THANKS POPE

IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?

In his January 6, 2011 Epiphany sermon, Pope Benedict XVI declared that God had caused the Big Bang, the event cosmologists believe occurred a bit over 13 billion years ago. It gave “birth” to the universe and all the matter and life in it. His comment prompted me to ponder the formerly comic question about the Pope's faith (and where bears defecate) as his acceptance of the Big Bang reduces Genesis in the Old Testament to a fairy tale and questions much of the New Testament. In his sermon, the Pope also said, “The Church never fears the truth.” Those six words challenge the very foundation of religion as they elevate science above faith.

Of course Evangelicals and other Christians are free to ignore the Pope, as are Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists, but the position he expressed has already begun to infiltrate their congregations. In France, the Scandinavian countries, and even in the United States, church attendance has declined as more and more people turn to science as they seek answers to the great questions humans have been asking forever. And now a quarter of all Americans declare they are not “affiliated” with any organized faith and non-believers are the fastest growing “church.”.

Dr. R. Douglas Field's fascinating (and exhausting) The Other Brain, makes it patently clear that the world of science now speaks the same language – the language of mathematics and science. And women and men all around our earth are slowly proving there is nothing that is impossible. The God whom the Pope credits with starting it all must be distressed that his effort to deny us a universal language failed. (See Genesis 11.) .