Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
Pauluc, it is not an either or. We make our own laws through our own elected representatives (or in states like CA that often use plebiscites or ballot initiatives, by directly voting on them). But once the law is passed and becomes law, we are not free to break the law. In other words, the fact that we made the law does not put us above the law. To the contrary, the fact that the law reflects a democratic consensus gives it greater authority and dignity.

That the church selected the canon doesn’t give the church license to ignore the plain teaching of Scripture. The fact that the books that comprise the Bible were widely acknowledged by early Christians to be inspired by God, and clearly of a different quality than many pretenders deemed uninspired, gives greater authority to he Word.

Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
“No one prior to Galileo even knew that the Earth was round.”

Kip, the ancient Greeks knew the earth was round and came very close to correctly calculating it’s circumference. This knowledge was never lost during the middle ages. Columbus wasn’t surprising anyone by holding that he would eventually reach the far east by sailing west; his critics knew he was grossly underestimating the earth’s circumference, and they were right: had he not run unto the Americas, he would have starved long before reaching China.

Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
Some of these students haven’t mastered English, so it is not surprising that their opinion pieces betray that they do not understand how the Seventh-day Adventist faith fits together to form a harmonious system of truth.

It isn’t the students from whom I expect spiritual maturity and understanding, however, but their teachers. I wonder the extent to which the students’ apparent ignorance of theAdventist faith reflects their teachers attitudes.

Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
“The only real debate is when did evolution start? 6000 years ago when Cain was born, or millions of years ago.”

Exactly so, Ron. The difference between Bible history and mainstream science (Cambrian explosion) is five orders of magnitude. That’s an enormous difference. It cannot be papered over, or compromised. We all must choose whom we will believe.

Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
Ron, if Darwin was right, talk of salvation is sheer idiocy, utterly deracinated and pointless. There was no Adam, no fall, no need of redemption or salvation, no point in Jesus’ death, no hope of a supernatural future free of death and disease and predation (because there was no perfect creation free of death, disease and predation). Darwinism makes utter, contemptible nonsense of Christianity.

I think Bill is profoundly misguided and unbiblical in his views about justification, but he’s much closer to sound religion than you are if you embrace mainstream science’s origins narrative.