As the Earth spins on its axis, all the god’s creatures (the Ottawa Citizen religious experts) spin their tales. These religious experts confirm the truth of Sir Walter Scott’s warning
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
It is the practice of religious experts to deceive; they are the masters of spin. These experts rise to the occasion when they answer the Ottawa Citizen question “Will your faith be affected if NASA’s Curiosity rover finds there is or was life on Mars?“ with a resounding
No!
Geoffrey Kerslake, always predictable, trots out the The Catechism of the Catholic Church to and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite to assure readers that
Catholic Christians are able to accept that God’s creativity is so rich that we cannot conceive of its limits. Even if we discover life on other planets, that does not change or diminish the reality that God revealed His presence and love for creation through the incarnation of Jesus Christ His Son.
Kerslake’s response is worth highlighting because, as Kevin Smith points out,,
Anticipating a threat to [its] existence, the Vatican has decided to take a pre-emptive strike. [It has] decreed that all creatures, even those residing Heaven above are God’s creation.
However, Smith assures us, perhaps a bit optimistically,
As we boldly go where no human has gone before, belief in God will continue to grow dim and the concept of religious faith will disappear into a black hole.
Yes, the religion experts continue “to boldly go” where they have always gone, and this time, with their answers to the latest question, “Will your faith be affected if NASA’s Curiosity rover finds there is or was life on Mars?” they boldly join the ranks of science fiction writers.