Your response is very consistent with the agnostic and atheist …

Comment on A “Christian Agnostic”? by BobRyan.

Your response is very consistent with the agnostic and atheist world view my friend.

But you have to admit – my statement is very consistent with the “trust and believe the Bible” world view by comparison.

Surely we can both agree that these are not “the same world view”.

in Christ,

Bob

BobRyan Also Commented

A “Christian Agnostic”?

Ken: That’s a good question my friend, upon which I can only speculate as I can’t read minds. But from the answers I have seen I think Hawking’s view would be that Adventism is a faith construct trying to justify itself with pseudo science. That the Advenitist biblical concept of God cannot accord with the observable laws of empirical science.

But this is only my guess based on the obvious bias of creation science versus objective scientific inquiry.

Clearly that is your view – and as you point out – other atheists may agree with you on that point – some of them may even do it after having the benefit of some of the information you have reviewed during your Q&A sessions here.

But in Romans 1 God says this is not what they are actually experiencing. He says that in fact “they are without excuse” because the real truth is that the “invisible attributes of God are clearly seen in the things that have been made”.

Everything else is simply facade to one level or another.

in Christ,

Bob


A “Christian Agnostic”?

ken: Excerpt from a Time interview with Stephen Hawkings:

“If God doesn’t exist, why did the concept of his existence become almost universal? —Basanta Borah, BASEL, SWITZERLAND
I don’t claim that God doesn’t exist. God is the name people give to the reason we are here. But I think that reason is the laws of physics rather than someone with whom one can have a personal relationship. An impersonal God.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2029483,00.html#ixzz1f7Ch1uti

Hello Sean

I thought would find the above comments by Hawkings interesting apropos our discussion over the nature of my agnosticism. Based on Hawkings comments I consider him an agnostic not an atheist. He does not deny God but rather challenges the nature of God. Interesting stuff

Ken – you are missing the real question here.

The question is … given the number of Q&A sessions you (as an agnostic) have actually had on this board – what would Hawking’s understanding have been by now having had access to those same answers?

It gives one pause for thought.

And as for your idea it is not “pure atheism” to claim that “God is nothing more than the laws of physics and that is the real and only reason we are here” — well that is a good one left as an “exercise for the reader”.

in Christ,

Bob


A “Christian Agnostic”?
Back to the actual subject of this section of the board.

It has never been a secret that Dr. Taylor is adamantly opposed to the Church’s position on a literal six-day creation week a few thousand years ago, promoting instead the mainstream evolutionary view of the origin of life over billions of years on this planet, or that he openly questions many of the other “fundamental” doctrinal positions of the Adventist Church. At one of his lectures a few years back he was asked what he would tell his own granddaughter if she were to ask him for evidence of God’s existence, to which he replied, “I don’t know.” Just yesterday he essentially repeated this very same agnostic perspective in one of his comments within this forum:

I have always been attracted to the position of Christian agnosticism. (Many, many years ago, at PUC I gave a talk with that title, as I recall, during a week of spiritual emphasis.) (Link)

How “instructive” that one thing seems to lead to another in that case.

No need to be confused however –

BobRyan: “ Skepticism and unbelief are not humility. Implicit belief in Christ’s word is true humility, true self-surrender” (DA 535).

By way of illustrating the point made in that commentary on the life of Christ – Erv Taylor offers this helpful insight into his real attitudes toward the SDA denominations – thus setting aside his marketing facade.

Ervin Taylor:

The only exception is Sean who I have thought is a very interesting case study that would at least merit a footnote in a psychology or social psychology of religion book chapter on the personality types attracted to sect-type religious groups.

Meanwhile we have the explicit “for in SIX days the Lord CREATED the heavens and the earth the seas and all that is in them and rested the Seventh day” – written not in poetry – but legal code. Ex 20:8-11

in Christ,

Bob


Recent Comments by BobRyan

Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
By definition, I don’t believe in miracles or apocryphal, anthropomorphic stories about same.Why aren’t scientists observing them today if they occur?

Circular argument. If they were naturally occurring we would expect scientists to see that they are still occurring today. If they are singular events caused by an intelligent being – that being would be under no obligation to “keep causing world wide floods” as if “to do it once you must continually do it”. Armstrong went to the moon.. shall we argue that unless he keeps going to the moon so each new generation can see it … then it did not happen?

Your argument is of the form “all eye witness evidence to some event in the past is no evidence at all unless that event keeps repeating itself so we too can witness it”. Seems less than compelling.

“Could it be that science is better able to detect hoaxes and false claims?” As a rule for dismissing every eye witness account in the past – it is less than compelling. (even when that event cannot be repeated)

Evolutionists “claim” that dust, rocks and gas (in sufficient quantity and over sufficient time and a lot of luck) self organized into rabbits via prokaryote-then-eukaryote-then-more-complexity. But such self-organization cannot be “observed” today.

(What is worse – such a sequence cannot even be intelligently manipulated to occur in the lab)

By your own argument then you should not believe in evolution.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
@Sean Pitman:

Suppose you were at a crime scene … there is a tree limb on the ground and a bullet hole in the victim — “all natural causes”? or is one ‘not natural’? Those who say that nothing can be detected as “not naturally occurring in nature” – because all results, all observations make it appear that every result “naturally occurred without intelligent design” seem to be missing a very big part of “the obvious”.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
Gentlemen,

What just God would allow an innocent child to be born guilty for the sins of a distant ancestor? …What if there was only One Commandment? Do Good. ‘Kant’ see a problem with that.

An atheist point of view is not often found here – but this is interesting.

1. God does not punish babies for what someone else did – but I suppose that is a reductionist option that is not so uncommon among atheists. The “details” of the subject you are commenting on – yet according to you “not reading” – is that humans are born with sinful natures. A “bent” toward evil. That is the first gap right out of the gate between atheism and God’s Word..

2. But still God supernaturally enables “free will” even in that bent scenario, the one that mankind lives in – ever since the free-will choice of the first humans on planet earth – was to cast their lot in with Satan and rebellion..(apparently they wanted to see what a wonderful result that poor choice would create). John 16 “the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment”. And of course “I will draw ALL mankind unto Me” John 12:32. (not “just Christians”). Thus supernatural agency promotes free will in a world that would otherwise be unrestrained in its bent to evil.

3.God says “The wages of sin is death” — so then your “complaint” is essentially “that you exist”. A just and loving God created planet Earth – no death or disease or suffering – a perfect paradise where mankind could live forever … and only one tiny restriction… yet Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be duped by Satan… tossing it all away. The “Just God” scenario could easily just have let them suffer the death sentence they chose. He did not do that… hence “you exist” – to then “complain about it”.

4. Of course you might also complain that Satan exists – and Satan might complain that “you exist”. There is no shortage on planet earth of avenues for complaint. But God steps in – offers salvation to mankind at infinite cost to himself – – and the “Few” of Matthew 7 eventually end up accepting that offer of eternal life. The rest seem to prefer the lake of fire option… sort of like Adam and Eve choosing disease and death over eternal life (without fully appreciating the massive fail in that short-sighted choice).

In any case – this thread is about the logic/reason that should be taken into account when a Christian owned and operated institution chooses to stay faithful to its Christian mission — rather then getting blown about by every wind of doctrine. Why let the alchemy of “wild guessing” be the ‘source of truth’ when we have the Bible?? We really have no excuse for that. As for science – we can be thankful that it has come as far along as it has – but no matter how far back you rewind the clock of our science history – we should always have chosen the Bible over wild guessing.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Perhaps Dr. Pitman would enlighten his readers what on earth “the neo-Darwinian story of origins” might be. Darwin did not address origins.

Origins of what?? the first eukaryote??
Or “origins of mankind”??

Darwin himself claimed that his own false doctrine on origins was totally incompatible with Genesis and that because of this – Genesis must be tossed under a bus.

hint: Genesis is an account of “Origins” as we all know — even though “bacteria” and “amoeba” are terms that don’t show up in the text.

The point remains – Darwin was promoting his own religion on origins totally counter to the Bible doctrine on origins. He himself addresses this point of the two views.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Here we go again.If the footprints upon close examination, are determined not to be from a hominim/hominid, I wonder if Educate Truth (sic) will announce that determination.Or if the date of the surface is determined to be much younger, will there be a notice placed on fundamentalist web-sites.If you believe the answer to these questions are yes, I have a big bridge that I would like to sell you for pennies on the dollar.

Here we go again … hope piled upon hope…no matter the “observations in nature” that disconfirm the classic evolutionary hypothesis

Reminds me of “What we still don’t know” by Martin Reese and Leonard Suskind