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>>About 10 years ago at my local church, the was a situation that polarized people into basically two distinct camps. So volatile was the situation that the opposing sides had to meet with the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta and an outside mediator.
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>>I was in the position of being caught in the middle. I knew and respected people on both sides and was friendly with them. Further, I wasn't involved in the meeting.
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>>Afterwards, I heard about the meeting from both sides. So distinctly different were the descriptions that it was hard to believe that both were at the same meeting. Nevertheless, they were. My initial reaction was, "Some here's lying." However, initial reactions are often incorrect. In this case, I realized that both sides were being truthful, they were, however, "coloring" the situation in correspondence with their own POVs.
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>>So what was the truth? In all likelihood probably somewhere in the middle. I suspect, that may be the case here.
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>George;
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>We had something similar happen at our Catholic Church in Campbell, California. Some people would not know the "truth" if it bit them on the back side. :) Everyone enjoys his/her own sense of truth. God knows the truth - we know flavors of the truth. In fact each of us has a favorite flavor or flavors. Mine is Rocky Road by the way, when it comes to ice cream! :)
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>Whatever happens I will be prepared in some way or fashion. I have never had my head buried in the sand and I do not know what the future holds. I am just on this planet earth, going for a ride using this thing we call life. If I am able to enjoy it while helping others then I have had a good life.
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>Tom

At least from a scientific point of view, 'Truth' is an elusive concept, and is not a very useful concept. Humans are prone to state a hypothesis or theory, look around for all the 'facts' to support it, and tend to ignore disconfirming evidence. However, this is weak science. A stronger approach is to state the hypothesis, then let the community present facts that attempt to falsify the hypothesis. If the hypothesis can withstand a lot of these attacks, it does not prove the hypothesis is 'true' (because something may still come along that falsifies it), but it gives the community more 'faith' that the hypothesis is strong. I'll leave it to all of you to decide if this analysis applies to the present debate :).

Pete