Comment on An appeal to our leadership by Erik.
How much physical evidence can we deny? Arguing about evolution misses the most difficult point: Either, the earth and living things are much older than 6,000 years, or God created nature to be highly deceptive while telling us that we should study it to learn about Him.
The trouble with such seemingly impeccable logic is that it excludes some other very valid options. It’s like offering a child either the blue shirt or the red shirt, as if those were the only two possibilities, when green, yellow, brown, and purple were all in the closet.
One of the unmentioned options is that Satan created an extravagant lie that he pawned off on the majority of scientists such that fictions were called facts, theories became laws, and imaginations were called history. One of the options is that scientists are self-deceived, and have excluded God from their answers, thus succumbing to peer pressure and false science which make it appear that there are only the two options Carl mentioned. One of the options is that there are certain facts which have been erased in the course of sin on this planet which would make all things crystal clear if we were to know them.
Let me give an example. I happen to know a little about that “Kennewick Man” Carl mentioned, as that was a relatively recent discovery, and there are probably still arguments from the local native Americans over the ownership and burial of the body, all in a region downwind of the Hanford nuclear reactor. The dating done on the remains was carbon dating, as is typical with organic materials. Had the dating used plutonium, uranium, etc., there would be a serious question of validity considering the body was found downstream of the nuclear facility. Yet carbon dating is known to be flawed when results exceed about four thousand years. In this particular case, Carl has become part of the “scientific community” which likes to exaggerate the facts. The following quote is from the journal Archeology, and can be found online.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of the Interior have announced today the results of additional radiocarbon dating of Kennewick Man. The original 1996 radiocarbon date of 8410 ± 60 years has been corroborated by two samples which registered radiocarbon dates of 8130 ± 40 and 8410 ± 40 years. Two additional samples, however, have registered radiocarbon dates of 6940 ± 30 and 5750 ± 100 years; scientists noted that all of the samples dated contained very small amounts of carbon and collagen, making radiocarbon dating difficult.
True to form, scientists often like to use the most extreme results as “fact.” They frequently do not mention the less pleasing results, in this case, at least one test showing less than 6000 years.
Yet the world is a much different planet today than it was following creation week. The flood changed the planet significantly, and the very atmosphere, where carbon-14 is said to develop, has changed. Prior to the flood, the planet was encircled by a layer of water which would have protected it from extremes in temperature, as well as from the carbon-14 creating cosmic rays. Thus, there was much less carbon-14 before the flood. Scientists who do not take this into account get wildly inaccurate test results for any pre-flood items. It’s a bit like looking across the plane of incidence of light striking water…the angle changes. Put that plane of incidence squarely upon the time of the flood, determine the density differential, and one might be able to more accurately date pre-flood items. Hint: They will not appear as old.
Do any of the LSU professors accept that the environment changed at the time of the flood? Do they properly instruct their students in these matters, including the fact that much remains “unknown,” and is far from being settled fact? If not, they are not teaching science. They are teaching theories. And those theories have excluded “biblical evidence.”
Erik
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Erik Also Commented
An appeal to our leadership
I see plenty of stars and planets at night, how about you? “The heavens declare the glory of God…” Were they all made 6000 years ago according to you? (You won’t find it in the Bible or Ellen White.)
Erik
An appeal to our leadership
Jonathan,
Have I ever said that our earth never went through a period of nothingness? No. You pointed out Heb. 11:3. I pointed out that it is speaking in the context of all worlds created by God, and did not specify a time. You said you were only talking about our world. Perhaps so, but then use a different text.
I agree with you, as I have pointed out before, that all of God’s creation has come from nothingness. However, I do not see any dates given in scripture for this. Heb. 11:3 is in the universal context. You wish to apply it to our global context. Can you, who are advocating “proper exegesis” to me, support this?
Erik
An appeal to our leadership
Bob, quite true. This website exists because of non-Biblical bases for scientific beliefs (a form of religion, actually, though most evolutionists do not recognize the degree to which they depend on “faith” to frame up their beliefs).
Regarding the “gap” you mentioned, and the water vs. land concepts, there is an interesting statement by Mrs. White where she indicates both forms were present when God started His work of Creation.
In the work of creation, when the dawn of the first day broke, and the heavens and the earth, by the call of infinite power, came out of darkness; responsive to the rising light, “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” {ST, January 8, 1880 par. 1}
So not only the water was present in that darkness, but apparently there was also the substance of both heaven and earth. As it puts it in Genesis 1:2, however, these had not yet been formed (without form). They are not formed until God works upon them in Days 2 and 3.
Certainly, however, any truly Bible-based perspective would be accepted at LSU (apart from twisting it into error). But to cast out whole portions of Scripture and of Ellen White as being irrelevant, inaccurate, or simply a fiction with a nice moral is…traitorous.
Erik
Recent Comments by Erik
CCC Requests “Decisive and Conclusive Resolution” from LSU
Dear Adventist in High School,
The devil frequently mixes just a small amount of error in with a larger amount of truth. This is sufficient to accomplish his purposes. He does not need to undermine every truth, only some select truths. The Bible tells us how to know whether or not we can accept something as pure and true: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). If what they say, even a part of it, does not agree with scripture, even the rest of what they have said is of no value according to this.
We have a saying in English that goes something like this:
A barrel full of sewage with one tablespoon of wine is sewage.
A barrel full of wine with one tablespoon of sewage is sewage.
It does not matter how much “wine” there may be with that sewage, the sewage has perverted the entirety.
Consider how entirely the “sewage” has perverted truth at LSU, given that one of the professors’ statements relegated Mrs. White to “the lunatic fringe” for “the absolute necessity of believing that the only way a creator God could do things is by speaking them into existence a few thousand years ago.” Mrs. White clearly informed us that Creation week was six literal days about six thousand years ago, and further, she has told us that God was not dependent upon pre-existing matter and could but speak them into existence. Yet all of that flies in the face of those who wish to believe their own opinions to be superior to inspiration, doesn’t it? It makes perfect sense that if they believe we evolved from apes, they could not believe what Ellen White taught was true.
Nay, the evolutionist “sewage” has defiled the pure and true at LSU, and its effect permeates the remaining departments of the university. One cannot contain such a far-reaching apostasy as this within a single corner or department of the university. Indeed, we have been given clear evidences that the theologians at the university have also been affected. Whither goes the biology department, and then the theology department, thither goes the whole school.
Erik
Mrs. White: “Don’t send your children to…”
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:14)
“That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.” (Philippians 2:15)
“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1-2)
We are the sons of God if we receive Christ and follow Him. The line of Seth did this, and were, therefore, called the sons of God. Cain’s descendants did not follow God, and were not called His sons.
Erik
Mrs. White: “Don’t send your children to…”
The descendants of Seth were called the sons of God–the descendants of Cain, the sons of men. As the sons of God mingled with the sons of men, they became corrupt, and by intermarriage with them, lost, through the influence of their wives, their peculiar, holy character, and united with the sons of Cain in their idolatry. Many cast aside the fear of God, and trampled upon his commandments. But there were a few who did righteousness, who feared and honored their Creator. Noah and his family were among the righteous few. {3SG 60.2}
After the translation of Enoch to heaven, the sons of men that were set against the worship of God were drawing away the sons of God. There were two parties in the world then, and there always will be. The worshipers of God called themselves the sons of God. The descendants of Seth went up into the mountains and there made themselves homes separate from the sons of Cain. Here in their mountainous homes they thought to preserve themselves from the prevailing wickedness and idolatry of the descendants of Cain. But after the exhortations and the influence of Enoch were removed from them, they commenced to unite with the descendants of Cain. {CTr 39.2}
That should help clarify the identity of the “sons of God.”
Erik
Mrs. White: “Don’t send your children to…”
It does our position no service to claim too much or to base too much on such large leaps into very thin air… claiming that this or that animal within the fossil record was the clear result of human genetic manipulation before the flood and for that reason was not saved on the Ark….
Sean,
It seems like Ellen White said “Every species of animals which God had created was preserved in the ark” (1 SP 78.2). Therefore, any species which became extinct at the time of the flood must necessarily have come about via amalgamation. That seems fairly clear. So we know where T-Rex came from, right?
Erik
Mrs. White: “Don’t send your children to…”
David,
Your logic is sound regarding what amalgamation cannot be properly applied to. Such applications as forbid certain inter-human marriages are racist, as you have said, and as I have attempted to express. I almost fully agree with your reasoning on this. However, I will differ slightly on one point, and that is that since we do not know how the amalgamations occurred, we cannot rule out the possibility of men tinkering with plant, animal, and human genetics by means of cross-breeding (as opposed to a more “laboratory” approach). They were very intelligent. Perhaps they knew ways of intermixing species which we would never guess could be mixed with any survivable result, including humans with animals.
So, on the lighter side, if evolutionists like to think they have descended from apes…maybe we should give them a fair hearing (and a DNA test)!
Erik
