Man Hath Fallen

So one understands. It looks like this is equivalent to what Neanderthals would have said had they known. Neanderthals did not have, most likely, any spiritualism as competent as that which evolved during the last six thousand years.

On the other hand, of course, the modern Church is just becoming comfortable with modern paleontology and evolution theory. That is not a fault. The Church is exceedingly conservative as it should be. In no other way could it have existed for two thousand years straight.

The older I get the more comfortable I am with the idea that religion and science are much more like cooperative partners in human development, not antagonistically rejecting each other at all.

Most people probably know of one or another professor, or one or another priest, who adamantly rejects their equivalents in the opposite camp. The obligation to communicate civilly with the other seems to be easily as much a problem for some scientists, who will not bother to learn to speak in religious terms, than for many priests, who are willing to take the trouble to do that.

This is something of a relief. Clearly, Neanderthals did not disappear in their heyday, suddenly. Many thousands of years, perhaps much more, passed after the emergence of some new factor that made them obsolete, before the new hominids that displaced them predominated and Neanderthals began to dwindle in number. Confrontations of any significant numbers of either or both were probably very rare, perhaps nonexistent. After all, neither the old nor the new orders had any written records or rapid or long distance communications techniques. Moreover, it is not certain that any Neanderthal ever saw a the difference between Neanderthals and the new order; the changes within one generation were small, and very likely unobservable without modern techniques.

Now it is easy. The new order is wearing earbuds and toying with his celphone.