Vatican Astronomer Dismisses Creationism

[mabfan]

Brother Guy Consolmagno is an astronomer who works as the curator of meteorites at the Vatican.

He's also a science fiction fan and a friend of mine. He's one of the people I consulted when I wrote "Sanctuary," my story about a Catholic priest giving sanctuary to an alien on a space station.

bill_leisner has just posted a link to an article on The Scotsman: Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer, written by 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....

Here's the "money" quote: "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."

Go read the article. I'm glad to see that Brother Guy finally had a chance to speak out.

Comments

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

Aside from really liking this POV, the next time you talk to him tell him I'm a big fan of Brother Astronomer. :D