Holly Pham: We have, I believe, tens of thousands of pastors …

Comment on La Sierra University Responds to anti-Creation Bond Issue by Eddie.

Holly Pham: We have, I believe, tens of thousands of pastors in the SDA Church. A couple of dozen may actually speak up, here and on other websites. Are the rest simply “too busy” to bother? Not aware? Don’t care? Too afraid?

Holly Pham: Your philosophy is totally incorrect. A large part of a pastor’s job is to proclaim the Truth (along with those other things you mentioned) no matter who or what is exposed.

A good example of this was Pastor Doug Batchelor’s sermon today (4-28-2012) when he said (I’m paraphrasing, but almost all his sermons can be found online)that some churches (including some of our own SDA ones) teach and preach love, faith, etc. without mentioning, asking for, or even expecting any “repentance” from sin.

As I mentioned once before, Doug Batchelor is actually my favorite SDA speaker. But if I’m wrong about a pastor’s priorities, why isn’t he joining the chorus here in condemning the sins of liberal professors, pastors and administrators? Is he, in Holly Pham’s words, “too busy” to bother? Not aware? Don’t care? Too afraid?

Eddie Also Commented

La Sierra University Responds to anti-Creation Bond Issue
Maybe he isn’t hated as much as you think. Just because somebody disagrees with one or a few of his positions doesn’t necessarily mean that the person “hates” him. I happen to disagree with his position on women’s ordination, but I still think he’s a fabulous preacher with a cogent message and I certainly agree with most of his beliefs. It’s unwise to reject a messenger just because there is one message or a few that you don’t like.


La Sierra University Responds to anti-Creation Bond Issue

Holly Pham: Eddie, What exactly are these “more important” things? Correcting the past mistakes and learning from them may not be something you like to consider or do, but many SDA’s are very concerned about where are Church is headed–in the WRONG direction.

Rather than arguing online with liberals about church politics, when and how creation occurred, and publicly exposing the sins of the brethren, I think pastors should instead spend their time studying the Bible, preparing sermons, attending to the needs of their families, ministering to their parishioners (e.g,. visiting the bereaved, sick and dying, organizing church events, giving Bible studies), etc.

What good does it do to argue? Has any “liberal” become a “conservative” because of this website? Or vice versa?


La Sierra University Responds to anti-Creation Bond Issue

Holly Pham: We have, I believe, tens of thousands of pastors in the SDA Church. A couple of dozen may actually speak up, here and on other websites. Are the rest simply “too busy” to bother? Not aware? Don’t care? Too afraid?

Or too wise? Maybe they have more important things to do than argue about what happened in the past.


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.