@Karen: Present all points of view and and give …

Comment on La Sierra University Continues Deceptive Spin Tactics by Sean Pitman.

@Karen:

Present all points of view and and give people the freedom of choice, and certainly the “truth” shall prevail.

Please do present one example of any institution or organization that teaches all points of view without bias…

Also, your idea that it is always an easy thing for our youth to separate truth from error is mistaken. It is quite easy to trick young inexperienced minds with very convincing arguments that seem logically, even scientifically, sound, but which are mistaken and will ultimately result in harm to the individual.

Beyond this, why should the SDA Church spend time and money presenting, on an equal footing, all points of view? No organization that believes in a particular mission, goal or ideal presents all points of view without any indication of preference. If you believe that one particular pathway is the most ideal pathway, why wouldn’t you want to share this with your friends so that they can experience the very best instead of having to wade through all the other stuff to discover the best the hard way?

Also, the mere presenting of a particular opinion doesn’t remove a person’s freedom of choice. A person can always choose to reject the opinion presented by the Church and consider others. Also, no one is forced to teach or preach in or attend an SDA institution. Yet, the SDA Church does indeed support particular opinions. It does not present, on an equal footing, all opinions. This is why the SDA Church has a unique set of “fundamental” doctrinal positions that define it as a unique entity or organization.

This is why the SDA Church calls itself the Seventh-day Adventist Church – because it has a particular perspective to promote that is unique from all others. Your notion that all people should always present all perspectives on equal footing is itself a promotion of a particular opinion to the exclusion of other opinions. This is the biggest reason why your postmodern argument just doesn’t work. It is inherently self-contradictory. There simply is no argument until one actually has a biased opinion on the topic at hand – and you certainly have a biased opinion on the topic at hand…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

La Sierra University Continues Deceptive Spin Tactics
Liberty Works Both Ways

@Ken:

Dear Sean

If you cherish the truth and freedom you should not attempt to shackle academic freedom. As long as La Sierra fairly presents both sides of the issue then it remains objective. Once it starts ramming one version of origins down the throats of inquiring young minds it cloaks itself in the strait jacket of dogma. There is no problem with teaching six day creation as religious belief as well as evolution in the classroom. In fact the juxtaposition of both is important for students to experience to decide on the issue for themselves. But when institutions become dogmatic and inflexible in fields of learning they lose pedagogical objectivity.

Best Regards
Ken

First off, LSU is not presenting “both sides” in this creation/evolution debate in the science classrooms. The science professors at LSU are being very dogmatic in their promotion of the modern mainstream evolutionary perspective as the true story of origins in their classes. There simply is no support at all given for the SDA position of a literal 6-day creation week in LSU science classrooms. On the contrary, the concept of a literal six-day creation week is actively derided and scoffed at by many of LSU science professors as “lunacy” – both within the classroom and in other public forums.

Beyond this, the notion of pure “academic freedom” is nonsense. Not even public universities would tolerate a biology professor promoting intelligent design or creationists theories as viable alternate scientific theories in his/her classroom. The same thing is true for pastors in our churches. A pastor would be let go if he got up into the pulpit and said, “I don’t want to be ‘dogmatic’ here so I’m simply going to give you guys several competing theories regarding a few doctrinal ideas, like the “Virgin” birth, and let you all make up your own minds without letting my own opinions influence your decision…”

The fact of the matter is that there would be no point in the SDA Church hiring pastors or teachers if these pastors and teachers went around undermining what they were hired to support from the pulpit and classroom. The SDA Church has a particular perspective on many doctrinal issues that are not necessarily popular. If it simply went with the popular view, paying pastors and teacher to teach and preach whatever they wanted independent of the view of the Church as an organized body of believers, the Church would soon collapse into irrelevance.

Viable organizations simply do not work like you are suggesting. Viable organizations stand for something and maintain internal control over paid representatives – letting those go who no longer support the stated goals and ideals of the organization.

Is this a restriction of “liberty”? Not really. You are always free and go elsewhere to get paid by those who actually wish to pay you for your ideas. Remember, liberty works both ways. The people who pay your salary are also free to not pay your salary if you are no longer providing the product that they wish to buy…

Sean Pitman
http://www.DetectingDesign.com


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