The Clergy Letter

The Clergy Letter is an idea launched by Michael Zimmerman, Dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Basically it’s an attempt to demonstrate that it is a “misperception that science and religion are inevitably in conflict.”

To date the letter has managed to accumulate over 10,000 signatures from Clergy of various denominations. It’s a relatively short letter comprised of two paragraphs. The first essentially establishes the philosophy of the letter, but it is in the second paragraph where the meat is found. Some excerpts, with commentary.

“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.”

This only works if religion stays in the churches and stops trying to push its view of things onto the rest of us. Let’s remember it’s the religious fruitcakes among us that are trying to redefine science in order to advance their “faith based theories.”

“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.”

That is an accurate statement to which all educated men should agree. So what’s with those that don’t agree?

“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.”

I can’t find anything to argue with in this statement.

“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.”

I think I said something similar to this a while back except I pointed out that whether or not God existed was an unanswerable question.

“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.”

Well nobody ever accused the fundamentalists among us as being anything other than arrogant bastards who believe they have a monopoly on the truth and can dictate to the rest of us how to live. Again, I point out that one cannot answer the “God Question,” so I find assuming his existence unsupportable.

By the way, why does God need a plan for our salvation? Isn’t he making up all the rules? If he exists, then my need for salvation is sort of his fault isn’t it? I mean, he was the one that decided to put my existence in jeopardy wasn’t he?

“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.”

I might point out that voting school boards that want to introduce Creationism or Intelligent Design into the curriculum out of office and encouraging your congregations to vote them out of office would help too. Oh, and let’s not forget those science illiterate legislatures that seem to want to pass laws about evolution “being only a theory.”

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

They are certainly not complementary and never have been. While I have some confidence that either science represents truth or at least provides a roadmap to get to the truth, religion strikes me as little more than superstition preying upon fear. I honestly believe that the elimination of religion would be a good thing.

A while back I said that there were three camps. Those that thought co-operation between religion and science were possible; those that thought religion and science could co-exist as separate domains and those that believed that religion and science were in a death struggle and that one must inevitably destroy the other.

I would put Zimmerman and his 10,000 clergy in the middle group since they consider religion and science “very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”

Hmmm, I don’t think so. In order for the human race to flourish, it has to rid itself of superstition. Faith is not something to be admired but a form of evil which needs to be eradicated like the ignorance it perpetuates.

The choices are simple, either mankind figures out a way to eliminate religion, or the cosmos will figure out a way to eliminate mankind.