[extropy-chat] Religion: A discussion

[Brent Neal]

 (2/11/04 14:53) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

>--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
>>  (2/11/04 8:10) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>The Church's acceptance of evolution has also been personally confirmed
>to me by the 2nd in command of the La Sallette Order, who works at the
>Vatican, and is a personal friend.
>

Fair enough. 



>> 2) UUA is -not- Christian, as I stated before,
>
>>From the UUA website:

I'm glad you looked this up, since its the brochure that I have sitting in front of me.


>No, Unitarian Universalists are not Christian, if by Christian you mean
>those who think that acceptance of any creedal belief whatsoever is
>necessary for salvation. Unitarian Universalist Christians are
>considered heretics by those orthodox Christians who claim none but
>Christians are "saved." (Fortunately, not all the orthodox make that
>claim.)
>

This is the important statement about the UU faith here. They, as a  group, are -not- Christian, as the atheist and neopagan UUs at my church here in Asheville will heartily confirm. -Some- UUs hold belief in Jesus Christ as Savior, which is the fundamental definition of what a Christian is. But the UUA, does not espouse that doctrine.


>Yes, Unitarian Universalists are Christian in the sense that both
>Unitarian and Universalist history are part of Christian history. Our
>core principles and practices were first articulated and established by
>liberal Christians. "

This statement only says that the history of the Church is in the tradition of liberal Christianity. It makes no statement about their -current- doctrine.


>> the Anglican
>> church has -not- endorsed evolution, which I know because I -was-
>> Anglican before I left. 
>
>The Anglican Church website does not make any statements on evolution.
>However the following link has this to say about evolution and
>christianity in general:


That's right, it doesn't, because just as the Anglican church is currently divided over the issue of ordaining homosexuals, they are divided over Creationism.  Unfortunately, the Church lacks the spine to confront the fundamentalists in their midst on this issue,  just as it took the acts of Fr. Robinson to force them to confront those same recidivists on the topic of ordaining homosexuals.

I will also point out that the Episcopal Church, i.e. the branch of the Anglican communion in America has schismed in the past century over such issues, one such being over the ordination of women (as well as other attendant issues related to the revision of their prayer book).  The other was when a conservative wing of the Episcopal Church separated to form the Charismatic Episcopal Church. Apparently the more orthodox bishops thought speaking in tongues was somewhat declasse. :P


Mike, I think the problem between our viewpoints has something to do with cultural influence. You're up in New Hampshire, where the populace tends to be a bit better educated and a bit less religiously conservative, while I'm down in the Bible Belt, where people still think that "if the King James version was good enough for the Apostle Paul, its good enough for me." :P

B
-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein