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There are two lines of defense for LSU that make this [debate] particularly confusing:

1. Educate Truth’s vision of Adventist higher education is impossible or inappropriate. The Adventist position on Origins is indefensible, and teaching it at an Adventist school would be brainwashing.

2. Educate Truth’s allegation that LSU is not supporting the Adventist position on Origins is a lie straight from the devil, and David Read and Sean Pitman are bad, bad, people (in a hundred different creative ways) for suggesting such a thing.

These two just don’t go together. If one looks past all the hyperbole, and rhetorical fireworks, the substance of Educate Truth’s charge is that LSU promotes evolution as plausible truth, which is what many of you argue LSU SHOULD do . . .

So Educate Truth’s great slander against LSU seems to be that they are teaching what many of you argue they SHOULD teach. So which is it:

1) Is Educate Truth wrong that LSU should teach from an Adventist perspective? or

2) Is it that they are lying about LSU not doing so?

If it is number one, then it seems very strange that you are so outraged about people accusing LSU of being the kind of university you think it should be.

If you all really want to defend LSU, how about being clear in separating out what specifically Educate Truth is lying about? and what they’re right about? (but that you interpret as positives rather than negatives).

You must admit that if Educate Truth was wrong about everything they say about LSU, many of you would think LSU was not doing its job as a University.  So, what are the lies and where are they just wrong about what an Adventist university should be?  Such a discerning comment could actually be helpful in dispelling falsehoods about LSU. A hundred comments about the dark, dark, personalities of David and Sean, and pseudo-psychological speculation about why they are such bad people, may be highly cathartic, but it doesn’t do much in clearing the confusion about the real facts of the situation for anybody who might not have their mind made up. Perhaps I should use George Tichy’s favored method of Yes/No questions.

Yes/No: Are any LSU teachers promoting the entire evolutionary theory of Origins as the most plausible truth about origins?

Yes/NO: Did LSU just a hire a teacher who promotes the above view?

. . .

If everything they say about LSU is a lie, then that would mean LSU is faithful and unswerving in upholding Adventist teachings. Now I suppose that’s possible, but there’s one thing that’s incredibly strange about that scenario being true. The staunch defenders of LSU on this board passionately argue that for a University to be faithful and unswerving in upholding Adventist teaching, they would have to abandon their duty as a University because Adventist teaching is fantasy. So, if LSU is really faithful to Adventist teaching (meaning that the actual substance of David and Sean’s accusations are false) the question presents itself, why are you and others defending a University that is, according to your own arguments, teaching fantasy and falsehood?

So, in the spirit of presumption of innocence I’m not accusing either side, but that rule doesn’t mean I cannot note this inconsistency in the defense of LSU. Of course, it is is possible that David and Sean are right about LSU teaching evolution as the most plausible theory of Origins (which many of you think is proper) and that the lies you are all referring to are in regard to something else. However, none of that is clear with the “It’s all lies, how can David and Sean live with themselves” rhetoric of the proceeding comments. The truth would be served much better if someone outlined specifically what is being lied about, because common-sense weighs pretty strongly against it all being lies.