Nineveh's POTD 2-14-06

[Nineveh]

Some unbeliever suggested I do this so don't blame me!

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.

The old "the Bible is not a science textbook" canard (i.e. hoax). Genesis is a history of early mankind. When reading a history book we do not say "this can't be true because it doesn't employ the scientific method" do we?

Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible

A deceptive attempt to pretend that the authors of this letter (unbelievers all) love the Genesis story. It is more likely they despise it.

– the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths

They certainly do, and these stories are the foundation of the Christian message, since unless mankind fell Christ's atoning sacrifice would have had no meaning.

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.

Many ancient religions teach long ages. Hebrew is adequate to convey such a message and ancient humans would have been able to understand it.

Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth.

Yes, truth coming from God never has to change to adapt to new scientific findings.

Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

God teaches us that it is never right to do evil that good will come of it, so believers can depend on information coming from God to be true. Recounting history is not "scientific", but it does serve to tell us what happened in the past.

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.

The timeless truth of the Genesis geneologies teach that mankind descended from Adam and Eve in the not too distant past. Mitochrondrial studies (Mitochrondrial Eve) validated the scriptural account, but despite this unbelievers still do not believe.

We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny

Actually, the "random mutations plus natural selection plus millions of years" is rapidly fading away because it is anti-science and rather useless to boot.

and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests.

The ultimate source of such a lie should be obvious to believers, because it has similarities to the one related in Genesis which led to Adam's rebellion: "You will not surely die".

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.

How come clergy who sign this letter are being asked to endorse and validate evolution? I thought religion and science were supposed to be separate realms?

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.

Yes, the failure to reject such an obvious fairytale as "molecules to man" amounts to a rejection of the role of the real Creator of life.

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.

As I mentioned before, if Adam was a metaphor and did not really fall, why do we need a plan of salvation? Use the God-given faculty of reason in that head of yours, people.

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.

Again the lie that evolution had anything to do with the advancement of science, when in fact it is actually an impediment, since it is so easy to invent just-so stories that "mutations dun it".

We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

I agree that scientists should dump the religious belief that "random mutations plus natural selection plus millions of years" have created all lifeforms from a hypothetical primitive protocell. God told us what He did. Why disbelieve the truth?

Repent and turn to the God who in the beginning created the universe and life in the six days in which He said He did.

I hope this analysis of The Clergy Letter satisfies the unbelievers here.

Found on this thread, post 15.

I dunno about unbelievers, but I liked it! Awsome rebuttal bob

 

[Vaquero45]

Just now noticed this. Good job Bob, and good pick Nineveh! :thumb: