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[Phys-L] Re: [SPAM-4.611] Re: THE WEDGE STRATEGY of The ID Movement



The Roman Catholic Church published a document rejecting creationism as
anything more than a legend. Will this influence Christian fundamentalists
in America? Let's hope so.

Here is an excerpt from the UK Times:


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1811332,00.html
The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document
instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.
The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five
million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture,
that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible. “We should not
expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical
precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture.


The document is timely, coming as it does amid the rise of the religious
Right, in particular in the US. Some Christians want a literal
interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught
alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools, believing “intelligent
design” to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began.



In the document, the bishops acknowledge... that proper acknowledgement
should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions. They say
the Church must offer the gospel in ways “appropriate to changing times,
intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries”. The Bible is true in
passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not
expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.” They go on
to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of
“significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.



As examples of passages not to be taken literally, the bishops cite the
early chapters of Genesis, comparing them with early creation legends from
other cultures, especially from the ancient East. The bishops say it is
clear that the primary purpose of these chapters was to provide religious
teaching and that they could not be described as historical writing.
Similarly, they refute the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation, the last
book of the Christian Bible, in which the writer describes the work of the
risen Jesus, the death of the Beast and the wedding feast of Christ the
Lamb. The bishops say: “...We should not expect to discover in this book
details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about
when the end will come.”