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God Created Evolution

My kid and I went to church on Sunday, a woefully rare occurrence. Some people might wonder whether I went to seek shelter in the arms of a loving religious community as I awaited any news of the fate of my husband-sicle.

In truth, I just needed a bit of a break from my child. I figured I could ditch him (lovingly, of course) in the preschool and have some quiet time to commune with my thoughts, zoning out in the serenity (and completely ignoring the sermon).

Which might have been easy to do had I gone to a conventional church. But I made the "mistake" of hanging out with those hippie Unitarians, who just so happened to be celebrating a holiday: Evolution Sunday!

What better way to counteract the groan-fest of the day before, when 60 percent of Kansas republicans voting in the primary chose as their fearless leader Mike Huckabee, the man who disses Darwin (and most rational thought) by insisting that creationism or "intelligent design" be taught in the classroom. Again, I seriously question whether I should ever claim Kansas as my home state again.

The frightening fact is that many Americans don’t accept evolution. A Gallup poll in 2004 found that only about 35 percent of Americans believe Darwin’s theory is well supported by evidence, while another 35 percent thought it was not well-supported and 29 percent said they didn’t know enough about it.

My town's Unitarian Universalist Society was one of about a dozen congregations in the state, and hundreds around the country, celebrating evolution on the Sunday closest to the birthday of Charles Darwin, who was born on Feb. 12, 1809.

From the publication NewScientist:
"For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science," says Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Sunday and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis. "We're saying you can have your faith, and you can also have science."

Zimmerman and his backers believe the biblical account of creation is allegorical. "Creationists fear that if you believe evolution, you're an atheist," he says. But for Zimmerman, attempts to try and "ratify God's existence" through intelligent design signify lack of faith. "If you have enough faith, you don't need science to prove God exists, and science can't prove this anyway," he says.

The Evolution Sunday event arose from the Clergy Letter Project, a pro-evolution letter signed in 2004 by 10,500 Christian clergy. It is spreading internationally, and also has been celebrated in Australia, the UK, Canada and Nigeria.

Comments

Brianne said…
Brett and I are definite believers in evolutions - well naturally, we are sane. And we were indulging the thought of how fun it'd be to have a destination wedding - in the Galapagos. :) How cool would that be?
Amy said…
You would so be my favorite wedding ever if you did that!
Brianne said…
Do you think you guys would go?? :)
Amy said…
More importantly, do you think you two would go through with it?!
Brianne said…
I spent the larger part of my Friday researching it. Probably more of a honeymoon locale possibility. But it just seems so COOL.

I'd want to wear my wedding dress at my reception - and it's kind of weird if the reception and wedding are a couple weeks apart.

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