Now the Rabbis are defending evolution

It seems we have an outbreak of common sense among sections of the world religious community. Not only did we have the US United Methodists recently acknowledging the scientific theory of evolution as the only game in town when it comes to explaining mans origins but we now have a further outbreak of rationalism - this time from senior rabbis. The "blog of the airtightnoodle" refers to news "out of Chicago" that Rabbis are arguing that Evolution is not detrimental to faith but may in fact strengthen it.

Now of course whether accepting both the facts of Evolution and the explanations of those facts through the modern theories of Evolution strengthens or weakens faith is not a matter that greatly concerns me. Certainly for me understanding the fact of evolution was not a critical factor in me losing the faith I was indoctrinated into. Certainly it didn't strengthen or cause me to recover my faith, but it wasn't the thing that made me convinced that belief in gods is hogwash.

As I have said before though when the religious stop parking their tanks on our lawn and trying to rubbish a science which most of them clearly know nothing about then perhaps that will be the day that I stop blogging for Atheism. If we have a breakout of rational thinking among Jewish Rabbis on the subject of Evolution then that day has come one day closer.

And it gets even better -
The Washington Post reports that Gennaro Auletta, a professor at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University (a Vatican-sponsored university) expressed dismay that some Christians reject the theory of evolution and said that recent popes have "recognized the scientific value of the theory of biological evolution."

A Vatican official at the same press conference said, "Creationism from a strictly theological view makes sense, but when it is used in scientific fields, it becomes useless."

The same article reports Pope Benedict XVI in Paris last week warning against literal interpretations of the Bible and saying "the word of God can never simply be equated with the letter of the text."

Just those redneck fundamentalist American protestant sects now that need to see the light I guess, oh and fundamentalist Muslims with whom they seem to share so much in common.