Just last month the Pope announced support for evolution and clearly indicated that faith and fact need not be at odds.  He firmly placed the impetus on congregations to act responsibly by not using beliefs to argue against scientific advancement.  Considering the premise of papal infallibility, this moves the entire Catholic Church onto the sensible and scientifically-sound side of the debate regarding evolution and creationism.

Now, the Archbishop of Canterbury makes the same statement for the Church of England.  Again citing the losing battle religion faces in arguing against science and understanding of the natural world, he voiced clear support for evolution.  He said, “I think creationism is…a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories.  If creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other theories I think there’s just been a jarring of categories.”  Essentially, using religious dogma as a weapon against science brings the entire dogma into question as science continues to provide clear and undeniable explanations for the natural world.  As the leader of the Anglican Church, and in light of the Pope’s announcement, this most recent statement means the two most popular denominations of Christianity have come to their senses and decided that misrepresenting the facts in the face of mounting scientific discovery is fruitless and counterproductive.

It is categorically true that religions will face mounting opposition as science further clarifies our understanding of the cosmos and brings to light knowledge which directly contradicts long-standing beliefs.  As I already pointed out, Saint Augustine of Hippo, one of the founding fathers of Christianity and the man solely responsible for the premise of original sin, understood long ago that believers must not attempt to use their faith as valid arguments against science.  To wit:

If [non-believers] find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

What Augustine makes clear is that the use of faith to debate science places the believer in a position of looking foolish and calling into question all that they believe, making the conversion of non-believers increasingly difficult by casting doubt upon the totality of the religion.  Those who do so — arguing biblically about the natural world — demonstrate themselves “utterly foolish” and “incompetent” in the eyes of the listener.  That is undoubtedly the worst way to convince someone that the rest of the faith is true and reasonable.

It is refreshing to see religious leaders taking steps to move their faiths into the age of knowledge by accepting scientific fact rather than using metaphorical stories to argue against it.  It is not often that I have good things to say about religion, I know, but this is an exception to my otherwise negative view of such things.  If religious people want to be taken seriously, they must give up this childish tendency to use factually invalid evidence to argue against scientific truth and clarity.  Failure to do so will only call into question everything they espouse and will marginalize their beliefs and show “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Ultimately, believers should focus on the spiritual quest they are on and get out of the business of trying to refute science.  If they want to argue about evolution, get out of church and become a biologist.  If they want to argue about the Big Bang, get out of church and become a cosmologist.  The list goes on, of course, but the point is the same: stick to what you know and leave the science to the real scientists.  Don’t argue against scientific discoveries and truths simply because they do not agree with your beliefs; doing so only makes you look “utterly foolish”.