I don't remember the exact phrasing, but the basic gist of it was this: woe to those Christians who, in attempting to evangelize those who have studied the world, if they attempt to do so in a way that denies the knowledge that such men have amassed. They will make themselves, and by extension the faith, look foolish for having done so, and will be as a stumbling block to faith.
What's really ironic about this post is that the writer is, to the best of my knowledge, a Young Earth Creationist, and yet the subject under discussion is actually an argument against that erroneous viewpoint.
It should be noted that the Catholic Church doesn't require its members to accept one belief or another where Creation is concerned. To that end, there are a few Young Earth Creationists among the Catholic fold, as well as theistic evolutionists, Intelligent Design proponents, and evolutionary creationists (like myself). Dogmatically speaking, the Church requires only a few specific beliefs regarding Creation, the first and foremost of these being that God ordained and sustains every aspect of Creation, and that Creation is very good (c.f. Genesis 1).
The other aspect of the Catholic position is that there is no inherent conflict between science and religion, and that both the Bible and the investigation of the natural world are forms of revelation; from Scripture, we learn that God is Creator, the carpenter who fashioned all things. And from science we get the occasional glimpse into His divine "toolbox".
In the broad strokes, the historical analysis in the afore-linked blog post is correct, but what's interesting is the conclusion that is reached: that the Church fell into error over the issue of the fixed position of the Earth (geocentrism) because of the incorporation of Aristotelean philosophy into its body of wisdom.
Anti-Catholic polemic aside, this is an interesting admission on the part of the other blogger: despite the fact that many passages in Scripture suggest that the Earth is, in fact, fixed and unmoving -- God's stopping of the Sun for Joshua (which implies that the Sun moves relative to the Earth, rather than vice versa), the notion that the Earth is set upon foundations, etc. -- this interpretation of Scripture was in fact shown to be incorrect in light of the discovery that the Sun is actually at the center of the Solar System (heliocentrism), and the Earth in orbit around it.
To be clear: science and religion came into brief conflict, and at the end of the affair it was understood that a particular religious interpretation was actually incorrect. And in the end, science and religion were reconciled and found to complement each other. In Galileo's well-chosen turn of phrase, the Bible remained important to teach us how to go to Heaven, but not how the heavens go. For the latter matter, it was the work of scientists like Galileo and Copernicus that brought about a bit more revelation concerning how God had chosen to shape the universe.
Ironically, these first battles between scientists and the Bible were over biblical misinterpretations, not what the Bible actually says.
Ironically, indeed!
To this day, there need not be any inherent conflict between scientific discovery and religion, even in the field of evolutionary theory. Let's be clear about this: if it can be safely admitted, contrary to the plain meaning of the text of Scripture, that the Earth is a) not set upon foundations, b) not fixed, and c) not flat but essentially spherical, then surely it can be safely admitted that the Earth is older than 6,000 years?
That's the real lesson of the Galileo affair. There was nothing inherently wrong with Aristotelean philosophy -- the parts of it that the Church adopted were general truths, not specifically tied to the pagan religion of the ancient Greeks. (Even St. Paul was not above quoting truisms from pagan Greek poets, in his various letters, to make a point applicable to Christians.)
The other blogger asserts that Augustine was in error when he suggested that parts of Scripture might be more allegorical than literal, when of course this should have been quite plainly the case; Christ Himself made use of allegory to confer deeper teachings (we call these examples "parables"), so why wouldn't the Spirit do so as well when it inspired the authors of Scripture? Could it in fact be the case that those who oppose the theory of evolution on religious grounds are every bit as guilty of ignoring the plainly evident evidence, as discovered by science, because they cling to an incorrect interpretation of parts of the Bible?
God is Creator. Creation is very good. These statements are every bit as true in a world that emerged over the course of billions of years as they are for a world that is considerably younger.
Seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened. These statements are also true, and in addition to being a teaching of the Lord's, they form the unspoken core tenet of the scientific method: that rational inquiry will be rewarded, by a rational universe, with a measureable, replicable outcome. We, as Christians, need not fear the discoveries of science -- truth cannot contradict truth. If God created and if the Earth is billions of years old, then God obviously created us over the span of billions of years. If God created and if humanity evolved, then God obviously used evolution as the method by which He fashioned man after His own image.
Yes, some have abused the geological record and the theory of evolution to suggest, unreasonably, that God does not actually exist. But for them to have done so is to abuse the scientific method, and to abuse science itself, for science is concerned only with the empirical; it is too limited in its categories to be a tool which can be used to pronounce upon the nature or existence of God. It only reveals what is true about the natural world and this temporal realm; anything that exists outside of that limited framework is outside the scope of science, and therefore not its concern.
Evolution does not disprove God, in other words. Nor could it. So why do some Christians irrationally fear the theory? It is asserted that it was an error to regard parts of Scripture as allegorical...but really, is it? Could not the real error be the insistence that all parts of Scripture must be understood in a literal light?