Bad Religion

Creationists aren’t really down with Jesus:

Thomas Aquinas found the human likeness to God especially in man’s speculative intellect (Summa Theologica I-II:3:5, ad 1). Pius XII noted that while the human body may originate from pre-existing living matter, God individually creates the spiritual soul. The proper Christian view rejects not evolution per se, but theories of evolution that argue that the human spirit comes from matter, not God. (Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna recently reiterated this view in The New York Times, unfortunately using terms that could easily be co-opted by intelligent design advocates.)

Darwin addressed the origin of species, not the origin of the soul. The former is science. The latter is theology. The president was correct to observe that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought and that people should understand the debate. But there is no debate among scientists about evolution as an important unifying theory in biology. Discussion of varying views of the creator, or the “intelligent designer,” belongs in the humanities, not in sciences classes.

In “Creation Controversy & The Science Classroom,” published by the National Science Teachers Association, James W. Skehan, a Jesuit professor at Boston College who holds both a masters of divinity in theology as well as a doctoral degree in geology from Harvard, argues that religious people who believe God is the creator of the universe should find no conflict between science and religion, but those who misrepresent the Bible as a scientific presentation are destructive of sound religion. He suggests that science teachers who are likely to come into contact with the creation science mindset might be best equipped to respond if they learn about modern biblical scholarship, the limits of scientific knowledge and the role of religious faith.

Unless they get it together, they will all burn in hell.