Evolution and Religion

I grew up in the Catholic Church and since kindergarten they have been teaching me everything from the basis of Catholicism to what it is today. Every Wednesday night I would go to CCD class (religious ed) and they would teach me what most kids around here hear, “And on the 6th day God created man.” I never challenged this theory because it seemed that it was the only option, I had never heard anything different than this. I had heard of the word evolution but I thought it was just a bunch of crazy scientists talking; scientists who didn’t believe in God, which seemed very taboo to me. It wasn’t until I got to high school, when I learned about evolution in depth and I realized that somehow this had to be true. I learned more about it in my biology courses at school and through at home researching mostly on the internet. I realized that these people I thought were once just crazy scientists actually did have really good facts and information that was supported.

After studying Darwin’s Theory and the basis of evolution I realize that I can’t just ignore it any longer because it makes sense and to forget about it would be ignorance. This is where I am at today. I want to believe it because it makes sense but I feel like me believing it sacrifices what my parents worked so hard to instill in my brain. I feel that by believing in evolution I will let down my parents, the Father of my church, and everyone who has helped me become a member of the Catholic Church through conformation.

This brings me to what I personally believe: Religion and evolution can coexist. Albert Einstein once said, “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” But how is this possible? Can you really believe that God created humans and at the same time believe that evolution has occurred. I think that in a way you can. What I am coming to believe is that God created the world and that evolution was also started by God. This theory would challenge everything I have been taught but I feel that it is one of the only ways that religion and evolution can coexist.

So this is one of my blog posts for this week, but I kind of like it and I think I’m finding this topic a lot more interesting than I am finding my global warming topic. I might end up using this as my essay topic and ditching my original global warming topic. If I did this I would go into further details with evolution or maybe talk about how society is becoming more acceptable of evolution in many cases.

Here is a link to a video that I feel represents the point I am trying to get across. I think what Dr. Collins says is a good interpretation of how these two things can coexist. Unfortunately, I had to create a link because the emedding feature was disabled for this video.