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Dear Foxy,

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Your declaration of faith is very touching. It does you honour and commands my respect.

However, it is impossible for me to share it. My eyes opened and I managed to see the light a few years ago, after almost a lifetime of enquiry. My expectation had always been that, like you, I would finally become convinced that there is a God.

Exactly the opposite occurred.

Now, like the Flying Dutchman, I am condemned, not to roam the seas as the legend has it, but to look reality squarely in the face for the rest of my life. There is no way I can escape it :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9b97PZUykE

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Dear Banjo Paterson,

Thank You. I totally respect your position.
And I always love reading your posts.

Hi VK3AUU (David)
Whilst as Christians we are appalled by the actions of many church "leaders" who have committed offenses against children, I don't think that you can deduce a rejection of the world view of that offender, because of his deeds.

As Ozspen has stated, their actions are a deviation from the Christian norm.

What you (and I ) have to do, is assess whether the evidence for the Christian world view is there. Because the actions of the churchman in this instance are inconsistent with orthodox Christian teaching.

I mean what are you going to do if it is later revealed that Charles Darwin was a racist, or a pedophile? Are you going to reject evolution because of a bad report about one of the bulwarks of atheism?

The Inspector 6.3VAC TxRx SWR>10dB 6AU6

Inspector,

No one is denying that sexual abuse of children
is horrendous and intolerable and that the failure of
the church to deal with it effectively has done
immeasurable damage to victims. The cover-ups,
the protection of abusive clergy and the refusal to
admit egregious mistakes are unjustifiable.

We have not yet even begun to calculate the damage
these crimes have done to people's trust and to the
reputation of the church. Law had moved demonstrably
abusive priests from parish to parish, thus giving
them access to new victims.

There is no doubt that the clerical profession has taken
a severe battering and that respect for the priesthood is
understandably at an all-time low. Young people - and their
elders - are rightly sceptical about everything the church
says about gender and sexuality. But this has a flow-on
effect with the church's entire message, especially in
challenging social justice message and cultural critique
equally dismissed.

Trust is going to to have to be built from the bottom up
by bishops and priests before their pronouncements on
morality will be taken seriously again - so perhaps it
would be best if they took a vow of silence about these
issues for several decades to come.

Foxy,

<<There is no doubt that the clerical profession has taken a severe battering and that respect for the priesthood is understandably at an all-time low. Young people - and their elders - are rightly sceptical about everything the church says about gender and sexuality.>>

You have a bad habit of dumping your antagonism for the church and Christianity on any discussion (including this one) that raises Christian matters.

The Inspector agreed with you: <<Whilst as Christians we are appalled by the actions of many church "leaders" who have committed offenses against children....>>

What you have done again in your post is not address the main issue that The Inspector raised, which was:

<<... I don't think that you can deduce a rejection of the world view of that offender, because of his deeds.... What you (and I) have to do, is assess whether the evidence for the Christian world view is there. Because the actions of the churchman in this instance are inconsistent with orthodox Christian teaching.>>

You are off and running with your red herring logical fallacy where you redirect us to another issue, not the validity of the Christian world view raid by The Inspector, but to sexual abuse by clergy.

Yours is a deliberate diversion of attention away from what The Inspector raised about rejecting a world view based on misdeeds of a few. This was your attempt to abandon discussion of the Christian world view. See: http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/150/Red_Herring.

Now let's get down to the nitty gritty of testing the Christian world view as it relates to Christmas.

We can test the major world views by examining how well they answer four questions about:

1. Origin
2. Meaning
3. Morality
4. Destiny

(suggested by Ravi Zacharias, http://connect.rzim.org/t/how-do-you-know-that-christianity-is-the-one-true-worldview/1370)

On the contrary. I did not divert anything. I felt it
important that the mistakes of the church be discussed
not brushed aside. Many young people have stopped
identifying themselves as Catholics for example.
This is not dumping on the church. This is stating facts.
Many feel that the problems embedded within the church are
the structure of the church - that is -hierarchy. The
irrelevance of the church today. By irrelevance, people feel
the church has lost its ability to connect with the day-to-
day lives of ordinary people. People want to talk about
issues that they are faced with. However, your attitude is
rather strange and you are the one trying to diver things
by accusing me of something that I was not trying to do.

I'm not interested in your preaching to me. I would like a
discussion but it appears that is something that you
prefer not to have. You'd rather attack than discuss.
Fair enough. I shall leave you to it.