I noticed in THIS article in today’s NYTimes that the United Church of Christ is apparently undertaking something of a dialogue with science:

Faith is not a matter of “clinging to ancient misconceptions,” the leader, the Rev. John H. Thomas, wrote Tuesday in a letter to the church’s 1.2 million adherents, in 5,700 American congregations. “Today one of God’s most provocative voices is science.”

The article cites a church webpage HERE that appears to be arguing for something along the lines of SJ Gould’s NOMA thesis.

I also noticed that the UCC had a news release on the same topic HERE.

Damn.  I was afraid they’d do that.  I was hoping that the various religions would hang on to their outmoded proclamations so that more and more people would see just how silly the whole enterprise was.  If they update and include scientific findings in their next edition of the bible, it’ll be that much longer before their basis on mythology is obvious.

Occam

Occam - 31 January 2008 04:41 PM

Damn.  I was afraid they’d do that.  I was hoping that the various religions would hang on to their outmoded proclamations so that more and more people would see just how silly the whole enterprise was.  If they update and include scientific findings in their next edition of the bible, it’ll be that much longer before their basis on mythology is obvious.

Well, to be fair, I think a certain number of the more liberal religious folk do take their practice to amount to a sort of mythology.

I’ve been a gadfly for quite some time at the United Church of Christ’s online forums. They range from liberal science-lovers to conservative science-haters. See this thread, for an example: http://tinyurl.com/yp2q9c

There are two options any church can take:

1) Retain a hard-line stance and lose members
2) Compromise, soften up and retain members

Both sound good to me.