@pauluc: First off, Bob and I aren’t suggesting that the …

Comment on Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution? by Sean Pitman.

@pauluc:

First off, Bob and I aren’t suggesting that the Flood and its effects were Supernaturally generated. We both believe that the Flood was largely if not entirely the result of natural “processes” that did not need intelligent design of any kind to explain. Most likely, it was a removal of God’s protection that allowed for the Earth to end up with such a catastrophic event. We are, of course, told that Noah was Divinely protected while in the ark (or the ark wouldn’t have survived such a catastrophe), but the direct cause and effects of the Flood were probably entirely natural. As previously explained, the Flood could have been naturally produced by the impacts of large meteors. The massive resulting Flooding of the entire planet with the building of the geologic column and the fossil record were all natural consequences of such a sudden catastrophe that broke up all the fountains of the great deep within a single day (Genesis 7:11).

As far as “taking the Bible seriously, but not literally”, isn’t that kinda like taking a moral fable, like Moby Dick, seriously but not literally? – as you’ve explained before? You see, it makes a world of difference, beyond what can be realized from a “cunningly devised fable”, if the story is actually true or not.

That is why we “worry about science” – because without science, without an ability to rationally study the empirical evidence, it would be impossible to rationally discover the Signature of God behind either the claims of the Bible or behind any artifact in the natural world. Without science or the ability to think scientifically, all you’d be left with is fideism (or “wishful thinking” about God).

Remember the story of John the Baptist trapped in prison all day long? One day he got so depressed that he sent word to Jesus asking Him, “Are you the Christ or should we look for another”? (Luke 7:20). What did Jesus say in response? Did He send a message back to John that He needed to have more faith? Nope. Surprisingly, Jesus didn’t say anything right away – nothing at all. Instead, He kept right on doing what He had been doing. He cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. In other words, He kept on providing empirical evidence of who He claimed to be. Then He said, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” (Luke 7:22-23)

This story should strike you with the weight that the Biblical authors themselves placed upon empirical evidence. Jesus didn’t ask for blind faith devoid of the support of the weight of empirical evidence. Rather, He expected people to make a rational leap of faith based upon the weight of empirical evidence that had been given to them.

Of course, you think you’re a scientist, but you’re “science” concerning origins is based more on philosophy than real scientific evidence. The available evidence actually strongly supports the empirical claims of the Bible regarding:

1) The intelligent origin of life on this planet – which cannot be explained by any mindless natural “process” of which your or anyone else is aware.

2) The recent origin of all life and its diversity on this planet in line with numerous evidences from biology, chemistry, geology, physics, etc. Certainly your Darwinian mechanism is clearly limited to the low levels of functional/informational complexity – which neither you nor anyone else can tenably counter.

3) A Noachian-style catastrophic Flood as being responsible for much of the fossil/geologic records with numerous features that are diametrically opposed to the gradual uniformitarian concept for the origin of these features.

In short, neo-Darwinism is based more on secular philosophy rather than real science.

Also, your notion that God cannot act within His creation in a detectably artifactual way (which clearly requires intelligent design to explain – something you like to call “magic”) is not at all in line with what is generally understood as “Christianity”. A God who cannot even act in a detectably intelligent manner that is no more “magical” compared to what you yourself can achieve, is no God at all. Any religion based on such a non-detectable God is powerless to provide a rational hope in the future or any solid comfort in this life.

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
First off, I’m sorry but I feel that your latest posts on this topic needed to be combined so that they are located in the same proximity within this thread – so as to better keep track of individual conversations.

As far as the arguments you’ve presented, there seem to me to be numerous significant problems for your position. First off, your suggestion that post-Phanerozoic granitic rocks don’t exist is just nonsense. They do exist – to include granite rocks with “crystals visible to the naked eye”. Even Gentry himself used such rocks in his original paper on the topic. Consider that numerous creationists admit this particular fact and many have argued that Gentry’s claims simply aren’t tenable. For example, in a 1988 paper R. H. Brown, H. G. Coffin, L. J. Gibson, A. A. Roth, and C. L. Webster (Link) argued:

In Creation’s Tiny Mystery, Gentry repeatedly states (pp. 25, 36, 65, 66, 98, 117, 153, 184) that the Precambrian granites represent the primordial creation rocks. Part of the reason for this statement is the presence of pleochroic halos found in them. However, Wakefield (6) and Wilkerson (7) challenge this interpretation, pointing out that the localities where the pleochroic halos are found represent secondary rocks, specifically dikes of granite and even calcite veins that intrude older rocks; hence, they are at least secondary in origin. Wise (8), who has reviewed the literature on the localities where pleochroic halos have been reported, indicates that a majority (15 out of 22) appear to come from veins or dikes (pegmatites), and hence represent secondary and not primary rocks.

Without entering into the argument as to the absolute age of the rocks (either primary or secondary), it would be safe to state that the majority of halo-containing minerals are younger than the host rock and therefore do not represent primordial material.

The presence of non-polonium pleochroic halos found near polonium halos in biotite, fluorite or other minerals weakens Gentry’s case even further. This is especially true when Gentry must invoke a nonuniform increased radioactive decay rate to account for the presence of U-238, Th-232 and Sm-146 halos, while leaving untouched the polonium decay rates! Gentry must invoke a nonuniform rate increase for some of the halos, because at present the half-lives of these other halo-producing isotopes are on the order of hundreds of millions to thousands of millions of years!

If Gentry’s independence assumption (polonium halos formed from polonium which was not produced by the radioactive parent U-238) is found to be incorrect, or even found to be strongly questionable, his whole contention that pleochroic halos are evidence of ex nihilo creation becomes suspect. The fact that the polonium isotopes involved in halo formation in the rocks are only those which are daughter products of systematic uranium and thorium decay forces one to suspect immediately that they are derived from uranium rather than a special creation.

Also, the existence of older xenolith inclusions within granite rocks (even within Mesozoic or Cenozoic granitic rocks) is also inconsistent with Gentry’s notion that God created all granite rocks instantaneosly during the Creation Week. It just doesn’t make sense that God would incorporate such xenolithic inclusions, some obviously from sedimentary rock, within such specially created granite rocks. Consider Collins’ arguments further in this regard:

Precambrian granite bodies in the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Colorado have an erosion surface on which the horizontal, Paleozoic, fossil-bearing sediments are deposited, with the Cambrian Tapeats sandstone at the bottom and the Permian Kaibab limestone at the top. The eroded surface indicates that these granites are older than these sediments, the so-called “Noachian Flood deposits.” On the other hand, the Donegal granites in northwest Ireland intrude and enclose inclusions of sedimentary rocks of Cambrian age, illustrating that the granites are younger than the Cambrian deposits, whose contacts with the granites have a high-temperature metamorphic aureole (Pitcher and Berger, 1972). The same kinds of metamorphic contact-relationships are found in the granites that intrude fossil-bearing sediments in Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island (Harrison et al., 1983). The Narragansett Pier granite in Rhode Island surrounds inclusions of Pennsylvanian metamorphosed sediments containing flora fossils, Annularia stellata (Brown et al., 1978). The flora fossils are now totally carbonized as graphite, indicating the high temperature of the granite body that metamorphosed the sedimentary inclusions. The fact that the granite contains inclusions of these fossil-bearing sediments makes the granite younger than these supposed “Flood” sediments. The Sierra Nevada granite intrusions in California also have intruded and metamorphosed supposed “Flood sediments” in roof pendants containing Ordovician graptolite fossils (Frazier et al., 1986) and Pennsylvanian brachiopod fossils (Rinehart and Ross, 1964; Rinehart et al., 1959). In other places, the Sierran granites have intruded and metamorphosed “Flood sediments” containing Triassic ammonites (coiled cephalopods) (Smith, 1927). A granite in the Mojave desert in California near Cadiz intrudes Cambrian limestone containing stromatolite fossils. At the contact, this limestone is converted to marble with high-temperature metamorphic minerals, but remnants of the stromatolites can still be found (Richard Squires, oral communication, 1998). Thus, it is very clear from the above examples that some granite masses are the same age as or even younger than the “Noachian Flood deposits.” (Collins, 1998)

As another example, consider the Bathurst Batholith which intrudes into fossil-bearing layers of sedimentary rock. At the contact with this granite batholith the host fossiliferous sedimentary strata have been metamorphosed by the heat of the cooling granite batholith (Joplin 1936; Snelling 1974; Vallance 1969). Numerous minor granitic dikes cut across the margins of the Bathurst Granite and out into the surrounding host strata. Good exposures of these dikes are seen in the many railroad cuts between Sodwalls and Tarana. Up to 45 m (about 150 ft.) wide, these granitic dikes have the same composition as both the Bathurst Granite and the Evans Crown dike, often with the same porphyritic texture (Snelling 1974). The granitic bodies making up the batholith invade host country rocks as young as upper Devonian, and on the eastern margin are overlapped by Permian sediments. (Link)

As far as your reading of the SoP, I’ve gone over what Ellen White has to say about origins very very carefully and have discussed these comments with you in some detail already. Suffice it to say that your arguments remain unconvincing to me and I highly suggest that you not press the issue with others or become “dogmatic” in your position on this topic. It simply isn’t fundamental to Adventism.


Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
I do believe that God parted the sea for Moses and the Israelites to cross over while drowning the entire Egyptian arm. I also believe that God created the structure of the planet needed to support complex life. And, I believe that He accomplished these feats outside of what mindless natural mechanisms can achieve. The same is true for explaining the origin of a computer or an F-16 or a highly symmetrical granite cube or a chocolate cake. None of these artifacts of intelligent design can be explained by mindless natural mechanisms or “processes” either. Just like we can create beyond what mindless natural laws and processes can explain, so can God – just on a higher level is all.


Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
I agree…


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!


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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…


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Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…


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Where did I “gloss over it”?


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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.

Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).

Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.