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Science Evolution and Creationism
Excerpts of Statements by Religious Leaders
Who See No Conflict Between Their Faith and Science
Many religious denominations and individual religious leaders have issued statements acknowledging the occurrence of evolution and pointing out that evolution and faith do not conflict.
“[T]here is no contradiction between an evolutionary theory of human origins and the doctrine of God as Creator.”
— General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
“[S]tudents’ ignorance about evolution will seriously undermine their understanding of the world and the natural laws governing it, and their introduction to other explanations described as ‘scientific’ will give them false ideas about scientific methods and criteria.”
— Central Conference of American Rabbis
“In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points…. Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies — which was neither planned nor sought — constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.”
— Pope John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996.
