systems, the Jesuit astronomer wrote.

Pope John Paul II once told scientists, "Truth does not contradict truth," meaning scientific truths will never eradicate religious truths and vice versa.

"What Genesis says about creation is true. God did it; God willed it; and God loves it. When science fills in the details of how God did it, science helps get a flavor of how rich and beautiful and inventive God really is, more than even the writer of Genesis could ever have imagined," Brother Consolmagno wrote.

The limitless universe "might even include other planets with other beings created by that same loving God," he added. "The idea of there being other races and other intelligences is not contrary to traditional Christian thought.

"There is nothing in Holy Scripture that could confirm or contradict the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe," he wrote.

Brother Consolmagno said that, like scientists, people of faith should not be afraid of saying "I just don't know."

Human understanding "is always incomplete. It is crazy to underestimate God's ability to create in depths of ways that we will never completely understand. It is equally dangerous to think that we understand God completely," he said in his booklet.

He told CNS that his booklet tries to show "the fun of thinking" about what it would mean if God had created more than life on Earth. Such speculation "is very worthwhile if it makes us reflect on things we do know and have taken for granted," he said.

He said asking such questions as "Would aliens have souls?" or "Does the salvation of Christ apply to them?" helps one "appreciate what it means for us to have a soul" and helps one better "recognize what the salvation of Christ means to us."

Brother Consolmagno said he tried to show in the booklet that "the church is not afraid of science" and that Catholics, too, should be unafraid and confident in confronting all types of speculation, no matter how "far out" and spacey it may be.

For science fiction fans, Trekkies, or telescope-toting space enthusiasts, the booklet's last chapter reveals where there are references to extraterrestrials in the Bible.

Brother Consolmagno said the Bible is also replete with references to or descriptions of "nonhuman intelligent beings" who worship God. For example, he said the Scriptures talk about angels, "sons of God" who took human wives, and "heavenly beings" that "shouted for joy" when God created the earth.

The booklet, however, offers no "hard and fast answers" to extraterrestrial life, since such speculation is "better served by science fiction or poetry than by definitions of science and theology," he wrote.

He said the booklet is meant "to put a smile on your face" and, perhaps, make people think twice about who could be peeking at Earth from alien telescopes far, far away.

CNS STORY: Do space aliens have souls? Inquiring minds can check Jesuit\'s book

[Errigal]

I found Brother Guy Consolmagno's ideas interesting. Here is another print story and a radio interview he did.

God and geeks: Vatican astronomer hunts for faith in Silicon Valley*-*Catholic Times

CBC Radio | Quirks & Quarks | April 15, 2006

[Savorgnan]

Creationism is like everything that produces America, like the "Global Warming Great Fear", it's Pantheism in its very essence. That's what Americans are, Pantheists, not Christians.

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Errigal

Scotsman.com News - International - Creationism dismissed as \'a kind of paganism\' by Vatican\'s astronomer

There's a lot of truth in what this guy says, but there's other stuff he comes out with that's quite disturbing as well.

[Marulus]

Like the song says: "It's a kind of magic..."

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Milesian

There's a lot of truth in what this guy says, but there's other stuff he comes out with that's quite disturbing as well.

True, he runs the risk of rationalizing and modernizing himself right into Unitarianism.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Savorgnan

Creationism is like everything that produces America, like the "Global Warming Great Fear", it's Pantheism in its very essence. That's what Americans are, Pantheists, not Christians.

Either that or another extreme: they worship some sadistic "god" who enjoys punishing people. Everything is sin, sin, sin, there is nothing else than sin. We are so evil and rotten in just everything we do, so they say.

I know it from my personal experiences. While on my spiritual wanderings, I used to go to some private "services" (an imitation of Mass, there is even bread and wine) of certain local branches of American Protestant-Evangelical sects (I mean in the American sense of "Evangleical", not in the European sense, which equals Lutheranism). Their interpretation of the Bible was so perverted and twisted, that I was really appalled. I had said unto myself: "If this is the essence of Christianity, then I say: Hail, Satan!"

No wonder that the materialistic atheism is widespread also there. It is a basically a deliverance from such a "god". A braindead response to a braindead religion. So they have the most rabid religious fundamentalists and the most rabid materialist atheists in the world...

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by Savorgnan

Creationism is like everything that produces America, like the "Global Warming Great Fear", it's Pantheism in its very essence. That's what Americans are, Pantheists, not Christians.

What's the problem with Pantheism ? I never thought it could be the nature of American Protestantism.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

What's the problem with Pantheism ? I never thought it could be the nature of American Protestantism.

Of some of its strands...