Last year, over 10,000 clergy members signed a letter supporting the idea that religion and science are compatible ways of viewing the world.

As an offshoot of the effort, the First “Evolution Sunday” was held Feb 12, 2006, Darwin’s birthday, at churches throughout the nation. Some of the sermons have been made available online. On February 11, 2007 the 2nd annual Evolution Sunday will be held.

GCISE hopes that this information can be of use to those trying to reconcile or help friends reconcile their religious beliefs with modern scientific evidence. Despite what the creationists contend, millions of faithful Christians and members of other faiths have no problem accepting the evidence for evolution and do not feel it threatens their beliefs in any way!

Clips from the site:

“The Clergy Letter Project is an endeavor designed to demonstrate
that religion and science can be compatible and to elevate the quality of the debate of this issue.”

“On 12 February 2006 hundreds of Christian churches from all portions of the country and a host of denominations came together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy. On the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, many of these leaders brought this message to their congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups. Together, participating religious leaders made the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they elevated the quality of the national debate on this topic.”

Now a third year nuclear engineering student at Tech, I graduated from Marietta High School in 2003 — I’m really grateful, at this point, that I didn’t live a few miles away, in the Cobb district, because my science education got me to where I am now.

If the Cobb school board wants to make sure that students know that “evolution is a theory, not a fact” and that it should be “approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered” let them. But insist that they also know that gravity is only a theory. Relativity is only a theory (imagine - your commute at faster than light speeds!). Nuclear physics is based on theories - we don’t really know how an atom is shaped and held together, but that theory is strong enough to power some areas of Georgia and most of France, in addition to many other places. If every scientific theory must be prefaced by an explanation that it’s “only a theory”, the whole thing will very quickly be (correctly) labeled as absurd.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw in my two cents. This whole thing has gotten way out of hand and it does nothing to help the students. I hope the school board realizes this soon, and realizes that religion belongs in a religions/sociology course, the home, or the church, not the science classroom.

Emily Colvin

Secretary, Mars Society @ Georgia Tech
Nuclear and Radiological Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology

[Editor Note: Send letters or questions to questions@georgiascience.org.]