Nic, I read your responses before they were nixed, thanks …

Comment on Back to Square One… by Eddie.

Nic, I read your responses before they were nixed, thanks for posting them.

Eddie Also Commented

Back to Square One…
Nic, I just spent some time browsing through your website letsfocusonlife.com. Nicely organized and very informative! But I’m shocked and dismayed to learn that SDA physicians perform abortions in SDA hospitals. Very disturbing. Clearly our physicians should be heeding the counsel of prophets rather than the siren of profits.


Back to Square One…
Nic, now that I have answered your questions, would you mind answering mine? What specific “scientific evidence” (which can be observed or measured by the human senses or technology) supports the following SDA fundamental beliefs (I’ve picked only a few):

#2: There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three co-eternal Persons.

#4: God the eternal Son became incarnate in Jesus Christ.

#5: God the eternal Spirit was active with the Father and the Son in Creation, incarnation, and redemption.

#7: Man and woman were made in the image of God.

#24: There is a sanctuary in heaven, the true tabernacle which the Lord set up and not man.

#26: The wages of sin is death. But God, who alone is immortal, will grant eternal life to His redeemed.

#27: The millennium is the thousand-year reign of Christ with His saints in heaven between the first and second resurrections.

#28: On the new earth, in which righteousness dwells, God will provide an eternal home for the redeemed and a perfect environment for everlasting life, love, joy, and learning in His presence.

If you believe “scientific evidence” supports all of our beliefs, I’m very happy for you. My beliefs are based on a mixture of evidence and faith, but if you still want to believe my faith is blind or that I am in error because I am unable to find scientific evidence supporting my belief in a future new earth, that’s okay. You’re still my friend.


Back to Square One…
Nic, I’ve decided to answer all of your questions:

I am impressed with your blind faith, bereft of any evidence. Nevertheless, I have a question for you: Did Gideon rely on blind faith when he received a message from the Lord to free the Israelites from oppression?

NO.

Did the children of Israel rely on blind faith when Moses was sent to them with the news that the Lord had sent him to free them from slavery?

NO.

Did the people of Israel rely on blind faith when Elijah challenged them to return to the worship of the true God on Mount Carmel?

NO.

Did King Nebuchadnezzar rely on blind faith when he decided to admit that the God of Daniel was the true God?

NO.

Did the disciples of Jesus rely on blind faith when they accepted him as the promised Messiah and were willing to die as martyrs for their faith?

NO.

If blind faith is all we need, then why do we have so many miracles recorded in Scripture?

BECAUSE BLIND FAITH IS NOT ALL WE NEED. WHEN DID I EVER STATE IT WAS? DO YOU KNOW ANY SDAS WHO ACTUALLY BELIEVE BLIND FAITH IS ALL WE NEED? I AND OTHERS HAVE ALREADY POINTED OUT REPEATEDLY IN THIS FORUM THAT OUR BELIEFS ARE BASED ON BOTH EVIDENCE AND FAITH, SO I’M A WEE BIT PUZZLED WHY SOME OF YOU KEEP ADMONISHING SOME OF US FOR PROMOTING BLIND FAITH.

When we read those supernatural events recorded for our benefit and believe, can we honestly say that we are relying on mere faith without any evidence of God’s power and authority?

NO.

When we look at the scientific evidence in the Grand Canyon testifying that a great catastrophic event must have produced it, can we say that we believe in Noah’s Flood merely on the basis of faith?

NO.


Recent Comments by Eddie

Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

SDA Bio Prof: The Bible makes multiple falsifiable prophecies about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Egypt, yet history never records it happening. Does this mean the Bible is effectively falsified?

Sean Pitman: Egyptians had a strong tendency not to record their losses… only their victories.

Sean, does that mean YOU personally believe Babylon conquered Egypt, just as predicted by two prophets? In the absence of any empirical evidence? If the Egyptians didn’t record their losses, why wouldn’t the Babylonians have recorded such a stunning victory?


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

Holly Pham: One of the things that has always concerned me is that, according to what I’ve read, birds and reptiles have completely different forms of respiratory systems (flow-through vs. bellows) How is this explained by evolutionists?

Evidence from the vertebrae of non-avian theropod dinosaurs suggests that they, too, possessed unidirectional flow-through ventilation of the lungs. So, according to evolutionary theory, it evolved first in “primitive” non-avian theropods rather than in birds, and comprises one of many shared derived characters supposedly linking birds with more “advanced” theropods. However, I don’t think there is any evidence or even a hypothesis for a step-by-step process of HOW it evolved. Here is a reference:

http://www.ohio.edu/people/ridgely/OconnorClaessensairsacs.pdf


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
@Bob Helm: Bob, if you send me an e-mail at sdabioprof2@gmail.com I will send you a pdf file of a 1991 article published by Chatterjee in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 332:277-342, titled “Cranial anatomy and relationships of a new Triassic bird from Texas.”

Curiously his description is based only on cranial anatomy. I don’t think he ever published an analysis of its postcranial anatomy.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

David Read: Eddie, ecological zonation will yield the same basic order that you’re pointing to: invertebrates appear before vertebrates; fish appear before amphibians; amphibians appear before reptiles; reptiles appear before mammals; reptiles appear before birds, etc.

It could, and it’s the best creationist explanation, but it doesn’t explain why flowering plants were absent from lowland forests. Or why so many land plants appeared before mangroves, which today occur strictly in the intertidal zone. Or why no pre-flood humans have been found. Or, if Sean is correct that the flood ended at the K-T boundary, why many modern groups of birds and mammals (including marine mammals) which first appear during the Tertiary were not buried by the flood.

David Read: The fact that something appears before something else in the fossil record is not proof than anything evolved into anything else.

True.

David Read: You seem to be complaining that God has not made the fossil evidence compulsory, i.e., so clear that no reasonable person can possibly doubt it. And if God hasn’t made the evidence skeptic-proof, then the skeptic is God’s fault, God is responsible for the skeptic.

I’m not complaining. I’m merely pointing out that the evidence can be interpreted in different ways by honest people. And I’m relieved to see that even you don’t think the evidence is crystal clear.

David Read: Only people of faith can be saved, that is, only people who are willing to trust God and put away doubts can be saved.

I agree.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

David Read: Those tracks are so obviously bird tracks that the fact that some scientists want to assign them to “birdlike theropods” is itself a very useful teaching tool as to how the model creates the data.

David Read: That the model actually creates the data is one of the hardest concepts to get across, not only to lay people but even to the scientists themselves.

How does the model affect the data? Data don’t change and they shouldn’t change. It’s the interpretation, not the data, that is affected by the model.