When will you change the article to at least indicate …

Comment on La Sierra University Hires Another Darwinist by Sean Pitman.

When will you change the article to at least indicate that the conclusion of your anonymous source is contradicted by the word of the person himself?

My source misunderstood something, obviously, but for understandable reasons. I don’t think this was a deliberate thing – and I have made note of this in my original article (to include my own apology).

Of course, most of the key elements relayed to me about the position and lifestyle of Dr. Diaz, contrary to Adventism, seem to be correct. I therefore remain very concerned over the employment of Dr. Diaz, an ardent evolutionary biologist who believes in and promotes mainstream notions on the existence and evolution of life on this planet, in a Darwinian manner, over hundreds of millions of years. Such a position is in direct conflict with the position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church – not to mention all the heavy metal music and punk rock stuff he’s into (not exactly something the church is looking to promote either).

In your incomprehension you are of course quite able to directly call him a lier yourself and claim he is really a closet atheist just as you do me but to hide behind the skirt of an anonymous person and vicariously cast aspersions is hardly honourable.

Where have I even suggested that you’re a closet atheist? You know very well that this is a misrepresentation of your own. Of course, I have said that you don’t seem to believe very much of what the Bible says (what the Biblical authors intended to convey), but I do believe you when you say that you believe in God and in Jesus Christ.

Also, as I’ve already noted, I don’t believe my source to be a liar. I believe my source honestly thought Diaz to be an atheist from various conversations with Diaz and how he described Adventism and religion in general…

To ask an honest scientist who is asked to teach biology to then teach a faith position as science is to promote the ethos of a madrasa rather than a university.

Again, this is where we disagree. If you take on a job from any employer, don’t expect to get paid or maintain your job if you go around undermining your employer’s primary goals and ideals. I mean really, the honest thing to do if your conscience won’t let you do what you’re employer is asking you to do, is to find a job somewhere else to begin with. If you’re talking honesty here, how honest is it to steal from your own employer?

Sean Pitman Also Commented

La Sierra University Hires Another Darwinist
I don’t care if someone isn’t “dogmatic” about their own views on evolution. We don’t need any professor in any one of our schools explaining to his/her students that he/she personally believes that the Darwinian story of origins is true – no matter how nice they are about it and no matter if they are fine with students continuing to believe in the Adventist perspective and no matter how respectful they are of the Adventist perspective. The very fact that they personally disagree with it and their students know it is the problem here.

Now, it’s fine to teach “about” neo-Darwinism. I think that our young people should know just as much and more than what public school students know about mainstream evolutionary theories. However, a professor in our school should be able to go farther and actually explain to his/her students why he/she believes that neo-Darwinism isn’t correct and why the Biblical perspective on origins, as the SDA Church understands it, is the more reasonable view.


La Sierra University Hires Another Darwinist
You’ve got to have more than one screw loose to suggest that it is actually to the church’s advantage to hire neo-Darwinian professors who believe and teach that the church is clearly mistaken on the issue of origins. You might get away with it if you’re talking about something neutral to Adventism, like a mathematics professor, but not when you’re talking about biology – especially evolutionary biology. We do not need to hire professors who tell their students that the church’s position on this or that primary goal or ideal is clearly mistaken – no matter who respectful they are in the process. The church needs to hire professors who will actually be supportive of and promote its primary goals and ideals – all of them. Giving students goods reasons to believe the SDA fundamentals is not why some of them leave the church later on in life – obviously.


La Sierra University Hires Another Darwinist
Our schools are not a place to try to reform professors who are known, up front, to be antagonistic toward the fundamentals of Adventism. Professors are the one’s who should already be in line with the primary goals and ideals of Adventism so that they can be the ones to give confidence and hope and leadership to the young people put in their charge.

And no, students don’t get to determine who gets hired by one of our schools. It’s the school board who decides and the church should be represented by the school board in one of its own schools that bears the name, “Seventh-day Adventist”.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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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.