✔ 最佳答案
背景
自從達爾文提出進化論, 世上的學者就歸兩類: 支持和反對. 反對陣營最聲勢浩大的是當時主流的宗教觀, 天地萬物是神的創造, 日期是主前4000年. 之前沒有生物, 已受造以來幾千年, 生物也沒有演化.
這兩大陣營鬥到今時今日, 仍是不可開交. 西方以天主教/基督教立國, 特別是美國, 宗教可以左右政府教育政策, 一些狂熱份子在某些州分完全禁止科學, 生物學課堂教進化論, 認為此風會敗壞人心, 使人不相信神的偉大.
但有一群神職人員用理性點的態度看此事, 認為理解聖經不是一字一句地依字面意思理解. 認同千萬個進化論學者的研究是嚴謹的科學, 是真確的. 最重要的事, 是無損神的偉大. 既然進化論經過嚴謹的科學程序獲得證明, 我們就應該接納它與其他科學定理相同的地位, 而不是(只是一個推測), (只是創造論之外的另一種解釋). 進化是科學領域的事, 聖經是神學領域的事. 科學的目的是求真, 而神學的目的是改變人心. 兩者沒有必然的衝突.
聯署聲明
2004年由Michael Zimmerman發起的Clergy Letter Project, 就是呼籲各地的神職人員聯署一封公開聲明, 支持進化論和神學的創造論沒有衝突, 並促請政府和教育界把進化論納入正規科學教育, 把它列為定理地位. 至今已有超過一萬名神職人員聯署, 全文如下:
Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.
We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.
科學界的支持
神職人員的行動得到科學界的支持, 已有二百多名科學家自願參與, 提供義務諮詢服務, 甚至免費演講, 幫助神職人員和教眾認識進化論和解答疑難.
2007-07-19 15:28:56 補充：
人地個二百幾個科學家點諗我就唔知. 以下係我個人睇法.我本人認為解聖經唔係只照字面解的話, 神亦都唔一定係有一個形體, 用兩隻手搓泥膠咁搓d植物出來, 聽日又搓d動物呀, 人類呀咁出來.若望福音1:1-3在起初已有聖言，聖言與天主同在，聖言就是天主。聖言在起初就與天主同在。萬有是藉著衪而造成的；凡受造的，沒有一樣不是由衪而造成的。
