(Off on a semi-related tangent) One of the things I've never understood about the Catholic Church is the fact that they have always based their current, contemporary positions on the bible based on their current and contemporary thoughts. That's what they did at the Council's of Nicaea: They brought together a huge assembly of bishops and tried to reach a consensus on their belief structures and dogma. They made wholesale changes to the way the bible was understood, officially moved all the Christian holidays on top of existing pagan ones, made the use of icons official, etc, etc...but the important point is they met and used contemporary thoughts to modernize their church.
Now the Catholic Church clings to old ideas and thoughts instead of embracing change and adapting to the present. They did it before, but now they are resistant to it. One example: The role of women in the Church. They have changed the role of Mary and her relationship to Jesus and Joseph before (Mary wasn't always a virgin), with the goal of enveloping more women into the church. But now they still resist letting women become priests. The result? They have a huge shortage of priests in the US, and now all the new priests are foreigners.
I know that is a little off-topic, but it brings up interesting ideas about how religion deals with change and science.