What Bob is trying to explain to you is that …

Comment on Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith by Sean Pitman.

What Bob is trying to explain to you is that it was easier to publish controversial ideas 100 years ago than it is today. And, if it were not for some powerful backing, even Einstein may not have received a hearing in broader peer review. At first Einstein’s 1905 papers were ignored by the physics community. This began to change when he received the attention of Max Planck, perhaps the most influential physicist of his generation and founder of quantum theory. With Planck’s complimentary comments, Einstein was invited to lecture at international meetings and he rose rapidly in the academic world. In short, Einstein owed much to the support of Max Planck and a few others…

This is because, in his first 1905 paper, Einstein published his argument, including his now famous conclusion that E=MC^2, in a very short three-page paper, in an obscure journal, entitled “Does The Inertia Of A Body Depend On It’s Energy Content?” The paper had no footnotes and not one single reference to support it.

The scientific establishment went a bit bonkers.

“Who does this Einstein think he is? How dare he contradict the fundamental principles of Newtonian physics. Where is his scientific evidence? What are his credentials for making such an assertion? This is preposterous….we can’t allow people just to say things like this without proof! How dare he…this idea should be given no credence at all!”

One Hundred Authors Against Einstein” was published in 1931. When asked to comment on this denunciation of relativity by so many scientists, Einstein replied that to defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.

The same is true today. In order to falsify the ID or CI hypothesis for certain molecular machines, one doesn’t need to look to the opinion of the majority of scientists, but to the factual evidence that is currently in hand (not evidence that might be discovered in the future)…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
What is interesting is that the older the creation/Flood stories (which are practically universal in cultures around the world), the closer they match the Biblical account. In other worlds, the evidence at hand strongly favors that the Biblical account in the original account from which all other accounts are derived. Also, the details of the Biblical account described in Genesis are supported by archaeological evidence that confirms various details long believed to be in question or even mythical – such as the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities that were catastrophically destroyed (mentioned in the same order in the Ebla Tablets).

In any case, you’re not mentioning anything new here. These attempts to challenge Biblical credibility have been around for a long time. However, the Bible keeps trumping all efforts to undermine its credibility. It has shown itself to be the most reliable historical text that we have. No other historical text or resource comes remotely close.

For a further discussion along these lines, to include a discussion of the origin of the 7-day weekly cycle in history, see: http://ssnet.org/blog/origin-of-sabbath-7-day-week/


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
Thank you for your clarification Bob. I certainly agree.


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith

Thanks Bob for your candour in recoznizing the likelihood of redaction in the Bible. What got left out, amended, embellished?

As already noted, the names of places were likely updated over time, but not the historical narrative – information which was lost outside of the Scriptural accounts. In fact, this is one of the best evidences that the authors cited by Scripture really did write these accounts in their own day.


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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.