[2 points]

So, a little while ago, I posted this: The design IS intelligent. My premise was simple and threefold:

1. "Intelligent Design" is bad science
2. "Intelligent Design" is bad religion
3. "Intelligent Design" isn't actually all that intelligent of a design

But, of course, all I can say doesn't mean a whole lot to your average creationist intelligent design proponent, because they've already decided that I am:

1. Too deeply invested in the massive conspiracy of scientists to hide all evidence of the One Truth
2. An atheist
3. Possessed by Satan

None of these things are true, and I'm offended that they think that. But, well, reason is not the strong suit of ID proponents. In my last article, I referenced a few people even smarter than me, but I doubt their opinion counts for much either. Maybe this one won't either.

But guess who else agrees with me.

The Vatican.

No, really.

THE Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally. (Martin Penner, The Austrialian)

That's right, folks. The Church back in Rome says that Evolution is perfectly compatible with the Bible. The mechanics of how the universe got created are outside the scope of the Bible. Science is about how; religion is about why. Incidentally, the Church also accepts that the Big Bang theory is completely in keeping with the Bible. Maybe it was just where I came from, but when I was younger, that used to be the hot topic between "believers" and "unbelievers".

So, maybe this helps, maybe not. I suspect that most of the folks on the ID side of the debate don't really recognize the authority of the Vatican, but I'd like to hope even they couldn't accuse a Cardinal of atheism with a straight face.

It's not supposed to be religion vs. science. We're the ones who made it that way. Maybe when I get the nerve up, I'll try to speak to why we made it that way. But it's not the only way, and it's not the right way. I've said it. Cardinal Poupard said it. For that matter, St. Augustine of Hippo said it: we want to understand what it is we believe. When we turn our back on the inconvenient bits of science, we stop trying to understand the world. God created an awful lot of world. Seems kind of rude of us to ignore it.