Pope Francis says Big Bang and Evolution are real, and that God is "not a magician."

Courtesy of Religion News: 

Pope Francis on Monday (Oct. 27) waded into the controversial debate over the origins of human life, saying the big bang theory did not contradict the role of a divine creator, but even required it. 

The pope was addressing the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which gathered at the Vatican to discuss “Evolving Concepts of Nature.” 

“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” Francis said. 

“He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment.” 

“God is not a divine being or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life,” the pope said. “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.” 

Unlike much of evangelical Protestantism in the U.S., Catholic teaching traditionally has not been at odds with evolution. In 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed there was no opposition between evolution and Catholic doctrine. In 1996, St. John Paul II endorsed Pius’ statement.

Now see there is still some magical think there, but it does not interfere with the understanding of science, or our ability to see the world as it is rather than as faith demands that it be seen.

So that's something at least.

Now if only Catholicism could move into the 21st Century in regards to abortion, women's rights, and birth control there might actually be a chance for it to survive into the 22nd Century.

Fox News makes mistake of reporting actual news, and about science even. Low information viewers respond with pitchforks and torches. Well Twitter pitchforks and torches anyhow.

Courtesy of Americans Against the Tea Party:

 Since Monday, the scientific community has been celebrating the discovery of what seems to be “smoking gun” evidence of the Big Bang. In a discovery that is touted as being on par with that of the Higgs boson in 2012, scientists now have found the first direct evidence of the Big Bang. 

About 14 billion years ago, when the Big Bang created our universe, it produced gravitational waves and, of course expanded at about the same rate at which advertisers are fleeing Rush Limbaugh. 

Data from the BICEP project, which deployed a special telescope in the south pole between 2005-2008 previously said that reading “strongly hinted” at inflation, but were “not sufficient to rule out other models of the early universe.” Something was missing. 

If you guessed that it is the detection of the gravity wave background–something that could only result from inflation–you are correct! 

This is exciting news! In fact, it was so exciting that FOX News actually reported it!

Apparently now that the Fox network is broadcasting the new Cosmos series, which is already freaking out the science deniers, they figured they might as well go all in with reporting on scientific breakthroughs. 

Now if you think that the Fox News viewers are now suddenly enlightened and ready to accept the scientific explanation for the origin of the universe, well you don't know Fox News viewers now do you?

There are many more at the AATP link I posted at the top, and every one seems crazier than the last.

Let's face it science is moving forward at an increasingly rapid pace, but these people are hanging onto the door frame of religion and refusing to budge beyond their superstitious foundations.

P.S. If you want to see something both historic and heartwarming here is the video of Professor Andrei Linde, who first formulated the inflation theory, learning that he has been proven correct.

This is an incredible discovery, and it moves us much closer to understanding how we all got here, and how everything around us came into existence.

This, this should be the bedtime story that we all read to our children every night.

How empowering would it be to realize, as a small child, the enormity of your heritage?

To know that the elements that make up their body were delivered from the heavens, and that they once made up titans of space and traveled through the galaxy at enormous speed just to bring them to life?

You can keep your Bible, your Qaran, and other books of fairy tales, because the reality of who we are, and where we came from, is SO much more impressive than the limp colorless stories trapped within their pages.

Just for fun. Flash mob erupts on the set of "The Big Bang Theory."

This is actually one of my favorite shows though, for some reason, I have ONLY seen it in reruns and heave never once watched it during a current season.

Favorite character? Easy, Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

Just about everything he does cracks me up. Besides I actually had a college roommate who sort of reminds me of him.

Checkmate Creationists.

I keep seeing this poster turning up on certain blogs and websites trying to shame Atheists for their lack of belief in a higher power.

Of course there has always been a rather glaring cognitive dissonance connected with this particular attack. And I am not the only one to have noticed that.

Discussion?

Seriously America?

This is the kind of stuff that I find extremely embarrassing.

We are supposed to be this incredible nation, full of the smartest, most innovative people on the planet. And yet we allow religion to build a wall blocking scientific information, which might challenge their faith, from reaching their precious, tithing sheep.

And hasn't that been the message of the Abrahamic religions all along?

"Don't you eat from that tree of knowledge, just have faith."

And it is that blind faith which makes us the laughingstock of the world.

Let us start this Tuesday morning by satiating our intellectual curiosity and awakening a deeper respect for science.

From The Daily Galaxy:

Astronomers have found pristine clouds of the primordial gas that formed in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. The composition of the gas matches theoretical predictions, providing direct evidence in support of the modern cosmological explanation for the origins of elements in the universe. 

Only the lightest elements, mostly hydrogen and helium, were created in the Big Bang. Then a few hundred million years passed before clumps of this primordial gas condensed to form the first stars, where heavier elements were forged. 

Until now, astronomers have always detected "metals" (their term for all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium) wherever they have looked in the universe. 

"As hard as we've tried to find pristine material in the universe, we have failed until now. This is the first time we've observed pristine gas uncontaminated by heavier elements from stars," said J. Xavier Prochaska, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

One of the questions I get asked quite often in my real life, and here on the blog, is why I don't embrace any particular religion.

But in a way I do.

Our very first primitive religious beliefs grew up around a desire to understand the world around us, and our place in it. We originally lacked the means to examine, and the ability to understand, the mysteries that surrounded us, so priests, witchdoctors, and oracles provided mythologies to satiate our curiosity while giving us the illusion of comprehension.

Today science performs the very same function, only this time it is NOT just an illusion, it is fact.

You see in my opinion human beings are defined by their desire to know.  That is why I shun religions which purport to give us a sense of understanding, while discouraging our innate curiosity, lest it endanger their domination over our consciousness.

I would have no argument against religion if it simply provided comfort while promoting intellectual discourse, but that is not often the case. Instead it seems to demand that believers sacrifice that which makes them human, their desire to learn, in exchange for an allegiance to a certain worldview which seems to have little use for scientific investigation.

To my mind the unraveling of the mysteries that surround us should feed that which defines us as human, our intellect, in a way that replaces the need for religion. How can we feel alone in the universe with so much happening around us? How can we feel insignificant while discovering, examining, and beginning to understand the very fabric of space and the building blocks that make up our reality?  How can that not make us feel connected in way that believing in an omniscient, omnipotent, immortal being simply cannot?

Essentially there has NEVER been a more complex and compelling mystery than the one that we find ourselves in the middle of every single day of our lives. Today we are witnessing science take the unknown, turn it around in its hands, and lay its secrets bare to be devoured by the hungry minds of men and women all over the world. Is that not tantamount to a religious experience?

Some worship in synagogues, temples, or cathedrals, but I worship under a veil of stars, while kneeling on pews made of earth, opening my mind, as well as my heart, to the possibilities that exist while reaching out to the knowledge which dances just beyond the reach of my fingertips . Because after all, isn't this constant quest for knowledge really the destiny which unites mankind?

I apologize if I have offended any of my more religious visitors, this is, of course, my opinion and everybody is welcome to agree or disagree. All that I ask is that you consider what I have written and keep an open mind to the wonders of the universe, as well as the possibility that their creation is not as you assumed it to be.

Let us please remember to keep the conversation in the comments section respectful.

Well if THEY can do it....

Excitement is growing in the Northern England town of Huddlesfield following news that a local man saw an image of the Big-Bang in a piece of toast. Atheist Donald Chapman, 36, told local newspaper, "The Huddlesfield Express" that he was sitting down to eat breakfast when an unusual toast pattern caught his eye.

"I was just about to spread the butter when I noticed a fairly typical small hole in the bread surrounded by a burnt black ring. However the direction and splatter patterns of the crumbs and the changing shades emanating outwards from the black hole were very clearly similar to the chaotic-dynamic non-linear patterns that one would expect following the Big-Bang". "It's the beginning of the world" he added excitedly.

This simply cracked me up.