Comment on Ricardo Graham clarifies LSU Board releases by Ron.
“Why then is LSU so clearly opposed to this legitimate request of its employer?”
Because it is not a legitimate request. It is not consistent which the our Adventist commitment intelectual honesty and Present Truth.
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Ricardo Graham clarifies LSU Board releases
Sean, you said, “Therefore, there seems to be no moral ground for an employee to take money from an employer who has specifically asked the employee to do something which the employee isn’t about to do.”
If the employer is asking for something that is legitimate, I would agree with you, but when an administrator is asking a science teacher to lie and teach, false, or incomplete data because it happens to be theologically inconvenient, then that is an illegitimate request. As I recall, there is something in the 10 Commandments about “Thou shalt not lie”. As Adventists, we don’t need to shade the truth, or lie. We can afford to let the evidence lead where it will because we believe that nature is God’s first book, revealing himself. Didn’t Mrs White say something about what this world needs is men who will stand for the truth though the heavens fall? I want to support La Sierra, and any other University in their academic freedom to pursue truth no matter where it leads. Christ is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” To deny scientific truth is to deny Christ Himself. What you are asking for is nothing different in principle than the Spanish Inquisition. As a Seventh-day Adventist, I want nothing to an inquisition.
Recent Comments by Ron
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Sean Pitman: No one is demanding that they “get out of the church”. . . . . anti-Adventist views on such a fundamental level.
You don’t see how characterizing a dedicated believer’s understanding of truth as “fundamentally anti-Adventist” would drive them out of the church?
I guess that explains why you don’t see that what you are doing here is fundamentally wrong.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Professor Kent: Nothing saddens me more than the droves who leave the Church when they learn that many of their cherished beliefs regarding this evidence don’t hold up so well to scrutiny.
I agree. I am sure that Sean and Bob don’t mean to undermine faith in God, but every time they say that it is impossible to believe in God and in science at the same time, I feel like they are telling me that any rational person must give up their belief in God, because belief in God and rationality can’t exist in the same space. Who would want to belong to that kind of a church?
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Sean Pitman: and have little if anything to do with the main point of their prophetic claims
And by analogy, this appears to be a weak point in the creation argument. Who is to decide what the main point is?
It seems entirely possible that in trying to make Gen. 1 too literal, that we are missing the whole point of the story.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Regarding falsifying the existence of God through the miraculous:
While it is true that one can’t falsify the existance of God and the Biblical miracles at a philosophical level, it seems to me that it is possible to falsify it at a practical level. For instance prayer for healing. How many families who pray for a miracle for a loved one in the Intensive Care Unit receive a miracle?
While the answer to that question doesn’t answer the question of the existence of God at a philosophical level, it does answer the question at a practical level. After 36 years of medical practice I can say definitively that at a practical level when it comes to miracles in the ICU, God does not exist. Even if a miracle happens latter today, it wouldn’t be enough to establish an expectation for the future. So at a practicle level it seems it is possible level to falsify the existence od God, or at least prove His nonintervention which seems to me to be pretty much the same thing at a functional level.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Sean Pitman:
Sean, what is your definition of “Neo-darwinism” as opposed to “Darwinism” as opposed to “evolution”?