US: Conservative US TV evangelist Pat Robertson has warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town not to be surprised if disaster strikes there because "you just voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favoured teaching "intelligent design".
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Mr Robertson said on Thursday on the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club.
All eight Dover, Pennsylvania, school board members up for re-election were defeated on Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" - the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power - as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
Eight families have sued the district, claiming the policy violates the constitutional separation of church and state. The federal trial concluded days before Tuesday's election, but no ruling has been issued. Later on Thursday, Mr Robertson issued a statement saying he was simply trying to point out that "our spiritual actions have consequences".
"God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in His eye forever," Mr Robertson said. "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."
Mr Robertson made headlines this summer when he called on his daily show for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. In October 2003, he suggested the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians".
Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI has waded indirectly into the evolution debate in the US, by saying the universe was made by an "intelligent project" and criticising those who in the name of science say its creation was without direction or order.
The Pope made the comments during his general audience on Wednesday. The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published the full text of his remarks in its Thursday editions.
Benedict focused his reflections for the audience on scriptural readings that said God's love was seen in the "marvels of creation". He quoted St Basil the Great, a fourth century saint, as saying that some people, "fooled by the atheism that they carry inside of them, imagine a universe free of direction and order, as if at the mercy of chance".
"How many of these people are there today? These people, fooled by atheism, believe and try to demonstrate that it's scientific to think that everything is free of direction and order," he said.