@Professor Kent: Professor Kent August 20, 2011 at 8:22 am “Evidence …

Comment on The Heroic Crusade Redux by Nic Samojluk.

@Professor Kent:

Professor Kent August 20, 2011 at 8:22 am

“Evidence is important, yes; but it has no match in faith. Evidence won’t rescue us any more so than it saved Lucifer; faith can.

Let the faith-bashing continue so we can heap more praise on those who peddle evidence. That’s what this is all about.”

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If evidence is “important” for you, why is it then you disagree so strongly with Sean Pitman? He also believes in the relevant role of faith, otherwise he would have rejected the story of Genesis a long time ago given the geologic evidence which suggests long ages.

Aren’t you perhaps fighting a fictional enemy which has been distorted by those who read Educate Truth with liberal lenses?

Nic Samojluk Also Commented

The Heroic Crusade Redux
@Ervin Taylor:

Ervin TaylorAugust 29, 2011 at 4:37 pm

“Dear me, I am being accused of experiencing just st a “touch of senility.” This is a devastating charge. I am profoundly dismayed by even the hint of having a mental lapse. As for senility . . . . What did you say your name was?”

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Are we supposed to remember that to be considered normal?


Recent Comments by Nic Samojluk

A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Sean Pitman:

Sean PitmanNovember 23, 2011 at 8:57 am

“How do you know? You said that you considered God’s existence to be “likely”. Isn’t the word “likely” a statistical/scientific term based on at least some ability to actually demonstrate the odds of a hypothesis being correct?

This is my problem here. How can you say that something is “likely” when, at the same time, you say that you have no empirical evidence for what you say is “likely to exist”? – no more evidence than you have for mythological fairytales?

You see, it is your use of the phrase, “likely to exist” that doesn’t make sense to me since it appears, at least to me, that you’re being inconsistent with yourself.

If you have no positive evidence for God’s existence, and if everything that you do know appears to you to have a mindless natural cause, how then can you say, one way or the other, that the “first cause” was “likely” an intelligent God-like being vs. some other mindless natural process? Upon what basis do you make this claim?”

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Sean,

Thanks for this impeccable logic. I appreciate the clearness with which you demonstrate the role evidence plays in providing support for our faith.

Faith without evidence places us at risk of becoming victims of charlatans and those who have been deceived by the Devil.

Sure, there is evidence for and against a belief in God and Creation, but the weight of evidence favors the biblical teaching that God is the one who created everything that exists.

We do owe our existence to him alone and he is entitled to our worship. The moment we credit Nature for our existence, we fall prey to the artful deceptions of the one determined to destroy our faith.


A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Sean Pitman:

Sean Pitman November 6, 2011 at 12:52 am

“Part of the problem, of course, is that biologists are far better at telling just-so stories than they are at math. It is much much easier to come up with imagined just-so stories about how things may have morphed over time than it is to actually do the relevant math or to understanding the statistical odds involved with crossing the growing non-beneficial gaps between functional systems at higher and higher levels of functional complexity.”

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I am reading a little book authored by Robert Piccioni, a physicist who took the time to calculate the chance of life being the result of an accident, and he concluded that such a chance occurrence is for all practical purposes almost equal to zero. The title of his book is “Can Life be Merely an Accident?”

He is also the author of another book dealing with this issue. The title is “Everone’s Guide to Atoms Einstein and the Universe.” He is not an Adventist, but he is convinced that the universe was the result of the work of a designer.


A “Christian Agnostic”?
@BobRyan:

BobRyan November 11 2011 at 6:11 pm

In this case we are talking about complex houses not just a cube – complete with embedded nano-tech capable of self-repair – self-healing, auto-paint-updating etc.

Something like this…


v=GVqJdAqTD4Q&feature=related

When your fellow atheists and agnostics view that in a moment of objectivity – they respond something like ABC News did when it reported on it…

And in this case – those houses would be found all over Mars. And the observing agnostic friend might be tempted to claim “well then complex houses of that sort must occur naturally in the rocks and sand of Mars — err… umm… somehow, because there are sooo many of them”.

For the rest of us – it would be a sign of Martians – very smart ones.

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I think that Bob’s answer was superb, yet ten bloggers voted his comments down. Is the voting system rigged somehow?


God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy
I have had the rare privilege of listening to Guy, Bull, and Pitman on numerous occasions over the years. I may disagree with them on certain issues, but I must admit that what I have seen, heard, and read indicates that all three of them do sincerely believe what they preach.

All three of them have made a valuable contribution to my theological thinking in spite of the fact that some of my views differ for what they defend. I have discovered that sometimes I can learn more from those who hold opinions which diverge widely from what I believe.


A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Sean Pitman:

Sean PitmanNovember 15, 2011 at 7:01 am

“@Nic Samojluk:

I think that Bob’s answer was superb, yet ten bloggers voted his comments down. Is the voting system rigged somehow?

The voting is not rigged. It is just that people tend to vote from the hip for or against a comment, before actually reading it, based only on who wrote it – not what was actually said in the particular comment at hand.

This also happens on Talk.Origins – and pretty much all discussion forums. I did an experiment once where I re-posted a comment from a well-known evolutionist under my own name (on Talk.Origins). There was no end to the ridicule against the comment based simply on the assumption that I had actually written it. When I pointed out that I had not actually written the comment, that it was written by one of their own, the attempts at back-peddling were quite hilarious

I’m sure the same thing would happen here as well. That is why the allowance of “voting” for comments is really only a curiosity feature “just for fun” and really has little meaning aside, perhaps, from keeping track of how many people from opposing camps are actually following a particular thread.”

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Thanks, Sean. You are so right! Perhaps I should pay less attention to the number of votes posted next to bloggers’ comments!