[Motherhood IS a career]

There is evidence available for anyone who wishes to weigh and decide - or trivialize and ignore. You choose.

OK. I choose science.

[jlogajan]

OK. I choose science.

So, it turns out, does the Pope:

Pope John Paul II -- Pontifical Academy of Sciences -- October 23, 1996

"In his Encyclical Humani generis [1950], my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation..."

"Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis."

"It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory."

"For my part, when I received those taking part in your Academy's plenary assembly on 31 October 1992, I had the opportunity, with regard to Galileo, to draw attention to the need of a rigorous hermeneutic for the correct interpretation of the inspired word. It is necessary to determine the proper sense of Scripture, while avoiding any unwarranted interpretations that make it say what it does not intend to say. In order to delineate the field of their own study, the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences."

Catholic Information Network commentary:

"The Church has had a provisional finding since 1950 that the idea that God used intermediate living forms to produce the body of the first man can be reconciled with the deposit of faith, but that it must still be acknowledged that the soul is created immediately by God from nothing. The evolutionary hypothesis still must stand or fail on the scientific evidence for it, and nobody is a bad or a good Catholic based on whether they accept or reject it, for the Church does not teach matters of science as if they were matters of faith."

[foolish-one]

Valid decision. Live long and prosper.