Re: IS the "Clergy Letter" an indication of OKIMOTO'S profession of

On Mar 1, 5:04 pm, "richardalanforr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<richardalanforr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 1, 2:57 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Okimoto offered the "Clergy Letter" as an indication of his
profession
of faith. The Clergy letter professes faith in men and their
conjectural theories not God, or the Creator or anything He has
revealed.

FALSEHOOD #1
Here is the text of the clergy letter:
"Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of
dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy
Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously
and
hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the
overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would
a
science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible –
the
Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths
about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator
and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these
truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a
different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey
scientific information but to transform hearts.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions,
believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of
modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of
evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up
to
rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and
achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory
among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and
transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s
good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the
failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our
Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity
precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is
to
attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members
to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the
teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human
knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion
remain
religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth."



Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, must be a duck.....

What does the Clergy Letter show other than the fact that people
call
themselves by religious names? See for yourselves:

It shows that unless creationists can demonstrate the the signatories
are not Christians, they are promoting a falsehood when they claim
that one cannot be a Christian and accept the findings of science.



__________________________________________________
LEVEL OF CONSENSUS IS NOT RELATED TO OBJECTIVE TRUTH

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
The number of signatures, whether 1 or 100,000 tells us absolutely
nothing about whether the assertions in the Clergy Lletter are
objectively true.

This is to an issue of "objective truth". It is giving the honest
view
of many Christian clergy that they find no conflict between accepting
the findings of science in respect of evolution and their faith. It's
worth noting that the Pope, although not a signatory of the clergy
letter, has expressed the same view.

Is the Pope a Christian, Tony?

Consensus is completely unrelated to the
truthlikeness of the statements about which the consensus is
formed.

What *is* true is that many Christian clergy find no conflict between
their faith and science.

Consensus is measure of belief and is not even a pointer to the
direction of the objective truth. Objective Truth is independent
of
belief. Finally, if the history of science is any teacher,
consensus
is habitually mistaken and as such it shifts like the sands.

Jesus taught the objective Truth; He didn't come to seek or to
build
consensus.

So is the Pope a Christian, Tony?



______________________________________________________________
CLERGY LETTER'S STRENGTH RESTS ON SEVERAL MISTAKEN PREMISES

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------

MISTAKE 1: The majority of Christians do not read the Bible
literally in the sense used by the Clergy Letter.

Quite so. The letter itself makes that plain. I suggest that you read
it.



The signatories of the Clergy Letter forget that most Christians
take
the public life of Christ and His Apostles as recorded in the New
Testament and the miracles reported therein as lteral history.

FALSEHOOD #2
The letter makes no reference to the accounts of Jesus life in the
New
Testament. Read the text of the letter.

Those
miracles are also denied by atheistic science.

FALSEHOOD #3
There is no such thing as "atheistic" science. There is science.

A significant portion
of the Old Testament literal history has been corroborated or is
otherwise consistent with or complements our understanding of
events
of those eras.

...and a significant proportion - notably the first few chapters of
Genesis - have been shown to have no bearing on the actual history of
the earth.



MISTAKE 2: While attempting to distance themselves from the
mostly
ephemeral biblical literalists the signatories throw the baby out
with the bath water.

In what way is distancing themselves from the systematic dishonesty
of
creationists doing that?

The signatories offer no hint of how they know when Scripture
reports
literal history and when it is merely an allegorical story to
teach.

Why should they need to?

They throw the baby out with the bath water. They use godless,
purely naturalistic, hightly conjectural science as their guide to
what they'll accept as true in Scripture.

FALSEHOOD #4.
Read the text of the letter. They do nothing of the sort.



MISTAKE 3: Religious truth is of a different order from
scientific
truth. Objective truth has no flavors, colors or divisions.

The Clergy signatories place atheistic, humanistic, secular
"truths"
above the truths of faith.

FALSEHOOD #5
They do nothing of the sort. Read the letter.



MISTAKE 4: The implication that creationists and others believe
that
the Bible conveys scientific statements.

Never proven, never demonstrated that this is the case.

FALSEHOOD #6, and such a whopper that your nose must be outside the
door and halfway to the next continent by now, Tony.

If creationists were not insisting that the Bible contains scientific
evidence, and that their particular literal interpretation of the
Bible should be taught as science in science classes, there would be
no dispute. It's that insistence which is fundamental to the issue.



MISTAKE 5: The theory of evolution is a fundamental scientific
truth.

FALSEHOOD #7
*NO* theories in *ANY* branch of science are held to be "fundamental
truth", and the clergy letter makes no such assertion about
evolutionary theory.


And here you have it----they have placed their faith in an unproven
theory which they raise to law above God's


FALSEHOOD #8
They quite explicitly do not. Read the letter.

The clergy have placed their faith in godless, secular atheist
scientists

FALSEHOOD #9
They quite clearly do not. Read the letter.

and the conjectures they offer NOT their faith in a Creator
or His Word.

FALSEHOOD #10
They quite clearly do not. Read the letter.

Since OKIMOTO offered the Clergy Letter as an indicator
of where his "faith" lies we are left to conclude that his faith is
in
men and their conjectures NOT religious faith or creed or Creator.

....which, as all you have done is to produce a string of blatant
falsehoods which can be demonstrated to be false simply by reading the
clergy letter, is a completely dishonest conclusion/

Okimoto is now slipping down the slope....

What a pathetic and dishonest evasion, Tony.

Is the Pope a Christian, by the way?

RF

Regards,
T Pagano

.

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